Talk to Me, Goose: A Canada goose’s goose was almost cooked when it made a crash landing at Bolling Air Force Base on March 5. Two Animal Control Officers (ACOs) from the D.C. Department of Health who were dispatched to the scene came upon the animal in one of the military base’s parking lots. The bird had an injured wing, so the ACOs took it into custody. The grounded goose was taken to wildlife rescue where it’s healing.
Kibbles, But Only Bits: Humane Law Enforcement discovered the owner of a untrained pup had developed a unique way of dealing with the pet: She was letting it go hungry. Responding to a call about an underweight dog in the 5300 block of D Street on March 4, an animal cop found a Cane Corsco puppy tied to a backyard tree. The dog was so malnourished its ribs were showing. “The owner explained that she is having trouble housetraining the dog and has decreased the amount of food he is eating to prevent him from going to the bathroom in the house,” the Humane Society says. The officer told the owner that dogs need a proper amount of food and suggested housebreaking techniques. The Humane Society will monitor the situation.
Pooper Scooper: A guy keeping six dogs in his yard in the 3000 block of Douglas Street NE had to clean up a big mess on March 3 when HLE discovered “an accumulation of feces in the dog’s living area.” The owner cleaned up the dog poo when an officer brought the excrement to his attention (had he not, we wonder, noticed it on his own?). There was something else the beast master had to take care of: One of his dogs, a pit bull, was underweight. The man revealed that the other dogs sometimes keep the pit from eating. “The HLE officer explained that it is the owner’s responsibility to assure that all of the dogs are receiving the proper amounts of food.”
Good Intentions, Bad Economy: A skinny cat living in the 3500 block of 19th Street SE drew the attention of HLE on March 8. An animal cop explained proper pet nutrition to the owner. It turns out the woman had rescued the cat from the streets a few weeks ago. But as the woman herself had fallen on hard times, she surrendered the feline to the officer.
Pit Problems: On April 12, you can forever change your pit bull’s personal life—for free. The Washington Animal Rescue League will be offering spaying/neutering of pit bulls at no cost. The stocky canines can be dropped off at the league’s medical center between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. and picked up (gently) between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
The league’s Jim Monsma says pits are the focus of the organization’s birth control effort for a simple reason: There are too many of them. “There is a general pet overpopulation problem, but at least locally, it’s more a pit bull thing than anything else. For a while, we were keeping track of the calls we got from people wanting to give up their dogs, and 85% of those calls were for pit bulls,” Monsma says via email. “At the same time, they are not too easy to place in new homes, since there are many people who skip over the pit bulls when looking to adopt a dog.”
Source: Washington Humane Society, Washington Animal Rescue League
Photo by pheanix300, Creative Commons Attribution License