PETA's Vice President: We don't want to take your dog away
9:41 PM, January 10, 2009
When we first reported on PETA's request that the USA Network cancel its planned coverage of the Westminster dog show, readers had a lot to say about it. (So did filmmaker Jemima Harrison, whose documentary "Pedigree Dogs Exposed" prompted the BBC to drop Crufts, Britain's answer to Westminster, from its schedule.)
Many of you repeated the same concern: that PETA opposed all pet ownership and, if it got its way with Westminster, wouldn't stop there. "PETA is a radical group dedicated to ending all human ownership and use of animals as quickly as possible," said Susan Palius. "If PETA has their way, there will be no more dogs, cats, in ten years to have as our companions," Cheryl commented.
Lots of you shared your worry that PETA wanted to eradicate pets entirely rather than let them be "enslaved" by humans. To get to the bottom of that concern, we talked with PETA's Vice President for Cruelty Investigations, Daphna Nachminovitch. Here's a bit of what we talked about:
Unleashed: In a perfect world where all of PETA's goals had been achieved, would a dog (I have two rescue mutts) live in my house with me?
Daphna Nachminovitch: Yes! I have two rescued mutts, too (adopted from PETA of course). If you are a kind soul and would be one of the people rescuing dogs in trouble –- just as there are always wars, there are always animals in need of kindness! -- please adopt another one.
Unleashed: I know PETA is opposed to the consumption of animals for food or the use of their wool, skin, etc. for clothing, so I'm guessing an ideal world would have no need for "working" dogs to herd sheep, cattle, etc., or to be used for hunting. But what about working dogs that help people, such as guide dogs for the blind, assistance dogs for the handicapped, drug-sniffing dogs, etc.? I have a bit of background in dog training (using nonviolent methods) myself, and one thing I always marveled at was how some dogs, particularly the more intelligent and energetic types, really seem to go crazy if they don't have a "job" to do.
Nachminovitch: PETA is all for relationships of mutual respect and benefit between dogs and humans. Unfortunately, not all working dogs have such relationships. Working dogs are sometimes forced to do jobs that are considered too dangerous for humans and that are, therefore, obviously too dangerous for a dog, too.
There will never be a perfect world, but in the world we’re in now, we support some working dog situations and decry others. Hearing dog programs that pull dogs from animal shelters and ensure that they are in safe and loving homes have our stamp of approval; they live with the family for their entire life, they learn interesting things, enjoy life, and love helping. On the other hand, we oppose most seeing-eye-dog programs because the dogs are bred as if there are no equally intelligent dogs literally dying for homes in shelters, they are kept in harnesses almost 24/7, people are prohibited from petting or playing with them and they cannot romp and run and interact with other dogs; and their lives are repeatedly disrupted (they are trained for months in one home and bond, then sent to a second, and after years of bonding with the person they have "served," they are whisked away again because they are old and no longer "useful"). We have a member who is blind who actually moved states to avoid "returning" her beloved dog. We feel that the human community should do more to support blind people, and give dogs a break. A deaf person can see if a dog has a medical issue such as blood in her urine, a blind person living alone cannot, and so on.
PETA's president had a long working relationship with a program to supply police dogs from the DC Animal Shelter to the Metropolitan Police department because they were humanely trained, and enjoyed a home life with their officers. One of the dogs named after her, Kirk, was with an officer who was shot when President Regan was shot, and he retired with his officer.
Look for more of our conversation with PETA's Vice President for Cruelty Investigations in the days to come on Unleashed.
-- Lindsay Barnett
Related posts:
BBC announces it won't air Crufts dog show
PETA to USA Network: don't air Westminster!
Dog show fans to PETA: leave Westminster alone!
BBC documentarian: "PETA is a bunch of crackpots"
PETA responds to BBC filmmaker's "crackpots" comment
Photo: A Staffordshire Bull Terrier competes in the 2008 Westminster dog show. Credit: Virginia Sherwood /USA Network.
Posted by LATimes on January 10, 2009 in Animal Rights , Dogs Permalink Bookmark it:
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Again PETA members lie about their goals. They feel that anything they do is all right if it furthers their goals. But we know what their goals are as they have stated them publicly.There have also been several accounts of PETA killing animals when they could not find homes for them. From July 1998 through December 2005, PETA killed over 14,400 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals." That's more than five creatures every day. PETA has a walk-in freezer to store the dead bodies. [11] The stated rationale is that a swift death is better than long suffering, but critics point out that PETA commands significant funds and presumably could have cared for the animals if they so chose.
Mandatory spay and neuter for every living cat or dog means that there will be no more cats or dogs in this country. By making laws around this country that are meant to eliminate all dogs and cats means that the only animals breeding will be the free roaming mix breeds. Not exactly your healthy animal. Killing all feral cats or even reducing their numbers means an explosion in the rodent population. Which translates into an increased risk of exposing humans to the plague. This bubonic plague still exists in the south west. It is criminal to kill or neuter feral cats since they are the biggest predators of rodents. Scientific studies show that feral cats keep the rodent population at bay since 98% of their diet is rodent.
Rodents are extremely difficult to control as they breed many times a year with large litters. Feral cats prevent the rise of diseases and should be protected from the abuse of animal rights activists. PETA has been killing feral cats in Virginia. "Human plague, that dreaded disease of centuries past caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is on the rise, in the southwestern United States." You should not be killing off the largest predator of rodents. Plague was introduced into North America via San Francisco, California, in 1899-1900 by shipboard transport of plague-infected rats from Asia. These rats quickly infected native mammal populations, especially ground squirrels, and plague spread throughout western North America. Plague is now most commonly found in the southwestern United States -- in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and California. Major risk factors for humans include contact with diseased wild mammals or their infected fleas, feral cats kill rodents thus the host of this flea. The only thing we should be doing with feral cats is dipping them for fleas. We should not be diminishing their numbers as they are the barrier between humans and the plague.
Posted by: Dr. Rosset January 11, 2009 at 07:07 AM
Please pay close attention to what this VP is saying - PETA is very adept at twisting words and concepts - they are for rescuing dogs per se (however they themselves have no shelters and euthanize all the dogs in shelters they gain access to ) they also are for the mandatory spay/neuter of all animals - i.e. they would allow a breeder to have one litter of pupppies but the breeder would then have to spay the sire and dam and ALL the puppies - so in just one generation you would no longer have that line of dogs.
I ask you to talk to people not only at PETA - but at AKC and other groups that promote the welfare of dogs - not the eradication of them as pets.
Posted by: Murray January 11, 2009 at 08:11 AM
This is pure PR back-pedaling. Nachminovitch knows that PETA kills more than 90 percent of the adoptable animals that come through its doors. It runs no public adoption shelter -- killing pets is the choice of first resort for PETA. And The New Yorker reported a few years ago that PETA's president had already had a seing-eye dog taken away from its owner.
If you want to get to the bottom of PETA's dark underbelly, the last thing you should do is ask PETA itself. A $32 million budget is a heck of an incentive to shade the truth.
Posted by: David January 11, 2009 at 09:16 AM
This woman doesn't know what she is talking about in regards to service dogs (not that I have any respect for PETA, in general). THe reasons that service dogs are bred, not randomly pulled out of shelters, is that a service dog must be physically and mentally ready to do their job. If a person is blind or in a wheelchair, they could actually be injured by a dog who suddenly decides cat-chasng is a good idea. They are carefully bred and chosen for stability, trainability, and calmness. I personally knew a dog who stood with his wheelchair bound owner when an earthquake blew out a department store window nearby. He stayed with her ready to help. These dogs are raised by dedicated people, sent out on service and given honorable retirement with good homes. Our next door neighbors had a retired service dog who was loved and cared for until she passed away at 14. There is a waiting list for retired service dogs, as they are wonderful companions. When retired, they usually cannot stay with their service home, as they will try to continue working with the person, and have trouble allowing a new service dog to take over. Trying to take random breeds, with all sorts of backgrounds and triaits would make these programs inneffective, as the dogs would take twce the training and be much less reliable. As for other working dogs in dangerous situations, search and rescue can be dangerous, however it is much safer to send in scent dogs weighing less than 70lbs, than sending in a human to find people trapped in earthquake areas. Those who were trapped in the Cypress collapse here in the Bay Area owe a lot to the Search and Resuce teams. Dogs like to work with people and they do so in many ways. In most settings they are cherished and cared for extremely well. Since PETA spends NO money caring for resucues, or training them for these service program, how would they know the least thing about it? PETA wants your money to pass laws that affect your life. DOn't give it to them.
Posted by: Francesca Paurel January 11, 2009 at 10:18 AM
She does not answer the question outright nor does she say they do not intend to do away with pets, but in a perfect world there would be no pets. NO horses to ride, no dogs, no cats to love, no companion animals at all.
This is PETA's standard indirect, dance around the question without admitting anything. Shelter dogs have problems, health problems, zoonotic diseases and behavior problems. A well bred purebred dog from a responsible breeder from a clean kennel will have very few of these problems if any at all.
So, PETA wants us to adopt shelter dogs no matter how much harm it does to the family or to the dog to be placed incorrectly. Shelter dogs require lots of training and there are not many shelter dogs that have been through the training portrayed on the Animal Planet Channel in the Underdog to Wonderdog show. People should have the right to choose what is best for their family. Shelters have been keeping quiet about zoonotic diseases for some time now. Only the most rigorous shelter can keep these diseases at bay. Most of these diseases can infect humans and inflict real damage. Tell the parents of the little boy who lost his eye to a parasitic worm contracted from their shelter dog to adopt another shelter dog. Until you can ensure that every shelter dog is clean and free of all genetic defects and diseases like you demand from responsible breeders (which are the only ones doing the testing) then you have no right to defame dog breeders especially responsible breeders. To do so means only one thing and that is that you intend to do away with all dogs and cats.
Posted by: Dr. Rosset January 11, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Most guide dog programs allow the blind person to keep their dog after retirement or to return the dog to their puppy raiser. Guide dogs are only kept in harness when working in public and certainly not 24/7. Guide dogs, are off duty when out of harness and most of them play as much as other dogs. Guide dog schools have used dogs from shelters but their success rate is much lower than school bred dogs. I oppose dual use dogs such as having to pull a wheel chair and be a guide dog at the same time. I don't know where Daphna Nachminovitch got her misinformation. I was in a puppy raiser program for 8 years and I know of what I speak.
Posted by: Luke January 11, 2009 at 11:53 AM
Wow...this guy from PETA has no right to even have an opinion about assistance dogs....he obviously has never even known an actual assistance dog. Guide Dogs for the Blind, for example, would never take a person's dog away simply because he was too old to work. That dog can become the blind person's pet while they train to be placed with a new assistance dog. Some people choose to give their retired dogs back to their puppy raisers because they either cannot emotionally handle having their aging dog see the new dog doing its work, or they simply cannot handle having 2 dogs, but must have an assistance dog do remain living a normal life.
I am really REALLY sick of PETA making claims and NOT DOING ANY RESEARCH into reputable organizations!
Posted by: bph January 11, 2009 at 03:00 PM
This is absolutely ridiculous. I've been working with my guide dog now for 2.5 years, and I could not love him more. PETA does not seem to understand that:
- Hearing dogs come from shelters. Guide dogs are bred to have incredible temperments, great intelligence, and for specific physical qualities which make them superior guides for blind individuals. Shelter dogs, though used by one or two training centers, would not "cut the mustard", so to speak as their lineage is unknown, and they're histories are a mystery, too.
- Guide dogs are not allowed to be petted or to romp and play with other dogs while they are in their harnesses. These activities would be determental to the partnership that exists between a guide dog and his handler. However, PETA implies that this is cruel treatment. It is not. Guide dogs are not working while they are at home. At home, or in other areas where the handler is comfortable, guide dogs do not wear their harnesses and are free to play, be petted, and run freely. Handlers understand that this "down time", so to speak, is an integral part of their dog's life and do not deny them this playtime.
- Once guide dogs retire, the blind person decides what comes of them. Many blind people decide to keep their retired guide dogs as beloved pets; others give their dogs back to the puppywalkers who first trained them. Very often, the handler places the dog, if not in their own home, with a trusted friend or family member that the dog knows, so that his retired life is not passed with a stranger.
- Blind people are able to adequately care for their dogs. In the example used above, the individual from PETA states that a deaf person would be able to see blood in the urine of their hearing dog. Blind people know their dogs so well; they know the smell of their dog's urine, and would be able to sense any extra effort the dog was making to excrete waste. Blind people bag their dog's feces for this exact purpose; we want to be sure we leave a clean area, but we also are able to detect any changes in weight, amount, smell, or texture of the dog's excrement, which would help us to infer if the dog might be sick. The statement about blind people not being able to adequately care for their assistance dog is like stating that deaf people should not work with hearing dogs. After all, the hearing dog might cry out in pain. A deaf person would not hear this....doesn't seem like the same situation that this representative is suggesting?
PETA needs to get their facts straight and research this opinion. Guide dogs are some of the best loved, best cared for, and most valued animals that I have ever met. These statements are nonsensical and outrageous, and I would suggest that the organization do a bit more research, and maybe, observe several guide dog teams before developing such opinions.
Posted by: Caitlin January 11, 2009 at 03:48 PM
I believe Ms. Nachminovitch is rather misinformed about guide dog programs and guide dogs in general.
1. While it is lamentable that so many unwanted animals are euthanized in shelters, schools that breed their own dogs instead of taking donation dogs do so for very good reasons: A controlled breeding program is more likely to produce dogs of suitable disposition and intelligence. The schools only have so much time and money, and many dogs fail the training programs as it is. There is also an extremely high demand for adoption of "wash-out" dogs and waiting lists of up to two years.
2. Schools teach their pupils to leave the dogs out of harness when not working. This would include the entire time when one is asleep and few people are actually working their dogs 18 hours a day nonstop. The "kept in harness almost 24/7" comment is rather brazen and defies common logic.
3. "People are prohibited from petting or playing with them" is an incorrect generalization. If a guide dog is working and it gets distracted by someone playing with or petting it while it is in harness, this could endanger the blind person's life. On the other hand, most guide dog owners play with their dogs regularly and some allow others to play with their dogs if it is within a controlled environment.
4. I have known guide dog owners who took their guides to dog parks and who allowed their dogs to play with other guide dogs and other family pets. Again, this is not permissable when the dog is working but is okay at other times out of harness.
5. While it is true that guide dog candidates move from puppy raisers to school to (hopefully) a visually impaired person, this does not seem to be to be a particularly onerous situation for the dog and I imagine that many children of divorced parents go through similar things. As for retired dogs being unwanted, I don't know any guide dog users who have enjoyed returning dogs who no longer work effectively. There is no rule that states retired guides must be returned; often they remain with their owners as pets or are placed with other family members. However, I applaud anyone who sends a retired guide back to the school; this means that he loves the dog and recognizes that he can no longer provide the dog the love and attention that it deserves, especially if a new guide dog will enter the picture soon.
Ms. Nachminovitch - you are doing a disservice by presenting such an unfairly slanted and one-sided view of guide dogs.
Posted by: Andrew Hamric January 11, 2009 at 04:09 PM
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2009/01/when-we-first-r.htmlCLICK ABOVE TO READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE AS IT APPEARED ONLINE AT LA TIMES
