Sunday, August 9, 2020

Toxoplasmosis: Don't give up your cat by Veronica of ScrappyRat

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Toxoplasmosis: Don't give up your cat!
written & illustrated by Veronica of ScrappyRat

Handmade Black Cat Pendant
(benefits EFA's COTM) by ScrappyRat

In the many years I've worked in rescue, I have encountered people giving up their cats, or being told by their doctors to do so, due to toxoplasmosis risk. It's unfortunate since not only is this unnecessary according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), it's not even the most common way to contract the disease.

Oddly, while it seems everyone thinks of cats when they think of toxoplasmosis, the far more likely culprit is handling raw or undercooked meat, since meats are very likely fecally contaminated. The CDC classifies toxoplasmosis as a food borne illness, not a zoonosis (a disease that can be transmitted directly from non-human-animal to human). Fully cooked to the recommended temperature, the fecal bacteria in meat is rendered inactive, but pregnant women and the immunocompromised should never handle raw or undercooked meat.  I get annoyed that doctors tell people to dump their beloved pets (even strictly indoor cats who are very unlikely to be carriers), yet don't tell them to have someone else cook any meat for them (or not to eat meat at all), since that's actually a far a bigger concern. 
Home is Where the Cat is Pendant
(benefits EFA's COTM) by ScrappyRat

Gardening is another way that humans can contract Toxoplasmosis. Wildlife feces is prominent in soil, and the CDC cites this as another risk factor, yet I haven't heard of a rush of pregnant women being told to fear their gardens the way doctors tell them to freak out about their cats. 
Garden Fairy Kitty Cards
(Benefits EFA's COTM) by ScrappyRat

Toxoplasmosis is a relatively minor infection provided you aren't pregnant or immune compromised, but if you are, it can cause serious illness. You have to actually ingest infected feces to get it, and so does your cat, so you can help prevent exposure by keeping cats indoors so they don't eat wildlife and their feces-filled innards. Another way to avoid it? Clean the litter box daily since the Toxoplasmosis parasite does not become active and transmissible for 24 hrs to 5 days after being shed. It doesn't hurt to wear gloves and a mask, and use basic sanitation skills when scooping the litter box, and ideally, if you are in the high-risk group and want to be super duper absolutely careful (and why not?) you can have someone else scoop the box.

I think doctors get overexcited sometimes about things pets can transmit, despite those diseases being extremely few compared to what humans transmit to each other. They also seem more worried about what you can get from the living animals on our sofas, than the dead ones in the kitchen. You're *far* more likely to become extremely ill from exposure to food borne illness, your toddler or small child, his friends, and your co-workers, than get sick from anything our pets are likely to carry, particularly when our pets are kept healthy, vetted, vaccinated, clean and indoors. 
New Kitten Adoption Card
(Benefits EFA's COTM) by ScrappyRat

It seems people are much more likely to believe that their pets are dangerous to their health than any of the things that *really* risky in our surroundings. I suppose it's because people still, sadly, see pets as disposable, making it easy believe we can get rid of the risk by getting rid of the pet. I'd love to see the concept of disposable, "give-away" pets come to an end. It would make rescue so much easier and allow shelters to cut their "euthanasia" rates dramatically.

In the mean time, when you hear someone spreading the idea that cats are dirty animals that need to be tossed aside out of fear of Toxoplasmosis, please set them straight. Send them to the CDC website, and make sure they know they shouldn't fear their feline.


Magical Kitten Pendant
(Benefits EFA's COTM) by ScrappyRat

Friday, August 7, 2020

A Horse of a Different Color: Carriage Horses Are Neither War Horses Nor Work Horses

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A Horse of a Different Color: 
Carriage Horses Are Neither 
War Horses Nor Work Horses
written by Elizabeth Forel
Photographs courtesy of EF and Mary Culpepper


Horses were domesticated by humans who needed their strength to perform a variety of duties that they were unable to do. And horses, being the docile animals that they are, complied. They became known as “beasts of burden” as if this and nothing else described what they were.

In the age before the automobile, horses were notoriously overworked, and many died in the streets. In NYC, they pulled wagons loaded with people and goods, and they served as the power for the City’s street trolley system.   Between 100,000 and 200,000 horses lived in the city at the turn of the century. Many were literally worked to death — their carcasses left on the street waiting for the street cleaners. From an article by Joel A. Tarr in American Heritage Magazine – Urban Pollution – many long years ago  “The average streetcar nag had a life expectancy of barely two years, and it was a common sight to see drivers and teamsters savagely lashing their overburdened animals.  The mistreatment of city horses was a key factor in moving Henry Bergh to found the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866.”  

During World War I, horses were transported via rail to New York City to be shipped to Europe for use in the war. They pulled cannons, trucks and ambulances and were literally worked till they dropped in the ravages of war and hand-to-hand combat. Hundreds of thousands of horses did not make it out alive, dying from artillery fire, starvation and disease. With the end of the war, and with increased mechanization in the 20th century, the need for draft horses declined. Many of these horses were sold to slaughter. Humans had contributed to the overpopulation of draft horses by over breeding, cross breeding and selective breeding. A 2008 article from Horseman Magazine says “Most draft horses however were really the result of selective breeding. Programs for breeding were primarily set up to produce these large, muscular and powerful horses.”


The present day urban carriage horses are not work horses although the drivers like to pretend they are. That term needs to be reserved for horses who helped their owners survive before the industrial revolution. Instead, they are entertainment horses – they are horses of a different color.

They are often decorated with feathered head dresses, some with glittered body paint and painted hoofs. Undignified –  a tawdry decoration to attract tourists. A work horse would pull a plough to till the earth so the farmer could plant seeds and feed his family. A carriage horse pulls unsuspecting tourists around a city to see the sights. These tourists don’t know about cruelty and safety issues, and the carriage drivers certainly aren’t informing them.

By law, a NYC carriage horse may work a punishing nine hours a day, seven days a week. Throughout their long shifts, they are confined between the shafts of their carriage wearing heavy equipment, blinders and a metal bit in their mouths. During the holiday season, the horses are worked to exhaustion. The current law requires a 15 minute break every two hours, but it is not enforced. At other times customers are scarce, the horse stands on the hack line, often ignored by her driver whose attention is elsewhere. 

She is frequently bored, either mentally shutting down and appearing dispirited, or repeatedly pawing / pounding her hoof on the pavement. It is a form of displacement behavior on which the horse eventually becomes stereotyped. Restricted by the carriage, she has no freedom of movement. She is not even able to scratch an itch.

Although it is against the law in NYC for horses to be left untethered or unattended, it is a common practice. In 2007, a horse named Smoothie was attached to her empty carriage waiting unattended at Central Park South when she was spooked by a loud noise. Frantic, she bolted, got her legs tangled in the carriage and ended up crashing into a tree and dying. Another horse who saw Smoothie bolt also spooked and ran into traffic, crashing into a car. On October 28, 2011, an unattended horse spooked on Central Park South near Columbus Circle, bolting into traffic and ending up in the park where he crashed into the wall. He is reported to no longer be in the business.

Carriage drivers like to characterize themselves as the experts, the “real horsemen”; this is a thinly veiled and polarizing tactic designed to suggest that anyone who wants to see this business come to an end in the large cities lacks knowledge. They take this line of reasoning even further, stating that proponents of a ban “know nothing about horses” and that the carriage horses–all horses, in fact–need a job. This, of course, is a human concept. Having knowledge of horses does not equate with treating them well or knowing what is best for them. 


When people make money off the back of a horse or any other animal, their first priority is invariably profit. One does not have to know a fetlock from the withers to know that enslaving these horses and shackling them to a carriage for hours on end is inhumane and is all about what the driver wants – not the horse.

Among the most abused horses today are those who pull carriages with tourists in major urban areas like New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, Atlanta and Rome. In New York, these horses are forced to haul tourists through the congested streets of midtown. When no longer able to do this pulling, they are removed from the business.


Unconfirmed rumors abound concerning their engraved hoof identification numbers being sanded off so they can’t be identified as a NYC carriage horse when they are in the auction kill pen. Freedom of Information requests from the  Department of Health reveal a very high turnover of carriage horses – between 60 and 70  a year – about 1/3 of the total horses. Auctions are the likely place to sell them and recoup costs. When a horse is sold outside the City, as most are, records are not required to be sent to the Department of Health – only eventual notification that the horse is no longer in the system so the driver does not have to pay the license fee. Although the industry has taken advantage of the NYC landscape to ply their trade, the drivers are not accountable for where the horses go, and the City has never seen fit to change that, despite pleas from advocates who believe they deserve a humane retirement. There is no transparency in this trade although they benefit from it being a cash only business with few meaningful restrictions. 

Every year more than 100,000 equines are transported from the US across the Mexican and Canadian borders where they are slaughtered for human consumption and shipped to Europe and Japan.


Our use of horses over the millenia is nothing to be proud of – the devastation of war; the exploitation of animals – but people felt they had no choice. Today, we don’t need to use horses to work for us.  We have a choice, and can and must choose not to exploit them. 

New York City needs to move into the 21st century and stop pretending that this is a big tourist draw or that it provides lots of revenue to the city.  It is not and it does not. Horse-drawn carriages pose a danger for the horses, their passengers, other vehicles and pedestrians. Our focus is on urban, commercial / tourist carriage businesses in cities like New York – nothing else. 

Horses have highly developed social relationships  and need mental and physical stimulation.  They are exceedingly social animals and should have the opportunity to graze in a pasture in the company of other equines  – something that is denied to them as a carriage horse.
It’s way past time 
to end this cruel and
inhumane anachronism !


COALITION TO BAN 
HORSE-DRAWN CARRiAGES, NYC

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Sunday, July 26, 2020

Covered in Poop, Overwhelmed with Kittens by Kitty Bungalow, May's COTM

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Covered in Poop, 
Overwhelmed with Kittens
by Kitty Bungalow Charm School
for Wayward Cats


May's Charity Of The Month
nominated by Corinna of TheFrogBag

As a volunteer fueled animal rescue, we work year round endeavoring to end the proliferation of homeless cats being born on the hard city streets.  We do this every day by providing free spay neuters, humane traps, socialization and adoption. Although we work year round, it is now, Kitten Season, as it is called, when our jobs are the toughest, and cutest of the year.

Our volunteers come in as early as 8 am and stay through the night, yesterday's shift left at 11 pm.  The volunteers look nice when they come in, many come after work or a meeting, but it doesn't take long until they are covered in the Kitty Bungalow Class uniform--poop!


During kitten season we get dozens of distress calls a week from people finding newborn kittens in what they thought was just a lonely shrub, or discover that their old garage has suddenly begun mewing. Many times they find kittens abandoned without their mama, and these kittens need round the clock attention. 

They not only need to be bottle  fed every two hours but we need to stimulate their business, hence how we all get covered in poo. It is not always the nicest poo either,  as these cats are coming from the streets and no one has seen medical attention before. 

70% of the kittens we take in to the Bungalow suffer from icky poo. There are medical terms like coccidia, giardia, roundworm etc, but no matter what you call it, it's icky.  Thankfully the treatment is easy and recovery is quick but the process itself is expensive, from the fecal tests to fecal panels to the various medications needed. Then there is the baby formula that the kittens go through at an incredible pace. We easily go through $150 of formula and baby food a week.

That is the basics of kitten season, the nuts and bolts. the milk and poop if you would. But then there is the Cute. Loads and loads of Cute, Cute seeping in from every corner, the kind of cute that makes poop smell like roses! 

It is hard to to say NO to the cute kitten face. It is hard not to giggle when you see them  learning to pounce. It is hard not to talk in a baby voice when you ask them if they want more bottle. The babies come to think of you as Mama Cat, and they run in happiness towards you as soon as they hear your voice. As much poop as we gather in our shift it is always eclipsed by the amount of Cute.  

And know that while you are buying EFA's awesome goods... as their COTM, it is our poopy milky babies that will be reaping the benefits.

But most importantly know why spaying and neutering is so important. Kittens ARE cute, but there is plenty to go around. Spread the word of spay neuter in your community, especially for the stray street cat. We can make a difference ! 

KiTTY BUNGALOW

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Tuesday, July 7, 2020

COTM Team Treasury: 'All that is Pink' by EveryDogsDelight

COTM Team Treasury: 'All that is Pink' by EveryDogsDelight

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December's Charity of the Month is… Senior Dog Haven & Hospice

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December's Charity of the Month is…
Nominated by Veronica of Scrappyrat

ABOUT Senior Dog Haven and Hospice

The mission of Senior Dog Haven and Hospice is to rescue and re-home senior dogs and to offer hospice care to senior dogs in need. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that incorporated in June 2012. All funds raised go directly to the care and treatment of our rescue dogs.
Sebastian

Senior Dog Haven and Hospice is located in Delaware. We are a small, dedicated group of fosters and volunteers who have a special place in their hearts for senior dogs. We strive to improve the lives of senior dogs who find themselves without a family to care for them anymore. 
Cookie

We do not have a facility – our dogs live in our homes as members of our families until they find their forever home or in the event of a hospice situation, until they cross the Rainbow Bridge. We provide care, comfort, companionship and, most of all, unconditional love.
William

Hospice program… It is a sad fact that our animal community is plagued by many of the same terminal illnesses that we are. Shelters, unfortunately,often do not have the resources to care for dogs with an untreatable disease. They are deemed un-adoptable and euthanized, surrounded by strangers and often before the disease has even started to affect their quality of life.
Charlie

The objective of our hospice fosters is to provide a loving home where these seniors can live the remainder of their lives in peace and comfort. When the day comes that the disease finally overcomes them, they will cross the bridge surrounded by their foster family and knowing that they are truly loved.
Pug

Adoption program… All applicants for a Senior Dog Haven and Hospice dog are thoroughly screened, all references checked and a home visit is performed.
Walter

Senior Dog Haven and Hospice