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Dorothee

Dorothee

Germany

July 29, 2011

Dancing Bears

Especially in the East of Europe you still find bears who got trained to "dance". When they are still cubs somebody puts them on a hot metal and plays a melody. The young bear raises its paws in order to escape the heat. When the bear is fully grown he still thinks that whenever this melody plays a heated metal could be put under its paws again. Thus the predator raises its paws to avoid this heat - and starts dancing.

In addition these animals usually are sick, because they aren't fed properly, already when they are cubs somebody cuts of their claws - which causes them to bleed heavily - and their teeth, plus they get a ring plugged through their noses. The wounds of this procedure often ignite, meaning that their owners have them under control, because just pulling the string this ring is tied to, really causes a lot of pain for this animal.

 

Bull Fighting / Cock Fighting    

A lot of people who dislike these animal fightings still don't have the courage to say anything against it, because they are afraid that somebody may call them racist. After all this is part of these countries' culture...Come on! Sacrificing human beings also used to be part of many cultures - Aztecs, Maya, Inka... - and still everybody would be upset if a group of these people's descendants killed someone. I know this comparison is rather extreme, but I just needed it to explain myself.

If you really want to see an animal fighting, you have many alternatives to that: You can watch a documentation showing impressive fighting scenes between wild animals. Today's Inka still have a spectacle in which a condor gets tained to sit on a bull till the cattle gets exhausted. In the end the condor gets set free again and the bull is allowed to return to its herd. The "Courses Camarguaises" and the "Course Landaise" are bull fightings practiced in France. There is nothing violent about it and this is rather meant as a game. In the end the bull is allowed to return to its herd living half - wildly in the Camargue.

 

Racing horses

      Okay! I admit it! It looks really impressive when these animals gallop through the race course, their hooves dispersing dust, their tails like flaggs in the wind...However you can't enjoy this for too long. Most of these raising horses die at an age of less than 10 years. Firstly most of them are way too young when they get separated from the mare to start training, meaning that this may cause some deformation when they are fully grown. Secondly the fact that they usually are locked away in their boxes without any companion and only get let out for their training and for races causes some abnormal behavior. It just is too much stress for these herd animals - that in the wild only run short distances when they have to escape something - when they suddenly are brought out of their box into a racing area where it is very noisy and where they suddenly meet many unknown horses. Even worse! In many countries a jockey is allowed to really hit his horse multiple times before and during a race in order to make it run faster. Another extreme contrast is the race itself: These animals have to run with such a quickness that doesn't fit their nature for several minutes only to stay in the box for most of the rest of the week. Of course this causes serious heart problems!

Under these circumstances the life expectency of only 7 years isn't too surprising, is it?

 

Breeding

Since the ninetees keeping exotic animals as a pet has become very popular. That goes so far that meanwhile teenagers who keep "ordinary" animals like hamsters or rabbits as pets are considered as boring by their classmates. What these teenagers - but as it seems a lot of adult people as well - don't know is that by encouraging this trend they make more and more animals suffer...

I'm not talking about the many parrots who spend most of their life all alone in a cage although they firstly are herd animals and secondly need to fly or else they will get problems with their muscles. Nor am I talking about a relative of mine who once kept a chameleon although he neither had the money nor the time to offer this creature a species - appropriate life. When he realized that the way he treated his  pet wasn't correct it already was too late and the animal was sick. Then he finally gave it away to someone who bought it from him and who had enough money and time to keep a reptile like that...Anyway I'm getting off the subject: I'm not talking about things like these, but about the fact that by breeding wild animals in captivity and hold them as if they were pets, we make diseases amongst these specimens spread that didn't even exist before. For example a person I know had an atelerix that one day died. Of course she knew about some strange symptoms it showed when it was still alive, but she never considered them as something serious. It wasn't until after this animal's death that she heard about the unhealable sickness WHS that practically doesn't exist in the wild and that is a genetic disease her pet obviously inherited from its parents. After comparing the symptoms she noticed and the ones of which she knew that they are typical for WHS - sick animals, she understood what happened to this hedgehog.

However even if it wasn't for this sickness, holding them in a cage still would be cruel. Everyone who saw an atelerix running will realize that they aren't ment to be kept in small spaces.

 

Animal Experiments

Although meanwhile the media doesn't criticize them as often as they used to do, they still continue. For example I just watched a report about a few shimpanzees that got freed from a laboratory. These animals were traumatized, of course in bad conditions and at first had to learn the things every normal shimpanzee knows; like climbing or cleaning themselves. Meanwhile they live in the enclosure of a pet sanctuary.

Still it meanwhile is commonly known that not all of these results can be transfered from animal to man. Okay! With some of these hominides it works, but they use rabbits to test some medicine, although not in every case the effect is the same as if they had tested it on a human body due to physical differences.

But even in the cases in which the results can be transfered to human beings: Meanwhile our technology is so far developed that we don't always depend on these experiments. We have computers that can analyse a certain new medicine, we can make virtual copies of these experiments etc. In short the only advantage of experiments with animals is that there are no technical mistakes, while when you use technology there still is a minimal chance that a technical error could happen. Minimal as I say!

 

Gassing

There are many countries in which straying cats and dogs get captured and put to death by gas to avoid that they could attack human beings or spread maladies. The gassing itself may not be the worst for these animals, because they just breathe it in, loose consciousness and die. However it must be horrible for them to be caught and then being brought into this horrible place where they only can guess what happens to them. The worst thing about this is that not all of these strays are ill or too wild for finding a family. For example months ago a lady from a German aid organisation ( I already forgot what exactly this organisation was doing, but if I remember correctly it partly can be compared to a dog rescue. ) for these dogs gave an interview in which she claimed that neverminding her protests they put some straying dogs to death, although they were healthy and not aggressive towards human beings. Another article I read about dealt with a dog that survived an unusual long time in this chamber. It was long enough for some people to make the responsible men let this animal get out. This case became very famous and got spread through the media. Meanwhile many people want this cute little doggy as a pet!

I understand that they want to avoid any danger caused by wild animals living close to men, but is this really the best solution? Wouldn't it make more sense to pay people for finding and catching these dogs as puppies or - if they got abandoned by their former owner - as animals that still are used to human - instead of paying some men for killing them - and then bring them to pet asylums where people work who earn their money this way; by caring for animals that are brought there? i don't know how many countries use the method of gassing these dogs, but in some sources I read names like Japan, Italy and many countries lying in the East of Europe appeared. I'm sure there also are some I missed in this report of mine!

 

Pigeon-Feeding

I know...When thinking about pigeon-feeding most people think about elder ladies who just feel lonely and at least want some birds as company. Some may also think about adorable little children who just love animals. The truth is that no matter how harmless the thoughts of these people are, they torture pigeons. The city-life - lots of smoke, loud noises etc. - affects these birds' lifes. In the city most pigeons don't last for more than three years which is only 25% of the age they can reach in the wild. In the city there is a lot of waste that can endanger these animals. For example I once saw a street-pigeon with only one intact foot. It seemed to me that the other foot got torn of when he - it was a male - entangled himself in a net or wire and tried to get free. Also not all people watch what they feed to these birds. Some of the bread street-pigeons eat either is too old to be eaten or - like brezel for example - contains chemicals that can't harm us, but are dangerous for little birds. Last but not least many people consider them as pest that spreads deseases and thus they try to kill them. Some cities even pay hunters to shoot these beautiful, social and rather smart birds - not to mention the people who kill pigeons unintentionally, like when there was a little mass-panic in Stuttgart some years ago and some people accidentally trampled down a rather young pigeon.

These pigeons descent from a specimen of wild pigeon and that's why many animal-aid-organisations say that if we stop feeding pigeons, most of them shall get back into the wild where they can still find enough food to feed themselves and grow old.

 

Clipping a Flying Bird's Wings (Information and Picture Were Takrn From Wiki)

People say that peasants have been clipping the wings of their chicken, ducks and geese for almost 2000 years now and in all these years there never were any remarkable problems like abnormal behavior or reproduction-problems. What these people don't realize is that wild chicken only fly to escape a predator or to sleep on a high branch where they would be save during night. Wild ducks rather jump into the water when they feel threatened by another creature. Most breeds of domestic geese that are known today are almost flightless anyway, because they've grown much heavier than their ancestors while their wings are shorter. Flying birds however need their wings, because their instinct tells them to fly. When they clean their feathers especially smart birds - like parrots - could get confused when they see their kind of deformed feathers which leads to anormal behavior.

Worst of all: Most birds also use their feathers for balance when they climb around on branches. There already were some accidents with domestic birds that fell down and got wounded seriously, because their wings weren't really useful when they tried to climb around in their cage.

Thus I recommend you: Rather than clipping your pet's wings to avoid that it could fly away, you should just make sure that all windows /doors are closed when you let it out of its cage. There may have been some accidents with flying birds that were unable to see a window, but they could have been avoided if the owner of these windows had hung some curtains in front of them. Decorating your windows actually will do, too. Under normal circumstances - i.e. if you don't give your pet a reason to panic - a healthy bird with "normal" wings also should be able to avoid walls, doors and any furniture that could hurt your feathered friend.

I'm glad to live in a country where it's actually illegal and punishable to clip a bird's wings.

More entries: If you don't like historical subjects, dear Sir or dear Madam, please don't read this! (6), It All Started With My Israeli Friend Telling Me That He Likes Dogs and Ended With Me Posting This Advertisement For Dogs From German Pet Shelters (1), Advertisement (4), I Know I've Just Been Posting This Message Over and Over Again, Anytime I Found a Forum or a Photo That Had Something To Do With This, But... (28), Can't Wait To See You...In a Few Months / Serously! I Can't Accept Any Further Friend Requests!!! (6), Animals We Love and Torture (74), Klaus Kordon's "Mit dem Rücken zur Wand", Forced Marriage - A Comparison Between Islamic Countries and Others (17), My Class of Religious Education Had An Interview With "Ritter Sport" (9), A Letter I would Write If I Was More Courageous (1)

View all entries from Announcement >

11:21 AM Jul 15 2018

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

'Mitteldeutsche Zeitung' says that in Halle (Saxony/ Germany) despite the intense heat of the past few days someone decided to abandon a litter of kittens by putting them between two bins. Luckily a gentleman heard the screams of the hungry, dehydrated and overheated kittens, initially mistook them for human crying and then brought them to a pet rescue. As just abandoning an animal is illegal in Germany, the police is still trying to find the owner. The cats however are going to be fine and I'm sure there will be a lot of people willing to adopt them.

08:36 AM May 31 2018

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

The German magazine "Dein Spiegel" says that from January 1st, 2019 on it will be illegal in San Francisco to sell or even buy fur coats. However you may still keep the fur coats you already got. Reason is that all around the world 50 millions of animals per year die for fur coats.

02:31 AM Feb 17 2018

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

Oh Joe! Thanks for this historical background. Honestly I must admit I didn't know about this connection between these puppy mills and the Depression Era. Also I think that puppy mills exist in every country as every country also has this sort of people that wants to make MUCH money fast and easy, but doesn't want to work hard enough to earn this much money.

The following example also seems to prove this: In Ammerland (Lower-Saxony/ Germany) someone stole the three pet-kangaroos of a private owner. The thief had the intention of selling these exotic pets for a lot of money.

01:50 PM Jan 14 2018

WobblyJoe

WobblyJoe
United States

That's a "for real" problem in the USA. Back in the days of the Depression, the government encouraged "puppy mills" to provide income for depression-era farmers. Now, puppy mills are a absolute disgrace, but they do exist, just as described. 

12:50 PM Jan 14 2018

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

"Hope For Paws" says that in Los Angeles (California/ USA) someone abandoned a female yellow labrador. As it turned out the dog was used for excessive breeding in order to earn money by selling the puppies. Having an unnaturally high number of puppies in such a short time span weakened her body until she was too weak to have any more puppies. This made her useless for the breeder who just dumped her on the street. The confused and scared animal almost caused an accident running around freely on the street. After catching her "Hope For Paws" found her a new home uncommonly fast.

12:47 PM Jan 14 2018

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

"Hope For Paws" says that in Los Angeles (California/ USA) someone abandoned a female yellow labrador. As it turned out the dog was used for excessive breeding in order to earn money by selling the puppies. Having an unnaturally high number of puppies in such a short time span weakened her body until she was to weak to have any more puppies. This made her useless for the breeder who just dumped her on the street. The confused and scared animal almost caused an accident running around freely on the street. After catching her "Hope For Paws" found her a new home uncommonly fast.

01:03 AM Jan 02 2018

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that somewhere in Israel now a wild hedgehog had to be brought to the vet. The poor animal was overweight and unhealthy due to people in this area often putting leftovers outside for wild animals- like this hedgehog - to eat.

10:57 AM Dec 22 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

The "Tierschutzbund" - Germany's national aid-organisation - says that currently the "Ordnungsbehörden" (regulatory authorities) of Munich and Hamburg deal with 45 cases of presumably false information concerning the use of fur on clothes. In some of these cases the label probably lied as to which animal the fur came from and in others the label denied the use of fur altogether, even though they probably used real fur.

12:15 PM Dec 15 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

This year "Tierschutz Euskirchen" encourages eople not to give away animals as Christmas presents.

Alternative presents suggested by "Tierschutz Euskirchen" are:

>a book about keeping this or that kind of pet,

>things he or she may need if he/ she someday is going to get the pet he/ she wished for,

>a - perhaps self-made - gift coupon for buying the pet in question...someday after the holiday season.

05:34 AM Aug 18 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

Tierschutz Euskirchen” says that this week a feed-lot for chickens caught fire in Paderborn (North-Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). Thus you could say that a simple malfunction of an electric device killed 7.500 chickens and caused a damage worth thousands of dollars. At least nobody got hurt.

10:01 AM Jul 30 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

Even though my family and I take all precautions to avoid this last night an European green woodpecker hit one of our windows, but survived with an injured beak. As I recalled what to do from an article I once read I:

>discouraged my father from trying to get some fluids and food into this bird. Firstly the food he was going to feed to this animal was nothing like what woodpeckers eat and secondly after a collision like this birds usually are under shock and could suffocate instead of swallowing;

>asked my father for a cardboard box and – as he had none – for an empty bird cage and his permission to store the bird in a completely dark room in our house that somehow still gets supplied with fresh air;

>forbade all family members to touch this bird, move the cage or even just open the door to this room as in this situation birds need some dark, quiet place to recover. Any loud noise could have made the bird panic and thus injure itself accidentally. Also touching and moving it or moving the cage around probably would have worsened the little animal's pain;

>called for an expert whom I couldn't reach until the next morning. He examined the woodpecker, told me that despite its injured beak the bird would survive in the wild and then told me to let the bird go...which I of course did.

When I said we take precautions to avoid accidents like this one I meant:

>We've got long white curtains that let in some light, but at the same time make our windows somewhat visible to these birds.

>We've got window-decorations inside and outside.

>We don't provide any food for wild birds near our windows.

>We decorate our house and garden in a way that from a bird's perspective you may not see any reflection of light in our windows. Reflected (sun)light often confuses birds and attracts them.

10:39 AM Jul 21 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that in Rhineland-Palatinate this week the police arrested a gentleman for transporting some pigeons, 20 laying hens and 40 ordinary hens in a way that was not species-appropriate. The cages were way too small and overheated. Nine birds were already dead, killed by heat-stroke.

11:07 AM Jul 07 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

>"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that in Hayerswerda (Saxony/ Germany) the police was called by a worried citizen who had found an abandoned budgie in its cage and who thought that maybe the bird was stolen and that this cage could be a potential danger to people not watching their step.

>"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that in Halle (Saale/Germany) somebody killed a nest of wild ducklings by throwing them off his balcony. As he made no attempt to remove the carcasses somebody found them and called the police. The 50 year-old balcony owner then explained that these birds had "annoyed" him and that a wild duck had laid her eggs on his balcony "just like that". However he failed to explain why he didn’t simply shoo the duck away before her nest was finished or why he didn’t call for an animal rescue to remove the duck family.

12:43 PM Jun 17 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

In Celle (Lower-Saxony /Germany) someone abandoned what once must have been his pet-atelerix in a plastic-bag he threw into a bin. Luckily this weekend a refuse collector noticed the still moving animal in the bag..."Tierschutz Euskirchen" mentioned this in their latest report.

11:36 AM Jun 10 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

>This week "Tierschutz Euskirchen" reported that four cats and one python were abandoned by owners who as it seems underestimated the work this would result in when buying their pets. Unfortunately the box these four cats were trapped in wasn’t found in time and three anmals were already dead.

>"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that this Friday in Münsterland (North-Rhine-Westphalia /Germany) 8.000 turkeys were burned alive and things worth a total of thousands of dollars were destroyed when a technical default caused a fire in their feed-lot. No human beings were hurt.

>"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that in the Uckermark (Brandenburg /Germany) unknown people destroyed the nests of several eagles that are endangered in Germany. It is presumed that some of these nests already contained eggs. They most likely wanted these eagles out of the way to use this area for their own purposes - like building a house, growing crop-fields...something like that. Unfortunately for them even without the eagles around this won’t be possible as this area is still protected. After all it is one of the few still existing places in Germany that are ideal for eagles to live.

12:20 PM Jun 01 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

>In Mannheim (Baden-Wuerttemberg /Germany) people were attacked by crows this week. Some even had to have their wounds treated in a hospital. It is believed that somehow must have tried to "domesticate" these birds, but only ended up making them lose their fear of human beings.

>In Eisenach (Baden-Wuerttemberg /Germany) the fire brigade had to rescue a dog this week as the animal was stuck in a tilted window. The owner never would have thought that a dog would try to climb out of a tilted window and let his pet unguarded in this room. They say that this happens more often with cats.

11:44 AM May 20 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that today (military time) a truck carrying 3.500 chickens to the butcher caused an accident near Bielefeld (North Rhine Westphalia /Germany). No human beings were harmed in the process, but the material damage was immense, the road was blocked for what seemed like forever and all 3.500 chickens died - some during the impact and others had to be put down.

12:57 PM May 18 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

Seeing how many people think that all snails are pests that should be killed by pesticides the German animal-aid organisation "Tierschutz Euskirchen" now published an article about useful snails. It says that many snails actually

>eat the eggs of insects that do harm the plants gardeners grow,

>eat dead and rotting parts of plants only as they are easier to digest,

>eat mushrooms that would be poisonous to a human being (thus a threat especially to very young children),

>are nocturnal and thus even if you think they look disgusting, you will hardly see them.

07:09 AM May 05 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

According to "Tierschutz Euskirchen" a court in Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern /Germany) decided last week that to avoid damage done to their crops farmers should have the right to destroy eggs belonging to Germany’s only wild herd of nandus so as to limit their numbers. Critics say that this decision makes Germans look kind of like hypocrites as at the same time most citizens condemn the killing of dolphins in Japan for the sake of the fishing industry...or the killing of lions and elephants in Africa to keep African farms save.

10:51 AM Apr 01 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

This week the animal-aid organisation "Tierschutz Euskirchen" announced that a bear was confiscated from a German circus due to having been mistreated there. A judge then decided that this bear should spend the rest of its life in a park that houses mistreated parks and offers them more species-appropriate living conditions. "Tierschutz Euskirchen" took this event as a reason to inform public about this park that is unique to Germany: According to their detailed report the park located to Bad Füssing (Bavaria /Germany) was founded in 1993 by the animal-aid organisation "Gewerkschaft für Tiere e.V.". After arriving in the park, the circus bear will be the 15th bear-inhabitant.

Their donor-account is:

 Gnadenhof für Bären

Gewerkschaft für Tiere e.V.

IBAN: DE12 7002 0270 0666 5283 44

BIC: HYVEDEMMXXX.

11:30 AM Jan 07 2017

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

>"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that even on Christmas-Day 10.000 turkeys belonging to a feed-lot in Oldenburg (Lower-Saxony /Germany) got killed just because some birds from this feed-lot came down with the bird-flu.                     

>According to "Tierschutz Euskirchen" another few hundred turkeys - the entire population of a feed-lot from Cloppenburg (Lower-Saxony /Germany) now will have to be euthanized, because some of them had the bird flu.

>"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that in France it was decided that now a high number of pastured ducks in the South of France shall be killed due to the bird flu.

>"Tierschutz Euskirchen" says that the days following Christmas just in Berlin (Brandenburg /Germany) 10 dogs, nine cats and one parrot - all of which were meant to be Christmas-presents - got abandoned. Despite the cold and wet weather most of these animals were simply dropped somewhere on the road where people found them. An extreme case in Brandenburg involved a farmed getting a cow for Christmas even though he couldn't afford any more cows. Now he's searching for someone to buy this cow from him.

02:38 AM Jul 03 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

According to the German news show "Tagesschau" one of the most cruel horse races in the world took place this weekend in Palio di Siena (Italy). During the race you are allowed to hit your horse with an item or your bare hand, to hit a competitive rider with an item or your bare hand and you are allowed to do the same thing onto his horse. Also rules like "You shall not try to throw a rider off his horse!" are widely ignored. Of course in the past there have been a lot of accidents because of this. Riders got injured and horses panicked and hurt themselves, too - and in 50 cases within the past 45 years even got themselves killed.

12:18 AM Apr 26 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

For today, April 26th the Anna-Seghers-Schule (Schule=school) in Berlin announced a benefice run to donate money to an aid-organisation that is against animal-testings. "Ärzte gegen Tierversuche" is not a real animal-aid-organisation. Their motives to speak out against the testing on animals also involve that each year many people die due to bad medicaments. In animal-testings these serums, pills etc. worked out just fine, but as it seems the testing-results were not transferable to human beings.

12:05 AM Apr 19 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

Many people who abandon an animal or even a human being do so hoping that somebody else will find said being and help.

Most people who buy a guinea pig or any other comparable being (hamster, mouse, rat, bunny...) do so, believing that these animals don't need much and are easily satisfied.

The following case in Pinneberg (Schleswig-Holstein) that "Tierschutz Euskirchen" reported today proves you can be wrong on both accounts: Someone abandoned 20 guinea pigs - of which some seem to be related - in boxes he or she dropped somewhere in Pinneberg. When a lady passing by finally noticed that something was wrong and looked into these boxes it was too late...Almost all of the guinea pigs were dead and the rest was in such poor conditions from their ordeal that some of the surviving members of this guinea pig-family are probably going to die later. It is save to presume that someone once had at least one male and a female guinea pig and didn't bother neutering either of them - maybe not even knowing about the fertility of an average guinea pig. As the number of guinea pigs kept increasing taking care of them someday became just too difficult. Thus the owner decided to abandon at least the majority of them.

09:10 AM Apr 14 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

"Tagesschau" says that on the horse race of the Grand National Festival in Liverpool - which took place last weekend - 4 horses died in accidents surrounding the race. Some of which were just unusually old for a horse to be raced!

01:33 AM Mar 16 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

Thus says the animal-aid organisation "Tierschutz Euskirchen" from Germany:

Last week there were two accidents involving a truck transporting animals to the butcher. Lately a lot of accidents like these happened which makes people wonder suspiciously what's wrong with the trucks feeding-lots use or with the drivers they hire. Near Lingen and Brake - both in Lower Saxony - one truck each that was supposed to bring hundreds of turkeys to the butcher just turned over while moving onward on the road. 100 turkeys each died due to the impact and one driver received injuries that required treatment in a hospital.

01:01 AM Mar 11 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

I know people who think that getting a fully grown pet-dog from a shelter or a dog rescue is boring as you don't have to train them anymore, as they aren't as cute as puppies anymore and as you always know that you aren't the first person whom this canine loved. Instead they prefer getting young puppies from a breeder - or worse - from a market, often accepting the cheapest offers or the cutest ones being completely unaware of whether or not this is a serious breeder who doesn't simply breed dogs who may look cute, but only at the expense of their health - like having their nose smooshed in (French bulldogs) and thus being unable to breathe properly.

This story that took place in Landshut (Bavaria /Germany) and was reported by "Tierschutz Euskirchen" last week should change this point of view: A retired gentleman walked his dog as he suddenly saw another man who was about to commit suicide. Frantically he took his mobile phone to inform the police, but then the gentleman who wanted to commit suicide realized he was discovered and he fled the scene. Of course the much older and retired dog-owner couldn't follow a running, quite young man, but his dog was able to pick up the scent and followed the fugitive to his hiding place almost 1 km away. The dog then prevented him from fleeing until the police arrived. As it turned out the dog used to be a police-dog until the police gave it up and it was adopted by its current owner.

P.S. Don't worry about the person who wanted to commit suicide. He won't receive a penalty as suicide-attempts are not illegal in Germany. However he can get forced by law to undergo a therapy.

04:18 AM Jan 18 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

As the newspaper "Zeit" reported today one man died and many got damaged irreversibly when a new medicine was tested on human beings for the first time. This puzzled doctors greatly as this pill worked perfectly during animal-testing. By the way the incident took place in France.

09:27 PM Jan 10 2016

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

The year 2015 ended with a lot of animal-cruelty - at least in Germany: A dog in Kaiserslautern (Rhineland-Palatinate) was found neglected, underfed, dehydrated and abandoned in old barn.

In Upper-Austria a man simply dumped his dog into a garbage container when the poor animal was injured so gravely that he thought his pet would die anyway.

The following was a case of unintentional, albeit careless animal-cruelty. My brother witnessed how in Bempflingen (South of Germany) a car-driver accidentally ran over a cat and then simply drove on. My brother says that the sound of the feline's bones cracking was similar to that a bottle makes that you run over with a car. Surprisingly the cat was still alive, but by the way it ran off you could tell that it was gravely injured. immediately my brother drove his car to the side to pick the animal up as he wanted to bring it to a vet, but by then the cat had already disappeared into a wide range of thick bushes and he wasn't able to find it. This story teaches you to be careful while driving. This happened in broad daylight, meaning that if the driver had been a bit more careful he might have seen the cat.

11:29 PM Oct 15 2015

Dorothee

Dorothee
Germany

The following is a case of unintentional and undesired animal-cruelty, but still a case of animal-cruelty, since these marinemammals shouldn't be held in these tanks in the first place and since there in fact is technology that could have made this theme-park more weather-prove and they simply didn't take this possibility into consideration:

According to the "Whale And Dolphin Conservation Society" ("WDCS") flooding has affected parts of the South of France and devastated the world's largest marine entertainment park in Antibes. The park still suffers from temporary electricity outages - which is bad for the whales as electric filters are needed to keep the tank water fresh and clean - and the muddy floods also polluted the tanks holding marine animals. Right now it is even speculated that some of the park's animal habitants may not survive this contamination of the tanks. Even the orcas are at risk of dying! In fact one young orca-bull recently even died presumably due to pollution of his tank.