"One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic."
Two incidents this fall in Detroit have reminded me of this pithy and
perceptive quote from, yes, Joseph Stalin. These are the stories of Ace
and Queenie, two dogs who have come to represent the millions of
victims of prejudice against urban pit bulls and of pound seizure.
Ace
was a young pit bull who wandered into a Detroit Ace Hardware store on
Friday, November 4. He was emaciated and perhaps had been abused. The
store's owner took pity on Ace, gave him food and water, and then called
the Detroit Animal Control (DAC), who picked him up. Strays must be
held for four business days under Michigan law, which meant that Ace's
time could be up on November 10.
Meanwhile, Ace's plight was attracting national attention. 
The "Save Ace" Facebook page had grown to nearly 13,000 followers
within a few days. Significantly, many individuals, as well as several
licensed and reputable animal shelters, came forward and offered to take
Ace, provide him with necessary care, and see that he was adopted. DAC
refused to accept any of the offers. It appeared likely that DAC
intended to kill him at the expiration of the waiting period, given its
policy of considering pit bulls to be unadoptable and thus not subject
to its "shelter-to-shelter" transfer.
In that four day wait
period, two lawsuits were filed in Wayne County Circuit Court seeking a
restraining order to prevent the DAC from killing Ace until a proper
hearing could be held. One of the suits was filed by the Lexus Project,
represented by Margo Miller, a partner in the firm of Foley &
Mansfield, LLPC, and a member of the State Bar of Michigan's Animal Law Section,
along with co-counsel April Malak. Before filing the suit, a Companion
Animal Trust for the Benefit of Ace had been filed, which named Project
Lexus as the Trustee to act on behalf of the dog. Judge Gershwin Drain
entered a Temporary Restraining Order in the case in the afternoon of
November 10.
Nevertheless, Ace could not be saved. The DAC claimed
not to have received Judge Drain's order and announced that Ace had
been killed after the wait period expired. It released a statement:
The
injunction issued by the Wayne County Court was not received by Detroit
Animal Control or the City of Detroit. At the end of business today,
the dog referred to as Ace was euthanized following expiration of the
four day holding period and departmental policy. We are not insensitive
to the overwhelming appeal from citizens for an alternative approach. We
are, indeed, heartened by these appeals. However, if we grant this one
exception, we are simply not set up for what will undoubtedly lead to
overwhelming appeals in similar cases.
Queenie was a Dalmatian mix who had the bad luck of being a stray animal in Gratiot County, Michigan. Her story has just come to light as a result of efforts by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to obtain her records through the Freedom of Information Act. These records paint a tragic picture.
Gratiot
County is one of several hold-outs in the state which still engages in
the practice of pound seizure. Queenie was taken to the county animal
shelter in June 2009. Ten days later, she was transferred to a Class B
"random source" animal dealer, who in turn sold her to Wayne State
University in Detroit.
Veterinarians there noted that she was
"curious, gentle, friendly" when she arrived in mid-September 2009.
Between then and her death in late June 2010, Queenie was used in the
"Integrative Cardiovascular Control During Exercise in Hypertension"
experiment conducted by a WSU researcher.
This experiment required
Queenie to spend two months in treadmill training before major surgery.
I will give only a partial description of the treatment she endured. In
early December 2009:
she
had a left thoracotomy a major surgery in which her chest was opened to
implant devices in her heart. After surgery, Queenie had to wear a
jacket, t-shirt, and cervical collar so she would not pull at her
stitches or at the foreign objects now in her body. Her face and paws
were swollen, she was "whining [and] vocalizing a bit," and she vomited
immediately after being placed in her cage. By Dec. 8, she was back on
the treadmill... On Dec. 15, she underwent another procedurethis time,
experimenters placed catheters in Queenie's neck and behind her abdomen.
Queenie's
suffering continued for another six months. She died when experimenters
accidentally cracked one of the devices implanted in her while "packing
up probes" after a treadmill training session. They attempted to fix
the device, but it broke again, retracting into Queenie's body. If you
have the stomach, the full, detailed and tragic story of her nine months
at the lab is detailed in this story.
Can
anything positive come of the suffering of Ace and Queenie? I believe
it can, if we use these sad stories to change policy and law. Already,
Detroit Animal Control is being pressured to modify its anti-pit bull
policies. And Queenie's story is giving renewed impetus for a state-wide
ban on pound seizure.
If so, Ace and Queenie will not have
suffered and died in vain. Their stories are yet another example
illustrating why the Animals and Society Institute works to change
public policy, and why we say:
Integral
to the future success of the animal protection movement is our ability
to position animal issues in the arena of public policy. Heretofore, the
focus has mainly been on a strategy of public education. Increasingly,
however, positive developments (e.g., the passage of pro-animal citizen
initiatives) indicate that now is the time for action in the mainstream
political arena.
Bee Friedlander, December 6, 2011
Published by admin on 12/26/2011 12:50:31
