http://www.animalperson.net/animal_person/2007/08/the-animal-pe-2.html
Animal Person
Mary Martin, Ph.D., deconstructs the language, ethics and economics of our relationship with nonhuman animals.
August 28, 2007
At various points in the Michael Vick saga, I've heard that the HSUS had the dogs and the ASPCA had the dogs. I even heard that the dogs would be euthanized within 48 hours. That was last week. And as I wrote about a couple of days ago, Wayne Pacelle was on NPR talking about the options for the dogs, assessment and rehabilitation basically being expensive and improbable.
Meanwhile, the ASPCA now has the dogs and is assessing them and won't say more and it's all very double secret, hush-hush. I think we should flood the ASPCA with e-mails regarding that Animal Planet series with Cesar Millan I had conjured up. I'm sure they are documenting the assessment of the dogs meticulously (or at least I would hope so), but I don't know if they're filming it in any way.
So here's the deal, we e-mail, comment, call and suggest:
* Filming the assessments
* Enlisting the help of Cesar Millan for the rehabilitation (whether you like him or not)
* Making a season-long Animal Planet series out of the process
* Highlighting dogfighting
* Addressing breed specific legislation
* Addressing dogs that are considered pit bulls and how many are in shelters and what they're like when they haven't been trained to fight
* A percentage of the advertising dollars would go as a donation to the ASPCA (that's why they'd do it--they need to get something out of it and I don't know if publicity is enough. I know lots of people don't like the ASPCA, particularly because of their failure to help carriage horses, but I've got to make this idea workable for them, and a large donation seems like the way to do it).
If you're a member of the media, you can contact Shonali Burke, Vice President of Media and Communications at shonalib@aspca.org or 212-876-7700, ext. 4565. Everyone else, I went through the dozens of ways to contact the ASPCA and I think that leaving a comment on their blog is a fine idea. If you've got a way to make this hypothetical TV series more appealing, let them know. And let me know.
As far as I know, the dogs aren't dead yet, so maybe we can save them.
UPDATE: I left a rather lengthy comment on the ASPCA blog, pending approval, introducing this idea. If it gets approved, all you have to do is add your own message of support, fill in any details I neglected to mention, and add some of your own.
Thanks!