Petition in support of pet-friendly evacuation bill and more media coverage

"Now," the Friday night show on PBS, has a web page on the topic of the September 23 segment, "No Dogs Allowed: Pets in Crisis Areas" at http://www.pbs.org/now/society/petsandcrisis.html. That webpage links to message boards on which you might like to post. Also, the show welcomes feedback at http://www.pbs.org/now/feedback.html . It is always a good idea to send positive feedback for animal friendly coverage as positive feedback encourages similar coverage in the future.

The "Now" segment was strong. I was, however, troubled by the teaser for it, at the top of the show. The voiceover asked if leaving animals behind posed a risk to humans, but the clip chosen from the segment (for balance, I assume) was a line from Major Ed Bush of the Louisiana National Guard: "If I have to choose, for a spot on my boat, between a human being and the family dog, I am going to choose a human being every time." His words seem reasonable enough to make the animal advocacy position seem unreasonable, but he was setting up what in the legal field is known as a strawman -- misrepresenting the other side's argument such that it is easy to knock down. Those who stayed tuned for the animal segment heard a woman describing her husband's tears after being forced to leave their granddaughter's tiny poodle behind, a dog he had offered to put in his shirt or his pocket.

Activist Dr Pia Salk sent me similar stories after her return from New Orleans. For example:
"Jack was quietly hidden in a bag and an officer forced Glenn to open the bag and place Jack on the bridge if he wished to be rescued himself. Glenn pleaded but the officer wouldn't hear it and Glenn relinquished Jack instructing him to go home and wait for him. Glenn recounted how so many people were forced to do the same with little animals that could easily have been carried to safety. Ironically Glenn was permitted to take the very same bag with him that Jack had been hidden in - so the issue of not having the room for these animals was ridiculous."

Good news: I noted, in my last Katrina related alert, a bill introduced that would require evacuation plans to include pets. There is a petition you can sign in support of the bill. As I send this out it has 13,000 signatures -- they are shooting for 100,000. Please go to http://go.care2.com/e/gfO/bR/oco4 and sign.


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)