FGHMovie.com HomePage. FGHMovieBlog: June 2005

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

PETA kills animals

This is a long one... so bare with me. I am going to copy and paste recent emails. Starting with the oldest and ending with the most recent... which seems backwards but if you read from the top... you get the whole picture...

From: Nathan J. Winograd (No Kill Solutions)
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: Peta Kills Animals It Promised to Find Homes For
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:38:24 -0700
For years, PeTA has opposed programs to save feral cats and to promote No Kill animal sheltering because of Ingrid Newkirk's background killing animals at the Washington Humane Society. PeTA has a "policy against No Kill shelters" and does "not support right to life for feral cats." The enclosed article was carried by the Associated Press, and indicates PeTA misled shelters and animal hospitals by saying it would find homes for animals, and instead killing them. The story broke when PeTA employees were found dumping bodies in a garbage bin.


Article published Jun 17, 2005
Two PETA employees arrested for animal cruelty

The Associated Press

Two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been
charged with animal cruelty after dumping dead dogs and cats in a shopping
center garbage bin, police said Thursday.

Investigators staked out the bin after discovering that dead animals had
been dumped there every Wednesday for the past four weeks, Ahoskie police
said in a prepared statement.

Police found 18 dead animals in the trash bin and 13 more in a van
registered to PETA. The animals were from animal shelters in Northampton
and Bertie counties, police said. The two were picking up animals to be
brought back to PETA headquarters for euthanization, PETA president Ingrid
Newkirk said

Thursday.

Neither police nor PETA offered any theory on why the animals might have
been dumped.

Local officials and veterinarians said they were told that PETA would find
homes for the animals, not euthanize them. PETA has scheduled a news
conference for Friday afternoon in Norfolk, Va., where the group is based,
to discuss the charges.

Police charged Andrew Benjamin Cook, 24, of Virginia Beach, Va., and Adria
Joy Hinkle, 27, of Norfolk, Va., each with 31 felony counts of animal
cruelty and eight misdemeanor counts of illegal disposal of dead animals.
They were released on bond and an initial court date was set for Friday in
Winton.

Hinkle has been suspended, but Cook continues to work PETA, Newkirk said.
Hinkle has worked for more than two years as one of its community animal
project employees in North Carolina, PETA spokeswoman Colleen O'Brien said.
Cook, who joined a couple of months ago, was being trained.

Newkirk said she doubted Hinkle had ever been cruel to an animal and said
if the animals were placed in the bin, "We will be appalled."

PETA euthanizes animals by lethal injection, which it considers more humane
than gassing groups of animals, as poor counties are forced to do, O'Brien
said.

"PETA has provided euthanasia services to various counties in (North
Carolina) to prevent animals from being shot behind a shed or gassed in
windowless metal boxes, both practices that were carried out until PETA
volunteered to provide a painless death, free of charge," Newkirk said.

But veterinarian Patrick Proctor said that authorities found a female cat
and her two "very adoptable" kittens among the dead animals. He said they
were taken from Ahoskie Animal Hospital.

"These were just kittens we were trying to find homes for," he said.
"PETA
said they would do that, but these cats never made it out of the county."

PETA had taken 50 animals from Proctor's practice over the past two years,
he said.

PETA also has taken animals from veterinarian James Brown in Northampton
County.

"When they started taking them, they said they would try to find homes for
them," Brown said, adding that no one checked on the animals afterward.

Barry Anderson, Bertie County's animal control officer, identified nearly
all of the dumped dogs as ones that Cook and Hinkle picked up just a few
hours earlier Wednesday, said Detective Sgt. Ed Pittman of the Bertie
County Sheriff's Office.

Anderson also said that the PETA representatives "told him they were
picking up the dogs to take them back to Norfolk where they would find them
good homes," Pittman said.

Nathan J. Winograd
No Kill Solutions
www.nokillsolutions.com

P.O. Box 74926
San Clemente, CA 92673
(949) 276-6942 telephone
(949) 276-6943 fax



Next Came PETA's REPLY:

CROSS POST ** CROSS POST
From: "Martin Mersereau" <MartinM@peta.org>
Date: 6/21/05 6:49AM
Subject: gals
I've pasted my director's letter re the NC matter below my auto signature. Pass
it around as you see fit. No need to reply.

Martin Mersereau, Casework Division Manager
Domestic Animal and Wildlife Rescue & Information Dept.
757-962-8232 @ 757-628-0796 (fax)

Dear Friends,

Please allow me to begin by thanking you for your support recently. Quite a bit
has been said in the press, much of which is inaccurate, sadly, and although I
know many of you saw our press conference transcript, I would like you to also
please visit http://www.helpinganimals.com/f-nc.asp and see a handful of photos
from our NC photo albums.

LINK

Please know that it was a compassionate police officer who first alerted PETA to
conditions at a North Carolina pound (in Bertie) in 2001. The officer's visits
to the tiny outdoor chain link structure consistently revealed animal suffering:
we were sent photographs of, among other horrors, a large white dog drowning in
a pool of water, lying on her side and too sick and weak to lift her head (she
later died), a starving dog eating a dead kitten, and a dead puppy found in a
gas chamber shed. Our visit confirmed that the County needed help. We found
sick, injured animals in need of veterinary care, a leaky, windowless, rusty gas
box (see photos at above link)in which animals were crammed and killed, and a
facility that had no electricity and no covering for its cages. Every winter,
the water hose froze.

PETA immediately offered aid to Bertie County and to the City of Windsor, which
operates its own facility within the county limits. There, animals were
restrained on a metal pole and shot with a .22. Shortly after this, we found out
that Hertford County's homeless animals were also gassed. We made arrangements
to pay a local veterinarian to euthanize those animals by painless injection.
PETA to this date subsidizes humane euthanasia at the Hertford facility, and has
so far paid nearly $9,000 for this service. In Northampton County, animals were
being killed by injection with a paralytic agent that causes suffocation. All
these practices have stopped since PETA volunteered to provide a peaceful
painless death, euthanasia, free of charge. No secret was made of the fact that
we euthanize animals and that the animals retrieved from the pounds would be
provided with a humane death. In fact, it was I who met and spoke with
officials, and not one of them ever even asked me about adoption. The pounds
don't have an adoption program or an adoption rate, and never have.

The pounds that we have helped are in impoverished counties where animal control
is at the bottom of the list. They are located in remote locations, have no open
hours at all-not even for adoption-and no staff except one animal warden whose
job is to respond to dog bites and stray animal calls. In Bertie County, the
animal warden is also in charge of litter control. We have only improved living
and dying conditions for unwanted animals, whose fate was to die by a bullet, to
fight to claw out of a filthy gas box, or to suffocate to death. We could not
let those things go on, even it meant doing the sad work ourselves. Performing
euthanasia affects our staff deeply. Gallons of tears have been shed for North
Carolina's homeless animals, but we are thankful to have been allowed to spare
them a terrifying, painful end.

PETA doesn't just pick up animals from the pounds. Over the last few years, PETA
has worked with these struggling agencies to clean and build, help personnel
with training and provide supplies and services. We have spent more than
$250,000 on veterinary and other services in one North Carolina county alone.
Each dollar spent means a needy animal helped, cold abated, shade provided,
water, medicine and food given, and suffering relieved. We have also delivered
hundreds of free dog houses and straw to dogs chained to metal barrels or not so
much as a tree, and we have paid to spay and neuter countless animals already in
homes.

PETA submitted several proposals to officials and attended several meetings
where we offered (and begged) to be allowed to implement, among other things, an
on-site adoption program. We have pushed for such a program since 2003.
Officials were not interested in our offer.

Many of you attended the House Interim Committee meetings and saw the video
footage of Yadkin County piling animals one layer atop another in a metal gas
box. This is still going on. If PETA had allowed that to go on in a jurisdiction
that welcomed its help-unlike Yadkin-simply in order to avoid bad press or
having to get dirty or dealing with the grief of feeling the life go out of an
animal you've just fed and loved and whose likely never known kind words
before*well, we would not be doing our job.

A terrible mistake was made with the dead bodies. But the ones who remain at the
facilities are alive, and I am worried. The fact that these shelters may
terminate the relationship we have with them likely means that these facilities
will return to their old ways. Please don't let that happen and encourage
officials to allow us to continue servicing their county. Thank you again for
your support and for all you do for animals.

Regards,
Daphna Nachminovitch

PETA
Now The most recent BEST FRIENDS gets their shot.

Date:   6/28/05 1:57PM
Subject: Best Friends Statement On PETA Killing Animals

"So we consider it to be extraordinarily irresponsible for a single animal
rights group with a loud voice and a reputation for protecting animals
to grab the headlines and tell the world that the best thing we can do
for homeless pets is kill them."



http://news.bestfriends.org/index.cfm?page=news&mode=entry&entry=B09758A0-B
B9-396E-9CEDD01793F3D860


June 24, 2005 : 7:15 PM ET

Many of you have called and e-mailed Best Friends to express your views
and ask our opinion on the recent arrest of two PETA employees on charges
of animal abuse.

Since these two people will be going to trial, it would be
inappropriate for us to comment on their particular situation. However, we can certainly
comment on the policies of PETA and their public remarks and actions.

PETA runs some very effective campaigns and we support much of what
they've done to help bring an end to some of the worst abuses of animals in
laboratories, factory farms, "sporting" events, and fur farms.

But in the area of companion animals, we have some fundamental
disagreements.

At a press conference following the arrest of those two employees,
PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said, "PETA believes euthanasia is the kindest
gift to a dog or cat unwanted and unloved." We simply couldn't disagree
more. The kindest gift to a homeless animal is a good home. The kindest gift to
an unloved dog or cat is a loving, caring place to go.

We know perfectly well that there are still more homeless animals each
year than shelters feel capable of placing in new homes. But the number of
animals being killed in shelters has dropped from about 17 million just
15 years ago to less than 5 million today. And we can now look forward to
a day, quite soon, when there will be No More Homeless Pets in this
country.

This remarkable goal is being accomplished through the work of
increasingly progressive humane groups and shelters, where good people are working
to save lives, not destroy them. Any organization that's aspiring to a
leadership role in relation to companion animals needs to be
encouraging people to save more lives, rather than to go on repeating the failed
policies and practices that helped create the problem in the first
place.

So we consider it to be extraordinarily irresponsible for a single
animal rights group with a loud voice and a reputation for protecting animals
to grab the headlines and tell the world that the best thing we can do
for homeless pets is kill them. While PETA is in the forefront of many
animal-related issues, they are way behind the times when it comes to
companion animals. We would hope that they will continue to lead in
the areas where they do well, and to stay out of areas in which, by their
own words and deeds, they have no positive contribution to make.
******************************************************************************

http://news.bestfriends.org/index.cfm?page=news&mode=entry&entry=B0994D1D-B
B9-396E-9BB3367BABD1FE39


Notes on PETA's claims
June 24, 2005 : 7:10 PM ET

Some additional notes on Ingrid Newkirk's explanation of why she and
PETA kill homeless pets

PETA's Options: Death or Death
PETA asserts that the only available options are:
a) the animals die a horrible death through inhumane practices.
b) the animals are warehoused in horrible conditions.
c) the animals are turned loose on the streets to die other horrible deaths.
d) the animals are placed in imperfect homes where they live horrible lives.
PETA can generate more publicity than any other animal welfare organization
in the world. But they never use their pulpit to hold shelters accountable
for doing more to save more animals. Instead, they simply blame the
continued "need" for killing on the community's lack of responsibility.
And they offer, as the primary solution, more "humane" ways to kill
animals. Certainly, reasonable people would look at animals being killed in
decompression chambers and agree that intravenous sodium pentobarbital
injection is preferable. But this is simply arguing one method of
death against another, rather than arguing for life rather than death.

PETA's Statistics
PETA uses wildly exaggerated statistics -- presumably to justify the
need to kill more animals by pretending that the problem is too big to be
fixed without killing the animals. Here's an excerpt from a fact sheet on
PETA's
web site:
http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=29
More than 70 percent of people who acquire animals end up giving them
away,
abandoning them, or taking them to shelters, which receive about 27
million animals annually. More than half - about 17 million - must be destroyed
for lack of homes. This figure is completely inaccurate. Back in the
1980s, there were, indeed, roughly 17 million dogs and cats being killed in
shelters each year. But that number is now down to somewhere between 4
and 5 million. There are still big challenges to be overcome, but we are now
well on our way toward a time when there will be no more homeless pets
being killed in shelters for lack of an available home.
And now for my response.

Pot Kettle Black.

Best Friends, do you take in EVERY animal that is homeless? No. Thereby you allow them to be killed as they would be. What I read from the PETA statement was they were trying to STOP the gassing and tried to use a less painful method. The animal abuse by the two who were arrested seemed like a different matter. Is Utah a No Kill state? How do they euthanize when they have to? Gas or needle?

There is NO SUCH THING as a NO KILL SHELTER. Let me use a line from my film, "FREE to a Good Home" --All the shelter has to do is "refuse to take in the animal and then it goes to a kill shelter." Thereby making ALL shelters kill shelters.

Currently we do NOT have 5 million homes available. Therefore some animals will have to be killed. Unless, you intend to take them all in until suitable homes can be found. Do you encourage homechecks? Do you encourage applications? Adoption fees? Do you feel that no matter the income everyone has a right to have a pet as a companion? Yes, we are working toward a "no kill" future. But even Best Friends does not delare "No Kill" the way to go. I read your brochures on why it is called "No More Homeless Pets" as opposed to "No Kill" because not all animals are placeable at least not now and maybe not ever. And using the word "Pet" you can ease out of those animals who are not "pet-like."

If the problem was solvable right now. You would have certainly solved it. But it is not. And until the problem of unwanted animals and animal overpopulation comes under "control" animals will be euthanized. Who will take these animals? They will have to be euthanized. Why? Because we do not have the room for them. We do not have the housing. And warehousing them is and can be cruel. You are working toward a No More Homeless Pets society. But we are quite a ways off. Euthanasia is right now our only choice. If there is another choice wouldnt you have mentioned it? Give them to the overtaxed animal rescuers?

In a few places in the East they STILL use gassing as a method of killing unwanted animals. What I read was that PETA was using needle injections to cease the cruel practice of gassing. Now if PETA does not do it, what will happen to those animals, gassed again? Or will Best Friends step in and take them all home to Utah? Will Best Friends step in and euthanize them with a needle?

You said we are well on our way to a time when there will be "No More Homeless Pets" and my question is something you did not address in your statement. What happens until that time. Should PETA allow the states to gas animals to continue that practice?

I know Best Friends has made great strides in the lives of companion animals. But before you point fingers, look first at yourself. How are you culpable in this situation? I saw nothing in your statement that reflected that their intentions to stop the hidious gassing of these animals for a more compassionate alternative was at least offering something better. Afterall, we are all in this together. But I did not see that. I saw the opportunity to blame. But the blame lies with ALL OF US. Every person in America is reponsible for this situation. When we drive by a stray we are just too tired to pick up, when we delete the hundreds of emails about saving this animal or that. When we do not go to the shelter and help a rescue group pull an animal who is begging to borrow a rescue card. When we make getting those rescue cards harder than they need to be. When we say, no, we are full. We are all responsible. Maybe if you had taken in all those animals who were to be gassed, this would have never have happened. I am certain if PETA had a place to put those animals, like The Best Friends Sancatuary in Utah they would have most certainly called you. But if that were possible PETA would never have needed to step up and stop the gassing and replace it with needle injections. What? Don't kill them? Okay, then you take them. You can't possibly take them all in, you say? Well then whatever do we do with them? Ship them all to Utah?

Penny the Pinned Pit Puppy



Penny's story is typical and yet... not so...
She was picked up on the side of the road by animal control
"Dog hit by car." Both front legs were broken. She
could not stand, yet she tried.

She was taken to a vet for euthanasia and should have been
euthanized. Why? Not because her life isn't worth it
but because there are so many healthy animals dying.

I am the one who is always touting the "triage" approach to
rescue. To take the highly adoptable animals and place them.

When you are choosing to kill and healthy, friendly, easy-going
animal and save a harder to place animal because of its breed
or its illnesses or injuries, it does not make sense on paper.

Statistics suck. But paper is not what goes into the shelters
and sees the eyes of these animals. Each one begging you,
eye to eye, for its life.

I did not even see Penny, except out of the corner of my eye
when I was at the same vet where a few techs and rescuers
discussed for a week or more how to handle her, how to deal with
her and how to raise money to save her.

Frankly, I was sick of hearing them toss ideas back and forth.
So I said I will take her. For Christs sake, I'll take her and
deal with it. So I sent out an email. And asked for help.

Help with Vet names and numbers of who can fix her shattered limps.
I got estimates from 6000-3000. I got info about pins and plates
and NONE of it looked good.

I met with a vet showed them the xrays and he offered a "Good Samartian" discount. Then she was transported to that vet and the surgeries began. That was April.

She is now ready for a forever home, but she is a harder to place
animal. Because of her breed. Because of her age. Because of her
current disposition. (I am not so certain she plays well with others).

I still have a HUGE balance at the vet. But also received a HUGE
amount of donations to pay off that balance.

Here is what she looks like now.


Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Defination of Adoption vs Rescuer

One of many more things. Your defination of adopt and rescue is wrong.

Jon Katz, to rescue is to do what animal rescuers do. We pull animals from the shelters or pick them up off the streets, we spay or neuter them, give them vaccinations, and give them shelter, rescuers do this with the intention of adopting the animal to a forever home, as opposed to the foster home.

To adopt is to do what forever homes do, someone in search of a companion pet is looking to adopt. So it is the lay person, as well as yourself who has misunderstood the terminology. The public unless they pick up a stray or adopt out from the shelter with the intention of finding a perminant home for the animal and just foster it until they do will and could only adopt.

Dear Jon

Dear Dear Jon:

You are going to get email by which you might have never seen before.

Your article http://slate.msn.com/id/2083699#ContinueArticle while it has many, many good points, it also is severely flawed in that one must be linking animal rescuers to those pained who have been injured and now must "Fix" the present because they cannot fix the past. You present it as if they are the only ones who do this.

Are our firefighters this same breed? And Police? And Shrinks –oops, I mean the psychological community? In EVERY job description you can pull out the psychological aspects of WHY someone is drawn to that arena. Rescuers are no different. Even animal rescuers. But I think most see it for the lowest common denominator. We brought these animals into our world. They are defenseless against the shelter system, against our whim (including training or not) and it is up to us to treat them properly.

To paraphrase Gandhi, “A society is judged on how it treats its animals.” We are failing miserably right now. We are SLOWLY turning things around.

Even yours dear Jon? I wonder, how did you react when that dog knocked you over and "tussled" with your dogs. Did you laugh it off, Did you scream at the man? How did you handle it? And this article, not even coming close to examining the whole issue, rather the part of the issue you want to highlight, a bit sensationalizing. Where is the disclaimer paragraph saying, not ALL rescuers are like this. But generalizing the group as a whole gaggle of whackos, who HAVE to help, rather than point out the truth. That in this gaggle we too have our whackos, just as you writers and columnists and news people have yours, the New York Times has Jayson Blair, and Fox has Bill O'Reilly.

What makes you tick? The need for an audience? Didn’t your mommy pay enough attention to you as a child? Did she love you too much and talked you into believing that you can do (or say) no wrong, that you can speak without all the facts, that you only need to highlight the part of the truth that you want to highlight without mentioning the other valid areas of the argument? You seem to have the need to speak your mind and voice your opinion, how lucky you have a forum.

I also noticed you did not mention anything about the sick puppy mills, that allow sick caged animals to be bred and in bred and bred again for financial gain. Caged with broken legs and live in their feces. And then when no longer useful, left to starve to death.

Right, we rescuers are all misfits who come from abused childhoods who need to rescue the world around us in an attempt to gain some control, but those people who breed and those ignorant and non caring people who BUY, PURCHASE an animal from a pet store where the paperwork no DOUBT says MISSOURI the state with the largest puppy millers. The animals, which almost inevitably end up with so many skins disorders and health problems the costs, raise the yearly salary of veterinarians everywhere.

Yes, some, or even a LOT of rescuer "make excuses" for their misbehaved animals. I do too. Generally rescuers are broke because we pay for the adoption fee of shelter animals before they are "euthanized" And yes, some bail out the "hard to place" "unadoptable" animals. Yes, the "system" needs to have a triage approach. But when you bail an animal who is HIGHLY ADOPTABLE, a fluffy little puppy or little Benji type dog (shocker both Benji's were found at shelters) you realize we are killing at alarming numbers, making our Best Friends, disposable.

But instead of mentioning this sickness that humans have of disposable pets where people discard PETS who lived with them for years at a local shelter to save a few \bucks on a sick/aged animal who should be euthanized at a vet or at home, to have them euthanized by the shelter. This love of their family is also dropped off when they have to move. This makes them disposable, like pet rocks.

What have you done to make this world a better place? Have you ever helped anyone or anything in need? Or have you only helped yourself? Do you volunteer for anything? Have you donated profits from a book to help others? What have you done? Are you a part of the solution or part of the problem? Or do you feel your role is solely to “give voice” Or “highlight” issues, or rather parts of issues? To write about an issue to tell the public about the ills of society and begin discussion, yes, has its validity but then it is only valid if you research all the aspects of the story. But in the world today to just write to sensationalize is irresponsible. To write a partial truth is even more of a disgrace to the art of being a journalist, editorialist.

What have you done? Where and when have you used your talent to serve the public? Where and when have you used your time to serve someone or something other than yourself? When have you helped an issue move closer to the solution?

Is your purpose in the world this? To write an irresponsible article for its sensationalism so that you get this kind of response? A response that will let people speak, but we all know that your words hold much more merit and with resound more then mine. So in the end, your half-truths remain indelible while mine will remain possibly forever in a blog.

You are clearly a mistreated dog that is in need of rescue. Good luck with that.

Judy Crozier
Filmmaker
www.freetoagoodhomemovie.com
freetoagoodhome@aol.com

Saturday, June 11, 2005

frustration of fire

So, today I was writing an email... and picked up my dictionary to spell a couple of words... then realized how I felt picking up the dictionary... the edges are smoke smudged like the rest of my books that were in the fire... december 8th 2001 an electrical fire took my home and killed all but one of my pets.

One dog was pulled out alive but... and I have been keeping my tongue on this because of politics... VCA animal hospital KILLED her... ALLOWED her to die... WHY? because some paper was not signed... even tho they had an OPEN credit card and permission to use it... I was there and I said let me sign whatever I need to... they said she was getting better "might be ready to go home in a day or two" and then i saw from the record they WITHHELD meds on TWO occassions... not sure why.... one girl called and said some form was not signed and they were withholding medication... I screamed and said if you fucking withhold anything from my dog that she needs i will sue you and your entire family... and everyone who works there... but of course i have not yet... did not have the 150 it would cost to get the specific and one and only vet who will read her records and determine if there was negligence in her case... i scrape by every month...

which brings me back to the dictionary... why i still have a smoked book... because i lost about 60,000 worth of stuff... everything i owned... clothes... and books and computers... and i only got 10,000 of insurance... because the insurance company told me that they could not increase the insurance... another neglectful act as they neglected to tell me that they could have increased my insurance if their underwriters were told to check it out and look at it...

when i see a book like my dictionary... or when i put my clothes on everyday that i recognize as some of the donation clothes that were given to me... i am thrown into all those crappy memories... everytime i pass a VCA hospital i feel like crying...

when i was editing the film and driving home every night at 2 or 3 AM.... (and a few times I fell asleep at red lights) I would drive past this one HUGE VCA hospital i hate them i hate them i hate them...they suck... they only care about the bottom dollar... they suck they suck they suck... when i would pass them after editing I could never get past that sign without breaking into tears... of course editing sucks because my animals are in the film... so just coming from seeing them alive... and then driving pass VCA, and being sleep deprived... it SUCKED....

I am not certain if VCA was our corporate sponsor to help me finish the film if I would accept the money... i dont know... if i sued them... it would be showing neglect on their part... I could ask for a letter of apology... make them promise to provide vet care for other fire victims... they knew i had lost my other pets... they should have gone above and beyond... that is just the thing to do for one human suffering with such a loss... not withhold medication because of a fucking paper that was not signed... they wanted me to drive some two hours from where i was staying... a day or two after the fire to come sign a paper... they could not fax it and let me fax it back it had to be an original signature... how FUCKED UP IS THAT????? but they wanted a person whose face was swollen from non stop tears... who could NOT stop crying... to get into a car and get on the highway and drive for two hours...

the animal shelter showed me more humanity than that when they agreed to transport my dead animals to them so they could be cremated... my FIVE animals...

sneakers
monster (puff monster)
lilly munster
thelma-louise (cat)
and Bambi (the one VCA killed)

Their pics Here

I have other pics I have to put up there...

Anyway... it sucks to have all this smoke smudged shit around...

Monday, June 06, 2005

Status Quo

I haven't blogged in a while because I was discouraged that no one replied, so I must be doing something wrong. No doubt. I webringed and it brought traffic but no one said anything... Plus I have been busy. Started working for Sherri, of Sparky and the Gang fame, who inspired my movie, it's a small small world. Her business, GolddiggersInc.com her business makes court jester collars for pets. The whole deal of paying rent is ALWAYS a distraction from making the film. Just one reason it is taking so long. But I am working on a partnership of sorts with Julie Lofton, who made the doc film, Best Friend Forgotten, which is FABULOUS!
The hope is that with fiscal sponsorship of Julie's Give Voice to Animals that I will be able to find the FINAL FINISHING FUNDS for my film. It is dragging on SOOOOO long. It is so frustrating. Feeling a bit like a failure because it is STILL not finished. Two steps forward and TWELVE back.

But like I have said, distractions. Distractions called Joey, my cat who died a few weeks ago of cancer. He was a recent rescue cat, but unlike normal cats that I rescue I adopt out or foster out quickly because my cat Shane (the one who survived the fire by jumping from a window) Shane HATES other cats. She tolerates all the foster dogs I bring through here. And lately I have had like...7 I think. A three legged ChiChi, named Little Running Man. And who else did I bring home, I can't even remember. But I have also been dealing with Penny the Pinned Pit Puppy. She has pins. She desperately needs a forever home or a foster home. But as you can see, she is special. She is MUCH better now, and the pins are soon to be removed. But I raised about 1500 for her surgeries (Yep PLURAL).

And something good I did. Margo the wonder older woman who feeds ferals in North Hollywood, she has been doing it for like 12 years by herself basically and not knowing about the rescue world out there because it is basically out there and connected via the internet which Margo is not on. But I introduced her to a couple of other feral cat rescuers to help her feed her brood so she can have a night off now and then. And help her resource the stray cats she also rescues from time to time. It was a good thing. A good deed I did. Finally. Proud of it. It was successful.

I guess my blogging slowed because I did not want to complain in my blog, that's annoying. But I was feeling discouraged and felt the need to whine so instead I shut the hell up and did not say anything.

Oh, and my EVIL landlord lady recently tore out the strubbs in front of my window and the two wind swept trees which had been here since the beginning of time so she could possibly put in a parking space and charge for it, so for like 2hundred bucks she ripped those plants and now my windows are exposed to the walkway, where I once had privacy I now have none. Why are people greedy and evil??? WHY??? WHY??? It is so grotesque...

Oh, and we (FGH) are about to have an article in Animal Wellness Magazine about me as a rescuer and filmmaker. How one led to the other. Yippee. Stay tuned. It should be out in about a month. Or two. Or something.