Tag: dog

Taking Bite Out of Canine Confrontations

Humans have been living with dogs for some 12,000 years, using them for hunting, protection, and friendship. Yet as both human and dog populations have grown, so too have the problems between the species. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King has discovered that with warmer temperatures, the furless and the furry often find themselves nose to snout in public places:

Transcript

Humans have been living with dogs for some 12,000 years, using them for hunting, protection,
and friendship. Yet as both human and dog populations have grown, so too have the problems
between the species. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, has discovered
that with warmer temperatures, the furless and the furry often find themselves nose to snout in
public places:


Fifty-three million dogs live in the United States – more per capita than in any other country in
the world. One out of every three households here includes a canine companion.


Despite the fact that they drink out of toilets and roll in a wide range of things unspeakable, we let
them sit on our sofas, give us big slobbery kisses and ride in the front seats of our cars.


We like to think of our dogs as our better halves. And sometimes they are, with their wagging
bodies and their penchant for forgiveness. And because they forgive us our trespasses, we’re
inclined to do the same for them.


“Oh, don’t you worry,” said a gray-haired lady in the park recently. “My Rover wouldn’t hurt a
flea!” Meanwhile, her dog snarled at my left thigh. Eventually Rover grew bored of tormenting
me and I jogged (ever-so-gingerly) into the sunset unharmed.


But each year some four and a half million other Americans aren’t so lucky; that’s how many dog
bites are estimated annually in the U.S, according to canine aggression experts. Nearly 335,000
victims are admitted to emergency rooms each year. The insurance industry estimates more than
a billion dollars in dog-related liability claims annually.


Despite all the chew toys and rawhides we shower on them, dogs bite us. Not because they’re
bad, but because they’re dogs. They don’t know any of the good swear words. They can’t pound
their fists on the kitchen table, or throw plates when they’re really mad; instead, they have sharp
teeth.


We should love our dogs. But loving them doesn’t mean expecting them to be human; it means
acknowledging that they’re not.


As the weather warms up so, too, does the likelihood that humans and dogs will “mix it up” out
on sunny sidewalks and in public parks. That means those of us with dogs have some added
responsibilities.


Yes, yes… we know… Fido is a perfect dear, wouldn’t harm an ant. Just the same, please do us
all a favor and keep him on a leash.


(Bark!) Hey, ( Bark! Bark! Bark!) get back here!


Host tag: Julia King lives with a man, a kid, and a dog in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by
way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Midwestern Refuge Aids Wolf Reintroduction


A Midwestern sanctuary for wolves is helping re-introduce the
Mexican Grey Wolf. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports… worldwide the animal’s numbers had dwindled down to five:

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Trapping Laws Come Under Fire

Trapping is still a popular past time in the northern half of the
country. Mostly trappers are looking for beavers, raccoons and
muskrats.
But every year, a small number of household pets are caught as well.
As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, one pet
owner
is fighting to change that:

Transcript

Trapping is still a popular pastime in the northern half of the country. Mostly, trappers are

looking for beavers, raccoons, and muskrats. But every year, a small number fo household pets are

caught as well. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, one pet owner is

fighting to change that.


Valentine was Meg Massaro’s best friend. She was a black and brown boxer. And, at one time, a

mangy stray. Massaro found her on the side of the road and nursed her back to health. The two

became inseperable. Then, on a cold January morning, they went for a run on a local bike path.


“So I let her off the leash. She bounded happily in front of me for about thirty seconds. The next

thing I know I heard her screaming and I jumped in after her and she was sailing through the air

with a bucket over her head. I took the bucket off her head and there was a trap and I said to my

husband, ‘What is it?’ She kept looking at me, pleadingly her eyes were just getting bigger and

bigger. She couldn’t breathe. And animal control with the help of police were finally able to get

it off. It was about an hour and a half that she was in the trap. Of course, by that time, she was

long gone. It was gruesome, very grisly.”


The trap was about fifty feet from this bike path just outside of Albany, New York. Massaro

remembers thinking this had to be illegal. It’s an area with playgrounds and picnic benches. So,

she called New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, and found out the trap was legally

set.


“They were really like, ‘Well what do you want us to do, lady?’ And I said, ‘I want you to go out

and see if there are any more traps and if there are, I want you to remove them.’ And the guy

said, ‘We wouldn’t be able to do that.’ So I just said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and hung up the and

I thought, ‘This is war.'”


Massaro started calling newspapers. She circulated a petition with thousands of names. And she

began lobbying – full time – to get traps out of residential areas.


“I can’t imagine that anyone wants traps near their home, near where their kids play, near where

their dogs are walking; it doesn’t make any sense to allow that.”


Albany County legislator Paulette Barletti talked to Massaro over the phone after the incident.

But she wasn’t sure it was an issue she wanted to adopt. Then, she saw photographs the police took

after Valentine’s death.


“I was actually horrified. And the first thing that came to my mind was, good grief, this could be

a child.”


Barletti introduced legislation to ban trapping on state or private land. That’s because New York,

like most states, regulates trapping on the state level. Traps can be set on most state land and

on private land with permission of the landowner.


Gordon Batcheller runs New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation’s trapping program. He

says trappers often serve as their eyes and ears in the field.


“Trapping is actually very hard, it’s hard work and it takes a lot of skills. Studies have shown

that trappers, of all outdoor users, have the highest level of all wildlife biology. They’re

extremely knowledgeable about animals. They can tell us what’s going on out there and we really

value what they tell us because they’re knowledgeable and they see things.”


Batcheller says the majority of trappers are extremely careful about where they set their traps.

And there aren’t too many pets being caught. but Batcheller says it’s clear that in those cases,

the trapper made a mistake.


“In the incidents that we’ve evaluated, the traps simply should not have been set where they were

set. Even though it was legal, poor judgement was used in those instances and experienced trappers

that look at these cases, they shake their heads and say why did they do that.”


Now, thanks in part to Meg Massaro’s campaign, Batcheller is trying to find a compromise. He’s

come up with new recommendations. They’d require trappers to move traps off the ground and onto

stands and trees where dogs can’t reach them. And, he’s proposing tougher restrictions near roads

and bike paths. Batcheller hopes the recommendations will be in place by next fall. But Meg

Massaro says it’s not enough. She’s lobbying for local control so counties can make their own

decisions about trapping. And she wants traps banned from recreational areas. But mostly, she

wants to make sure that this never happens to someone’s dog again.


“When I drover her home that first time, tears were running down my cheks that day because I

couldn’t believe how abused this dog had been. And i promised, I said it out loud to her, no one

will ever hurt you again. And I lied. I didn’t mean to, but i lied and i can’t live with that. I

have to do something to compensate for that. She deserved better, and other people and their pets

deserve better.”


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly in Albany, New York.

Wolf Killed by Government Order

A timber wolf has been shot by a federal officer in Wisconsin. For the
past twenty-five years the wolf has been listed on the federal
endangered species list. But now the wolf’s status is being changed from
endangered to threatened making it easier to use lethal force on problem
wolves. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nick Van Der Puy has more:

Skijoring – The Newest Winter Sport

It’s not news that winters in the Great Lakes region tend to be long. The result is a wide variety of outdoor activities like sledding, snowmobiling and skiing. But there’s another sport slowly making itself more visible. It’s called skijoring. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Witter has more: