There’s no getting around it. If you have dogs, you’re going to pick up some poop. Some people are grossed out by the thought. I have a lot of thoughts on dog poop. First of all nothing is worse than cold dog poop, I’ll take warm poop over cold poop any day of the week, especially on a cold winter day. If you’re disgusted by this, read no more… but when you live with and love dogs your world revolves around poop. Read the rest of this entry »

Travis The Chimp Raises The Question: Is It Right To Keep Wild Animals As Pets?

“It was amazing to us she had these type of injuries and they were survivable,” said paramedic Bill Ackley about poor Carla Nash who had been viciously attacked by her friend Sandra Herold’s beloved pet chimp, Travis (full story).

My first thought when I heard this story is “What was this woman doing with a chimp in her house?” And new reporters say that Travis had attacked others in the past, biting one woman and sometimes escaping for an hour or more from his home. Think about it, a 200 lb chimp with the strength of three men, just wandering the streets unattended. What if you were just out walking your dog and you came across that? Horrifying.

It’s not Travis’ fault. He’s a wild animal. Who knows what was going through his head at the time. We don’t really know what chimpanzee’s think. Sometimes I see people at the dog park with wolf hybrids and I just think it’s wrong. There is a reason that some animals are domesticated and others are wild. Ever wonder why you don’t see people riding zebras? Because they are wild, you can’t break them for riding. That’s just the way they are. You can’t keep a bobcat in your house like a cat. A bobcat is going to hurt you. I mean, even if they’re just playing they’re going to hurt you. They can’t help it… they’re wild animals. They require a totally different type of care than a dog or a housecat. I mean, since I was a kid it’s been a dream to own an African Wild Dog…

they are the coolest looking dog on the planet but they’re WILD dogs. If they could have been domesticated, they would have been by this point because they look cool and everyone would want one.

I know there are a few (very few) legitimate reasons for someone to have a chimp or wild animal, but don’t try to fill the void in your life with an exotic pet. I highly recommend sticking to the basic domesticated animals.

They fill voids just as well as their exotic cousins, even better. They WANT to live with us. Dogs have descended from wolves that actually wanted to hang out with primitive man. These wolves actually left their wolf packs to be with the humans and were accepted as pets. Let’s let wild animals be wild and help the millions of homeless domesticated animals that are desperately looking for a loving home each year.

This is my doggie blog and this is my doggie world. If you want to contact me with questions, thoughts or ideas you can email me at cjarabia@lemondrop.com, I’m also on Facebook (C.J. Arabia) and Twitter (@cjarabia) and write articles for www.lemondrop.com as well.

More to come!

We Should All Be So Lucky To Have Someone In Our Lives
Who Loves Us As much As Mickey Rourke Loves His Dogs

ABC News reports that Mickey Rourke’s beloved Chihuahua Loki has passed away at the age of 18, just days before the Academy Awards. (Full Story)

Rourke has referred to Loki as, “the love of my life.” Mickey told reporters that she fell asleep in his lap and said, “She’s still with me,” as he got into a black limo on the streets of New York City earlier this week. Rourke even went so far as to thank his dogs in his Golden Globes acceptance speech. For this people have called him a “dog nut.” Well, I don’t think that loving your dogs is nuts.

The love that “dog nut” has for his dogs is awesome. I mean, can you imagine being Mickey Rourke’s Dog? That’s got to be the best job on the planet. You are probably lavished with love and understanding, dog treats, and bottled water, eye contact and get to lie around on expensive furniture all day long, never cold, never lonely, never scared. You probably have a cool leather collar that cost a lot of money, and a few leather doggie jackets, skull sweaters and lots of expensive doggie toys. I’ll bet you get a lot of table scraps that you have to eat right out of Mickey Rourke’s crazy mouth, and you probably don’t mind at all because as far as your concerned that crazy mouth is attached to the coolest human on the planet. Mickey Rourke loves his dogs more than a lot of people love their dogs, he loves his dogs more than a lot of people love other people. Those are some lucky dogs I say.

We should all be so lucky to have someone in our lives who loves us as much as Mickey Rourke loves his dogs.

So this is my doggie blog and this is my doggie world. If you want to contact me with questions, thoughts or ideas you can email me at cjarabia@lemondrop.com, I’m also on Facebook (C.J. Arabia) and Twitter (@cjarabia) and write articles for www.lemondrop.com as well.

More to come!

A December 2008 raid of internationally recognized dog fighter Ed Faron’s “Wildside Kennels” in Wilkes County, North Carolina, resulted in an 8-10 month prison sentence for Mr. Faron, who pled guilty to 14 counts of felony dog fighting this week.  Mr. Faron will also be subject to supervised probation, during which time he will be prohibited from owning or possessing animals.  The raid was preceded by a 3-year investigation by the Wilkes County Sherriff’s Office, WIlkes County Animal Control, and Wilkes County District Attorney’s Office, and led to the seizure of 127 pit bulls, several of whom have since delivered puppies. Read full text of story here.

At the Shelter

In My New Home

My name is Diamond and I am a 7-year old sweet soul who happens to be a pit bull. I was at the Baldwin Park animal shelter for over 3 months and I’m not sure why because as soon as you meet me, you’ll discover that I am a very gentle boy with a sweet spirit who just likes to be your best friend. So finally, after many months spent sleeping on the cold floor and abandoned by my old family, these great Animal Advocates Alliance volunteers came and took new pictures of me and sent my story to a lot of their friends. 6 days after my photo shoot, a very nice lady and her sweet daughter (my new best friend) came to the shelter and spent some time with me and in 10 minutes discovered what I knew all these years, I WAS JUST LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO LOVE!!! (see photo above of me and my new human foster sister). Everyone says I am exceptionally handsome and loving! So now I finally have a warm bed and a nice family to call my foster parents (or maybe soon enough my own family). Me and my pit friends still don’t understand all the negative hype about us, we pits love our families (human and animal) very much and can make great family pets, some humans just decide to abuse us and then blame us for being scared and insecure (shame on them) so just give us a chance and you’ll see that we deserve happy homes. Thank you volunteers, thank you my new foster/adoptive family, thank you shelter staff for keeping me alive and thank you to all of you with an open mind and an open heart who give us a chance. Please go to the shelter and spend some time with my other friends that are still waiting for loving homes, they will make you happy!!!

Thanks to a much needed crackdown on animal cruelty in the city of Los Angeles, prosecutors like Deputy District Attorney Deborah Knaan are aggressively pursuing perpetrators of animal abuse more than ever before.  With the help of officers from the Animal Cruelty Task Force, created in 2005, prosecutors have obtained numerous convictions for illegal and inhumane activities such as dogfighting and cockfighting.  Many attribute the rise to a growing intolerance of crimes against animals in society and/or increasing public awareness of the proven correlation between animal crimes and other criminal activities.  This change is also reflected in legislation proposed by Knaan and sponsored by District Attorney Steve Cooley to prevent convicted animal abusers of owning pets – sometimes for life.  Whatever the impetus, Los Angeles is now considered a leader among cities for its progressive measures regarding crimes against animals. Read full text of the story here.

The International Whaling Commission has asked Japan to reduce whaling over the next five years. Japan refuses to discontinue it’s “whale research,” which many countries claim is a smoke screen for Japan’s commercial whaling in which more than 800 whales are killed each year. Japan considers whaling part of its culture and has vowed to refuse any proposal that would prohibit it from whaling. Read full text of the story here.

Alarmingly, Iceland has recently increased its whale quota to allow for the killing of 150 fin whales and 150 minke whales per year. This represents an increase from the previous quota of 9 fin whales and 40 minke whales. Even more alarming is the fact that most Icelanders support the country’s commercial whaling, although they do acknowledge that it likely hurts their reputation with other countries. Read full text of the article here.

Once almost extinct from a distemper virus, the Catalina Island Fox population is thriving due, in part, to a dry season followed by a wet season. The dry season killed off many mule deer, and the foxes were able to feed off the carcasses. In turn, the wet season caused a population explosion of rodents, on which the foxes feasted. This is a remarkable turn around for an endangered species. Read the full text of the story here.

Trial to begin on the lawsuit filed by several animal welfare groups against the Ringling Bros. circus alleging abuse of Asian elephants, including through the use of skin puncturing hooks (called “bull hooks”) and chaining elephants within close proximity of one another for over 70 hours. Read full text of story here.