Where the Wild Things Roam on Craigslist

This mind-boggling ad showed up on the Houston, TX, Area Craigslist Pets section this evening. I copied it into a Word file. When I went back to Craigslist later, the ad was gone. The text is as follows, below. I removed the poster's email.

Hyena Pups for adoption
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Date: 2009-06-20, 7:34PM CDT

Two Hyena pups, one boy one girl. The mother and father are also pictured below. Very well mannered & well socialized. Enjoys trips to the dog park. Current on all puppy shots. Not asking an adoption fee, just asking that they receive lots of TLC. You would take care of Hyenas as you would on any other dog but please read up on these animals before you inquire.


I’ve learned not to be surprised by what I see on Craigslist, but this is disturbing, to say the least.

Hyenas, according to a 2001 Texas law, are among 16 “dangerous wild animals” prohibited from being privately owned without proper permits. Individual Texas jurisdictions can set up their own guidelines for the permitting process. At least that’s how I understand the law, based on the scant Internet information about Texas exotic animal laws. Texas is a large state with very little federally managed land, and the attitude here is that the private land owner is king of her/her ranch.

Private owners operate game ranches full of exotic hoofed animals, including zebras, blackbucks, water buffalo, gazelles, and wildebeest. People pay fees to hunt the animals for trophy mounts. Even native animals, such as mule or white-tailed deer, are managed on vast private deer leases and game ranches. There’s a booming business in automatic feeders and deer corn in many rural counties.

Apparently, this easy-going attitude toward exotic hoofed animals spills over into a gray area. I can't imagine wanting to keep an African hyena as a pet.

Are animals such as hyenas legal to own as pets in your neighborhood? Let me know.

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Both photos are from the ad. I covered the woman's face to protect her privacy on my blog.

Why People Want Puppies

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a dozen times: "We want a puppy so it can grow up with our kids." What people don't realize is that a two-year-old dog can grow up with a child just as easily (and often without the need to housetrain) as any puppy.

I wish more people would look at the grown-up dogs. We have so many deserving animals--beagle mixes, cattle dogs, black mouth curs, rat terriers, and more. Our Shelter does put pit bulls and pit mixes into the adoption room, but its hard to find homes that work for these guys and gals. And the labs--oh, the gorgeous, lovable--and sometimes crazy labs. We ALWAYS have Labs. Anyone who wants their own Marley needn't go to a breeder--just go to a Shelter in the huntin'-strong south.

Puppies go out fast from the Shelter, but since most bitches haven't had any pre-natal care, and the after-care for puppies is often minimal for surrendered litters, these puppies have the cuteness but not the strong immune systems of puppies from reputable breeders.

Meanwhile, the adult dogs languish--the gorgeous Queensland Heelers, the rough-coated Jack Russells, the Walker Coon Hounds, the Blue Ticks and Beagles, the Huskies (and do we get Huskies--) often seem invivisible.

What I wish our Shelter would do: 1. Make our adoption areas more customer-friendly. 2. Identify breed types more carefully on intake forms. 3. Take better photos of animals for those who are searching for pets via the Internet.

What I wish our clients (those looking to adopt) would do: 1. Do some basic research and planning before coming in to look at pets. 2. Decide in advance who will be the primary care-giver for the animal (dog-walker, pooper-scooper, vet chauffeur, groomer, etc.). 3. If you don't have a fenced yard, realize that you will need to walk the dog for both its exercise and elimination needs. 4. Realize that a dog or cat requires some financial commitment and time. 5. Understand that puppyhood is a brief blip in the time-line of your dog. 6. Consider taking on an older dog. Just because they may give you only three or four--or six or seven--more years shouldn't be a deterrent. That's more time than many marriages last!

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Illustration by Garth Williams from "My Big Golden Counting Book," by Lillian Moore. Golden Press, Racine, Wisconson, 1956, 1957. 1974 printing. Counting.

Adopt a Kitten Month

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Dont u luv LOL Kittehs? Gets yur own kitteh for photo ops.

From My Reading List

Just finished the book One Nation Under Dog: Adventures in the New World of Prozac-Popping Puppies, Dog-Park Politics and Organic Pet Food, by Michael Schaffer (Henry Holt and Company, NY, 2009). Schaffer, a journalist and a dog-owner, strolls through the quirks and foibles of American pet-ownership, spending time at a pet-supplies trade show, unraveling the tangles of on-leash vs. off-leash park use in San Francisco, and participating in a pet-bereavement support group.

The result? An entertaining, factual, but not strident book that focuses on the changing role of dogs in American society. I’ve perused more in-depth books on various aspects that Shaffer covers, yet this book provides a brisk, timely read for those interested in animal-human relations. Shaffer is a journalist, but he has a folksy way of writing, and offers chatty footnotes detailing his investigations. Not bad for a tour of the various foibles and peculiarities of American dog-ownership.

Schaffer is democratic—writing thoughtfully, without painting an either-or picture about issues such as Cesar Milan-style “dominant” training vs. reward-training, traditional kibble foods (think Iams or Purina) vs. raw food diets, and the way veterinarian practices have become more sophisticated (and expensive) as people apply human standards to animal treatment protocol. Great for trip reading or as an introduction to major dog-related trends in America.

Disaster Prep Monday: Food and Treats

Toby Terrier, our Hurricane Preparedness mascot, like most dogs is always looking forward to his favorite meal—the next one. In the event of a planned evacuation, or a few days spent without power (some folks in our area went three weeks without power after Hurricane Ike last September), you need to add pet food to your disaster planning list.

If your dog has a favorite food from the grocery store, pet or big box store, keep tabs on how much you have on hand. When storm approaches, shelves empty out. You might be able to find Alpo, but not your pooch’s favorite flavor of Iams select. After a big storm, stores will be closed—where I live, stores were closed for a week and poorly stocked for up to three weeks, and we were well beyond Ike’s Galveston-area landfall in Montgomery County, Texas. Even if we had wanted to drive out of the storm area, we were reluctant to use the gas in our vehicles.

If you feed your pet a prescription dog food from your vet or a specialty food not easily found in grocery stores, it’s even more important to plan ahead. Post-storm, both animals and people yearn to preserve whatever routines we can, and switching kibbles or canned food is not something wise to try during this time. My advice is to keep an extra month's worth of canned and dried food for each pet on hand during hurricane season. Consider how you’ll keep open cans of food cool. We had a generator so our pets didn’t have to worry that the Science Diet canned food would spoil!

Be cautious about the risks of spoiled food. Don’t feed your pet questionable human or pet food. And be alert to the garbage that appears post-storm—-it will be extremely tempting to your pets. After Ike hit Texas and other parts of the nation, many folks had to empty their refrigerators. In our neighborhood, bags of refrigerator garbage lined our normally tidy streets. And because we had no power, dog owners walked their dogs a lot more.

But we had a close run-in with a purloined “snack.” A few days after Ike’s landfall, my husband came back from walking our dogs on their usual route shouting that he needed help with Taco, our 16-pound athletic miniature pinscher. I found him struggling to keep all four of Taco’s feet off the ground by clutching his harness. Taco had a big bird leg in his mouth and was doing his best to swallow it whole. He had picked it up in the dark of early evening (we had no power, so no street lights) and my husband thought he had a stick until he got home and saw gristle and a clawed foot!

I put my hands around Taco’s neck and gripped him firmly enough to feel the butt-end of the leg-bone in his upper throat. By squeezing against Taco’s throat and yanking on the clawed-foot (yuck!) we managed to get the jointed leg bone away from him. We call Taco “Mr. Bitey” because he can be nippy—and you can bet he was pissed that we deprived him of his treat.

How the bird foot—it looked like a rooster or bigger—got on the walking path we’ll never know. Maybe it was a game bird killed in the storm or a hunter’s catch dumped somewhere from a freezer. All we knew is we didn’t have an emergency vet available within a 100-mile radius two days after a major storm made landfall. We made sure to walk the dogs before nightfall after that.

Shelter Update

We have a new director at our Shelter, a vet, Dr. P. Ryan. We're hopeful that the Shelter will improve its conditions, redemption rates and adoption rates, while lowering kill rates, with the addition of Dr. Ryan to the staff.

Craigslist Made Me Smile

I'm sure the busy-bodies will have a flagging heyday with this ad in our Houston-area Pets Section, but the text (minus the photo of the sweet "pet") is below, unedited as I found it. Read on and enjoy!

Pure Bred Needs Good Home... (Katy)
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Reply to:comm-5g9nk-1202470559@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-06-02, 8:09PM CDT

Although it saddens me to see her go, I am interested in rehoming my 89 year old pure bred White Anglo Saxon Protestant grandmother to someone who will give her a good home. She has the cutest little wrinkled face and shiny silver hair! If someone does not adopt her I will be forced to put her in a retirement home. The retirement homes in my area are unfortunately too full already and most new additions are put to sleep immediately since they simply don't have room for them. She responds to "Edith" although you can call her whatever you want since she can't really hear too well. I've had her for as long as I can remember but unfortunately I just don't have the time to give her the attention she needs since I am having a baby, moving into an apartment where they won't allow pets, my boyfriend has allergies, and I have to pay for some unforeseen medical bills. She is in excellent condition and is up to date on all of her vaccinations. She is mostly housebroken and is able to do some cool tricks like drive to WalMart (as long as it isn't more than 2 miles away), misplace objects like her glasses in her pockets, or do the laundry even if only 1 pair of socks is dirty. She subsists mostly on frozen Eggo waffles heated in the toaster and microwaveable mash potatoes and meatloaf with an occasional treat of peanut brittle when she has been extra good. For some reason she enjoys heating drinks like orange juice and 2% milk in the microwave before consuming them. We have spoken to a vet about this and they have assured us it is perfectly normal for a specimen her age. She's good with kids and other pets and has tons of stories to tell them or anyone else who isn't listening, unfortunately I have heard them all already. Her natural habitat is a 10'x10' room crammed with old couches, pictures, dusty lamps, and other crap. It is also very important that she has access to a TV with no remote (too complex) and only three channels; the weather channel, QVC, and the Tele-evangelist network. The last piece required for an ideal enclosure is a window overlooking at least a mailbox and preferably a neighborhood street; a large majority of her time and energy will be spent observing the proceedings in the neighborhood and commenting on them out loud to herself. I originally paid $50,000 for her, plus an additional $10,000 for her enclosure, but I am only asking a small rehoming fee of $15,000 to cover her recent knee replacement surgery which she has recovered from nicely. This is a unique opportunity for those of you who have kids who will neglect and lose interest in their pets after several months since this is the environment that she thrives in. I hate to see her go, but I know someone out there will be able to provide her a better home for the several years she has left. I will include her habitat as well as all toys and accessories (including her beloved electric heating blanket); local pickup. Serious Inquires only please.

•Location: Katy
•it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests