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UK Tip-Toes Toward Better Animal Abuse Legislation

None of us will ever forget the tragic news of the arson attack and fire at the Manchester Dogs Home on the evening of Thursday 11th September 2014. This senseless act of cruelty, and the fear and suffering those poor dogs must have gone through, is difficult to comprehend. Yet the tragedy did strike a chord in the Nation’s hearts. Within 24 hours over £1 million pounds was raised and the final figure was over £1.5 million, all through public donations.

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UK Still Failing in Humane Slaughter

In 2015, a story emerged that shocked this, ‘our nation of animal lovers’. Video clips of appalling abuse of animals waiting in line to be slaughtered at an abattoir found their way into the public domain via social media and went viral (Mirror, 2015). But these stories are not new. The same thing happened 5 years earlier in 2010 (Guardian, 2010). After the 2010 incident, the government called around 370 UK slaughterhouses to voluntarily install surveillance cameras (CCTV) to “…help enforce legislation against cruelty to animals…“.

 

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What Does the Term ‘Animal Suffering’ Mean to You?

This may seem a very obvious question, but actually it is not. This article explores some of the complexities of objectively defining what ‘animal suffering’ is. In this article, for conciseness, the term ‘human’ is used to identify human animals and the term ‘animal’ is used to identify non-human animals. In addition, the terms ‘she’ and ‘he’ are used, rather than ‘it’, because companion animals have names and therefore a gender.

 

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Shock Collars: What Manufacturers Don’t Want You to Know

We make no apologies for this article being one-sided – that is – against the use of e-collars for training dogs. Furthermore, we challenge anyone who feels that the information presented here is overly bias against e-collars to produce equally robust research supporting the benefits of these devices in everyday dog training.

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Vaccination: a New Perspective on an Old Argument

Visit any online forum dedicated to cats and dogs and it won’t be long before some member posts a comment about vaccination. It is a topic that never fails to open up passionate – and often heated – debate between those that ‘do’ and those that ‘do not’. Well, this article is not about the pros and cons of vaccination per se.

Indian Army vet vaccinates family dog against rabies, Wikimedia Commons

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Critical Periods (Sensitive Periods) in Puppies – Revisited

2015 could be declared an import year for animals on several different fronts. One reason might be that in April, a New York judge made legal history by declaring that 2 chimpanzees were to be recognised as ‘Legal Persons’ – so-called habeas corpus (Bekoff, 2015).

PHOTO: courtesy of Caitlin Hume, Springer Rescue for Scotland. A charity that successfully rehomes over 150 Spaniels every year. http://www.springerrescuescotland.org

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Life Jackets for Pets – how safe are they?

An estimated 5,000 dogs drown in garden swimming pools in the USA every year (Petplace, 2014) and many others in rivers, lakes and the sea. This article highlights the importance for anyone using canine life jackets to understand how these jackets work and what their strengths and weaknesses are in order to choose the right device for their dog’s breed and lifestyle.

How safe are life jackets for dogs

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