PA, Awards, Raffle & Love

Sometimes humans are beyond belief.

A few months ago, Oprah Winfrey aired a show dedicated to puppy mills and opened a lot of eyes to the squalor and abuse these breeding dogs and their puppies endure. The ones investigated for her show were located in Pennsylvania, mainly Amish country. And evidently some of those puppy mill owners don't have a lick of kindness in their bodies, as evidenced by the fact that recently, when two Mennonite "kennel" owners were told after a state inspection to get medical attention for 39 dogs with flea and fly bites, they shot all 70 dogs in Elmer Zimmermans E&A Kennel and all 10 dogs at his brother Ammon Zimmerman's neighboring A&J Kennel.

Now, this flea treatment might sound despicable and way over the top extreme to us kitties and woofies, but it is currently legal in the state of PA. Still, the breeders could have turned the dogs over to a shelter. Or to a rescue group. Thankfully, the Zimmerman brothers have surrendered their kennel licenses. This will save any future mass killings at their hands but how many other dogs have they killed in such a manner?

House Bill 2525, which was introduced in May and is supported by Gov. Ed Rendell, would require that only veterinarians euthanize dogs in commercial kennels. It doubles the minimum floor space for cages, requires outdoor exercise and solid flooring, prohibits the stacking of cages, and requires veterinary checks annually or during each pregnancy. It would also make other changes, such as set kennel temperature standards and mandate 24-hour water availability. (What's with the current law that water only needs to be available to them for 6 hours a day?)

There is also H.B. 2532, introduced by Rep. Thomas Caltagirone, to prohibit owners and breeders from performing tail dockings on dogs more than 3 days old, debarking, removing the dewclaws on dogs more than 5 days old, or cesarean sections. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that these procedures should only be performed by a licensed vet, so why were the unskilled and untrained performing them? (That's a rhetorical question.)

So, any of you kitties or woofies who live in Pennsylvania, please ask your human to call and/or write your elected state officials and let them know you support these changes to the current crappy PA dog laws. There are good kennels and breeders there, but let's do whatever we can to stop the low-life, abusive "kennel" owners.

*******************

The Great Percy Toe Raffle at Cat Stephens has been extended to Wednesday, August 20, 8 AM, EST. The winner will be announced before 10 P.M. Wednesday. So if you haven't purchased your tickets yet, you better hurry over and check out the beautiful fleece blankets his grandma made to help raise money for his upcoming toe surgery.

********************
We received the from Tesla, "fur always keepin us all up ta dats on da worlds surroundins!" Thanks, Tesla. We try hard, but these naps eat up a lot of our days, and we often fall behind.

The rules for the Brillante Weblog Award are as follows:
* The award may be displayed on a winner’s blog.
* Add a link to the person who you received the award from
* Nominate up to seven other blogs.
* Then add their links to your blog.
* Add a message to each person that you have passed the award on to in the comments section of their blog.

We would like to pass this award on to Milo. Milo is new to the blogging world but he has a nifty blog.

**********************

And JFF received the Gold Card from Socks, Scylla & Charybdis because "they are always working to make things better for all cats and doggies." Whew! No wonder we're so tired all the time.

We now must give the award to 5 friends. Four of these friends must be dedicated followers of our blog. One should be a new blogger and live in a different part of the world. Each awardee must link back to whomever gave the award. That sounds easy enough, except it is really hard to just pick 5 friends but here we go.

Poppy Q. We used to read blogs but were afraid to leave comments. She challenged lurkers last year and lured us out of anonymity.

Sassy. She hired Percy for the Christmas CCSI and we met even more bloggers.

Millie. She was the first blogger we actually met when we found the story of her rescue and followed her to mom Lynne's.

Castle, the late Storm's brother, who has a fairly new blog and lives in the UK.

The Taylor CatSSSSS. Sam, Sassy, Seaborne, Spats and Summer - we enjoy your blog and auntie Deb is a caped crusader in disguise .... she helps so many.

********************
And if you can spare a few moments, drop over to read Dream Mom's first post after taking some time off from blogging this summer. Despite the trials of life, a positive outlook and her love for her disabled son shines through her words.

********************
Pee Ess: We had such a time fitting a post in today, we forgot to post this. Moki's post reminded us. This is an email we received and if you'd like to participate .....

My name is John Carson and I handle all the social media work for GCI Canada, a PR firm in Toronto.

One of our clients is Mars Canada, the producer of Whiskas Temptations. They recently filmed some cat-training videos hosted by trainer Rick Parker that you can see here:

Mars Canada is considering filming a second series of videos, so I am identifying prominent cat bloggers to get their opinion on the format. Please would you take a few minutes to watch one (or all) of the videos and let me know (1) what you think worked, (2) what didn’t and (3) any other suggestions on what you’d like to see included. If you could post a link to the video on your blog for other cat lovers to see, then that would be appreciated, as the more opinions we get the better.

Mars Canada wants to reach the people the videos are aimed at to ensure good quality information, and using social media as a new way of doing that.

Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you can help as part of the cat-blogger community ... all my contact details are below if you need further info.

Many thanks,
John (click on name for email address)