HO, HO, HO, Hum....

Today seems like it is going to be a ho hum sorta day. There's nothing much going on today. Casey and I did make a quick trip into Nashville last night to have a look around Aquatic Critter. All we ended up with were crickets. So, tonight I must get over to Curves. Before I can do that, I have a work retirement party where I must make an appearance. Hopefully, that will only take about 30 minutes. I'm hoping to also get the outside of my house decorated tonight. Hopefully, the weather will remain cooperative. It's supposed to get colder today with snow flurries tonight. I sure would like to see those flurries! If nothing else I can get my window wreaths up and the lighted garland around my front door. The lights for the bushes can wait, if necessary.

Since I have no big news today, here's an interesting article that I've found on Modern Pooch The article can be found on the Time website. Another great cartoon from Andrea too!

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Woof, Woof, Your Honor

It's no joke. Animal lawsuits are gaining respect as pet owners seek justice for the ones they love

By ANITA HAMILTON

Monday, Dec. 13, 2004

With his sad brown eyes and soft, floppy ears, Marley, a 2-year-old Boxer, is the kind of dog that's hard to resist. Just ask his co-owner Ashley Wilson, a music director at a Seattle rock station. After splitting up with her live-in boyfriend, Todd Templeton, just before Christmas last year, Wilson and Templeton exchanged Marley informally every week. Then, last August, according to a lawsuit filed by Wilson, Templeton abruptly ended the arrangement and kept Marley.

Instead of giving up or just getting a new dog, Wilson joined the growing ranks of animal lovers who are filing lawsuits over their pets. After consulting Adam Karp, a lawyer in Bellingham, Wash., who says he has handled about 100 animal-related cases in the past four years, Wilson filed suit in late October. She has already won at least a temporary victory. Last month a superior court judge ordered the exchanges to resume immediately, pending a final ruling. (Templeton declined to comment on the case.) About seeing Marley for the first time in three months, Wilson says, "His tail was wiggling out of control. I just hugged him and started to cry."

While going to court to resolve a pet- custody dispute may seem extreme, it is just one of the legal options available to protect animals and the people who care for them. Veterinary-malpractice suits, pet-cruelty cases and even landlord-tenant disputes over animals are reaching the courts as well. In New York City, Cindy Adams, a gossip columnist for the New York Post, has called for legislation that would ensure better conditions at dog kennels after her Yorkshire terrier Jazzy died, allegedly at a kennel. Some 23 states now allow enforceable pet trusts, in which people set aside money in their will for the care of their pet. And when it comes to animal cruelty, more than 40 states have felony-level charges that virtually ensure jail time for serious offenders. "The courts are beginning to realize that the bond between humans and animals is very powerful," says Steven Wise, a lawyer and animal-rights advocate who has written two books and taught a Harvard Law School course on the subject.

Some pet cases have reaped surprisingly large awards. Marc Bluestone of Sherman Oaks, Calif., won a $39,000 jury award last February after Shane, his mixed-breed Labrador retriever, valued by the court at $10, died just days after coming home from a two-month stay in a pet clinic. Although the suit took five years, cost more than $300,000 in legal fees and is on appeal, Bluestone says it was all worth it: "I can't get my baby back, but I did get justice."

Once the domain solely of activists, animal law has steadily gained respect among law schools and legal scholars since 2000, when Wise's first book, Rattling the Cage, provided an academic argument for granting legal rights to animals. Now some 40 law schools offer courses on the topic. Cass Sunstein, professor at the University of Chicago Law School, explains the appeal in ethical terms: "There is a universal agreement that animal suffering matters. Even those who think they despise the notion of animal rights think that suffering and cruelty are problems."

Some funding for law-school programs has come from Bob Barker, longtime host of The Price Is Right, who says he became interested in animal rights about 25 years ago while serving as the chairman of Be Kind to Animals Week in Los Angeles. This year, he established four separate $1 million endowments for the study of animal law, at Columbia, Duke, Stanford and UCLA. "We love our own animals," Barker says, "but we don't seem to be aware of the mistreatment and exploitation of other animals."

That awareness appears to be growing, however, as more cases of animal cruelty are being prosecuted. According to the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a 23-year-old nonprofit group, the number of reported cases involving animal abuse, cruelty or neglect nearly tripled from 1996 to 2000. In a more recent case, a woman in Gautier, Miss., called the police on Dec. 4, 2002, when she noticed two Doberman pinschers, one dead and the other emaciated, in a pen in her neighbor's yard. The case went to court the next month, and the dogs' owner, a junior high school teacher, was found guilty of animal cruelty and fined $1,000. Thanks to a rescue group, the surviving Doberman was nursed back to health and placed in a new home. Once weighing less than 30 lbs. and barely able to stand, the dog is now a healthy 67 lbs. She even has a new name: Hope.