PURRING TO STOP POUND SEIZURES - A life of love and a death of miserable abandonment

Imagine - imagine you were a puppy or kitten adopted by a loving family but somehow got lost or for one reason or another your family made the decision to place you in a shelter hoping that they would find you a new home. Now, imagine that after days, weeks or months of hoping for a new home someone comes along and takes you out of your cell and out the front door. Imagine your excitement - you were going HOME!

Now, imagine being placed in a cell again only this time your savior was not a savior, it was someone who would operate on you and inject you and spread toxins in your eyes and on your body. Imagine not only the physical pain but the emotional pain. But still, each day you hope and each day you wag your tail or purr at the sight of your torturous jailer. And then, just when you thought that peace was at hand - you lost your last breath.

This is what happens to the animals that are seized from shelters by medical laboratories - all for the sake of us, the human being - or at least that is what we have been told. This blog doesn't have enough space for me to detail all of the horror. Do your homework. Do your research. Look on products when you purchase them. Most will say if they have been tested on animals. Be a wise consumer and be a LOUD consumer. If something you have purchased for years you now know was tested on companions animals SCREAM at the company to stop their barbaric practice.

Usually I put photos with my posts but today I cannot. I cannot because I cry too hard when I look at them and I've cried too much the past 24 hours because a sweet dog I know has passed into the Heavens. So I will leave you with this. Imagine dropping bleach or nail polish remover into your kitten's eyes and then walking away - unfeeling - as it screams in pain and paws at it's eyes. Imagine...

If you live in MICHIGAN, like I do, go to THIS SITE and sign the petition to ban pound seizures. The Anit-Vivisection Society has a list of all states that still allow this inhumane practice. Find your state and GET INVOLVED!

The American Humane Association has some excellent information about the Michigan legislature and about other states that either are, or need, to get involved. 

There is a lot to read here but READ IT - READ IT ALL! Our ignorance is killing our companion animals without mercy.

Below you will find excerpts from Confucius' blog posting today:

Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.
--George Bernard Shaw

Pound Seizure. Two innocuous words but together they mean something horrific: animal shelters or humane societies-places that are supposed to protect animals and find them good homes- selling household pets for use in testing and research. With this practice some die quickly. Many others are subjected to tortuous and agonizing long-term laboratory studies. I won’t even go into all the gut wrenching details of what these animals are subjected to or that some suffer vivisection while still alive. Just looking at the information online for purposes of this post took mum’s breath away and made her physically ill.

I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence. --Mahatma Gandhi

www.Care2.com has recently highlighted a heartrending story of a pet dog named Koda whose family was having a hard time and gave him up to a local shelter in hopes the shelter would find a good home for him. Instead, he was sold to a dealer and resold to the University of Michigan where he was deliberately inflicted with traumatic injuries as a subject in the University’s Advanced Trauma Life Support Class. Ultimately he was euthanized.

Koda’s story has led legislation proposed in Michigan to ban pound seizures in that state.

Although it has been proposed there is no Federal statute against this practice. I was only able to find 13 states that have outlawed pound seizure: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia. Some states actually mandate pound seizure, i.e., mandate that shelters must sell pets to dealers on demand. These include Minnesota, Oklahoma and Utah. Elsewhere it is up to local counties and municipalities to decide whether to mandate or to prohibit pound seizure. For more information see www.Americanhumane.org

This issue is even more crucial in this time when shelters are critical to the protection of animals. More and more are being made homeless due to the fact the deployment of their humans in the military or due to the fact that their humans have lost homes to foreclosure or weather incidents.

Week 16 of Purrs 4 Peace details are as follows:

* Week sixteen’s appointed time is Sunday, September 27, 2009.
* Participants should purr for three minutes commencing at 12 p.m. EDT (U.S.) which is 5:00 p.m. (17:00 hrs.) BST in the U.K.
* The cat’s human staff should assist their cats with the project by stroking and nuzzling the cat at the appointed time.
* Please post your cat name and the country you purr in at www.confuciuscat.blogspot.com as a COMMENT if you are participating in this historic project. (posting a link to your own website-if you have one-is encouraged.) Or let me know by message on twitter or facebook.
* Posting purrs on facebook ( Acolytes of Confucius Cat or as friend to Alley Mason) and twitter (@ConfuciusCat) is encouraged, since it inspires purring in others, but not required. On twitter please use #purrs4peace in your tweets.

This week we will purr to stop this barbaric practice of pound seizures. Purr to pursuade. Purr to protect. Purr for peace.

As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
--Isaac Bashevis Singer

SEND THIS POST TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO LOVES ANIMALS. TELL THEM TO SUPPORT THE ANIMALS THAT THEY LOVE SO MUCH!