Inside This Issue:
- Animal Experts Unite: Know Your Value, Share Your Knowledge!
- Colorado Doberman Breeder Murdered, Ten Puppies Missing
- Three Tales of Reunition
- Thoroughbred "Failure" Finds Second Career with NOPD
- The Real Reasons Your Dog Rolls in Poo May Never Be Fully Understood
Animal Experts Unite: Know Your Value, Share Your Knowledge
NAIA’s 2024 Annual Conference is coming to Plano, Texas and you are invited! If you’re sick of the media, lawmakers, and general public turning to national animal fundraising groups and celebrities for advice on animal care, please attend and become an active participant in creating a future where your expertise is once again recognized and respected.
This year’s conference is titled Animal Experts Unite: Know Your Value, Share Your Knowledge. It’s a celebration of the hands-on animal experts, people like you whose lifestyle revolves around animals. But the conference will be more than a celebration and more than a networking opportunity. NAIA’s goal – and the reason for our existence – has always been to bring together the individuals, businesses, and organizations that work with animals. There is strength in numbers, and we recognize that without a unified approach to the challenges we individually face, all that we value will slip away. It’s time for strategic, coordinated action.
Sign up now for the early bird rate! The early bird conference fee is $175 and expires on September 30. After that, it goes up to $250.
Clubs and organizations: please contact us at support@naiaonline.org for special rates for clubs and organizations sending 3 or more members. And if you or your organization would like to support the NAIA conference but cannot attend this year, please consider supporting the cause by donating to the event. Click here to donate!
For additional information on speakers, registration, and sponsorship opportunities, visit www.naiaconference.com.
Animal Experts Unite: Know Your Value, Share Your Knowledge
Colorado Doberman Breeder Murdered, Ten Puppies Missing
The landing page for Paul Peavey's Elite European Doberman.
In tragic news, Doberman Pinscher breeder Paul Peavey has been murdered and ten of his Doberman puppies are missing. Mr. Peavey owned and operated Elite European Dobermans in Idaho Springs, Colorado, a suburb west of Denver. After two days of not hearing from Mr. Peavey, his friend, Bruce Boynton, suspected something was amiss. Upon arriving at his house, Mr. Boynton found the house completely trashed and no sign of Mr. Peavey. Even more suspicious, all of the ten puppies he was raising were missing. Desperate for help he called local authorities, though it did not go smoothly. The Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office admitted to missteps in responding to reports of Paul Peavey's disappearance, delaying the investigation and not sharing information publicly. Despite concerns from friends, a deputy only visited Peavey's property a day later but did not conduct a thorough search. Frustrated, friends organized their own search and quickly found Peavey's body, partially buried behind a hill on his property.
The sheriff's office is now asking for help from the public and posted the following on Facebook:
"The unaccounted for Doberman puppies may have been sold through social media sites or by other means since Tuesday, August 20. All of Mr. Peavey's puppies are microchipped. Anyone who purchased a Doberman puppy in the central Colorado area within the last week is encouraged to check the puppy for a microchip and contact the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office at 303-679-2393 or admin@clearcreeksheriff.us. We would then be able to determine if the puppy was one of Mr. Peavey's.
2. Anyone who purchased a puppy through Mr. Peavey's business, Elite European Dobermans, since June 2024 is also asked to contact the Sheriff's Office at 303-679-2393 or admin@clearcreeksheriff.us. Please contact us if you received the puppy that was purchased or if you did not receive the puppy. This will help us determine exactly how many puppies are unaccounted for."
We send our deepest condolences for the loss of Mr. Peavey and hope for the safe return of his puppies. Sadly, this news doesn’t come as a shock. The limited supply of puppies – especially of popular, easily recognized breeds – coupled with growing demand, has led to high prices and wait times for prospective owners, and criminals, some of them violent, have all too happy to cash in.
Source: Missing Doberman puppies could be key to solving Colorado dog breeder’s homicide, investigators say
Three Tales of Reunition
No cage can hold me!
During the last few weeks, we have been treated to numerous heartwarming tales of owners and lost pets being reunited.
In Florida, two micro bullies, a brother and sister, got out the front door of their home and went to frolic in the traffic. Yikes! Fortunately, neither dog was hit by a car, but a surveillance video showed that the male was scooped up by a woman and taken away in her car. The dog had no form of permanent identification, such as a microchip, and the distraught owner thought he would never see his dog again. But a few days later, a young man appeared at the owner’s home with his dog. The young man said he took the dog from a woman (we assume the woman in the video, but this isn’t 100% clear) as he knew it wasn’t her dog, then used the surveillance video to figure out the owner’s address. A joyful surprise to be sure, and the dog is scheduled to get a microchip today.
In Massachusetts, Harry the indoor cat who had been missing since July was found in a garage at Logan Airport, ten miles away. Harry can’t tell us how he got there, though according to his family, his obsession with boxes may have caused him to sneak out and jump into a delivery truck. Harry’s adventure lasted about three weeks, but since he is microchipped, he was reunited with his family very quickly after being discovered by workers in the garage.
In Iowa, nearly a week after an unsuccessful community-wide search, a missing six-foot-long boa constrictor was found at home... in the wheel well of his owner’s car. The red-tail boa, named Drogo, was a little dehydrated and looks like he swallowed a squirrel or rabbit while out on his adventure, but he should be perfectly fine. The lesson here is that snakes can be severely underestimated as escape artists. His owners, for their part, have learned their lesson, and are delighted to have their pet back.
Source: Missing dog returned to owner after being snatched off Miami Gardens street by stranger
Thoroughbred "Failure" Enjoying Second Career with NOPD
Perfect temperament for Bourbon Street.
Ollie, a former racehorse with a pedigree from champion sire Violence, struggled on the racetrack, earning just $1,000 from three races. That’s pretty rough, but sometimes our first career isn’t what defines us.
Ollie was bought by the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and has since become their first thoroughbred mounted patrol unit member. Despite initial skepticism about his suitability due to the high-strung nature of thoroughbreds, Ollie has quickly adapted to police work. His training involved exposure to various distractions mimicking Bourbon Street's chaos, and he proved to be well-suited for crowd control and public interaction. The NOPD's mounted patrol, celebrating its 100th anniversary, uses horses for crowd control and sometimes for chasing criminals. The unit relies on donations for horse purchases and city funds for their care. With several horses retiring soon, Ollie is a potential candidate for a permanent spot. This isn’t the first time NOPD has repurposed a horse - Patch, a one-eyed mini horse, was made an official member of the mounted police department as a companion to his larger officers.
Source: Failed racehorse 'found his calling,' becomes first thoroughbred in NOPD's mounted patrol
The Real Reasons Your Dog Rolls in Poo May Never Be Fully Understood
Oh no.
When your dog rolls around in some other animal’s poop it can elicit a combination of reactions. Disgust and exasperation are common in such circumstances. Other times a morbid, perhaps resigned amusement rules the day. It can also pique our curiosity. After all, why on earth would anyone – especially our precious dogs – want to roll in something so nasty? Perhaps we’re anthropomorphizing too much, but it seems like you’d have to break past some serious aesthetic inhibitions to do something like this, which means the urge must be pretty strong! For the curious among us, like the BBC, there are multiple theories to explore.
One of the more persistent ideas is that rolling in poo – or “scent rubbing” if we want to be mature – camouflages the scent of predators, helping them to sneak up on prey. This is still the most widely accepted theory. Unfortunately, while this sounds kind of clever and makes sense in a “just-so” sort of way, both research and anecdotes have shown that wolves prefer to roll themselves in artificial perfumes and the scat of other predators. If anything, their favored bouquets loudly announce their presence. Now, it is possible that smaller canids like foxes use scent-rolling to make themselves smell like bigger, tougher carnivores, but this doesn’t make sense for the larger canids that engage in the same behavior.
Another idea, less popular, but fast gaining traction, is that scent rubbing is about a lot of things other than hunting: socializing, communication, group identification and differentiation, or in some cases, simply the rush of smelling something powerful and unique. For animals with such an intensely powerful sense of smell – and no doubt vastly different ideas than us about what makes for “good,” “bad,” and “fascinating” scents – this language may be something we are simply not equipped to truly understand. Perhaps we’ll gain an intellectual understanding of our dogs’ smellphabet at some point in the future, but we’ll probably never truly be able to appreciate the joy of rolling in fresh cougar scat.
Source: Chanel No 2: The many reasons why dogs love to roll in poo
Also in the News...
★ UPAWS hosts ‘Labor of Love’ adoption event through holiday weekend (Waived Fees; Rescue & Shelter Opportunities)
★ 24 animals rescued from 109-degree Michigan barn without food, water (Extreme Heat & Neglect; Ongoing Investigations)
★ Fox Hunters in the U.K. Want Protected Status Under Discrimination Law (Hunting; Culture & Law)
★ Meet The Cutest Airport Therapy Animals (Videos; Therapy Pigs, Bunnies, and Dogs; Reducing Flight Anxiety)
★ Namibia plans to kill more than 700 animals including elephants and hippos — and distribute the meat (Daughts; Acute Food Insecurity)
★ 2024 a bad year for animals on L.A. streets, data shows (Roadkill Crisis; Feral Dogs & Cats; Opossums)
★ Matching dinosaur footprints found on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean (Paleontology; Instructive Theropods; Plate Tectonics)
★ Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, in Oklahoma – Aug. 7, 2024 (Invasive Species & Disease)
★ Colorado Wolves Being Tracked Down After Killing Farm Animals (Wolf Reintroductions; Wildlife & Livestock)
★ 14 Beautiful, Startling Wild Animals Images: A Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2024 Competition’s Preview (Gorgeous Lists & Photos)
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