How holiday dollars can help pets

It's that time again -- shopping time, that is -- and our friends at The Times' brand-new Holiday Gift Guide blog have advice on ways you can make your gift-buying dollars stretch in ways that help animals.

The Humane Society of the United States has partnered this year with companies that kick a portion of your purchase price right back to the Humane Society and its work on behalf of animals.  Here, courtesy of the Holiday Gift Guide, are a few animal-friendly gift-giving options:

• Unique Skin, a company that makes skins for cellphones, donates 20% of sales to the Humane Society.

• At the Humane Society magazine store, 40% of your magazine subscription purchase price goes directly to the Humane Society.

• Proceeds from the Humane Society gift and office stores go directly to the organization.

• Grounds for Change, a coffee company, donates money to the Humane Society through its HS Coffee Club.

Want your gift-buying dollar to help animals and people at the same time? Our colleagues at the Baltimore Sun have the scoop on a doggie chew toy that's raising money (nearly $40,000 so far!) for a program that provides service dogs to injured veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Sounds like a win-win situation to us!

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: A festive dog named Nigel gets ready for the Reindoggie Parade in Carmel, Calif. Credit: Ryan Williams

Comments

[L.A. Voter]

Sorry, the Humane Society is not getting one more dime of my money until they dump Michael Vick, and re-think their stance on dogs saved from fighting operations in general.

I was a member and a supporter, but they have been blatantly dishonest in using Vick without disclosing the full extent of his crimes (anyone who thinks all Michael Vick did was fight a few dogs should do their research -- he personally tortured and killed many dogs, in ADDITION to fighting them). The HSUS has been deceptive and cynical in their partnership with Vick and they are fooling no one, least of all the kids they think they are influencing with this narcissistic sociopath as a spokesman.

They also need to reject their stance that all dogs rescued from fighting operations should be killed. They use Vick as a shill, but ignore the fact that his dogs have proven that dogs caught up in fighting operations can be rehabilitated? To my knowledge at least two Vick dogs have earned certification as therapy dogs, making them far more productive and worthy citizens than Vick will ever be.

HSUS does good things. But they are currently operating from a deep core of dishonesty and I, and many other animal lovers, cannot support them anymore.

[Hillary]

The notoriety of Vick's case has raised public awareness about dogfighting and that is a good thing. I work at the HSUS and we have received over 100 inquiries from communities interested in our End Dogfighting program, which involves outreach to at-risk youth through free training and obedience classes for kids and their pit bulls.

We need to use every tool at our disposal to bring about an end to dogfighting. This includes former dogfighters like Michael Vick, as well as the dogs that suffered at his hands. If Vick's commitment falters when media attention dries up, then he deserves to be called out. In the meantime, let's give this individual a chance to show that he's capable of change and can be a force for good.

The HSUS met with a number of animal groups last spring and revised its position on pit bulls taken from dogfighting rings. According to the new policy, we recommend that all dogs seized from fighting operations be professionally evaluated, according to agreed upon standards, to determine whether they are suitable candidates for adoption. Dogs deemed suitable for placement should be offered as appropriate to adopters or to approved rescue organizations.

[L.A. Voter]

Hillary,

The HSUS needs to be honest about what Vick did. They deliberately promulgate the fallacy that all he did was fight some dogs. In this case a half-truth is worse than a lie. You are placing the HSUS seal of approval on a man who personally drowned dogs by holding their heads in a five-gallon bucket of water. You are rehabilitating the image of a man who strung dogs up on a two by four nailed between two trees on his property and watched them strangle to death. When one dog didn't die quickly enough he cut the dog down and drowned her in the bucket.

You ask people to applaud for a man who placed family pets in the ring with fighting dogs because, in the words of a USDA report on the case, Vick and his friends "thought it was funny" to watch the smaller dogs be injured and killed. These aren't rumors, these are facts contained in the prosecutor's statement of facts and in the USDA report. These are crimes to which Vick pled guilty.

Please show me when and where Wayne Pacelle and the HSUS stipulated to the full and true extent of Vick's crimes. Please show me the press release where all this is laid out. You can't, because Pacelle and HSUS made a deal with the devil -- all for the sake of publicity. The problem is that your base is people like me, who actually bother to find out what the truth is. We watch Vick's "60 Minutes" interview and we see that he feels no sorrow for anyone but himself. He feels no shame for the pain, fear and torture he personally inflicted on dogs. By working with him and not making him account for his acts HSUS becomes complicit. And the joke is that you think kids will follow him and learn from him, which shows that you think kids are far more credulous than I think they are. Kids are being taught by the HSUS that you can kill dogs and still be treated like a hero if you can get famous enough before you're caught.

As for the HSUS stance on dogs seized from fighting operations, they may be talking about changing their draconian policy of killing without rehabilitation or even evaluation of the dogs, but that didn't stop them from facilitating the killing of 146 pit bulls who were seized at or born after a raid on a fighting dog operation in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Seventy of the dogs killed were puppies; nineteen of whom were born after the seizure had taken place. The killings were ordered by Superior Court Judge Ed Wilson Jr. after testimony from local animal control officials and two representatives of the HSUS.

HSUS recommended killing puppies who never even had a chance to prove themselves. They recommended killing dogs who had never had a chance to have a good home, with a complete lack of regard for each dog's individual temperament. That is absolutely unconscionable.

Let us know when the fighting dog policy is changed, and when Vick is gone. Then I will happily renew my membership. But not one penny until then. I'm not happy about it, but I can't support a humane organization that feels some animals aren't worth protecting or speaking out for.

[L.A. Voter]

Furthermore, Hillary, having re-read your comment I have to point out the falsehood contained in this statement:

"We need to use every tool at our disposal to bring about an end to dogfighting. This includes former dogfighters like Michael Vick, as well as the dogs that suffered at his hands."

Didn't the Humane Society specifically and emphatically insist that all Vick's dogs needed to be killed, as they were undoubtedly too vicious and dangerous to be adopted? Yes, they did. You are now trying to take credit for the saving of Vick's former dogs that was actually done by BAD RAP Pit Bull Rescue from San Francisco, as well as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah. THEY saved the dogs HSUS insisted should be killed.

This isn't going to go away, and it isn't going to be "spun." Animal lovers who care about Pit Bulls and who know how badly they are treated, first by dog fighters and irresponsible owners, and then by too-large organizations like HSUS and PETA who care more about publicity than street-level humanity are not going to let you revise history.

The only thing that's going to work is for HSUS to admit where they have been very wrong and publicly change course, including not just talking about policy changes but creating real-world facilities for helping rehabilitate abused Pit Bulls and other dogs. Taking credit for others' good deeds is just going to make things worse.