Archive for the ‘Our Love Affair with Animals.’ Category

Everybody loves a circus, right? A harmless afternoon or evening of fun?

Wrong. I don’t enjoy the circus and I really don’t think the animals that are forced to perform do either. And that is why Joe and I will not be attending the circus that will be in town in May.

The Culpepper & Merriweather Circus is coming to Plain City on May 11 for two show times. The way this circus works is that they tend to pick smaller villages or towns to visit and get chambers of commerce or local schools (schools mean field trips and lots of children) and organizations to sponsor them. Then those groups sell the tickets for the circus in advance and receive a portion of the ticket sales. It is billed as a fundraiser. The circus moves from one small town to the next. On May 13, they will be in Johnstown.

With them will be several animals who did not decide, of their own free will, to “run away and join the circus.”

Many, many circuses are moving away from animal acts because the animals are made to perform using deprivation or punishment to enforce behavior. From the Culpepper and Merriweather web site, this circus uses a dog and pony show, trained birds, and camels. They do not mention having big cats, but on several other sites, I found evidence that they have performing tigers and lions. They no longer use elephants, as elephants are often the animals that lead to the most citations of cruelty for circuses and can produce the most risks if they escape–which two elephants did from this circus in 2008. Another elephant escaped in 2009 and was involved in a collision with an SUV.

Going back to 1991, Culpepper and Merriweather has been in trouble with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on numerous occasions for failing to meet the standards set forth in the Animal Welfare Act. You can read a fact sheet on these citations HERE.

Read another opinion about this circus HERE.

Tons of groups that promote animal welfare, including the ASPCA, ask that people not support an industry that harms animals. They ask those who care to NOT attend circuses that still use animal acts. Read the facts about animals in circuses HERE and HERE and HERE.

I realize that many people reading this may not have known that circuses are cruel. This blog was meant to educate and make the readers think. Children love animals and circuses are billed as fun places where kids can view exotic species they don’t see in their own back yards. But circuses promote lives of misery. Here is a quick list of things to think about:

1. If you’ve ever taken dancing lessons or tried to balance on one leg for a long period of time, you know how hard those things can be. Now imagine you are a wild animal that never, ever would do those things in real life. How difficult do you think it is for an elephant or a lion to attempt those feats? The only way to get them to do it is with punishment. Would you really want to do something just because you were afraid–terrified someone would beat you or hurt you?

2. How would you like to be crammed in a tiny space for hours upon hours in a day, traveling from one town to another every week of the year? You’d get tired and so do the animals. When the animals finally are let out, it is to do embarrassing tricks that they don’t want to do.

3. What if you were deathly afraid of another type of animal (I don’t like snakes and there is no way I would work with a venomous snake each day of my life)? But, too bad. Every day, you are FORCED–yes, forced (no one gives these animals a choice), to work with another animal that could eat you. Often horses are trained to have lions ride on their backs. Horses are prey animals. Big cats are predators. It is against their natures to be together. You can imagine how terrified the horse is every time it is forced to allow that lion to get on its back–a position that would normally lead to the lion killing it.

4. These animals are majestic, awe inspiring creatures. They deserve our respect and our compassion.

There are a number of circuses, including Cirque du Soleil (which I have attended), that do not use animals to entertain–only humans who chose that life. To see a list, go HERE.

Please think about these things before you attend a circus with animals.

Sarah Reinhard has a new book available to help families spend more enjoyable moments with each other, rather than hooked up to telephones, portable tablets, or the internet. The book, Catholic Family Fun: A Guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative, or Clueless, which includes tons of activities and ideas to bring families closer together, was personally tested with Sarah’s own family (you can see two of Sarah’s biggest fans and critics of how fun an activity was in the photo to the left).

With chapters on “Silly Things to Do Together,” “Craft Projects,” and “Outdoor Adventures,” there is something exciting for any personality. Some of the recommended projects are things I remember doing with my sister, Bobbie, when we were kids. Scavenger hunts, puppet shows, and skits (which involved dressing up in elaborate costumes) were among our favorites. I also remember making a “Maundy Thursday Treasure Map” one year when we were bored over spring break.

Sarah also includes fun “Ways to Serve” and “Ways to Pray” to teach children that helping others and talking to God are also avenues to make our spirits soar.

Under the “Ways to Serve” page on the web site (click on Chapter 8 along the side bar), Sarah listed several places to have children visit to learn to serve. One thing I noticed was missing was visiting or volunteering at an animal shelter or rescue. Since I am a huge animal person, I had to make sure to mention that children are often especially in tune with animals and visiting a shelter, where they can pet neglected or abandoned animals or walk a dog that has not ever had much attention, can teach very important lessons in kindness and mercy. These visits also provide opportunities for telling stories about Saint Francis of Assisi who treated animals with dignity and respect, preaching the Gospels to the birds and calling animals his brothers and sisters.

If your children are not into cats and dogs, there are rescues and sanctuaries for horses (Last Chance Corral in Athens, Ohio), rabbits (Columbus House Rabbit Society), elephants (The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee), big cats (Noah’s Lost Ark in Berlin Center, Ohio), and any other animal imaginable where they could visit and learn more about that particular species and how compassion creates a better world for animals (and people!). For kids who have not grown up on farms or only know city life, a visit to Sunrise Sanctuary in Marysville, Ohio can allow them to meet cows and goats and chickens. There is even a wild animal hospital in Columbus (The Ohio Wildlife Center) that rehabilitates chipmunks, birds, raccoons, and other animals that often are the victims of careless humans.

For animals in shelters, easy-to-make beds, toys, and even treats can be a way for children to, not only have fun making something, but also learn to help dogs and cats in need. For homemade cat toy instructions, go HERE. For cat beds, go HERE (but you do need to know how to sew!). For dog beds (and some require no sewing!), go HERE. For homemade dog biscuits, go HERE. By making these items and then visiting a shelter to donate them, children can see how their efforts benefit homeless dogs and cats.

There are also tons of plans online for outdoor cat houses to keep kitties warm during cold nights. Many rescue groups that help feral cats would love to have these houses donated to them. Check out some of those houses HERE and HERE.

These are all projects that both Girl and Boy Scout troops could also do with only a small investment of time and money, while providing a great service to animals in need.

There are also other easily constructed crafts for children to make bird feeders and butterfly puddles to help out creatures they can watch from their windows.

Beyond crafts as teaching tools for compassion, there are also many lovely fables for children (and adults) about animals and the Holy Family, which promote kindness to our furry friends. One of my favorite stories involves tabby cats and the Virgin Mary. According to the tales, a cat jumped into the manger with baby Jesus to keep him warm. Mary was so grateful that she touched the little cat’s forehead and left the letter “M” emblazoned in the fur. All tabby cats now have that prominent “M” for Mary (or in other religions for Muhammad, who was supposedly such a cat lover that it is a severe crime in Islam to harm any cat).

In case you didn’t know it, The Pope is also a huge cat lover. In fact, his cat, Chico has penned (pawed?) a children’s book about the Holy Father called, Joseph and Chico.

One of my favorite books is a book of prayers called “For God’s Creatures Great & Small, Prayers for Pets and Other Animals,” which my friend, Monica, bought for me. Monica felt called to start a pet food pantry for people who cannot afford to provide food for their beloved pets. The service, provided through a local church in Plain City (The Vineyard), is part of their Daily Needs Ministry, which also gives items to help people with basic needs and serves a free meal once a month. Taking children to something like this would also be an awesome service opportunity.

But I digress. I was having way too much fun thinking of ways for children to also have fun while learning about and helping animals! Sarah’s book inspired me so much that I’ve spent a lovely morning at the keyboard daydreaming and having my own kind of fun! Thanks, Sarah! I think this is exactly what Catholic Family Fun is meant to do–inspire us all!

Sarah’s book provides a road map to allow families to brainstorm and create their own type of family fun beyond just the activities recorded on the pages (just like I did above). Catholic Family Fun should also come in very handy for Sunday school teachers looking to make lessons and learning joyous, too.

Follow Sarah on her virtual internet book tour HERE. Sarah will be interviewed or guest post about the book on a number of sites.

And “like” Catholic Family Fun’s Facebook page HERE.

Read more about Catholic Family Fun on Sarah’s “My Books” page HERE.

Each Easter, Leann Davidson (Ruby Rice’s daughter), kindly donates a lovely basket that she makes herself to Black and Orange Cat Foundation to raffle off as a fundraiser. This year, Leann really outdid herself and made seven baskets to help raise money to spay and neuter area kitties. These baskets aren’t really baskets, however. Some feature painted flower pots, while others have decorated buckets. All are filled with tons of goodies that we know anyone would enjoy receiving on Easter morning.

Stop in the drugstore and fill out a raffle ticket to win one of the baskets. Tickets are $1 each or 6 for $5. Please just put your name and telephone number on the ticket. We will draw the winners on Good Friday, April 6, and call those lucky people so they can pick up their basket before Easter.

Thank you again to Leann for helping Black and Orange raise money to help Plain City kitties.

The Plain Druggist blog site and the web site for Black and Orange Cat Foundation are the results of the wonderful efforts of Vicki Watson of VWeb Web Design. I get a lot of compliments on how nice both sites look and I have Vicki to thank for that. Vicki has done a spectacular job and I can’t thank her enough for all her help.

Vicki, however, is not just a web designer. She is also a homeschool mom who creates educational software for homeschoolers to use in their daily studies at her web site, Interactive Study Guides. She has an exceptional study guide for Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty.

As shown with her study guide for Black Beauty, Vicki is a horse lover and many of her other endeavors focus on this love. At her Christian Cowgirl web site, Vicki offers devotions, Christian horse book reviews, and horse movie reviews.

And on her Sonrise Stables site, Vicki dons the hat of author with her Christian Horse books for children. The first two books in her Sonrise Stable series, Rosie and Scamper and Carrie and Bandit, are currently available with updated artwork by Plain City artist, Becky Raber. The third book in the series, Clothed With Thunder, will be available in the Fall.

Vicki grew up around horses and cats. She always keeps an eye on the cats I have her post on B and O’s home page and she was especially interested in the story of Sparrow, who was the featured kitty in January. Sparrow was the cat that was shot with an arrow and taken to the Humane Society of Delaware County where our beloved vet friend, Dr. Kim West, saved her life (you can read the blog posting about Sparrow HERE). Vicki plans to do a book, available by the end of the year, that will tell Sparrow’s story. She wants her fourth book to touch on the many cruel things humans do to animals to teach the next generation to be kinder and more humane. The theme for the fourth book will focus on treating animals with kindness, based on Proverbs 12:10: “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”

Sparrow’s story will be a side story in the book, which will explain the fates of foals born to “nurse mares.” In case you don’t know about nurse mares, here’s the scoop. When an expensive thoroughbred horse gives birth, the owners will sometimes take the much wanted thoroughbred baby away from it’s very valuable mother and have a nurse mare raise the thoroughbred foal. Because the nurse mare must have milk, she will have just given birth herself. Her true baby is of no value and is often killed.

Luckily, there are rescues that take these unwanted “products” of the thoroughbred industry and find the babies homes. One of those rescues is Last Chance Corral in Athens, Ohio. Vicki recently visited Victoria Goss, who saves these horses, to get information for her next book.

As soon as Vicki’s fourth book, featuring these wonderful horses and Sparrow, is available, I will let you know.

Vicki lives in Marysville and attended Jonathan Alder schools. Joe and I always love to support local businesses and animal lovers! Happily, Vicki is both!

Visit Vicki’s Facebook page HERE.

If  you live in the Village of Milford Center, the Union County Humane Society wants to know if you’ve “GOT CATS?” That’s because the shelter recently received a $9600 grant from the Kenneth A. Scott Charitable Trust to fix 300 cats in Milford Center in 2012. The surgeries will be performed for stray and feral cats at no cost and include an ear tip.

Ear tipping is a universal symbol that allows people to know, just by looking, that a cat has been spayed or neutered. It requires cutting a small “tip” off the top of one ear. A cat that is ear tipped does not have to go through the stress of another trip to the vet if they are caught in a trap. They can be released immediately, because it is obvious they have already been sterilized.

One of Plain City’s finest cat trappers, and a volunteer with Black and Orange Cat Foundation, Allen Young, has been involved in helping to trap cats in Milford Center. Since he started trapping in January, he and another volunteer have already taken in over 30 cats to be fixed through the shelter’s grant program. But more cats are needed if 300 are going to be spayed and neutered by the end of the year. If you are caring for cats in Milford Center and would like to get them fixed for FREE, please contact Carol Martin by calling 937-243-1618 or 937-642-6716.

Allen had told me that there have been some problems with the trapping process as traps have been stolen and also set off so that cats could not go in them. I want to assure anyone who has cats in Milford Center and may be worried about this project–the cats are not being harmed. They are being fixed and then returned to the same area where they were caught. Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is the process that is being used for this project. Cats are trapped in humane traps that do no hurt them. They are then transported to the shelter for surgery and released back in their own territory after recovering.

Alley Cat Allies, the national organization supporting TNR, endorses these methods to humanely reduce the cat overpopulation problem. No new kittens are born. The population remains the same over years and years until older cats die off.

This is a wonderful opportunity to save the lives of cats and keep unwanted kittens from being born in an area already overrun with too many felines. Please contact the shelter if you would like help getting your outside cats fixed.

You can read the original article in the Marysville Journal-Tribune reporting that Union County Humane Society received the grant to fix stray and feral cats in Milford Center HERE.

You can also read the article in the Marysville Journal-Tribune about problems with the cat trapping process in Milford Center HERE.

And access the Village of Milford Center Facebook Page.