Oprah Winfrey show to feature undercover investigation of Puppy Mills 4.4.08

This Friday's Oprah Winfrey Show will feature an undercover investigation of the hidden world of puppy mills.

Using a hidden camera, Lisa Ling will show the world where their puppies really come from. See the startling treatment of companion animals in this country.

Oprah Winfrey plans to dedicate the show investigating abuses at puppy mills to her cocker spaniel, Sophie, who died last month from kidney failure.

"Sophie gave me 13 years of unconditional love. She was a true love in my life," Winfrey says on the broadcast scheduled to air Friday. (Advance remarks from the show were released Tuesday by Harpo Productions.)

The show features special correspondent Lisa Ling investigating puppy mills, which Ling calls "horrific" and "haunting."

Winfrey says the show is "for anybody anywhere who loves a dog, has ever loved a dog, or just cares about their basic right to humane treatment."

While Sophie was not a product of a puppy mill, and Winfrey's three current dogs were adopted from breeders, Winfrey says in the future she would look to adopt from an animal shelter.

"I would never, ever adopt another pet now without going to a shelter to do it. I am a changed woman after seeing this show," she says.

Click here to find where and when to tune in to Oprah's show.

Please click here to email Oprah.

Learn more about puppy mills:
prisonersofgreed.org
stoppuppymills.org/
hsus.org

Man Wins Dog Back After DNA Test Proves Dog Isn't Pit Bull

Chalk a victory up for man's best friend in Kansas City, Kansas. A man just won his eight month legal battle with the city to keep his dog after proving it wasn't a pit bull.

For the last eight months, Niko has been living in the KCK Animal Control Kennels while his owners fought with the city. Animal Control said the dog violated the pit bull ban, but the dog's owner has said all along the dog is actually a boxer mix.

Niko has only been a free dog for a couple of days. Mike Johnson said it's obvious that eight months in the pound was tough on Niko.

"He lost some fur and has quite a bit of a cough," Johnson said. "He lost about 10-15 pounds."

This all started because the family put up an ad trying to find Niko a new home. Animal Control saw the ad and confiscated the dog, calling it a pit bull, even though paperwork called the dog a boxer.

After months of legal wrangling and a DNA test, all charges have been dropped and now they plan on keeping Niko for good.

"I don't feel it's fair at all," Johnson said. "For one they took our dog. We had documentation what type of dog it was but they wouldn't even look at that."

"People like Mike and Amy get caught in this loop, they actually had criminal charges brought up against them," Cheryl Buell with KC Dog Advocates said.

Buell said this shows pit bull bans are hard to enforce and that's exactly why other cities are changing laws, like Edwardsville, which just changed its ordinance Monday night, removing the pit bull ban.

"Beefing up their dangerous dog ordinance, make sure the people with dangerous dogs are held accountable, those are the people you want to punish fine," Buell said.

Buell wants KCK to re-examine its ordinance.

"It was hard on the dog and the people involved and a huge waste of tax money and it didn't accomplish anything because it wasn't a vicious dog to begin with," she said.

A KCK spokesman said the pit bull ban is there to protect people. It was only a year and a half ago that a 71-year-old woman was attacked and killed by a pit bull in KCK.

*****************

Of course, the news cannot resist instilling fear in their viewers, in this case, readers. So, you want to remind us that a woman was killed A YEAR AND A HALF AGO!?! Come on! So, nobody has been killed since then? The death of the woman to whom they are referring began all of this "Pit bull frenzy".

People who are educated by the media are not educated at all. The media has their own agenda most times and are simply ignorant and choose not to get the actual facts because the news has to get out. I wish there were someone out there that would actually give TRUE, UNBIASED facts.

The media is irresponsible when reporting on dog attacks of any breed or circumstance.

It seems to me that any dog with the breed name, terrier, such as American Staffordshire Terrier, the media claims it to be a "pit-bull-type" dog and puts it in the headline of the story, to sell a paper.

FYI: According to the AKC, terriers were bred to hunt and kill vermin.

Nobody wants any person or animal to be attacked by a dog. Some dogs attack for no specific reason and the attack seems to just comes out of nowhere. However, what the media and it's irresponsibility fails to do is educate the public. These dog attacks are frequently the result of negligent owners who either train the dog to fight or do not treat them well.

Instead of focusing on how "vicious" and "dangerous" dogs are, the media needs to get to the root of the story. Why do the owners have the dog? Is it chained up outside for most of it's life? Is it ignored and treated poorly? Has it been trained to fight? Has it been to obedience classes? Is it fed on a regular basis? A dog that has everything it needs, is less likely to attack someone or some animal. Most likely, the owners are to blame for the dog's behavior. Dogs are not born, knowing exactly how to act. Owners are supposed to socialize them.

Is the media asking the important questions? Is the owner doing their part to socialize the dog? Is the owner giving their particular breed the care it needs? Some dogs need a lot of exercise compared to others, is the dog getting that exercise or is it filled with pent up energy?

All the media wants to do is tell us how vicious the attack was and other gory details.

Also, the media uses the ignorance of the American public to get people calling for the death of dogs, who are just as much the victim as the person or dog they attacked. I do believe that is a strong statement, but I really think it is true.

If a dog is trained to attack or is treated harshly and it can attack someone. They are doing what they know, so as a result of the behavior of their owner, they are most likely going to be euthanized and the dog won't even know why.

Most Americans think if a dog looks "scary" or "mean", it will attack them. The media wants us to believe the hype, they want us to be scared and buy into the "pit-bull" hysteria. They feel like they are educating us, which they are not, and they sell papers and get people to watch their news.

I searched for some news stories of dog attacks that are NOT pit bulls, a 15 minute search brought me these stories, they are all from the US or Canada. To read the individual stories, just click on them.

The media is not an expert on breed identification, either. It seems that any dog in the news just happens to be a pit bull, according to the media anyway. When we see a picture or video, you can see it might be a pit mix, or a completely separate breed altogether. Such as the case of this recent dog attack in Long Beach, California.

Notice that at the beginning of the video, the news reporter claims this is a Chihuahua, although the owner says it is a Pomeranian. This is who we are trusting to tell us what breed a dog is. Also, in this particular situation, they have an off leash park with nothing but orange cones around it--NOT-- a fence.

Here is the video


I would love to hear your comments and perspectives on this entire article.

Here is a story out of Canada calling for German Shepherds to be banned due to dog attacks.

Another news story involving a German Shepherd planned to be euthanized due to an attack.

In Kentucky, a Jack Russell Terrier killed a 6-week-old infant

Here a Greyhound attacks another dog at a dog park

A girl was attacked by a "pit-bull-type dog", this is misleading because later in the story, the claim it was possibly a Staffordshire terrier or an American bulldog.

This news story doesn't even mention the dog breed, we can be sure of one thing-It was definitely not a Pit-bull type breed. If it were, that would have been the headline.

A Rottweiler attacks his owner.