by Jason on January 23, 2009
If you read this blog even occasionally, you probably know that I am a big animal lover. My wife and I have four pugs and two cats, three of the six animals were rescued. I do understand that some of you out there aren’t “animal people” and I have no problem with that. I’d much rather people that don’t care for animals allow others to adopt them. That is a much better scenario than this.
A woman who marketed “gothic kittens” with ear, neck and tail piercings over the Internet has been charged with animal cruelty and conspiracy.
Dog groomer Holly Crawford, 34, was charged Tuesday by humane officers. Her home outside Wilkes-Barre was raided Dec. 17 after the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Luzerne County received a tip from PETA that she was marketing the animals online for hundreds of dollars.
Crawford has said she will plead innocent.
Crawford told The Associated Press on Thursday that she didn’t see any difference between piercing a cat and piercing a human. She said she used sterile needles and surgical soap and that she checked the kittens several times a day to make sure they were healing properly.
I am kind of speechless and that is rare for me. I won’t address this specific person because she is innocent until proven guilty, but in general I believe that animal cruelty laws should be much tougher than they are presently.
I guess that sometimes the judgement doled out by the public can be worse than the actual laws themselves.
Crawford said her dog-grooming business, Pawside Parlor, has plummeted since the raid and that she has received dozens of nasty phone calls.
by Jason on December 15, 2008
This is a feel good kind of story which I think is a good thing to read when we turn on the news and all we hear is how the world is going to hell.
Coordinated through a local charity group called W.A.R.M., our three local high schools raised approximately $48,000 to buy Chrismtas presents for needy children in our area. These students, in only three schools, were able to raise that much money in a time when people are being laid off and the economy is very shaky.
As a someone who coordinated this effort in my high schools, I’d like to say how proud I am of the students in all three schools
by Jason on December 10, 2008
by Jason on December 4, 2008
This artice from the dispatch really threw me for a loop. It talks about an Ohio judge that is using treatment as part of the punishment for compulsive hoarders to get them mental health help.
Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Russell Mock in Cincinnati began his program in October with the help of Centerpoint Health, a nonprofit behavioral health care agency. Mock makes the mental health treatment a condition of probation for extreme hoarders who repeatedly come before his court.
Mock says he doesn’t want to put those people in jail, but he says the threat of jail time often persuades severe hoarders to get the help they need.
According to Wikipedia:
Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding) is the acquisition of, and failure to use or discard, such a large number of seemingly useless possessions that it causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping.
I will plead ignorance to the problems caused by this mental disorder, at least in regards to how this problem leads to court action. Can anyone out there help me understand why?