News Bites: A Klepto, A Bummer, A Guess, & A Snitch

The Klepto

Dusty the cat has a thing for strangers’ bathing suits, and their shoes, and their gloves, and their toys, and their towels. This determined little dude has stolen about 600 things from neighbors over 3 years. Watch the video to the end to see nighttime video of Dusty hauling in his loot.

The Bummer

Some depressing results from a recent poll of pet owners on their views on declawing cats and debarking dogs. The findings raise the question do we view cats & dogs differently when it comes to “nuisance-corrective surgeries?

59% pet owners think declawing is ok
55% cat owners think declawing is ok
36% pet owners think declawing is wrong
32% cat owners have had declawing done
24% cat owners support a ban on declawing
90% pet owners think debarking is wrong
47% pet owners support a ban on debarking
1% dog owners have had a dog debarked

Find out more about what really happens when a cat is declawed. And find out how a dog is debarked.

A Guess

The mind reels. Stacey Champion, a woman in Minnesota, got her son in Georgia a puppy for his birthday. So she put the puppy in a box, taped it up, and dropped the puppy off at the post office to go by Priority Mail. She told workers not to worry if the box made noises, it contained a toy robot. Fortunately, robots don’t pant—when the box moved & fell off a counter, workers heard panting coming from the box & opened it to find Guess, the puppy. So, a little boy in Georgia was saved from opening a present of a dead puppy. Besides not having food, water, or air, Guess would have been put on a unpressurized cargo plane where he would have died in the -40F temperatures. The cherry on top of this whole story, the woman wanted her money refunded and the dog back after he was discovered.

A Snitch

If you hide your drugs in a sock, don’t teach your dog to play tug of war with a sock. Joel Dobrin found this out the hard way. When Dobrin realized he was going to be pulled over by police, he tried to hide the sock where he kept his stash. Unfortunately for him, his dog interpreted this as an invitation to play. The dog grabbed the sock, won the game of tug-of-war, and then he threw the sock out the window of the truck, where it was found by the police officer. Woops!

This all started in 2003 when West Hollywood voted to ban the declawing of cats. The California Veterinary Medical Association got their panties in a twist and tried to have the ordinance overturned. When that failed, they lobbied the California Legislature and succeeded in getting a law passed and signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger that bars local governments from banning the declawing of cats starting in 2010.

This, in turn, has ticked off local governments who feel the State has no business dictating what ordinances they can and cannot pass. So several California cities have passed bans on declawing to beat the 2010 deadline—Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, & Santa Monica—with Malibu passing a resolution but no ordinance. Culver City and Burbank may also consider a ban. And the counties of Humboldt, Marin and Sonoma may also ban declawing.

Declawing is also known as an onychectomy which is the amputation of the first knuckle of each toe. Another procedure is flexor tendonectomy which is the severing of the tendon that allows a cat to control or extend its claws. (Note: this is graphic and disturbing, but persuasive. If you need visual evidence of what declawing is, you can take a look at the results. From lisaviolet.com)

Tag: declawing