Kristi Noem's dog-killing story

 Before the release of South Dakota Governor (and prospective Trump VP running mate) Kristi Noem's book, No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward, the Guardian published an account of her story in the book of becoming angered with her 14-month-old family dog Cricket when it (running loose off-leash) killed a farmer's chickens. She took the dog to a gravel pit and shot and killed it, and then, for good measure, decided to kill a goat as well. She wrote that the dog was "untrainable" and that she "hated that dog." She proudly described this impulsive act of killing a family pet without consulting with her family and in an inhumane manner as an illustration of her willingness to deal with things that are "difficult, messy, and ugly." But her first response to the Guardian story was to call it "fake news," then to defend herself by claiming that the dog was "a working dog and not a puppy. It was a dog that was extremely dangerous."

Subsequently, she did the opposite of her book title by retracting a story from the book that she had "stared down" Kim Jong Un when she met him, after a Noem spokesperson said she never met Kim Jong Un. Her book also claimed that she had cancelled a meeting with France's President Emmanuel Macron, whose staff said she never had a meeting scheduled with him.

As a result of this story, I've created a tag on this blog for "conservative animal abuse" since several previous examples were covered here going back to 2007.

Bowlarama Fundraising Time!

I have just a few more weeks (until July 31st) to reach my fundraising goal. Please donate any amount you can - just as RESCUE saves one life at a time, we reach our goal one dollar at a time. If you are unable to make a donation, please reach out to another animal loving friend, family member or co-worker and ask them to support our efforts.

Just this morning Maricopa County Animal Care & Control announced that:

"there are more than 1,000 animals at [their] shelter. MCACC is doing everything we can to save as many lives as possible. Adoptable dogs and cats are stacked three+ deep in every available space."

Also today, RESCUE saved 6 dogs from MCACC. I've posted some of their pictures here. Helping RESCUE helps dogs and cats leave MCACC through the front door, not in a body bag.

As an incentive, a friend has made some cute dog & cat themed cards for me to give as a thank you for any donation of $25 or more. You'll get a four pack of cute cards you can use for any occasion! Please click here to donate and let me know if you'd like a pack of cards in the message section. Donations are 100% tax deductible and your donation goes directly to the animals!

Here's a few of the things your donation can do:

• $5 - will buy a martingale collar or a leash
• $10 - will buy a container of cat litter
• $20 - will buy a month supply of medication for RESCUE cat Nico
• $25 - will buy two cases of wet food for RESCUE cat Benny
• $30 - will buy a 30 lb. bag of dog food
• $60 - will buy five days of boarding for one RESCUE dog
• $100 - will pay for medications for RESCUE dog Zeke
• $150 - will pay for two weeks of boarding for one RESCUE dog

James Dobson's dog-beating story

In James Dobson's 1978 book, The Strong-Willed Child, he writes about using a belt to beat his dachshund into submission:

Please don't misunderstand me. Siggie is a member of our family and we love him dearly. And despite his anarchistic nature, I have finally taught him to obey a few simple commands. However, we had some classic battles before he reluctantly yielded to my authority.

The greatest confrontation occurred a few years ago when I had been in Miami for a three-day conference. I returned to observe that Siggie had become boss of the house while I was gone. But I didn't realize until later that evening just how strongly he felt about his new position as Captain.

At eleven o'clock that night, I told Siggie to go get into his bed, which is a permanent enclosure in the family room. For six years I had given him that order at the end of each day, and for six years Siggie had obeyed.

On this occasion, however, he refused to budge. You see, he was in the bathroom, seated comfortably on the furry lid of the toilet seat. That is his favorite spot in the house, because it allows him to bask in the warmth of a nearby electric heater...

When I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me. He deliberately braced himself by placing one paw on the edge of the furry lid, then hunched his shoulders, raised his lips to reveal the molars on both sides, and uttered his most threatening growl. That was Siggie's way of saying. "Get lost!"

I had seen this defiant mood before, and knew there was only one way to deal with it. The ONLY way to make Siggie obey is to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else works. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me "reason" with Mr. Freud.

What developed next is impossible to describe. That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling and swinging the belt. I am embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed. As a final desperate maneuver, Siggie backed into the corner for one last snarling stand. I eventually got him to bed, only because I outweighed him 200 to 12!

Dobson's book is a promotion of corporal punishment in child rearing. This story is complementary to Jerry Falwell's cat-killing story, written at a time when Christian fundamentalists didn't seem overly concerned about abuse of animals--the 1970s.  It's also complementary to the story of Mike Huckabee's son killing a dog, and Mormon Mitt Romney's dog abuse story.

Thankfully, most of us today recognize that abusing animals is a sign of psychopathy.

UPDATED: To lengthen quote and correct source book title, as per Snopes.  The original 1978 hardcover version of the book is available for $0.01 on Amazon.com Marketplace.

Bowlarama 2010

I have about 5 weeks to reach my fund-raising goal for this year's Bowlarama.

Please visit my donation page and make a donation, big or small. All money goes to the care and feeding of cats and dogs rescued from the euthanasia list at the county pound. Phoenix area people know that area shelters are taking in record numbers of animals so far this year. RESCUE helps reduce euthanasia rates at the county pound.

All three of our dogs were given a second change by RESCUE. I've attached pictures of a few others that are currently in RESCUE's care, waiting for their forever homes.

Did you know that the number one killer of healthy dogs in this country is "euthanasia?" RESCUE is the last voice for dogs and cats awaiting this terrible fate at Animal Control and the Humane Society. RESCUE is a "no kill" organization and animals stay with RESCUE for as long as it takes to find them a home that meets their needs. RESCUE has only one paid staff member and over 275 volunteers. Our veterinary, boarding and food expenses run about $9-12,000 a month.

RESCUE has saved and placed over 9,400+ dogs and cats, and for every animal we adopt, we are back to save another.

First two stray dogs of 2010

I caught these two male dogs in the front yard this afternoon--they wandered in while the gate was open, and I closed it to catch them.  No collars, no tags, and the pit mix was unneutered (didn't check the Spitz mix or whatever he is).  At first they were very skittish, but after they finally approached me, both wanted my constant attention.  They were both quickly picked up by the Maricopa County pound--I'm sure they'll get taken to the east side.

As I was closing the gate to catch these guys, I heard a car honk its horn and a dog yelp, and looked up to see the car drive away as a man, woman, and dog stood on the sidewalk, the dog limping.  I asked the man if the dog had just been hit, and if it was his dog, and he answered yes to both.  They walked off, the dog limping (and off leash, with no collar or tags).

Please, if you own animals, be a responsible pet owner.

Sixth stay dog of 2009

We found this little dog, Max, while on our way to do a RESCUE volunteer shift, running around loose in a vacant lot near a school. He was very bedraggled and thirsty, and had apparently been loose for a while (days, at least). Fortunately, he had tags, so I left messages at the number on his personalized tag and at the different number associated with his county tag, which it's easy to look up at Pets911.com. An hour or two later, I got a call from the dog's previous owner (to whom the dog is still registered), who sent her husband out to pick him up. They didn't know what had happened to the current owner or why the dog was loose.

Fifth stray dog of 2009

Although we've seen quite a few, our fifth stray dog of 2009 that we actually caught and turned in came only yesterday, almost ten months after the fourth. The frequency dropped way off after the first couple of months of the year--a sign of economic recovery, perhaps? (I wonder what the fact that we now regularly see coyotes in our neighborhood means...)

We found this beautiful brindle-coated female dog at Shawnee Park in Chandler, running around loose with a collar and no tags, while we were out with a dog from Arizona RESCUE (Scout, a Dane mix, another great dog). Nobody in the area knew who she belonged to, so we took her to the east side pound and put her picture up on Pets911.

Bowl-a-Rama Fundraiser this Thursday

There are just 11 days left to raise money for Bowl-a-Rama. We have one more fundraising event this Thursday, July 23rd at Rosita’s in Tempe or Mesa. Please come out, enjoy a great meal and support RESCUE. 15% of your purchase is donated back to RESCUE!!! Pictured is the flyer for the event (you’ll need it in order for us to receive the proceeds). I can email the flyer to you if you are interested, just ask me in the comments. All are welcome for lunch, dinner, dine in or take out. Jim & I will be at the Tempe location around 6:00pm, please stop by.

Fourth stray dog of 2009

We found this dog--some kind of Spaniel?an Aussie sheepdog--at 20th St. and Euclid, where he appeared to be wanting to get into a mini-van with a group of mariachis. They just drove off and ignored him, so we stopped our dog walk to pick him up. He had a collar, no tags. This dog is a neutered male, unusual for the strays we find.

This could have been our seventh stray of 2009, but the pack of three dogs we saw running along the canal yesterday morning wouldn't let us near them.

UPDATE: We've been contacted in email by the owner; this dog's name is Woody and the owner will be going to pick him up at the pound.

Our third stray of 2009

This black unneutered male Cocker Spaniel came up to us at around 11th St. and Caldwell while we were walking our dogs. There were some people nearby, and we asked if this was their dog, and they said no, so we brought him home and called Animal Care & Control.

He's wearing a spiked collar with no tags and looks like he's been wandering the streets for a couple of days or so. He was very tired and thirsty.

We've put his picture and description up on Pets911.com.

Our second stray of 2009

As we prepared to take our dogs for a walk this evening, we found this guy in our yard. He has a collar, but no tags. We've put his photo up on Pets911.com, and he'll spend the night here and get a pound pickup tomorrow.

UPDATE (February 7, 2009): This black lab (mix?) isn't happy-go-lucky like our first stray of the year--he was quite fearful, but did relax a bit when we got him on leash. He was interested in our dog Fred, which we used to catch him. Once on leash and after receiving some attention, he warmed up, and he would then come back after being let off leash.

He was terrified to come in the house, and didn't seem to want to walk on the wood floor of the kitchen, but we did eventually get him into the spare bedroom, where I stayed with him overnight. He ended up sleeping peacefully at the foot of the bed.

This morning, I had the same challenge getting him out of the bedroom that I had getting in--so I ended up letting him straight out to the side patio, and he's now back out in the front yard.

UPDATE: The same animal control officer who picked up our first stray just picked up this dog, and gave us some good news--the first stray we turned in was successfully adopted, and is now named Truman!

UPDATE: We got our first call today about our Pets911.com listing for the above dog, which includes a photo and a description. The call went like this:

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Uh. Did you find a lost dog?

ME: Yes, we did.

CALLER: What did it look like?

ME: It's a black lab mix, young ...

CALLER: Oh, that can't be our dog. Our dog is white.

Every phone call save one that we've received as a result of our found dog notices online has been from someone whose dog could not possibly have been confused with the dog in the description. (The one exception was one where the dog was returned to his rightful owner.) By contrast, when we've put up posters there's been no similar mistake. I suspect the Internet information is being passed on to the callers by friends or family, but apparently people who look at lost dog information on the Internet do not know how to communicate basic information about color or breed. Or perhaps this caller has a computer infected by a virus that replaces all images with photographic negatives?

Our first stray of 2009

We found this dog at Circle K Park while walking our dogs. He is a friendly pit bull mixed with something big and shaggy (perhaps Bernese Mountain Dog), with a partly brindle coat. He was easy to capture on leash--he came right up to Kat. We brought him home and he eagerly drank a full bowl of water and some food. He raced around our front yard and chased a ball and brought it back. He's just a puppy with perfect teeth and bad habits of jumping up and being overly excited.

We put his picture on Pets911 and took him by the house of a neighbor who said he lost a brindle-coated pit bull a few months ago that had been seen in the vicinity of the park. We had trouble coaxing him into the car, but eventually he crawled in on his own accord. Unfortunately, the man's wife said this wasn't their dog


He seemed to have some kind of allergy, as he had red around his eyes and his gums were bright red, so we gave him a Benadryl. I spent the night with him in our spare bedroom, and he couldn't seem to sit still or stop breathing hard (or stop wanting attention) until the Benadryl kicked in, and he had a couple of decently long periods of sleep and rest. When he got up this morning, his eyes and gums looked much better, and he again enjoyed racing around the front yard and playing fetch.

Animal Care and Control picked him up just a few minutes ago, and he was shaking in the kennel on the truck. I don't think he's one who is going to do well in a kennel situation. We got his case number, in case someone calls us as a result of the Pets911 ad, but unfortunately, that rarely happens.

UPDATE (February 7, 2009): When the animal control officer picked up our second stray of 2009, he let us know that this good boy was quickly adopted, and is now known as Truman.

Congratulations, Truman!

Petwalk donations plea!

This Sunday, January 25th is the first annual Petwalk. Fred and I are participating and need your help in the form of a donation. Sure the economy looks bad right now, but if you can spare just $5 for a great cause, I'd really appreciate it. To learn more, please visit my donation page.

Looking for donations, again!

I am once again asking for donations. I will be walking January 25, 2009 in the 1st annual PetSmart PetWalk to help raise funds for R.E.S.C.U.E.

Please visit my donations page and help out if you can, as always, donations are tax deductible.

The Hound of Mons

In the January 2009 issue of Fortean Times, Theo Paijmans reports the following story of "The Hound of Mons," quoted from the Ada Evening News, Ada, Oklahoma, 11 August 1919:

That weird legend of No Man's Land, the gruesome epice of the "hound of Mons," has, according to F.J. Newhouse, a returned Canadian veteran, been vindicated throughout Europe as fact and not fiction. For four years civilian skeptics laughed at the soldiers' tale of a giant, skulking hound, which stalked among the corpses and shell holes of No Man's Land and dragged down British soldiers to their death. An apparition of fear-crazed minds, they said. But to the soldiers it was a reality and one of the most fearful things of the world war.

"The death of Dr. Gottlieb Hochmuller in the recent Spartacan riots in Berlin," said Capt. Newhouse, "has brought to light facts concerning the fiendish application of this German scientist's skill that have astounded Europe. For the hound of Mons was not an accident, a phantom, or an hallucination--it was the deliberate result of one of the strangest and most repulsive scientific experiments the world has ever known.

Teeth Marks in Throats.
What was the hound of Mons? According to the soldiers, the legend started in the terrible days of the defense of Mons. On the night of November 14, 1914, Capt. Yeskes and four men of the London Fusiliers entered No Man's Land on patrol. The last living trace of them was when they started into the darkness between the lines. Several days afterward their dead bodies were found--just as they had been dragged down--with teeth marks at the throats.

Several nights later a weird, blood-curdling howl was heard from the darkness toward which the British trenches faced. It was the howl of the hound of Mons. From then on this phantom hound became the terror of the men who faced death by bullets with a smile. It was the old fear of the unknown.

Howl is Heard.
Patrol after patrol, during two years of warefare, ventured out only to be found days later with the telltale marks at their throats. The ghastly howl continued to echo through No Man's Land. Several times sentries declared that they saw a lean, grey wraith flit past the barbed wire--the form of a gigantic hound running silently. But civilian Europe always doubted the story.

Then after two years, while many brave men lost their lives with only those teeth marks at the throat to show, the hound of Mons disappeared. From then on the Germans never had another important success.

"And now," says Captain Newhouse, "secret papers have been taken from the residence of the late Dr. Hochmuller which prove that the hound of Mons was a terrible living reality, a giant hound with the brain of a human madman."

Hound Had Human Brain.
Captain Newhouse says that the papers show that this hound was the only successful issue of a series of experiments by which Dr. Hochmller hoped to end the war in Germany's favor. The scientist had gone about the wards of the German hospitals until he found a man gone mad as the result of his insane hatred of England. Hochmuller, with the sanction of the German government, operated upon him and removed his brain, taking in particular the parts which dominated hatred and frenzy.

At the same time a like operation was performed on a giant Siberian wolfhound. Its brain was taken out and the brain of the madman inserted. By careful nursing the dog lived. The man was permitted to die.

The dog rapidly grew stronger and, after careful training in fiendishness, wa taken to the firing line and released in No Man's Land. There for two years it became the terror of outposts and patrols.

Back before the Internet, the local newspapers met our needs for fabulous hoaxes, and many of them applied, at least periodically, the journalistic standards of the Weekly World News--you only need one source.

UPDATE (April 25, 2009): Fortean Times reader Alistair Moffatt writes in a letter in the May 2009 issue (p. 73) to point out that while F.J. Newhouse did exist, there was no Captain Yeskes of the London Fusiliers and Yeskes is an American or Canadian name, not a British one, suggesting a local origin for the above tale. He also notes that the Battle of Mons took place in August 1914, not November. He suggests that the tale may have originated from a propagandized and heavily distorted account of Captain Max von Stephanitz's breeding of the German Shepherd.

More police puppycide

The cases continue to mount--when police officers come to search property and they are confronted by dogs, they often shoot and kill them, even if they are puppies.

A Milwaukee resident whose Labrador-Springer Spaniel mix was killed by police in 2004 has filed a lawsuit against the city, and she requested a list of every dog killed by city policy for the last nine years. There were 434--a dead dog every seven and a half days, and that's just one city.

In Oklahoma, a police officer pulled into a driveway to ask a woman for directions, and when the woman's Wheaton Terrier came bounding toward him, he shot and killed it. The police refused to do anything about the woman's complaint, and tried to pay her off to shut her up when she let them know that her security cameras had captured the incident. She also sued.

Radley Balko at The Agitator has been doing a great job of collecting and reporting on cases of unwarranted police killings of dogs. His latest summary of cases, from which the above two cases were taken, is his 16th "puppycide" blog post.

Otto on a fundraising mailer

Our dog Otto continues his celebrity career by being featured on the front of a "save the date" postcard for a fundraiser for Altered Tails, a local charity that provides low-cost spaying and neutering for dogs and cats. The image is a painting done by local artist Susan Barken.

Otto saves the canal dog

Last night Otto was barking at something while inside the house. This isn't unusual, but what was unusual was that he didn't run out into the backyard to bark. I was trying to get to sleep early in order to deal with 4 a.m. irrigation, and he came upstairs and continued to bark. Kat went outside to see if there was an animal outside (such as a cat that spends a lot of time in our front yard), and heard a dog barking nearby that was too close to be one of the neighbor dogs.

She got a flashlight and went out to find a dog trapped in the Highline Canal, struggling to get out, but the sides were too steep. The dog's front paws were bloody from the effort. She managed to get a leash around its neck to try to pull him out, but he resisted. She called the Arizona Humane Society to get someone to come take him (and help get him out if we were unable to manage it)--since he's an injured dog, this was a case they are permitted to deal with. (If a stray dog is over 6 months old and uninjured, Maricopa County Animal Care & Control is the only entity legally permitted to take them.)

I went and got a ladder and put it into the water to see if he could use it to pull himself up, but he just used it to hold himself in place.

When the Arizona Humane Society arrived, they had a dog snare which, combined with the leash, we were able to use to pull the dog to safety. He was dried off and willingly jumped into the kennel on the truck.

The dog had a collar, but no tags. Kat will be putting his photo up on Pets911 this morning.

Thanks to Otto's barking, this dog avoided the fate of another whose skeleton was pulled out of the canal by our house, in the same location, earlier this year.

Back from Maryland

We got back from Maryland last night, after spending most of a week at Deep Creek Lake and making day trips to D.C. and Baltimore. The Deep Creek Lake time was mostly relaxing, spending some time on the lake, visiting a few sites in nearby Oakland, visiting Swallow Falls and Muddy Creek Falls, and attending the Garrett County Fair, where I viewed my first demolition derby and pig and duck races. We went to a few of the less common attractions in D.C.--the crystal skull exhibit in the basement of the National Museum of Natural History, Owney the dog at the National Postal Museum, and had an excellent lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian. In Baltimore, we visited Fort McHenry, Poe's grave, and Fells Point.

Owney the dog traveled the world from 1888 to 1897, when, as the National Postal Museum's website says, "Owney became ill tempered and although the exact circumstances were not satisfactorily reported, Owney died in Toledo of a bullet wound on June 11, 1897."

SWAT team kills mayor's dogs

In yet another absurd drug raid, a Prince George's County special operations team busted down the doors of the home of Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, and shot his two dogs dead. This case was part of a scheme where drugs were being sent to homes of innocent people and then intercepted. Maryland does not allow no-knock warrants, but the authorities who entered Calvo's home did not knock and refused to show a warrant when asked for one. The police expressed regret, but no apologies, for killing the mayor's dogs.

The militarization of U.S. police, their completely inappropriate tactics in drug raids, and their repeated killing of dogs all need to stop.

Radley Balko at The Agitator has documented countless cases of such abusive actions, yet police are almost never held accountable for their actions. Perhaps in this case, since it involves a city mayor, someone will be held accountable. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

UPDATE (August 10, 2008): The police in this case claimed that they don't have a standard practice of shooting dogs, but Balko shows that this case is far from unique in that respect.

Calvo has spoken publicly about this raid and the fact that it is far from unique, except that in this case it was against the home of a mayor.