SPOTLIGHT

June is English bulldog month! Bring your bully in for a portrait session anytime in June and your sitting fee is just $100 (normally $395)! Spread the word to your bully pals - if we have ten or more bully sessions before June 30, then every bully family gets a complimentary 8x8 chamfer mount print (a $225 value), too! Bully for you! Ramona, a puppy mill rescue, encounters stairs. From the CEBR's YouTube channel. (Ramona now tackles stairs with aplomb.) Amanda and her two rescue bulldogs at Sutton Studios.   Our framing partners

REFLECTION & REFRACTION

Last month in Reflections and Refractions we met Molly Marino and learned about Chicago English Bulldog Rescue, the organization she founded. We left you with the question, "where do all these homeless English bulldogs come from?" There are many answers to that question. Occasionally a well-meaning owner will spend all their cash reserves on an English bulldog and not have enough left in reserve for the dog's considerable veterinary bills. EBs are prone to a whole spectrum of different difficulties and illnesses, which can get quite expensive. Those dogs might get dumped on the roadside or end up in shelters. Some of the bulldogs CEBR places also come from area shelters that understand English bulldogs need committed owners and would rather see an English bulldog placed through a specialized agency. Another breed-specific reason bulldogs can lose their homes has to do with their emotional dependence on their human companions. It's not uncommon for owners to give up their EBs when a family has a new baby, and therefore less time for the dog. When that happens, an English bulldog may develop behavioral problems relating to pack order that busy new parents feel unequipped to solve. Molly has also found that "used up" breeding dogs can sometimes be saved from summary execution for a small "pull fee," usually $60. The "pull" in pull fee refers to pulling the dogs vaccination records, and some of the smaller mills would rather have the sixty dollars than have to dispose of a Bulldog carcass. These opportunities come to Molly through an informant who knows several breeders well enough to have gained their trust. There's some philosophical controversy in the animal rescue community about the long-term damage of putting more cash in the hands of disreputable breeders (Isn't that supporting them? Perpetuating the cycle?) versus the short-term gains of lifting some dogs out of misery. Molly's familiar with the argument, but she's more driven by the thought that there are living, breathing animals suffering right now than by the theories, and she knows there are other people whose skills are more suited to working on the problem from the top down. She also knows that there are many, many more than a few dogs suffering right now. Molly's driven by the question: What can I do to make it stop? This question has even led Molly to go undercover and attend rural livestock auctions in Missouri and Arkansas. She's been to six of these auctions to date, buying dogs with money from private donors, then bringing them home for veterinary care, rehabilitation and eventual placement with a loving family. On these trips she's seen dogs in such deplorable conditions that she could barely stand it. These auctions are grueling, all-day affairs where she's witnessed companion animals, unable to walk because they've never been out of a cage, being dragged out by one leg to be offered up for bidding. Molly has seen three-week-old puppies separated from their mothers and auctioned off separately, as well as dogs with permanent nerve damage from immobility. Says Molly, "These folks don't care." After a livestock auction in Arkansas last Fall, Molly and some helpers returned to Illinois on a Sunday afternoon with 14 English bulldogs, all purchased with funds from private donors. Veterinarian Paul Navin, an English bulldog specialist at All Pets Animal Hospital in Lockport, called in his entire staff to examine and process the dogs, and to deliver two litters of puppies. All of these dogs were placed in foster homes with CEBR volunteers until they could find permanent homes. Dogs rescued from puppy mills often have special needs. Aside from health problems born of neglect and malnutrition, they commonly must learn to do things as mature animals that other dogs mastered in puppyhood (see Spotlight at left). While most states have laws relating to the humane treatment of animals, the issue often comes down to enforcement. Molly notes that the department of agriculture oversees livestock auctions, but there can be as few as just one or two of these agents in an entire state. Puppy mills have hitherto just not been a priority at the government level. While they're required to have a department of agriculture rep and an AKC delegate at these auctions, as well as a veterinarian, those regulations can be ignored with impunity. She's even witnessed a veterinarian, one supposedly charged with oversight, offering to do pocketknife surgery on a dog's clogged tear duct for $7 - not to repair the duct, but simply to gouge it out. The issue of reducing animal suffering by legislating against puppy mills is complicated and fraught with controversy. The Illinois legislature considered and defeated a bill just last year. Legitimate breeders feared the bill would go too far. Other states have had more success. Pennsylvania passed a new, puppy-mill-specific bill in 2008 (see below). If you'd like to learn more about CEBR and about puppy mills and what you can do to help, check out the links below. Let us hear from you. David Sutton Write to David

COMMUNITY FOCUS