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In what would be a stunningly stupid return to yesteryear, Atlantic City’s Steel Pier plans to bring back the diving horse act.

This summer spectators will be able to watch as horses ridden by stunt divers jump from a platform and plunge into a pool of water.

Perhaps you’ve seen grainy black and white footage of the event, in which swimsuit-clad women rode horses off a 40-foot platform. It began in the late 1920s and — with all due respect to nostalgia and extreme sports — should have stayed there.

Yet it’s returning as part of a multimillion effort to bring “family entertainment” back to Atlantic City. In other words — irony alert –  let’s get all those folks we chased away with gambling to come back, and bring the kids, so that they might be traumatized and learn that animals are on this earth to help humans make money.

“This is a full-scale, custom act,” Tony Catanoso, one of the pier’s owners, told the Press of Atlantic City. “We know the diving horse is controversial, but I think people need to look at the bigger picture. A diving horse is going to be iconic. It’s going to be a small piece of the development project that will bring family entertainment back to Atlantic City.”

Plans for the show’s return were announced last week when the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority approved a $6 million contribution to the $20 million first phase of the Steel Pier improvement project.

Animal welfare groups are, of course, chomping at the bit, and a petition to halt the act is gathering signatures at Change.org. 

“It just boggles the mind that they’re going back and doing this again.” said Janine Motta, a spokeswoman for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey. “Certainly, we’ll be looking into finding out more about it.”

Motta was among the protesters when the show returned briefly in 1993, only to be terminated by the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, then the owner of the pier.

The Humane Society of the United States says equine diving acts expose the animals to “inhumane and potentially abusive situations in the course of their training, transport and performance.” 

“The stress and trauma endured by these animals, in addition to the risk of injury to them, make these acts unacceptable,” said Keith Dane, director of equine protection for the HSUS. “They are senseless animal exploitation, for the sake of entertainment and profit.”

HSUS was among the organizations that protested the short-lived return of the diving horse show in Atlantic City in 1993. It featured two ponies, a mule and a dog jumping 15 feet into a pool of water, and it lasted only a couple of weeks.

Catanoso says the event will be neither cruel nor inhumane.  An out-of-state consultant is training three horses with trick divers that will rotate through the shows. The dives will be the finale to a 15- to 20-minute show at an amphitheater at the pier.

Expect some fallout on this one, as animal welfare organizations will likely mount a campaign against it. Expect as well that those involved with the act will step forward and say how much the horses enjoy it — much like greyhounds “enjoy” racing because it’s “in their blood.”

We’d suggest the brilliant minds behind this idea take a long walk.

Off a short pier.

Former state senator Tom Hayden urged California Gov. Jerry Brown not to repeal a state law that requires shelters to keep dogs and cats six days before euthanizing them.

Hayden posted a video online urging Gov. Brown – an avowed dog lover who features his Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Sutter, on the official governor’s website – to take a look at his own dog before repealing the legislation.

“Governor, I see you’re a dog owner. I can tell from the publicity that you love that dog, your wife loves that dog,” said Hayden, who wrote the 1998 bill while he was in the senate.  ”So stop and think: Thousands of dogs and cats are put to death needlessly every year … I urge you to look at your dog before you allow this bill that protects animals to die.”

The law lengthened the time animal shelters must hold stray animals before euthanizing them, generally from three days to six days. Its edicts were suspended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009.

The shelter law is one of about 30 local government mandates Gov. Brown is proposing to repeal next fiscal year to save money, according to the Sacramento Bee.

The state estimates it would save about $46 million from the shelter mandate alone.

Cats ended up in animal shelters in the United States less often and were euthanized less often in 2011, according to a report by PetHealth, Inc., a company that aggregates data from animal welfare organizations.

The report, to be published annually, noted a 6% decline over 2010 in overall cat intakes, including a 5 percent decline in owner surrenders and a 9 percent decline in strays.

Euthanasia of cats declined 11 percent in 2011.

For dogs, the report notes little change in 2010′s intake and surrender numbers. Dog adoptions increased 2 percent, while euthanasia of dogs declined 3 percent over the same period.

The 2011 year-end report aggregates data from 795 animal welfare organizations. Findings were based on 1,537,961 intakes and 1,508,754 outcomes for dogs and cats that entered or left animal welfare organizations in 2011.

“We are very excited to be able to offer the first annualized PetPoint Report to our network and the interested public,” Brad Grucelski, a company vice president, said in a press release. “From this larger pool of aggregate data we can see beyond monthly fluctuations in intake and outcome types and measure the widespread impact of animal welfare efforts in the United States.

“Based on the information disclosed here, 2011 was a good year for animal welfare,” he said, “and all key indicators point to continued success in 2012.”

Two women who were moving their rescue operation from California to Virginia were arrested after police discovered more than 100 dogs in the back of their rented U-Haul truck.

Bonnie Sheehan, 55, and Pamela A. King-McCracken, 59, both of Long Beach, Calif., were each charged with 128 counts of aggravated animal cruelty, a Class E felony, and were jailed on $100,000 bond each in Fayette County, Tennessee.

Sheehan

King-McCracken

West Tennessee highway troopers found 127 dogs in all, including one who had died. Most were locked in the back of the truck — some in crates, some not.

A few dogs and one cat were in a minivan being towed behind the truck.

Sheehan is the founder of Hearts for Hounds, which describes itself on its website as a non-profit organization that has rescued and placed more than 17,000 dogs into permanent homes.

“We are a pack of humans trying to make a difference in the dog world!” says the website, which was offline yesterday. “Our goal is to find a loving home for every dog we rescue.”

A state trooper pulled the truck over Tuesday for tailgating, and inspected its cargo area after detecting a foul odor coming from it. Upon finding the animals he moved the truck to a Pilot Travel Center parking lot off Interstate 40′s exit 42 in Fayette County, where the dogs could be dealt with away from the Interstate.

Officers described seeing urine and feces all over the cargo compartment and no food or water for the animals, according to a district attorney’s office press release.

Sheehan and King-McCracken, who both showed California identification, told investigators they were en route from Long Beach, Calif., to Roanoke, Virginia.

“I have seen animals like this when we raided a puppy mill a few years ago,” Fayette County Animal Rescue agent Gina Thweatt told the Memphis Commercial Appeal. “But as far as transporting them like this? No… not where they literally could not get any air or circulation.”

The dogs had been locked in the truck and van since Saturday without food or water, police said.

Animal shelter officials said the dogs and cat would be taken to shelters in the Memphis area.

(Top photo by Kyle Kurlick / Memphis Commercial Appeal)

Among the honors the documentary “100,000” has received is an Emmy award. Director Juan Agustin Marquez is shown here accepting it, and asking Puerto Ricans to take a pledge.

“We set out to change the world with this film, starting with our island, Puerto Rico,” he said.

“100,000 represents the specific number of dogs who live in the streets of our island nation. But the .. title of the film is more complex than that. What I truly wanted was to reach 100,000 people, humans, with the message of the film. I wanted 100,000 people to sign a pledge at the endof the film to learn about humane treatment for animals, especially dogs — to pledge that they will take care of their pets for as long as they live.

“We have a long way to reach our goal, but I will not rest until I get my 100,000 people to pledge to Puerto Rico’s dogs.”

Here is the pledge.

“100,000,” unfortunately, isn’t available for purchase, and it has yet to appear on American television.

But there is a way to see it, with English subtitles. The director says on the documentary’s website that he will provide a private link to watch it to those who email him. The email address is: perro@100000movie.com.

In yesterday’s clip from the award-winning documentary “100,000” we met a man named Anibal who — though virtually homeless himself — struggles to feed some of the stray dogs that populate the town of Guayama in Puerto Rico.

In today’s, we meet another man named Anibal, this one a shelter worker who sincerely believes he is doing dogs a favor, too – by killing them.

He lethally injects about 100 a day; sometimes the sick or aggressive ones, sometimes, when there are no more empty kennels,  the healthy ones. At Puerto Rico’s other shelters — and there are only a handful — the same holds true.

Across the territory, about 500 dogs are euthanized a day — 92 percent of those that enter shelter, according to the documentary.

All this week on ohmidog! we’ve been featuring the documentary, which looks at dog overpopulation in Puerto Rico and some of the people and organizations — such as Island Dog — that are working to solve the crisis.

“100,000,” directed by Juan Agustin Marquez, depicts the bleak existence stray dogs face on the beaches and streets of Puerto Rico, where they are commonly abandoned and abused and often die slow, cruel deaths.

“That’s why I prefer euthanasia before these animals end up like they really end up,” Anibal Rodriguez explains as he goes about his duties, hoisting another dog from a kennel to be injected. “If this animal hadn’t been picked up … this animal would have died in agony on the streets.”

As he sees it, he’s preventing suffering.

“When I first started working, it was hard. As a human being, one has feelings. I have seen so many abuses cases that I prefer that it’s done through small lethal injection rather than a dog getting brutally killed by a person…

“It’s a job that has to be done.”

(Tomorrow: Director Juan Agustin Marquez accepts an Emmy award, and asks Puerto Ricans to take a pledge)

If a society, or a community, can be judged on how it treats its animals, then it’s time to pronounce Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, guilty.

Despite their plea of poverty, despite maintaining they’ve sidestepped the crisis, our verdict remains.

As does the evidence: a police memo that instructed officers, when it came to stray dogs, to serve as judge, jury and executioner for any that seemed sick or violent; and transport and dump the others elsewhere — all while assuring any concerned citizens they were going to “a nice farm in the country.”

In the fall of last year, the cash-strapped capital city found itself unable to keep up with the terms of its contract with the Humane Society of the Harrisburg Area, which operates the key animal shelter in the area.

About $6,300 in arrears, the city quietly waltzed out of the contract, with no announcement to the public, Amy Worden at the Philadelphia Inquirer’s dog blog, Philly Dawg, reports.

As a result of police having nowhere to take abandoned or stray dogs, Capt. Annette Books gave police supervisors the following instructions in a Dec. 5 memo:

If the animal is vicious and a danger to the public and/or officers, or if the animal is obviously sick, injured or suffering the animal may be destroyed in as safe a manner as possible. The animal will then be taken to the Agriculture Bldg. (near the loading dock area) on Cameron St. for disposal.

The memo went on to add:

If the animal is determined to be a “found” animal, the officer can ask the complainant if they want to keep the animal or if they know someone who will adopt the animal, or the officer can adopt the animal for himself/herself, or the officer can place the animal in a prisoner van and release it to an area where it will be safe for the animal.

If you choose to adopt the animal yourself or release it in a safe environment, DO NOT inform the complainant of your intentions.

Instead, the memo suggested that officers tell citizens the dog is “going to a nice farm in the country.”

Animal welfare advocates, rightfully, were enraged and called the policy both inhumane and illegal. Abandoning an animal is a crime in Pennsylvania, and here was a police official ordering that officers do exactly that, or worse, as a matter of policy.

“Police officers cannot play judge, jury and executioner in the case of a stray dog,” said Tom Hickey, a member of the governor’s Dog Law Advisory Board.

By the end of December, the city publicly declared the matter resolved, making the memo’s instructions a “moot” point, a spokesperson for the city’s mayor said.

We’d disagree with that. We’d say it’s not moot at all. And we’d suggest that the police captain who wrote the memo be driven somewhere out in the country, perhaps to a nice farm, where she would be safe.

It’s not entirely clear what, if any, definite terms have been agreed upon by the city and the humane society, but they are reportedly meeting and talking.

Worden reports that, according to animal rescuers, the shelter continues to turn away stray animals and that “police officers are telling the public they cannot help unless the dog is aggressive. In which case, according to the memo, they will be shot.”

Worden also reports that a Facebook petition drive has been started, called “Stop the Shooting of Dogs in Harrisburg.”

All that considered, Dusty Rose, the dog pictured at the top of this post, is lucky to have seen 2012.

A female pit bull, she was found outside a convenience store on New Year’s eve by a volunteer with Central Pennsylvania Animal Alliance (CPAA). The volunteer called 911, and a police officer arrived to tell her the only thing he was authorized to do was shoot the dog if it was aggressive.

Wadsworth told him she’d prefer to do without his services and called fellow CPAA volunteers to help round up the dog.

Dusty’ Rose is now receiving medical care at a veterinary hospital in York, where she is recovering from surgery to fix a prolapsed uterus. Donations to her care can be sent to CPAA or made through its website.

This excerpt from the award-winning documentary ”100,000″ focuses on the work of Island Dog, an animal welfare organization in Puerto Rico founded by Baltimore native Katie Block.

Block left Baltimore in 1999, looking for paradise, she admits. On her first day in Puerto Rico she came across a homeless dog and brought it home. When she  took it to a vet and explained how she had found it, he laughed at her.

She quickly learned the stray she’d found was just one of thousands — and that many of them spent their lives at a particular beach, called Los Machos, where they’d either been abandoned, or, sometimes, born from those previously abandoned.

She tried to do what she could. At her bartending job at a resort, she persuaded guests to take dogs home to the states. She enlisted her parents help in getting dogs shipped to new homes. Making a small dent in a very big problem, and swamped by veterinary bills, she, after three years, threw in the towel — but only temporarily, as it turned out.

In 2002, Block returned to Baltimore. She finished college and ended up in Puerto Rico again, where in 2006, she established Island Dog.

Today, as the founder and director of the organization, she works full-time to rescue dogs, find them homes in the states, and supply strays with food and medical attention — all while focused on longer term goals.

Those include teaching responsible pet ownership, expanding the practice of spaying and neutering, and increasing awareness around the world about  the cruelties animal face in U.S. territories in the Caribbean. Her hope is to make Puerto Rico more animal friendly, and get an animal education program started at every school in the territory.

Island Dog estimates that 98 percent of the dogs that end up in Puerto Rico’s few under-equipped and under-funded shelters are euthanized; and that about 500 dogs and cats die a day.

Only about 10 percent of Puerto Rico’s pet population ever visit a veterinarian, it’s estimated.

In the documentary “100,000,” which we’re featuring all week on ohmidog!, director Juan Agustin Marquez captured the scene at Los Machos beach, and a lot of the work Island Dog does — feeding and medicating homeless animals, rescuing and rehabilitating strays, and finding them homes in the states.

The organization also offer clinics for free or low cost spay/neuter services and vaccinations, provides a humane education program for children that encourages kindness to animals and responsible pet ownership, and supplies medication and food to other animal welfare organizations working in the U.S. Caribbean.

You can find Island Dog listed with our other animal welfare friends on our rightside column, and you can visit its website and learn how to donate to the cause here.

(Photos courtesy of Island Dog)

The assault against the Humane Society of the United States has become a double-barreled one, with two  groups publicly urging Americans to donate their money to individual animal shelters instead of the national animal welfare organization.

HumaneWatch, a project of the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), is issuing a “consumer alert,” in the form of a national television ad (above), reminding Americans to be wary of “the deceptive fundraising practices of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).”

The television ad campaign comes a week after the newly formed Humane Society for Shelter Pets (HSSP) took out full page ads in national newspapers, making the same claim.

Both groups have a connection to Washington lobbyist Richard Berman. He’s the founder and operator of the CCF, and acknowledges that his public relations firm helped get HSSP of the ground.

Both the Humane Watch and HSSP ads make the point that only 1 percent of money donated to HSUS ends up going to care for cats and dogs at local shelters, even though those animals are most commonly featured in HSUS fundraising appeals.

CCF says it examined 28 HSUS ads that ran from January 2009 through September 2011 and found that more than 85 percent of the animals shown in the ads were shelter dogs and cats.

Humane Watch says HSUS fundraising appeals perpetuate the misperception that HSUS is an organization that primarily supports pet shelters.

“HSUS uses emotionally manipulative ads to raise money on the backs of abandoned and abused dogs and cats, yet it gives just one penny of each dollar it raises to local pet shelters,” said CCF Senior Research Analyst J. Justin Wilson. “HumaneWatch.org wants to ensure that donations go to support the cause donors intend. If they want their dollars to aid cats and dogs in their community they should give directly to local pet shelters instead of inadvertently bankrolling HSUS’s aggressive animal rights agenda.”

HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle denies that HSUS advertising is misleading, and while he doesn’t dispute that only 1 percent of donations are passed on to local shelters, points out that the organization’s mission extends to protecting all animals, and that much more money is spent on its dog-related campaigns, such as those against dogfighting and puppy mills.

Last week, on his blog, Pacelle blasted Berman – both professionally and personally –  portraying him as intent on undermining the reputation of HSUS because many of its causes run contrary to industries Berman represents:

In forming his new group, [Rick Berman] hasn’t come out and said he likes cruelty. He’s hoping you forgot his efforts to defend sealing, puppy mills, and other forms of abuse. But today, by saying all animal welfare money should go to animal shelters, he’s saying that no money should go to combat puppy mills, animal fighting ventures, factory farms, captive hunts, the exotic animal trade, the fur trade, or other animal welfare problems.

Berman repeated Pacelle’s above remark, and Pacelle’s references to him as a “con man” and “king of charity fraud,” on his blog — at the same time labeling those comments libelous:

“… I realized last week that when it comes to ‘nasty,’ I’m a novice. If you really want to learn something about how to wage a nasty (and I mean vicious) battle, look no further than Wayne Pacelle, CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). In the past his organization has hired people to stalk and photograph me at my home, hired unemployed journalists to write hit pieces about me, filed erroneous and failed ethics complaints, and he has made reams of false and libelous claims about my organization’s motives and our funders. But recently he’s taken his personal brand of intimidation and harassment to a whole new level.”

Bermann acknowledged that his firm, Berman and Company, helped get HSSP off the ground.  But he said while he supports new organization, he neither runs nor manages it.

Berman contacted ohmidog! last week, demanding that Pacelle’s “false and defamatory” remarks be removed from this website. We declined to do so, but did offer to publish his response in its entirety.

It follows: 

Read more »

Lucy, a dog saved from the streets of Bogota — but not until after her owner beat her beyond recognition — is now in the U.S. and in the process of finding a new home.

And if you think there are only a few people who would find beauty in her unaligned face, think again.

Everyone, it seems, loves Lucy.

Stray from the Heart, a New York City rescue, says it has been inundated with inquiries from people seeking to adopt Lucy, now in a foster home — so many that they’ve removed her profile from their website as they sort through applicants.

Lucy was beaten by her former owner so badly that her nose and jaw were broken, according to Stray from the Heart. Both have healed, but they never set properly, leaving her jaw and snout slightly askew.

Her abuser also pulled out some of her teeth, to keep her from fighting with the many male dogs she was bred with.

Somehow, she escaped and was found living on the streets, alone, emaciated and pregnant. She was picked by a good samaritan and taken to a veterinarian who discovered her uterus was twisted. The vet had to decided between saving the mother or the babies, and opted to save Lucy,  Stray from the Heart says.

It was believed to have been the three-and-a-half-year-old dog’s fifth or sixth pregnancy.

After a few months in foster care in Bogota, Lucy was brought to the U.S., and was boarded in Connecticut until foster care could be secured.

Stray from the Heart is now picking a permanent home from the many applicants who got in touch after her photos appeared on the rescue’s website and Facebook page.

(Photos:  From the Facebook page of Stray from the Heart)