$16.99 USA/$19.99 CAN
Make the pet-planet connection
This book gives you all the information you need to understand sustainability as a pet owner and arms you with the know-how to make the best choices for your pet and the environment. You’ll get a list of the best available options for:
Thoroughly researched and packed with realistic guidelines for putting ideas into practice, Pets and the Planet is a virtual road map for sustainable pet parenthood.
Carol Frischmann is the author of two books and many articles about animals and nature. As a zoo educator, wildlife rehabilitator, and science teacher, she has been lecturing to the public about pets and wildlife for more than twenty years.
Cover Design: Suzanne Sunwoo Cover Photographs: © Jupiter Images
howellbookhouse.com
A Practical Guide to Sustainable Pet Care
Choosing pet food (and decoding labels) Purchasing green pet equipment and toys Disposing of pet waste responsibly Pets and household health And more
Pets and the Planet
You care about your pet. You care about the environment. You want to make informed decisions when it comes to involving your furry or feathered family members in your mission to live more lightly on the planet. But how do you know if you’re providing for your pet in a way that will leave the Earth as resource-rich as it was before you acquired your dog, cat, or bird?
Frischmann
PETS/General
Pets and the Planet A Practical Guide to Sustainable Pet Care
Carol Frischmann
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Pets and the Planet A Practical Guide to Sustainable Pet Care
Carol Frischmann
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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright © 2009 by Carol Frischmann. All rights reserved. Howell Book House Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, Howell Book House, and related trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at (800) 762-2974, outside the U.S. at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, please visit our web site at www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Frischmann, Carol. Pets and the planet : a practical guide to sustainable pet care / Carol Frischmann. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-0-470-27573-3 ISBN-10: 0-470-27573-1 1. Pets—Environmental aspects. 2. Environmental protection—Citizen participation. I. Title. SF413.F75 2009 636.088'7—dc22 2008046701 Printed in the United States of America 11
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First Edition Book production by Wiley Publishing, Inc. Composition Services The cover of this book is printed on recycled stock containing 10% post-consumer waste. The interior is printed on recycled paper containing 30% post-consumer waste.
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To my sister, Suzanne Frischmann, for her deep compassion for the planet’s creatures To my friend Nancy Boutin, for her sustained support To my mentor, the late Al McNabney, for his evergreen optimism and energy
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Contents
Introduction
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Chapter 1 How Do Pets Affect the Environment? Why Pet Impact Matters 3 What Is Sustainable Pet Care? 5 What Does “Green” Mean? 7 Caution: The Green Claim 11 What Is Your Sustainability Score? 16
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Chapter 2 Choosing the Right Pet for You 21 Why Pet Choice Matters 21 Exotic Pets: A Special Concern 24 The Consequences of Not Thinking through Your Pet Decision 28 The Impact of Releasing Unwanted Pets 31 A Pet Type for Your Environmental Ethic 36 How to Experience Pets without Having One 40 Sources of Pets 42 My Sustainability Plan: Acting on Pet Choices 47 Resources 48
Chapter 3 Choosing Green Pet Food 49 Why Green Pet Food Matters 49 How Feeding Pets Affects Our Environment 51 Thinking about Your Pet’s Diet 55
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Selecting Diets That Deliver 60 Why Are Labels So Confusing? 68 Pet Food and the Planet: Our Future 72 My Sustainability Plan: Choosing Green Pet Food 73 Resources 74
Chapter 4 Green Pet Equipment and Toys 75 What Does My Pet Really Need? The Stuff of Everyday Life 76 Where to Shop 87 Home Modifications for Pets 92 Cars and Pets 96 Public Transportation and Pets 97 Pets and the Public 98 Green Exercise for Your Dog 100 Planet-Friendly Pet Equipment and the Future 101 My Sustainability Plan: Choosing Green Pet Equipment and Toys 102 Resources 102
Chapter 5 Managing Pet Waste Responsibly 103 Facts and Figures 104 The Dangers of Pet Waste 104 Practicing Responsible Pet Waste Management 108 Dealing with Cat Waste 116 Bagging It Up 122 My Sustainability Plan: Responsible Pet Waste Disposal 124 Resources 125
Chapter 6 Pets and Household Health 127 Why Pets Matter to Your Health 128 The Disease–Household Connection 130 Can West Nile or Avian Flu Affect My Pets? 140 Keeping Your Pet-Filled Home Healthy 144 Removing Household Toxins 152 Preventing Flea and Tick Problems 158
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My Sustainabililty Plan: Pets and Household Health 162 Resources 163
Chapter 7 Pets and Ecologically Sensitive Pet Services 165 Why Pets Services Matter 166 Elements of an Eco-Friendly Pet Service Business 168 Using Pet Services for a Better Environment 174 My Sustainability Plan: Ecologically Sensitive Pet Services 188 Resources 189
Chapter 8 Pets and Community Ecology 191 Community Ecology Never Envisioned Pets 192 New Laws Suggest Communities’ Concerns 194 Pet Overpopulation: A $2.8 Billion Problem 195 Pets and Community Ecology: The Future 220 My Sustainability Plan: Acting on Pets and Community Ecology 222 Resources 222
Chapter 9 Twenty-First-Century Issues for Pets and Sustainability 225 Attitudes about Animals Are Changing 226 Vegetarianism: A Choice for Ecology 237 Solving Sustainability Problems 239 Economic Forces as Motivators 240 Home, Polls, and Offsets 242 Take Action! 246 My Sustainability Plan: Twenty-First Century Issues for Pets and Sustainability 248 Resources 248 Nutritional Requirements Resources 257 Bibliography 271 Index
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Acknowledgments
Listing everyone who contributed to the writing of Pets and the Planet without leaving important people out seems impossible, but I must try. Thank you, Kate Epstein, for your support and encouragement before, during, and after the writing. To my editors at Wiley—Pam Mourouzis, who championed this project, and Mike Thomas, who edited with insight—you have my gratitude. The Multnomah County Library, especially librarians at the Hillsdale Branch and those answering the Central Library Reference Line, made finding reference material a pleasure. Many people provided information and perspective on the topics covered in Pets and the Planet. To each of you, thank you. American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), John Tait, DVM, 2009 President; Jason Merrihew, spokesperson American Pet Products Association (APPA), Leah Nelson, Tierra Griffiths, spokespeople American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), Robert Baker ASPCA Anti-Cruelty Investigator; Amy Geduldig, spokesperson; Ed Sayres, President and CEO Audubon Society of Portland, Bob Sallinger, Conservation Director; Karen Munday, Urban Wildlife Specialist Axis Performance Advisors, Darcy Hitchcock, President Barkleigh Productions, Sally Liddick, President and Publisher of Groomer to Groomer Castor and Pollux Pet Works, Brian Connelly, owner
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Christine Myers, freelance writer City of Dallas, Robert Van Buren, AIA Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Patricia Leonard, writer, spokesperson Debra J. White, freelance writer Dogfriendly.com, Tara Kain, founder Doody Calls, Alan Pietrovito, owner Environmental Working Group, Dr. Olga Naidenko, Senior Scientist; Jovana Ruzicic Humane Society of the United States, Nancy Peterson, Rachel Querry International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematories (IAOPCC), Brenda Drown Gibbons & Ireland, LLP, Laura Ireland Moore, founder, Center for Animal Law Studies Michigan State University College of Law, David Favre, professor, Editor-in-Chief, Animal Legal & Historical Web Center Naseem Rakha, author NaturesEarth.com, Barbara Abernathy, spokesperson Oregon Environmental Council, Andrea Durbin, Executive Director Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI), Thomas M. Egan Packaged Facts, Tom Ehart, Director, Communications; David Lummis, Senior Market Analyst Pet-Butler, Matt Boswell, owner Pet Care Services Association, Nicole Singleton, spokesperson Petfinder.com, Kim Saunders, Vice President Shelter Outreach Pet Travel, Inc., Jerry Hatfield, President Sierra Club, Orli Cotel, spokesperson U.S. Green Building Council, Laurie Mitchell, spokesperson Watt Publishing, Debbie Phillips-Donaldson, Editor-in-Chief, PetFoodIndustry.com www.Makower.com, Joel Makower, author
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Introduction I’m a pet person. I’ve loved and lived with companion animals of every kind: dogs, cats, fish, birds, horses, turtles, lizards, domestic rats. So I needed to understand how we can live in harmony with the wider environment because every aspect of living with companion animals has an effect on it: from choice of species, housing, feeding, and care of the animal, to, finally, the burial of our other-species friend.
About the Writing of This Book Years ago, I decided to find the most ecologically friendly way to dispose of my dog’s doodie. By the time I finished, I had researched and purchased all sorts of bags, bought two different kinds of pet waste collection systems (one of which I couldn’t dig deeply enough to install), and made numerous calls to municipal agencies about how waste is treated in my own city. If a person trained as a science educator found the problem of collecting and evaluating information on how to live sustainably with pets maddening, what could the “normal” pet owner do? Voilà, the book idea. As I searched for information, I talked with experts and reviewed publications. As a writer, I understand that people have their points of view, different environmental ethics, and varying agendas. Separating fact from opinion has been difficult, especially since very little study has been done on the link between pets and the environment. So I offer you a book that: (1) describes the problems each aspect of pet ownership presents for the planet, (2) provides credible solutions, and (3) presents the actions a pet owner can take in response. Because each person is different, I suggest a range of ideas so you can choose those that work for your environmental ethic and lifestyle. Armed with information about household disinfection or diet selection, I asked myself, “Would I do this?” Ecologically sensible habits, products, and services have to solve the problem, be affordable, and be available. They also
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have to be practical. While writing this book, I tried as many of the solutions as possible, and I continue to gather information from readers, companion animal lovers, suppliers, and scientists. Some subjects are more completely covered and provide better solutions than others, either because more information is available or because specific actions can be taken, whether purchasing a particular product or voting for the water district manager on election day. Whenever possible, I’ve turned to recognized experts for help—the Centers for Disease Control, the American Association of Feed Control Officials, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and researchers in community dynamics and wastewater treatment. At the end of each chapter, I include a list of resources from which you can find additional information. A bibliography is included for those interested in more detail. Each chapter ends with a “Good, Better, Best” quiz to help you evaluate the eco-effectiveness of your pet-related habits. A list of options to develop greener routines is included. This book is intended to help you find ways to achieve your goals for sustainability. In each chapter, I also suggest activities that might be appropriate in your home or in your community, or ideas that you might want to consider in your personal beliefs. Ask your family and neighbors for help. Of course, any improvement plan is fine. Just pick a method that works for you. Some people like to post a calendar with dates for items to be completed. Others add a note to their electronic task lists. Still others stop what they’re doing and take action at that moment. Remember, it’s all good.
Updating Information A book cannot include ideas from readers and information that arises after publication. To keep you up to date, I’ve created a free newsletter, “Pets and the Planet: A Conversation.” Please join our ongoing conversation about living sustainably with pets and receive periodic updates of information presented as a part of this book. To join, go to www.thiswildlife.com. You’ll see the special banner there.
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Chapter 1
How Do Pets Affect the Environment? It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are. —Wendell Berry
You care about the planet. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have picked up this book. You love pets. Ditto. You might drive a hybrid or bike to work, support alternative energy, and put on a sweater instead of turning up the thermostat. As you look at ways to live a greener life, you wonder how to include your furred, feathered, or finned family members in decisions about living in harmony with the environment. According to the 2007–2008 American Pet Products Association’s National Pet Owners survey, 63 percent of North American households include pets, and most people have or will have pets in their lifetimes. Despite the feeling all pets owners voice—that we are ruled by our pets—we opposablethumbed beings know we are in charge. Our pets, then, influence the environment in many of the same ways our human family does.
Why Pet Impact Matters Of all the possible subjects related to sustainability, why write a book about pets and the planet?
Because There Are So Many Pets An astonishing 71 million U.S. households—almost two-thirds of the population—keep pets, primarily cats and dogs. Per capita, Australians keep as many,
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but are more likely to choose birds and fish. The Japanese prefer reptiles. European Union estimates claim 41 million dogs, 45 million cats, 190 million pet rabbits, and 5 million horses for the member countries. Brazil has the second largest population of dogs, over 30 million according to www.mapsoftheworld.com. Japan, Russia, and South Africa each have 9 million, following China’s estimated 23 million pet dogs.
Number of U.S. Pets by Type Pet Type
Number of Animals
Making It Real
Dog
74.8 million
If you petted one dog each second, you’d finish in 21⁄2 years.
Cat
88.3 million
An average cat weighs 8 pounds. The cats in the U.S. weigh as much as 100 aircraft carriers.
Bird
16.0 million
Equals the number of wild birds in Wisconsin in the summertime.
Fish
151.6 million
If each fish were the size of a penny, the stack of fish would be more than 150 miles high.
Small Mammal
24.3 million
Equals the number of people in Saudi Arabia in 2008 or the number of people in Canada in 1981.
Reptile
13.4 million
If each reptile is one foot long, the reptiles placed end to end would go from Atlanta, Georgia, to Reno, Nevada.
Horse
13.8 million
Or two times the number of teachers in the U.S.
People Love Their Pets as They Do Few Other Aspects of Life Companion animals are popular worldwide, and the number of households with pets continues to grow because of the special animal-human bond. What I’ve learned as a pet writer, which certainly was reinforced by the writing of this book, is how much more attentive we can be to our pets’ needs than to our own. For many years I ordered Harrison’s Organic Food for my birds and chopped organic fruits and vegetables for them, while I purchased conventional products for myself. I commented to friends that if I ate as well as my birds, I’d be healthier. As I’ve visited pet stores and attended pet-related events, I’ve seen others shop for special diets and products for their pets.
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We learn about ourselves and about our world from our concern for our animals. Thinking about pets and their needs is a way to learn more about how our choices affect the planet in terms of food, housing, medical care, and services. For example, once I heard myself make the remark about eating as healthy as my birds, I realized I could make healthier decisions for myself and for my planet. Because most of us expend more resources on our families than is necessary or sometimes wise, including pets as part of this exuberant lifestyle intensifies our impact on the environment. Imagine if there were no Halloween costumes or designer sweaters for our pets. Our budget as well as our environmental impact would be improved.
Growing Populations Bring Us Closer to Our Neighbors and Their Pets Some people love their neighbors and their neighbors’ pets. Others are terrified of both the people and the pets. Many situations fall somewhere in the middle. Because we live in closer proximity to each other than we did in times past, an increasing number of laws and regulations deal with pets and their behavior. One of my neighbors’ daughters brings her dogs to our neighborhood in the back of her pickup truck and allows them to run loose, starting every dog in the neighborhood barking. Another of my neighbors allows her adorable orange cat to roam. Although he is a perfectly nice cat, I don’t enjoy his digging in my garden. My own dog barks when the UPS, post office, and delivery trucks pass. Although my other next-door neighbor says he likes her guarding behavior making his home more secure, I am concerned when I leave home that she doesn’t make a nuisance of herself. Not only is our impact on the planet’s resources dictated by our choices, but community ecology becomes increasingly important in the twenty-first century.
What Is Sustainable Pet Care? Sustainability means striking a balance between our resources and our needs. In the context of pet ownership, it means providing for our pets in a way that leaves the earth as resource-rich after we care for our pets as it was before we acquired them. To attain this level of care, we must understand the elements involved in sustainability and make good choices for our planet. Sustainability is about maintaining our life on earth and the ecosystems required to support it. Principles first articulated by Dr. Karl-Heinrik Robèrt provide a helpful way to think about natural systems on our planet:
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1. We mine and use materials such as coal, oil, and metals faster than they are redeposited into the Earth. 2. Manufacturing processes create products, like cars and plastic bottles, and by-products, like gases and wastewater, faster than natural processes can break them down, if they can be broken down at all. 3. Society extracts resources, like trees or fish, or removes resources, such as agricultural land, through paving or homebuilding, faster than they can be replenished. 4. Meeting human needs, but not all of our wants, is an essential part of sustainability. When we obtain a pet or purchase things for our pet, we could consider how our actions affect the earth’s resources.
How Green Applies to Pets Day to Day Sustainability, as it applies to pets, is about making decisions about when and what to purchase. The first step is to create some criteria that work for your values.
To Purchase or Not to Purchase Becoming sustainable in our pet-keeping means more than deciding which products we purchase—green also means we decide consciously whether a purchase is necessary. If we remember that a main point about the environment is using no more than is necessary, we may be able to meet some of our pet-care needs through either sharing or recycling. (In chapter 4, “Green Pet Equipment and Toys,” we’ll have specific suggestions on how you can get what you need without purchasing.) When you decide to purchase, consider three points: Purchase as little as possible Purchase products without toxins Purchase locally Not only will you save money, but you’ll support local businesses and those that care about what they put into their products.
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Guidance for Purchases Pets provide plenty of day-to-day opportunities to make decisions about what’s important to us. They need food. What goes in must come out. In addition, we need to keep our pets free of pests and diseases. More purchasing decisions. What makes it easier for me is to recall that what we do and acquire affects the air, water, and earth. When making decisions, the questions I ask myself, in the absence of better information, are based on these four elements: Earth: Are the materials used renewable? Air and water: Are the processes used to configure the materials into products safe for our air and water? In other words, would I be okay drinking that water and breathing that air right outside the plant? Fire: Fire means disposal to me because as a kid living in the country, our family burned our trash. (Yes, I know, but it was an earlier time.) Fire is about the disposal of the product itself when my use of it is complete. Can the product be broken down and returned to the earth? The point is to remember what goes into something you use, how the processes of getting the materials and making them into the product affect the environment, and then how disposing of the product affects our ecosystem. But how do we know what goes into products and how the production and manufacturing affects the environment?
What Does “Green” Mean? For pet and other consumer products, green often means nothing substantive. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “green marketing” was used for the first time in 1989 to mean “marketing of products on the strength of their (supposed) environmental friendliness.” The example from the New York Times reads, “Their new approach is called ‘green marketing’ and in their efforts to portray themselves as environmentally concerned, some companies are making claims that do not stand up under close examination.” Green is a descriptive term with no formalized standard that allows manufacturers or companies to stamp products as “green.” In contrast, the word “organic” has a specific meaning. Products labeled “organic” must conform to a set of complicated standards verified by certified examiners who are independent of the manufacturer or grower. More meaningful than “green” is the New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2007 Word of the Year, “locavore.” A locavore is a consumer who eats food that is
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produced locally. Originally applied to eating seasonal food grown locally—for example, not eating Argentinian strawberries in Connecticut over winter holidays—the word is gaining a broader application. Many people use “locavore” to mean a consumer who buys low-environmental-impact products locally.
Other Often Used Words People and product packagers use “green” and other words and phrases to appeal to those of us who want to live more lightly on our planet. These words include: Recyclable Biodegradable Compostable Eco-friendly Energy efficient Minimal packaging Locally grown Nontoxic Earth-friendly Natural Organic No animal testing No genetic modification Fair trade The truth is that many of these words mean nothing in themselves. They can be used at will, even though marketing claims are supposed to be true.
“Green,” “Sustainable,” and Pets The market for products and services that qualify under the headings “ethical” and “environmentally sound” will grow to $2.5 billion by 2012, projections say. Although this figure may seem high, retail sales of natural pet food topped $1 billion in 2007. The massive recall of pet food in 2007, producing concern not only about pet food, but about pet product safety in general, accelerated this trend. “Natural” everything skyrocketed in sales. Organic product sales surged also, buyers perceiving “organic” to be even safer than “natural.” Other desirable
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traits following the recall are 100 percent U.S.-sourced ingredients, ingredients from local growers, and products that are labeled “no cruelty.” In addition to the entry of major pet food manufacturers into the green product arena was the distribution of green products through major retailers, including “big box” stores such as Wal-Mart, major pet chains such as PetSmart, and local pet specialty stores. In addition, many pet owners include Trader Joe’s and natural grocery stores such as Whole Foods in their weekly shopping circuits, since those stores now carry green pet products. According to a report from Packaged Facts, a major marketing information publication, almost 60 percent of the people who shop in pet specialty stores are eco-friendly, along with the 9.1 million “premium” pet households. Since 2000, the market size has grown, and major companies such as Nestlé, Purina, Mars, Del Monte, Hill, Hartz Mountain, and other familiar names as well as new specialty companies have filled store shelves with newer, greener products. An interesting sidebar to this marketing research: cat owners are slightly more eco-friendly than dog owners.
The Broader Green Trend: Socially Conscious Consumers Speak Socially conscious consumers are changing the rules of marketing, concludes BBMG, a branding and marketing agency. Its “BBMG Conscious Consumer Report,” said to be the first study to combine field observations with a national survey on purchasing and social values, states that nine in ten Americans say “conscious consumer” describes them well, and that given products of equal quality and price, they are more likely to buy from companies showing good environmental practices. Consumers showed a desire for companies to meet their personal needs and positively impact society. According to the study: Top on the list is health and safety, where consumers look for “natural, organic and unmodified products . . . avoid[ing] chemicals or pesticides that can harm their health or the planet. They are [also] looking for standards and safeguards to ensure the quality of the products they consume.” Magazines and newspapers, certification seals and labels, and the Internet inform their decisions. Ads and friends and family influence, but are no longer the primary source of, information. In addition, “consumers willingly engage in ‘easy’ behaviors, such as recycling . . . and using energy efficient appliances . . . but do not adopt more ‘demanding’ behaviors . . . like public transportation . . . or . . . carbon offsets.”
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Kids and “Pets and the Planet” Kids are learning about green initiatives in schools. Weekly Reader featured a “Green School” tour in one issue. There kids learned about: Temperature control through reflective windows Solar panels for electricity Rooftop gardens for temperature control and fresh foods Green buildings for saving energy Lots of schools have recycling programs, emphasize reuse of items, and plant gardens. Other schools study ways to divert rooftop water runoff from city sewer systems by constructing bioswales. Still other schools are using wind to power their classrooms. Talk with your kids about the ideas presented in each chapter of this Pets and the Planet adventure you’re starting. No doubt they’ll be interested in how they can play a part in your plans. In fact, getting your kids’ ideas about how to be more planet-wise about your pets may inspire them to take responsibility for family pets. Think about it. Besides, great ideas are rewarded. The Youth Venture-Lorax Challenge offers prizes for kids with great ideas about saving the planet. Although rules don’t require the idea be about pets and the planet, that would be a great topic for an entry. Prizes range up to $1,000, and grand prize winners get a trip to the University of Florida to attend an environmental camp. See www.newleaders initiative.org for details. My web site gives smaller prizes for great ideas from kids: we feature kids and pets in our newsletter, and provide every kid with a certificate signed by my own “Pets and the Planet” pets, Onyx and Gray Bird.
Echoing the findings of the BBMG study, Jefrey Pollock, president of Global Strategy Groups, a leading research firm, summarizes: “Many consumers evaluate the social and environmental impact of their purchases. They tend to prefer to buy from companies that reflect their values and are increasingly likely to buy from companies that demonstrate they are good for people and the planet.”
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Caution: The Green Claim Alarming are the claims on packages of products that do not merit them. A recent study from TerraChoice Environmental Marketing concluded that most environmental claims on packages have no supporting evidence. TerraChoice’s report “The Six Sins of Greenwashing” includes the most frequently seen “Sin of the Hidden Tradeoff,” meaning that claims present a misleading picture of the product, one that a complete analysis would not support. Many claims have no proof easily accessible to the public. Another common problem is that claims are so vague as to be meaningless. “Chemical-free” (nothing on earth is free of chemicals) or “All natural” (natural products are some of the most toxic chemicals on earth) are examples. These terms have no meaning.
Labels with Meaning While there are labels that have no meaning, there are a few relatively dependable labels you can look to.
Energy Star U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy award the Energy Star logo (www.energystar.gov) to products consumers can depend on to realize large gains in energy efficiency while reducing pollution.
Environment Canada’s EcoLogo Program Canada’s EcoLogo label (www.ecologo.org) means a product has met stringent criteria for environmental leadership. Manufacturers can apply to have their product certified as qualifying for this logo. Products that qualify need to be biodegradable, nontoxic, low VOC (volatile organic chemical), recycled or recyclable, or a combination of these characteristics. Administered by the Government of Canada since 1988, this program has certified more than 3,000 products and services, having them examined by a third party who validates the product claims.
Other Meaningful Labels Package labels can be difficult to understand, since product names and claims are not the same as product certifications. Then there are so many different kinds of labels. Here are a few of the more important categories.
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IFOAM Accredited (International Organic Label) The IFOAM (International Federation of Agriculture Movements) Organic Guarantee System assures organic integrity internationally. IFOAM provides a label and a guarantee that products that say they are organic are actually organic. The Organic Guarantee System (OGS) unites the “organic world” through a common system of standards and verification. See chapter 3 for more on IFOAM and visit www.ifoam.org/press/media_contacts/index.html.
Organic Trade Association Member The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is the membership-based business association for the organic industry in North America. OTA’s mission is to promote and protect organic trade to benefit the environment, farmers, the public, and the economy. OTA envisions organic products becoming a significant part of everyday life, enhancing people’s lives and the environment. Visit www.ota.com/index.html.
Co-op America’s Green Business Network The Green Business Network, the nation’s oldest and largest network of socially and environmentally responsible businesses, investigates each applying company to determine: (1) its familiarity with and commitment to social and environmental responsibility, and (2) significant action in terms of this commitment. For more information, go to www.coopamerica.org/about/newsroom/index.cfm.
No Animal Testing The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) provide an opportunity for companies to certify through them that their products are not tested on animals and are vegan. PETA (www.peta.org) allows the use of the “bunny ears” logo and the modified logo to those companies completing certification.
Decoding Other Labels An excellent resource for decoding certification labels is located at www.greener choices.org/eco-labels. Categories of certification logos include organic, animal welfare, sustainable agriculture, sustainable wood, social responsibility, pest management, no genetic engineering, sustainable fishing, and environmental persistence.
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Pets and Product Labeling Consumers would benefit from a “Good Housekeeping Seal” that applies to the environmental status of a product. Although ecolabels are many (Consumer Reports lists 147 of them), few of them are used widely. Organic certification labels and the Energy Star labels are two widely recognized ones. What, then, is a consumer to do? Rely on our common sense and tips from the experts. To do less is to reward the companies that place meaningless labels on their products and suppress consumer support for truly innovative products and companies.
The listing includes the certifying organization, the logo picture, and an interpretation of what the logo actually means.
Greenwashing Greenwashing is creating the impression that a product is environmentally friendly when it is not. As a result of people’s desire to have low-cost green products, consumer products often use labeling on the package front to persuade the consumer to purchase those green benefits. In consumer products—the things we buy to support everyday life—abuse of the word “green” is so rampant that the term “greenwashing” applies. Because no standard green certification similar to a “Green Housekeeping Seal of Approval” exists as yet, you need to look at the back of the package. Are the ingredients listed? A proprietary ingredients list usually means that the product contains chemicals the manufacturer does not want to claim. Is the packaging itself minimal or recyclable? Is the product endorsed by an organization known for its environmental standards? If the answers are no, but the information on the front of the package looks like an environmentally friendly product, the product has been greenwashed. However, packaging won’t tell you anything about the water and energy usage of a manufacturer. Major corporations should consider the savings in water and power they can obtain from thinking more closely about their manufacturing processes. Multinationals such as Unilever and Schweppes Cadbury lead a new way of thinking and create marks for manufacturing suppliers that benefit the major providers of companion animal products.
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In fact, it’s tough to understand advertising regulations in the United States, difficult to believe they are strictly enforced, and, well, many of us are jaded about labels that do not carry certifications. Enter “The Greenwash Brigade,” a panel of folks on American Public Media who comment on various and sundry green items. An exchange by the brigade sent me scurrying to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) web site for more information. The brigade said in essence, “Hey, we’re confused about what’s green, and we’re very educated consumers.” They’d like a green “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” This designation would take into account the manufacturing of the product, as well as the use and disposal of the product. In other words, the information given would compare the total impact of one product versus the total impact of the other. Current designations normally deal with the cost of energy the product uses when it operates, not the costs of manufacture and disposal. The group also said that carbon offsets, where consumers pay others to reduce greenhouse gases, are something the FTC should regulate to ensure that those offsets are real and not just a credit-based shell game in which the same credits are moved around and around.
What the FTC Now Requires So, keeping the information to what we pet caretakers need to know, the FTC Act doesn’t allow companies to be deceitful in commerce. In its “Guide for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims,” the FTC requires that package labels be clear. A package labeled “recyclable” should be clear about whether the box or the product itself is recyclable. The FTC says a company can’t overstate their claims. If the box says a trash bag is recyclable, then the label asserts a claim with no meaningful benefit. No one recycles trash bags. Claims such as “biodegradable,” “environmentally friendly,” “compostable,” and so on should be substantiated by the manufacturer. In addition, the claim should not mislead the consumer. “Environmentally friendly” needs to mean just that. But simply because the FTC creates guidelines doesn’t mean the guidelines are being followed. These are voluntary guidelines, but violations can lead to serious consequences. However, the case must be brought to the FTC.
Updating to Combat Greenwashing The FTC plans an update to “Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims,” last updated in 1992. The update to the “Green Guides” addresses claims about renewable energy and carbon offsets. A company’s claims about their carbon footprint or the carbon neutrality of a product or process need to
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be considered after a company has taken reasonable steps to reduce emissions and then purchase offsets greater than remaining emissions. In other words, carbon offsets should not be a “get out of an environmentally horrifying process free” card. There needs to be some honest effort to reduce emissions without carbon offset purchasing. In addition, third-party verification and certification will be a means of substantiating these claims.
To Combat Greenwashing The types of questions you might ask about products and services you purchase include the following, suggested in Shaila Wunderlich’s June 22, 2008, article on greenwashing in the McClatchy-Tribune Business News: Look for a product’s distance shipped. Distance shipped = energy required. When you can, choose materials that are the least energyintensive to produce, although most of us are hard pressed to know what materials are the least energy-intensive to produce. Try to buy from companies that are family-run businesses or community co-ops. Look for labels like USDA Organic, Energy Star, Green Guard, and Forest Stewardship Counsel. If ingredients are not listed on the label, beware. Buy from companies you trust. I add one more point. If a product manufactured overseas is incredibly cheap, you can assume that whatever is in the product probably would not pass muster in the United States, or that the manufacturing process is “too dirty” to take place in the United States. We see this kind of manufacture in cheap children’s toys, and certainly in the pet toy aisle in any superstore. The toy looks cheap and doesn’t last because it is made with materials and by processes that provide no value for sustainability. Just say no. If no one bought these products, no one would sell them. If you have children, you know that the recall lists on toys have been long. Some manufacturers are getting the message, and the same standards for children’s toys are being applied to toys for animals—but not by the low-end product manufacturers.
Juggling Materials and Planetary Requirements Even when we see the information about what’s in a product, understanding the impact is difficult. Consider plastics—not the cheap, brittle kind, but those
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used to make cat litter trays, or bowls or toys for your dog, or housing for the heat lamp for your reptile, or the acrylic for your tank. A major component of plastics is petroleum, which also powers the manufacturing process. Many technologies have been invented to reduce dependence on petroleum. New technologies to make plastics include elements made from plants like corn. Corn requires lots of fertilizer to grow, and corn is a means of feeding people. Even newer technologies involve the waste from corn production. Other approaches use bacteria, but genetic engineering of the bacteria is required. Japan in 2002 set a national goal of sourcing 20 percent of all plastics renewably by 2020. Belgium encourages product biodegradability for shortlived products like shopping bags. The government taxes nondegradable bags at 300 percent, making the degradable ones more economical. Italy mandates that by 2010, all two-handle bags in Italy must biodegrade. The conclusion from all of this is that no product is truly free of effect on our planet. New technologies come with new problems. Nevertheless, through new technologies we will find a way to make products that have less impact on the planet. Supporting innovation in technology is an important activity for consumers to consider.
Certifications Certifications such as Energy Star appear on packages for qualifying products, and certifications are the best way for you to know what you’re getting. In chapters 3 and 4, labels that apply to purchasing are explained in some detail. Certifications are available for food, to tell you whether an item can be recycled, or to tell you whether an appliance is energy saving relative to others. What you can’t find out from certifications is what the net impact of a product is on our environment. Europeans come closer than North Americans on this demand. The environmental impact of various products is beginning to be shown on packages in grocery stores and other consumer products outlets in Europe, where environmental regulations typically are more stringent than in the United States. Although certifications don’t evaluate the complete environmental impact of a product from creation through disposal, use them as guides that provide facts instead of “marketing speak.”
What Is Your Sustainability Score? Some people love quizzes and scoring systems. Others of us run in the other direction. For readers who love scores, or for family leaders who want to
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encourage other family members to participate, a sustainability starting point assessment may be helpful. Like measuring your speed at the butterfly before you begin training in the pool, this quiz helps you create a benchmark against which you can measure your improvement. Often we don’t realize how far we’ve come without such a benchmark. Some people are motivated by competition—not just with themselves, but with others. For those who are willing to share their sustainability scores, I’m providing a place to register your scores and compare yourself against others. Visit www.thiswildlife.com and see the “Pets and the Planet” section. Assessments can help you prioritize areas for improvement. Once one area is under control, you can work on the next area. The scoring system I use is “Good,” “Better,” “Best.” Hey, we need to give ourselves credit for what we do. If you bought or borrowed this book, you’re obviously interested, so even if you’re struggling, you deserve points. Throughout the book, we think in terms of “Good,” “Better,” “Best.” Circle the answer that best fits your situation and total your points (105 points maximum).
My Sustainability Score: A Starting Point Choosing a pet
Good
Better
Best
I didn’t know much about my pet in advance, but my choice has worked okay so far.
Knew what I was getting into with a dog or cat, but I did go to classes and learned how to solve problems.
Considered species, age, life span, and the cost of the pet over the lifetime of the animal, got help when I had problems, and we’re still together.
I volunteer to take pets to shelters for neighbors who are too embarrassed to take them.
I work with shelters to do outreach to the community on pets.
The impact Releasing pets of “releasing” doesn’t seem animals right to me, so I take pets to the shelter when it doesn’t work out.
continues
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Good
Better
Best
Feeding pets impacts the environment
I don’t know much about pets and their food, but would like to.
I feed my animals natural foods, but am a little hazy on why this might be better for the Earth.
I help other people understand what sustainable agriculture is. I just reevaluated my pet’s diet and confirmed with my vet.
Nutrients pets need
I buy a major brand.
I check for the AAFCO label.
My vet and I discussed the best organic food with the AFFCO label.
The musthaves for each pet type
My vet told me what I needed.
I do have the vet’s list, plus a way to confine my pet when I need to.
In addition to the vet list and a confinement area, I continually find new enrichment toys for my pet.
Exercise
I make sure my pet gets some exercise every week.
We’re on an everyday exercise schedule.
Exercise we do is a function of weight and conditioning, and we work on building this as much as we can.
Waste and your pet
I bag my cat litter and throw in the trash. My dog poop I put in trash cans at the dog park.
I put pet waste in biodegradable bags and put it in the trash or bury it in my backyard at least 200 yards from a water source.
I use a waste service that takes pet waste to an industrial composting facility.
Waste and the community
I can’t worry about others right now. I can just worry about myself and my own pets.
We’re experimenting with a waste disposal service for our dog park.
Our town doesn’t have curbside compostables pickup, but I’m working for this through a local group.
Pets and your health
I take my pets to the vet when they’re sick.
I do an annual exam for my pets.
Besides the annual exam, we emphasize handwashing.
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Good
Better
Best
Pets and cleaning
We use cleaners that get the job done.
Weekly cleaning works for us, and we’re considering converting from harsh chemicals to mild organic cleaners.
We emphasize regular cleaning with soap and water, and disinfection when pets have been ill. Hepa filter vacuums help keep allergens down.
Pet services
We don’t leave home because our pets are too important to us. That’s got to change. We’re considering a range of pet services.
The need for services caused us to look at the number of animals we have at home. We’ve made a decision not to replace our current pets.
We buy the services we need to be independent of our pet’s most restricting needs—petsitting and day care keep us sane during our job and kid crunches.
Community ecology
Our pets are neutered. We don’t like the leash laws.
The dog park wasn’t for us. We run together. And we’ve committed to keeping our next cat indoors.
The kids and I decided we’re too busy for pets. We volunteer at our local shelter and that feeds our pet need.
Problem pets
We adopted a dog who just didn’t work for us, even after training. We decided that we’re cat people and adopted an indoor cat instead.
I do get frustrated with my pets, and I do research to solve my problems. We get along pretty well most of the time.
We exercise together almost every day. When I have a problem with my pet, I call the behaviorist.
Ecoconcepts
The biggest problem is illegal importing of reptiles.
The biggest problem is the illegal trade in wild-caught pets.
The biggest problem for pets and the planet is keeping pets in their homes.
Ecoconcepts
Product labels may be useful, but I don’t understand them.
I understand that natural may not be better, but I don’t know why.
I understand the nutrition and product labels and know where to look for help when I don’t.
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For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 45–74: You have good prospects for becoming a pet-wise planet supporter. 75–90: You’re better than most people at making the pet/planet connection. You have potential for the Green Pet Award. 90–105: You win the Green Pet Award! You’re doing a good job and are a good person to help others learn about the connection between our planet and our pets. You’ll pick up a few tips from this book, and I hope you’ll share your own tips at www.thiswildlife.com/petsandtheplanet.
Achievable Goals: Growing into Sustainability Some thoughts to make your progress easier and more fun include: 1. Don’t stop what you’re doing now, even though it may not be perfect. 2. Involve your family and spread the fun and the work. 3. Select high-value activities. If you can’t figure out what else to do, give your pet and yourself some exercise—preferably together, so you can burn off some of that eco-angst if you’re a perfectionist. If you’re more laid-back, the exercise might help you mobilize a bit faster. 4. If you can only do one thing, address any behavior issues that make you think you might not be able to live with your pet. 5. If you have no behavior issues, move on to a diet evaluation, and with that, move on to a less environmentally damaging type of food. 6. If you’ve conquered these areas, move on to community activities, especially as they pertain to helping your community move toward a stable population of pets, industrial-grade composting of pet waste, and the issues related to community harmony discussed in chapter 8. Low-value activities to avoid are any on which you get stuck. Examples from my own experience include obsessing about whether to use paper or biodegradable plastic bags to pick up pet poop, whether to use plastic or a cloth bed for my dog, and which cleaner is the most perfect on the market. Moving forward, even in an area that is not as critical or with a solution that is not perfect, brings benefits. In our stressful world, I’m convinced that the best thing each of us can do for the planet is to keep our minds and bodies healthy, to shop based on the best information we can, and to enjoy our environment.
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Chapter 2
Choosing the Right Pet for You Amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us. —Maurice Maeterlinck
Human beings first domesticated dogs about 10,000 years ago and cats around 4,000 years ago. (Perhaps we should more properly say that cats have been “living in close proximity with humans” for about 4,000 years.) These well-liked pets have provided companionship and fascination ever since. Today, 63 percent of American homes include pets according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA). In these 70 million U.S. households, dogs are the most popular pets, followed by cats, and then fish. Each pet type comes with its challenges and rewards. This chapter concerns pet choice and how it affects the environment. Having a pet increases our environmental footprint on the earth. How much of an increase depends on the type of pet and the choices we make about the pet’s care.
Why Pet Choice Matters The choice of a pet might at first seem an odd thing to consider when thinking about the environment. But your choice of pet—Tabby cat, Collie, Percheron, Guppy, Bearded Dragon—dictates the food, shelter, and other care required and the potential number of offspring your pet might produce. Consider the resources required to support your pet from the beginning of its life to the end. When you acquire a pet, you make that commitment.
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Pet Ownership in U.S. Households Type of Pet
% of American Households
Dog
39
Cat
34
Freshwater fish
13
Bird
6
Small animal (e.g., rabbit, mouse, hermit crab)
5
Reptile
4
Equine
4
Saltwater fish
.7
Adapted from American Pet Products Association (APPA) National Pet Owners Survey, 2007–2008
Modern Pet Ownership The way many of us live has changed significantly since our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. No longer living our lives in the multigenerational family home, we move, our interests come and go, and our exploration of life takes us away from our family and our community. Even though our pets’ living conditions have become more restrictive (i.e., more urban), their physical and emotional needs still must be met. These needs—proper food, exercise, and mental stimulation—figure into your choice of pet. Ask yourself, “Can I happily provide for this particular type of pet’s life?”
Pets and the Individual In the pet-human relationship, decisions are one-sided; the person makes them all. The most important decision you make to ensure the success of that relationship is whether your family’s expectations of your pet are reasonable. Families may want a cuddly and talkative bird and have heard African Grays are the best talkers. Many African Grays do not talk, and very few like to be held or petted. Families who want a talkative bird that is cuddly need to locate an adult bird that already talks and prefers human contact. Similarly, expecting an Australian Cattle Dog to be happy in a small apartment with little exercise is not realistic. The dogs were bred to be active. Pet owners cannot change an animal’s basic characteristics.
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Families have to provide what their pet needs, whether or not it is convenient. For example, some families want a Golden Retriever, but don’t have time to play with the dog each day. This is a breed that needs at least thirty minutes of active playtime—preferably fetching a ball—each day. This is in addition to the dog’s need to walk or to do his business in the fenced yard. Rodents tend to be active at night. If you can’t stand the sound of the exercise wheel at night, you’re not flexible enough to have a pet rat. Long-haired cats need frequent brushing. Kittens need lots of supervision and limits. Your pet’s requirements are determined by the species, age, and personality of your individual animal. When you select a pet, you’ve made a promise to provide what he needs. When families renege on this promise, their pet becomes a burden to the community. In exchange for a lifetime commitment to their pet, families receive companionship, entertainment, and unconditional loyalty. This may be just the beginning of a pet’s contributions to personal and family happiness. Many scientists and physicians believe that pets fulfill many psychological and physical needs we have in our transient society. Indeed, pets form the most lasting relationships some people have.
Pets and the Community Communities have concerns for the well-being of non–pet owners as well as those of us who cherish our animal companions. Accordingly, our towns and states have health and safety regulations to follow. We license and leash pets who appear in public, to control pet behavior and waste in public spaces such as parks and sidewalks. Some communities restrict possession of unusual pets. You might wonder why until you realize that New York building inspectors routinely find fifteenfoot-long pythons and fully grown alligators in small apartments. Some communities also limit the number of domestic pets. Once you’ve seen news stories about people keeping a hundred cats, dogs, or rabbits (cases of pet hoarding masquerading as pet rescue), you don’t have to ask why. Most city and town health codes forbid pets in eating establishments. Local noise regulations apply to barking dogs—and you’ll appreciate these if you live next door to one. With the number of unwanted pets at unprecedented levels, community governments and many private organizations use surprising amounts of resources that could be channeled into solving other social problems. Regarding pet ownership as a privilege shows concern for your community and honors your animal companions.
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Pets and the Ecosystem While pets can be our best friends, unleashed pets degrade our ecosystem. If you have visited Hawaii, you may be aware of the destruction that cats, in conjunction with other introduced animals, have wreaked on the native bird population. Pet reptiles set free cause serious problems for Floridians. Many cities’ water authorities list pet waste as a significant source of water pollution.
Exotic Pets: A Special Concern Exotic pets are those animals not typically domesticated, such as birds, reptiles, fish, insects, and some small mammals including guinea pigs, hedgehogs, and fancy rats. Exotic pets behave as wild animals and usually require special expertise to handle and incredible dedication to keep healthy. These animals do not have the temperaments of cats and dogs, who have been bred for thousands of generations to be human companion animals. Often selected as very young animals, exotic pets exhibit growth in strength and change in temperament as they mature; many families are not prepared for such change. Some people choose exotic pets because they are unusual. The beauty of the animal’s feathers or scales captivates others. A very few exotic pets, such as some types of fish, guinea pigs, or insects, require less maintenance than domestic pets. Prospective exotic pet owners need to consider the substantial impact of many exotic pets on the community and the environment as well as on their homes. Before purchasing an exotic pet other than a guinea pig, rat, or reptiles who remain very small and are nonvenomous, spend the money for a prepurchase consultation with your local exotic animal veterinarian. What you expect from wild animals is often not what you get, and the consultation could save you a difficult choice or a serious injury later.
Why Are Exotic Pets a Concern? Exotic pets are a concern for several reasons.
They Deplete Natural Populations Many years ago, collectors brought birds, reptiles, and fish from their native habitats as oddities and to form a breeding population to produce unusual pets for those who wanted them. Despite the wide availability of breeding populations, wild animal traders continue to abduct animals from their natural environments, often to the detriment of that population and the ecosystem.
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They Are Physically Dangerous Some exotic pets pose significant dangers because the adults are less friendly than the young are. Owners tire of the demands of an increasingly capable and muscular pet, in the case of reptiles, or the long-term care required for birds, often purchased as “low-maintenance” pets. The culture of wild animals is complicated and requires extreme knowledge and deep sensitivity; most people are unable to provide such care, even with the best of intentions. At that point, a second environmental problem arises when unwanted exotic pets are released into an ecosystem that is not prepared for them or when animals such as monkeys or large cats threaten their owners’ safety with behavior that is completely natural and appropriate for a wild animal.
They Are Often Illegal The Humane Society of the United States estimates that U.S. pet owners keep 15,000 monkeys and 15,000 large cats (of which 5,000 to 7,000 are tigers). Thirty-five states as well as many counties and cities forbid keeping wild animals as pets. Sellers of wild animals, of course, do not inform purchasers about the care required by the animals or the regulations restricting sale or possession of wild animals. Private ownership of wild animals has increased through Internet sales. These new owners, unprepared to deal with the demands of raising wild animals, have overwhelmed zoos, exotic animal veterinarians, and wildlife care centers with overnight drop-offs of their normal but distinctly unmanageable “pets.” The good news is that those animals were not released into the local ecosystem. The bad news is that rehoming those animals in facilities designed for their care is almost impossible.
They Encourage the Questionable Practices of Wild Animal Traders Exotic animal traders market the appeal of the unusual to prospective buyers. Given a market for an animal, traders collect the most unusual animals from the most economically pressured people living in isolated regions. Collecting reptiles or other exotic animals provides extra income for indigenous people who live a subsistence lifestyle, but the winners are the wild animal traders. The losers are the animals, vets, zoos, and care centers who try to cope with an entirely foreseeable and preventable problem someone else created. Ecotourism based on the unique animals in the ecosystem is a more effective way to help indigenous peoples.
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Reptiles: A Case in Point You might be surprised to learn that when it comes to criminal activities, only drug trafficking tops the illegal wildlife trade. The World Wildlife Fund states that the global trade in exotic animals, both legal and illegal, is about US$159 billion per year. We can understand the problem better by examining international trade in wild-caught reptiles. Although the Humane Society of the United States (not affiliated with local humane organizations) called for a U.S. ban on sales of imported and captive-bred live reptiles, several reptile-keeping groups as well as breeders of other species and groups that oppose any trade restraints because of the precedents they set, defended the $2-billion-a-year business. Although a ban on captive-bred trade would be difficult legislation to pass, the pets available exceed market demand. Any shelter or local herpetological group will have reptiles who need new homes; the need to remove any reptiles from the wild is at an end.
High Mortality Rates Reptiles are among the most inhumanely treated animals in the pet trade. A majority of reptiles die before age 3 because owners do not provide properly for their dietary needs and other care. Astonishingly, most potential pet owners do not understand that reptiles are animals. A study showed 10–40 percent of 5- to 11-year-olds did not recognize snakes or frogs as animals. Sixty percent of adult zoo visitors did not understand that a lizard was an animal. Twenty-five percent believed that “animals” was synonymous with “mammals.” This misunderstanding may provide a new insight into people’s narrow concepts of animal protection and welfare. Some less well-informed pet owners help perpetuate the commonly held beliefs that reptiles are cold-blooded and they feel little or no pain. Reptiles do not make facial expressions or noises that alert pet owners to their pain and distress, so sick or stressed reptiles often suffer a long time before owners notice illness or injuries. Reptile-keeping is popular in Japan, Europe, and the United States, where people have money to spend and prize the unusual. After owning one or two common species, reptile owners often look for species that are more unusual. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITIES) treaty protects only a few endangered species. Nine million pet reptiles were sold in 2000, an increase of more than one million in two years, according to Humane Society International Asia. Each year the United States imports nearly 2 million live reptiles and exports about 9 million.
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“MAC Certified” Ensures Ecologically Sensitive FishCapture Practices The Disney film Finding Nemo skyrocketed interest in clownfish and other marine life as pets. According to a 2003 report of the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Center, the US$330-million-a-year aquarium fish trade threatens not only the 1,500 species of fish being exported but also their native ecosystems. From Southeast Asian reefs to the United States, fish are often captured with a debilitating dose of sodium cyanide, dumped in plastic bags, and left for hours in the sun. The result: lethargic or dead fish upon arrival at your local store. You can help prevent these collection techniques by ensuring that your marine pets are certified before you buy. The Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) has created standards to ensure sustainable marine-life gathering and transport practices internationally, from the collector all the way to your aquarium retailer. MAC also encourages that you never purchase live rock, like coral, for your aquarium. According to the World Wildlife Federation, coral export damages and degrades 50 to 70 percent of reefs and their ecosystems worldwide.
Poor capture techniques compounded by poor shipping methods and inadequate care kill many reptiles before they reach the pet store. An estimated 90 percent of wild-caught reptiles die in their first year of captivity because of injury prior to purchase or because their owners cannot meet their complex dietary and habitat needs. Because reptiles are inexpensive and easily replaceable, businesses factor the expected huge loss of life into their operating costs.
Dangers to Owners and Public Another aspect of exotic pet impact is owner and public safety.
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Diseases that animals can pass to humans can create significant problems. Livestock owners have concerns about heartwater disease, which is carried by reptiles but can affect cattle and other hoofed stock. Salmonella, associated with reptiles, is a well-known problem. Using proper prevention methods, these diseases need not be spread. (See chapter 6 for instructions on how to prevent disease transmission from pets.) The Animal Protection Institute has cataloged about 200 attacks by pet reptiles since 1995. Attacks by Nile and Saltwater crocodiles are reasonably common, as are bites from non-native snakes.
Special Training Although many cities and states regulate exotic pets by species or level of dangerousness, or whether they are non-native, you can obtain permits for most any reptile with proper information. Australia, in an interesting approach, provides permits for venomous snakes after owners complete a training course that includes supervised hours spent in care of specific reptile species. As a result, only more experienced owners may keep the more dangerous snakes. Trade in all exotic animals, including birds, mammals, reptiles, and fish, will continue as long as buyers purchase wild-caught animals. Systems compelling keepers to have education and experience have potential for improving both the lives of exotic animals in captivity and limiting the number of “throw-away” exotic pets either tossed into a public-funded shelter system or released to die difficult deaths or wreak havoc with the environment.
The Consequences of Not Thinking through Your Pet Decision By considering the reasons owners bring pets to shelters, you can anticipate the problems you might face in bringing a pet into your home.
How Animals Come to Be in Shelters The National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy has studied the top reasons that people turn pets over to shelters. High among them is inadequate time for pets. Pets such as cats, dogs, birds, and small mammals require daily care, attention, and exercise beyond meeting their bare survival necessities of food and water. Often, pet enthusiasts overburden themselves with the numbers and variety of pets they keep. The stress of meeting the needs of many animals
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who cannot care for themselves becomes too much, especially when changes such as a job or a move or a pet behavior problem arise. Overburdening also occurs when owners allow pets to reproduce. Following are the reasons owners bring pets to shelters. What you may notice is that most of these reasons for giving up pets are ones the pet owner could have anticipated.
Top Ten Reasons Dogs and Cats Are Relinquished to U.S. Shelters Dogs
Cats
1. Moving
1. Too many in home
2. Landlord issues
2. Allergies
3. Cost of pet maintenance
3. Moving
4. No time for pet
4. Cost of pet maintenance
5. Inadequate facilities
5. Landlord issues
6. Too many pets in home
6. No homes for littermates
7. Pet illness
7. House soiling
8. Personal problems
8. Personal problems
9. Biting
9. Inadequate facilities
10. No homes for littermates
10. Doesn’t get along with other pets
Reprinted with permission from American Pet Products Association (APPA)
The Impact of Sheltered Animals If you are unsure how dogs and cats in shelters can affect the earth, consider the bill sponsored in the California State Assembly in 2007 by Lloyd Levine. The proposed bill mandated spaying or neutering of most dogs and cats in the state. Levine proposed exceptions for working dogs, such as police and guide dogs, and cats or dogs shown competitively. Although the bill was defeated, the bill’s proposal highlights a significant problem in California and in other states. Levine’s reason for offering the bill was the $300 million that state and local governments in California spend annually to house, care for, and ultimately euthanize 500,000 dogs and cats. This figure does not include the private funds that support other efforts. Pet owners can resolve this problem without legislation by taking action themselves. Spaying and neutering of dogs and cats reduces the number of future unwanted animals and taxpayer dollars or private donations that must support them during their time in shelters.
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No-Kill Shelters Private funds support no-kill shelters, which are usually very selective about the animals they take to ensure people will want to adopt them. This high adoption rate is what creates space to take in more animals. By contrast, publicly funded county shelters are required to accept any animals who are presented to them. County shelter employees care no less for animals than workers in the nokill shelters. The policies of publicly funded shelters are dictated by their funding constraints not by their personal feelings. Please remember, people who patronize puppy mills and exotic animal traders, and the vast numbers who fail to neuter or give up their pets, cause shelters to be overwhelmed and to resort to euthanasia.
Achieving a Sustainable Pet Population The pet overpopulation problem results from owners not taking responsibility for their pets. Of the 6 to 8 million cats and dogs who enter shelters each year, new families adopt half. The families accidentally separated from their animal reclaim a few. Euthanasia is the only solution for most of the remaining pets because shelters cannot become homes indefinitely in a system never designed for permanent caretaking. A major source of these unclaimed pets is accidental or intentional reproduction among unaltered pets, especially among those who are allowed to roam outdoors. Consider the following reproduction rates for dogs and cats.
Pet Reproduction Rates Reproductive Numbers
Dog
Cat
Litters per year
2
3
Young per litter
6–10
4–6
Potential number of young per year
12–20
12–18
Spay and neuter programs are essential to control pet overpopulation. We’ll know we’ve managed the pet population when the number of animals entering
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shelters and the number of animals being returned to families or adopted is equal. That means we will have reached a sustainable pet population.
The Impact of Releasing Unwanted Pets Pet owners sometimes tire of their animals or become overwhelmed by caring for a large number of pets or a difficult pet. Rather than face the stress of turning the pet in to a shelter, owners drive pets far from their home range and abandon them. Some people believe the animal has a better chance to survive roaming free than at a shelter, a false belief formed to salve the pet abandoner’s conscience. Releasing your pet, whether a cat, rabbit, or bearded dragon, is not the answer. Typically, people report roaming dogs for pickup by animal control authorities, who take the dog to the local shelter. Cats and exotic or unusual animals, unless confined to a small area, are not usually discovered or reported. Released pets not captured and sheltered suffer from weather, wild predators, and a lack of adequate food. Some pets die a difficult death. Other released pets survive and breed successfully. In these cases, the survivor pets become an invasive species and the environment suffers. Worldwide, invasive species pose serious threats to all our planet’s unique ecosystems.
From Nontraditional Pet to Invasive Species Nontraditional pets dumped by their owners can become destructive, multiplying invaders. In Florida, non-native reptiles, including the South American caiman and the basilisk lizard, Burmese python, and Central American green iguana, thrive. Wildlife biologists in Everglades National Park in Florida have recaptured released pet Burmese pythons who have grown to 20 feet long and 200 pounds. Because the ecosystem has no natural predators to control them, the pythons now breed freely, creating more pythons to feast on even more of the animals native to that ecosystem. Other Florida invaders, the Nile Monitor Lizards, swim in the canals of Cape Coral. Wildlife authorities are concerned that these lizards, who grow to seven feet long (and deliver a nasty bite), eat eggs of the endangered burrowing owl as well as free-roaming animals, including pets. Not only do these invasive species out-compete some of Florida’s native reptiles, they also prey upon smaller natives in unhealthy numbers, upsetting the delicate balance of the ecosystem. A 2007 CNN news photo showing a feral snake who attempted to consume an American alligator provided an eyeopening example of the prevalence of non-native species in Florida. The problem of invasive species is so difficult in Florida that the U.S. Geological Survey conducts a public awareness campaign including trading
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cards for kids featuring eighteen of the species causing problems for Floridians and their native wildlife. Invasive species can also thrive in non-tropical environments. The Monk (or Quaker) parakeet thrives in Chicago, New York, and Colorado, as well as Florida. These colonial nesters live up to thirty years as permanent residents of fourteen U.S. states. Urban residents feed them; in the countryside, they live on berries, apples, and other crops. The problems of pet release and invasive species are significant worldwide. Australia’s Department of Environment and Water Resources defines an invasive or exotic species as a “species occurring, as a result of human activities, beyond its accepted normal distribution and which threaten valued environmental, agricultural, or personal resources by the damage it causes.” The 2004 National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species estimated that the economic costs of invasive species in the United States, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and India came to US$336 billion. The Eastern Gray Squirrel has been nominated among the 100 World’s Worst Invaders by the World Conservation Union.
Examples of Non-Native Animal Releases and Effects Animal Type
Where
Effect
Strategy for Elimination
Black 3 animals released Spiny-Tailed on Gasparilla Iguana Island around 1975.
30,000 iguanas by 2006, eat landscaping, turtle eggs, undermine foundations with burrows, nest in attics.
Trappers paid to remove iguanas. Some resold to exotic pet trade.
Brown Tree Snake (up to 9 feet long)
A few escaped in 1945 in Guam.
Up to 13,000 snakes per square mile, eliminated 8 of 11 native bird species, fruit bats (the native pollinators), caused 2,000 electrical outages, responsible for many emergency room visits.
Halt import of more snakes on cargo planes using detection by snake-sniffing dogs; gas and trapping to eliminate.
Eastern Gray Squirrel
England, Italy, South Africa, spreading through Europe and Asia from small number of pets imported in Italy in 1948.
This pet (imported from the U.S.) has caused the local extinction of native red squirrels, damages woodland by stripping bark, and spreads a virus lethal to native red squirrels.
Trapping and shooting, contraception, poisoning.
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The U.S. native Red-Eared Slider Turtle makes up more than 80 percent of annual U.S. exports of 8 to 10 million reptiles. In the same way U.S. residents are concerned about non-native reptiles damaging our environment, the European Union has banned import of this animal, because the turtle threatens to out-compete native turtles in Africa, Asia, the Indo-Pacific, and Europe. Feral animals have overrun Hawaii, wiping out most of the native birds. The birds that remain are also invaders. The island of Guam has had a similar problem with the Brown Tree Snake. The snakes have become so abundant that the weight of snakes on the power lines causes outages several times a day. While Guam’s native ground-nesting birds are extinct, Hawaii tries desperately to avoid the elimination of the few remaining individual native birds through regulations. Hawaii even employs snake-sniffing dogs at the airport to detect attempts to import snakes. Compounding the problem of the tree snakes in Hawaii is the Coqui Frog, a native of Puerto Rico. In addition to interrupting the sleep of residents with its unbelievably loud call (listen to the call on www.thiswildlife.com), the frog competes with the remaining native birds for their insect diet. Despite the fact that some exotic pets, like the famous San Francisco parrots on Telegraph Hill, survive, most do not. Better to take the animal to a shelter for placement or a humane death than to potentially harm a person or the environment. Instead of releasing hard-to-place exotic animals, wildlife experts suggest the following: Try to return the animal to the place where you bought him, even if the company does not refund your money. Find a veterinarian familiar with the species and ask for suggestions. Contact local zoos or colleges to see if the animal can be used for teaching purposes. Contact groups specializing in your exotic pet species, such as the Edmonton Reptile and Amphibian Society or the International Conure Association.
Feral Cats: The Gorillas in the Room A far more difficult problem is the worldwide free-roaming feral cat population. Of any pet released, the damage from free-roaming cats is the most serious.
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What Are Feral Cats? Feral cats are the offspring of stray cats, cats abandoned by their owners, who were once domesticated. “Feral” refers to members of a typically domesticated species that live as wild animals. Although we can domesticate feral offspring before the age of 12 weeks, most experts agree that many efforts to domesticate adult feral cats fail. Feral cats will often live together in colonies. Colonies of cats thrive around sources of human food such as Dumpsters. The food source supports reproduction of a colony that would die without support; clearly, human habits provide the resources to grow these colonies. Because female cats have two to three litters per year, and cats hunt even when well fed, islands such as Hawaii illustrate what happens when such colonies develop: they decimate local wildlife. The effect, says ecologist E. O. Wilson, is “second only to habitat destruction in the magnitude of the threat they pose. In removing natural barriers to species movements, we’re changing the very nature of wild places, replacing unique animal . . . communities with a generic, impoverished hodgepodge world of hardy generalists: a world not of Sumatran rhinos, golden turtles, Blackburnian warblers, and giant saguaro, but merely one of cats, rats, crows, and West Nile virus.”
Great Ideas: Habitattitude Responding to a concern about the expansion of harmful plants, fish, and other animals accidentally introduced to non-native environments, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has joined with the American Pet Products Association (APPA) and aquarium, backyard pond, and water plant enthusiasts to provide information about the importance of safe disposal of unwanted aquatic plants and fish. The program they have formed, called Habitattitude, provides a newsletter, bags for collecting and disposing of unwanted materials, and ideas about linking people with unwanted fish and plants with those seeking those same fish and plants. In addition, a network of experts is available to answer questions from industry and consumers. Now, that’s a great idea!
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Maintaining Feral Cat Colonies To control the feral cat population and alleviate the suffering of cats and the danger to communities from disease, organizations such as Alley Cat Allies and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) developed a program of “trap, neuter, return” (TNR). Colony managers provide food, humanely trap unneutered cats, and take them to a facility to be vaccinated and neutered. The veterinarian notches one ear on each treated cat so that protected and healthy cats can be distinguished from those needing treatment. Justifications for the managed-colony approach include concern about the inhumanity of destroying animals and the belief that when cats are removed from a colony, other cats move in to take their place. Alley Cat Allies and HSUS believe the size of the feral cat population is so large that no eradication program could ever eliminate the population. Better, then, to manage the colonies to keep the cats healthy. Ed Sayres, president and CEO of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), explains, “The ASPCA supports the principle of managed colonies for feral cat population control until the colony size can be reduced by attrition.” Supporting the health-oriented approach of Alley Cat Allies for management, the ASPCA agrees that this approach limits the spread of disease and multiplication of the individuals in the colony. Sayres explains that colony management is not appropriate under all circumstances. “The ASPCA does not support managed colonies in areas where endangered or threatened prey species are present, in areas where it is likely that the cats themselves may be subjected to harm or abuse, or where there is little or no community acceptance, as this too could jeopardize the safety of the animals. In such cases, the ASPCA recommends capture and adoption, or euthanasia.” Many wildlife advocates support eradicating feral cats through euthanasia. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that native birds represent 20 to 30 percent of the prey of free-roaming cats. The one thing these groups agree on is that people can prevent the trapping and killing of cats by responsibly looking after and sterilizing their pets. Community solutions to these problems include securing Dumpsters and garbage cans—as you would to discourage roaming wildlife—and the communal will to stop creating more “wild” cats through abandonment. Once established, HSUS advises, feral cat colonies cling to their territories, reluctant to leave even given severe food shortages.
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A Looming Battle What both cat enthusiasts, such as Alley Cat Allies, and environmental enthusiasts, such as the American Bird Conservancy, agree on is that the problem of cat overpopulation lies with people, and that, without human supervision, the lives of cats are short and usually miserable. What they do not agree on is the degree to which unowned and owned roaming cats affect the environment. As a result, in the United States, a body of case law is forming around the topics of domestic cats, feral cats, the legal responsibility for cats of either status, and the unseemly suggestion that to be subject to the same restrictions as dogs for care and control, cats may need to be classified as potentially dangerous animals. Unlike our current concept of dogs’ potential danger to individuals, the cats’ threat is to communities’ environments. The situation posed by roaming cats was analyzed in some detail by Anthony E. LaCroix of Michigan State University’s College of Law Animal Legal and Historical Center. The harm posed by cat colonies is not only to local ecosystems through predation but also to the public “who depend on the health of their neighborhood ecosystems to sustain their quality of life. More important, however, is the preservation of local species diversity,” says LaCroix. This thorny problem requires a complicated solution. If you’d like to get involved, organizations with opportunities are included in the resources at the end of the chapter.
A Pet Type for Your Environmental Ethic Before you visit shelters or breeders looking for Callie the cat or Vickie the homeless mutt, spend some time thinking. Consider which type of pet would work best given your lifestyle and the resources you can afford to commit to the animal’s purchase and care. You should also consider your personal environmental ethic.
Life Span and Daily Care Kim Saunders, Shelter Outreach Vice President of Petfinder.com, a web-based pet placement service that has helped 11 million homeless pets find homes, says, “The right pet is out there for everyone who wants one, but not every pet is right for everyone.” Pets come in all shapes, sizes, and groups, from a Vietnamese Walking Stick insect to a miniature pony. Of course, all of these pets have different life spans, needs, and other considerations, as shown in the following table.
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Choosing Your Pet: Life Span and Daily Care Type of Pet
Considerations
Daily Care Takes . . .
Life Span
Dogs
Need to eat meat. Reproduction and predation control required. Cause problems when owners release them.
1 hour plus
10–15 years
Cats
Need to eat meat. Reproduction and predation control required. Cause problems when owners release them.
30 minutes
15–20 years
Fresh or Deplete the natural ecosystems’ salt water stock, animal cruelty when gathered fish from the wild. For proper sourcing, check for Marine Aquarium Council certification. Can create problems when owners release them.
10 minutes plus 3 hours every 2 weeks
Most 2–5 years
Birds
Collection from the environment depletes natural ecosystems’ stock and creates animal cruelty problem. Certify pets as captive bred before purchase. Eat low on the food chain. Reproduction control through separate housing recommended. Can create problems when owners release them.
30–60 minutes plus 3 hours every 2 weeks
Small birds 7–10 years; larger birds 15–80 years
Small animals
Domestic rats, guinea pigs, rabbits very suitable if neutered. Eat low on the food chain.
30 minutes
2–5 years
Reptiles
Diets vary from low to relatively high on the food chain. Common small reptiles found in your country are the best bet, such as tortoises or small snakes. Collection from environment creates animal cruelty problems. Create problems when owners release them.
10 minutes plus 3 hours every 2 weeks
10–20 years; some much longer
Horses
Feed low on food chain, but require lots of space.
1 hour for basic care plus exercise
20–30 years
Once you become educated about the length of your potential pet’s lifetime, consider your budget. Remember, budget and time required to care for a pet are two major reasons families give up their pets.
$75 $15 $45 $620 $10 $30
$50 $90 $270 $300 $1,190
$60 $15 $35 $420 $75 $25
$30 $60
38 $190 $200 $810
$400 $400 $1,580
$220 $911
$140 $715
$30
$15 $691 $75
$30 $575 $75 $10 $25 $25 $90 $30
$126 $125 $400 $25
Rabbit
$170 $150 $175 $50
Cat
$645
$80
$80
$15 $565
$75 $50 $400 $25
Guinea Pig
$340
$35
$35
$195
$75
$75
$15 $120
$30
$220 $20 $15 $305
$75
Small Bird
$50
Small Mammal
$235
$200 $200
$15 $35
$20
Fish
10:34 PM
$80 $160
$150 $15 $65 $780 $125 $35
$350 $200
Large Dog
1/15/09
1 Premium-brand dry kibble. 2 Exam, vaccinations, heartworm medication. 3 Scoopable litter for cats, scooped daily; hardwood shavings or recycled paper products for rabbits, guinea pigs, and small mammals, changed at least weekly. 4 Basic twenty-gallon setup with light/hood, outside filter, under-gravel filters, air pump, and gravel. Does not include fish. Reprinted with permission of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
$310 $175
$160 $15
Food1 Medical2 Litter3 Toys and treats License Miscellaneous Annual Total Spay or neuter Collar and leash Litter box Cage Carrier Crate Aquarium equipment4 First Year Extra Total Grooming (long hair) First-year total
Medium Dog
Small Dog
Costs
Estimating Pet Care Costs (US$)
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Vegetarianism and Pets If you’re a vegetarian who prefers that your pet also abstain from eating meat, understand that dogs and cats are not natural vegetarians. Dogs may not receive the nutrients they need to thrive on a vegetable-only diet. If you choose to feed your dog a vegetarian or vegan diet, then you must educate yourself about the best, most healthful way to do so. Cats require meat; non-meat diets are not healthy for them. Consider adopting a natural vegetarian such as a bird, rabbit, guinea pig, or horse.
Pets and Your Home Life Your family members have to feel safe and healthy in their home. The purity of the air they breathe, the degree of peace and quiet they desire, and the extent to which they want to help care for your pet are important factors to consider in choosing your pet.
Health Concerns If anyone in your home has allergies or lung problems, your choices are limited to fish or insects or some types of reptiles. Birds and all mammals create dust, dirt, and dander that will exacerbate respiratory problems. Despite claims of hypoallergenic dogs and cats, the problem is neither fur nor hair. Believe the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology: “Contrary to popular belief, people are not allergic to an animal’s hair [or fur], but rather, to a protein found in the saliva, dander [dead skin flakes], or urine of an animal. . . . These proteins are carried in the air on very small, invisible particles, which can land on the lining of the eyes or nose, or be inhaled directly into the lungs.” Saliva is the source of cat and dog allergens; urine is the source of allergens from rabbits, hamsters, and guinea pigs. The academy goes on to say, “A cat or dog produces a certain amount of allergens per week, and this amount can vary from animal to animal. All breeds are capable of triggering symptoms—there are no ‘hypoallergenic’ breeds of cats or dogs.”
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Keeping an animal outdoors is only a partial solution, since homes with pets in the yard still have higher concentrations of animal allergens. The academy suggests that you consider getting a pet such as a turtle, hermit crab, fish, snake, or other animal without fur or feathers.
Age Appropriateness If you have small children or plan to, or if you care for an elderly parent, consider whether the timing is right for a pet. Although many families seem to believe that puppies and small children go together, small rodents or fish are a better bet. The elderly may find comfort in a pet but feel overwhelmed by the responsibility. Try inviting a friend to bring a pet for a visit instead.
Housing Covenants Another point to consider is your housing covenant. Most rental properties do not allow pets, although sometimes fish are the exception. Fish tank size may be restricted. Group or co-housing, condominiums, and senior communities usually have policies defining allowable pets. Be sure that you know what these restrictions are before considering a pet.
The Outside Environment Your neighborhood is also a factor in choosing a pet. A potbellied pig probably doesn’t belong in a high-rise building, whereas a farm may be a fine place for this pet. Similarly, a pair of macaws may not be a good fit for a crowded urban environment, but rural communities may accept your noisy duo. These are environmental decisions. Disposal of waste, noise pollution, and the air-filtering modifications to a traditional apartment are substantial issues that do create reasons to think more than twice.
How to Experience Pets without Having One Some people choose to enjoy the benefits of having a pet through an arrangement of sharing a pet or volunteering with animals.
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Sharing a Pet If you want a pet but really don’t have the time, you could offer to provide care for a friend’s pet. Most pet owners would be pleased to have someone walk the dog an extra time or provide a weekend out for their pet. All pet owners need someone to care for their pet while they travel. You can have occasional fun with a pet using these simple approaches that don’t pressure you or risk unintended neglect because your life is too busy to care for an animal full time. Although shared pet services exist, this arrangement does not appear to have the welfare of the animal as a first priority.
Volunteering or Working with Pets Some people feel that with all the pets in shelters, giving even scant care to a pet at home is better than putting him in a shelter to be euthanized. Nice idea, but a neglected pet or one marginally cared for usually ends up going to the shelter a second time. Best to let the pet have the chance for a permanent home and volunteer instead. You can volunteer to help animals in shelters or in foster care programs, or programs that require assistance in raising working dogs. Children especially want pets; parents can use volunteer opportunities as teachable moments about the environment. DoSomething.org helps kids start dog-walking and dog-sitting services to earn spending money. In the process, kids learn about responsible pet ownership. Try KidsCare Clubs, part of the Points of Light Foundation. Meals-on-Wheels drivers, pastors, and rabbis know seniors who require help with animals, and many would welcome kids’ involvement. Breed clubs and dog athletic clubs need help with events. Kids can put up jumps for agility competitions or reset targets in fly ball. Fostering cats or dogs for your local shelter helps the animal and gives families insight into whether they are ready for a pet. How is volunteering related to the environment? Kids learn from this experience that you don’t need to “own” something to participate in activities you love. They’ll also learn that the community is our environment, and that the people and the domestic animals that populate it are part of our environment. Their support and welfare are our responsibility.
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Volunteering with Pets: A Directory Organization
Kind of Activity
Where to Find Hometown Contacts
4-H Clubs
Dog obedience, puppy raising
County extension office of the State Department of Agriculture. See government pages of phone book (equivalent in Canada)
Kids Care Clubs
Service with other kids about animals
www.Kidscare.org (Points of Light Foundation)
Local Kennel Clubs
Help with obedience, tracking, agility, and conformation events
American Kennel Club, www.akc.org Canadian Kennel Club, www.ckc.ca
Your local animal shelter
Kids camps Fostering dogs
Petfinder.com lists contact information for local shelters. Humane Society of Canada, www.humanesociety.com
Guide Dogs for the Blind
In-home puppy raising, puppy petting, or puppy walking
www.guidedogs.com
Canine Companions for Independence
www.caninecompanions.org
Assistance Dogs of America
www.adai.org
Assistance Dog Institute
www.assistancedog.org
Lions Foundation of Canada Guide Dogs
www.dogguides.com
Sources of Pets APPA’s National Pet Ownership Survey 2007–2008 indicates that less than 20 percent of dogs and cats come from shelters or rescue groups; 30–40 percent come from friends or relatives. The remaining pets we purchase from breeders or retail stores. When considering a pet, choose a source that has your prospective
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pet’s welfare in mind. Although you may want a Cockatoo (a large and very loud parrot), no one with the welfare of the bird in mind will help an apartment dweller acquire one. Neither you nor this very vocal and active bird will be happy. A Greyhound, a quiet couch potato, is a better apartment pet choice.
From Shelters and Rescue Organizations The Humane Society of the United States estimates that 6 to 8 million dogs and cats enter animal shelters annually, so the supply of pets certainly is larger than the demand for them. Keeping animals with their families or reuniting separated pets is a shelter’s first priority. Finding new families for dislocated pets is the next most important job. As a result, shelters and rescue organizations can be excellent places to find pets. One good way to connect with pets in these facilities is through Petfinder.com. Most shelters in North America provide Petfinder with information about their animals available for adoption. Among the 250,000 pets listed are cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, reptiles, birds, horses, and even a few tarantulas. Not only can you find what shelters are near you, but Petfinder allows you to take a first look at potential pets through listings and photos, without driving—a fuel savings. “In over eleven years, almost 11 million homeless pets have found their families through Petfinder.com,” says Kim Saunders.
From Breeders The best breeders are choosy about their pets’ home and families. As part of their mission, breeders concerned about animal welfare educate you about the animal you’re considering—its care, temperament, and development. The most environment-savvy breeders sell only spayed or neutered pets, and will insist that you bring the animal back if you ever want to give him up. “Visiting the breeder where a puppy was born and raised is the only way a consumer can ensure their prospective puppy did not originate at a puppy mill,” says Robert Baker, longtime animal advocate. “See the kennel first hand; examine the puppy-raising conditions. You will be able to see the parents of the puppy, so you will know what the puppy will look like when it grows up.” Best of all, you’ll be able to see the temperament of the parents of your future dog or cat. If their temperament doesn’t impress you as compatible with your lifestyle, move on. Careful breeders screen their parent dogs for temperament and for genetic traits that can cause health problems. Also, because they want their animals to stay in their original homes, most breeders and some shelters will
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question you extensively about your lifestyle to determine that the breed’s characteristics are a good match for your family. For example, if chess and puzzles are your hobbies, an active Australian Shepherd is not a good match for you. Beyond breed characteristics, the personality of each animal
Making a Difference: Fighting Puppy Mills Robert Baker, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) anti-cruelty investigator, has spent thirty years investigating animal fighting and the commercial dog-breeding industry. Puppy mills significantly contribute to pet overpopulation as well as to animal neglect and cruelty. Just three of the many ASPCA requirements for reputable breeders include socializing puppies from three weeks of age onward, screening potential buyers, and guaranteeing to take back a dog of their breeding regardless of the reason. American Kennel Club (AKC) papers are no guarantee that the puppy meets the breed standards or that the puppy was humanely raised. Nor do claims of health certificates guarantee health. These exams are cursory and cannot detect diseases puppies could be incubating, such as internal parasites. Dogs appear symptom free until parasites have enough time to multiply and the puppy begins suffering. To join the fight against puppy mills, visit www.aspca.org/ fight-animal-cruelty/puppymills. Searching out a reputable local breeder takes time, but Baker reminds families that they are choosing a companion for the next ten to fifteen years. Surely a little more time is a worthwhile investment.
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is different. Breeders, and many shelters, will try to match your temperament with the temperament of an individual. For example, a prospective owner who has a stressful life will be happier with a calm and quiet-natured dog, such as a Greyhound. To find breeders that are more likely to follow professional practices, consult associations of breeders. Most of these organizations have continuing education seminars, codes of professional practice, and rescue organizations that try to pick up the pieces when the relationships between a buyer and a breeder go wrong. To find reputable pet breeders, start with these organizations: Dog breeders: American Kennel Club (www.akc.org), Canadian Kennel Club (www.ckc.ca) Cat breeders: Cat Fancier’s Association (www.cfainc.org), The International Cat Association (www.tica.org) Bird breeders: American Federation of Aviculture (www.afabirds.org), Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada (www.aacc.ca) Reptile breeders: Find clubs near you at www.kingsnake.com/society.html Small mammal breeders: American Gerbil Society (www.agsgerbils.org/Breeders.html), Rat and Mouse Club of America (www.rmca.org/), Pet Rats Canada (www.petratscanada.com/) Insect breeders: Amateur Entomological Society Bug Club (UK) (www.amentsoc.org/bugclub)
From Neighbors or Large Pet Stores Large operations produce dogs, cats, birds, and reptiles for the pet trade and sell to stores, severing the breeder-animal connection. These breeders are not available to help you if a problem arises and have no reason to take their animals back. The worst of these breeders sell pets bred on a production schedule, which promotes health problems and means nothing will be known about the temperament of the animals. As far as the planet is concerned, backyard breeders and friends also fall into this category. Although the intentions can be good, these people are unable to assist with problems or take their animals back. Animals that come from their operations become “wards of the community” if you are unable to care for them.
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From Specialty Pet Stores Some breeders of birds, fish, and reptiles sell only to specialty pet stores, ones that exist to serve that type of animal and his fanciers. These breeders tend to be smaller operations, people who love their species, are knowledgeable, and are concerned about the health and welfare of their animals. Now that you know more about the issues for our planet in choosing pets, try this quiz. Circle the answer that fits your situation best and total your points.
My Sustainability Score: Choosing Pets Category
Good
Better
Best
Type of pet
Animal who meets your needs and one whose needs you can meet yourself.
Pet acquired after experience with the animal type through a fancier’s club or shelter.
Pet acquired after volunteering or caring for a similar animal on a consistent basis.
Source of pet
Reliable source with health certificate.
Source with a return policy.
Breeder or shelter that is responsible for taking pet back under any circumstances.
Plan if you can’t keep pet
Rehome through shelter or breed rescue.
Rehome with owner experienced and involved in the breed.
Breeder or shelter that takes pet back under any circumstances.
Understanding requirements
Has read about the breed.
Has spent time with the breed.
Is an active participant in breed clubs.
Reproduction control
Acquires pet with commitment to neuter at the proper age.
Neuters pet.
Acquires neutered pet.
Indoor or outdoor pet
Commit that next pet will be kept indoors.
Keeps all pets indoors most of the time.
Transition pets to indoor pets. When outdoors, pet is leashed or enclosed in fenced yard.
Exotic pets
Has license or band proving pet bred in captivity.
Cares for exotic from rescue.
Works in a positive way for captive breeding rather than trade in wild animals.
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For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 21–34 points: You have good plans for acquiring pets. 35–48 points: You have a great understanding of your pet and the problems that can happen to the best of people and pets. Potential for the Green Pet Award. 49 points: You have a clear understanding about appropriateness of different pets and work hard for the pet community. You win the Green Pet Award.
My Sustainability Plan: Acting on Pet Choices A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved. In my home: Choose not to add any pets to the family if we can’t commit to taking proper care of them. Have my child dog-sit for a neighbor instead of getting a pet. Choose my next pet from a shelter. Spay or neuter any unaltered pets. Learn what it takes to bring my cat indoors. Suggest that my child do a school report on invasive reptiles in Florida. In my community: Have the scout troop visit a local shelter. Start a KidsCare Club. Volunteer at a local shelter. Volunteer for a local spay/neuter day. In my personal beliefs: Is there a political action I want to take? Is there a conversation I want to have in the neighborhood?
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Resources Finding Pets Petfinder.com Breed rescue clubs directory: www.akc.org Exotic animal clubs: Search for your state, “rescue,” and the animal you’re interested in, such as “rodents,” “birds,” or “reptiles.”
Animal Education American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: www.aspca.org Humane Society of the United States: www.hsus.org
Problems of Exotic Pets and Invasive Species World Wildlife Fund: www.worldwildlife.org Marine Aquarium Council: www.aquariumcouncil.org World Conservation Union: www.iucn.org/en
Feral Cats Alley Cat Allies: www.alleycat.org American Bird Conservancy: www.abcbirds.org
Pets and the Law The Michigan State University School of Law: www.animallaw.info
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Choosing Green Pet Food We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. —Aldo Leopold
Never has the opportunity to feed your pet a nutritious, earth-friendly diet been better. From 2003 through 2006, 575 new natural or organic pet food products made their way to store shelves. In this chapter, I’ll show you how to select a diet that may improve your pet’s health as well as lighten the load on our planet. We’ll explore why pet food matters to the planet, why natural or organic food may be a good choice, and how to select a diet using labels as a guide. At the end of the chapter, you’ll select the steps you want to take in choosing green pet foods.
Why Green Pet Food Matters When we face major consumption-related environmental problems, such as air and water pollution, global warming, and habitat alteration, why does choosing green pet food matter at all?
Because Pet Owners See Their Pets as Family Members Today’s pets are family members, motivating family decisions the same way a human member of the family does. 49
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A survey by the American Pet Products Association (APPA) reports that seven of ten dog owners view their pet as a child or a member of the family. Holiday gifts, day care, clothing, birthday parties, and even greeting cards for pets support this elevation in status from outdoor working companion to family member. To treat pets as humans is, in effect, to increase the human environmental footprint. The health and well-being of your pets, like that of any family member, depends on the quality of the food they eat. Nutrition is not just about calories. Eating the right foods creates the best chance for your pets to live healthy and long lives. Avoiding artificially induced chemicals gives your pets the best chance to escape environmentally induced illnesses.
Because Food Production Methods Affect Our Planet in Startling Ways With the transition of pets from consumers of human food waste to consumers of human food ingredients, the burden on food production has increased. Methods of raising livestock, fruits, vegetables, and grains have an enormous impact on our planet, whether those foodstuffs are used to feed human beings or pets. The Union of Concerned Scientists, in their excellent “Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices,” explains that food production is second only to transportation as a source of environmental problems. Sixty percent of U.S. land area is devoted to crops or livestock grazing. Associated fertilizers, pesticides, animal wastes, and erosion create water-quality problems, while methane and greenhouse emissions come from grain production, livestock, and energy used in mechanized processes.
Because What We Learn about Pet Food Teaches Us about What We Eat In learning about pet food, we understand better what we feed ourselves. Studies show that women, in particular, regard their pets as a source of comfort just as they do their human families. Ironically, many women provide better support for friends and family than they do for themselves. By learning to nourish their pets better, women also learn about their own nutrition. Children learn about themselves through animals, too. Lessons in good nutrition applied to their pets are lessons that stay with kids. Choosing carrot sticks instead of a cookie to share with a beloved pet dog or hamster reinforces what your child learns by allowing him or her to explain it to the pet.
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Finally, examining how your pet’s diet stacks up to nutritional needs gives you the opportunity to do the same with your own diet.
How Feeding Pets Affects Our Environment To understand the degree to which feeding pets affects the environment, we can estimate pet demands in human terms. The National Research Council reports the average number of calories per day that pets require. We know the population of cats and dogs in pet homes, and the average number of calories a day for each person in the United States. Consider the following table:
Feeding Pets: How Many Calories Does It Take? Dogs
Cats
2004 pet population in U.S. homes
1.7 million
2.4 million
Average calories per day per animal
1,000
280
Percent of average U.S. citizen calories (3,600)
28
8
Equivalent number of people who could be fed
476,000
192,000
A quick calculation tells us that the amount of food needed to feed U.S. pet dogs and cats would feed all of Memphis, Austin, Boston, Washington, D.C., or Las Vegas. American pets consume the same number of calories as 668,000 people. Pet food used to be about selecting a small, medium, or large bag of whatever your local feed or grocery store stocked. Today, choosing pet food from among the hundreds of varieties in the $17 billion United States market can be a complicated task. Beef, duck, vegetables, and salmon are part of today’s pet diets. Once created to profit from human food manufacturing waste, the pet food industry now makes products with human-grade ingredients that sell well because people want something better for their family members who happen to be pets. The number of people purchasing pet food with human-grade ingredients is on the increase. As a result, pets truly do increase the burden on agriculture, because they are no longer eating the “leftover” products.
What Resources Are Required to Produce Food? In its “Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices,” the Union of Concerned Scientists explains that most of the environmental impact of food
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production “comes from cultivation rather than packaging, processing, and transportation.” Red meat production has the highest impact, poultry has less than half the impact, and pasta has even less impact than poultry. Why is this so, given the science behind modern farming methods? The answer lies in the intensive nature of production farming. “Factory-style” farming uses but does little to replenish healthy soil structure, leaving it depleted. Soil is not a machine, but a complicated matrix that behaves more like a living organism. Overgrazed and overfarmed areas suffer from unhealthy soil. Each decade 7 percent of the topsoil erodes from these areas. Nature requires 5,000 years to make five inches of topsoil. When you subtract the prime farm acreage (with the best topsoil) sold and taken out of production each year, our land-use problems come into perspective. The hidden costs for consumers come in soil depletion and chemical fertilizers and pesticides that end up in our air and water. In addition, to keep our crowded food animals healthy, we have overused antibiotics and in the process have bred antibiotic-resistant strains of disease. Concentration of these animals also leaves us with bacterial surges when wastewater from these operations runs into sources downstream. Crammed into tiny spaces, the animals destroy the soil structure, leaving dust or mud and an army of invasive plants that thrive on the changed landscape, making recovery efforts even more difficult. Many farmers would like to convert to organic methods that enhance biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. This means growing many crops instead of one, using a rotation of crops and companion plantings that make maximum use of the land, returning nutrients to the soil, and making a conscious effort to build soil through these practices. The lack of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers allows soil organisms to break down detritus and release nutrients and aerate the soil. Organic methods of food production attend to soil and water conservation. They also have a lower impact than factory farming and livestock rearing that relies on pesticides and fertilizers, antibiotics and feedlots. Organic methods enable farmers and ranchers to spend less money on expensive fertilizers and antibiotics, and provide better soil for the next generation. Currently, organic products come from less than 1 percent of the 950 million acres of U.S. farmland, so the supply is small, but growing. Organic farmers will produce 4 percent of total retail food sold by 2010, according to industry estimates.
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Why Organic Pet Food Costs More Food producers are driven by economics. Costs for food producers include massive irrigation, capital-intensive equipment, and boom-and-bust farm prices, which only the largest modern operations can survive. A significant problem for organic farmers is that retooling for organic production methods is not subsidized, as factory-style farming is. The organic farmer faces years of work to rebuild the soil and to adapt the business to a model that is more labor intensive. Because production requires more manual labor and attention and regulation of organic food is more expensive, the premium for organic foods in most areas is 20 to 30 percent. In other areas, organic food is double the cost, if it is available at all. Without subsidies, the cost of factory-farmed products would be much closer to the cost of organic products.
How Far Does Food Travel? “Food travels an average of sixteen hundred miles from farm to plate,” according to Richard Pirog, marketing and food systems program leader at Iowa State University. “On average, for every calorie we consume, ten calories of fossil-fuel energy are used in the production, processing, transportation, and preparation.” Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, agrees: “Where you buy is as important as what you buy.” That “locavores” was the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2007 demonstrates the increasing momentum of the concept of eating food produced within 100 miles of home. Locavores argue that eating food produced locally is even more important than eating organic. Of course, to provide your pet with food produced from local sources, you’d need to purchase the ingredients and assemble the diet yourself. Aardbarks, in the Denver, Colorado, area, is one company that not only distributes premium brands, but offers their own organic brand to consumers. A locally sourced and distributed product may be the way of the future.
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Around the World: CarbonLabeled Products Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in Britain and one of the top five retailers in the world, has begun to “carbon label” the 70,000 products on its shelves. Like calorie information on packaged food, Tesco’s labels will tell consumers the total amount of carbon dioxide created in the production and transport of a particular item. Although the process of calculating the carbon footprint of a box of cake mix is complex (fertilizer to produce the wheat, tractors to till the soil, fuel for transport), consumers want to know. With practices such as labeling for carbon footprints and better consumer understanding of the positive impact of organic farming and livestock practices, we can continue to make our planet a healthier place for all of us.
In the best of all worlds, our pets and the rest of our family would eat locally produced organic foods. Making pet food from scratch according to a recipe developed by an expert in your pet’s species is one solution. Purchasing a prepared diet from a reliable manufacturer that contains natural or organic ingredients may be a better solution for your family. Remember, one of the leading causes of disease in pets is poor nutrition. Just because a diet is organic doesn’t mean that it meets your pet’s nutritional requirements.
How Much Packaging Is Enough? Packaging makes up one-third of the trash in the world’s waste stream, according to Leslie Garrett’s The Virtuous Consumer. Figured into the 300 pounds of packaging Americans discard each year are pet food containers. Plastics and tin cans, as well as paper bags, are used to package pet food. When considering plastic, remember that recycling codes 1 and 2 denote plastics that are easier to recycle than numbers 3, 6, and 7. Well-known pet writer Christie Keith, who is also the editor of the PetHobbyist.com family of web sites, reminds us, “Even cardboard boxes used
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Making a Difference: Castor & Pollux Organic Pet Food Brian Connolly and his wife, Shelly Gunton, own Castor & Pollux Pet Works. Passionate about providing healthy diets for pets, the company introduced one of the first organic pet foods in 2002. Connolly says, “People are feeding their families more organic food. In fact, organic food is the fastest growing segment of the food industry. People often look for the same attributes in a diet for pets as they would for themselves.” Safety and quality are the two reasons consumers select Castor & Pollux foods. Castor & Pollux Organix Canine and Feline Formulas use Rosie brand certified organic range chicken as the primary ingredient, the same organic chicken found in your local natural food store. Organic chicken tastes great (according to notable canines and felines), and the high digestibility means smaller, firmer stools and a smaller feeding portion compared to other types of food. Castor & Pollux does not offer raw-food diets. “Without cooking, there’s no guarantee the biological contaminates have been eliminated for pets or the human handler,” Connolly says. “This is a personal view and the reason we’re not offering those products.” Connolly left the life of a Hong Kong banking executive for a small town and joined a business community of people committed to organic ways of life. Connolly and Gunton’s foundation, Pet & Soul, contributes to causes that secure the bonds between pets and people.
for dry pet foods are not always recyclable, as some of them are lined with metal or plastic to prevent food spoilage. Check the bottom of the packaging for recycling information.”
Thinking about Your Pet’s Diet Each time your pet food container runs low, you have an opportunity to select a new diet with planet-healthy ingredients. You have many options for a diet
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that will keep your pet and the planet healthy. You can purchase a manufactured diet from a natural pet store, a national chain store, your grocery store, or the Internet. Or you could purchase the ingredients and make the diet yourself using a recipe from a reputable source.
A Quick Word about Nutrition The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) has published requirements to ensure safe and adequate pet nutrition. Members of the American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) certify which manufacturers’ products qualify for an AAFCO label on their packages, signifying that the latest Research Council recommendations have been incorporated into that particular product. This explains why manufacturers make different diets. Kittens or puppies, young adults, and senior animals require different protein-to-fat ratios and calories per day. The following table shows the NRC’s nutrition requirements for an average-weight dog and cat. Requirements vary in accordance with your pet’s weight, activity, and life stage. Download the National Academies’ helpful pamphlets for dog and cat owners at www.nas.edu/banr/petdoor.html for complete nutritional requirements.
NRC’s Nutritional Requirements for Pets Pet Description
Crude Protein
Total Fat
Calories per Day
Adult cat (9 lbs.)
12.5g
5.5g
250
Adult dog (33 lbs.)
25g
14g
922
Note: Crude protein refers to the method of determining protein amounts and is not a description of the form of the ingredient.
Keeping your pet on the diet you select enables her to maintain a proper weight and provides the relative amounts of protein and fat she needs to have for a healthy life. Of course, you should use these guidelines as a beginning point. You, with the supervision of your veterinarian, will need to adjust the amount your pet eats based on her activity level and metabolism, both of which change with age. Scientists know much less about the nutritional requirements of exotic animals. As an example, the poultry industry originally developed information about bird diets. As you can imagine, parrots and other commonly kept pet birds whose habits developed gathering food in the jungle treetops of Peru have little in common with ground-dwelling poultry kept and fed in cages without fear of
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predators. Fortunately, in recent years companies specializing in bird nutrition have explored the scientific literature to determine what wild birds eat and have created formulas specific to the natural lifestyles of various species. However, even within the parrot family, nutritional requirements vary extensively. With most exotic pets—small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and birds—much about adequate diets is unknown. Providing an adequate diet is one of the difficulties of keeping exotic animals as pets. In many instances, we don’t know enough to feed these animals adequately and maintain them in a healthy condition. Many, if not most, diseases and premature deaths of exotic animals are caused by inadequate nutrition.
More about Exotic Animal Nutrition Key sources of information are your exotic animal veterinarian and the manufacturers who consistently research the nutritional requirements of the different species. To identify the veterinarians who specialize in your pet species and manufacturers of dietary prescriptions that work best for your pet, contact these organizations: American Board of Veterinary Practitioners: www.abvp.com Association of Avian Veterinarians: www.aav.org The American Ferret Association: www.ferret.org House Rabbit Society: www.rabbit.org Association of Reptilian and Amphibian Veterinarians: www.arav.org Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarians: www.aemv.org American Academy of Veterinary Nutritionists: www.aavn.org If you know of a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums that displays the same species as your exotic pet, you might contact the facility to ask about their approach to that species’ nutrition.
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For those exotic pets who benefit from picking through produce, try buying direct from farmers for the freshest organic produce. Farmers’ markets or produce boxes delivered to your doorstep are two options available in many locations. To find community shared agriculture or farmers’ markets, visit www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/map.htm, www.localharvest.org, or www.foodroutes.org. For resources in Canada, see www.cog.ca/buyorganic.htm.
Factors in Diet Selection: Ingredients, Convenience, Cost If you’re starting from scratch, selecting a diet from among all of the pet diets available could seem impossible. As a beginner in this strange world, you should start by examining the ingredients, convenience, and cost as the determining factors. As you develop a more sophisticated knowledge, you can add other criteria. The key is to compare your pet’s nutritional requirements with the diet’s ingredients. Remember, the majority of the impact on the planet from pet foods is from the production of the ingredients, not from transportation or packaging. Another factor, and for most families the critical one, is convenience. The family needs to be able to purchase food or diet ingredients without a trip to a distant store. An alternative might be to find or form a co-op to arrange for bulk delivery of a certain food. A third factor is cost. Pet diets range in cost from the equivalent of a human diet down to a dollar a day. Although cost is not a measurement of quality, goodquality sources of protein are expensive. The least expensive foods do not include the highest-quality ingredients. A factor to consider with the higher-quality foods is that your pet may need less volume; this might help even out the cost. The “good, better, best” of the three criteria is outlined in the following table. Highlight the boxes that reflect your preferences about ingredients, convenience, and cost. Recyclable packaging gets extra points, as does buying a food produced locally.
Good, Better, Best: Selecting Dog and Cat Foods Factors
Good
Better
Best
Comments
Ingredients
Meets or exceeds AAFCO nutritional requirements.
Meets or exceeds AAFCO nutritional requirements and is natural.
Meets or exceeds AAFCO nutritional requirements and is certified organic.
Emphasis on reducing burden of production on planet.
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Factors
Good
Better
Best
Comments
Convenience
Purchase on the Internet.
Store in town.
Neighborhood Emphasis on store within reducing walking transportation. distance.
Cost
More than what you pay now, but you can afford it.
The same as what you pay now for food and supplements.
Less than what Emphasis on you pay now eliminating for food and waste. supplements.
A Three-Step Diet-Selection Process Given these three factors—ingredients, convenience, and cost—and the exploding number of pet food diets, here are three steps that people with busy lives can use to select a suitable diet for their pets: 1. Start with stores you visit regularly. If you have a neighborhood pet store, ask the store manager to help you. The number of manufacturers, formulations, and other options may leave you frustrated and overwhelmed. Limit diet candidates to those that meet your pet’s nutritional requirements. For a dog or cat, this means choosing only foods meeting AAFCO standards. If you already have a few manufacturers in mind, you can begin your research at home online. 2. Select diets with ingredients produced through agriculture or ranching that meet your standard for “planet friendliness.” You may use this in combination with Step 1 to whittle the choices even faster, especially with assistance from knowledgeable pet store staff. Speed tip: Tell the store staff you want only those pet foods labeled “organic” or “made with organic ingredients,” if that is your ethic. If natural foods are acceptable, mention this to the person helping you. 3. Once you have created a list of candidates that are available locally, look at the cost of each. Use the following Diet Selection Chart for notes about the diets that match your criteria. Finally, rank the diets based on your findings.
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Diet Selection Chart Factors
Diet 1
Diet 2
Diet 3
Rank by answering these questions
Ingredients
Does this diet reduce the production burden on the planet?
Convenience
Does this diet allow me to drive less?
Cost
Does this diet allow me to pay a price I can afford?
A couple of tips you might keep in mind: To reduce your costs, buy your preferred diet in bulk and freeze. If you have no local specialty pet food stores, try comparison shopping online or via telephone.
Selecting Diets That Deliver Among the plethora of diets for pets are homemade diets, including vegetarian and raw diets, manufactured diets, natural diets, and organic diets.
Homemade Homemade diets received a boost in the recalls of 2007, when consumer confidence in the quality of ingredients used in pet foods became a significant issue for many people. Some dog and cat professionals and practitioners of holistic medicine had been preparing homemade diets for their pets for many years because they did not find the diet they wanted from pet food suppliers. Exotic pet owners often use a combination of homemade and basic prepared diet for their particular species. Sometimes the reason is not nutritional, but behavioral: a wild animal is accustomed to foraging for food. Exotic animals often react poorly when denied this opportunity. Pet writer Christie Keith has fed her cats and dogs homemade diets since 1986. Keith warns that although feeding an adult dog a homemade diet is not so difficult, cats’ requirements are more specific and need to be followed more precisely than those of dogs or humans. As examples, she stresses the impor-
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tance of the correct calcium/phosphorous ratio, the necessity of a preformed source of vitamin A, and an essential amino acid for cats called taurine. As much as Keith is concerned about commercial diet contents, she cautions, “Nutritional deficiency diseases can kill and harm cats, too. If you decide to do this for your cats . . . please do it with care.” When it comes to cat diets, one size does not fit all. Kittens have different requirements than older cats. Some cats have medical issues that require a certain diet. Keith suggests that if you want to try homemade diets, a good approach is to investigate the services of a board-certified veterinary nutritionist to formulate recipes for your cats (or dogs) for a fee. Two services you can reach through the Internet are www.petdiets.com and www.balanceit.com. Selecting ingredients and creating a diet that contains all the nutritional requirements of your pet, monitoring the calorie intake, and continuing to make the diet over months and years is a big commitment of time. If you purchase ingredients in bulk and freeze them, you can cut the cost of these diets. Many people rave about the superior quality of their animals’ health. However, the inconvenience and cost factors associated with this approach are significant. Entire books are available on the subject of creating homemade diets. If you’re interested in creating your pet’s diet, do some background research by consulting Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats by Richard Pitcairn, D.V.M., Ph.D. A second reference is Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative by Donald Strombeck, D.V.M., Ph.D. Both books provide a good basic education in the nutritional requirements of dogs and cats. The Whole Dog Journal reviews commercially available homemade diets each year. Editor Nancy Kerns suggests three rules for feeding homemade diets: variety, balance over time, and calcium balance. Homemade diets, she explains, need to be composed of different foods, including meats, organ meats, eggs, and dairy. She advises that one kind of food should never make up more than half the diet. Also, the balance between calcium and phosphorous is critical to nutritional success. To calculate costs, figure that dogs typically eat 2 to 3 percent of their body weight per day. Several books recommended in the resource section at the end of this chapter include recipes for home-prepared diets. As with packaged diets, consider how farmers produce the ingredients of your homemade diet. Organic farming and livestock rearing are always more planet-healthy than standard production methods. In addition, a diet that includes fruits and vegetables is more environmentally friendly than an all-animal-based protein diet.
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Pet Food Recalls In March 2007, companies voluntarily recalled more than 150 brands of pet food including pouched, canned, and dry dog and cat food, dog treats, and dry ferret food. This extraordinary action was taken because four cats and one dog, as well as nine cats during routine taste trials, developed kidney failure and died after eating certain “cuts and gravy” style dog and cat food produced at Menu Foods’ facilities. In the following months, consumers and veterinarians reported many more illnesses and deaths due to kidney failure potentially associated with a wide variety of pet foods made by Menu Foods and other manufacturers. Concerned with the widening of the recall, pet owners became confused about what they could safely feed their pets; many wished to formulate their own diets. Although the recalled products represented less than 1 percent of all pet foods according to the Pet Food Institute, the list changed daily. Compounding the confusion were the additional recalls day after day. This happened because some manufacturers produce many kinds of pet foods at the same facility; a contaminated ingredient in one food could cross-contaminate the other foods. Not all of the recalled foods were contaminated, but companies acted out of caution because there was no way to be certain that the foods were safe.
Vegetarian Diets: Pluses and Minuses Vegetarian diets not only correspond to philosophical attitudes toward the treatment of animals, but are also the most planet-friendly, requiring the least resources from the planet. Eating lower on the food chain (“wheat instead of meat”) is in principle more efficient. For each pound of meat they produce, an animal will have consumed 16 pounds of wheat and up to 2,500 gallons of water. While many people choose to lead a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle to lessen their impact on the planet, animals may not have as much of a choice. Dogs have a harder time with a vegetarian lifestyle because their bodies have evolved to work better with meat as the principal component of their diets.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates pet food under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requiring that pet foods “be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, contain no harmful substances, and be truthfully labeled.” FDA laboratories found melamine and related substances in the recalled pet food samples. Melamine has no approved use as an ingredient in animal or human food in the United States. The FDA traced the melamine to products labeled as wheat gluten and rice protein imported from China. The FDA found that two Chinese suppliers added melamine to increase the apparent protein content of their products. In addition, some U.S. firms had added melamine-containing ingredients to feed. In case of another recall, always remember that the FDA posts updated information at www.fda.gov/cvm/petfoods.htm. If the recall is extensive, check the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine web site (www.acvim.org) or the web site of the American Association of Veterinary Nutritionists (www.aavn.org) for possible instructions. When in doubt, take your pet to the vet. Two tips on recalled food: First, you need to save the bar code and label if you store your pet food in anything other than the original bag. Recall announcements will list those labels and numbers. If you ever purchase food that is later recalled, return the food to your point of purchase and ask for a refund. Never, under any circumstances, feed recalled food to your pet.
Although it is possible, with plenty of protein supplements, to feed dogs on a mostly vegetarian diet, most veterinary and dog professionals would not advise it. Cats must eat meat to be properly nourished. Snakes also must eat meat. For the majority of naturally carnivorous pets, a vegetarian diet is ill-advised. Your dog’s and cat’s best health bet is an organic meat-based diet. Birds, many insects, and a few pocket pets, such as rats and hamsters, can eat a vegetarian diet, as long as enough protein is provided through that diet. To maintain your vegetarian pet, you could use a diet formulated for the species, or formulate your own diet using the same sources of protein as human vegetarians. Remember, many wild animals do supplement their diet with insects or scavenged meat for extra protein.
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Sample Homemade Raw Diet for a 40-Pound Dog (Reprinted with permission from Whole Dog Journal) 6–8 ounces ground raw meaty bones (include canned fish with bones once or twice a week) 4–6 ounces muscle meat/heart/tripe/leftovers 1–2 eggs daily or every other day Spoonful of yogurt or cottage cheese 1–4 ounces pureed or cooked vegetables (optional)
Raw Diets The raw diets that first became popular among people who made their own dog food are now available in prepared packages, guaranteed to meet the nutrient profiles for “complete and balanced diets.” Raw diets are composed of fresh meat: muscle, organ, bones, fat, and connective tissues. Most, but not all, also include fresh fruits, grains, and vegetables. Many animal professionals like the effect these diets have on their dogs and cats. Raw diets are usually available at natural food stores or specialty pet stores. By contrast, other diets, whether from a bag or a can, have been cooked in the creation or packaging process. The advantage of uncooked food is that heat-sensitive nutrients remain intact, requiring less supplementation of the diet. In addition, the ground raw bone that’s included is an excellent source of calcium and other minerals. Some veterinarians see a problem with raw-food diets because without cooking, biological contaminates may persist. These contaminants, such as salmonella, are a hazard for the pet as well as for the handler. Counterarguments have been made that dogs have natural digestive fluids and enzymes that have evolved to deal with bacteria and other common pathogens; therefore these contaminants pose no problem. Safe-handling practices can protect human preparers of the food from any low-level bacteria normally removed by cooking. The handling issues are the same as those with meat intended for your table. Proper thawing and proper sanitation solve those problems, advocates say.
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Remember, in creating raw diets at home, as in creating any other pet diet at home, you need the guidance of a veterinary nutritionist. Christie Keith purchases her ingredients through a raw feeding co-op, www.sfraw.com, to minimize the risk of foodborne illness that comes with feeding a raw diet. (Not all homemade diets are raw, of course.) Her raw dairy tests every batch of milk and posts the bacteria counts daily. She buys grass-fed, onsite-slaughtered cows from ranchers she knows. To find raw feeding co-ops visit Dogaware.com. If you cannot make these investments in the ingredients, a cooked-food diet is far safer for your animals. Although raw diet recipes for cats are available, they are more complicated and require precise preparation. The books by Drs. Pitcairn and by Dr. Strombeck, which are mentioned earlier in this chapter, provide cat diets you can safely consider.
Store-Bought Organic Foods Each year, Whole Dog Journal evaluates organic and natural diets for dogs. The 2007 evaluation issue listed forty different brands of dog food made with organic ingredients. There are just as many varieties of organic cat food available. Although the manufacturers of these products do keep packaging to a minimum, using soy-based inks and other nods to the Earth, the principal ecological benefit of organic products is in the raising of the plants or animals featured in the product. Buying organic products makes a statement to your family and to your local supplier. Buying organic is a way to live inside your value system, if indeed you want to support organic agricultural methods. In addition to the other benefits, some pets do better on diets that do not contain artificial ingredients. Pets with allergies may thrive on alternative organic meat sources. Many people report that their always healthy pets look and act even better after switching to an organic diet. Just a few years ago, pet stores carried no organic pet foods. Even natural food stores did not feature organic pet foods. Today, organic pet food products can be found in most natural or holistic pet stores, specialty pet shops, and even chain pet supply stores. In addition to natural and organic grocery stores, conventional grocery chains carry organic pet foods. The reason: customers have asked for it. The following manufacturers focus on organic foods. If you begin looking at these diets online, you can also find the complete list of ingredients and food formulations. Most sites have store locators. Although many small pet stores
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carry these and similar organic pet foods, you may also find these foods at chains such as Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and New Seasons as well as “big box” stores such as PETCO and PetSmart.
Selected Organic and Natural Foods Manufacturers Manufacturer/Contact
Diets for
Type of Diets
By Nature Organics www.bynaturepetfoods.com
Cats and dogs
Natural and organic food
Canidae and Felidae Food www.canidae.com
Cats and dogs
Natural foods
Castor & Pollux Organics www.castorpolluxpet.com
Cats and dogs
Organic diets
Eagle Pack Pet Food www.eaglepack.com
Cats and dogs
Holistic and super premium
Harrison’s Bird Foods Birds www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com
Organic diets
Momo Food www.momofood.com
Cats, dogs, and ferrets
Raw foods
Natura Pet Products www.naturapet.com
Cats and dogs
Natural foods
Natural Balance Pet Foods naturalbalanceinc.com
Cats, dogs, reptiles, and exotic mammal blends
Natural and organic foods
Newman’s Own www.newmansownorganics. com/pet
Cats and dogs
Organic diets
Primal Pet Foods www.primalpetfoods.com
Cats and dogs
Raw frozen foods
Soujourner Farms www.sojos.com
Cats and dogs
Dehydrated diets (add meat and water)
Stella & Chewy’s www.stellaandchewys.com
Cats and dogs
Raw, frozen, and dehydrated diets
The Honest Kitchen www.thehonestkitchen.com
Cats and dogs
Dehydrated raw diets
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Store-Bought Natural Foods “Natural” foods are not “organic.” If manufacturers make a food with organic ingredients, even 70 percent organic ingredients, the package says so because the marketplace values and pays a higher price for organic products. When manufacturers do not use the word “organic,” it’s because they can’t. The good news about “natural” foods is that they probably don’t contain artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives—additives that do nothing to help nutrition and sometimes mask a lower-quality product. “Natural foods” do not reduce the burden on the planet in a significant way and offer pets no clear advantage, except for those pets who may be affected by added artificial substances. However, natural foods are a step up from foods that add all sorts of artificial ingredients, and the quality of the ingredients in them is often very good. The hitch is that they are not produced through organic methods. Accordingly, they are often less expensive than organic pet foods.
Store-Bought “Whatever’s on Sale” What’s so bad about “any ol’ pet food”? One of the problems revealed itself during the pet food recalls of 2007. When manufacturers buy based on price and not quality nutrition, pets lose; purchasing quality ingredients is part of the job of a reliable pet food company. The quality variation in pet foods is enormous. The details are on the label, and in the section on page 68, “Techniques: Label Keywords,” I give clues for easy label reading. I mention this now because the products that are “whatever’s on sale” often do not meet the nutritional requirements of our beloved pets. Manufacturers must list the ingredients by percentage on the label as well as the guaranteed analysis as prescribed by the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine. One important designation to look for on the label is a statement that the product meets or exceeds the nutritional recommendations of the American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). If this label isn’t there, don’t buy the food. The store-bought foods that are not organic continue to support agricultural practices that are not healthy for our topsoil or for the rest of the environment. Not only are soil conditions threatened by production farming, but large-scale livestock rearing efforts also threaten air and water quality. The “any ol’ pet food” usually contains low-cost factory-farmed food that includes traces of pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics that persist in food that will be passed to your pet. Our planet is a closed system. Pesticides, herbicides, and rodenticides (chemicals that kill mice and rats) circulate through the food web until they degrade—if they degrade at all.
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Some pets appear to do well on the “what’s on sale” diets for many years. What might surprise you is how much better your pets would do on a higherquality diet. Consider this: when veterinarians examine your dog, they’ll know whether she’s on a good food from the overall condition of her coat (or feathers or scales), teeth, and eyes. Get your veterinarian’s opinion about your pet’s overall condition.
Blended Approaches to Pet Diets Many mothers make their babies’ food but keep jars of commercial baby food for emergencies or travel. Other people eat organic frozen dinners during the week and luxuriate in cooking fresh organic meals over the weekend. You can vary your pets’ diet as well. Some pet owners create a blended approach. You could, as many bird owners do, cook for your pet once each day and use a packaged diet for the other meal. Some raw-food diet feeders provide raw food most of the time and occasionally use packaged foods for convenience in travel or when their pet stays with friends while the owners vacation. Although pet owners do make these changes, veterinarians recommend a gradual transition from one diet to another because abrupt changes can lead to digestive upsets. Your pet’s diet, as everything else about your relationship, should create bonds between you and not be a source of constant anxiety. Pets have survived for years eating at the “edge of human settlements.” The planet has withstood the challenges of factory agriculture and livestock rearing. Sometimes you should temporarily choose convenience, even if the convenient solution is not ideal.
Why Are Labels So Confusing? You can tell a lot about what’s in a pet food if you look at the right part of the package labels. Go straight to the back of the package. Manufacturers design package fronts to entice you to pick up their product. The labels on the back provide the nutritional value and normally some indication of the calories so that you can adjust portions to keep your pet healthy. The list of ingredients and the guaranteed analysis are the parts of the labels that matter.
Techniques: Label Keywords Label reading is the key to understanding the impact of what you buy on the planet as well as on your pet. Two designations to look for in labels are “AAFCO” and “Organic.” AAFCO is the gold standard for meeting a pet’s
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nutritional requirements. Without the mention of AAFCO, any other label claims about nutritional adequacy are meaningless. “Organic” is a designation given by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that requires a stringent certification process. Aside from these designations, the guaranteed analysis, and the ingredients list, give whatever else is on the package the same weight as you would any advertising—which is to say, not very much. Following is a table to help you interpret package labels.
Interpreting Pet Food Labels The Label Says . . .
You May Think . . .
But It Really Means . . .
Complete and nutritionally balanced food for dogs
Diet adequate for your dog
Nothing, if the AAFCO reference to nutritional values or feeding trials is missing
Natural
Organic
Probably doesn’t contain artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives, but definitely not organic
Made with organic ingredients
All organic
At least 70% organic ingredients
Organic
All organic
95% organic ingredients or higher
100% organic
100% organic
100% organic
What Does a USDA Organic Certification Mean? Pet people pay a premium price for organic foods to ensure safety and quality. Is this premium justified? The USDA requires that products labeled “organic” in your local pet store or supermarket meet rigorous requirements for certification. Use of pesticides, growth hormones, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, or antibiotics disqualifies a product from organic certification. Organic certification requires humane treatment of livestock and poultry and separate handling, processing, and storage facilities. A series of certification documents proving these treatments is required. Certification agents from each state oversee this program and inspect certified growers and facilities regularly and without notice. Products certified as
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compliant with organic labeling regulations display the name of the certifying agency and contact information on the package. Natural products, holistic products, or products that claim to use only natural ingredients cannot use the organic label. Although these products may be healthy, a certifying agency has not verified that the product meets the higher-level requirements.
International Certifications To help in international commerce, a standards group, ISEAL (International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling) Alliance, monitors and provides an assurance of standards for goods labeled anywhere in the world. The International Federation of Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) is one seal among others for international commerce. Other international certifications include Global Organic Alliance (GOA) Certified Organic Program, International Certification Services Organic Certification, and the Integrity Certified International Organic Certification. In the future, the question will not be, “Does this come from China?” but “Does this product have an IFOAM designation?”
What’s in Organic Food Organic food is made from the substances humans and their companion animals evolved to eat. You won’t find dyes or artificial preservatives in organic foods, nor substances such as the melamine added by suppliers to boost the protein content of pet foods that created tragedy and panic for pet owners in 2007. Neither hormones that persist in dairy products and in meat nor antibiotics that persist in animals raised in close quarters are in organic foods. These chemicals can lead to trace levels of hormones in children and the genesis of a new breed of “superbugs.” As was the case with mad cow disease, which originated from the practice of feeding cow protein to cows, changing our practices averts consequences larger than economic ones.
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Techniques: Reviewing the Ingredients List For many years, the human food industry recycled food wastes into dog food, similar to the way that people fed their dogs food scraps. Cats caught their own food. As we have elevated pets to family-member status, the basis of their diets has changed also. Rather than being the receivers of our castoffs, pets now receive the same quality food ingredients as other family members. Accordingly, the best way to review pet food ingredients is to use the same criteria that you would for your own family. A few helpful principles the Whole Dog Journal uses include the following: Whole food ingredients are better than food fragments. For example, look for wheat rather than wheat gluten, mill run, or bran. What matters is the number of whole ingredients in proportion to the number of fragments. Whole meats from named animal species are better than unspecific “meat,” which could be animal protein from any source. For example, look for chicken rather than poultry, beef rather than meat. Similarly, meals made from whole meats from named species are better than “meat meal.” For example, select chicken meal rather than poultry meal. Skip by-products altogether. Less-processed foods are more desirable than more-processed foods because they tend to be fresher, have traveled less for processing, and are more nutrient rich. Chicken meal is better than chicken by-product. Look for a named, single-source high-quality fat source such as “grapeseed oil.” “Animal fat,” in contrast, is a low-quality, mixed ingredient of uncertain origin. Eliminate foods containing sugar or sweeteners, artificial colors, flavors, or added preservatives. Foods with quality ingredients shouldn’t need additional attractions.
Evaluating Ingredients Summary Take a look at your pet’s food and complete the evaluation, highlighting good, better, or best where appropriate. When you’ve completed your diet analysis and selected a new diet, try this evaluation again.
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Good, Better, Best: Evaluating Pet Food Ingredients Ingredient
Good
Better
Best
All
Food fragments Whole ingredients
Whole organic ingredients
Meat
Whole meat
Whole meat from named animal species
Whole organic meat from named animal species
Meals
Meat meal
Named animal meat meal
Organic named animal meat meal
By-products
Small amount of by-products
No by-products
No by-products
Processing
By-products
Meals
Whole meats
Fat
Animal fat
Named vegetable oil or named animal fat source
Named highquality fat source
Sugar or sweeteners, artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives
No sugar or No artificial sweeteners or ingredients artificial colors or preservatives
No sugar or any artificial ingredients
When You Don’t Understand the Label AAFCO and the Center for Veterinary Medicine of the FDA are excellent sources of information on standards and terminology for ingredients that you don’t understand. Staff members of natural, organic, or specialty stores, or your neighborhood pet food store, have a lot of practice at reading labels and are usually knowledgeable. Your pet food manufacturer or distributor should have the relevant label information on its website. Use your favorite search engine to search for your brand-name ingredient list.
Pet Food and the Planet: Our Future We’ve considered why pet food matters, the basic nutrients pets need, and how to select a diet that delivers. The rest is up to you—and your choices affect not only your own future, but the future of the planet. Change comes from consumer buying habits and from political realities. You vote with your dollars as well as at the ballot box. What we teach our children is what will happen next.
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Circle the answer that applies and add your points for your green pet food score.
My Sustainability Score: Choosing Green Pet Food Category
Good
Better
Best
What’s in my pets’ food
High-quality brand
All-natural brand
Organic brand
Manufacturer standards
I don’t know but I’ll find out
AAFCO certified
AAFCO certified
Packaging
Cans that I recycle
Paper or plastic that can be recycled
Minimal packaging and I recycle the outer paper layer because of liner
Transportation required
I don’t know, but I’ll find out
I buy from a local store
I purchase locally produced food and bicycle to and from the store
For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 12–19 points: You have a good plan for learning more about your pet’s food. 20–27 points: You understand the basics of pet food and now you’re just learning the details. 28 points: You win the Green Pet Award for doing your best for your pet and the planet when it comes to diets.
My Sustainability Plan: Choosing Green Pet Food A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved. In my home: Use my current pet food as Diet 1 in the diet selection challenge. Read the labels on my current pet food. Learn to recognize the AAFCO and Organic label symbols. Select two other diets to try in the diet selection challenge.
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In my community: Look for local natural or organic pet supply stores. Look for local natural or organic food suppliers. Look for a local farmers’ market. In my personal beliefs: Is there a political action I want to take? Is there a conversation I want to have in the neighborhood?
Resources Business and government groups: American Pet Products Association: www.appma.org Organic Trade Association: www.ota.com Pet Food Institute: www.petfoodinstitute.org USFDA CVM Animal Feed Program: www.fda.gov/cvm/petfoods.htm USDA Organic Certifiers: www.ams.usda.gov Additional reading: Wendell Berry. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986. Nancy Kerns, editor-in-chief. The Whole Dog Journal. www.whole-dogjournal.com. Tom Lonsdale, D.V.M. Work Wonders: Feed Your Dog Raw Meaty Bones. Wenatchee, WA: Dogwise Publishing, 2005. Richard H. Pitcairn and Susan Hubble Pitcairn. Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. 3rd ed., revised and updated. New York: Rodale Books, 2005. Michael Pollan. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. Kymythy R. Schultze. Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Diet. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 1999. Donald R. Strombeck, D.V.M. Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1999.
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Chapter 4
Green Pet Equipment and Toys And all my toys beside me lay To keep me happy all the day —Robert Louis Stevenson
Just as people need a home and certain furnishings and equipment, pets have their own needs. Some people provide their pets with minimal toys and equipment, while others pamper their animals as if they were the Paris Hiltons of the pet world. The majority of us move between the two extremes, sorting through the enormous number of products made by the pet products manufacturing community. This group, represented by the American Pet Products Association (APPA), estimates that by 2010, annual sales of pet-related items will reach $50 billion. Eco-conscious pet product sales topped $1 billion in 2007, and grow as a proportion of the market each year. As with all other purchases we make (on behalf of our pets, of course!), knowing what we really need, where to shop, and how to avoid unnecessary purchases helps keep the earth and our pocketbooks in better shape. And given our premise that a pet kept in its original home is the best thing for the earth, having proper equipment to maintain the pet through its lifetime is essential. To tread more lightly on our planet, keep these ideas in mind when purchasing: Decrease the amount you purchase. Don’t purchase products containing toxins.
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Look for energy-efficient and water-conserving products. Purchase products that are reusable, recycled, or recyclable. A key aspect of eco-consciousness is to obtain what you need, but no more. Whether you purchase, borrow, barter, or reuse a previously used item, you need only so much paraphernalia for your pet.
What Does My Pet Really Need? The Stuff of Everyday Life Although every pet has different requirements, all pets need certain basics: food and water bowls, confinement systems, grooming products, exercise equipment and toys, and waste disposal solutions. Pets require a safe and secure place to be day and night, a space that is theirs, unshared with other animals or children. You must have a crate or carrier to confine your pet for safety or behavioral reasons or for travel. You need grooming products for your pets. (I know you’re thinking, “What kind of grooming does a lizard need?” We’ll get there.) Pets need something to do during the day; in an urban society, where herding sheep or pulling carts are no longer options, “something to do” means toys and exercise. Exercise requires either equipment for indoor pets or leashes and harnesses for outdoors. For confinement in a yard, fencing and shelter are musts. Finally, you need to dispose of your pet’s waste in an eco-friendly way. The following supply lists pertain to the most common pets. (For information on cleaning products, see chapter 6.) To obtain or request lists for pets who are not mentioned here, see www.thiswildlife.com and go to the “Pets and the Planet” readers section.
For Dogs Food and water bowl Crate with bed or mat Collar, identification tags, and microchip Leash and Gentle Leader–type head collar or harness Poop bags or scooper Umbrella (for those walks on rainy days) Brush Comb
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Nail clippers Chew toys Ball and one or two additional play toys Barriers inside or out to limit dog’s access First-aid kit Basic care book Stain and odor remover (for cleaning floors and rugs)
Green Purchasing One way to think of the things we purchase is to consider their entire life cycle. What raw materials are needed to make the product? What energy and other processing are needed to create it? How is the product packaged and transported to the point of sale? How will we dispose of it at the end of its usefulness? Manufacturers call this the product life cycle. In free markets, consumers make the rules. If consumers buy based on product life cycle, manufacturers will meet those requirements. To think deeply about this for every purchase is enough to give anyone a headache. And every purchase is not a “make or break” for the planet. The point is to be able to conceive of the product life cycle in advance and think, “Do I really need this?” If the answer is yes, then go ahead and purchase it. If the answer is “I’m not sure,” consider borrowing one or sharing a purchase with a friend. A possible light at the end of the tunnel is GreenerChoices.org, a part of Consumer’s Union, the people who bring us Consumer Reports. This trusted name has begun the thorny task of providing consumer information through an information site that includes help with deciphering labels, finding recycling options, and showing the green ratings for products including appliances, cars, electronics, food and beverages, and home and garden products. For those things we cannot buy green, the opportunity to purchase offsets to fund clean energy projects can lighten our collective paw prints.
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For Cats Food and water bowls Litter box Carrier Scratching post Collar and tag and microchip Nail clippers Brush or steel comb Carpet cleaner Exercise toys First-aid kit Basic care book
For Freshwater Fish Goldfish and tropical fish Aquarium and stand Aquarium heater Filtration equipment Gravel Lighting Thermometer Water test kits Water conditioners Aquarium decorations Standard medications Basic care book
For Reptiles or Amphibians Frog or toad, iguana, newt or salamander, lizard, snake, turtle or tortoise Aquarium and stand Aquarium substrate Cage rocks Heating accessories
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Specialized lighting Water Standard medications Basic care book First-aid kit Note: Larger snakes, iguanas, and tortoises need more space than aquariums.
For Small Mammals Rabbit, hamster, guinea pig, chinchilla, ferret, gerbil, hermit crab, mouse, and rat Cage and stand Litter for cage Water bowls Food bowls Lead, leash, and harness for rabbits and ferrets Litter box for rabbits Chew toys Toys including exercise wheels Small animal hut Basic care book First-aid kit
For Birds Parrots and softbills such as mynah birds Cage with perches and stand Water bowls Food bowls Chew toys Toys Nail clippers Spray bottle for misting Specialized lighting Basic care book First-aid kit
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These lists represent the basics—the stuff of everyday life. These are the supplies you should have in place before bringing your pet home. Some pets require additional supplies depending on their individual circumstances. Let’s take a closer look at some positives and negatives to keep in mind when purchasing basic items for your pet.
Food and Water Bowls Food and water bowls (or the equivalents, depending on species) comprise the most basic equipment you’ll need to purchase. Easy cleaning and suitability for the species are important. You want bowls or feeders that promote easy access and ready cleaning.
Thinking Green Bowls must withstand the high-temperature dishwasher cycle that removes germs as well as soil and grease. Stainless steel and stoneware are good choices. Interestingly, much stainless steel is recycled, even though labels do not include this information. Some pet bowls made from recycled plastic can be good choices, especially for cats, who require broad, shallow bowls to accommodate their whiskers. Simple designs and a broad flat bottom for freestanding bowls are important. Rather than a rubber bottom, which keeps bowls from skidding, consider a slip-resistant mat under the bowls to keep the area clean and dry. For birds, the key to buying bowls once is to remember that some birds can pick up their bowls and fling them. Use a bowl that’s either too heavy for the bird to pick up, or that’s affixed to the cage side. Plastics must withstand dishwashing.
Definitely Not Green Some ceramic bowls have lead-containing glazes. Plastic bowls, crafted from nonrenewable resources, are also not biodegradable. Many are not recyclable. Caution: Rubber or plastic may irritate some dogs and cats.
Products to Consider Take a look at stainless steel bowls, with or without the removable rubber bottoms.
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Confinement Systems, Including Cages, Crates, Carriers, and Collars and Leashes I was not able to find cages, crates, or carriers manufactured from recycled materials or employing eco-friendly processes. Again, purchasing a quality product once is a better strategy than purchasing cheaper products multiple times. An alternative to consider is the purchase of a used cage or carrier. Collars and leashes should last for many years. While some collars, harnesses, and leashes are made of hemp, you may choose to purchase a leather or artificial fiber product that is not particularly eco-friendly, because it tends to last longer. When considering leashes, keep in mind that artificial fibers can be uncomfortable on your hands.
Thinking Green Cages, crates, and carriers are investments you hope to make once, unless you have a young animal such as a puppy or a baby bird, where the size difference between the baby and the adult can be enormous. If you’re not sure how large your pet will be when fully grown, ask the shelter whether they have a crate you can rent until your pet is full-sized and you can purchase what you need. Some manufacturers address this problem in their caging design, allowing owners to raise and lower the floors to accommodate various stages of growth. When purchasing for an animal such as a bird, who will spend most of his life in a cage, buy the largest and the best cage you can afford. For example, an Amazon parrot may live to be 50. A large stainless steel cage will last the animal’s lifetime. A powder-coated cage will have to be recoated or replaced. For a dog who uses the crate for nighttime sleeping or daytime confinement and for travel by car, purchase one crate that fits your dog, is sturdy enough for both uses, and can be folded for carrying or for storage. If you know you will be shipping your dog at some point, then one crate that works for the airline as well as for the other uses is the best choice. The critical element to remember with regard to caging is to make sure that the animal cannot open the cage closure or chew through the barrier. In addition, quality manufacturing is important. Sharp edges or cheap welds that can snap could not only injure your pet, but also could allow escape and accidental death. Garage sales are excellent places to find crates and cages at reasonable prices. Remember to check them for sharp edges or missing pieces. If they are safely constructed, then go ahead and purchase them, but remember to clean them thoroughly and disinfect before use.
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Definitely Not Green Metals and plastics manufacturing do not help the earth. This is the reason to avoid purchasing more crates and carriers than you need. This is also the reason to purchase from reputable manufacturers that adhere to decent environmental practices. The raw materials come from mining and petrochemicals. You can’t change that. What you can do is choose the quality manufacturers’ products over the cheap, poor-quality product that wears out quickly. Purchase products that will last the lifetime of your pet—and perhaps someone else’s pet if you donate your equipment after your pet’s passing.
Products to Consider No manufacturers I could find fit the aim of creating a “better for the planet” crate, cage, or carrier. A good-quality stainless steel crate or cage, a good-quality fabric carrier, or a recyclable airplane-acceptable shipping crate for dogs and cats are reasonable choices. Hemp collars and leashes are popular alternatives for leather. “Gentle Leader” type harnesses or head collars for dogs are effective and last well. See “Pets and the Public,” later in this chapter, for more on leashes and muzzles.
Grooming Products Grooming products affect your pet’s skin and internal organs. You might apply a product to your pet’s fur, but your pets groom themselves. In licking their fur, or in the case of birds, preening their feathers, pets ingest whatever meets their bodies, feet included. In addition, the product remains of pet shampoos or conditioners go down the drain or into the soil in the summertime. Adding unnecessary chemicals to our waste streams or groundwater creates water-quality problems. Brushes and combs help reduce the need to wash your dog or cat. The bristle length on the brush should be just long enough to get through the hair but not long enough to prick the skin. Removing the shedding hair not only keeps your animal and home cleaner, but alerts you to parasites such as fleas and ticks before they spread to other animals or to your carpets or upholstery. A flea comb makes a good investment. Some planet-friendly people use their dog hair to make garments or to provide nesting material for wild birds.
Thinking Green Use bathing products—shampoos, soaps, body washes, stain removers—made for your dog’s or cat’s skin. A tiny amount of the correctly formulated gentle
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cleaner removes excess dirt and oil from your pet. To remove all the cleaner, rinse for five minutes past the time you feel all the product has been washed away. Although birds should be bathed in plain water, for a heavily soiled bird (one that became covered in a sticky substance, for example), Harrison’s Clinical Avian Medicine recommends one drop of soap (try Dawn) per cup (250 cc) of water. Brushing and combing frequently gives your pet the most useful grooming help. For some dogs’ coats, allowing the mud to dry before brushing enables you to remove soil without drying your dog’s skin. Purchase good-quality grooming tools such as brushes, combs, nail clippers, and any special tools your particular pet requires.
Definitely Not Green Shampoos or soaps made for people are not correctly formulated for pets’ skin. Also avoid cheap grooming products such as flimsy combs and brushes that don’t last, or inexpensive bathing products, requiring second and third purchases. Buying fewer but better-quality products saves energy and resources. Unless your veterinarian prescribes them, don’t use medicated products. Buying skin products should not be necessary for properly nourished pets. If your pet’s skin (or scales or feathers) looks like it needs grooming often, consult your veterinarian. Nutrition or cage placement may be causing an easily remedied skin problem. For example, many dogs experience flaky skin during the winter. What may be required is an increase in the good oil in your pet’s diet. When you do need prescribed or over-the-counter medicated products, remember that they need to be disposed of correctly. Water purification systems cannot remove all the pharmaceuticals that go into water sources. Visualize swimming in water containing all the medications poured down our cities’ drains. Now visualize drinking this water. Now that you have the picture, return unused medications to your veterinary pharmacy so that they can be donated to an indigent pet.
Products to Consider Take a look at Earthbath soap-free, pH-balanced grooming products for pets’ skin. They are 100 percent free of phosphates and enzymes, and are available in a wide variety of retail outlets and at www.earthbath.com. Cybercanine’s line of grooming products and botanicals for your dog includes vegan products as well as organics; go to www.cybercanine.com. Reptiles may need water containers large enough to soak in to help with their skin shedding. Hartz has created a new Clean Earth product line that uses recyclable packaging and gentle, biodegradable products.
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Beds, Exercise Equipment, and Toys Used properly, beds, exercise equipment, and toys enhance a pet’s life. Birds need a place to play safely outside their cage. Many people exercise their (nonpoisonous) snakes on a pegged board built for the purpose. Mice and rats make good use of tunnels and mazes made of a nonchewable material.
Thinking Green Instead of purchasing something new, consider using old blankets or towels as bedding for dogs and cats. If you must have a matching dog or cat bed, purchase one that will last. Toys made of recycled materials can be very good, and some endure the punishment our committed chewers give them. If you have a pet who destroys toys, be sure to find the extra heavy-duty toys that will last.
Definitely Not Green Avoid excessively cheap toys, whether manufactured in the United States or overseas. Cheap plastic or plush toys reflect poor raw materials and manufacturing quality. Often cheap goods reflect poor worker conditions and lax regulations about process and raw material safety. The 2007 discovery of toxic materials in children’s toys manufactured in China also pertained to toys manufactured for animals. Minute amounts of toxic materials, which may pose problems for children, become increasingly toxic in the even smaller bodies of pets. Worse, pets often consume their toys; if toxins are present in the toys, chewing releases even more toxins into the body than mouthing. Once chewed, these inexpensive toys made of nonrecyclable materials become part of our municipal solid waste. The worst outcome of these cheap toys is the problems they cause if your pet swallows pieces of them. Toxicity is one problem; they may also cause blockages requiring surgery to resolve.
Products to Consider Bed manufacturers to consider include the following: West Paw Design, a Montana-based company, makes dog and cat beds and toys, sourcing its raw materials and manufacturing in the United States, in a nod to the environmental consequences of using quality materials and saving on transportation. Visit www.westpawdesign.com.
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Everyday Studio makes a few amazing dog and cat furniture products combining beautiful design and fine function with environmental consciousness. Find these products through local retail outlets or at www.everydaystudio.com. Toy manufacturers to consider include the following: SmartyKat and Pooch Planet brand toys, kitty scratch posts (including the popular SuperScratcher), and beds use recycled resources to produce durable products widely available at pet retail locations. Go to www.worldwise.com. Kong makes a toy for cats, dogs, and birds. The durable rubber toy line is a very good investment. For dogs, “Kong Time” dispenses food-filled Kong toys that make mealtime a fun activity and works miracles for home-alone dogs. Visit www.kongcompany.com. Simply Fido, a line of organic plush toys for those dogs who must have soft plush, contains only organic materials, using no toxic dyes or stuffing or harsh finishing products. Find retailers at www.simplyfido.com. Keep in mind that manufacturers following the trends introduce new products constantly. Your neighborhood planet-friendly or holistic pet store will likely carry new brands. If you have no such store in your area, check the web by searching on “recycled” and “pet toys” or “pet furniture” to find toys and furniture with recycled content.
Poop Scoop, Litter Boxes, and Related Products Because animal lovers don’t exactly love the process of cleaning up after their pets, companies have put lots of effort into developing products that make the process easier. Some companies have made major strides in offering new and less destructive products because of increasing consumer eco-awareness. Although we’ll have more information on alternatives in chapter 5, “Managing Pet Waste Responsibly,” here are some green takes on products you probably purchase today.
Thinking Green Alternatives to clay kitty litter, extracted by strip mining, include more environmentally friendly materials such as recycled newspapers, cedar- or woodbased litters, wheat, alfalfa, oat hulls, peanut hulls, and corncobs. New kinds of cat boxes include one that is self-washing and carries waste into the home wastewater system.
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Definitely Not Green Many cat litters use additives; if you clean your cat box regularly, you don’t need perfumes, artificial deodorizers, and so on. (In fact, most cats prefer unscented litter.) Since your cat spends a great deal of time grooming, the chances are high that he will ingest some of these unnatural substances. In addition, with your cat’s nose in the litter, scents and dust can irritate his respiratory system.
Products to Consider The CatGenie, a self-flushing, self-washing cat box, is the Cadillac of cat boxes, but this product design also solves some thorny environmental issues. The washable litter granules eliminate the continual need for new litter. The sanitizing solution may eliminate the toxoplasmosis organism; if so, you could flush cat waste down the toilet instead of adding it to the local landfill. If you use a litter box liner in the waste receptacle of a self-cleaning litter box, use a biodegradable litterbag. If you must use a liner in a pan-style litter box, use a biodegradable liner instead of a plastic one. Interesting improvements in litter include the new silica gel litters made from an odorless mineral. “Pearls” absorb and hold moisture. Using this litter enables you to change litter less often and use less litter by weight. Litter made from recycled newspaper is biodegradable, flushable, and mostly dust free, a variation on the use of newspaper as a poop catcher. New plantbased litters, made of corn, corncob, wheat, kenaf, and oat hulls, recycle plant material that would have gone to waste. They provide good odor control and produce less dust than clay litters. Litters to consider include: Trackless Litter Pearls, by UltraPet, made of silica pearls, long lasting and effective kitty litter that does not adhere to cats’ feet. Dr. Kenaf’s lightweight cat litter made from kenaf, a plant also used to make tree-free paper; www.kenaf.com. Swheat Scoop Natural Wheat Litter, a wheat-based clumping litter that’s also flushable (although I don’t recommend it, and neither does your water district); www.swheatscoop.com. World’s Best Cat Litter, a clumping litter made from corn; www.worlds bestcatlitter.com. Green Tea Leaves, litter made from green tea leaves, destroys odor naturally with the catechin contained in the leaves. It quickly forms clumps just under the surface, which keeps waste away from the air.
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Yesterday’s News, litter made from recycled newspapers, comes in three different pellet sizes; www.yesterdaysnews.com. Note: Clumping litters may seem especially attractive to kittens and cats, who may ingest the litter. These litters, including those made of wheat and corn, may expand in the cats’ digestive systems, causing dangerous blockages. Consult your veterinarian about how to monitor your kitten or cat to avoid this problem. Bags to consider for your dog walk include: Biobags’ Doggie Waste Bag, biodegradable, compostable, ASTM D6400 standard, certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute, widely used dog waste bags; also cat litter tray liners; www.biobagusa.com. Skooperbox provides the scoop and the bag, both made of biodegradable and recycled materials. Resembling a French fry carton, Skooperbox may be for those who just are not satisfied with the bag approach; www.skooperbox.com. Dispoz-a-scoop, made by PetPro Products, advertised to be of 99 percent biodegradable materials. A cardboard scoop and a plastic bag allow you to scoop, seal, and toss this product, available through pet retailers.
Where to Shop Start your search for pet-friendly products in your local community. Not only do you interact with people who share your interests, but you also support and build your community. If the products you like are not available locally, shopping online is a way to locate many products without leaving home.
Online In the sections that follow I’ve listed e-tailers (online retailers) that: (1) specialize in green products for pets, (2) specialize in green products, including some pet products, and (3) specialize in pet products, including a few green products. As you find your favorites, please let us know at www.thiswildlife.com so that I can include your suggestions in newsletter updates.
E-tailers Specializing in Green Products for Pets These companies specialize in providing planet-friendly products for pets. Not all of their products meet the ideal criteria—for example, I’m not sure we need “music pets love,” or special pet-centric human clothing—but these are the companies that have been the first to respond to eco-conscious pet owners’ needs to find products that reflect their values.
Pet type
Cat, dog, Fish Cat, dog, bird Dog, cat
www.animalsensepet products.com
www.weissorganics.com
www.thewholisticpet.com
www.earthbath.com
Cat, dog
www.purrfectplay.com
Dog
Dog
www.globaldognatural petproducts.com
www.planetdog.com
Bird
www.yourparrotplace.com
88 x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Bags
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Toys
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Food
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Remedies
x
x
x
x
x
x
Grooming
x
x
x
x
x
x
Furniture
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Cat, dog, bird, pocket pets
Cat, dog
www.onlynaturalpet.com
Cleaners
1/15/09
www.forotherliving things.com
Cat, dog, bird
www.naturespet.com/ index.html
www.naturalpetmarket.com Cat, dog
URL
Green Pet Product E-tailers
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E-tailers Specializing in Green Products, Including Some Pet Products These companies originated with green products as a central focus, providing mostly products that have nothing to do with pets. Employees tend to understand eco-issues more thoroughly than pet concerns. These companies carry a few products that respond to the eco-conscious pet owner. Search sites using “pet” or refer to pet, household, or outdoor sections.
A Few Green E-tailers Carrying Pet Products URL
Pet Type
Cleaners Bags Toys Food Remedies Furniture
www.eco products .com
Dog
x
x
www.gaiam .com
Dog
x
x
www.store .greenfeet .com
Dog, cat
x
x
x
x
www.Debras Dogs list.com
x
x
x
x
www.eco mall.com
x
x
x
x
All
x
x x
x
E-tailers Specializing in Pet Products, Including Green Products These companies originated with pet products as a central focus. Most of these companies provide many products that do not meet planet-friendly criteria. These companies have begun to carry a few products that respond to the ecoconscious pet owner. Many offer a wide variety of excellent and good products that you’d purchase once, such as crates, but you’ll be on your own figuring out the planet-friendliness of the products.
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Selected Pet Product E-tailers Carrying Planet-Friendly Products URL
Pet Type
Cleaners Bags Toys Food Remedies Furniture
www.drs fostersmith .com
All
x
www.cherry brook.com
Dogs, cats
x
www.pets mart.com
All
x
www.petco .com
All
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Finding Local Suppliers of Green Pet Products The Organic Consumers Association (www.organicconsumers.org) provides a way for you to search for pet products or pet care and retrieve businesses in your local area that provide products created with the environment in mind. Another approach is to search for local pet stores and look for names that include words like “natural,” “eco-,” and “holistic.”
Where to Share, Reuse, and Recycle Because of today’s mobile lifestyle, you might not know your neighbors. No problem. Online communities have sprung to life, solving the problem of how to find someone who has a St. Bernard–sized crate in their garage they want to sell for $5, or a round fish tank they can’t wait to give away. Pooper scoopers, doghouses, crates, leashes, collars, baby gates, grooming tools, car accessories, litter boxes—any product you need for your pets might be available through a recycling network, a neighborhood resource sharing network, or an electronic yard sale. Based on the principles of using what we have and keeping nonbiodegradable items out of our landfills, these virtual gathering places serve an important function for our planet. New communities arise constantly; the following are representative of the types of resources you can find online.
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Freecycle The Freecycle Network is a nonprofit community made up of local groups that reuse through local gifting among their members. Members give and get items free, in an effort to keep unnecessary waste out of landfills. Join by selecting a local community at www.freecycle.org. Items you might find here include dog crates, bird cages, aquariums, and other equipment. In particular this is a good place to find a starter item to try until you’re sure what brand you want to purchase. You can also advertise items you have that you don’t need any longer.
Craigslist Twenty-five million people use Craigslist each month, searching local classifieds and forums for 450 cities worldwide. Items for sale and for free can be found here. Access the site at www.craigslist.org. You’re likely to find any item related to pets, including pets themselves, listed here. (By the way, we definitely do not recommend Craigslist as a source for obtaining pets.)
Isharestuff.org Isharestuff.org is a way for neighbors to list items to share among themselves. This is a framework for the exchanges. You set up the network of people yourself.
Neighborrow.com Neighborrow.com is a new online community that promotes borrowing of seldom-used items such as ladders or rototillers. Borrowing such items reduces excess, saves fuel in the form of shipping costs, and decreases the need for disposal. Besides cost-saving and less cluttered garages, benefits include building communities of neighbors through trust.
Throwplace.com Charities, businesses, or individuals registered with Throwplace.com can search for and request products they need.
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Home Modifications for Pets Configuring the household to be pet-friendly is one of the tricks to making life with pets more fun. As you and I get to know our pets’ requirements better, we may know more about how to modify our home for convenience. Here are a few suggestions for people with dogs and cats to consider. Keep in mind that each animal is an individual and suggestions may not work for you, perhaps for behavioral reasons. For example, a pet door would allow my dog to run in and out all day barking; but I fenced my backyard—a great improvement for both dog and person—and created a mudroom, which my dog dislikes but which keeps my housecleaning manageable here in the rainy Northwest.
Pet Doors Pet doors give your animals the freedom to come and go, to do their toileting outside and get some exercise or sunshine. Although pet doors can be a convenience, they come with built-in problems. These problems include allowing cats to roam freely out of doors, to bury their waste in the neighbor’s flower garden; allowing dogs free access to the yard, where their barking can disturb neighbors; and allowing wildlife, such as raccoons, to enter the home. In addition, pet doors allow heat to escape, creating a higher energy demand. You can avoid many of these problems with the right door system.
Thinking Green Consider using a keyed system—my personal preference. Keyed systems require a transmitter of some kind on your animal’s collar. When your pet approaches the door, the signal from the transmitter triggers the door to open. Keyed doors eliminate a majority of the problems associated with flap-style doors. Raccoons or stray dogs and cats can’t get into your home as easily, and energy loss is minimized. One caution: multiple-animal households face the problem of how to allow dogs out but keep cats in. The doors typically stay open long enough to allow a second closely following animal without a collar key transmitter to enter or exit. Less expensive doors feature a plastic flap as the barrier between the interior and exterior of your home. More sophisticated and costly panel systems use a variety of barriers, from plastic to glass, to seal the opening tightly to prevent energy loss.
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Definitely Not Green Flap-style doors don’t work as well as panel systems in preventing energy loss. Some animals don’t adjust well to the pet door. You’ll need to be patient if you have a timid dog or cat; it may take a while for him to get used to the door. There are no eco-friendly pet doors, so try to buy once rather than buying several times before you find one that works. Thorough research for this purchase, including trying your pet through a demonstration door, should help you make the right choice. If your local stores don’t have demonstration pet doors to try, use your local resources, including local animal trainers, to help you find doors to try and to teach your pets to use them.
Products to Consider High Tech Pet (www.hitecpet.com/powerpetdoors.html) offers a variety of pet doors. The most satisfactory are the keyed, but the online catalog gives a variety of styles to choose from, including the flap and patio door designs. Moore Pet Supplies (www.moorepet.com/Electronic-and-AutomaticPet-Doors-s/24.htm) offers a variety of pet door products, including those for garage doors. A strong product line is their controlled access or keyed doors.
Backyard Fencing The purpose of backyard fencing for animals is both containment and protection. Containment is the function of keeping your pets, most often dogs, on your property and out of neighbors’ yards and off roadways. Protection is the second half of the equation. Your dog needs protection from roaming dogs, wild animals, bored humans who might hurt your best friend, and animal control officers who might pick him up for roaming in violation of local animal control laws. The fence, in other words, is to keep critters out as well as to keep your pet in. Although electronic boundary fencing would seem to be the ecologically (and monetarily) thrifty solution, this type of fence is not effective for protection and only somewhat effective for containment. Not only can some pets cross the fence because their instinct to chase is stronger than the restraint of a humane level of shock, but predators can easily cross into the yard. (I was disappointed too. Get over it and move on.)
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Not often utilized but eminently sensible is fencing for cats. Most cat people are mystified that neighbors do not love their animals. A majority of cat-owning North Americans does not believe that cats should be contained on their property. However, many non–cat owners believe cats should be restricted to the owners’ property, not only for the health and safety of their pet, but also as a courtesy to everyone in the neighborhood, especially those who love to garden.
Thinking Green Fencing made from recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE), commonly known as number 2 plastic, is one solution that keeps such HDPE-made containers as milk, water, and bleach bottles out of landfills. For cat fencing, the product is typically an add-on to an existing fence. Small amounts of nonrecyclable plastic or metal mesh are required for these fences. The benefits for the environment outweigh the negatives. Recycled building products centers may also offer eco-friendly fencing.
Definitely Not Green Don’t buy more fencing than you need, and consider fence designs that require as little material as possible. Figure out just how much space you need to enclose. This approach makes sense from both a budgetary and a maintenance standpoint, since you will need to keep up the area inside the pet fence.
Products to Consider Dog fencing systems: www.itsrecycled.com www.trex.com Cat fencing systems: www.catfence.com www.catfencein.com/comments.php www.purrfectfence.com/info.asp www.just4cats.com
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Mudrooms Depending on your climate and lifestyle, having a mudroom as a transition zone for your kids and your pets can vary from “nice to have” to essential. A wellthought-out mudroom does an effective job of containing dirty outerwear for your family and your pets, and all your pet-related outdoor equipment. Confining the dirt, dampness, and clutter to the mudroom keeps the rest of your home cleaner and more organized. If you don’t have a mudroom but have an area you could transform into one, consider it. You’ll be amazed that you got along without one.
Thinking Green Mudrooms need washable walls (consider high-gloss paint), flooring (concrete, tile, vinyl), and furniture (such as a bench for taking off and putting on shoes). This is also a great place for a sink in which you can bathe your pet and rinse muddy boots before drying them. An area with a drying rack for hats, gloves, and raincoats and a special rack for shoes should be a part of your design. You can also use this room as a buffer between the indoor and outdoor environment. This “insulation” should help decrease your energy bills, especially if you use shades to keep the room cooler or warmer, depending on the weather. In very cold, wet climates, you’ll need some heat in the mudroom in order to dry the outerwear before wearing it again. Many families install the pet door in this room. Closing off this room allows pets to track the mud into a place where it causes fewer problems, or allows you to clean your pets’ paws and other muddy areas before allowing your best friend into the rest of your home. You’ll need a stock of towels and a place to put the dirty laundry from the wipe-downs.
Definitely Not Green Remember that grout requires scrubbing, so avoid light-colored grout that shows mud and dirt in favor of darker grout that doesn’t show it as well. Having a way to close off your mudroom is essential if it is to work properly to contain your pets before they have been cleaned and dried. If you have no door, consider one of the gate systems made for pets that can span a very large opening.
Products to Consider For this room, look for repurposed items. Shoe racks, for example, can be made from an old bookshelf, available in your attic or the basement of a friend.
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Instead of purchasing a new laundry sink, look at your recycled building materials center. To find one in your area, visit www.buildingreuse.org/directory. You’ll need doormats and boot trays and water-absorbing mats on which to towel your pet. Try recycled products from www.matsmatsmats.com/eco-friendly. You can locate wide-expanse gates in different materials from a variety of outlets by searching online.
Cars and Pets Would you let your child hang her head out the window? Or crawl around loose in the car? Amazing how many people allow their dogs to do just that. You might wonder how an unrestrained pet in the car represents an environmental problem, but accidents caused by distracted drivers require repairs that could include an enormous use of toxic chemicals.
Car Restraint Systems Restraint systems come in three types: First is the type that separates the cargo area of the station wagon or SUV from the backseats. Although these are sometimes made of netting, they are usually made of a thick wire and form a barrier, held in place by tension rods. Second is the crate, which can be placed in the cargo area, or belted into the backseat, similar to a child’s safety seat. One manufacturer makes a carrier that snaps into a belted base, in a pet version of the child safety seat. Third is a type of restraint system that belts the dog, sans crate, into the seat belt. It could work, if the dog doesn’t chew his way out. If you have a dog who tolerates this system, it will make your life simpler. No one is making an eco-conscious crate or restraint system today. So just keep in mind that the crate, or whichever system you use, is another of those purchases that consumes resources, so you should buy once rather than several times. If you take your cat to the vet once a year, belt the carrier into the backseat. The same procedure applies to your birds or your snake. If you take your cat to the beach every afternoon for a walk (don’t laugh, it happens), it’s best to have a carrier that easily snaps into a belted system. For those who have dogs that need a park run, and the park is accessible only by car, consider keeping a crate in the cargo area permanently. With planning, you can fit two narrow
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crates into the rear of some cars. Some crates have front- and side-door openings. Consider these for cars with smaller cargo areas. Ask your local pet store for help. And try the crates in your car before you buy.
Public Transportation and Pets In general, public transportation authorities in the United States and Canada are not enthusiastic about accepting pets on board. For example, Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses do not allow pets. I get that. Who wants to sit next to a cat if you’re allergic, or to a Shih Tzu who growls for two days as you cross the great American plains? But for those of us who keep our pets close, this situation encourages us to cling more tightly to our cars. Public transportation systems that do allow dogs seem to believe that small dogs are more acceptable to most other passengers. Perhaps they consider them lap luggage, whereas a large dog infringes on the space of other passengers. If you have ever sidled up to a Neapolitan Mastiff, the breed of Hagrid’s dog Fang in the Harry Potter movies, you can believe the dog would take up an entire row on a bus. Mastiffs are also known to snore loudly, wheeze, and drool. In other words, most passengers wouldn’t want to sit next to one. Nevertheless, some cities walk this line between the benefits of public transportation and the animosity of some passengers toward animals or animals toward other passengers.
Ticket, Please: Pets Ride Vienna Streetcars Cities in Europe, where cars are more inconvenient and expensive, have long faced the issue of pets on public transportation. Vienna, for example, has established a fare code for dogs. You can bring your small dog on board in a closed carrier to avoid buying a second ticket. Leashed, muzzled dogs require a child’s ticket purchase. The best deal: dogs travel free with passengers having an annual transportation pass. That’s green!
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Our friends at DogFriendly.com have gathered information on travel with pets worldwide. This helpful web site maintains up-to-date information. They’ve allowed us to include an abbreviated version of their information about public transportation in the United States and Canada, the details of which are too lengthy to be included here. For complete information, pay them a visit online at DogFriendly.com.
Pets and the Public When you take your pet into a public space, you need to be concerned about public safety and your pet’s safety. Once having thought these issues through, all that’s left is for you and your pet to have fun.
Public Safety Public safety means thinking about leashes and considering the possibility of muzzles. Accidents are in no way green. Think bent bicycles. Tripped runners. Anxious dogs. Injuries. Prevention is a green approach. Thinking ahead, establishing, and following routines that make sense for you and your pet are the ways forward. Safety routines are “green brainers.”
Leashes Leashes are required by local ordinances in most public places in North America. Parks, municipalities, and national parks, where dogs are allowed, require leashes. These ordinances were created in response to concerns for public safety. Off-leash dog areas have been created for the free-roaming interaction of dogs and their people. Well-meaning people carry leashes and plan to snap the leash on in case of trouble. Unfortunately, this puts the properly leashed dog at a disadvantage, in the behavioral language of dogs. The walker of the unleashed dog is allowing his dog to assume a dominant position, often provoking the leashed dog to appear or become aggressive. Be advised that keeping all dogs on leash is what promotes public safety. You’ll discover several leash options, including the standard six-foot leash. For walks in less trafficked areas, consider a flexi-leash, which can extend from ten to thirty feet. This allows a dog more exercise, going out and back on the leash, but also allows you to have 100 percent reliable recall over your dog. By the way, if you’ve never used a retractable leash, be aware that some areas restrict dogs to a six-foot leash. Do be careful to keep your dog on a short leash going around corners so that no accidents happen.
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Muzzles In Europe, use of muzzles is more common than in North America. To bring dogs onto public transportation in some countries requires the use of a muzzle for public safety. Crowding dogs or thoughtless well-wishers reaching for a dog can provoke the most even-tempered dog into protecting himself or his owner. The muzzle allows the dog to express himself without contacting the errant human hand. A second value of muzzles is in keeping your dog from pursuing wildlife that’s not quick enough to escape. A final value is in that habit dogs have of eating things they consider tasty, including a dropped hotdog, a piece of plastic, or the poop of other animals, including dogs. This last point is a health issue, as well as an aesthetic one. Take a look at the Italian basket muzzle or the wire muzzles at www.dog muzzle.com. If you have a dog who bites, consult a trainer, because this is a serious situation, not one for the pet owner to resolve alone.
Protecting Your Pet in Public Be aware that not everyone vaccinates their pets or treats their pets for parasites. What this means is that you want to be sure that your pets’ vaccinations are up to date. In a dog park or any outdoor area where dogs interact with each other, drink from common water supplies, and contact feces from other dogs and wild animals, the opportunity to contract diseases such as kennel cough, and viruses such as parvo or giardia, are high. Assume parasites such as worms, fleas, and ticks are part of everyday life in these settings the way that coughs, colds, and head lice are in elementary schools. Discuss appropriate preventive measures with your vet. Also remember that most dogs love to chase, or at least investigate, anything that moves. Garter snakes, bugs, and squirrels are examples. Dogs, however, cannot distinguish between the wildlife that will tolerate their curiosity and the wildlife that won’t. Bird rookeries, denning areas for mammals such as foxes, beaches where migrating shorebirds rest and refuel during migration—all are important to maintaining stable populations of those animals. The stress of being chased by unleashed dogs may drive a group of animals from their chosen place to one less safe. For the safety of your dog, be aware that venomous animals are afoot or aslither in our parks. Finally, remember that our rivers, streams, and reservoirs are a source of human drinking water. Although, yes, there are animals that defecate in these areas without cleaning up after themselves, the “load” of parasites in the water is altered when a trail is well-used by domestic animals of any kind. This is the
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reason that cleanup in the wild matters. Alternative to carting waste home from a three-day backpacking trip is to bury it at least 100 yards from the nearest water source. Burying waste when you walk your best dog friend on a public beach is not effective because the water will disturb your burial and leach the bacteria into the water. Pick up the waste and dispose of it in a trash container. Just as you are careful about where you drink when you’re out hiking, be aware that any water can also be a source of parasites for your pet. Giardia is a common contaminant. For more information, see chapter 5.
Green Exercise for Your Dog For people who choose to live in cities to contain our urban boundaries and preserve farmland and wild spaces, plenty of shared pet exercise space exists there as well as in more rural parks and recreation areas. Dog parks are covered here and again in more detail in chapter 8’s “Pets in Public Spaces.”
How to Use a Dog Park A true dog park is one that has an off-leash area and amenities for dogs. Dog parks have an etiquette all their own. In addition, introducing your dog to an off-leash park for the first time requires some thought. Several excellent references exist, well worth the time invested to read them. Try these, to start: Visiting the Dog Park: Having Fun, Staying Safe, by Cheryl Smith (Dogwise Publishing, 2007). Written for the dog owner who wants to hear the pros and cons of dog parks, how to make the most of the park, and what the dog owner needs to know about dog body language. For anyone who wants to understand dog parks, this is the place to start. (Available at www.dogwise.com.) Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety and Fun, by Robin K. Bennett and Susan Briggs (Dream Dog Productions, 2007). Written for professionals, but any dog owner can learn from this authoritative book. (Also available from www.dogwise.com.)
Finding Dog Parks To find a dog park in your area, try the following Internet sites: www.dogpark.com: Download a list of dog parks in the United States or Canada from this site. www.ecoanimal.com/dogfun: Click to a list of dog parks by state or province and city.
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Planet-Friendly Pet Equipment and the Future As applied to pets, green concerns are in their infancy. As a part of keeping you informed, www.thiswildlife.com offers a free newsletter to update with information on green companies and their products. Visit www.thiswildlife.com and follow the links to “Pets and the Planet” to subscribe. Take the following quiz to see where you stand with regard to green pet equipment and toys. Circle the answer that applies and add your points for your green equipment and toys score.
My Sustainability Score: Choosing Green Pet Equipment and Toys Category
Good
Better
Best
Have what I need for my pet type
Have some items
Have most items
Have all items
Reviewed toy and equipment purchase plan to see if I can share or reuse
I’ve listed what I need
I’ve looked on Freecycle for items
I found at least one thing from a neighbor or online recycle site
Have found green suppliers for toys and other pet needs
Have looked at suppliers in chapter
Have used Have found and chapter references visited suppliers to find local I like suppliers
Understand how to exercise my pet safely in public spaces
Read the chapter and intend to review
Use my leash to go to and from off-leash areas
Use a muzzle as well as a leash when I take my pet to a crowded and/or unclean area
For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 12–19 points: You have a good plan for learning more about your pet’s equipment and toys. 20–27 points: You understand the basics of green pet equipment and toys and now you’re just learning the details. 28 points: You win the Green Pet Award for doing your best for your pet and the planet when it comes to choosing green pet equipment and toys.
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My Sustainability Plan: Choosing Green Pet Equipment and Toys A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved. In my home: Have what I need for each pet. Find local suppliers that carry green products for needs as they arise. Make unused pet supplies available to others. Make sure I use leashes and consider use of a muzzle. In my community: Help keep local dog parks clean and accessible. Support local suppliers of green pet products. Provide green pet equipment ideas to friends and neighbors. In my personal beliefs: Is there a political action I want to take? Is there a conversation I want to have in the neighborhood?
Resources Business groups: Organic Trade Association: www.ota.com GreenerChoices: www.greenerchoices.org Organic Consumers Association: www.organicconsumers.org DogFriendly.com Additional reading: Robin K. Bennett and Susan Briggs. Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety and Fun. Woodbridge, VA: Dream Dog Productions, 2007. Cheryl S. Smith. Visiting the Dog Park: Having Fun, Staying Safe. Wenatchee, WA: Dogwise Publishing, 2007.
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Managing Pet Waste Responsibly They think they can make fuel from horse manure. Now, I don’t know if your car will be able to get thirty miles to the gallon, but it’s sure gonna put a stop to siphoning. —Billie Holiday (American jazz singer, 1915–1959)
Dealing with waste is the price we pay for having a pet we love. If you don’t want to deal with litter or waste, you need a plant. The widely quoted estimate of the number of people who pick up their dog waste in public is 40 percent, so the other 60 percent of us need behavior modification. When we confront waste that doesn’t belong to our pet, our reaction is usually disgust. What was your reaction the last time you stepped in pet poop wearing your brand-new shoes? Have you picked greens from your garden only to find that your row of arugula has been used as a cat toileting area? Pets leave their waste at playgrounds, backyards, along the roadside, everywhere in most cities and towns. Especially in our recreational areas, we see some of the solid waste. As offended as we get when we see pet waste, our animals are offended more by the waste we don’t see—the urine. Even when you can’t detect it, your dog or cat can. How many times has your dog stopped to sniff during your walk around the block? And, of course, this triggers the behavior of covering the other dog’s waste with his own urine, the ramifications of which are discussed in chapter 6 on household cleaning and pets. Pet waste is intrusive, never-ending, and a source of questions that most people don’t want to ask. The revulsion people have for pet waste is the factor behind an entire new industry. Every time I’m in the pet store, I see cat owners
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looking glassy-eyed at the litter choices. Friends with cats demonstrate their newest devices purchased in hopes of curing the litter-box problem. Snake waste products are in a class by themselves. This chapter takes an in-depth look how you can treat pet waste sustainably. We discuss: Other than the “ick” factor, what’s so bad about pet waste? Why pick up pet waste when wild animal and livestock waste goes directly into the environment? What is the most responsible way to deal with pet waste? How can a busy person keep the harmful effects of waste out of their house and yard, and off community sidewalks? In the process, we’ll look at what is in pet waste, what disposal methods are common, and the plusses and minuses of each. By the end of the chapter, you should understand how your choices about your pets’ waste affect the environment. The goal is that you know enough to make decisions consistent with your values.
Facts and Figures The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that dogs evacuate 0.75 pounds of feces per day, or 5.25 pounds per week. One dog creates approximately 273 pounds of feces per year. That’s the amount you’ll be picking up if you have one average-sized dog. The American Pet Products Association (APPA) tells us there are 74 million dogs in homes in the United States. Our inescapable conclusion is that our dogs produce 10 million tons of feces nationwide, each year. (Not surprisingly, cats would not give estimates to the EPA, so their contribution is left to the imagination.) A San Francisco study revealed that 4 percent of the city’s entire wastestream is pet waste. Similar studies demonstrated that Seattle homeowners throw out 7,600 tons of pet waste per year. Pets generate 10 million tons of waste annually in the United States. Ten million tons—that’s enough pet waste to cover 1,100 football fields, including the end zones, to a depth of 5 feet.
The Dangers of Pet Waste Animal wastes contain living things. To understand why companion animal waste creates a health problem, we need to examine these organisms. Organisms in waste are generally viruses, bacteria, or parasites.
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These organisms can cause disease in humans, animals, and plants. Whether the organism reaches another through the water or through ground contamination, the results are the same. Viruses such as the Norwalk virus, which has been in the news so often in recent years, cause gastroenteritis, with symptoms including diarrhea, nausea, and stomach cramps. According to the World Health Organization, these illnesses are second only to malaria as a source of lost work time. Roundworm, the most common hazard in dog manure, infects 90 percent of young puppies before being treated. These worms cause 30 percent of the eye disease in children; 30 percent of people tested in the last U.S. Public Health Service tests, conducted in 1978, tested positive for roundworm. Although worms may not sound dangerous, and bacteria can be cured with antibiotics, the fact is that people can contract diseases carried by their pets. Most people are not aware of this; a recent study conducted by Braun Research showed that 83 percent of dog owners are unaware that their pets’ waste can cause a parasite infection in people. The organisms of greatest health concern from companion wastes are cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, and the more aggressive forms of E. coli and salmonella. These illnesses can be more serious or fatal for people with weakened immune systems. Although livestock waste is a much larger issue, livestock typically are not located in the major metropolitan areas. Professionals tend stock confined to areas where the environmental problems are or can be contained. The composition of livestock waste is also less of a hazard than that of most companion animals because of their diet. Cows, horses, and chickens eat plant materials. Dogs and cats eat diets that include meat; meat diets produce wastes with different characteristics, including parasites and viruses. Finally, livestock waste, even on private property, falls under state and federal environment and agriculture regulations.
Bacteria from Pet Waste About two-thirds of any amount of fecal material is water. Indigestible food makes up most of the remainder. However, feces also contain the breakdown products of red blood cells, a small amount of fat, and a smaller amount of protein. Depending on the animal species, the indigestible food elements vary. With regard to environmental effects, the nitrogen in this waste is only part of the problem (we’ll get to that in a minute). Feces also contain a large amount
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of bacteria, shed from the intestine. The bacteria participate in normal digestive activity, but when released into the environment can create disease. Bacteria are single-celled organisms such as E. coli and shigella, which have featured prominently in the news. As an example of how contact between animal waste and food is a concern, remember the E. coli outbreaks related to spinach used by several chain restaurants and on strawberries from one large growing region? Farmers work hard to keep their crops free of these diseases.
Parasites and Viruses in Pet Waste Pet waste also can contain parasites and viruses. Internal parasites include various types of worms that develop in one body, and reproduce by shedding eggs that then enter a new organism. A parasite is an organism that lives at the expense of another. So small you need a microscope to see them, parasitic worms are transferred through larvae or eggs. People contact and accidentally ingest the larvae and eggs through contact with feces, soil, plants, or sand. In particular, children playing in areas where dogs or cats relieve themselves transfer eggs to hands and from hands to their mouths. The results of these parasites can be very harmful. People, especially children, contract roundworms and hookworms especially through contamination of public sandboxes, parks, and backyards. Habits that help prevent the spread of roundworms and hookworms include: Picking up and disposing of your pet’s waste Covering your kids’ sandbox to prevent your pets and neighbors’ cats from burying their waste in it Not allowing your children to play or walk barefoot in public areas that dogs frequent Teaching your children to wash their hands immediately after coming indoors and always again before eating
Water Contamination from Pet Waste North Americans generally think of undrinkable water as a problem in foreign countries that don’t practice the same level of water hygiene as we do. What
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many people don’t realize is that the increasing populations of pets accompanied by increased water runoff from the concrete of our towns and cities usually flow directly into nearby bodies of water. North Americans degrade the quality of our drinking water, not by design, but through lack of understanding. Water from rain and snow hits city streets and parking lots and travels to storm drains. In most cities, these storm drains empty into the nearest river or stream. Pet waste, as well as oil and other products spilled on roads and streets, enter the storm water system and flow directly into the municipally determined body of water. Companion animals, according to a watershed study by the city of Seattle, were responsible for up to 20 percent of bacteria found in municipal water samples. When waste enters public waterways, the waste decays, takes oxygen from the water, and releases ammonia. As anyone who has tried to manage an aquarium understands, life for aquatic plants and animals is all about balance. The proper amount of oxygen in the water, and the level of waste in the water, must be low enough to prevent a bloom of plants from the fertilizer applied. Perhaps you’ve gone to a lake where, during the summer, an extraordinary amount of algae makes the water green and cloudy. You’ve seen the results of too much nitrogen from wastes in the water. The problem with animal waste washing into our rivers isn’t simply an issue of too much nitrogen in the water causing green algae to foul our swimming conditions or cause sport fish die-offs, but the bacteria and parasites that infect people and wildlife. One of the most common causes of waterborne disease in the United States, giardia, is well known among campers. Most people believe raccoons spread giardia, but it is regularly present in and spread by dogs. Nitrates in drinking water create a health risk for infants less than 6 months old. Nitrates can rise quickly in water to above the safety level of ten parts per million because of rainfall or agricultural activity. I would not have picked pet waste as a major contributor to runoff and urban water pollution. Neither did municipal waste managers, until they saw the data. (Each organism has its unique variety of bacteria—a fecal footprint, so to speak. That’s how water-quality experts distinguish pet waste from livestock waste from human waste.) But if you consider the number of pets in the United States, consider the volume of waste each pet creates, and understand how our storm water flows, you begin to see how this problem is developing momentum. The EPA recommends that pet owners limit their contribution to drinking water contamination by cleaning up and properly disposing of pet waste.
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The Scoop on Babylon As a part of a program associated with the Clean Water Act, the town of Babylon, New York, made 500 free pooper-scoopers available to pet owners or people who adopted animals at the town shelter. The aim was to reduce non–point source pollution (the kind of pollution that occurs when storm runoff carries animal waste, oil, grease, and toxic chemicals into waterways—in Babylon’s case, the waterways leading to Great South Bay). Steve Bellone, the town supervisor, says that animal waste from the town’s 4,000 dogs and uncounted geese and ducks creates a threat to local water quality. It is a large factor in the runoff that closes beaches and hurts the fishing industry. Town regulations now require pet owners to pick up animal waste; violations carry a maximum fine of $250, ten days in jail, or both. In addition to being a source of free Baggies, this creative program is a way to encourage resident pet owners’ compliance on Long Island.
Practicing Responsible Pet Waste Management Many pets are fussy about their waste. Their natural inclination is to deposit their waste at a regular time and place, and cover or otherwise ritualize their elimination. When waste builds up in a litter box or a yard, the pet begins to look for unsoiled places to eliminate. This can mean indoors, or specific locations outdoors you’ve forbidden them, such as the garden. Improper elimination is the number one reason cats lose their homes. Such behavior damages the relationship between any pet and her family members. Companions who pick up waste regularly and sanitize areas frequently marked with urine find that cats, dogs, and many small mammals will deposit their waste in the same spot, day after day. This preferred place will be as far away from their food and other activity areas as the pet finds practical. This fastidious habit makes the job of cleaning far easier and your relationship with your pet much better.
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Principles of Disposing of Pet Waste Most of the time, pets deposit their waste somewhere in your home or yard. For birds, pocket pets, and exotics, their cage is the location. For dogs, there’s the waste they deposit in the yard or the waste they deposit during your walks. If you have a cat, waste disposal is easy if you keep it indoors—and easy in a different way if you allow it to roam (that is, easy for you, annoying and frustrating for your neighbors). If the EPA had its way, we would all flush pet waste down the toilet, allowing it to be treated by a sewage plant or septic system. A second way to handle pet waste is to seal it in a bag and put it into the garbage. Because garbage goes to a landfill, which, to operate legally, must be isolated from groundwater by an impermeable barrier, this method prevents pathogens from spreading. The principles of both methods are: (1) to render the material harmless by treatment to eliminate the pathogens, and (2) to isolate the untreated material from water and from other human contact. These principles make sense from a health perspective and can be implemented in several ways. You can simply flush waste down the toilet. You can throw the waste into the trash for municipal disposal. You can use your trowel to bury it in the yard. Let’s look at each of these options against the backdrop of our principles of: (1) rendering the material harmless by eliminating the pathogens, or (2) isolating the untreated material from water and from other human contact. Keep in mind that our problem elements are: (1) bacteria and parasites, (2) elements of nitrogen and phosphorous (fertilizer, essentially), and (3) aesthetic concerns such as appearance and odor.
Toilet Flushing dog waste would be an attractive choice if it were not for the aesthetics. Many people don’t want to share their toilet with others, even a beloved pet. In addition, this method requires handling waste more precisely than using a pooper-scooper or a shovel. Bringing waste indoors to flush violates most of what we know and feel about keeping our homes clean. The advantage of this method is that the waste travels through a system designed to eliminate the bacteria and parasites and redirect the nitrogen and phosphorus, often to a good cause. In addition, we pay our municipal authority to handle our waste. The service deals with waste disposal in a way that satisfies both the principles of eliminating the pathogens and isolating the untreated material from human contact.
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But would you really use this method? If you have a small dog, with neat, inoffensive poop and two toilets at home, perhaps. If you have an ancient Labrador with messy waste, and your family of five shares a bath and a half, I don’t think so.
Trash Adding pet waste to the trash is what many urban and suburban dwellers do. This removes the waste from the pet’s area, along with the bacteria and parasite eggs. The problems caused by these components are relocated from the pet owner to the municipal authority.
Biodegradable versus Compostable Plastic bags are a convenient way to handle waste. They prevent waste from touching your hands, contain the waste for transport, and are disposable. Of course, plastic bags seem the antithesis of concern for the earth. However, we can choose either to reuse bags that will go to a landfill anyway, or to purchase bags that are biodegradable or compostable. What’s the difference? Biodegradable means only that the plastic will break into pieces, a physical breakdown that sometimes leaves a toxic residue. Compostable means a complete chemical breakdown to natural elements; bags must meet the ASTM-6400-99 standard for manufacturers to claim their products are compostable. For those who can afford them, bags that break down to their chemical elements to be reused by natural processes are a terrific alternative. One popular brand, BioBags, was designed to decompose in forty days in a “regulated composting environment.” Made of a cornstarch polymer, these bags literally dissolve in the right conditions. A year of bags, assuming 600 bags at $69.50 and shipping (from Florida or Colorado) at $9.95, costs $79.45.
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Trash haulers are paid by homeowners and landfills are paid with our tax dollars to deal with our wastes. This method of disposing of waste satisfies our concern about isolating the untreated material, but does nothing to eliminate the pathogens from the environment. Would you really use this method? Most of us do if we walk our dogs. We dispose of the waste pickup bag in the nearest trash can. Those of us who pick up their yard once a week probably do too. We collect the waste in a bag, seal it, and toss it in the trash. The drawback, as with anything we seal in plastic, is that the waste never decomposes because it remains inside the plastic container that never decomposes.
Trowel Burying waste deals with the issue of isolating, and burying properly. Dig a hole at least 1 foot deep. Mix the waste into the soil. Cover the waste to a depth of at least 8 inches to prevent rats or pets from digging it up. Would you really use this method? This method does not eliminate the pathogens from the environment, and depends on the homeowner’s understanding of the issue of groundwater contamination. You must dig the hole far enough away from a water source to eliminate the possibility of runoff. Do you know where that spot is in your backyard?
Home Composting: A Better Option? Composting, you’d think, has to be a better answer, a planet lover’s dream come true. Breaking down pet waste, a natural product, through a natural process using heat and bacteria would seemingly equate to spinning straw into gold. The benefits would seem even better if we include the litter or substrate that pets use such as wood shavings or straw in the case of rodents or newspaper in the case of birds and reptiles. And composting makes use of the elements of nitrogen and phosphorous, eliminating the need to purchase fertilizers containing these elements—always a good outcome. Here’s the problem. The biologic portion of the waste, the one that required our principle “eliminate the pathogens,” cannot be satisfied through home composting. Eliminating pathogens requires the high, sustained heat of commercial-grade composting. Think of parasites as super seeds, living materials with coatings so tough and so resilient that long, sustained efforts to break them down are required. This is why plant pathogens and animal pathogens like bacteria and parasites’
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eggs persist despite medical science’s best efforts to eliminate them. Destroying them requires a physical assault on the materials, either from the inside of the organism or through the surface of an egg that is not yet taking in nutrients from the outside. Home composting isn’t up to this challenge. The composters used by municipalities to treat biosludge left over from the sewer system are engineered to create and maintain high temperatures for the necessary length of time. According to R. E. Hall, extension veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, to sterilize pet manure and render it safe, you’d need to achieve a temperature of 165°F and sustain it for five days. Backyard compost heaps rarely reach this temperature, and the outer several inches never do. Although chemical sterilants such as methyl bromide could be used, Hall says, “The cost and bother is probably not worth the value of the manure . . . and the average homeowner is not equipped to handle chemical sterilants.”
What Makes Commercial Composting Okay? Commercial products, such as manure and soil conditioners made from biosolids from wastewater treatment, are safe because they undergo a regulated process (by the EPA’s 503 Biosolids Rule) in facilities designed to meet the requirements for eliminating parasites, bacteria, and viruses. These processes heat the unpurified material and maintain that temperature for a fixed amount of time. Certified equipment performs the sterilization process, incinerating the pathogens, rendering them harmless, and only the nutrients remain. One common process, pasteurization, requires treating at 70°C (158°F) for thirty minutes and composting at 55°C (131°F) for three days. The processing through composting also requires a particular pH range and drying the product to 50 percent dry solids. Less severe regimes result in less effective treatment. Meeting the EPA’s 503 Biosolids Rule is a task better left to professionals than to home composters.
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Hall’s conclusion is that the health hazards are greater than the potential benefit. He recommends disposing of pet waste by flushing, burying six inches or more deep in soil, or placing in tight plastic bags for garbage collection. Echoing Hall’s thoughts is the EPA. Although some groups recommend composting, the EPA recognizes that pet wastes carry diseases and should not be incorporated into compost piles. The EPA also makes the point that pets should be kept away from gardens, streams, ponds, and lakes. If this makes the EPA sound like an overprotective parent, remember the numbers from early in the chapter. What if everyone allowed his or her animal into the water upstream from your garden? But my dog is different, you say. I thought this myself. My dog has just had her annual exam, including a fecal analysis, the weather is warming, and I have a hot compost pile. But the fecal exam won’t find the roundworm that my dog picked up yesterday, inhaling in the long grass by the side of the road where someone left their unwormed dog’s feces. Sadly, home composting satisfies neither of our principles of isolation or destruction. The writer sighs with disappointment, as the reader must also. Just say no and move on.
New Developments in Pet Waste Disposal Three relatively new developments may give pet owners more options for disposing of their pet’s waste. One is the pet waste digester. The second is a pet waste removal service. The third, for those lucky enough to have a forwardlooking community, is curbside organic waste recycling.
Pet Waste Digesters You install a pet waste digester in your own backyard. Before burying the plastic box with a hole in the bottom, you dig a 6-foot hole, fill it with 3 feet of gravel, place your waste digester with its drainage hole on top, and then tamp the dirt back around the box to the level of the lid. As you scoop the poop from your yard, place it in the digester and close the lid. Periodically you add water, required to keep the digestion process active. Companies making in-ground pet waste digesters market their products as nontoxic and environmentally safe alternatives to other disposal methods. They allow pet owners to isolate pet wastes in a central place, removing the waste from the areas the pet is using and allowing the pet the ease of using a clean place for elimination. Digester powder, mostly bacteria, speeds the breakdown of feces. The digester works above 40°F, so the digester is not effective (in most areas) for wintertime use.
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Reviews on these products are mixed. While the idea is intriguing to those of us who simply cannot bag waste for the landfill, the digesters do not work well for many people. Either pet owners fail to add sufficient water or digester powder, or the temperature does not rise sufficiently to break down the waste before it accumulates in the yard again. These products do work, but I never balanced the digester/water/waste proportion well enough to be satisfied with the results. Besides, I needed a different solution for much of the year because of temperature considerations.
Pet Waste Services Pet waste services have been growing in popularity since 1998, when the pioneers of the business, including trade group founder Deb Levy, began. These waste services have no magic bullet for disposing of pet waste. The waste goes to the landfill. The problem pet waste services solve is that of picking up the waste. “Consumers don’t want to clean up after their dogs, even in their own backyard,” said David Litwak, editor-in-chief of Pet Business magazine. The owners of the waste services echo this sentiment. Litwak profiled 1-800Doody-Calls in his magazine. Jacob D’Aniello, president, worked for five years to build his business to four hundred customers and five employees. Now he offers franchises in the pet waste business. In Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, pet-waste collection companies have created a cooperative, each with a territory to themselves. Names include In the Bag Pet Services, Dog-Gone Doo-Doo, and Yard Guard. Matt Osborn wrote a book on the subject: The Professional Pooper-Scooper: How to Start Your Own Low-Cost, High-Profit Dog Waste Removal Service. Osborn operated his business for ten years, and sold it for $219,000. Osborne says that his business thrived on what he calls the “repugnance factor.” The repugnance factor may be behind the growth of the estimated three hundred companies in the poop collectors’ business. There is now a trade organization called the Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists. Costs for these pet waste removal services range from small to large, depending on the type of service you require. An example is the Pet Butler Franchise Services Corporation, with seventeen franchises operating in fortythree territories. “Picking up after one dog once a week is $10.75,” founder Matt Boswell says. “One customer pays Pet Butler $685 a month to pick up after five dogs, apply odor eliminator spray, and sprinkle ‘Don’t-Go-There’ crystals three times a week.” (More about how these services operate in chapter 7, “Pets and Ecologically Sensitive Pet Services.”)
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Profile of a Dog Waste Removal Service Alan Pietrovito, a professional pooper-scooper, owns the Doody Calls franchise in Portland, Oregon. Passionate about protecting the environment, Alan believes that as a citizen of Portland he has a responsibility to show leadership, so he looks beyond his current business and has proposed a local methane digester for pet waste in Portland. He is folding his fledgling organization, Stumptown Dog and Watershed Group, into Portland’s new Pet Chamber of Commerce, a larger organization that can get more done. Pietrovito began work in this business as a seasonal supplement for his 1-800-Junk franchise. The junk business is heavy in the summer. The poop business is big in the winter. Pietrovito’s biggest concern is that people don’t seem to grasp how much of a health problem pet waste presents. He is also concerned that “we all live downstream.” Still working at 5:00 p.m. on a beautiful Friday evening, he says, “Duty calls.”
What’s best for the environment is commercial-grade composting of all pet waste. I’m hopeful this is right around the corner in my city. Curbside collection of compostables would make this possible. Next best is burial of waste, assuming you have small amounts, at a location that would not contaminate groundwater with runoff. If you have a small dog, flushing “tidy” waste is an excellent option. Next best is to bag it and put it in the trash. I hate to recommend this, but as you might imagine, health trumps landfill size in my book.
Curbside Organic Waste Recycling Another way to deal with the amount of pet waste across a city or region is to create something useful, like fertilizer and energy. Many cities are producing biogas from organic waste. San Francisco and Toronto are cities that use their recyclables instead of selling or providing them to other recyclers. Toronto uses organic material that
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families put out in “green carts” that contain bagged organic garbage, including pet wastes. Toronto’s city waste management takes organics to a plant that uses waste as the feedstock in a process that produces biogas and organic compost. Biogas includes methane, a fuel, and the organic compost can be used for any project requiring plant nutrients. The San Francisco project is specific to pet waste. Toronto’s project is for curbside recycling. The process is enclosed, and the facility is equipped with odor control and treatment technology to prevent odor escape. The plant processes 25,000 tons of organic waste per year. In 2005 these plants were the only facilities in North America processing separated municipal solid waste using anaerobic digestion technology.
Dealing with Cat Waste Cats, as enigmatic creatures who will not be dominated, naturally add complexities to any situation. Roaming cats deposit waste outside the owner’s property, in neighbors’ yards and gardens. Cats who toilet indoors, at least some of the time, bury their waste in the litter of their cat boxes. Like most mammals, cats prefer using a clean “bathroom.” At the same time, handling lots of urine and feces is not what the average person wants to do. Managing both the urine and the feces of indoor cats can strain relationships, as most feline behaviorists can tell you. Cats need clean litter boxes. If they don’t get them, they’ll begin to put their urine and feces elsewhere. Managing cat litter correctly is important. Cat litter is a source of the microbe that causes toxoplasmosis (toxoplasmosis Gondii or TG), particularly harmful to pregnant women (causing miscarriages and birth defects) and to people with immune-deficiency disorders (causing vision and coordination loss). In a study by the Central Animal Health Laboratory in Wisconsin, 45 percent of cats tested positive for this microbe. Cats spread the disease for seven to ten days after infection. Moreover, TG is resistant to sewage treatment, slipping through and causing 20 percent of sea lion deaths in California. Accordingly, California has made it illegal to dispose of cat feces through the sewer system. To me, managing cat litter correctly means “bag and trash,” unless your municipality collects compostables curbside, or your water supplier eliminates the microbe cats often shed. (I know of none that do.) Here’s more about why.
Kitty Litter Kitty litter was developed to make the handling of cat wastes as easy and as pleasant as possible. What began in the 1960s has become an enormous industry. In
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an effort to produce a better product that will earn your business, cat litter manufacturers have created variations to reduce odor, clump when wet for easy removal, prevent litter tracking, and detect urinary infections by turning an alternate color. (For information about sources of different types of litter, see chapter 4, “Green Pet Equipment and Toys.”) Because of advances in kitty litter, many cats keep their homes for years. Without kitty litter, the burden of cleaning the waste mounts, and the tension between cats and owners can become unbearable. The relationship breaks, and cats lose their homes.
What’s in That Litter? Selecting the type of litter that keeps your cat happy isn’t the only challenge you face. Kitty litter, like any manufactured product, affects our environment. Products require design, production, packaging, and shipment, all of which stress our environment. Kitty litter has generated lots of controversy about health and environmental problems, but then no product extraction or manufacture can be 100 percent safe for the workers or the consumer or harmless to the environment. Let’s look at the available styles of kitty litter products to develop some understanding of what’s in that box or bag on the supermarket or pet store shelf. Three broad categories of materials comprise kitty litter’s main components: clay, silica, and plants, each with unique characteristics.
Fuller’s Earth, the First Clay Litter Most clay used in cat litter is granulated Fuller’s earth. Mined, this natural product binds urine, which is how Fuller’s earth controls the odor. Pet owners must change the soiled litter frequently to prevent urine collecting in the box and creating the unpleasant smell of ammonia, a chief disadvantage. To make a better product using Fuller’s earth, manufacturers add other elements, such as baking soda to absorb more odor, antibacterial substances to kill the bacteria that create odors, or perfumes to mask odor.
Better Clay and Silicon Bentonite, a special clay mineral and the main component of clumping litter, contains stacks of silicon. Silicon increases the clay’s absorption power by trapping more urine and any ammonia produced by the exposure of the urine to air.
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Crystal litters include a silica gel bead that absorbs the urine. The engineering of the crystals allows water to evaporate, leaving the ammonia behind, bound to the bead. A small amount of silica gel beads controls odor longer than other types of litter in larger quantities.
Plant-Based Litters Plant-based litters are made from recycled paper, wood, corn, and green tea leaves. One litter product, Swheat Scoop, made from processed wheat litter, neutralizes odor with wheat enzymes. Wheat starches absorb the moisture and clump for scooping. The manufacturer claims that the litter is biodegradable and can be flushed down the toilet or used as mulch. Veterinarians disagree, as cat waste includes parasites and other disease-causing organisms such as TG that should not be introduced into the environment. In addition, flushing litter is a concern to the local water districts. Another product, Feline Pine, made of pine pellets heated and pressed to remove harmful wood oils, includes natural guar beans to improve clumping properties. Swheat Scoop founder Mike Hughes estimates that 160,000 tons of nonbiodegradable cat litter ends up in landfills each year. However, the biodegradability of plant-based litter does mean that the material will essentially dissolve into harmless elements in solid-waste landfills. Other plant-based litters include: Recycled newspaper that’s been compressed into pellets Ground corncobs Extruded straw pellets Pine sawdust from lumber waste Other products made from cellulose fiber
Health Concerns of Litter Many veterinarians and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) have concerns about the use of clumping cat litters and clay litters in general. When cats clean their paws after using the litter box, they ingest portions of the litter. Because these litters absorb water, cats, especially kittens, can ingest enough litter while grooming themselves to create an intestinal blockage. The ingested litter absorbs water and swells, creating a clump too large to pass through the cat’s digestive system.
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What Does “Biodegradable” Mean? Biodegradable products are those that can break down into components such as water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen, which nature can use to build other things. Many products are said to be biodegradable that are not, such as detergents and plastics, while things that are biodegradable, such as paper and soap, are not labeled biodegradable. Biodegradability also involves the time it takes the product to degrade. The European Union says a material is biodegradable if it will break down into mostly water, carbon dioxide, and organic matter within six months. A cardboard box will break down in two months. Many biodegradable products take longer. Biodegradable diapers
1 year
Plywood
1–3 years
Aluminum cans
200 years
Disposable diapers
450 years
The health effects of cat litter extend to human companions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), clay-based litters that contain silica dust release crystalline silica dust, a suspected carcinogen, also associated with bronchitis and tuberculosis, into the air. Not only does this product create some concerns for pet owners and their animals, but for workers extracting the clay from the mines. Biodegradable and dust-free litters aim to be products that contain nothing that can be inhaled, and contain no additives such as fragrances or dyes.
Self-Washing Litter Boxes The new self-washing litter boxes may change the way we look at litter. When silica gel pearls are washed, they can be used many weeks before needing to be changed. The shortcoming of these litter boxes, connected to your home’s
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wastewater system, is the lack of elimination of pathogens that may be in cat feces, specifically toxoplasmosis. When enterprising engineers find a way to eliminate toxoplasmosis (and other similar pathogens) from water systems, self-washing boxes may be worth the investment.
Cat Litter Choices Litter Type
Made of
Health Cautions
Performance
Fuller’s earth
Clay
Respiratory concerns for humans and cats
Dust, and cats track from tray; clay strip mined
Clumping litter
Clay and silica
Intestinal blockage for cats and respiratory concerns for humans and cats
Easy-to-scoop clay is strip mined
Silica gel pearls
Silica dioxide sand
None found
Can absorb forty times their weight in moisture, nontoxic and bacteria resistant. Litter doesn’t track
Wheat
100 percent wheat husks
None found
Organic waste product. Easy to scoop but clumps tend to fall apart when scooped. Good odor control
Corncobs
Waste from None found corn processing
Absorbent, good odor control, somewhat dusty
Kenaf
Plant related to cotton and hibiscus
None found
Absorbent, nonclumping, dust free
Pine and cedar sawdust
Kiln-dried scrap lumber
Irritant of resins in the pine wood, but not cedar
Odor elimination, very absorbent
Recycled paper
100 percent recycled paper
None found
Pelleted form of newspaper, mostly dust free
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Certifications and Standards When products include labels from the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) and U.S. Composting Council (USCC), you can be confident that the products inside the package are biodegradable and/or compostable. BPI explains, “The point is to identify plastic and paper products, which disintegrate and biodegrade completely and safely when composted in a municipal or commercial facility, like Kraft paper, yard trimmings and food scraps.” Products bearing those labels are certified to meet American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) specifications standards. The ASTM makes the standards. BPI and USCC promise they have examined the products and the products meet these standards. Certifications mean that you can be sure that the product you purchased and paid more for will behave in the environment as advertised. In other words, the label has a specific meaning. This is in contrast to products that use descriptive words such as “natural” or “earth-friendly,” making no promise of performance. Any manufacturer may apply to have their products certified by BPI and USCC. A list of certified products appears on their web sites.
Exotic Pet and Fish Waste Reptiles, birds, and pocket pets all require bedding or a substrate. Melissa Kaplan, reptile expert, recommends linoleum as a reptile substrate because it’s easy to clean. For reptiles and birds, many experts, including Kaplan, recommend newsprint (black and white, not colored pages) or unprinted newsprint paper, or towels that you wash in a two-step process. Wash first with a laundry detergent that removes the organic matter. Wash a second time with bleach to disinfect, removing parasites, bacteria, and viruses. Most pocket pets, small mammals such as guinea pigs and mice, have a high need to burrow; burrowers usually prefer wood shavings.
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Bagging It Up In most developed countries, the sentiment is the same: “Please remove your dog waste.” When pet and people populations were smaller, pet owners left poop where their dogs deposited it. City dwellers evolved as signs urged, “Please curb your dog.” Curbing meant have your dog deposit waste to the street side of the curb for the street sweepers. Later, pooper-scoopers aided city dwellers in depositing poop in waste containers—at least the 40 percent of them who pick up after their pets. Now, in our mobile society, and given the fact that a pooperscooper is not a hot fashion accessory (and frankly, how do you clean that utensil to take it back into your apartment?), we’ve progressed to the poop mitt or bags on a leash, or a newspaper bag stuffed in our pockets. What should you use to pick up the poop, and once you have it, where do you deposit your bag? If you’re an eco-conscious person, these questions may haunt you as daily media reports push the maddening eco-metronome back and forth between paper and plastic. Bags come in everything from the free bags you get at the grocery store or with your newspaper to bags that are imported from Norway, but are 100 percent biodegradable and chemically degradable. Best ways to bag it: For dogs, bagging waste is good, biodegradable waste bags are better, compostable bags are next, and bagless flushing is best. For cats, the same order of preference applies, but skip the flushing. If your city recycles green waste, then that’s the place for your pet waste. Note: This is different from yard waste recycling. For organic waste recycling, your city will use a digester and a special pickup procedure. If you have questions, please call your local waste management company. If you’re not willing to pick up waste, pay people to do it. Find the service that covers your neighborhood from www.apaws.org.
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The best-practice principles are to select beddings with low or no health effects to the animals or people, and decent hygiene with respect to feces and urine absorption. Since bedding cannot be recycled, choose materials that are either post-consumer recycled or by-products. Avoid wood with oils, such as cedar, that may be toxic for your pet. Select low-dust materials for both pet and human health. Fish enthusiasts are familiar with the problems of waste. After all, fish swim in a dilute solution of waste at all times. The challenge for fish hobbyists is to keep the solution of waste very dilute. Physical barriers called filters strain waste from the water. Plants, if present, help take up nutrients from the waste, using nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the tank. Many aquarium keepers add animals such as snails that consume waste components to the tank. Many experts suggest changing 10 to 25 percent of your tank’s water each week. Pour used tank water down a sink or toilet, into the city’s waste system. Of course, dispose of plants, especially those known to be invasive, in your dry wastebins.
My Sustainability Score: Managing Pet Waste Responsibly Good
Better
Best
Pet waste pickup in public
I do unless I forget my bags.
I always do.
I got the dog park to install a bag dispenser and trash can or port-a-potty.
Waste disposal method
We pick up the yard once a month, litter box every week.
We pick up the yard weekly and scoop kitty box twice a week.
I pick up using compostable bags but dispose of in trash, until my city has curbside composting collection.
Evaluated kitty litter selection
It’s on my list I’ve moved to a of things to do. dust-free litter.
Roaming cat reform
I keep my cat indoors part of the time.
My pets agree that we handle waste well
Periodic cat No accidents and dog indoor indoors except toileting. when animals are ill.
I have moved to a natural products or a silica pearl litter.
I have made a I have found and commitment to visited suppliers I like. make new cats indoor-only cats. Waste pickup daily in yard and litter box.
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For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 15–24 points: You have a good foundation for learning more about pet waste disposal. 25–34 points: You understand the basics of pet waste disposal and now you’re just learning the details. 35 points: You win the Green Pet Award for doing your best for your pet and the planet when it comes to choosing green pet waste disposal.
My Sustainability Plan: Responsible Pet Waste Disposal A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved. In my home: Review potty arrangements for all pets. Do they meet my standards for cleanliness? Review waste disposal procedures. Do these meet the standards I feel are ethical? What one thing could I do to improve the sensibility of my pet waste disposal? In my community: If I use a dog park, do my park friends and I take care of our pet waste in a responsible manner? If I allow my cats to roam, would I consider bringing them indoors if I could get help doing this? In my personal beliefs: Is there a clean-water project going on in my city that I could learn more about? Is there a conversation I want to have in the neighborhood about the possibility of asking for curbside collection of waste for commercial composting?
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Resources Products Green Culture, Inc.: 877-204-7336, www.composters.com. Dog poop bags and other certified composting products. Biobags and other products carrying this certification: www.bpiworld.org/BPI-Public/Approved/1.html. American Pet Products Association: 203-532-0000, www.appma.org.
Pet Waste Service Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists: www.apaws.org. Information on local waste removal services.
Health Effects Information Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): www.cdc.gov. Information about health effects of manufactured products or processes.
Product Certifications Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI): www.bpiworld.org U.S. Composting Council (USCC): www.compostingcouncil.org American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM): www.astm.org
Water Quality and Waste Management Contact your own water-supply agency regarding treatment of water for toxoplasmosis. Contact your own waste-management company regarding the possibility of curbside collection of compostables. For more information on water quality, see “Ground Water and Drinking Water” on the EPA’s web site: www.epa.gov/safewater/ dwh/who.html.
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Bringing Cats Indoors American Bird Conservancy offers a fact sheet with suggestions about how to make the transition: www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/materials/outin.pdf. Humane Society of the United States offers help through their Safe Cat Campaign. A brochure explaining the whys and hows is available at www.files.hsus.org/web-files/PDF/Safe_Cats_brochure_general.pdf.
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Chapter 6
Pets and Household Health My father had always said there are four things a child needs: plenty of love, nourishing food, regular sleep, and lots of soap and water. —Ivy Baker Priest (1905–1975)
In this chapter we look at the many-sided interactions between you, your pet, your home environment, and the environment that your pets bring home. When you think about it, things that are not good for the environment typically are not good for you or your pet. All living organisms have similar requirements, such as the food, rest, and cleanliness that Ms. Priest’s practical father recalled. Many modern conveniences, especially for the household, such as paints, carpets, cleansers, and pesticides, evolved during a time when most of us didn’t understand that these new miracles could create health problems. We didn’t understand that we could take chemicals and fumes into our bodies through our skin, our breathing, or our drinking water, and not even know it. Most people today still don’t realize that we breathe in or drink most everything in our environment—both the natural and the human-made. In this chapter, we discuss: Why pets matter to your health How pets improve health How to eliminate pet-associated germs and parasites Environmental toxins that can harm you and your pet
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To close the chapter, we suggest the “good, better, best” practices for pets and household health, and help you develop a plan for acting on anything you think is important. Resources to help you put your plans into action are listed at chapter’s end.
Why Pets Matter to Your Health Pets can have both positive and negative effects on your health. Not only do we know about service animals’ ability to help people, but scientific studies prove pets provide measurable physical and emotional health benefits. On the potentially negative side, our mothers and grandmothers were right when they said pets bring disease into the home. This is especially true of free-roaming or exotic pets. If you’ve cleaned a home where pets live and cleaned one that’s pet-free, you know which is the fastest to accumulate dirt and grime. A pet family’s tendency may be to grab the cleaning products said to be the most effective at eliminating germs, grease, and odor. The problem is that many commercially available cleaning solutions hurt the environment and are not healthy either for the human or the pet members of the family. The cycle of pets, dirt, germs, and cleaning agents can be harmful. The best way to break the cycle is with knowledge.
Pets Can Improve Your Health . . . Most people have a sense that pets relax and entertain us, but many don’t realize that increasing scientific evidence indicates that pets provide important buffers to stress and related diseases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledges that pets can decrease elevated blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels, symptoms of diseases that affect the heart and circulatory system. The CDC notes that pets also decrease feelings of loneliness that affect many older people. Pets increase family opportunities for exercise and outdoor activities, and for socializing with other families that have pets. The American Veterinary Medical Association, the National Institutes of Health, and the Delta Society agree. Additional studies show that petting dogs and cats has a positive effect on the immune system and that children with early exposure to pets may develop fewer immune-related allergies and asthma.
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The Delta Society, a nonprofit human service organization, promotes human health and well-being through interaction with companion animals. The PetPartners program trains volunteers and their pets to visit hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and schools. Not only can you improve your own health by having a pet, but also you can help improve the health of others by sharing your pet through volunteer work. Companion animals affect the quality of life for children. Dr. Gail Melson, a professor in the Child Development and Family Studies program at Purdue University, articulates particularly well that pets help children develop a sense of basic trust. Studies of children age 5 and older suggest that many turn to pets for reassurance when feeling stressed. Companion animals can also help children develop a sense of independence through play and exploration. Other studies support Melson’s research, showing the positive influence of dogs on children whose parents are undergoing divorce. Dogs gave children comfort and unquestioning, loving attention. A child of divorce could tell their problems to their dog and express their anger. They also had a companion when they felt lonely or when their parents quarreled. With their joy and playfulness, dogs could distract the child from any problem they had. For older people, pets provide an important way of socializing, especially for those who have lost friends or family members. Pets also provide an important identity for people whose lives have revolved around their spouse or a profession. In addition, animals are motivating. Many medical professionals verify that people make an effort to recover faster because, as patients say, “my animals need me.”
. . . But They Can Also Spread Disease None of us likes to think about contracting diseases from our pets. In these days of antibacterial wipes and frequent veterinary visits, we’re surprised when problems occur. People who live on or visit relatives on a farm know a lot about animal-transmitted disease. Doctors call these diseases “zoonoses”—diseases that pass from animals to people. Every pet has the potential for transmitting different types of disease to their owners. The CDC slogan “Healthy Pets, Healthy People” makes a good summary of the best way to prevent the spread of disease in your home. If you maintain a healthy pet, the chances of contracting a disease from your pet are small. If you select a healthy pet, as determined by a veterinarian, and take
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your pet for annual examinations that include screening for common diseases, your chances of contracting a disease are even smaller. You decrease the chances further if you and your family wash your hands frequently, especially after handling your pets or cleaning up after them. Any pet, even a pet with a health certificate, should be examined by a veterinarian before you bring it home. This rule does not guarantee a disease-free home, but goes far to avert trouble. Some people are more at risk than others, including children under age 5, the very old, and people whose immune systems are weak, such as cancer patients, people with HIV/AIDS, and those who have received organ transplants. If household members fit these categories, think twice before adding a pet. If you decide you must, tell your veterinarian about these family members so that they can screen your pet for more potential troublemaking diseases. You might also discuss the addition of the pet with your human health-care provider. Properly screened, a pet may provide more benefits than risks. Bacteria, parasites, funguses, and viruses can spread from pet to pet and pet to person, as the table on the following pages shows.
The Disease–Household Connection Understanding something about the most common pet diseases can help you prevent their occurring in your home. Linda Bren, in the January-February 2004 issue of the FDA Consumer, outlined the basics of these diseases, to which we have added more information about pets and household ecology.
Worms Roundworms and hookworms infect people who touch their mouth or nose with unwashed hands after handling infected pets or soil, or who walk barefoot on soil containing worm eggs. (The bad news about worm eggs is that they are much too small to see without a microscope!) Five to twenty percent of U.S. children have been infected by roundworms at some time in their lives. Almost half of the pets in the southern part of the country and almost forty percent of pets nationwide excrete worm eggs with their stools. Infected animals release worm eggs into their home and yard. These eggs hatch or remain active and able to hatch for many years. More than ninety percent of all puppies and kittens are born with worms. This is why veterinarians prescribe deworming drugs in puppies and kittens from the age of 2 weeks. Also, as a part of your annual pet exam, your vet will test your adult dogs and cats for worms.
131
O
O = occasionally occurs; R = rarely occurs
Cat scratch disease
Bacteria
Bartonella henselae
Campylobacteriosis
Rodents
Mild infections around the injury, swelling of lymph nodes, especially around head and neck. Rare complications.
Diarrhea. Very rare complications include arthritis or other autoimmune diseases.
Reptiles Fish and Symptoms and Amphibians Dangers in Human Beings
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Clean cat scratch wounds thoroughly. Keep cat nails trimmed short. Avoid rough play with cats that leads to scratches and bites. Wash bites and scratches with soap. Control fleas.
Hand washing after possible exposure to dog, cat, or farm animal feces. Ensure that persistent diarrhea in your pet is treated and the organism identified.
Exposures/ Prevention
10:37 PM
Bacteria
O
Campylobacter Infection
Birds
1/15/09
O
Cats Dogs
Disease Organism; Parasite, Bacteria, Virus, or Fungus; Disease
Diseases Associated with Pets
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Cryptosporidiosis
Parasite
Cryptosporidium
O
O
O
Birds
Rodents
Symptoms include watery diarrhea. Dangers include dehydration and additional infections of the digestive and respiratory tract.
Pneumonia-like symptoms and skin lesions. Dangers include central nervous system infection.
Reptiles Fish and Symptoms and Amphibians Dangers in Human Beings
Hand washing. Oral transmission through anything in your mouth that has been in contact with the feces of an infected person or animal, usually through infected food or water.
Associated with wild bird droppings, the disease is spread through inhaling airborne fungi. Prevention by avoiding bird droppings that could be contaminated and hand washing.
Exposures/ Prevention
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Cryptococcosis
Fungus
Cats Dogs
1/15/09
Cryptococcus
Disease Organism; Parasite, Bacteria, Virus, or Fungus; Disease
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O = occasionally occurs; R = rarely occurs
Dipylidium infection
Parasite
O
Birds
Rodents
Symptoms include what looks like rice in bowel movement; you might find them stuck to the skin around anus. You may see what look like small yellow grains around pet anus or on feces.
Symptoms are intestinal including diarrhea and cramps. Dangers include dehydration and loss of weight during disease course of 2–6 weeks.
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Carried by fleas. Dogs and cats swallow fleas while grooming. Kids may swallow fleas by accident. Prevention includes controlling fleas on pets, cleaning up after pets, disposing of feces, restricting access to areas of infected feces, and hand washing after playing with pets or outdoors. Easily treated.
Hand washing. You and your pet should avoid swallowing recreational water as in pools, lakes, or streams that can be contaminated or from feces of an infected person or animal.
Exposures/ Prevention
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Tapeworm
Giardia
O
Cats Dogs
1/15/09
Parasite
Giardiasis intestinalis
Disease Organism; Parasite, Bacteria, Virus, or Fungus; Disease
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Chlamydia psittaci
Bacteria
Psittacosis
Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis
Virus
O
R
Rodents
Symptoms include fever, chills, dry cough; danger is developing pneumonia and other complications.
Symptoms similar to flu one to two weeks after exposure; dangers include inflammation of the membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord; injury to the fetus in pregnant women.
Symptoms include progressive itching and rash where skin touched soil.
Reptiles Fish and Symptoms and Amphibians Dangers in Human Beings
Hand washing; refrain from breathing dust from dried bird feces; screen pet birds.
Hand washing, screen pet rodents, and prevent pet rodents from coming into contact with wild rodents.
Hand washing. Wear shoes. Avoid contact with feces-contaminated soil. Regular pickup of pet feces. Avoiding interaction of your pet with infected pets or feces in parks.
Exposures/ Prevention
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Lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM)
Birds
1/15/09
Hookworm infection
Parasite
O
Hookworm
O
Cats Dogs
Disease Organism; Parasite, Bacteria, Virus, or Fungus; Disease
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O = occasionally occurs; R = rarely occurs
Common skin fungi include jock itch, athlete’s foot, and yeast infections
Fungus
O
Rodents
Itchy, red, scaly patches that might blister; redder around the outside, giving appearance of a ring. Dangers include passing to another person, balding, infected nails.
Symptoms follow a bite and include fever and headache. Insomnia, confusion, difficulty swallowing occur next. Disease is fatal without treatment, which must begin immediately following a bite, before signs are evident.
Reptiles Fish and Symptoms and Amphibians Dangers in Human Beings
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Hand washing; frequent washing of animal bedding. Keep skin dry and clean with shampoo regularly; avoid sharing clothing, hairbrushes, touching pets with bald spots.
Vaccine for pets; avoid contact with wild carnivores and bats. Transmitted through bite. Avoid contact with any wild or domestic animal acting strangely. If bitten, seek immediate medical attention.
Exposures/ Prevention
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Ringworm
Rabies rabies
Virus
R
Rabies
Birds
1/15/09
R
Cats Dogs
Disease Organism; Parasite, Bacteria, Virus, or Fungus; Disease
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Toxocariasis
Parasite
O
O
Rodents
Reptiles
One of the most prevalent zoonoses, usually not serious. Fever, cough, or wheezing, abdominal pain, poor appetite, a rash that can look like hives. Dangers include eye disease causing loss of sight or swelling of body organs. Can be serious in young children.
Symptoms include fever, nausea, muscle pain, severe headache. Later, rash, abdominal and joint pain accompany diarrhea. Dangers include progression of the disease to a more serious state requiring hospitalization.
Fish and Symptoms and Amphibians Dangers in Human Beings
Hand washing, especially among young children after playing outdoors in dirt that may be contaminated with dog or cat feces. Also, ensure your dog, cat, or other mammal pets are screened for worms. Keep cats indoors so they have no access to sandboxes or gardens for elimination.
Ticks carry the bacteria. Prevention includes examination for and removal of ticks, especially from April through September, especially in the South Atlantic region of the country. Consider flea and tick remedies for pets.
Exposures/ Prevention
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Toxocara or roundworm
Birds
1/15/09
Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Bacteria
O
Rickettsia rickettsii O
Cats Dogs
Disease Organism; Parasite, Bacteria, Virus, or Fungus; Disease
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O = occasionally occurs; R = rarely occurs
Toxoplasmosis
Parasite
O
O
O
O
Most infected people are unaware. Some have flulike symptoms. Women infected while pregnant can miscarry or fetus suffers birth defects. Severe cases can affect the immune compromised, such as infants, aged. Reduced vision, pain, eye redness.
Diarrhea; dehydration dangers, spread from intestines to bloodstream causing severe complications, especially in small children and elderly.
Rodents Reptiles Fish and Symptoms and Amphibians Dangers in Human Beings
Water or exposure to feces from diseased cat from litter box or garden soil. Wear gloves while gardening or changing litter. Wash hands, restrict movement of free-roaming cats. Pregnant women need to take precautions cleaning litter boxes.
Hand washing after handling reptiles or birds or their enclosure, even if animal is healthy. Reptiles are not appropriate pets for children under age 5. Food preparers must practice safe food preparation to avoid contaminating food.
Exposures/ Prevention
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Toxoplasma gondii
Salmonellosis
O
Birds
1/15/09
bacteria
O
Salmonella O
Cats Dogs
Disease Organism; Parasite, Bacteria, Virus, or Fungus; Disease
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Free-roaming cats and dogs, as well as owners failing to clean up after their pets in parks and other public spaces, transmit worms. Dogs or cats investigating stools of other animals or sniffing areas where other dogs or cats have been (and which ones don’t?) ingest eggs by mouth or nose, and go on to transmit them later. To protect children in your backyard, the CDC suggests covering sandboxes to prevent cats and dogs from depositing their feces in them. Parents who require children to wash their hands after playing outdoors can decrease the chance of their kids becoming infected.
Toxoplasmosis Sixty million people in the United States carry the toxoplasmosis parasite. This parasite is of special interest because it can cause miscarriages and birth defects. Humans contract this disease through contact with infected cat feces and by eating raw or undercooked meats. Food animals contract the disease from grazing in fields contaminated with cat feces. Cats get the parasite by eating rodents and birds. Free-roaming cats spread toxoplasmosis, as do people who flush cat feces into water systems that are not equipped to remove the parasite.
Salmonellosis Most people know that salmonella bacteria can thrive in undercooked meats or eggs. Did you know that pets, particularly reptiles and chicks and ducklings, pass the bacteria in their feces? According to veterinarians who specialize in reptiles, salmonella bacteria are normal in the feces and cage, skin, and any other surface reptiles touch. Instead of testing reptiles for salmonella, most vets recommend keeping reptiles confined from spaces where food is prepared or eaten, and advising vigorous hand washing after you touch any surface where your pet may have been. Each year, 70,000 people in the United States contract salmonella from contact with reptiles. As a result, the CDC recommends that reptiles are not appropriate pets for small children, and should not be present in a home with infants. Inappropriate selection of pets, insufficient husbandry, or lack of attention to disinfection after handling reptiles causes salmonellosis.
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Ringworm Despite the disease’s name, ringworm is not caused by a worm, but by a fungus. Affecting skin and scalp, ringworm can cause a loss of patches of fur or hair. Animal bedding of infected pets is a common source of ringworm. Regular washing of animal bedding should prevent the problem, which is more common in cats but does occur in dogs and other mammals. Once infected, the pet must be treated. Some cats are carriers of this fungus but do not show clinical signs.
Rabies Rabies is a virus that infects the brain in animals and people, and is transmitted through the saliva of a rabid animal, usually through a bite. Domestic animals account for less than 10 percent of cases reported. This disease is a reason to keep pets away from bats, raccoons, and skunks in particular. Your dogs and cats or other mammal pets should be vaccinated every three years, unless your state requires an annual vaccination. Since the 1940s, when vaccines and the concept of animal control were developed, the number of rabies cases in humans has declined. Thanks to a vaccine available to humans, no one vaccinated after a rabid bite in the United States has developed rabies. Even better, what used to be a painful vaccine given in the abdomen can now be given in the arm. However, it is important to emphasize that if bitten by an animal acting unusually, you may have animal control capture the animal for testing. Regardless, you should begin the rabies vaccine immediately. Once you show clinical signs of the disease, rabies is 100 percent fatal.
Rodent-Borne Diseases Owners of hamsters, mice, and rats will be concerned about the rodent-borne diseases lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM) and rat-bite fever. LCM is a virus transmitted by inhaling airborne particles of rodent urine, feces, or saliva. Bites or scratches from rodents or ingesting food or water contaminated with rodent feces can cause rat-bite fever. Althouth it is rare to develop these diseases from pet rodents, you may want to limit exposure to droppings by wearing gloves when cleaning and disinfecting rodent habitats. Also, be sure your home is free of wild mice or rats.
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Tick- and Flea-Borne Diseases Pets don’t transmit Lyme disease, tapeworm, or Rocky Mountain spotted fever to people, but they can attract the ticks and fleas that do. Maintaining flea- and tick-free pets is the key to prevention. (Information on remedies appears on page 158–160.)
Bird-Borne Disease Psittacosis, also called parrot fever, comes from bacteria in bird droppings. The flulike symptoms can be treated with antibacterial drugs in birds and people. Make sure your bird is not allowed in the food preparation area, and use a dust mask and gloves if you allow feces to build up before cleaning your bird’s cage. The inhaled particles are the most common route of disease transmission.
Can West Nile or Avian Flu Affect My Pets? Reports of two diseases in particular create real fear and confusion for people— West Nile virus and avian (or bird) flu. Because of the concerns about them, I am including these diseases, even though their origin is not pets. Let’s look at each.
West Nile Virus Scientists have detected West Nile virus in dogs and cats, horses and llamas, and human beings, as well as in 48 species of mosquitoes, over 250 species of birds, and at least eighteen types of mammals. First reported in the Western Hemisphere in 1999, this mosquito-borne virus has been common in Africa, western Asia, and the Middle East. Today, West Nile virus occurs throughout the United States and Canada. A main way West Nile spreads is through mosquitoes biting infected wild birds. Once carriers, the mosquitoes transmit the disease through their subsequent bites. News reports usually show pictures of crows or of other dead birds, giving viewers the impression that the birds are the culprit in transmitting the disease. Although you would not want to handle birds that died from West Nile, the disease organism passes through mosquito bites. The disease does not travel from bird to pet or bird to human, except in rare instances involving tissue transplant, transfusion, or birth, and breast-feeding.
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Risk of Disease and Complications The disease can create serious consequences; however, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) says, “The risk of becoming ill from a single mosquito bite is extremely low. In areas where mosquitoes carry the virus, less than 1% of mosquitoes are actually infected. Even if mosquitoes are infected, less than 1% of people bitten and infected by those mosquitoes become severely ill.” The AVMA goes on to explain that most people infected with the virus are not aware that they have it. Those who become ill usually have mild symptoms including fever, headache, body aches, and, in some cases, skin rash and swollen lymph nodes. Elderly patients are at risk for more severe infections that can cause serious complications and even death for 3 to 15 percent of those with severe illness. Although dogs and cats can contract the disease, pet owners probably would not notice anything more than a normal viral infection’s signs—slight fever and lethargy. In horses, the death rate from West Nile is 30 percent. AVMA reports that horses who develop clinical West Nile virus infection may exhibit stumbling, weakness, muscle twitching, depression, or fearfulness. The number of cases of equine West Nile has decreased annually since 2002, and may be due to vaccination and/or increased development of naturally acquired immunity. Treatment for severe cases of West Nile in humans or other species, as for most viral diseases, consists of hospitalization, intravenous fluids, respiratory support, and anti-inflammatory therapy while the affected animal’s immune system responds.
Preventing West Nile Virus Public health officials consider limiting exposure to mosquitoes effective prevention for humans and species other than horses. A vaccine is available for horses, and veterinarians encourage its use. Creating mosquito barriers to your home and decreasing your exposure and your pets’ outdoor exposure to mosquitoes is the best way to protect your animals from this disease. This means: Check and repair window and door screens. Keep screens closed. Limit your exposure to mosquitoes, especially at dawn and dusk.
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Eliminate standing water. Mosquito larvae need four days to hatch, so check flowerpots, pet bowls, buckets, spa covers, and birdbaths. Be cautious about using mosquito fogs. These poisons and their residues affect not only your pets, but also children and adults. Horses, because of their constant exposure to mosquitoes, should be vaccinated, unless your veterinarian recommends otherwise. The vaccine is available through your local veterinarian. Keep in mind that a low percentage of mosquitoes carry West Nile virus, and only a low percentage of horses or other animals bitten will develop any sign of the virus. However, in a small number of cases, those carrying the disease are seriously affected.
Avian or Bird Flu Bird flu is a disease of birds that begins with wild birds and spreads to domestic poultry flocks. Like the flu that occurs around the world every winter and is commonly passed from one person to another, avian flu is also caused by a virus, which originated in birds. There are multiple strains or types of avian flu, and the virus sometimes crosses to humans who come into contact with infected birds. What might surprise you is that human flu kills more people (250,000 to 500,000) each year—mostly the otherwise ill and elderly—than the avian flu (160 deaths in 2006) that received so much coverage.
Why So Much Concern? Viruses are notorious for changing their form—they are the shape-shifters of disease organisms. This capability raises concern among scientists that a flu that can be so devastating to poultry flocks could mutate or change form to one that is equally devastating to human populations. This concern is especially high in Asia, where many poultry farms are small family operations and millions of people live in close proximity to their poultry. (Numerous infected poultry flocks have been destroyed in Asia.) The AVMA says that avian influenza can be of two types: a highly contagious (pathogenic) strain and a rarely contagious strain. The highly pathogenic bird flu is rarely found in wild waterfowl, but often found in chickens, turkeys, and ducks raised for human consumption. Transmitted through unclean caging or live bird markets common in Asia, the disease is also transmitted by blood and intestines, such as occurs during home slaughter and plucking of infected birds.
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Where Is the Virus? The rarely contagious bird influenza has little or no effect on poultry and other birds. The current highly pathogenic version that is of concern is the H5N1 strain, affecting wild birds as well as domestic poultry, pets, and farm animals in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. No cases of the H5N1 strain have been identified in the United States to date. In areas where a highly pathogenic strain of the avian influenza has been diagnosed or is suspected in wild birds or poultry flocks, cats should be kept indoors and dogs should be leashed when outdoors to prevent the eating of raw bird carcasses or contact with bird feces.
Avian Flu and Pets Cats are susceptible to bird flu, and research shows that the virus can be transmitted from cat to cat. Dogs also can be infected, but the probability of these infections is very low. If you keep birds, be sure to isolate them if the disease occurs locally. This is true of pet exotic birds as well as pet chickens. Your pet faces a greater risk of contracting a bacterial infection from a dead bird than of contracting avian flu from one. Never let your pet eat or investigate dead carcasses of any kind.
Avian Flu and Pets: Key Points The risk to dogs, cats, and other mammal pets is very low. The risk of your pet infecting you is even lower. Veterinarians urge pet owners to keep their perspective. Bird flu can infect humans, rodents, ferrets, pigs, cats, and dogs. Pet owners living within 3 kilometers (about 2.8 miles) of an outbreak should keep their cats indoors and walk dogs on leashes. Keep your pet from feeding on wild birds.
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What about Vaccines and Other Protections? Research is under way to find a vaccine for avian flu. Vaccines, when they have been proven to be reliable and safe, are recommended for diseases that don’t respond well to medical attention, are life threatening, or have serious consequences. Hand washing and avoiding contact with infected animals is the route to preventing infection. The avian flu virus is very sensitive to detergents that destroy the fatty outer layer of virus that helps the virus penetrate cells and reproduce. To keep from spreading the disease, use soap and water to wash clothes and shoes worn while tending animals, as well as cages where infected poultry are kept. Never eat, or feed to other animals, poultry that has died. Where outbreaks are present, poultry, as well as eggs, must be properly cooked, which kills not only the virus but also other disease bacteria such as salmonella. Properly preparing what you eat, which means cooking all poultry to an internal temperature of 165°F, destroys avian influenza and other disease agents. With regard to wild birds, scientists do not know the whole story. Villagers in Azerbaijan reported contracting the disease after plucking feathers from dead swans, but there have been no other confirmed cases of transmission from wild birds to humans. The World Health Organization does not recommend focusing efforts on wild birds as a source of transmission. Even if migratory birds contracted the disease, the more reasonable solution is keeping domestic poultry from contact with wild birds. In humans, avian influenza symptoms range from typical flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, and muscle aches, to eye infections, pneumonia, severe respiratory diseases, and other severe and life-threatening complications. The symptoms depend on which strain caused the infection.
Keeping Your Pet-Filled Home Healthy Pets are wonderful companions, and keeping your home clean is key to living a long and happy life together. The most important ways to prevent disease are practicing good hygiene, including regular hand washing; keeping your home clean; maintaining separation of pets from food-preparation areas; keeping pet areas clean; eliminating household toxins; controlling fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, and flies; and taking your pet in for annual veterinary exams to discover and treat problems early.
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Hand Washing: The Ultimate in Prevention Hand washing is a simple habit, but do we wash our hands in an effective way? The Mayo Clinic and the Centers for Disease Control give directions and pointers. The technique with soap and water: Wet your hands with warm water and apply liquid soap or use a clean bar of soap. Move your hands away from the water and rub your hands for 12 to 20 seconds. (Tell your children to wash as long as it takes to sing the ABCs.) Scrub the entire surface of your hand, preferably with a nail brush, including the backs of your hands, wrists, between fingers, and under fingernails. Rinse well. Dry your hands with a clean towel or air dryer. Use a towel to turn off the faucet. Liquid soaps help dispense a dose of soap adequate to clean dirt from your hands. Liquid soaps can also be more sanitary. Both liquid and bar soaps are designed to clean the skin by removing dirt and oil. Use of soap in a proper hand-washing procedure is all that’s needed; antibacterial soaps, according to the CDC and the American Medical Association, do not prevent more disease than regular soaps properly used. Antibacterial compounds need to remain on hands for about two minutes, or these products have no effect on bacteria. Antibacterial soaps do not affect viruses. Much worse is the fact that our excessive use of antibacterial products is contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Use antibacterial sanitizers only when hand-washing facilities are not available. Not all sanitizers contain alcohol. The CDC recommends choosing products that are composed of at least 60 percent alcohol. The technique with sanitizer: Use one or two squirts or pumps. Rub hands together, including front and back, between fingers, and around and under nails until hands are dry. Remember: sanitizers are not designed to remove dirt and grime. Only soap will dissolve oil and dirt that are then carried away by clean running water.
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Keeping a Clean Home Along with the love you get from your pets, you also get a lot of dirt and detritus. The need to clean is multiplied in proportion to the number and types of pets you have and the activities you enjoy together. Greasy nose prints perpetually mark my windows and doors; muddy paw prints trace the path from my kitchen, down the stairs, through the office, to the back door, and into the yard. My floors, especially around the birds’ aviary, cause me to want to scream. I have dog pans and bird bowls from twice-a-day feedings that need to be cleaned. And laundry. My dog has two beds. If she swims in the river, the bedding needs a bath after she gets one. At my house, the stairwell stays dirty; not just the steps, but also the sheetrock is smeared with oil and dirt where my dog steadies herself on her rush down the uncarpeted stairs. The car is clean one day and a mess the next. I feel as though I clean all day every day. And when I clean, I want results, fast.
The Sierra Club and Clorox: Are You Kidding? No, I’m not. Although like you, I’m skeptical. So many companies are jumping on the green bandwagon. What seems to be true is that Clorox as a company, like WalMart, is making some surprising moves that appear to be sincere efforts to improve their environmental policies. Creating products that are good for the environment should be good for business, but it involves commitment, persistence, and bravery to make changes. On Earth Day 2008, Clorox launched their first new product line in twenty years, Green Works, purported to be 99 percent natural, biodegradable, packaged in recyclable bottles, and not tested on animals. In exchange for use of the Sierra Club logo on the Green Works products, Clorox is providing undisclosed financial support to the Sierra Club’s conservation efforts, including the protection of America’s clean air, clean water, wildlife, and many special wild places.
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I’ve used the ingredients I’m suggesting to you, along with the new Clorox line endorsed by the Sierra Club.
Cleaning Products Many household cleaning products, including synthetic waxes, polishes, toilet cleaners, and spray products, bear warning labels: “poison,” “dangerous,” or “caution.” “Poison” means that amounts up to 1 teaspoon can be lethal. Products labeled “dangerous” can be fatal in amounts from 1 ounce. “Caution” means that amounts from 1 ounce to 1 pint can be lethal. Many cleaning products contain acetone, camphor, and benzaldehyde. What’s also true is that many toxic ingredients are not listed on the containers. So how does a normal person figure out what kind of cleaning products to use?
According to Joel Makower, a leading blogger on green business, Clorox developed Green Works to answer needs from people who worried about the health effects of traditional cleaners but wanted cleaners that worked. Green Works is a green cleaner that’s as effective as traditional cleaners but priced lower than other green cleaners. It can enjoy wide distribution through WalMart and other stores that typically carry Clorox brands. Because Clorox has distribution networks and large-scale production operating already, they’re able to produce a product less expensively than other makers can. (I’m in the process of trying these products to see how I like them.) I called Orli Cotel, spokesperson from the Sierra Club, for the “why” of this relationship. Cotel explained that the Sierra Club vetted the partnership and products through the Toxics, Energy, and Environmental Quality committees of the club, as well as the club’s environmental quality director, and others. What they found was that the plant-based ingredients were better for the health of the user and for the environment than those of traditional cleaners. Cotel says, “The environmentally sensitive products that are out there, we love. What attracted the Sierra Club was the ability of Clorox to put Green Works products into the hands of as many American families as possible at a price they can afford.”
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Some brands of cleaners are known to avoid the most toxic chemicals in their products. Seventh Generation is one of those brands. Others include Bioshield, Earth Friendly, Ecover, Naturally Yours, and Simple Green, and the new Green Works line from Clorox. What you want in cleaning products are basic, natural ingredients. Most manufacturers don’t disclose the entire list of their ingredients on the label; these cleaners typically contain components that are not environment-friendly, but do a great job cleaning. Many green web sites, magazines, and our grandmothers suggest simple cleaning solutions, such as the ones included in the following table, which might require a little more elbow grease but are definitely more eco-friendly. Homemade cleaners can work well and are included in the following table. Although not all of these ingredients are safe in any amount, they do not contain the organic solvents that are of most concern. In other words, there may not be a perfect cleaner. But you can avoid the worst ingredients.
Simple Cleaning Ingredients Ingredient
What It Does
Comments
Baking soda
Removes stains, absorbs odors, is a nonabrasive scrubber. Use to neutralize smells in laundry, air, or carpet.
Neutralizes acid-based odors because it is slightly alkaline.
White vinegar or lemon juice
Kills germs, deodorizes, eats tarnish, removes dirt from wood surfaces, cuts grease.
Acid, neutralizes alkaline scale from hard water.
Castile soap
Soap cuts grease.
Made from fats and lye.
Washing soda
Removes grease and grime from most surfaces. Note: discolors aluminum and fiberglass; removes wax from floors.
Use with gloves. Sodium carbonate available as “Washing Soda” from Arm & Hammer. Does not give off harmful fumes like organic solvents do.
Water
Solvent
Borax
Softens laundry, removes stains, removes odors. Can be used as a cleaner, to remove urine odors, and as a scouring powder and a roach killer.
Note: Do not blend baking soda with hydrogen peroxide.
Sodium borate, a naturally occurring mineral. Produced by mining. Available as Borax, a “laundry booster.”
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Ingredient
What It Does
Comments
Hydrogen peroxide
Removes stains, sterilizes, provides mild bleaching.
As with any ingredient used in a dilute solution, the ingredient is toxic at full strength.
Tea tree oil, grapefruit seed extract, lavender oil
Deodorizes, disinfects.
Use one teaspoon of essential oil to 2 cups water in spray bottle. Fully concentrated forms are toxic, especially for small animals, birds, and cats.
Vegetable oil
Polishes
Cleaning Methods In addition to assembling a group of cleaners that work well and are easy on the environment, think about different cleaning methods to remove dirt, grime, and odors from our homes.
Airing Research from the EPA shows that air inside your home is likely to contain two to five times more pollutants than the air outside. Open your windows on the next nice day to circulate your pollutants.
Deodorizing Baking soda works well on carpets. Sprinkle, let stand overnight, then vacuum. Consider an essential oil on a light bulb, or twelve drops in a cup of water placed on a radiator or warm stove.
Dusting Dusting is an effective way to clean so long as you don’t send the particles back into the air. To prevent this, use a damp or a static-charged cloth. Using a feather duster or dry cloth sends the dust particles back into the air. Dust particles consist not only of dirt but also synthetic chemicals, insect parts, the detritus of dust mites, animal dander, and other allergens.
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Homemade Green Cleaning Solutions Furniture polish: Combine 1 teaspoon of lemon juice in 2 cups of vegetable oil. Rub a small amount into the grain of the wood. Buff. Mold and mildew remover: Combine 2 tablespoons of tea tree oil in 2 cups water. Spray and let sit for 30 minutes. Wipe clean. Oven cleaner: Annie Bond from Green Living suggests this oven-cleaning method: Cover the bottom of your oven with 1/4 inch of baking soda. Spritz water on the baking soda until the baking soda is thoroughly damp but not flooded. Repeat before bed. When you wake up in the morning, the baking soda can be scooped out of the oven with a sponge, bringing all the grime with it. Rinse the white residue and your oven is clean. Window cleaner: Combine 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon liquid soap or detergent, and 2 cups of water in a spray bottle. Shake to blend. Wipe windows dry with newspaper.
Scrubbing Leslie Garrett, author of The Virtuous Consumer, suggests that equal parts of white vinegar and water makes the simplest all-purpose cleaner for disinfecting and deodorizing.
Stain Removal Got pets? You have stains. Removal of stains requires immediate action. Once you’ve donned your rubber gloves and removed the offending matter, bagged it, and carried it to the trash, blot with a small amount of soap and cool water until you’ve removed a majority of the remaining material. Then treat the stain. Many people recommend soda water on diarrhea and vomit stains. Out Spot!, a product from Castor and Pollux (www.castorpolluxpet.com), is among several very good and relatively safe stain removers. Another possibility is PureAyre (www.pureayre.com).
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Steaming Relatively new, and fairly energy intensive, steam cleaning is an excellent way to clean stubborn dirt and grime from all types of surfaces including tile, many types of flooring, countertops, and (to rave review) birdcages. The great news is that no cleaners need be involved—simply steam and wipe. To sterilize, by the way, you will need to use disinfectants. Steaming for the short period of time involved does not eliminate all the potentially harmful microbes. Nevertheless, this is an excellent cleaning method. Look for brands at www.greenerchoices.org.
Vacuuming and Sweeping Remove the major detritus by sweeping, if you’ve got hard-surface floors. Where you have carpets, vacuum with a machine that includes a HEPA filter. Check out www.greenerchoices.org to find one with low emissions.
Preventing Infections The milder disinfectants mentioned on pages 148–149 can do the job for most cleaning problems involving feces, vomit, urine, saliva, and so on. To clean anything (except food) you suspect is contaminated with infectious agents, clean with soap and water, dry, and then spray on a solution of bleach and water. For general disinfection, use one tablespoon of bleach in one quart of water. This is the method I would use for any surface contaminated by reptiles, birds, or any domestic pet feces that I suspect contain infectious agents. This is the choice also of most wildlife hospitals, without the greater resources of veterinary hospitals. One note of caution is to remove the majority of the “organic matter” (translation: feces, urine, saliva, and the like) with soap and water before you use a disinfectant. Otherwise, the disinfectant does not work. When contamination is certain, use a much stronger solution of two tablespoons of bleach in one cup of water. Leave the solution in place for fifteen minutes, and then rinse and wipe dry. Remember that bleach and water solutions lose their effectiveness over time, so mix a new solution each day. Whenever you use bleach, use gloves to prevent skin irritation.
Controlling Pests Roaches, ants, beetles, mice, and their little friends are not welcome in most homes. That’s the way it should be. The issue is how to get rid of them once they move in.
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Pest control companies that practice “integrated pest management” will tell you that exclusion is the first step. Exclusion means to use physical control methods to present barriers to entry to your home. This means fix your screens, put door sweeps on the bottom of your doors, use wire and metal to seal any holes to the outside, and then use caulking. Rodents can squeeze through a hole about the diameter of a ballpoint pen. (Amazing, isn’t it!) If you decide that you need professional help, consider hiring an exterminator who practices integrated pest management. These are people who take the first step with physical methods. If you don’t have a sealed home, they seal it first. Then they use traps. As a last resort, they use chemicals. Although you can’t be absolutely sure of a company’s standards, because no independent agency certifies pest management companies, you can try talking to the company first. What you want to know is that they use other methods before applying chemicals whenever possible. For some types of pests, such as carpenter beetles or ants, chemicals may be the only way forward. If this is the case, ask your pest controller about the use of bait stations to reduce the amount of chemical used, and whether residue remains after treatment. In addition, you must ensure that these chemicals designed to kill living things are not accessible by your pets. Pest control without chemicals is tough. However, the key is to minimize and use them only when you must.
Removing Household Toxins When it comes to household toxins, remember that pets have no more discernment than a curious baby, and are at least as vulnerable. The oil you’re saving to take to the hazardous waste station, or the paint you’re waiting to recycle, could pose hazards for pets and for the environment. Keep these items behind closed cupboard doors, and sealed inside leak-proof containers. Pets lick their feet as a natural part of grooming. Certainly when any substance adheres to their paws, skin, or feathers, pets attempt to remove the substance by grooming. Whether that substance is olive oil (nontoxic) or oil droplets from the garage (toxic), the pet can’t tell that one is not harmful and the other is going to cause illness. A recent study by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization monitoring human health and the environment, found that companion cats and dogs are polluted with even higher levels of many of the same synthetic industrial chemicals that researchers find in people. They found 2.4 times higher-than-human levels of stain- and grease-proof coatings in dogs, 23
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times more fire retardants in cats, and more than 5 times the amounts of mercury compared to average levels in people. What this study indicates is that in addition to accidental poisonings with household toxins, pets, with their compressed life spans (developing and aging seven or more times faster than children) develop health problems more rapidly. Pets, like infants and toddlers, have limited diets and play close to the floor, licking the ground as well as their digits, increasing their exposure to chemicals and increasing their health risks. We choose what substances we bring into our homes and yards. Let’s reduce the potential harm to ourselves and our pets by choosing wisely.
Dangers in the Yard and Garden Part of considering pets and the planet is rethinking the way we do things in our yards and gardens, or on our patios if we’re city dwellers.
Pesticides and Fertilizers Most of us have become accustomed to the idea that we have to use chemicals to take care of our yards. Even landscaping services that advertise themselves as green usually rely on some amount of fertilizers and pesticides. When pets roam our backyards, not only is there the possibility that they will get into the storage closet with all our insecticides, pesticides, and fertilizers, but they walk on the grass, across the uncovered and newly fertilized soil. In addition, they will dig and dine on everything in the yard. That is what dogs and cats do. (Remember the paw licking?) A study of Scottish Terriers and herbicides conducted by Purdue University veterinarians found that 50 percent of terriers in the study whose families used lawn care herbicides (chemicals that eliminate plants such as clover or dandelions) developed bladder cancer. Of cancer-free dogs, more than 80 percent played on untreated lawns. Some folks don’t accept the idea that we must use fertilizers and pesticides to keep up our lawns. Listening to them can help us reevaluate our options. A good source of information on pesticide alternatives is the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides at www.pesticide.org. In their “Home and Garden Program” section, they provide easy-to-understand and effective alternatives to spraying for various pests. Bait that poisons snails, ants, or rats will poison your pet. Look for alternatives. Snail baits that are less dangerous for pets include Sluggo, Safer, and Es-car-go, which contain iron phosphate, which is thought to be safe.
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Alternatives include a barrier of copper tape around the plants that attract snails. (Snails won’t cross this.) Beer in a saucer attracts the slugs and they drown. If you prefer to dehydrate your slugs, try diatomaceous earth (the crushed skeletal remains of one-celled marine organisms called diatoms). What may work best is to consider planting something other than your current snailattractors. Learning more about which plants attract which pests can help you avoid some of your need to use pesticides and baits. You can find safe substitutes for pesticides at es.epa.gov/techinfo/facts/ safefs.html.
Toxic Plants Plants contribute to our enjoyment of our home; they also contribute to our environment by removing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. So it’s disappointing to learn that some can harm our pets. To keep your pet safe, select nontoxic plants for your home and accessible areas outside your home. Although older pets may leave plants alone for the most part, all puppies and kittens, and certainly exotic pets, explore everything in their surroundings. As a part of this exploration, they mouth or chew everything. In addition, pets of any age may chew anything in their environment—wood for the fireplace, plastic plants, or your prized orchids—when left alone or confined for too long. In addition, The Merck Veterinary Manual reminds readers that pets will inspect any new plant you bring into the house. Holiday plants such as poinsettias and Easter lilies are toxic to animals, and any new plant is at risk for a severe chewing. Take appropriate action either by placing the indoor plant out of reach or fencing off the outdoor plant. Little research has been done on houseplant toxicity, according to Merck, so be cautious. The ASPCA Poison Control Center keeps a list of plants known to be safe around pets. In addition, you can find a list of the hundred or so most frequently encountered plants known to be harmful at www.aspca.org. If you have a question about a particular plant, you may ask at
[email protected].
The ASPCA’s List of Seventeen Common Poisonous Plants Dr. Steven Hansen, veterinary toxicologist and ASPCA senior vice president, lists these examples of the most common potentially dangerous plants: Lilies: Members of the Lilium spp. are considered to be highly toxic to cats. While the poisonous component has not yet been identified, it is clear that ingestion of even very small amounts of the plant could result in severe kidney damage.
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Marijuana: Ingestion of Cannabis sativa by companion animals can result in depression of the central nervous system and incoordination, as well as vomiting, diarrhea, drooling, increased heart rate, and even seizures and coma. Sago Palm: All parts of Cycas Revoluta are poisonous, but the seeds or “nuts” contain the largest amount of toxin. The ingestion of just one or two seeds can result in very serious effects, which include vomiting, diarrhea, depression, seizures, and liver failure. Tulip/Narcissus bulbs: The bulb portions of Tulipa/Narcissus spp. contain toxins that can cause intense gastrointestinal irritation, drooling, loss of appetite, depression of the central nervous system, convulsions, and cardiac abnormalities. Azalea/Rhododendron: Members of the Rhododenron spp. contain substances known as grayantoxins, which can produce vomiting, drooling, diarrhea, weakness, and depression of the central nervous system in animals. Severe azalea poisoning could ultimately lead to coma and death from cardiovascular collapse. Oleander: All parts of Nerium oleander are considered to be toxic, as they contain cardiac glycosides that have the potential to cause serious effects, including gastrointestinal tract irritation, abnormal heart function, hypothermia, and even death. Castor Bean: The poisonous principle in Ricinus communis is ricin, a highly toxic protein that can produce severe abdominal pain, drooling, vomiting, diarrhea, excessive thirst, weakness, and loss of appetite. Severe cases of poisoning can result in dehydration, muscle twitching, tremors, seizures, coma, and death. Cyclamen: Cyclamen species contain cyclamine, but the highest concentration of this toxic component is typically located in the root portion of the plant. If consumed, Cyclamen can produce significant gastrointestinal irritation, including intense vomiting. Fatalities have also been reported in some cases. Kalanchoe: This plant contains components that can produce gastrointestinal irritation, as well as those that are toxic to the heart, and can seriously affect cardiac rhythm and rate. Yew: Taxus spp. contains a toxic component known as taxine, which causes central nervous system effects such as trembling, incoordination, and difficulty breathing. It can also cause significant gastrointestinal irritation and cardiac failure, which can result in death.
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Amaryllis: Common garden plants popular around Easter, Amaryllis species contain toxins that can cause vomiting, depression, diarrhea, abdominal pain, hypersalivation, anorexia, and tremors. Autumn Crocus: Ingestion of Colchicum autumnale by pets can result in oral irritation, bloody vomiting, diarrhea, shock, multi-organ damage, and bone marrow suppression. Chrysanthemum: These popular blooms are part of the Compositae family, which contain pyrethrins that may produce gastrointestinal upset, including drooling, vomiting, and diarrhea, if eaten. In certain cases depression and loss of coordination may also develop if enough of any part of the plant is consumed. English Ivy: Also called branching ivy, glacier ivy, needlepoint ivy, sweetheart ivy, and California ivy, Hedera helix contains triterpenoid saponins that, should pets ingest, can result in vomiting, abdominal pain, hypersalivation, and diarrhea. Peace Lily (aka Mauna Loa Peace Lily): Spathiphyllum contains calcium oxalate crystals that can cause oral irritation, excessive drooling, vomiting, difficulty in swallowing, and intense burning and irritation of the mouth, lips, and tongue in pets who ingest. Pothos: Pothos (both Scindapsus and Epipremnum) belongs to the Araceae family. If chewed or ingested, this popular household plant can cause significant mechanical irritation and swelling of the oral tissues and other parts of the gastrointestinal tract. Schefflera: Schefflera and Brassaia actinophylla contain calcium oxalate crystals that can cause oral irritation, excessive drooling, vomiting, difficulty in swallowing, and intense burning and irritation of the mouth, lips, and tongue in pets who ingest.
Native Plants, Not Lawns When it comes to keeping your yard free of chemicals, consider removing your lawn, so to speak. Landscaped lawns require pesticides and fertilizers, watering systems, and grooming with gasoline-powered equipment such as mowers and leaf blowers. In addition, they drain to local rivers and streams. Because native plants are adapted to grow well where you live, they tend not to require these chemicals or significant pesticides. Planting natives ensures that not only will your choices grow better in your local conditions, but
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that they will grow less expensively, because they don’t need extra water, pesticides, and fertilizer. The National Wildlife Federation in the United States and the Canadian Wildlife Federation provide native plant lists and suggestions for landscaping that require little in the way of additional resources. Also, you can consult the native plant society for your state by searching on “native plant” and your state name.
If You Insist on Maintaining a Lawn If you insist on maintaining a lawn, please give serious consideration to maintaining a less than perfect lawn. The perfect lawn was invented to sell chemicals such as fertilizers and herbicides. Although most of us don’t love dandelions, we could make do with clover, a brown spot here or there, and digging the dandelions out with an asparagus fork, rather than spraying them (and our pets, ourselves, and our neighbors) to death. If you can accept the moderately attractive lawn, the benefits will be great for your pocketbook and your eco-conscience.
Dangers inside the Home Dangers to our pets inside the home come in many forms.
Cleaning Chemicals When it comes to cleaning, less may be more. Many of us may have unrealistic standards when it comes to keeping our homes clean. Blue water in our toilets and weekly floor waxing may be too much of a good thing. Cleaning the toilet weekly with a cleaner that does the job but does not overdo it, and a daily sweeping and weekly mopping of the floors, should be enough. Milder cleaners (such as soap and water) will get 90 percent of the job done. Add 10 percent scrubbing effort, and your home can definitely stay clean. (Part of the allure of the stronger chemicals is that less scrubbing is required.) When it comes to the chemicals, try to stick to a few basics, such as the ones suggested on pages 148–149. Oven cleaner, or the self-cleaning cycle of your oven (with its super-heating energy-gulping and fumes) may not be needed. First, try some baking soda and hard work. Use any chemical that you spray on to preserve finishes, like Scotchguard, sparingly. These products contain components that, while having useful
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properties, should be used outdoors. The organic chemicals that provide the protection are especially easy to ingest when sprayed into the atmosphere of your home. In addition, rubbing or licking the surface, as a pet is likely to do, means the organic chemicals will be ingested by mouth and through the skin.
Indoor Plants If you love houseplants, check the lists from the ASPCA Poison Control Center. (See “Toxic Plants,” earlier in the chapter.) If they say a plant is safe, believe them. Otherwise, presume a plant to be suspect, especially if you have kitties or birds who cannot leave plants alone. It is just not worth the risk.
Chemical Fumes Many materials in the home release particles into the air. This release is known as offgas. Many materials made for homes offgas formaldehyde and similar chemicals at room temperature. These chemicals, a source of indoor air pollution, can irritate your eyes, cause headaches, and produce more long-lasting effects within your body. Given that pets are smaller, the effect is proportionately larger. Examples of these chemicals, or volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are paint, glue, cleansers, moth repellants, air fresheners, and dry-cleaned clothes. When acquiring new furnishings, avoid products with VOCs, including vinyl flooring, some paints, particle board, and polyurethane coatings. Of special concern because of their immediate deadly effects on birds are self-cleaning ovens and nonstick coatings. Although we don’t think of pots and pans as producing fumes, they do when we leave a pot on the stove until the chemical coatings break down from the excessive heat. Under those circumstances, pans with nonstick coatings produce fumes that are toxic to birds. The effects are immediate and deadly. Although the cookware makers may believe their products are safe, the experience of bird owners is that burned nonstick cookware kills birds who inhale the fumes.
Preventing Flea and Tick Problems Fleas and ticks are a concern to the sustainable homeowner, not only because they are a danger to your pet, but because the products used to control them can be harmful as well. In addition, the information on these products can be confusing.
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You can take several measures to control flea and tick infestations. What you have to decide is whether you’re willing to use the nonchemical approach. You should make this decision after discussing the issue with your veterinarian. Combing for fleas with a special flea comb and inspecting your pet for ticks every day or two does remove the pests from your animals. In addition, wash your pet’s bedding frequently. Vigorous, frequent vacuuming prevents flea colonies from establishing themselves in your home. You must also dispose of the vacuum bags after you use them. Keep your grass cut short. A less desirable approach from an environmental standpoint is the flea and tick preventative. These products work either by poisoning the pests or by disrupting their reproductive cycles. Unfortunately, some studies show that these chemicals affect not only the intended target, but also other living organisms, such as your pet. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report titled “Poisons on Pets: Health Hazards from Flea and Tick Products.” The report explains that the most harmful flea and tick control ingredients are organophosphate insecticides and carbamates. These ingredients can be a problem for the nervous systems of both children and pets. Cats are particularly vulnerable. To be safe, avoid products that list the following substances as an ingredient: Chloropyrifos Dichlorvos Phosmet Naled Tetrachlorovinphos Diazinon Malathion Carbaryl Propoxur Better products that can help prevent flea and tick infestations are available now. The first type includes insect-growth regulators that don’t kill the current group of fleas, but do prevent the next generation. These products include those made with lufenuron, methoprene, and pyriproxyfen, such as Program, Sentinel, Precor, Nylar, and Ecokyl. A second type of product is an insecticide designed to have fewer toxic effects on mammal nervous systems. These include imidacloprid, fipronil, and selamectin in products such as Advantage, Frontline, Top Spot, and Revolution.
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Applying Flea and Tick Products to Pets Follow these steps to apply flea and tick products to your pet: Carefully read and follow the product label. Choose the correct product for the specific pet and particular pest. Some products approved for dogs are not appropriate for cats, ferrets, rabbits, or pocket pets. Observe age and size restrictions as well as time between applications. If you’re unsure, call your veterinarian before applying. Consult a veterinarian before using on old, ill, pregnant, or nursing pets, or pets with allergies. Before applying, read the entire label. Never separate the label from the product container. If signs of sensitivity occur, bathe your pet with mild soap, rinse with large amounts of water, and call your veterinarian immediately.
Fact sheets on the active ingredients in the new as well as the older products are available from the National Pesticide Information Center and from the EPA web site at www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/fela-tick.htm. The weakest aspect of the new products is that they rub off onto people that your pet contacts. In addition, some of these substances are toxic to wildlife. Methoprene (marketed under the name Precor) seems less a problem because it is an insect growth regulator rather than a nerve toxin like fipronil (Frontline) and imidacloprid (Advantage). However, any of these products is much better than the old, more hazardous chemicals listed on the previous page, and are preferable to allowing fleas and ticks (and the diseases and problems they cause) into your home. Last, remember, whatever your veterinarian says goes. If you have questions about the toxicity of these products, be sure to discuss them with your vet.
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All this information may seem a bit overwhelming. If you remember these three things, you’ll be taking care of 95 percent of household health problems: (1) Consider your household as a place that’s best served with frequent cleaning using soap and water; (2) For pet-related diseases, an annual exam with your veterinarian and frequent grooming for fleas and ticks gets the job done; (3) For your yard, less is more. Use native plants that require little maintenance and no chemicals.
My Sustainability Score: Pets and Household Health Good
Better
Best
My pet improves my health.
We walk together My pet and I each day. walk together each day and we play a sport.
In addition to walking together each day and playing a sport, we volunteer, helping other people feel better.
Prevent pet disease.
I wash my hands after playing with my pet.
I keep the pet areas clean and control fleas and ticks by combing.
I also vaccinate as needed and have an annual vet exam for each pet.
Safe cleaning products.
I read the labels.
I use green cleaning products.
I also disinfect surfaces where my pet hangs out, and disinfect food and water dishes frequently.
Safe yard and garden.
I use an eco-lawn service.
I removed my lawn, planted natives, and threw out my yard chemicals.
I also did a rigorous inventory to ensure all plants were nontoxic to pets.
Safe indoor areas.
I switched to cleaning the toilet instead of using those chemicals that make the water blue.
I wash my pets’ bedding and vacuum thoroughly every week.
I tossed the Teflon, and pay attention to VOC content when buying new furnishings.
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For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 15–24 points: You have a good basis for improving your pet and household health. 25–34 points: You understand the basics of pets and household health and now you’re just learning the details. 35 points: You win the Green Pet Award for doing your best for your pet and the planet when it comes to household health and pets.
My Sustainabililty Plan: Pets and Household Health A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved. In my home: Post the ASPCA Poison Control number on the emergency phone list. Review my cleaning products to ensure they meet the standards I feel are ethical. Review my yard plant inventory, landscaping, and maintenance plan for improvement. In my community: Canvas neighbors for suggestions about eco-pest control and land care companies. Discuss local sources of good cleaning products with friends. In my personal beliefs: Could I volunteer with my pet to help others? Could I make room in my budget for annual pet exams, or could I change my method of flea and tick control to combing to help defray the expenses?
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Resources Accidental Poisoning ASPCA Poison Control Center: www.aspca.org, (888) 426-4435
West Nile Virus U.S. Centers for Disease Control: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/ westnile/brochure.htm American Veterinary Medical Association: www.avma.org. Domestic animals and West Nile virus.
Cleaning Products Method Home: www.methodhome.com Seventh Generation: www.seventhgeneration.com Ecover: www.ecover.com Mrs. Meyers: www.mrsmeyers.com Bioshield: www.bioshieldpaint.com Earth Friendly: www.ecos.com Naturally Yours: www.naturallyyoursclean.com Simple Green: www.simplegreen.com Clorox Green Works: www.GreenWorksCleaners.com
Native Plants National Wildlife Federation: www.enature.com/home Wild About Gardening (Canadian Wildlife Federation): www.wildaboutgardening.org
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Organic Land Care Organic Land Care: www.organiclandcare.net Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides: www.pesticide.org
Pest Control Pesticide alternatives: es.epa.gov Mosquito control: www.epa.gov/pesticides/health/mosquitoes Safety Source for Pest Management: www.beyondpesticides.org/ safetysource/index.htm
Health Effects Information Health effects of chemicals: www.cdc.gov Environmental Working Group: www.ewg.org
Health Effects of Pets Delta Society: www.deltasociety.org Centers for Disease Control: www.cdc.gov/healthypets/ health_benefits.htm Gail F. Melson. Why the Wild Things Are: Animals in the Lives of Children. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.
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Chapter 7
Pets and Ecologically Sensitive Pet Services The concept is interesting . . . but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible. —A Yale University management professor’s comments on student Fred Smith’s paper proposing the Federal Express Corporation
In the same way that the concept of overnight delivery was new in 1971, so are ecologically sensitive pet services in 2009. In this chapter we look at how providers of pet services are beginning to take advantage of the choices available to them and how your communities and pets may benefit from them. Because of the pace of life in this new millennium, our disposable income, and the regard we have for our pets as family members, perhaps it isn’t surprising that the growth in pet services—such as day-care centers—mirrors services for our children. In an article for Small Business Trends, Laura Bennett suggests that the $3 billion American expenditure for pet services in 2008 includes “visits to the spa, exercise regimes, and hotel-quality accommodations for day care [that] are becoming more commonplace in urban areas.” Bennett also sees “groomers, doggie day cares, pet hotels, pet insurance companies, lawyers providing pet trusts, and funeral homes providing [more] services for pets.” Because the growth of pet services, you do have a choice, and you can select your service providers based on their steps toward ecologically sensitive service delivery.
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You might well ask how one can deliver pet services in a manner sensitive to the planet. We’ll discuss this first, and then look at the following types of services: Pet sitters Veterinarians Groomers Pet overnight and day-care facilities Pet trainers Pet waste services Pet taxis To close the chapter, we discuss the good, better, best practices of pet services and help you develop a plan for acting on what you’ve learned. Finally, resources you can use to help put your plans into action are listed at the chapter end.
Why Pets Services Matter Pet services matter because of the number of businesses and the number of pets they influence. Most pets visit veterinarians. Pet sitters and boarding facilities are vital to most families with pets. Pet services also enable ownership by those who might not otherwise be able to have pets—the working and the aged. Pet service providers are major fixtures in the lives of pets and their companions. According to the American Pet Products Association, one-third of dog owners and one in ten cat owners use pet services other than veterinary and grooming services. The most common service that dog owners use is boarding. Next most common is home-based pet sitting; the majority of these service receivers are cats. Providers such as veterinarians, groomers, and day-care services receive more information about pets and pet-related products and services, and know which providers are professionals and which are less than professional. Often they are leaders in implementing newer, greener foods, medicines, and equipment. Most people who offer these services are kind and gentle toward animals and prefer to offer the most earth-friendly services possible. However, some providers are more eco-aware than others. In a way, we pet owners could look at our service providers as pet-friendly mentors or models. Because we need and value service providers, selecting the best models and the best caretakers for our pets means finding practitioners of services that reflect our own values about pets and the planet.
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Many pet owners are on the lookout for those businesses that distinguish themselves by offering green services or conducting their businesses in an ecofriendly way. Although many companies claim to be green, you want to look for businesses that explain how their services have a softer impact on the planet. Despite our emphasis on the eco-friendly approach, the priority for any pet service is that you feel comfortable with the quality of care they render to your pet. Even if you aren’t a seasoned pet owner, go with your gut. If you’re not sure the person is competent to provide quality care, keep looking. There’s a reason we have instincts; listen to yours. Because the concept of a green service business really is new, many businesses have thought about reducing, reusing, and recycling, but few have done enough to truthfully claim they are green. Here is where you can really make a difference, by asking questions and encouraging practices that make service providers more conscious of their environment and sensitive to customers who place high values on the quality of our ecosystems.
Services Used over a Six-month Period Service
Dog Owners
Cat Owners
Kennel/boarding/pet hotel
42%
15%
Pet sitting at home
41%
79%
Day care for pet
3%
—
Behavior therapist
—
—
Pet taxi or transport
—
—
Other service
31%
7%
Reprinted with permission of the American Pet Products Association (APPA)
Health-Care Services: Veterinarian and Groomer Dog Owners
Cat Owners
Bird Owners
Rabies vaccines
68%
46%
—
Routine physical
63%
45%
—
Other vaccine
66%
47%
14%
Flea and tick related
39%
12%
—
Only when sick
25%
19%
14%
Boarding
7%
4%
3%
Food
10%
12%
18%
continues
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Dog Owners
Cat Owners
Bird Owners
Dental care
14%
9%
—
Groomer
75%
—
17%
Homeopathic remedies
6%
4%
—
Special diets
6%
10%
1%
Health Insurance
3%
<1%
—
Reprinted with permission of the American Pet Products Association (APPA)
Pet’s Health-Care Expenses Dog
Cat
Bird
Average vet visits/12 months
2.6
2
3
Routine vet expenses/12 months
$219
$175
$105
Surgical expenses/12 months
$453
$363
$85
Reprinted with permission of the American Pet Products Association (APPA)
Elements of an Eco-Friendly Pet Service Business Pet service businesses have the same needs as any business. Pet service providers light buildings, use energy and water, produce waste, and use products and hard goods such as examination tables, animal enclosures, and telephones and computers to book appointments and keep records. Small business strategist Rhonda Abrams suggests that every business can reduce waste, contributing to profitability as well as the environment. For businesses large and small, waste-reduction strategies work; the trick is stepping back from the day-to-day frenzy to see opportunities to implement them. We’ll look at three factors that affect the greenness of any pet service business: the building it’s housed in (often rental space), its office functions, and the service-specific aspects of the business.
Buildings and the Environment Whether a pet business rents space or owns, many choices affect the environment. For an established business in a rental space, some choices that are kind to the environment and the bottom line are not available. For businesses just starting up or ready to remodel, more options are available. Aspects of facilities that make the most difference include heating and cooling, building materials, parking areas and landscaping, and the service-specific functions of the business.
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What Makes Buildings Green? Many of us have heard of green buildings or LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings, but what makes a building green? The U.S. Green Building Council offers today’s best answers to that question. This nonprofit organization educates builders about green building practices and reviews buildings by request for anyone who wants to build according to the Council’s standards. LEED standards apply in the United States and are consensusbased standards for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. LEED standards emphasize sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. Providing a more unbiased process, third parties run the inspection, and offer project certification, professional accreditation, training, and resources.
Heating and Cooling Options New high-efficiency heating, cooling, and ventilation systems can make a difference both in energy bills and in performance. An important and easy way to address the situation is using window treatments to reduce heating and cooling costs. An option at the time of building construction or remodeling includes using positioning, opening and closing, and tinting and insulation of windows for heating and cooling. Local power companies are usually pleased to help customers by conducting energy audits that include suggestions for increasing efficiency and reducing costs. Solar panels are an option, especially for providing heat and hot water. In addition, solar energy can provide power to the rest of the building, at least part of the time. Many states’ clean-energy programs offer enormous tax rebates for companies investing in alternative energy-related equipment purchases. Power companies also offer customers the choice of selecting alternative energy sourcing. Contact your local utility company to find out what options are available in your area. These options are not about being off the grid, but are about the types of energy you want your power company to use for your supply.
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LEEDing the Way: The Dallas Animal Control Shelter The 52,000-square-foot Dallas Animal Services and Adoption Center is LEED-certified. Visitors can see many green attributes at the facility, but Dallas Animal Services District Manager Paul Curington describes attributes that you can’t see. “We spent fifty percent of our building materials budget on recycled content and diverted fifty percent of our construction waste from landfill.” Windows and skylights provide natural lighting. Six large planters in the parking lot house parts of a wastewater treatment system that cleans 10,000 gallons of water a day for reuse. This system allows the shelter to operate off the city wastewater grid. A wind turbine generates the energy to run the system, relieving dependence on carbon-based fuels. And that’s not just any wind turbine, but one that adds visual interest to the facility. Other innovations include motion detectors that turn off lights when areas are not in use and environmentally safe indoor paints. Sensors control restroom water use. Rooms designed for multiple rather than specific functions ensure more efficient use of space. Curington says that the facility has already experienced reductions in fuel, electricity, water, time, animal illnesses, and volunteer energy. Built with the LEED Silver Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council in mind, this facility, like all capital improvement projects of the Dallas Department of Public Works, has attracted much attention from other cities that would like to build similar public works projects.
Building Materials Although businesses may pay 5 percent more to use green building materials and supplies, some costs can be recouped from energy savings. Outlets such as Home Depot and retailers from information sources such as www.building green.com now provide green building materials. For example, businesses can choose paints that emit fewer toxins, carpeting and tiling systems that don’t
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use glues, and insulation from recycled blue jeans. Recycled plastics that have been made into low-maintenance siding, fencing, and deck materials not only avoid raw materials manufacture but also obviate the need for wood treatment that is usually environmentally toxic.
Parking Areas and Landscaping Every outdoor hard surface—asphalt, concrete, and roofing—ushers water to storm drains, picking up dirt and contaminants along the way. Street drainpipes send the runoff, pollution and all, directly into rivers, degrading water quality. The Oregon Environmental Council is expert at reducing storm-water runoff—after all, who knows more about rain than a Pacific Northwest environmental group? Some easy-to-follow steps they suggest to reduce runoff (and easy-to-see improvements, from the customer’s perspective) include the following: Disconnect downspouts. Instead of sending rainwater into a storm drain, use gardens or swales to allow nature to handle it. Businesses should contact their local sewer agency before disconnecting downspouts. Agencies often offer assistance for downspout disconnection. In addition, depending on the size and location of the building, some cities give businesses discounts for managing storm water. Instead of hosing sidewalks, driveways, and parking lots, sweep them. Hosing wastes water and carries contaminants such as oil and antifreeze into rivers. Install storm drain markers. Stencil the message “Dump No Waste, Drains to Stream” next to your storm drain grates. Many people assume that all materials in storm drains go through a water-treatment process. Surprise! They don’t. Your local sewer agency will probably provide the materials you need. Many now use easy-to-install plastic markers instead of stencils. Marking your storm drains can be a fun volunteer activity for your employees. Periodically clean out catch basins. Catch basins are designed to capture sediment, debris, and associated pollutants from storm water. Storm water typically enters catch basins through grates at the beginning of the drainage system. When a basin is full of the pollution, it’s designed to trap, trash begins bypassing these basins and goes directly into rivers and streams. Contact your local sewer agency to learn how to clean out any nearby basins.
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Reduce pavement in your driveway, landscape, and parking lot. You can use porous products such as pavers that allow water to seep into the ground around them, or porous asphalt that does the same. Or build the hot new eco-cachement, the bioswale. Bioswales, often created to look like lovely low-lying planters, collect runoff from hard surfaces—parking lots or building roofs, for example—and retain water long enough that it can settle through soil back into the local water table. Northwest businesses brag that their bioswales are larger than those of their competitors!
Animal-Related Buildings Created with LEED Certification in Mind Project Name
City
Square Footage
Animal Care Center
Long Beach, CA
1,800
Aquarium of the Pacific: Animal Care
Long Beach, CA
3,000
Humane Society Silicon Valley
Milpitas, CA
47,986
North Central Animal Services Center
Los Angeles, CA
800
Melvin J. and Claire Levine Animal Care
West Palm Beach, CA
10,000
Regional Animal Campus, Animal Foundation
Las Vegas, NV
44,000
Tompkins County SPCA
Ithaca, NY
11,200
The Scratching Post
Silverton, OH
5,670
East End Veterinary Medical Centre
Pittsburgh, PA
3,000
Eagle Veterinary Hospital
Olmos Park, TX
10,554
Veterinary Surgical Options
Madison, WI
23,000
Office Functions The Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI), a nationally recognized outreach organization, helps business owners transform their businesses to greener thinking through cultural shifts within organizations. In addition, people need tools that help them make these changes. From ideas of how to make change to someone who can help find suppliers, NWEI helps change workplaces, neighborhoods, and communities. Among their tools is “Taking Green Steps at the Office.” Because every pet service business has an office, you might look to see whether your services
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do some of these things. If they don’t, consider providing a contact for them at NWEI. Among the suggestions that NWEI makes are these: Make bins for recycling paper the first step. Each employee accounts for about one-half pound of paper each day. Once paper recycling is in place and working, move to recycling plastic tubs, batteries, and food waste, one step at a time. Power down computers and other office equipment if you don’t plan to use them within an hour. Use a timer to shut off printers, copiers, and faxes after business hours. Lighting accounts for 37 percent of workplace energy requirements. Use low overhead light levels and more intense task lighting. Consider T-8 bulbs and efficient, flicker-free electronic ballasts. Put lights on timers to turn them off at night or on weekends, or motion detectors to turn them on when someone enters a room. Reduce paper use. Trees, water, and energy are saved when you reduce paper use—an even bigger payoff than recycling. Set printers and copiers for double-sided printing. Use recycled copy paper and letterhead that are 30 to 100 percent postconsumer recycled and processed chlorine free. Postconsumer means the fiber has reached the consumer and returned to the manufacturer through recycling programs. Use green cleaners. Look for products certified by a third party like Green Seal or that meet the EPA “Design for the Environment” standard. Eliminate disposables. Switch from paper to durable plates and bowls. Install an Energy Star microwave and refrigerator so that employees can bring lunches instead of using fast foods, which are heavily dependent on hard-to-recycle disposable containers. Eliminate free parking and provide subsidies for employees who ride mass transit. Set up secure bike parking and rideshares. Emphasize reuse rather than buying new. Use recharged printer cartridges. Establish a reuse center in the office supply area for binders, file folders, and paper clips. Take advantage of office build-out improvement opportunities in your rental space. Select locally manufactured materials. Make sure any purchasing requirements include terminology such as “durable,” “low VOC emitting,” “salvaged,” or “made with recycled content.” Ask to have old materials recycled. Upgrade toilets to low flow. Make sure new equipment has an Energy Star label.
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If you’d like to provide a copy of these guidelines to your local pet service business, e-mail the link www.nwei.org/files/GreenOffice.pdf to your service office manager or download this shorter version (and other tools) to share with your service businesses from www.thiswildlife.com/pets/petsandtheplanet.
Asking Green Questions of Your Pet Service Each pet business provides service to their clients differently, but all can become greener in their thinking, and you can help. Ask whether your particular pet service has considered the environment as a part of their business philosophy. In other words, does the business consider an environmental ethic as an essential part of their service? Most services include products—whether medicines or poop bags or shampoos—as a part of the service they provide to their customers. Are those products green, with minimal packaging? Have they been shipped around the world or made locally? Do they biodegrade? Because pet businesses provide services to living beings such as dogs and cats and hamsters, ask how the business handles its waste. Do they use a waste collection service or bag and trash? How does the business keep its facilities clean and disease free? Any service engages in marketing. Are their marketing materials made and distributed in a green way? Internet marketing is paperless. Strategically placed signage and positioning the business in a busy commercial area creates visibility without expending lots of resources. No matter the particulars, the key questions are whether the environment is a core value of the business and whether employees are mindful of the environment.
Using Pet Services for a Better Environment New pet business ideas appear as fast as—well, the speed of ideas. But remember that established pet sitters, veterinarians, groomers, dog day-care providers, pet boarding services, trainers, and pooper-scoopers belong to professional organizations with established standards. Although many have not begun to talk about their environmental ethics, this trend is beginning. Although a service provider’s membership in a professional association or accreditation group is no guarantee they are qualified, or that the provider is educated about environmentally sensitive ways to provide services, you will
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find that, in general, these providers want education and are committed to improving their businesses for the benefit of their customers. Their investing in an association that educates or helps providers earn credentials means that their business is important to them; therefore, providing satisfactory service is more likely to be important. Remember, the point of the service providers is to help you maintain your happy relationship with your pets. Keeping pets in their original homes is the single largest impact pet owners can make on the environment, and the largest contribution pet service businesses can make is to help pet owners keep their pets or help move unsuitable pets to more suitable homes.
Pet Sitters Just as parents need time away from children, pet companions need time away from their pets. To get your break requires that you leave your animals with someone you trust. Maybe that lack of trust is the reason that only 3 percent of dog owners, 1 percent of cat owners, 1 percent of fish owners, 2 percent of bird owners, 2 percent of small animal owners, and 1 percent of reptile owners use an in-home pet sitter when they are away for two or more nights. Although you can learn from your pet sitters about green ethics, the good news is that a professional pet sitter will follow your instructions scrupulously. Create a standard set of instructions that includes the feeding regime you follow, what you want done with pet waste, the location of the recycling and trash bins and what goes in each, and any other particulars that are important to you. Finding a proper, trustworthy pet sitter can be difficult unless you start with those certified through a professional organization. A great place to start is Pet Sitters International, an 8,000-member organization, with more than 200 members in Canada. Pet Sitters International has an accreditation program that covers pet care, health and nutrition, and business and office procedures. To find a sitter that meets your needs, use the locator at www.petsit.com. Another option for finding a pet sitter is through your veterinarian’s referral. The point is, find someone reliable and qualified, take time away from your pet, and come home refreshed and ready to play with your best pal. With a qualified sitter, you’ll find someone who keeps your green home policies intact. In many cases, you’ll be teaching a sitter about green practices, and when you teach the sitter, the sitter can teach others. If you have the best of the best of sitters, you’ll learn a few green pet tricks too.
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Screening Prospective Sitters Find out how the pet-sitting agency screens and trains their pet sitters; you should feel comfortable leaving your pets (and home) in your prospective sitter’s care. Your own instincts, based on your in-home interview of your final candidates, are usually the best indicator of whether you can trust the sitter. Pet Sitters International’s (PSI) tips on indicators of quality pet sitters cover the most critical issues in developing that trust. PSI suggests that your pet sitter (or agency) should: Keep regular office hours. Have established fees they quote over the phone and/or in literature. Have bonding and insurance. Offer evidence of a clean criminal history. Willingly and happily provide references. Have experience in caring for your particular type of pet. Provide a service contract that spells out services (including time spent with your pet) and fees (including payment terms). Meet with you and your pet(s) in advance. Is there a charge for this in-home meeting? Have a plan if pet medical care is needed. Have a contingency plan for inclement weather or natural disaster. Exhibit a positive attitude and seem comfortable and competent in caring for your pet(s). Provide you with an evaluation or rating form of their services. Confirm your safe return home for the care of your pet(s).
Developing a long-term, friendly business relationship with your pet sitter is one of the most significant things you can do to keep your pet and your home happy. When you are too tired or stressed to be responsible for your pet, or when your pet needs more care than you can provide alone, you’ll have the help you need. Having this kind of assurance makes facing difficult times easier.
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Veterinarians Veterinarians provide many services for pet owners. According to the 2008–2009 American Pet Products Association (APPA) survey, dog owners take their dogs to the veterinarian about 2.6 times each year. The chief reasons include the following: Spay or neuter: 75 percent Vaccinations: 80 percent Routine physicals: 63 percent Illness: 25 percent Flea and tick treatment: 40 percent In addition, 10 percent of dog owners buy their dog food at the veterinarian. Approximately 72 percent of cat owners take their cats to the veterinarian for reasons that include the following: Vaccinations: 57 percent Routine physicals: 50 percent Illness: 19 percent Neutering: 90 percent Grooming: 3 percent Dr. John Tait, the president of the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) and managing partner of the Ontario Veterinary Group, believes that the veterinary profession is becoming more aware of steps animal hospital managers can take to lighten our load on the earth as they perform their services. Dr. Tait mentions the animal hospital itself, the management of the building, the supplies the hospital uses, and the locations of the practices as facets that can affect what options are available. Dr. Tait recently built a clinic in Toronto that uses geothermal energy for heating and cooling. The alternative energy source worked so well for this practice that he converted his home to use geothermal energy as well. Within his practice, he uses soft lighting and more energy-efficient bulbs. For clinic products, he uses those with less packaging. One eye ointment he uses frequently serves as his example. The ointment used to come in a cardboard box, supplied in an outer box. Today this product comes in an efficient, small wrap. His practice, like most, provides retail items for veterinary clients. He provides his customers with reusable fabric bags that cost $2 each; they return with the bags repeatedly for their supplies.
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“Geography dictates much about a veterinary clinic’s opportunities related to waste disposal,” says Dr. Tait. In cities, he suggests that clinics are limited to traditional waste removal services. Some cities offer curbside compostables collection (see chapter 5), but what is not yet clear is whether animal service businesses would be able to participate. For a large animal practice, especially those in more rural areas, the veterinarian could compost herbivore and ruminant waste onsite, while disposing of carnivore waste more traditionally through trash collection service. Dr. Tait agrees that if carnivore waste, such as cat and dog waste, were to be composted, it would need to be treated more aggressively in the composting process than herbivore waste. Dr. Tait explains that as our awareness of the effects of our choices on the planet increases, we are moved to do more. We use more of the safer biodegradable plastics. Product suppliers will create less harsh but effective sanitizers. More and more clients will move to organic food for their companion animals. The initial sticker shock of the cost of all organic food is ameliorated by the improvements in the pets’ health, as well as the reduction in the waste the pet produces. In addition, selecting products will become easier as certifications come from environmental agencies or endorsements from professional societies such as AAHA. Dr. Tait sees this as a trend, as AAHA has begun to provide seals of acceptance, experimenting with pet insurance as their first product endorsement. When you visit your veterinarian, be sure to ask the questions that help you make the best decisions not only for your pet but for the planet. If you haven’t spayed or neutered your dog, if you have questions about flea and tick protection, skin care, and any behavior issues your pet may have, be sure to let your vet know your thoughts about ecology. Ask for help in making decisions that are appropriate to your environmental ethics.
Groomers To delve into the grooming business, we needed an expert guide. Sally Liddick, editor and publisher of Groomer to Groomer (www.barkleigh.com), the industry’s trade magazine, reports that there are about 85,000 such businesses in the United States and another 8,000 in Canada. Liddick says, “Going ‘green’ is a new—and old—concept in our industry. Like all industries, groomers are beginning to respond.” If you think about the grooming process, whatever goes onto the dog goes onto the groomer. She explains, “Years ago, pesticides on pets were a very big, and dangerous, issue for not only the pet but the groomer. Groomers now only use biodegradable products that are safe for themselves and the pets.”
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Shampoos and conditioners, “the big by-product of grooming,” as Liddick terms them, “have been biodegradable for many years.” She goes on to explain that some manufacturers, such as Tropiclean (www.tropiclean.net), are also using biodegradable shampoo packaging. In selecting a groomer for your pet, your priorities can include location, so you eliminate the need for excessive driving, in addition to the cleanliness of the facility and knowledge of the grooming staff, as well as your impression about the demeanor of the pets you see being groomed. If your local groomer isn’t good with your pet, then look further. After these requirements are satisfied, then ask about the biodegradable products that Liddick suggests.
Pet Overnight and Day Care According to an estimate by the Pet Care Services Association (PCSA), in 2006 pet owners spent $2.9 billion boarding their pets at the 12,000 to 20,000 facilities in North America. Many pet boarding facilities also conduct other business, creating difficulty in estimating the total number of facilities. For example, many dog day-care facilities also offer boarding, as do some veterinarians. As the number of one-stop pet service shops increases, or businesses combine to offer day care, boarding, pet sitting, grooming, spa, and veterinary services, determining where to go for what pet services becomes more difficult. This is the impetus behind the thirty-one-year-old American Board Kennel Association evolving to the present PCSA. The place to begin looking for boarding facilities is with a professional certification organization. Although you may find a nonmember kennel that is very green, odds are the better kennels have gone to the trouble to join professional organizations and to educate their members and members’ staffs about green practices. Your first concerns should be safety and health. Acceptable kennels will require health certificates providing evidence from boarders’ veterinarians that shots and vaccinations are up to date. Kennel staff in such places will be experienced in handling the emergencies that can arise in a kennel. PCSA includes many members that have created paper-free offices and use all forms of recycling and organic diets. In addition, the association’s annual conference attracts many vendors that feature green products in their exhibit booths. PCSA has considered making green services the topic of their next national conference, including educational seminars for their members. Of the 3,100 corporate members with varying levels of accreditation and staff certification, many are large enough to consider LEED elements for their buildings.
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Living with a Parrot I often suggest to people considering parrots as pets that they imagine living with a two-year-old for fifty years. Then imagine that this small child, whose favorite word is “mine,” can fly. Last, for the full picture, consider that their favorite toy is a woodchipper (aka, a beak). This is the view that all but a few parrot homes have. Those who stick with their parrots through the chips and nips take the time to invest in learning from experts and then work with their pet every day.
PCSA tries to make finding their members’ services easy, and to help potential customers distinguish among the different levels of education and certifications that their members have. To find pet services near you that offer various levels of green services, visit the PCSA web site at www.petcareservices.org.
Trainers When one lives with a member of a different species, conflicts arise, largely because the species do not speak a similar language. As I’ve mentioned, the number one reason that cats lose their homes is inappropriate elimination. The number one reason that parrots lose their homes is “screaming and biting.” Living with parrots or other exotic pets, or just with dogs who are high energy, can be difficult. When owners follow advice from friends and family, the companion-versus-animal tension usually rises. For example, a puppy eliminates indoors. The owner gets home and shouts, “Bad,” pointing at the mess. He then puts the puppy outside. The puppy does not understand what she’s done wrong. The owner doesn’t realize that his expectation of the puppy waiting eight hours to eliminate is unrealistic. One good solution is a noontime dog walker, a crate, and a regular accepted place in which the puppy is encouraged to eliminate. Enter the trainer, or in some cases an animal behaviorist. Trainers are people who teach you to work with your animal to achieve certain goals, such as walking your dog quietly on leash, or teaching you how to train your rabbit to use a litter box. “Animal behaviorist” is a term better applied to someone who
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can help you understand the animal’s behavior—useful especially in the case of exotics, where behaviors are less well understood than cat and dog behavior. These resources can function as translators and “de-emotionalizers.” In their best incarnations, professionals can stabilize the situation and improve your communication. If this sounds a little like psychiatry, it is, in the sense that companions need to reconnect to the reality that their favorite pet is not a person and does not understand their words. Like many service providers for companion animals, the professional trainer can be a lifeline. The question is, how do you find the right trainer for help with Fluffy, your iguana with an anger management problem (or your marking cat, barking dog, biting ferret)? Keep in mind that the most eco-friendly approach is to keep Fluffy happily in your home—and by “happily” I don’t mean just Fluffy. You should be happy too. Trainers who point you toward long-term reform rather than electronic jolts or other quick fixes usually belong to one or more professional organizations with professional continuing education and certification programs. The fact is that achieving instant results with training is something you see on carefully scripted television shows or on training videos where quick fixes do not address the underlying behavior issues. The following organizations are a few of those available to help you locate qualified assistance in finding solutions for your pet behavior concerns. Most web sites include functions to help you find members who offer services in your local area. American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (www.dacvb.org): Boardcertified in veterinary behavior, these veterinarians can help you assess whether the problems your animal is exhibiting have a health-related cause or are behavioral only. In addition, they can recommend trainers or other professionals who may be able to help you once the immediate crisis has passed. Association of Pet Dog Trainers (www.apdt.com): This professional organization of individual trainers is committed to becoming better through education. The web site includes a search function to find a trainer in your area. Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists (www.animalbehavior.org): The society certifies behaviorists to assist animal-oriented groups or agencies, businesses, and the general public who seek professional advice about animal behavior in general or about behavioral problems of animals. Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (www.ccpdt.org): The CCPDT is an international testing and certification program for
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professional pet dog trainers, based on humane training practices and the latest scientific knowledge related to dog training. International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (www.iaabc.org): This professional association of animal behavior consultants represents the professional interests of behavior consultants and facilitates research, theory development, and education. The IAABC has five divisions: Cat, Dog, Parrot, Horse, and Human-Animal Mutualism. National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors (www.nadoi.org): For dog obedience instructors of the highest caliber, the association offers continuing education and promotes humane, effective training methods. Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians (www.svbt.org): The society provides education and discussion forums for scientifically based techniques of training, management, and behavior modification for technicians working as part of the veterinary health-care team.
Finding and Interviewing Potential Waste Removal Providers Your veterinarian, pet groomer, doggy day-care provider, or pet sitter may have services they’d be willing to refer to you. In addition, visit www.apaws.org. These two steps will yield a pool of potential service providers. Following are some questions you can ask potential service providers about company policies, employees, and services. Company policies How long has your business operated? Could you provide me with a reference list? Does your service have employees or contractors? (Companies that use employees may provide more consistent service.) Does your company provide workers’ compensation in case a technician is hurt on my property?
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Pooper-Scoopers The pooper-scooper market is large and growing. In 2006, the APPA found that about 10 percent of the 43 million dog owners were interested in a service to clean up their yards. Enough pooper-scooper services have arisen that, almost unbelievably, a professional organization, the Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists, or APAWS, represents the pooper-scooper industry. While perhaps surprising, a professional organization for this industry makes sense. The health and green (or not so green) aspects of the business suggest that education of providers is extremely important. As with other professional organizations, APAWS provides guidelines and a code of conduct, and assists the public in reaching a member in their local area. Some APAWS members are part of franchise organizations such as Pet Butler and Doody Calls.
Employees Do employees carry GPS tracking units (so the business can tell whether their employee has visited your home or whether to add or delete services on short notice)? Does your company check employee backgrounds? Do employees receive bite-prevention training? Service Do technicians disinfect their tools after each yard? (Parasites and other harmful organisms spread through dog waste.) Will you clean with my dogs outside or will I need to keep them indoors? Do you offer additional treatments such as deck deodorizing? What are your scooping hours of operation? Do you clean on weekends? Is satisfactory service guaranteed? What are your office hours? Do you work year round? What are your policies about rain, snow, and vacation? How do you dispose of the waste you remove?
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Matt Boswell, CEO (he says it stands for “chief excrement officer”) of Pet Butler, accounts for about one-third of the pooper-scooper services nationwide through locally owned franchises. Boswell agrees that the number one motivation for hiring Pet Butler service is the hectic life of modern families, especially those with small children. People don’t have time to pick up their yards. However, says Boswell, a few clients are motivated by concern for the environment. These customers scoop their own yards and set out biodegradable bags of pet waste for Boswell’s franchise to pick up and dispose of at a commercial-grade composting facility. Boswell explains that proper disposal is a key ingredient in making the pet waste business helpful to the environment. “Rather than engaging a ‘Mom and Pop’ business that disposes of waste in your trash, our franchises negotiate wherever possible with local industrial-grade facilities to compost pet waste.” In addition, Boswell says there are several other eco-friendly elements in which his business goes “above and beyond” most others. Pet Butler sends no physical invoices, eliminating paper billing and payment. The franchise also disinfects both pickup tools and shoes before they leave a client’s home. This action gives disinfectant time to work properly before the vehicle arrives at the next home, ensuring that workers don’t transmit disease from one home to another. With more than 125 franchises across the country, Pet Butler also provides “pet stations” for apartments, parks, and outdoor events. These stations and associated services ensure that municipal water systems have as little pet waste in urban and suburban runoff as possible. Make sure that your service provider is aware of and follows guidelines to prevent spread of disease. Then look in more detail at your provider’s environmental qualifications, including how it disposes of your pet’s waste and whether its overall business operations reflect a concern for the environment. Pet waste is a problem every pet owner faces. Most cities have laws requiring you to clean up after your pets. The presence of flies and unpleasant odor becomes a nuisance if yards are not maintained. Yet waste cleanup is definitely the job pet owners enjoy least. Pet waste services usually clean weekly, and some offer cat box services. For older or disabled pet owners, a service that picks up waste is a way to address an essential part of taking proper care of a pet.
Pet Taxis When North American families shifted to two-wage-earner homes, the service industry boomed. When people aren’t home during normal working hours, the
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logistical challenges become enormous. One of those problems is with pets, especially when a pet becomes ill in a way that requires frequent trips to the veterinarian. As a result, pet transportation, or taxi services, arose to fill the need. As an example, some pets require treatments such as kidney dialysis or chemotherapy—treatments that require many hours at the veterinarian’s office during hours the owner is working. A pet taxi would perform this service, picking up the pet, transporting her to and from the veterinarian’s office, and securing her at home again. This service allows owners to continue to treat their animal and to work. Pet taxis are also an option for trips to dog day care or dog-grooming appointments. The range of services offered depends on the capabilities of the individual pet taxi business and your level of comfort with the professionalism of the company. These services affect the environment in two principal ways. First, they perform services that allow animals to remain in their original homes. In that respect, they are outstanding. However, transportation requires burning fossil fuels of some sort. Taxi services have an opportunity to run on alternative fuels or high-mileage fossil fuel vehicles. The services are new enough and the number few enough that there are no separate professional organizations for pet transportation. You’ll find transportation services for your pet through your other service providers. We’ve covered a lot of territory on our look at green aspects of pet services. The following table recaps the major ways service businesses can go and stay green.
A Pet Taxi Driver Sergio Fonseca has operated Táxi-Dog, a pet transportation service, in São Paulo, Brazil, since 1997. Fonseca, who trained as a veterinarian, found his idea when one of his pets needed medical attention during the day. Of course, normal taxis do not allow animals, or at least will not transport them for you. The majority of Fonseca’s service consists of transporting dogs and cats for shots and baths.
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Good, Better, Best: Selecting Ecologically Sensitive Services Business Aspect
Good
Better
Best
Building
Parking lots include bioswales and other porous projects
Alternative energy sources used and building materials are green
LEED-certified building
Offices
Use green cleaners and recycle in city program
Use Energy Star appliances and low-energy lights; print and copy on both sides of paper
Provide commuter incentives for carpooling and mass transit; use postconsumer recycled paper, low-flow toilets, low-VOC surfaces
Pet sitters
Belong to national organization
Follow your instructions regarding use of organic food and waste disposal for your pet
In addition, provide information about new ways to lower pets’ impact on the planet
Veterinarians
Belong to national organization
Perform spay or neuter for your pet; explains your flea and tick alternatives
Use products that are minimally packaged, suggest ways you can lower pets’ impact on the planet
Groomers
Use organic shampoos
Provide energyconserving ways to wash and dry pets
Provide efficient services and explain impact of your requests on the planet
Boarding
Belongs to a national organization that requires health certificates in code of ethics
Uses organic foods and green cleaning products
In addition, provides plenty of exercise so your pet is a good citizen during his boarding period
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Business Aspect
Good
Better
Best
Trainers
Belong to a national organization that requires continuing education and provides certification
Provide clear instruction in classes and privately that encourages achievement of Canine Good Citizen or equivalent for pets who appear in public (www.akc.org/ events/cgc/index.cfm)
Provide practical training for people and their pets who have problems with noise or other behaviors that are disruptive to the neighborhood
Waste services
Belong to a national organization
Provide clear evidence of policies regarding disinfection between home services
In addition, provide suggestions on how to keep your yard or home ecofriendly and safe for your pet
Pet transportation
Belong to an organization of pet care providers
Provide clear evidence of clean and mileage-efficient vehicles
Provide suggestions of service providers that emphasize commitment to the environment
Products sold
Has organic products
Product packaging is also biodegradable or recyclable
All the better products can be carried out in a reusable cloth bag
My Sustainability Score: Ecologically Sensitive Pet Services Use veterinarian
Good
Better
Best
For preventive shots
My vet helped me select flea and tick protection
We selected an all-organic diet and talked about a spay/neuter program for the neighborhood
continues
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Good
Better
Best
Use boarding
If I go on a long trip
When I need a break, I board my pet
My trainer works with my dog while boarding and then she works with me when I get home
Use trainer
I didn’t like the trainer I tried
I used a trainer for my Canine Good Citizen class
I solved major behavior problems using a trainer
Evaluate I would if I services for knew how environmental interest
I suggested lowenergy lights for the day-care facility
The local dog park has a workshop where we all trade ideas about ecofriendly services in town
Suggest services for neighbors and friends
I found a great waste removal service that the whole neighborhood is using now
Our local high school ecology club made a brochure of eco-friendly pet services
I referred to my vet once
For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 15–24 points: You have a good basis for finding more ecologically sensitive pet services. 25–34 points: You understand the basics of ecologically sensitive pet services and now you’re just learning the details. 35 points: You win the Green Pet Award for doing your best for your pet and the planet when it comes to services.
My Sustainability Plan: Ecologically Sensitive Pet Services A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved.
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In my personal service use: Review services for all pets. Do they meet my standards for eco-friendliness? Do I need the services I’m arranging for, or do I need more services? Are the services truly functional, or are they “over the top,” appealing more to my ego than to my sense of need? In my community: If I use services, are they available in my neighborhood? Do I support the services available in my neighborhood? In my personal beliefs: Am I clear about creating infrastructure in the community that can support eco-friendly service businesses? Is there a conversation I want to have in my city about making better use of gray water (any water that has been used by shower, sink, or laundry), waste collection, or other by-products of service businesses?
Resources Professional organizations educate their members, and act as a method of separating the more eager-to-learn individuals from those who are less eager to learn, to improve standards, and to improve the quality of their services. Organizations also usually have a referral service that allows you to identify reputable providers in your area.
Green Practices Northwest Earth Institute: www.nwei.org Oregon Environmental Council: www.oeonline.org U.S. Green Building Council: www.usgbc.org Northwest Earth Institute: www.nwei.org Green Seal: www.greenseal.org EPA’s Design for Environment: www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfc
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Pet Sitters Professional Organizations Pet Sitters International: www.petsit.com National Association of Professional Pet Sitters: www.petsitters.org
Pooper-Scoopers and Related Topics Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists: www.apaws.org Pet Butler: www.petbutler.com Poop Butler: www.poopbutler.com Doody Calls Pooper Scooper: www.DoodyCalls.com
Trainers and Behavior Experts American College of Veterinary Behaviorists: www.dacvb.org Association of Pet Dog Trainers: www.apdt.com Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists: www.animalbehavior.org Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers: www.ccpdt.org International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants: www.iaabc.org National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors: www.nadoi.org Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians: www.svbt.org
Veterinarian and Related American Veterinary Medical Association: www.avma.org American Animal Hospital Association: www.aahanet.org
Other Professional Organizations Pet Care Services Association: www.petcareservices.org
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Chapter 8
Pets and Community Ecology What life have you if you have not life together? There is no life that is not in community, —T. S. Eliot
In this chapter, we examine the matters that arise because our families, including our pets, live in communities. The places we live, work, and play become more crowded each year with the steady increase in both human and pet populations. Paradoxically, the emotional as well as the physical ecology of our communities require more of us each year. Despite the crowding, or maybe because of it, many of us are no longer neighborhood-oriented. We rarely treat others as we would have them treat us; because we don’t know our neighbors, their families, their pets, their stories, we have less empathy. Empathy, or at least understanding others’ points of view, is the glue that creates healthy communities. When our neighbor or someone in the park criticizes our pets’ barking or the hour we choose to walk them, working through the issues can be tough, even with cooperation. Further, the number of unwanted pets in our communities has created a crisis. Shelters are overcrowded with homeless animals while unthinking people continue to allow their pets to breed, assuming they will be able to sell the offspring. When they can’t, or when the buyer relinquishes the pet, off to the shelter the animals go. At the same time, public opinion against euthanasia is high, and discretionary spending has fallen, meaning less shelter funding. North Americans cannot support the lives of pets allowed to breed indiscriminately without giving up something else.
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If this is not enough, the days of kids and pets playing in our neighborhoods after school seem to be over, so our pets need exercise periods in dog parks or in special off-leash recreation areas, but our numbers mean less space for everyone, including pets. Gone also seem to be the days when children buried pets in vacant lots and held their funerals with the neighborhood kids, when pet cemeteries and an industry around a pet’s remains would have been thought silly. Now, these services are a part of our urban life. By chapter’s end, I hope you have a notion of the good, better, best practices for living in community with pets—enough so that you can develop a plan for acting on those ideas you feel are most important. A list of resources you can use to develop and enact your plans is also included.
Community Ecology Never Envisioned Pets Imagine, for a moment, that your family and pets live on an idyllic acre, that you grow your food, that a stream of clean cool water runs through your backyard. Now imagine that five years later a community has been constructed around you, destroying your interdependent acre’s ability to refresh itself. Resources don’t flow in and out in a natural way anymore. You feel stress because of the constant construction noise. Your neighbors’ households are noisy with unsupervised animals and kids. Ecology is a study of the living and nonliving parts of an interdependent network. Our neighborhood ecosystem includes resources that move through the entire earth’s ecosystem each day, such as air and water. Our neighborhood ecosystem also includes the animals that live there permanently and those that use it as a corridor or as a temporary home. Think of hummingbirds, robins, and salmon. Although mature plants don’t usually move, seeds, spores, and other reproductive parts move by hitching a ride on animals and people, wind or water. For many of us, ecosystems also include a sense of livability, an environment in which we can sleep enough, eat enough, and interact in ways that our bodies and minds need to thrive. When ecosystems are healthy, they have the ability to refresh themselves. When an ecosystem is modified profoundly, such as in a city or an agricultural area, the interdependent network is broken and its ability to refresh itself is crippled.
Our New Ecosystems As a result, areas set up rules of law to balance natural and artificial resources (for example, city services in urban areas), and to keep individuals’ and groups’
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behavior from destroying the elements others need to have a comfortable life. Instead of an idyllic self-sufficient acre, most of us live in cities or towns. We have city water systems fed by rivers or reservoirs. We have noise ordinances. We have restaurants and stores. In these new ecosystems, pets have a role—in our homes. It is when our pets and their actions affect others that the community becomes involved. Communities where families depend on one another for goods and services (rather than managing as self-sufficient individuals in a small, isolated community) create a sense that the balance is more solid than it is. We don’t see our food grown. We don’t see our coal mined. We don’t see our landfill. Because we don’t see these things, we don’t understand what’s involved. As a result, we make decisions that overburden our ecosystems. One of the big decisions we make that burdens our environments is adding pets, one more environmental stressor. (I say this as a person who loves and keeps pets, so read on, please.)
From Privilege to Need Pets have become more prominent in our society as we have invested our resources in ways that matter to individuals, but not to society as a whole. Just because I can afford to feed and provide medical attention to pets does not mean that you find my choice helpful or even reasonable. Why do we do this? Because we can—and because pets add something to our lives. And because most of us believe we solve our pet-related problems. While pets are important to individuals of privileged cultures such as ours, they are not essential. Other aspects of our society meet most of our basic needs, described by Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs.” After individuals’ basic needs, such as food and safety, are met, they seek to satisfy feelings of belonging or love. If these needs are not met by friends and family, pets become inordinately important to satisfying that sense of belonging, or recognition, or even sense of self that we need. As a result, people become involved in “News at 11” situations of animal hoarding or keeping animals that harm others, such as the neighbor who kept the two dogs who killed Diane Whipple in her San Francisco apartment hallway in 2001. Pets become a symptom of people’s problems. The “problems” that pets create are either a symptom of lack of information about what pets need, or a symptom of the owners’ lack of caring about anyone else’s community experience. People express their aggression, their self-image, their need for peace and serenity through their pets. Let’s look at how our self-expression creates challenges for our communities.
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New Laws Suggest Communities’ Concerns When we want to see what communities perceive as problems, we can look at laws, which are widely enacted to reinforce what the community perceives as proper behavior of its members. Since 62 percent of the households in the United States include a pet, pets are a factor in almost every type of community activity. Laws, ordinances, health codes, rules, and restrictive covenants (voluntary rules dwellers agree to when they join a housing community) are major expressions of what kinds of animal behavior are commonly regarded as unacceptable.
Licensing of Pets Municipalities have passed different types of ordinances to regulate companion animals. Ninety percent of cities and counties have dog registration programs. In most locations, these licensing fees go to support the shelter system, education programs, and attempts to reunite lost pets with their owners. Many ordinances also require that animals be tagged or microchipped. Studies show that mandatory licensing systems for cats plus identification programs lead to an increase in the number of cats returned to their owners. Oddly, many people don’t license their pets, or seem aware that they should.
Animal Control Organizations’ Ordinance Enforcement Most people don’t think about animal control agencies until they have a problem with pets. Nuisances arise when animals come onto another’s land, damage property, or behave in a threatening manner. Although neighbors should be able to resolve their disputes without resorting to the court system, often this is not the case. Animal control agencies, usually administered through the city, county health director, police department, or sheriff’s office usually do many different jobs, including: Licensing of dogs and cats Leash law and other ordinance enforcement Control of free-roaming animals Investigation of animal bites
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Education and outreach concerning responsible ownership, spay/neuter programs, control of dangerous animals, and rabies vaccinations Investigation of cruelty complaints
Group Living Pet provisions are the “most frequently litigated of the lifestyle restrictions” in condominium associations. According to a survey done by the Community Associations Institute, 75 percent of residents in homeowners associations were very satisfied, about 5 percent were highly dissatisfied, and 20 percent straddled that gap. One of the most contentious issues in group living situations is pets. Homeowners associations may make any regulations the community board decides, so long as they don’t conflict with existing city, county, state, or federal statutes. In Pittsylvania County, Virginia, the board of supervisors is considering a new dog-control ordinance—requiring that dogs be fenced or leashed—that has supervisors and the neighborhood divided. In the county, except for two subdivisions, the county has no dog-control ordinances.
Pet Overpopulation: A $2.8 Billion Problem Pets come into and go out of style. You may remember the rise in popularity of the potbellied pig. Many grew larger than anticipated, and the fascination with pigs waned. Pig sanctuaries, predictably, filled. Animal welfare professionals groan each time a new animal-based movie comes out. If the hero is a Dalmatian, six months later, shelters fill with unwanted Dalmatians that didn’t live up to the fantastic behavior children saw in the movies. Many companion animal owners are responsible, but a key problem in keeping companion animals in urban areas is concern that people are not responsible for them. Issues relating to the welfare of abused and abandoned animals are of great concern to urban planners. An example repeatedly in the news is the Pit Bull, a breed of dog owned as a family pet, but a breed also trained and used for dogfighting nationwide. When the failed fighters and their offspring are abandoned, sheltering is necessary. In many cities, these animals have become the currency of the drug trade, and up to 60 percent of the animals seen in urban shelter populations are related to dogfighting.
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Although information about animals in shelters is difficult to collect with any accuracy, the pet overpopulation in shelters study results from Wenstrup and Dowidchuk (2000) are consistent with most studies that conclude: Most shelter animals are healthy adult pets (70–80 percent). Reduction in the number of puppies and kittens in shelter populations (13 percent) suggests spay/neuter efforts have reduced the population from 1970–1980 levels. About 40 percent of animals are not adoptable either for health or behavior reasons. This proportion of animals is a difficult population that must be confronted if euthanasia of shelter animals is to be eliminated. Although some agencies wish to eliminate all euthanasia, the policy of most no-kill shelters is not to euthanize healthy and adoptable animals. In other words, this population of animals is euthanized in most shelters because of the high probability the animals will hurt someone. Lack of shelter capacity creates a need to move animals through the system. In this study, about 20,000 spots were available for the 765,000 animals handled. Accordingly, the average animal remained in the shelter for 9.5 days before exiting through euthanasia, reuniting with an owner, or adoption. Surveyed shelters say that almost 50 percent of the euthanized animals were unadoptable. Cats are more likely to be euthanized than dogs. (Fewer cats are reclaimed by owners.) The average cost per animal handled in a shelter is $176. Eighty-eight percent of shelters mandate sterilization, 60 percent offer sterilization, and 29 percent offered the services free or as part of an adoption. Some estimates show that shelters handle as many as 16 million to 27 million animals annually. Using the low end of this estimate, 16 million animals per year, and a $176 cost per animal, Wenstrup and Dowidchuk calculate that about $2.8 billion is spent annually on sheltering animals. Shelter populations are dynamic, and differ in each location. The goal is for shelters to provide programs that respond to the needs of the animals in the community; that is, to place animals back into or find animals “forever homes.” Although spay/neuter programs continue to be an important part of pet overpopulation control, solutions to the problems of homeless animals will also
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have to address pet owner expectations of their animals, and appropriate solutions to the behavioral problems of companion animals.
Limiting Pets’ Numbers You don’t want a murmuration of starlings, a clowder of cats, a pack of hounds, a warren of rabbits, or anything else living in abundance in the apartment upstairs (although you might not be aware of the shoal of fish until the aquarium bursts through the plaster due to excessive water weight).
Pet Overpopulation Estimates Cats and dogs entering shelters annually
6–8 million
Cats and dogs adopted from shelters annually 3–4 million Cats and dogs euthanized by shelters annually 3–4 million Cats and dogs reclaimed by owners
600,000–750,000 (30% of dogs and 5% of cats)
Percentage of purebred dogs in shelters
25%
Number of shelters in the United States
4,000–6,000
From the Humane Society of the United States (not affiliated with local humane societies)
Spay-Neuter Programs Reduce Pet Reproduction Reducing pets’ reproductive rates is one method of reducing the pet overpopulation problem. In the United States, shelter staffs undertake the heartbreaking task of euthanizing 4 million pets each year. Either the pets are unadoptable, or homes are not available for them. If you haven’t spent an afternoon with someone working in a shelter, I would urge you to do this to gain a firsthand perspective on unwanted pets. This situation exists despite thousands of veterinarians providing low- or no-cost spay and neuter services to communities to help contain the pet overpopulation problem. On a local level, spay-neuter success stories abound. A community of 120,000 people near Simi Valley dropped their euthanasia rate from 16 animals per 1,000 people to 1.5 per 1,000 people in eight years. Making low-cost surgeries available has helped. Mobile units are now common in many urban areas. San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) pays owners $5 to bring in cats, Pit Bulls, and Rottweilers. After safety tests, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) recently endorsed the anesthesia and spay-neuter procedures developed for
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kittens and puppies as young as 6 to 8 weeks old. From the standpoint of stray animals, this new technique means that the first generation of offspring is not produced. Veterinarians and shelter staffs agree that spaying and neutering can make a difference in the overpopulation problem. But spaying and neutering is half of the equation. The other half is education of the population about self-regulating the number of pets we produce.
Legislation: Sterilization and Breeding Bans Although states as diverse in their outlooks as California and Tennessee have proposed legislation regarding sterilization and breeding bans, many veterinarians and shelter workers prefer to see education rather than legislation. According to the AVMA, no state mandates all pet owners to sterilize their animals. However, tough spay-neuter legislation includes examples such as the following: Rhode Island requires spaying or neutering of all cats unless the caretaker has a breeding permit, the caretakers adopting cats have agreed to sterilization, or a veterinarian states that an animal’s health is at risk. In 2008, Los Angeles County enacted one of the nation’s toughest ordinances requiring altering of most dogs and cats by 4 months of age. Exempt animals include show dogs, sporting competitors, guide dogs, police agency dogs, and professional breeders’ dogs. The California Assembly passed a similar measure in 2007, but the measure failed in the Senate. Connecticut requires kennel owners or keepers who breed more than two litters of dogs annually to obtain a license. The AVMA reports that state statutes requiring shelter animal sterilization are relatively common. California’s law allowing local communities to require breed-specific sterilization faces court challenges. Clearly, pet overpopulation is a problem that has a societal cost. No one in the shelters likes euthanizing animals. What pet owners sometimes fail to realize is that our lack of responsibility is what forces the situation. Breeding backyard pets is a luxury that we cannot afford. If pet owners are not willing to face the situation honestly, breeding ban legislation may be a juggernaut curbing the costs of public and private shelters to our communities. Laws requiring licensing of cats and prohibiting free-roaming cats have not yet been successful.
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Each Area’s Population Problems Are Unique Different areas have different issues related to pet populations. An example is Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Animal Care and Control’s problems in 2007. The city’s homeless pet population soared, and the public shelter had to appeal for funds. Although private nonprofit agencies often assist communities, Fort Wayne had a shortage of private rescue groups. Spay and Neuter Service was founded in 1983 by eleven veterinarians and provides sterilizations for 25–50 percent of the actual cost of the procedures. But the 2,800 animals sterilized annually by this group addresses only part of the problem. In 1990, Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control had 7,000 animals come through its doors. By 2006, those numbers had increased to more than 14,000. This problem is different from the problems faced by other communities in which spay-neuter programs are doing their job, but the mortgage crisis has resulted in skyrocketing numbers of pets without homes when families moved to rental housing that does not allow pets. In other words, more legislation does not really address the problems. The problems are unique to local areas.
Other Options on Reducing Pet Reproduction Veterinarians have long wished for drugs or contraceptive vaccines that block some component of an animal’s reproductive system. With such methods, shelters would be able to sterilize dogs and cats with a lower level of expertise, equipment, and time than surgical procedures require. Ideal contraceptives would also be permanent, require a single dose, and provide the same health benefits as surgical procedures. New pharmaceutical agents have been developed and are being tested in the United States and in Australia and New Zealand. In addition, a promising development using a genetically engineered bacterium induces antibody formation to block sperm from fertilizing eggs in cats.
Veterinary Opinions on Mandatory Spay-Neuter Legislation Points for Legislation
Points against Legislation
Owners don’t realize the importance of spay/neuter until they have animals with expensive reproductive problems that were preventable.
Who would enforce legislation and how would we pay for it?
continues
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Points for Legislation
Points against Legislation
Breeding should be left to well-educated breeders and not for others who want to breed for fun.
Instead, have health department fine owners with unneutered pets or increase the licensing fees for unneutered pets.
If you had to do the euthanizing, you would support the legislation.
This is an issue of property rights. Educating owners on needs of spay-neuter programs and procedures makes more sense than focusing on punishing violators.
Comments collected from DVM Newsmagazine, 2007–8
For assistance in finding low-cost spay-neuter clinics, please call Northshore Animal League America’s nationwide referral network toll-free at 1-800-248-SPAY (1-800-248-7729). Phone counselors are available Monday–Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST. Information on Northshore Animal League’s service is also available on the web at www.spayusa.org.
No-Kill Shelters Organizations that advocate for no-kill sheltering look to end euthanasia of healthy and treatable (adoptable) dogs and cats. These shelters make a commitment to house animals until they can be adopted, or to deflect animals to other shelters. Few county shelters can meet this standard because they have the obligation to take animals that are brought to them, regardless of whether space is available or whether they are adoptable. No-kill shelters do not adopt out animals that cannot be treated or whose temperament issues cannot be eliminated. In these cases, no-kill shelters do resort to euthanasia. In order to bring the estimated 5,000 shelters in the United States to this level of performance, considerably more resources need to come together to reduce the number of pets born each year, and to reduce the number of animals leaving their original homes, thus reducing the demands placed on the shelter systems.
Restrictions by Community Restrictions occur in the form of a city ordinance or a subdivision covenant that limits types and numbers of animals to be kept by each resident.
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Sometimes the purpose is to keep a common appearance throughout the subdivision. Sometimes the covenant has to do with the types of animals the resident wishes to keep. Another concern addressed by these covenants or ordinances is the “animal hoarders,” people who accumulate so many animals that none can be cared for even with minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, and veterinary care. The covenant or ordinance allows the community to remove the animals based on the numbers without having to prove animal cruelty. Local laws may restrict the number or type of animal you can keep on a property, even if a person owns the real estate.
Myths and Truths about Spay-Neuter Procedures Myths about spay and neuter procedures: They deprive animals of sexual activity. They require an animal to be 6 months old. They’re expensive. They’re just for dogs and cats. Truths about spay and neuter procedures: They reduce spraying and marking in males and attraction of males to females. Animals have less desire to roam, reducing fights and auto accidents. Risks of mammary gland tumors, and of ovarian and testicular cancer are eliminated. They decrease aggressive behavior, including dog bites. According to the AVMA, the number one reason to spay and neuter animals is that the capture, impoundment, and eventual destruction of unwanted animals cost taxpayers and private humanitarian agencies over a billion dollars each year. As a potential source of rabies and other less serious diseases, they can be a public health hazard.
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Pet Aggression Although the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association’s Task Force on Canine Aggression puts animal control agencies on the front lines of controlling animal bites, the fact is that most animal control agencies are not wellfunded enough to do this job. Dog bite liability is a serious issue in the United States. An estimated 4.7 million people are bitten in the United States each year. Estimates are that 500,000 to 1 million dog bites annually in the United States require medical attention. Seventy percent of the incidents occur on the dog owner’s property, and half of all children will be bitten by age 12. Beginning in 1970, threats to the public from dog bites rose with the association of dogs with trade in illegal drugs. Under most state laws, the owner is responsible for the expenses and damages resulting from dog bites. The Insurance Information Institute states that dog bites account for one-third of all homeowner’s insurance claims. When dog owners are tenants, property owners are also liable for damages. Although collecting information on dog bite circumstances is difficult, the AVMA Task Force on Canine Aggression and Human-Canine Interaction does report that unneutered male dogs are involved in 70 to 76 percent of reported dog biting incidents. What is also true is that communities can reduce dog bite incidence if they focus on the problem. The State of Nevada was able to reduce their bite incidence by 15 percent using a community-based program focusing on dog bite prevention. Successful programs include coordination among the veterinary community and animal control agencies, along with public outreach and education about the factors of most importance in a particular community. Since children are most often dog bite victims, educating children about dog-related safety is important. Animal control agencies cannot do all the education they would like to because care of relinquished animals consumes most available funds. Fortunately, other resources are available for families. The American Kennel Club (AKC) developed an excellent way to teach kids about dogs. The booklet and DVD combination, Safety around Dogs, teaches kids what friendly and unfriendly dogs’ faces and tails look like, what to do if they see a strange dog, and how to protect themselves if a dog is running in their direction. Parents can order booklets and a related DVD from the AKC’s Raleigh, North Carolina, office at www.akc.org or 919-233-9767. Aggression in pets of any kind is very dangerous; if you feel threatened or believe that your pet threatens your children, whether ferret or snake, cat or dog, you need to take action immediately. Aggression in animals increases with each incident, and it is essential that you understand what triggers the aggression. Then you must make a decision about how to handle the situation.
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Training is the answer to most aggression problems, and most can be easily solved if acted upon immediately. Contact your veterinarian right away for a referral to an animal behavior specialist or a professional group of trainers to help you evaluate and correct the situation. In addition to your veterinarian, you might try the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, or the Delta Society for a referral.
Roaming Pets Roaming pets spread disease. Disease includes both harmful organisms and “dis-ease,” a lack of ease in the neighborhood. Roaming pets leave waste behind, frighten children and the elderly when they appear from nowhere, and give chase. Uncontrolled pets can damage property.
What Adults Should Know about Canine Aggression toward Children A study by the Behavior Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and published in Injury Prevention focused on dog bites. Some important findings: Most children are bitten by dogs who have no history of biting children. Dogs guarding food or toys bit children under 6. Dogs guarding territory bit older children. Attempting to punish dogs was often stimulus for the aggression. Children unfamiliar to the dog were at risk in the dog’s home, yard, or perceived territory, regardless of whether they interacted with the dog. Dog breeds, gender, neuter status, or training history didn’t define biters. Pain or disease increases the risk that a pet will bite.
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Although rabies is not often seen because of the vaccination requirements of most states, roaming pets may not be vaccinated and are in positions to contact potential carriers of rabies and other diseases such as feline leukemia. There is significant lack of agreement about licensing, vaccinating, and controlling cats—in fact, what constitutes responsible cat ownership. The public has a history of allowing domestic cats to roam. As society becomes more crowded, this situation of roaming pets cannot reasonably continue.
Unowned or Feral Cats An additional large problem, one that many leaders in the humane movement see as the largest challenge, is the estimated 30 to 80 million homeless roaming cats. These stray and feral cats live outdoors, are prolific breeders, and can produce as many as three litters each year. In contrast to the people who would eliminate the colonies of free-living cats that forage around marinas, in alley garbage containers, and just about anywhere else food is available, a substantial number of people believe that feral cat colonies will always exist and that colony management should be the goal. In an unusual partnership in San Mateo, California, the Peninsula Humane Society works with the local Homeless Cat Network to provide care, including vaccination and sterilization, for local feral cats. The cooperation is a nod to a way of thinking that might be termed “animal rights.” Colony caretakers trap unvaccinated and unsterilized cats. Veterinarians surgically tip the left ear of the cats that have been treated and neutered, so that colony managers know on sight which cats should be released and which cats need to be taken to the shelter for attention. The society provides traps, free sterilization, vaccinations, and testing. Peninsula Humane’s success came from the 350 caretakers who worked in California’s mild climate and were successful in dropping the numbers of cats in colonies from 1,200 to 600. The life of a feral cat is usually short; if individuals don’t reproduce, the colonies contract through attrition.
Monk Parakeets and Other Free-Living Former Pets Other feral animals who live and breed on their own create public problems, especially in environments that are relatively easy living. Generally, these animals arise from the release of unwanted pets. Many cities have small groups of feral parrots; some of these parrots cause problems. Monk (or Quaker) Parakeets, small and harmless-looking birds, charming, really, create large colonial nests. In their South American native environment, these nests are part of
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the landscape. Illegal to own or sell in California, Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Connecticut, Wyoming, Monk Parakeet ownership is restricted in a variety of ways in other states. Why? Farmers are always concerned about predation on their crops by any population of birds. In addition, Monk Parakeets construct very large nests, up to a meter (3.2 feet) in diameter and weighing as much as 200 kg (440 pounds). The birds construct these long-lasting nests shared by an entire colony on various tall structures, including power poles, causing electrical service interruption. In chapter 2, you learned about free-swimming Nile Monitor Lizards, happy Burmese pythons in the Everglades, and feral snakes in Guam. Many sad stories of environments destroyed by pets and former pets exist.
Some of the Flocks of Free-Living Parrots in the United States and Canada Bird Type
State
Monk Parakeet
Alabama
Cities
Monk Parakeet, California Red-crowned Parrot, Yellow-chevroned, Parakeet, Whitewinged Parakeet
Arcadia, Los Angeles Co. (especially San Gabriel Valley; also N. San Fernando Valley, Pasadena), Orange Co. (vicinity of Orange, Santa Ana, and Tustin); San Diego Co. (El Cajon); also small populations on the Monterey Peninsula, San Francisco, and Sacramento area
Monk Parakeet
Connecticut
Bridgeport
Monk Parakeet
Delaware
Monk Parakeet, Florida Red-crowned Parrot, Yellow-chevroned Parakeet, Whitewinged Parakeet
Boca Raton, Brevard Co., Broward Co. (including Ft. Lauderdale), Dade Co. (including Miami), Jacksonville, Key Largo, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Pinellas Co., Pasco Co., Orange Co., West Palm Beach (Palm Beach Co.)
Monk Parakeet
Illinois
Chicago
Monk Parakeet
Louisiana
New Orleans
Monk Parakeet
New Jersey
Monk Parakeet
New York
Monk Parakeet
Oregon
Portland
Monk Parakeet
Rhode Island
Barrington, Warwick
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State
Monk Parakeet, Texas Red-crowned Parrot
Monk Parakeet, White-winged Parakeet
Puerto Rico
Monk Parakeet
South Carolina
Monk Parakeet
Washington
Monk Parakeet
Quebec
Cities Austin, Brownsville, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Harlingen (Cameron Co.), McAllen and Mission (Hidalgo Co.), San Antonio (Bexar Co.), San Marcos (Hays Co.)
Vancouver
Data courtesy of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
Noise from Pets Here is where the fish and guinea pig–keeping families can skip ahead (unless your neighbors keep noisy pets). Many pets are noisy by nature. Dogs bark to protect their territory and sometimes because they are bored. Birds call to others in the flock, with voices designed to carry through the trees, early each morning and each afternoon. For neighbors trying to enjoy their backyard or sleep with the windows open during warm weather, barking dogs and calling birds can be annoying. Warm weather is the perfect atmosphere for conflict. Not only does hot weather make people cranky, but also the noise from mowers and motorcycles and loud parties makes the situation ripe for your pets’ voices to prod your neighbors into hostile action. Prevention is your goal. Pet owners should make an effort to know their neighbors, and, over time, develop a habit of checking in with them to see how your pets are doing in your efforts to keep them neighborhood good citizens. Your effort will pay dividends in complaints avoided, and with the neighbors recognizing and returning your pet Houdini if he escapes. If the problem is your neighbor’s pet—a barking dog, for example—the experts say the direct approach is the best and a cool head is required. Talk to your neighbor directly. Use a matter-of-fact tone. Say something like, “I couldn’t get to sleep last night because your dog barked. I wonder if something can be done.” Another point is to find out whether other neighbors are bothered. If they are, ask them to let your neighbor know. This allows the dog owner to see that you aren’t the sole cranky neighbor, but are one of a group of people with a request to see what can be done about the noisy pet.
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Neighborhood organizations can help. Neighborhood associations sometimes have a committee that may be able to send someone to discuss the situation with the noisy animal’s human. You may learn, for example, that your neighbor is caretaking a bedbound spouse and is as concerned about the noise as you, but too overwhelmed to do anything about it. Most animal control departments have advice to offer. Some will send a letter on behalf of the neighborhood, explaining the consequences for animals’ consistently disturbing the neighborhood. Jot down dates, times, durations, and descriptions of the offending pet and the address of the home where the noise is taking place. A creative idea is to invite your neighbor over for a social occasion at the time the animal disturbs everyone. This can give your neighbor a new perspective. Another resource may be your local police department’s office of neighborhood involvement.
Pet Waste Pet feces are a topic that creates passion among neighborhood residents. Researchers at DePaul University conducted research on how to stop the depositing of dog feces in neighborhoods. Not only does dog “litter” damage aesthetics, but it promotes health problems through infections and parasites. The problem is that no one likes to pick it up. For neighbors bordering the sidewalk, DePaul researchers found that erecting a fence of 0.3m (1 foot) posts placed every 1.5m (5 feet) on borders of the lawn, connected by a 0.003m (1/10 inch) thick string, eliminated the dog-dropping problem. In unfenced areas, researchers found that an intervention program was effective. Community members informed dog owners about the ordinance and offered a newspaper or plastic bag for removal. This program’s effect lasted for several days. To gain more lasting results, the community hosted interventions for six separate Sundays for a period of nine hours each day. As late as six months later, the dog litter had been reduced by 85 percent. Cat waste is a more difficult problem. So long as communities allow cats to roam, your loose garden soil, ideal for cat toileting, will be filled with cat feces unless you take measures to make it an uncomfortable place for cats to be. The worst part of this story is that most cat owners never experience the problem because their cats go elsewhere, away from their own territory to toilet. Here are the top ways to deter cats from your property. For product sources, see the resources section at chapter’s end. Talk, in a friendly way, with your neighbors about their cats’ toileting habits. Suggest that they place a litter box inside, or maintain a mosscovered pit in their own backyards so that their cats will toilet at home.
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Lure the cats from your garden with a more desirable location. Plant catnip around a small sandbox in a corner of the yard. (Cats prefer fine sand to garden soil.) Preferably, neighbors could use this approach in their own yards to attend to their cats’ needs. If you need to guard specific plants, a border of red pepper or prickly surfaces or mulches will repel cats. Electronic repellents can work well. Several claim to emit cat-specific frequencies. Install motion-activated sprinklers, to spray visiting cats with a strong spray from the garden hose. Coyote or lion urine repels cats. Distribute pellets along the border of your property.
Pets in Public Spaces In 2007, Forbes magazine created a “top 10” list of cities friendly to pets. The criteria included generous public space, veterinary care, and pet-friendly retailers. Colorado Springs landed in the top 20 in all categories (closely followed by my fair city, Portland, Oregon). Men’s Health and other nonpet publications followed with their own lists. Winning cities had a median population of 500,000, large enough for amenities, but without overly dense populations. Pet-friendly cities give enough space to the pets and to the people whose worlds don’t revolve around their pets. Pet owners want off-leash dog parks, bags and waste-disposal stations in parks, and recognition by businesses and living spaces that pets are members of many families—in other words, allowing them inside on a leash. In the public spaces, the pets are largely dogs, but cats are also important members of the community, especially when they roam, or increasingly as they are leashed. Exotic pets are also seen in public city spaces.
On the Trail On the trail, people generally come in two groups: the ones who bring their dogs, and the ones who wish there were no dogs allowed on trails. Particular concerns that people express include: Aggressive dogs: Many people leave their untrained and out-of-control dog off leash. Hikers who don’t like dogs are angry or afraid when unleashed dogs approach them on the trail.
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Wildlife: Unleashed dogs harass wildlife on trails. Some wilderness areas operate on a wildlife-related dog ban. Parks that include skittish wildlife need a way to protect their species from the anxiety running and barking dogs can cause. Water degradation: Several areas ban dogs because of watershed problems. Giardia is thought to have come from dogs in watersheds. Once there, beavers take up the virus and transmit it. The wilderness experience: Some backcountry hikers believe that the wilderness experience does not include man’s best friend. Although there are annoying dogs, not everyone is careless and disrespectful of hikers. Hikers and their dog companions should take care to obey the leash laws and ensure that their dogs are well trained. Parks have different policies about dogs. U.S. national parks allow dogs in paved or developed areas, but not on backcountry trails. National forests and federal wilderness areas have regulations set by the local forest supervisor, who decides whether leashes are required, barking is prohibited, or dogs are banned altogether. The Bureau of Land Management allows dogs except where restoration of habitat or wildlife is occurring, when leashes are required. State parks are among the least friendly for dogs. Most Canadian provincial and national parks allow leashed dogs on trails.
On the Sidewalk In most urban European and American communities, professional dog walkers walk packs of dogs at one time. The dogs walk together well, but lone dogs and sensible people are intimidated at the sight of five animals consuming the sidewalk space rushing in their direction. Dog walkers should be aware that they need to share the sidewalk. (As a lone dog-walker, your best bet is to find a place to pull off the sidewalk until the pack passes by.) Another common situation includes the leash-law-abiding citizen and their dog approached by someone who has decided to walk their dog without the leash. (Usually they are holding a leash, which they don’t intend to use unless approached by an animal control officer.) A Prevention magazine article explains an important secret about this common situation. Michael Fox, DVM, Ph.D., from the Humane Society of the United States says, “Any dog on a leash [yours] is going to feel more aggressive than a loose dog [theirs]. If a [loose] dog is approaching, wagging his tail, your best bet is to drop your leash
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and back off slowly. Your dog is less likely to feel the need to attack if he’s not tied.” Most dog owners don’t understand this, and the unleashed dog owner assumes your dog is unfriendly. This is not at all the case. If both dogs are leashed—no problem.
Dog Parking Tickets In cities and towns, many owners park their dogs, tying their leash to a bicycle rack, a light pole, or a parking meter to dash into a store to pick up a quart of milk or a coffee shop to get java to go. For the most part, owners bring and tether dogs that have a proper temperament and are accustomed to waiting quietly for their owners. In California, this is illegal. The state defines dogs tethered to immobile objects as unattended or abandoned and subject to impoundment. The law was intended to address an issue of animal cruelty—the practice of tethering dogs permanently outside homes. This practice not only encourages aggressiveness in dogs, but also makes it more likely a dog will be subjected to extremes of weather or the taunting of people without conscience. Your state or town may also have restrictions on tethering dogs. In general, tethering your dog seems an unnecessary risk. Many people take their dogs on neighborhood errands and tie their dogs outside, particularly in doggy towns like Boulder or Portland. Hazards include having your dog stolen, or having someone provoke your dog into an unpleasant situation. Why put your dog at risk? Would you tie your child outside?
Dogs and Sidewalk Dining People who are out with their dogs sometimes need or want to refuel. But where? Restaurants don’t allow dogs inside. State law governs restaurant health codes, and many of those laws incorporate the FDA Food Code, which says: Food employees may not . . . handle animals that may be present. . . . Live animals may be allowed . . . in areas that are not used for food preparation and that are usually open for customers, such as dining and sales areas . . . if a health or safety hazard won’t result from the presence or activities of . . . the animal.
Restaurants sometimes allow pets on patios with a separate entrance, or in sidewalk dining such as in outdoor cafes. To do this, they usually get a variance from the state or local food establishment laws. In addition to variances restaurants might obtain, some cities or counties create standardized variances or a
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local ordinance. These tools were used by Alexandria, Virginia, and Austin, Texas, to provide for dogs to accompany outside diners. The most liberal laws are in California, which allows dogs in outside seating, so long as the dog does not have to pass through the restaurant to that seating area. Despite the state allowing dogs at outside seating, and despite the prohibition for local ordinances that contradict this provision, the decision is still the restaurant owner’s. Therefore, you might be refused outdoor seating in California for that reason. Alternatively, the local health inspector may not apply the law correctly. Dogfriendly.com explains that in Washington State, “Animals are not allowed on the premises of a food establishment, including outdoor seating areas.” In the absence of variances, in Washington State you can dine with your dog only if you carry out food and eat on a public bench or picnic table. To find a list of restaurants in the United States and Canada that allow dogs, consult Dogfriendly.com. In addition, keep in mind that restaurants do change their policies from time to time. Although most restaurateurs will tell you that dogs are generally better behaved than children, many restaurant insurers don’t see dogs as a reasonable risk for restaurants to take.
In the Park Open spaces dwindle as our human population increases, and large backyards are disappearing. Yet dogs need exercise, and lots of it. Dogs that don’t get exercise develop health problems and behavior problems that can lead to them losing their homes. Some parks are created exclusively for dogs. (See “The Dog Park,” later in this chapter.) However, most dogs share space with other park users in multiuse city and county parks. Being a good citizen in these parks means picking up after your dog and keeping your dog under control at all times, including keeping him leashed except in clearly marked “off-leash” areas. Sometimes it doesn’t seem necessary to follow the rules. Nevertheless, it’s our responsibility to do so, and as citizens living in our communities, following the rules leads to a more harmonious way of living. Efforts to eliminate invasive species and to restore indigenous species in parks are harmed by animals running loose, digging in the borders, or leaving waste in sensitive areas. The community of small or microscopic plants and animals that are part of those native communities may not be obvious to you, but they are present. Given the stresses that our urban environments place on these native wildlife, there should be a few protected places where remnants of the original environment can thrive. If you want a place that is just for your off-leash exercise, head to the dog park.
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How Pets Create Community In a paper in the journal Society and Animals, Lisa Wood describes the ripple effect of companion animals on neighborhood interaction and sense of community despite the fact that the negatives of pet residency in neighborhoods (such as dog bites and noise) dominate the news. Her study, in Australia, found that pets helped neighbors develop relationships that led to favor exchanges, civic engagement, neighborhood friendliness, and a sense of community. Her study suggested that pets have an effect extending beyond their guardians to the non– pet owners and the broader community. These findings included the following: Pets may increase the sense of community health and well-being. Pets play a role in neighbors getting to know one another on their street and more widely in the community. Neighbors stop to talk with the dog, and then with the person. Pet-specific favors created “social capital.” Pet owners were more likely to be engaged and active within the community. Pet owners were out in the neighborhood, leading to feelings that the community was safe. Pets contribute to the social and community interaction within neighborhoods, acting as a type of “social lubricant.” Pets can be a valuable and positive feature of community and neighborhood life. In addition to the geographic community that pets influence, pets also influence people to socialize with each other based on their pet-related interests with people throughout the city, state, and country. We’ll look at a few of those types of communities including the relatively new development of dog parks and the social networks surrounding dogs enhanced by online technologies.
The Dog Park Spending time at the dog park can provide a source of friends for dogs and their humans, but dog parks are not for everyone—person or dog. While it is true that a tired dog is a dog that is more trainable and more compliant, experiences at the park are varied. Some dogs don’t do well in dog parks. The dogs in the middle, the ones that are okay with just about everything, do pretty well. Timid dogs and dogs that can be aggressive (even if what triggers their aggression is frustration about a mate who does not want to play) don’t.
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Dog parks vary in their accoutrements and in their rules. Pit Bulls, for example, are not allowed in Nashville, Tennessee, off-leash areas and are limited to six-foot leashes in other parks. What most park officials tell you is that dog parks are getting incredible amounts of use. Most parks are self-governed by a group of regulars or an actual committee making and enforcing the rules. For some humans, this doesn’t work so well. If your needs are different than those of the majority, find a different park. Conflicts that arise among people sometimes spill over and include their animals. An issue for parks is having areas for different-sized dogs. Small dogs need their own enclosure to prevent accidental injuries from larger dogs, and to prevent aggressive behavior from smaller dogs who may be intimidated by the larger dogs’ strength. Cheryl Smith has written an excellent book, Visiting the Dog Park: Having Fun, Staying Safe, that is well worth your time, whether you’re considering your first visit to a dog park or whether you’d like to have more fun while you’re there.
Trends: Improving the Dog Park Community and Environment Trends in dog parks include a variety of services, safety measures, and environmental improvements. As the number of dog parks grow, so does the exchange of information about the parks and the innovations tried in different locations.
Safety One surprising development is the use of electronic access cards in cities as diverse as Charlotte, North Carolina; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Detroit, Michigan. A major use of the cards is related to safety and responsible dog handling. When incidents occur in dog parks, park officials want to know what happened: how the incident started, what persons or dogs were involved, and who witnessed it. Electronic access cards ensure that when something unusual does happen, park officials can interview the people present at the time. Some parks, like Alpharetta Georgia’s Royal Paws, require a temperament evaluation for dogs before they are okayed to use this paid membership park. Staff members supervise the park, which includes a swimming lake. The park provides clean and plentiful toys and water bowls, and includes a small-dog area, important for tiny canines’ safety.
Environment Notre-Dame-de-Grace, a dog park in Montreal, offers a large-scale dog-waste composting project. Each year, this project diverts over a ton of dog waste, 300 tons of sawdust, and more than 7,000 plastic bags from landfill from this one
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location. Since 2003, the finished compost, belonging to members of the dog park, is used in pots of flowers that decorate the park as well as park members’ home garden projects. Note: Only commercial-grade composting, like the composting process used by this park, elevates and sustains the high temperatures required to kill parasites.
Amenities White Rock Lake Dog Park in Dallas, Texas, has a vending machine that caters to its clientele, dispensing pickup bags, leashes, collars, and toys. Sale proceeds benefit the dog park.
Dog Park Tips The dog park atmosphere is not for every dog or every person. The best dogs for a dog park are friendly dogs of medium size. Vaccinate and immunize your dog; you have no idea whether others have. Don’t bring food or your dog’s favorite toy to a park. Bring something he likes, but not something that could trigger aggression in other dogs, or increase the chance your dog will become aggressive. In the park, your job is to monitor your dog. Don’t read a book or get too involved in talking. That is when accidents happen. Dogs are killed in dog parks every day. Sometimes the combination of dogs in the park is poor and you should take your dog home. Rough-and-tumble big dogs are not appropriate companions for your Italian Greyhound. A park full of Maltese is not a good place for your Boxer. Size and temperament matter. Having children inside a dog park enclosure is never a good idea. The biggest problem in dog parks is people who think the rules are only for others. Do your best to encourage others to recognize and adhere to the park’s policies, including supervision, cleanup, and appropriate temperament of participating dogs.
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In Richmond, California, Point Isabel Regional Park, at 23 acres, is the largest public off-leash dog park in the United States, with over 500,000 dog visits per year. It offers a view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge as well as fields, trails, and dog swimming in San Francisco Bay. Conveniently located adjacent to the park is a self-service dog wash. Not everyone loves dog parks. In June 2007, a Philadelphia suburban dog park was closed after nearby residents filed an injunction with the city court. The complaints about this park were noise, odor, and code violations. To keep your dog park operating, make sure that while you’re there, users pick up feces, keep their dogs under control, and limit excessive noise that will provoke nearby residents.
Dog Play Groups Smaller dog play groups, arranged privately, work better for some people and dogs than the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the dog park. You can organize a group with neighborhood friends, or through one of the online communities such as Meetup.com. Through online groups you can organize a local group, or find one already meeting up face to face. A search of Meetup.com’s 37,000 local groups shows many breed-specific playgroups in my city. The great news is that you might find a group of like-minded or like-mixed dogs for play.
Social Networks and Breed Clubs You can find a social network and information about your dog’s breed (or mix) at Dogster.com. Sister site Catster.com provides the same cozy community feeling for the feline inclined. Dogster and Catster have large communities of visitors—more than 750,000 each month. You’ll find an online community, businesses, and people who live nearby, if you wish. Other breed clubs can be found through the American Kennel Club web site at www.akc.org.
Effects of Giving Pets as Gifts Giving a pet as a gift is disastrous for the environment. Each Christmas and Easter, public service announcements and stories run about the effects of pets as gifts, but many of the people listening assume that their situation is an exception because “Cary’s always wanted an Iguana.”
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Aunt Tiffany remembers Cary at age 3 pointing to an iguana on television and screaming she wanted one. Cary was actually pointing to the cookies on top of the television. Twenty-five years later, Tiffany’s boss asks if anyone wants an iguana. Tiffany remembers Cary’s request and well, the holidays are coming up. One thing leads to another and Cary gets a two-foot long pet that scares the daylights out of her. Since they live in Florida, Cary’s husband, who hates to see Cary frightened, “accidentally” lets Kongo the Iguana out the porch door, and watches him disappear into the dense foliage. Happily for Kongo and unhappily for the environment, Kongo finds another of his kind and they reproduce in Florida’s lush environment. They dine on neighbors’ shrubs and fruit trees; their nest burrows undermine sidewalks, and their offspring have taken to defecating in neighborhood pools, leading to outbreaks of salmonella. Although Aunt Tiffany didn’t intend these consequences, she’s responsible for what happened. Baby ducks, rabbits, puppies, kittens, snakes—gifts of pets are a mistake. Give a gift of a book about a pet, or a ticket to a zoo, or a contribution to your local humane society instead. Really, you’ll be helping the environment and your friends.
Green Choices about Pet Remains When a pet died in our neighborhood, all the kids dug a hole, reverently placed the pet in the bottom, covered him with a blanket, and held a funeral service. Never did we give a thought to groundwater contamination, or disease, or anything except ritualizing the end of our pet’s life. By contrast, I remember my parents buried our two Red-eared Slider Turtles “at sea.” My sister and I were horrified. In the twenty-first century, life is more complicated, and those of us caught in the chasm between our instincts for the simple and the ecologically correct and lack of knowledge may paralyze our decision concerning a beloved pet’s remains. None of us wants to think about the choices that we’ll have to make when our pets die: however, thinking about it now saves heartache and environment-ache later.
Attitudes about Remains Because pet trends tend to mirror trends for human beings (as well as the fact that little research has been done on the ecology of pet burials), a quick review of human burial traditions and the consequences for the environment can help us understand the implications of these traditions when applied to pets.
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Until the 1900s, most people were buried in family plots or village cemeteries with simple graveside services. Embalming became common with the Civil War when the armies tried to preserve dead soldiers for the journey home. (Thank goodness, few pets are embalmed, although there are services that freeze-dry your pet.) By 2000, most of the 2.3 million U.S. residents who died annually were embalmed, with only 600,000 being cremated. Embalming is an optional process, required by standards of decency only if a body has not been buried, cremated, refrigerated, or sealed in a casket within twenty-four hours. A recent poll by AARP reports that 8 percent of those responding wanted a traditional cemetery burial, 18 percent chose cremation, and 70 percent chose a green burial—the equivalent of the pre–Civil War system of unembalmed burial in shrouds or wooden boxes. Since the trends for animals follow those for humans, this is good news. For green burials, whether pets or human beings, accommodation is made for preserving water sources. As in the distant past when this practice was understood, preserving water quality requires that burial take place at some distance from the water, the practicalities of which are dictated by the water table in the region.
Toxic Burials The processing of the dead creates concerns for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The use of fossil fuels for a cremation adds about 50 kg of carbon dioxide to our atmosphere. In addition, the burning releases toxic chemicals including dioxin, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and mercury from dental fillings. If you can believe it, cremations are responsible for 16 percent of the mercury released into the air in the United Kingdom. Equally concerning to the EPA is discharge of embalming fluids from funeral homes into septic and sewage systems. Caskets and vaults contaminate groundwater by leaching arsenic, varnish, preservative, sealants, and metals. The 115,000 cemeteries in the United States are kept picture perfect by regular biocide applications.
Pet Remains Services available for the interment of human beings are now available for pets. Given enough money, you can embalm, coffin, and vault your pet, creating similar environmental problems as humans do. According to the APPA 2007–2008 survey, 39 percent of dog and cat owners arrange for burial, an increase of more than 10 percent over the previous
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year. Twenty-two percent of companions would memorialize their pet with a garden stone. Urns appeal to 10 percent for pets’ ashes, and 2 percent would purchase a casket. When animals end their lives at veterinary hospitals, your veterinarian will give you the option of receiving your animal for burial or not. A variety of burial choices is available. Pet cemeteries are common in the United States, as are cremation services for pets. You can have the ash returned to you (for scattering or placement in an urn), or some crematoria can convert ash to gems for pets as well as other family members. LifeGems is one of several companies that transmute remains into a stone you can set in a necklace or ring and keep forever. Your local animal control agency or your veterinarian can recommend providers for these services and can let you know about local regulations regarding animal burial.
Pet Cemetery Facts There are more than 600 active pet cemeteries in the United States. Most pet cemeteries operate in conjunction with other petrelated businesses. Some human cemeteries have set aside a portion of their ground for pet burials. Pets were interred around 6500 BC in the oldest known pet cemetery, discovered by archaeologist Dr. Stewart Schrever in Green County, Illinois. Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in New York, which has been operating since 1896, is now the oldest pet cemetery in the United States. Bideawee Home Association, also located in New York, is the largest pet cemetery with 5,000 pets. Of the thousands of pets that die each day, fewer than 200 are buried in pet cemeteries. Adapted and reprinted with permission from the International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematories
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The Regulations As with human bodies, jurisdictions have different regulations regarding burial of pet remains. In addition, there are regulations for companion animal disposal (aka pet burial). Cities, counties, and states each may have applicable regulations or laws. Although many of these regulations apply to livestock operations or veterinary hospitals, some address companion animals. Most of the regulations seem intended to remove the possibility of the spread of disease by contact with the remains. Burial or incineration prevents the contact, so long as the burial is at a depth that prevents animals from digging up the pet, and in a location where the groundwater does not flow directly into a water source. Burying individual animals is usually allowable; required depth varies from 0.5 feet to 6 feet deep. The most common requirement is 3 to 4 feet of dirt covering the animal, according to a special report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Green Burial and Cremation What might work best for the environment is the simple act of returning remains to the earth. You do that through burial in a shroud made of a natural fiber blanket, in your backyard, if you have one. A simple stone and a native plant can mark the spot of your favorite pet. An article in Conservation Biology explores the ecological implications of burial alternatives. The authors point out, “for most of human history, the dead simply returned to the earth,” and then explain the process using Aldo Leopold’s words: “Dust to dust” is a desiccated version of the Round River concept. . . . [A] rock decays and forms soil. In the soil grows an oak, which bears an acorn, which feeds a squirrel, which feeds an Indian, who ultimately lays him down to his last sleep in the great tomb of man—to grow another oak.
Projects experimenting with green burials, such as the Ramsey Creek Preserve in South Carolina, bury unembalmed bodies in biodegradable caskets, preserving the environment with the few rough trails and memorial stones lying flat and of local origin. Green burials are catching on in the United States and in Canada. In the United Kingdom, citizens can choose from more than 200 natural burial grounds.
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Pet Cremation Cremation requires energy, but conserves space. Cremation is a process that incinerates the body of your pet to temperatures up to 1,600°F for one to two hours for a 40-pound dog. Remains are then the consistency of ash and small pebbles. Cremation can be communal (with other pets), separated into separate trays, but fired together, or individually—the most expensive option. Services track your pet’s body with an identification number throughout, if you request it, so that you can have the ashes returned to you for scattering or burial elsewhere. Costs for these services vary from free to about $1,000. The good news is that newer cremation burners incinerate many pollutants, and crematoriums are beginning to purchase carbon offsets for their burning. Our animals offer us a choice to learn about returning to the original, and perhaps more healing process, of a simple burial, graveside grieving, and the knowledge that from our loved one, our community regains the materials from which to grow new life.
Pets and Community Ecology: The Future Pets are part of North American ecology, whether we like it or not. Proactive families create lifelong homes for their pets. For the families who don’t, the community has to pick up the responsibility for those animals, investing in wasteful and unnecessary activities. The money, time, and talent, as well as the breakdown in relationships among members of a community, make serious impacts on the community’s resources. The community, then, must band together to address a resources shortage that was avoidable. In his book The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family, Jon Katz raises the question of whether it is a reasonable expectation to require animals to act as a primary emotional support for human companions. Pet ownership could be facilitated by improved housing design. Attention to dog and cat environments can reduce behavior problems as well as improve pets’ quality of life. Proper fencing and windows allowing views without escape offer richer lives for pets. Curbside collections of all organic wastes (including pet wastes) for commercial-grade composting would eliminate potential health problems. Setting aside park areas for animals from the time housing is developed would be much less expensive than retrofitting communities overcrowded by pets and people. John Carroll said, “To be in public in ancient Athens meant to be a citizen . . . engaged in civic duties. In modern life . . . a person has lost all connotation of being a responsible citizen with duties to his community.” Here’s my thought: Let’s show Carroll is wrong.
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My Sustainability Score: Pets and Community Ecology Good
Better
Best
Pet population
I keep unneutered pets indoors and separated.
I have neutered pets.
I assist with shelter’s spay and neuter program.
Roaming pets
My dog is in a fenced yard. My cat goes outdoors but has a litter box inside.
My cat is indoors. I put my dog on a leash when I need to.
My cat is indoors. My dog is leashed except in off-leash areas where he really is under voice control.
Nuisance to neighbors
My dog goes in and out during the day and the neighbors have never complained.
My dog is inside. If I’m late coming home, a neighbor lets her outside for me.
I talked with my neighbors. My dog and cat are indoors. My neighbors have a number to reach me at work if something seems wrong.
Community nuisance
I take my dog to places where I know they are welcome. I use onand off-leash parks.
I have enrolled in Canine Good Citizen Classes or obedience training with my dog.
I use my pets in community service programs through the Delta Society or other service group.
Pet ecology activism
I write a check every year.
I volunteer at my dog park or animal shelter.
I work hard on community projects related to animals. I’m passionate about having pets, and about being responsible stewards of the environment.
For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 15–24 points: You have a good basis for improving your pet relations in the community. 25–34 points: You understand the basics of pets and community ecology and now you’re just learning the details. 35 points: You win the Green Pet Award for doing your best for your pet and the planet when it comes to community ecology and pets.
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My Sustainability Plan: Acting on Pets and Community Ecology A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved. In my home: License my cats and dogs. Spay or neuter my animals. If I have exotics or fish, I keep unneutered pets separated. Consider how to bring my cat indoors or resolve to have my next cat indoors from the beginning of her life. In my community: Talk to my neighbors about how my pets behave when I’m not home. Consider whether a dog play group or dog park might help my pet be a better, quieter neighbor. In my personal beliefs: Find out about pet burial regulations from my local animal control agency. Consider making a pledge to acquire any future pets from the local animal shelter or breed rescue.
Resources Animal Law Paper by Rebecca J. Huss (Valparaiso University Law School). “No Pets Allowed: Housing Issues and Companion Animals.” American Veterinary Medical Association, 2005.
Animal Trainers International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants: www.iaabc.org Association of Pet Dog Trainers: www.apdt.com American College of Veterinary Behaviorists: www.dacvb.org
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Repellents for Cats and Other Roaming Animals The Contech CatStop, motion-activated ultrasonic sound: www. contech-inc.com The Lentek Yard Control, ultrasonic and audible sounds combined with a startling, pulsating strobe light: www.lentek.com Silent Roar, a natural cat repellent: www.cat-repellant.info/html/ silent-roar.htm
Dog and Cat Bite Safety American Kennel Club, Safety around Dogs, DVD and workbook: www.akc.org/public_education Manelli & Associates Videos, Dogs, Cats & Kids, grades K through 4; Dogs, Cats & BIG Kids, grades 4 to 8: www.dogscatskids.com American Academy of Pediatrics brochure for parents, “What You Should Know about Dog Bite Prevention”: www.aap.org/advocacy/ releases/dogbite.pdf
Dog-Friendly Restaurants Dog Friendly state-by-state listing of dog-friendly restaurants, along with tips for correct etiquette: www.dogfriendly.com/server/travel/ guides/rest/rest.shtml
Dog Parks Dog Parks National News, a news group with information about dog parks from around the country and the world: pets.groups.yahoo.com/ group/Dogpark-National-News All Dog Parks, a list of all off-leash dog parks in the United States and Canada: www.alldogparks.com Cheryl S. Smith. Visiting the Dog Park: Having Fun, Staying Safe, available from www.dogwise.com or 800-776-2665
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Dogs on the Trail Yahoo Group, Trail Dogs: www.groups.yahoo.com/group/traildog.
Feral Cats Alley Cat Allies, information and educational materials: 202-667-3630 and www.alleycat.org
Green Burials (and Environmental Effects of Traditional Burials) Green Burial Council: www.greenburialcouncil.org Centre for Natural Burial: www.naturalburial.coop Natural Burial Association of Canada: www.naturalburialassoc.ca
Pet Population Control North Shore Animal League America, low-cost spay-neuter services and educational materials for citizens, veterinarians, schools, public service announcements for television and radio: 800-248-7729 and www.spayusa.org
Pet Population Studies National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy (NCPPSP): www.petpopulation.org
Pet Preservation Anthony Eddy’s Wildlife Studio: www.pet-animalpreservation.com Pet Preservation: www.petpreservations.com Perpetual Pet: www.perpetualpet.net
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Twenty-First-Century Issues for Pets and Sustainability Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation. —Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA (Harper’s, August 1988)
Attitudes about the status of animals depend on social, economic, and political forces. These forces create tension among businesses, scientists, cultural institutions, and consumers as they change. What matters, though, are the choices that we make. Consumers drive action with their dollars, at least in developed nations. In this chapter, we examine the larger view of our relationship to pets and to other animals, as they pertain to our planet’s sustainability. Helpful in understanding the most important choices each of us has is the Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices from the Union of Concerned Scientists. This guide focuses attention on the consumer activities that most affect our planet’s sustainability. Three household activity areas— food, household operations, and transportation—account for the majority of environmental impact by your average U.S. family. In a recent change of strategy, the animal rights movement has linked animal welfare (the humane treatment of animals) with animal rights, a philosophy that disallows use of animals for any purpose. If wealthy nations adopted the view that animals were not to be used for food or any other human purpose, economic systems would be forever changed. However, sustainable systems can be built based on an approach less radical and more likely acceptable to the vast majority of people.
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By chapter’s end, I hope you have an overview of different notions and practices for living in community with animals all around the planet. You can have companion animals, and eat meat, poultry, or fish, but to do this sustainably, we all need to make changes, as the Union of Concerned Scientists points out. To maintain your right to choose whether to become a vegan—an approach mandated by the animal rights movement, and motivated more by philosophy than ecology—you’ll learn you need to express your preferences at the ballot box and with your charitable donations, as well as with your selections in the marketplace. If you want to learn more about or act on those ideas you feel are most important, a list of resources you can use to develop and enact your plans is included at the end of the chapter.
Attitudes about Animals Are Changing People’s attitudes about animals and about pets differ depending on the country and continent on which they live and their circumstances. Attitudes in suburban Sydney, Australia, differ from fellow citizens’ on a sheep station, and differ radically from those of adults on the streets of Jaipur, India. Location and economic status are two of the points that determine perspective. Other factors include culture, childhood experiences, and whether your work puts you in daily contact with animals. Current sociological studies confirm that everywhere, companion animals play a significant role in our lives.
Humans Seek What from Animals? What is it that humankind wants from animals in the future? Two opinion leaders, Utne Reader and Paul Shepard, paired up to answer this question, at least in part, when Utne excerpted Shepard’s book Where the Wild Things Aren’t. Utne argued that Shepard’s book expressed ideas that were coming into being in our society. Ideas in the article include: People want to touch the wild and connect with nature. Pets, in a way, make this touching literally possible. People want to be seen as “the trusted friend of all beings.” Something is wrong with humanity’s relationship with nature, which has a “fragile core.” Shepard’s logic peels layers until he exposes humans’ conversion of domestic animals to surrogates for many purposes, including companionship.
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Domestic animals play a role in disease treatment—a “pet-facilitated therapy,” whether institutional or not. In opposition, some cultures require ritual cleansing after contact with dogs. On most of the planet, the dog is a “mongrel scavenger, feral . . . the target of the kick and thrown rock.”
Help in Suffering for Animals in Jaipur Stray dogs and sacred cows move through streets in this Indian city of 5 million people, where the average income per person is less than $600 per year, reports Carrie Allen in Animal Sheltering. Some people, including young children, live in the streets and scavenge in the same places as the dogs. Children cuddle the dogs, often tying pieces of string around their necks as a sort of identification or token from the child to the dog. The dogs, not exactly pets and not precisely feral, are picked up whenever possible by a program called Help in Suffering for vaccination against rabies and sterilization before being returned to their neighborhoods. This program began as an alternative to government poisoning of street dogs to reduce their numbers and prevent the spread of disease. Help in Suffering copes with cultural issues as well as funding. The strict social hierarchy of Hindus creates hurdles in finding staff to handle waste or dead animals; only the lowest caste will do this work. Furthermore, although the organization has been successful in reducing the number of street dogs, the treatment of cows, considered sacred animals, is problematic. Cows scavenging for rotting vegetables often consume the wrappers. “We’ve taken sixty pounds of plastic bags out of a cow’s stomach,” the organizer of the charity says. For starving cows and those hit by cars left to die naturally, the most humane option might be euthanasia, but the staff cannot consider this option. Seven years in prison is the penalty for killing a cow, so Help in Suffering aids cows but does not euthanize them.
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The paradox between the lavish attentions we provide to pets and then the abandonment of them transfixes Shepard. “This paradox of frenetic emotion and casual dismissal,” he says, “reveals our deep disappointment in the pet’s ability to do something, be something that we cannot quite identify.” Shepard goes on to say that “they are compensations for something desperately missing, minimal replacements for friendship in all of its meanings . . . they confuse our perception and hide the lack of a wild, nonhuman comity of players on a grand scale—a spectacular drama of life to which our human natures commit our need and expectation.” In his introduction to Shepherd’s book review, Utne Reader editor Joshua Glenn summarizes, “Our connection with pets goes far beyond ordinary ideas of ownership or even companionship: Questions of what it means to be human are, it seems, inseparable from questions about pets.” David Perkins, in his article on compassion for animals in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, also discusses our naming of pets, our belief that each has a life history, and our interpretation of their behavior (including the notion that our pets—whether sheep or dog—love us because of the greeting ritual of running to join your master) in human terms, “for we have no ready basis for understanding their inner lives except our own. The more they are seen as human, the more they have rights. And then, of course, we transfer to wild animals the ideas that pet-keeping produces.” Perkins goes on to summarize the changing view’s effect of “food, clothing, work, and sport, pitting necessity or tradition against the ethic of kindness.” Although it’s hard to imagine exactly how each child in Jaipur feels about “his” street dog, the colored strings the child places around the dog’s neck give us a glimpse. These strings, despite the festering wounds they often create in the maturing puppies, may demonstrate more emotion and value than the schizophrenic reactions that Shepard observed in his book about more privileged pet guardians.
Attitudes Are Complicated Nicholas Smith in the Australian Journal of Anthropology shows how a sustainability problem related to animals gets complicated. Smith explains that the efforts to control the number of Australia’s feral cats has been influenced by: “[A belief that shows] . . . the feral cat as a rapacious European invader predating on native wild life” Symbols that associate cats with evil
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Squabbling between dingo (the Australian wild dog) and cat lovers Comparisons between human and cat colonization of Australia as feral invasions Political linking of limiting immigration of people and cats The majority of the Australian population residing in urban environments “mythologize” Australian nature, Smith says. “Moggies,” as feral cats are sometimes called, have been the target of environmentalists and others to such an extent that a major feature of the campaign was a budget of $816 million to target feral flora and fauna, says Smith. Smith points out that cats are among many animals that have been introduced into Australia and established feral populations, including horses, camels, pigs, donkeys, and goats and the “chainsaws of the outback,” rabbits. Smith, tongue firmly in his cheek, shares a 1913 New South Wales council member’s plan to set cats loose on rabbits to “restore the balance of nature.” Today, the Australian National Conservation Association’s (ANCA) Endangered Species Unit estimates that twelve million cats roam among the brumbies (feral horses) and the two million domestic sheep, Smith says. The Victoria (Australian State) Parliament in 1994 enacted legislation requiring cat owners to register their pets with local councils as part of an effort to reduce native wildlife predation by cats. Of special concern was the local population of lyrebirds, relatively unusual and impressive birds. The registration scheme rankled; the shire of Sherbrooke exploded into violence. Hate mail and phone harassment roiled during the dawn-to-dusk curfew of cats. Finally, shotgun blasts shattered the windows of the wildlife sanctuary manager’s residence. Contrast the cats’ reception to that of the dingo. At approximately the same time, the “native Australian wild dog” was adopted as a “pure breed” Australian by the National Kennel Association, challenging the ranchers’ perception of the animal as a pest. Compared to the cats’ predation, some scientists assert that the Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) became virtually extinct because the dingo arrived in Australia. Smith colorfully concludes that Australia’s ecological anxiety has vilified the cat, not only for ecologic, but also for symbolic reasons, as a pest. Smith, by the way, does not deny that the cat does create problems for native wildlife, but he is at a loss to describe what makes wildlife “native,” and argues that “native” is not necessarily a good thing. He appears to want equal consideration to be given to the other feral detractors roaming the continent. And you thought that the situation with feral cats could be solved simply.
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Middle-Class Attitude: Compassion for Animals Since 1760, the middle class has claimed compassion for animals. This interest in animal welfare was expressed by the poet Robert Burns (1759–1796), according to David Perkins in a paper written for Texas Studies in Literature and Language. Perkins recounts, “Middle-class intellectuals in Robert Burns’ time waged a campaign for kindness to animals,” to end practices such as bull and badger baiting, field sports, and cock and dog fights. Perkins reports that the increasing urbanization “removed large parts of the population from direct experience of farming and economic dependence on it. This promoted the nostalgic, sentimental, and idealized vision of nature . . . [which] . . . led more middle-class families to live with pets as housemates.” Pet keeping had a massive impact on attitudes toward animals. Perceptions, memories, and “passions” of love, hatred, and pride were attributed to animals. In addition to Burns, Perkins mentions John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge among the Romantic poets who wrote of animals and their “new” place in the English consciousness. In fact, as Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is usually interpreted, “the killing of an animal causes the universe to kill two hundred humans and drives the perpetrator endlessly about the world in penance.”
Look Further Back Humans’ attitudes toward companion animals formed even further back. Prehistory provides insight into human attitudes, according to a 1998 article by James Serpell, associate professor of humane ethics and animal welfare at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. The article suggests that “opposition to animal sacrifice” and “non-injury towards all living things . . . can be found . . . from India to Greece dating as far back as 2,800 years.” Serpell says that from a “human-centered philosophy of Aristotle, Judeo-Christian and Islamic thought evolved.” The point of this article in Environment was that through understanding this evolution, animal rights activists could better work toward animal protection in the future.
Twenty-First-Century Animal Concepts Over the last few decades, attitudes about pets have changed dramatically, but perspectives on this depend on your nation, according to Bonnie V. Beaver, DVM, former president of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). “People throughout the world relate to animals on the basis of such factors as their society, culture, and personal values.” Dr. Beaver observes a
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bond based on economics, where those who have disposable income contemplate the moral value of animals. “Only in the countries that ‘have’ do we see a strong interest in animal welfare and rights.” In countries where food, education, and health care for people are scarce, animals are valued more for how useful they are to society. Beaver also cites the size of the international wildlife trade as 25,000 to 30,000 primates, 2 to 3 million birds, 2 to 3 million reptiles, and 5 to 6 million ornamental fish traded annually, creating serious concerns about hidden infectious diseases. Beaver characterizes North American views of pets as “schizophrenic”—with some enjoying family member status and some having “no value whatsoever.” Beaver describes Western Europeans’ view of animals as more consistent, featuring greater protection of livestock, scarcity of stray pets, and a very active animal rights movement.
Are Robo-Pets a Substitute for the Real Thing? To see some robotic pets, navigate on over to YouTube and search. You’ll find Dream Cat Smile (Yume-Neko Sumairu), a fluffy white feline priced at 8,000 yen (US$70). Sega Toys also sells a more expensive life-sized Dream Pony (Yume-Kouma). Sensors enable the pony to shake her head and swish her ears and tail in appreciation when you pet her. Dream Pony also whinnies when you turn out the lights and jerks her head in response to a sudden loud noise. Sega Toys has carved out a market for alternative pets for families unable to keep real animals; the company has developed virtual dogs and birds to capitalize on the rising demand for healing pet robots and with the allergy-ridden consumer in mind. Three new species in Sega’s Dream Pet series include another cat (modeled after a full-grown American Short Hair), an owl that looks like Hedwig from Harry Potter, a parrot, and a kitten. Robot pets look and act eerily similar to the real thing. Whether they’d suit you as well as a real pet, you’ll have to tell us. Log in to my web site (www.thiswildlife.com) and weigh in on this topic.
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In Japan, space is at a premium, so Japanese use popular robotic pets (see the sidebar in this section) or dog-renting services, says Beaver. Southeast Asia provides a different perspective; in addition to companionship, some Asian cultures use dogs as food animals. Elsewhere, animals are sources of survival. Scientific investigation into the animal-human bond is certainly gaining steam and is a topic of interest by all different aspects of the animal-loving community.
Companion Animals More Valuable Than Livestock? According to Lisa Sarmicanic in an article published in ReVision, an interdisciplinary academic journal that focuses on social theory, “The word ‘pet’ is generally applied to animals that are kept primarily for social or emotional reasons rather than for economic purposes.” Pets are animals with no direct commercial utilization. The value of pets comes from the relationship itself. The relationship has expanded to include roles including friend, family member, and “surrogate siblings or children.” Companion animals now also assist people in performing their daily care and in helping people develop trust, responsibility, and empathy. Sarmicanic’s conclusion about the insight that pets give us is interesting: “Not to be forgotten is the fact that companion animals are with us every step of the way. From this vantage point they are able to see us at our best and our worst. This combination, this version of self, is what we see reflected back to us when we gaze into the eyes of our pets. . . . They stand as historical records to who we are and who we imagine ourselves to be . . . reveal[ing] to us a version of the self that cannot be gleaned from any other source.” In other words, pets are a part of our life, sharing with us experiences that perhaps no one else who remains in our life has.
Animal Welfare (Not Animal Rights) Many of us are concerned about animal welfare. Not only is the treatment of our own pets important, but the treatment of other people’s pets as well. Proper care of livestock, ensuring that animals do not lead a life or a death of suffering, is important to many people. Animal welfare organizations most often touch our lives locally. Our county animal shelter, our state humane society, the private shelters or groups that cater to one type of animal or another—these are our touch points with animal welfare. Although the Humane Society of the United States sounds as if it would be the umbrella organization for these local organizations, it is not at all the same organization; it does not have the same aims.
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Animal Rights (Not Animal Welfare) The animal rights movement is about ending the use of animals for any human purposes—pets, service dogs, food animals, materials for clothing or shoes, service as riding or pack animals, and development of drugs and medical procedures.
Changing Language Not surprising, then, accompanying this attitude change, has been the elevation of animals to a status above that of property. In 2001, In Defense of Animals (IDA) launched the “They Are Not Our Property, We Are Not Their Owners” campaign. Subsequent changes in municipal codes and resolutions from animal welfare agencies to make changes that refer to people as “guardians” rather than as “owners” of their animals followed. But the journey may have begun even earlier in 1975, with the work of Peter Singer and Animal Liberation.
In the Eyes of Most Animal Rights Groups, All Animals Are Equal People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the best known of the animals rights groups that operate on a “philosophical continuum, from ‘reformist to radical.’” An international nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, PETA has affiliates in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, India, and the Asia-Pacific Region. Founded in 1980, PETA is dedicated to establishing and defending the rights of all animals. PETA operates under the principle that “animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment.” The tactics PETA has used in educating policymakers and the public about animal abuse have been persistent and often shocking. Examining extreme positions allows us to test our beliefs, and PETA’s position is that any use of animals—clothing, food, medical products development, companion animals—should not be legal. Many pet owners I know support PETA, but are confused by the terms “animal welfare” and “animal rights.” In her article in the journal Social Forces on the case of animal rights mobilization, Marie Mika looks at the social forces involved. Known for opposition to use of animals in any way, including for biomedical testing, PETA and similar rights groups challenge the moral expression of those who are not supporters. Much of the morality, Mika points out, is important for activists who “do not typically engage in traditional forms of religious practice.” Treating nonhuman
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animals with the same dignity as humans ends “species-ism—discrimination against all other species deriving from the superiority of one’s own.” What studies have shown is that recruitment into animal rights movements is most successful through “movement literature, moral shocks[,] and condensing symbols.” These extremes catch attention, and although the approach may offend, the image can often begin a person’s journey of transformation. A paper by Naomi Rose in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science discusses the presentation of marine mammal welfare information at the AVMA Animal Welfare Forum. Rose reports that the exclusion of animal advocacy organizations with qualified scientists on staff provided a view “strongly skewed toward acceptance of the status quo regarding marine mammal welfare and protection. Largely ignored was the belief among many that the status quo is not sufficient.”
Now Influential, Powerful, Well-Run Norm Phelps has written a wonderful description of the development of the animal rights movement in The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA (New York: Lantern Books, 2007). A portion of this book chronicles the changes in attitude among one influential group of people about companion and other animals since the 1970s. According to Phelps, the movement began with thinkers who then wrote about their ideas. In Animals, Men and Morals (1971), edited by Stanley and Rosalind Godlovitch and John Harris, “the editors set forth what would become the credo of the animal rights movement for the next two decades: . . . there can be no rational excuse left for killing animals, be they killed for food, science, or sheer personal indulgence.” The press ignored Animals, Men and Morals until it was released again in April 1973 and Peter Singer’s unsolicited six-thousand-word review ran in the New York Review of Books. Phelps writes that this essay became “the world’s introduction to the term ‘animal liberation’ and to Singer’s trademark argument . . . animals are entitled to have their interests given equal consideration with ours.” Two years later, Singer’s Animal Liberation was published and, according to Phelps, “remains the single most influential text in the history of animal rights.” The book called on people to “treat animals as our moral equals,” and “galvanized a generation to action.”
The Actions That Resulted Most animal rights followers came from either the 1960s human rights movement or vegetarian groups. The North American Vegetarian Society (NAVS)
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has been an influential gathering site for vegetarians, and also for animal, health, and environmental activists since 1975. Animal protection groups, such as local humane societies, were about animal health and protection, but did not consider the use of animals for meat cruel. The story continues with shelters. Although the shelters are for the protection of animals, they also come under considerable criticism for euthanizing unwanted animals. In the mid-twentieth century, the Humane Society of the United States (not associated with local shelters) was formed to prevent this problem of unwanted pets. Spay and neuter campaigns were conducted. Still the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy found that 60 percent of shelter animals from 1994 to 1997 were euthanized. Bombings and other acts of property destruction by the Band of Mercy and Hunt Saboteurs in the early 1970s, at animal testing laboratories and at the annual St. Lawrence Seal Hunts, drove a wedge in the middle of the animal rights movement that still has not healed. Kim Stallwood, a Band of Mercy member, reformed his group as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) after he served a prison sentence. In 1980s’ North America, the activist concentration on liberating animals from medical research facilities caused the security to be improved so much that targets shifted to fur farms and large-scale animal liberation. Mink and fox and ermine, wild animals, did not need to be adopted and could spread out and not become an environmental problem. In 1980, Ingrid Newkirk and Alex Pacheco founded People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA became known for attention-grabbing activities like the “PETA Pie” in the face and the “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign. Best Friends was the first no-kill animal shelter, created in 1982, by Michael Mountain in Utah. His goal was not only to eliminate euthanizing of unwanted animals, but to restrict the breeding and sale of companion animals, legislate spay-neuter, require acceptance of animals in group housing, and limit euthanasia to suffering animals. Concerns about the no-kill movement include the long-term “warehousing” of animals, which creates a psychological and physical prison for animals. This concern, as well as the expense of maintaining unadoptable animals for their lifetime, caused many groups to back away from the no-kill philosophy. County shelters are unable to “pick and choose” which animals to accept. They must accept animals brought to them. No-kill shelters tend to be private shelters, and can accept only adoptable animals and can turn away animals when the shelter is at capacity. County shelter workers would prefer to offer no-kill shelters. However, sheltering dangerous animals or finding funds for lifetime support of a county’s unwanted pets seems impossible.
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In 1990, Louise Holton and Becky Robinson founded Alley Cat Allies to begin the widespread practice of maintaining rather than destroying feral cat colonies. This oversight includes trapping, treating (and neutering), and returning the feral cats to their neighborhoods. The period 1975–1990 was the golden age of animal rights. According to Phelps, “To be a part of the animal rights movement during these early years was to be infected with the belief that you could end the enslavement and slaughter of animals within a single generation, just as the civil rights movement had ended segregation in less than twenty years.”
Those Who Differ By the late 1990s, the public had had enough of bombings and property damage in the name of animal rights, and by 2004, major groups including the Humane Society of the United States and Fund for Animals split from the annual animal rights conference, eschewing violent tactics for their own conference, Taking Action for Animals. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League classified the ALF and related organizations as domestic terror organizations, a move that the animal rights groups view as the most serious threat to their activities. Subsequently, the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act made physical disruption to businesses using animals causing economic loss of more than $10,000 a federal offense punishable by a year in prison. If injuries resulted, prison time increased to ten years. The 2006 Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) broadened the protection to include civil disobedience as an offense. Groups formed to oppose animal rights activists. Americans for Medical Progress, for example, arose to convince the public that human health is dependent on animal research. Other groups that oppose the activists include the National Animal Interest Alliance, with the mission to promote animal welfare, strengthen the human-animal bond, and protect rights of responsible animal owners and professionals.
Strategy Change In The Longest Struggle Phelps explains, “By the mid-1990’s, animal activists had begun setting quietly about the business of developing a new set of strategies, as they settled in for the long haul in a political and social atmosphere that was growing increasingly hostile to animal rights, even as more and more young people were taking up the cause.” Kim Stallwood, a longtime insider, antivivisectionist, and one-time executive director of PETA, editor of Animal People and The Animals’ Agenda, suggested a long-term strategic approach including:
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An emphasis on unity to develop more political clout. “Most people are not going to become vegan until we have a public policy in America that embraces the moral and legal status of animals . . . to put animal protection on the national political agenda. This . . . is why the UK and the EU are so far ahead of us today.” Showing and telling the story with acts of cruelty displayed in videos and “sign trucks” Effective Internet use Sanctuaries as means of advocacy “Negotiating with the enemy” Meeting people philosophically where they are. Reduce cruelty where you find it, refine the views of those who are not on board, and then replace their beliefs. Stallwood has opened the Animals and Society Institute, a think tank for the animal cause. The HSUS has merged with the Fund for Animals, creating the Humane Society Legislative fund, and the Doris Day Animal League, “making Humane Society Legislative Fund the largest and best-funded lobbying group in the U.S.”
Vegetarianism: A Choice for Ecology The animal rights movement is not the only social change influencing our twenty-first-century attitudes toward animals. Another has more to do with ecology. For many, the reason to convert to vegetarianism is to end wasted resources—the land, water, and energy—required to raise food animals. Accordingly, many people view eating “as low as possible on the food pyramid” as the sustainably responsible thing to do. Vegetarianism, which gained popularity in the United States in the 1970s, has been a staple way of life in many cultures that did not have the resources to produce meat. The famous combination of beans and rice to provide protein sustains those who, while not vegetarians by principle, are vegetarians because of the cost.
Why Are Vegetables Less Expensive, Ecology-Wise? Most of us study the energy pyramid in school, but sometimes the application of this principle to our grocery carts is lost.
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Plants, of course, take energy from the sun, minerals from the soil, and carbon dioxide from the air. The mass of plant material provides energy for a group of animals that eats plants. These consumers use the energy (or calories) they consumed to grow their own bodies and go about their lives. When the second group of consumers, higher up the pyramid, eats the plant eaters, the useful calories remaining in the animals eaten is 10 percent of the plant’s energy. When the final group of consumers, the top predators in a system, eats their prey, they are eating about 10 percent of the energy left from consuming the “consumers” of the plants. As you climb from plants to plant eaters (or primary consumers) to eaters of plant eaters (secondary consumers) to the top of the food pyramid (top consumers or predators), only 10 percent of the energy moves up each level of the pyramid. Ninety percent of the energy is used by the organism to build its own body and carry out its own activities of finding food, finding mates, and reproducing. When people say they wish to eat lower on the food pyramid, what they mean is they want to avoid the loss of energy that each level brings by eating plants. Vegetarians, rather than eating animals that are on the second or third level of the pyramid, prefer to eat the plants themselves, the first level of the pyramid. Vegetarians lower their ecological footprint, in what the Union of Concerned Scientists say is one of the most energy-consuming areas for the environment—the production of meat and poultry—and enable the most energy production possible from fruit, vegetables, and grains. Because of the number of individuals involved and the masses of food required, the planet benefits far more if the human companions of pets consider vegetarianism, or at least replacing a significant number of meat-based meals, with vegetables and grains as a way of life, rather than committing carnivorous pets to a vegetarian lifestyle. Resources such as GoVeg.com provide more information about the environmental issues related to food animal production as well as the animal rightsrelated issues that are also a motivator for some vegetarians. Marie Mika comments, “Vegetarians, however, are not necessarily animal rights supporters . . . in fact, issues concerning personal health are the original motivation for most vegetarians.” Often confused with vegetarianism is veganism. Although the Oxford English Dictionary defines “veganism” as “a strict form of vegetarianism, where the use of any animal product, including milk and eggs, is eschewed,” cultural sources, such as Vegan Action, would say that fur, leather, wool, cosmetics, down, and chemical products tested on animals are also unacceptable. In other words, veganism is not just about food, it’s about not using animal products at all.
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Fox (1)
Birds (25)
Grasshoppers (250)
Grasses (3,000)
Solving Sustainability Problems Since 2000, many books have been written on the topic of “ecologically intelligent design.” Products and strategies that are innovative have always shaped the business environment. Many of these innovations come from the advances of science and technology applied to the desires and attitudes of consumers. Voilà, new products. Although there are no books on the topic of designing products for pets, the general design principles expressed in a book such as Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart explain innovation in today’s environment. Both green business and green design principles are prominent in a book that makes clear that reinventing industry as practiced by most companies is the best “hope for a future of sustaining prosperity.” Nike’s approach to limiting industrial impact, McDonough says, is not about limiting harmful emissions, but rethinking the design of products, “modeling industrial systems on nature’s nutrient flows.” Objectives set by Nike for 2020 include:
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Eliminating the concept of waste in product design, using materials, energy, and resources that can be readily recycled, renewed, or reabsorbed back into nature. Eliminating all substances that are known or suspected to be harmful to human health or the health of natural systems. Closing the loop and taking full responsibility for its products at all stages of product and process life cycle, including the end of a product’s useful life, when consumers are likely to dispose of it. Developing financial structures that promote greater product stewardship in design, engineering, and manufacturing, as well as creating new financial models to reflect the full cost of doing business. The point here is not so much about Nike as the idea that the concept of sustainability can pertain to as unlikely a product as athletic wear, including shoes. As companies try to profit in an increasingly competitive economy, sustainable business practices mean eliminating health hazards and carrying the full costs of doing business, which includes disposal costs as well as manufacturing and sales costs. Whether you’re producing animal crates, kitty litter, or diets for pet fish, this ethic is a way toward sustainability. More than the general application of green principles to manufacturing, science can calculate the “carrying capacity” of the planet, or sections of the planet described by political boundaries. For example, we know that 1.2 acres per person is required to support current dietary standards. As the population increases, an estimated one acre of land is lost for each person. By 2050, the United States will have 0.6 acres per person available. The technology of agriculture must change, the methods of feeding our population must change, or the population must decrease. In addition, because the United States and Canada are major food exporters, the 2025-estimated period in which the United States will cease to export, due to domestic demand, will have a major impact on food availability around the world. These choices assume continued fossil fuel production at current levels—in other words, an unsustainable level.
Economic Forces as Motivators Sometimes these “other expenses” are about meeting our emotional needs as much as our physical needs. James Vlahos, in the article “Pill-Popping Pets” in the July 13, 2008, New York Times, does a great job of explaining the effects of culture and business on pet-human relationships. His discussion of a dog, Max, describes “blunder[s] into the thickets of cognitive ethology . . . and intraspecies solipsism.” The rough translation (which I made after rushing to
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my dictionary) was, “This is about humans’ inability to perceive anything from other than our human perspective, and the topic we’re discussing is what Max the dog understands.” Reading this article is well worth your time if you can get past the first paragraph or two. The long and the short of it is that pharmaceutical companies are marketing lifestyle drugs for pets that parallel the lifestyle drugs their companion humans take. In a situation that goes far beyond pets looking like their owners, pets are also acting like their owners. And business is following this trend to provide solutions to a problem we’ve created. Anti-anxiety drugs and diet drugs now take their place next to the anticancer and other therapies that until just a few years ago were available only to animals who served as the first trial patients—not the intended eventual recipients of the medication. That was reserved for humans. Questions about what animals think or whether they have feelings are topics fraught with emotion—in fact, something beyond emotion. When respected scientist Alexander Skutch wrote The Minds of Birds, some of his colleagues thought he had lost his mind. This is where the business side interacts with the science side. The behavioral pharmacology that Dr. Dodman and the Tufts University Animal Behavior Clinic practice, which Vlahos cites, takes us back to the hard science side—that of testing observable phenomena. The behavioral problems that create a need for the new, more widespread application of drugs to pet behavior themselves may come from how we see our animals, curling back around to how we humans see ourselves. Good business fills a need seen by consumers with a product that provides good value. Every year, thousands of new products are unveiled at pet expos around the world. Some of these products really improve the lives of pets and their companions. Others seem not to fill that bill and contribute to the poor use of resources on the planet. At a recent Global Pet Expo, exhibitor booths covered the equivalent of ten football fields with toys, foods, gadgets, and baubles for their companions. New products at this recent pet expo included hydroponic cat grass gardens, treat launchers, plasma aquariums, memory foam pet beds, toys with a mechanical mother’s heartbeat, pet bed heaters, new fish disease treatments, rolling treat toys, and matching people-and-pet outfits. A firm will freeze-dry your pet, or compress his ashes into a diamond. Although the commercial would lead you to believe you should use your credit card for this emotional high, please know the charge on your statement for these services is $675 for your Yorkshire Terrier returned in his perpetual form or $3,500 to $20,000 to wear your pet on your finger, depending on the type of stone you wish the ash to mimic.
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The firm “Savings and Clone,” which formed to clone your favorite pet and give you a new one that’s an exact genetic replica of your previous one, closed its doors due to a lack of customers able to commit $50,000, or even the reduced price of $37,500. We breed pets to conform to an appearance that pleases us; as a part of that process, breeders unconcerned about the relationship between pet and companion (or just ignorant) create dogs, cats, birds, and mammals so allergic that their hair falls out, so shy they can’t stop wetting themselves, so disturbed that they will not stop chasing their tails. My question is, are we nuts? Dr. Ian Dunbar, interviewed for Vlahos’s article, says it straight: “What people want is a pet that is on a par with a TiVo, that its activity, play, and affection are on demand . . . when they’re done, they want to turn it off.” Rather than using drugs to produce dogs that don’t act like dogs, Dunbar prefers to teach the animal what activities he can do through reward-based training. Dunbar is a recognized authority, a man who knows his dog training and can teach ordinary people to get the same results he gets, if they are persistent. Drugs can be a help to those pets as aids in the training process, but are not a replacement for training.
Crazy Alliances: Environmental Groups and Business? Groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund are beginning to scrutinize the claims that corporations make about their environmental responsibility. In an earlier chapter we talked about the Sierra Club’s alliance with Clorox for its new Green Works product line. Wal-Mart’s sustainability report is reviewed by the director of corporate partnerships at the Environmental Defense Fund. The report recognizes the seriousness of corporations’ sustainability efforts, and makes suggestions on how a corporation might improve its report and results. So if we have the technology and we have alliances blooming between environmental groups and business, why isn’t everything looking rosy? What’s missing is the consumer part of the equation, including voting, and that’s where we come in.
Home, Polls, and Offsets Pet food and the effects of chemicals on pets and children are matters of everyday decisions at home. The strange evolution of animal law shows that action at the polls can take turns we might not have anticipated. Finally, everyone
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talks about carbon offsets as the way to combat the necessary non-sustainable activities we all undertake. Not all carbon offsets are equal, and these offsets are not “get out of responsibility” cards.
Consumer Decisions and Pet Food Few people think as much about pet food as Debbie Phillips-Donaldson, editor-in-chief of Petfood Industry. Donaldson, referencing Packaged Facts’ market research, quantifies consumers’ migration to natural, organic, and eco-friendly pet products, including pet food spending, at $1 billion in 2007, projected to grow to more than $2 billion by 2012. Donaldson contrasts the U.S. market development with that of the European Union (EU). U.S. voluntary movements to natural and organic foods continue as fallout from the 2007 U.S. pet food recalls. In contrast to the voluntary U.S. migration to more eco-friendly products, EU regulations have banned substances like genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and antibiotic growth promoters in feed and mandated farmers to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. These EU regulations demonstrate that consumer preferences equal political power. However, these regulations have driven the cost of pet food globally to more than double from 2007 to 2008, which affects U.S. prices. The rising cost of ingredients means consumer prices rise. Pet owners may not be able to feed their pets as well, and may need to switch to lower-priced, lower-quality pet food brands and types. “And because natural and organic pet foods tend to be more expensive, that ‘better’ case might not be better for our planet,” says Donaldson. Read Debbie Phillips-Donaldson’s entire essay for “Pets and the Planet” at www.thiswildlife.com.
Pets and Children’s Health Like Donaldson on the topic of pet food, few people know more about household chemicals and pets than the people at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. Also as in the case of pet food, market forces, regulation or both, based on consumer attitudes, is what keeps chemicals in or out of household products. Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, is an expert on the problems of children, pets, and chemicals. A recent investigation by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found that pet dogs and cats have high levels of toxic chemicals in their bodies. These chemicals included flame retardants (PBDEs) and nonstick or stain-resistant chemicals (PFCs).
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Dr. Naidenko explained that pets absorb these chemicals from their daily lives with common household products. For example, furniture including sofas, armchairs, and plastic casings for home electronics often contains flame retardants. A cat sleeping on a flame retardant–treated sofa grooms herself when she awakens, ingesting PBDEs with the dust particles from the furniture’s surface. Dogs’ exposure to PFCs likely comes from carpets treated with stainresistant sprays. PFCs could also come from the lining of dog food bags. To avoid exposure for pets and people, when selecting new carpet or furniture, avoid optional treatments with stain-resistance chemicals. Ask manufacturers and retailers to make sure that the new furniture does not contain flame retardants. Meanwhile, frequent vacuuming and using covers on furniture can minimize toxic chemical-laden dust in the home. Dr. Naidenko commented that every country’s environmental policies are different. In some respects Europe is ahead, in others, North America. One trend, though, is very clear—around the world there is a growing movement toward decreasing or eliminating production of toxic chemicals. For this to happen, individual citizens must get involved to demand more stringent government regulation of toxic chemicals. To read more from Dr. Naidenko on the effects of toxic chemicals, look for the article in the “Pets and the Planet” section at www.thiswildlife.com.
Pets and Animal Law Animal law influences our interactions with companion animals, wildlife, and animals used for entertainment, research, and food and food production. Nowhere is the effect of consumer attitudes about pets more evident than in the development of legislation related to animals. Laura Ireland, founder of the National Center for Animal Law, explains: “People’s attitudes and affection for companion animals have a very strong influence on the growth and evolution in this area of law. While animals are property under the law, overwhelmingly, people view their companion animals as members of their family.” Ireland notes that in addition to legislation to include animals in domestic violence protection orders, there are efforts to reduce dog breeding and use of animals in research. Now a partner with Gibbons & Ireland, LLP, in Waldport, Oregon, Ireland sees many private legal issues with pets as family members, including “the development of pet trusts . . . custody disputes over their companion animals . . . increased damages for the loss of pets, recognizing people lose a valuable relationship when a companion animal is harmed or killed.” To see Ireland’s essay on Animal Law, visit www.thiswildlife.com.
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The Allure of the Carbon Offset Although people can be active in promoting legislation and doing better with our carbon footprints, we’re good at letting ourselves off the hook. “Yes, I drive an SUV, but I’ve purchased carbon offsets.” Not all offsets are equal, it seems. Environmental advocacy groups are concerned about the quality of carbon offsets. Of course, purchasing offsets is a way to provoke spenders to consider how much carbon they generate, and this is a good thing, but there is no standard. On the other hand, offsets fund projects to create renewable energy. When purchasing your offsets, consider the following: What project does the provider fund? Does the offset purchase generate additional activity rather than simply doing something already planned? Is the project verifiable, preferably by the “Gold Standard” based on Kyoto Protocol criteria? Does the project help develop more renewable energy such as solar or wind power, which will eventually replace more pollution-heavy producers? Does the offset provider give you ideas on how to reduce your energy usage before buying offsets? The Nature Conservancy now has a carbon footprint calculator and a carbon offset program that is seeking verification. Check out Voluntary Carbon Standard at www.v-c-s.org. By the way, if you’re mystified about your carbon footprint, don’t feel that you’re alone. You have to put carbon back into the system to take carbon out— sort of like your bank account. In the Atlantic Monthly, Megan McArdle describes it this way: “Hundreds of millions of years ago, tiny ocean creatures converted atmospheric and ocean carbon into the organic stuff of their cells, and then sank to the sea floor, where eventually they turned into oil and natural gas. A similar process turned swamp plants into coal. These were the gifts of energy that powered the Industrial Revolution.” What McArdle doesn’t explain is that you’ve got to have as much sinking to the sea floor and coming back as natural gas or oil or coal as you pump out. That’s why she goes on to explain that we need to develop other ways to get energy that does not depend on carbon, hence the “carbon offset.” As the Carbon Fund tagline says, “Reduce what you can. Offset what you can’t.” Places to measure your footprint and then buy offsets are listed in the resources section under “Carbon Footprints and Sources of Offsets.”
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Take Action! All of us can and should take the Ecological Footprint Quiz at Redefining Progress (www.rprogress.org), or a similar footprint calculator (see the resources section at the end of the chapter) that estimates the area of land and ocean required to support our consumption of food, goods, services, housing, and energy and assimilate our wastes. Results express our footprint in “global hectares” (gha) or “global acres” (ga), standardized units that take into account the differences in biological productivity of various ecosystems affected by our activities. Your footprint is broken down into four consumption categories: carbon (home energy use and transportation), food, housing, and goods and services. When you see what it takes to support your lifestyle, you may be as surprised as I was. We are what we do. Learning to see ourselves (and our pets, our homes, our families) as our choices can take considerable reflection. Writers can influence this process. Stephanie Mills, speaking through her book Epicurean Simplicity, has been particularly helpful to me, despite my doubts of living as simply as Mills by choice. Some things that Mills wrote seemed obvious as I read them; yet I wrote them down because I was afraid I might forget them. An example: “Finding ways to walk my talk and reduce my complicity is a long-term project. It’s some consolation to know that I’m not the only aspiring simplifier who’s found it difficult to unclench her tiny fists from some amenity.” This wonderful quotation works for any point along our sustainability evolution, whether we use our Escalade for transporting the soccer team (instead of living where the kids can walk to soccer practice) or have been bike commuting for years and decide we depend too much on processed food. We each have different amenities in our sustainability stages, but we all can progress toward simplicity. Another point I loved is this from Stephanie Mills: “This place, mind you, is not the Serengeti Plain or the Sierra Nevada: it’s just some wooded acres that provide cover for deer, coyotes, porcupines, woodchucks, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, mice, voles, shrews, snakes, slugs, toads, frogs, about two dozen bird species, and a near-infinity of insects and arachnids. It’s a woodburban experience, but being domiciled amid these other lives gives me glimpses of their wildness and keeps me whole.” Mills is speaking of her “homestead,” and this thought applies to the micro-ecosystem that is our home, whether we live in a fifth-floor apartment with only a window, or a cabin in the woods. There is wildlife outside our apartment window, and in our neighborhood park—no matter how urban. Think moths, bees, pigeons. Although our progress is slow and the outlook sometimes discouraging, Mills offers this: “If we live simply, attentively, and gratefully, it will go better.” This continues to be true for my journey, with my pets, toward sustainability. I hope you find this true for yours.
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My Sustainability Score: Twenty-First-Century Issues for Pets and Sustainability Good
Better
Best
Mapped my carbon footprint
It’s on my to-do list.
I calculated. I’ve got a list of ideas to consider for reducing my footprint.
The family is committed to reducing our footprint and we talk about this once a month.
Joined a conservation organization
I’ve joined and read the newsletter.
My family participates in one activity each year.
We’re active supporters of one group.
Considered eating lower on the food chain (food pyramid)
Our family could have two meatless days each week.
We’re experimenting with more vegetarian meals and it’s fun.
We’re committed to reducing our impact through the food we eat.
Determined to I’ve thought think about about where sustainability I can do better. as I shop
My family and I have decided to do at least one thing differently.
We’re shopping at the farmer’s market first.
Decided to read more about sustainability
I’ve completed one. I am what I do.
I’ve suggested new books others might like at www .thiswildlife.com.
Yes, next time I get to the library.
For each “good” answer, give yourself 3 points. For each “better,” count 5 points. For “best” answers, give yourself 7 points. Score card: 15–24 points: You have a good basis for improving your sustainability. 25–34 points: You understand the basics of pets and sustainability and now you’re just learning the details. 35 points: You win the Green Pet Award for doing your best for your pet and the planet when it comes to sustainability
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My Sustainability Plan: Twenty-First-Century Issues for Pets and Sustainability A list helps to translate thought and feelings into action. Here are some ideas to get you started in your home or in your community. Check the ones you want to act on. Get your family and friends involved. In my home: Complete an ecological footprint calculator and determine where I could save. Ask for the gift of others in the family working out their own personal plans for considering the planet. Educate myself by reading one book on the topic. In my community: Consider which organization I want to contribute to locally with either my labor or my money or both. If a community organization doesn’t exist that works for me, then I’ll consider starting one. Donate my book to the library when my reading, study, and project are complete. In my personal beliefs: Consider how I might surround myself with people who are eager to contribute to solutions.
Resources Animal Rights Organizations In Defense of Animals: www.idausa.org People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: www.peta.org
Animal Law National Center for Animal Law: www.lclark.edu/org/ncal
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Books Michael Brower and Warren Leon. The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. New York: Three Rivers, 1999. Stephanie Mills. Epicurean Simplicity. New York: Shearwater Books, 2003. Alan B. Durning. How Much Is Enough? The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992. Edward O. Wilson. The Diversity of Life. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. John C. Ryan. Seven Wonders: Everyday Things for a Healthier Planet. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1999.
Carbon Footprints and Sources of Offsets Redefining Progress: www.rprogress.org Nature Conservancy Carbon Footprint Calculator: www.nature.org/ initiatives/climatechange/calculator Ecological Footprint Quiz: www.myfootprint.org Earthday Network Footprint Calculator: www.earthday.net/ecofootprint Terrapass Carbon Footprint Calculator: www.terrapass.com/carbonfootprint-calculator Individual/Household Carbon Calculator: www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators Global Footprint Network: www.footprintnetwork.org
Conservation Organizations Individual Organizations National Audubon Society: www.audubon.org Sierra Club: www.sierraclub.org Nature Conservancy: www.nature.org World Wide Fund for Nature: www.wwf.org
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Local Groups Your local conservation groups are listed in the activities section of your newspaper’s weekend editions. Find one that works for you. Land trusts, river keepers, beach patrols—there’s a group that works for almost everyone.
Directories National Wildlife Federation conservation group directory search: www.nwf.org/conservationDirectory/search.cfm Environment Directory: www.webdirectory.com Envirolink, the Online Environmental Community: www.envirolink.org
Ecolabelling Global Ecolabelling Network: www.gen.gr.jp/whats.html
Magazines and Newsletters GreenBiz.com Petfood Industry: www.petfoodindustry.com Plenty: www.plentymag.com Joel Makower, environmental blogger: www.makower.com
Pets and Children’s Health “Dog Ownership and Contact During Childhood and Later Allergy Development”: erj.ersjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/5/963 “A Magical Dream: A Pilot Project in Animal-Assisted Therapy in Pediatric Oncology”: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15040146? ordinalpos=15&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed _ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
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“Methemoglobinemia: Nitrate Toxicity in Rural America”: www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1621630?ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2 .PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum Environmental Working Group: www.ewg.org/
Public Policy Redefining Progress: www.rprogress.org
Sustainable Design MBDC, a product and process design firm: www.mbdc.com
Vegetarianism Vegetarian Nutrition Resource List: www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/pubs/bibs/ gen/vegetarian.pdf
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Nutritional Requirements Nutrients are the chemicals in food used by the body. Whether produced by organic or factory methods, basic nutrients are the same. Of course, food can contain substances that are not nutritious and could be harmful to the body. Such substances could have an effect on the planet, outside of the consumer’s body. The reason to consider nutrients themselves is the issue of adequate but not excessive nutrition. “Rightsizing” nutrition, taking all the nutrition you need but no more, is planet-friendly. The key is understanding the required nutrients and then learning to read labels, which are confusing at best.
Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fats Nutrition is, essentially, the recycling of building blocks from one living thing to another. All pets need the basic building blocks—a combination of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, along with various vitamins and minerals—to live a healthy life. This is true whether your pet is a Vietnamese Walking Stick, a Pot-Bellied Pig, a Foxhound, or a Maine Coon cat. Foods like meat, cheese, and beans contain a lot of protein, an important part of the diet of animals. When pets digest protein, their bodies harvest amino acids to build the many specific proteins they need. Animals’ bodies use different proteins to build muscle, to keep digestion and the nervous system working properly, and to rebuild tissues as cells age and break down. Dogs, for example, need proteins to help them convert more complicated molecules into glucose, a sugar that the body uses for energy. Protein in a dog’s or cat’s diet must provide the ten amino acids these animals cannot create by rearranging other amino acids, similar to the way that when cooking, sometimes you need a specific ingredient and nothing else will do. Fats, such as animal fats or plant seed oil, provide concentrated energy and make up much of the brain. Fatty acids work like delivery trucks, carrying vitamins through animals’ bodies.
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Carbohydrates, stored energy from plants such as cereals and beans, have many jobs in your pet’s body. Some carbohydrates, like sugars, are absorbed directly into the bloodstream for quick energy—the pet equivalent of a sugar rush. Other carbohydrates produce longer-lasting energy as they break down slowly in the intestine. Fiber, another kind of carbohydrate, contributes little nutritional value but helps the digestive tract work efficiently. To select the right diet for your pet, you need to understand the nutritional requirements of your species. The National Research Council (NRC) has made these determinations for cats and dogs. We can start with these as examples. The agencies that regulate the labels use these nutritional requirements as the measuring sticks for nutritional adequacy. The first hump in a pet’s diet is getting the right protein-to-fat ratio and the appropriate number of calories per day. In the box, we have the NRC’s nutrition requirements for an average-weight dog and cat. Requirements vary in accordance with your pet’s weight, activity, and life stage.
NRC’s Nutritional Requirements for Pets Pet Description
Crude Protein
Total Fat
Calories per Day
Adult cat (9 lbs.)
12.5 g
5.5 g
250
Adult dog (33 lbs.)
25 g
14 g
922
Note: Crude protein refers to the method of determining protein amounts and is not a description of the form of the ingredient. Copyright © 2005, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
Keeping your pets on the diet you select allows them to maintain a proper weight and provides the relative amounts of protein and fat they need to have a healthy life.
Necessary Vitamins and Minerals In addition to proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, vitamins and minerals are important to a pet’s diet. Vitamins, needed by living things for good health, must be taken in as food because the body cannot manufacture them from other nutritional elements. Because vitamins play an important part in almost every body process, vitamin deficiencies cause serious health issues, including vision problems, bone fractures, and inability to fight off infections. The table below lists the amount of each necessary vitamin, according to the latest NRC report. When you use a proper diet, supplements should not be necessary; moreover, do not feed supplements unless your veterinarian suggests them. Not only
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is vitamin oversupply wasteful and expensive, but too much of a good thing can be harmful to your pet.
NRC’s Vitamin Requirements for Dogs Vitamin
This Vitamin Supports
Daily Requirement for a 33-lb. Dog
Vitamin A
Vision, growth, immune system
379 mcg
Vitamin D
Bone mineral stability, phosphorous balance
3.4 mcg
Vitamin E
Retards oxidation
8 mg
Vitamin K
Clotting, bone proteins
0.41 mg
Vitamin B1 (Thiamin)
Energy, nervous system
0.56 mg
Riboflavin
Enzyme functions
1.3 mg
Vitamin B6
Many functions, including red blood cell, immune, hormone, and gene
0.4 mg
Niacin
Enzyme
4 mg
Pantothenic Acid
Energy metabolism
4 mg
Vitamin B12
Enzyme functions
9 mcg
Folic Acid
Amino acid metabolism and protein synthesis
68 mcg
Choline
Cell membrane
425 mg
A milligram (mg) is the size of three grains of sand. A microgram (mcg) is about 1/1000 of those three grains of sand. Adapted from “Your Dog’s Nutritional Needs,” Copyright © 2005, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
NRC’s Vitamin Requirements for Cats Vitamin
This Vitamin Supports
Daily Requirement for a 9-lb. Cat
Vitamin A
Vision, growth, immune system
63 mcg
Vitamin D
Bone mineral stability, phosphorous balance
0.4 mcg
Vitamin E
Retards oxidation
2.5 mg
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Vitamin
This Vitamin Supports
Daily Requirement for a 9-lb. Cat
Vitamin K
Clotting, bone proteins
82 mcg
Vitamin B1 (Thiamin)
Energy, nervous system
0.33 mg
Riboflavin
Enzyme functions
0.27 mg
Vitamin B6
Many functions, including red blood cell, immune, hormone, and gene
0.16 mg
Niacin
Enzyme
2.5 mg
Pantothenic Acid
Energy metabolism
0.4 mg
Vitamin B12
Enzyme functions
1.4 mcg
Folic Acid
Amino acid metabolism and protein synthesis
47 mcg
A milligram (mg) is the size of three grains of sand. A microgram (mcg) is about 1/1000 of those three grains of sand. Adapted from “Your Cat’s Nutritional Needs,” Copyright © 2005, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
Minerals, found in the earth’s crust, collect in plants and then in animals that eat them. Pets use minerals like calcium and phosphorus to build blood cells, bones, and teeth. The list of minerals needed for an average dog is shown in the box. As with vitamins, some nutrients are essential in small amounts but become poisonous in excessive amounts. Calcium excess, for example, causes abnormal bone growth, especially in puppies.
NRC’s Recommended Daily Mineral Intake for Dogs Mineral
How Your Pet Uses This Mineral
Daily Need
Calcium
Bones and teeth
0.75 g
Phosphorus
Skeleton, metabolism
0.75 g
Magnesium
Hormone and bone structure
150 mg
Sodium
Proper blood pH, nerve impulses
100 mg
Potassium
Muscle movement, blood pH
1g
Chlorine
Proper blood pH
150 mg
Iron
Blood and protein production
7.5 mg
continues
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Mineral
How Your Pet Uses This Mineral
Daily Need
Copper
Blood cell formation
1.5 mg
Zinc
Metabolism, taste, smell, healing
15 mg
Manganese
Metabolism
1.2 mg
Selenium
Immune system
90 mcg
Iodine
Growth and development
220 mcg
Adapted from “Your Dog’s Nutritional Needs,” Copyright © 2005, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Based on a 33-lb. adult dog consuming 1,000 calories/day.
NRC’s Recommended Daily Mineral Intake for Cats Mineral
How Your Pet Uses This Mineral
Daily Need
Calcium
Bones and teeth
0.18 g
Phosphorus
Skeleton, metabolism
0.16 g
Magnesium
Hormone and bone structure
25 mg
Sodium
Proper blood pH, nerve impulses
42 mg
Potassium
Muscle movement, blood pH
0.33 g
Chlorine
Proper blood pH
60 mg
Iron
Blood and protein production
5 mg
Copper
Blood cell formation
0.3 mg
Zinc
Metabolism, taste, smell, healing
4.6 mg
Manganese
Metabolism
0.3 mg
Selenium
Immune system
19 mcg
Iodine
Growth and development
88 mcg
Adapted from “Your Cat’s Nutritional Needs,” Copyright © 2005, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Based on a 9-lb. cat consuming 250 calories/day.
Proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals, along with water, make up the diets of everything on earth. What differs, depending on the species of pet we need to nourish, is the required amount and preferred source and form of those nutrients.
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Resources Animal Law The Michigan State University School of Law: www.animallaw.info. Documents and commentary pertaining to animal-related law.
Exotic Pet-Related Concerns Humane Society of the United States: www.hsus.org. Welfare issues. World Wildlife Fund: www.worldwildlife.org. Exotic animal trade’s effects on wildlife. Marine Aquarium Council: www.aquariumcouncil.org. Invasive species, conservation, and trade in aquarium species. World Conservation Union: www.iucn.org/en. Database of invasive species.
Cleaning Products Commercial Household Cleaners Method Home: www.methodhome.com Seventh Generation: www.seventhgeneration.com Ecover: www.ecover.com Mrs. Meyers: www.mrsmeyers.com
257
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Bioshield: www.bioshieldpaint.com Earth Friendly: www.ecos.com Clorox Greenworks: www.greenworkscleaners.com
Make Your Own Recipes: Leslie Garrett, author, The Virtuous Consumer
Stain and Odor Removal Castor and Pollux: www.castorpolluxpet.com PureAyre: www.pureayre.com
Appliances Energy-efficient appliances: www.greenerchoices.org
Water Quality and Waste Management Contact your local water supply agency regarding treatment of water for toxoplasmosis. Contact your local waste management company regarding the possibility of curbside collection of compostables. Environmental Protection Agency, general water quality issues.
Finding Pets Pets Needing Homes Petfinder.com Information from 11,000 adoption agencies including dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, small mammals or pocket pets.
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Breed Rescue Clubs Find a directory of breed rescue clubs at www.akc.org
Exotic Animal Clubs Most exotic animal clubs have pets available for adoption. Do an Internet search for your state, the word “rescue,” and the animal group you’re interested in, such as “rodents,” “birds,” or “reptiles.”
Breeders Dogs American Kennel Club: www.akc.org Canadian Kennel Club: www.ckc.ca
Cats Cat Fancier’s Association: www.cfainc.org International Cat Association: www.tica.org
Birds American Federation of Aviculture: www.afabirds.org Avicultural Advancement Council of Canada: www.aacc.ca
Reptiles Start with a local club. Find clubs near you: www.kingsnake.com/ society.html
Small Mammals American Gerbil Society: www.agsgerbils.org/breeders.html Rat and Mouse Club of America: www.rmca.org Pet Rats Canada: www.petratscanada.com
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Insects Amateur Entomological Society Bug Club (UK): www.amentsoc.org/ bugclub
Green Practices Green Building U.S. Green Building Council (and LEED Standards): www.usgbc.org
Green Burials Green Burial Council: www.greenburialcouncil.org Centre for Natural Burial: www.naturalburial.coop Natural Burial Association of Canada: www.naturalburialassoc.ca
Green Design and Building Practices Northwest Earth Institute: www.nwei.org Oregon Environmental Council: www.oeonline.org U.S. Green Building Council: www.usgbc.org Green Seal: www.greenseal.org EPA’s Design for Environment: www.epa.gov/opptintr/dfc Building Materials Reuse Association: www.buildingreuse.org/directory
Green Office Products, Product Design, Waste Reduction Reducing office waste: Northwest Earth Institute: www.nwei.org/files/ GreenOffice.pdf Green Seal: www.greenseal.org EPA design for environmental standards: epa.gov/opptintr/dfe
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Health Accidental Poisoning ASPCA Poison Control Center: (888) 426-4435
Bite Prevention American Kennel Club: www.akc.org/public_education Manelli & Associates Videos: www.dogscatskids.com American Academy of Pediatrics: www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/ dogbite.pdf
Hand Washing The Mayo Clinic Hand washing procedures: www.mayoclinic.com/ health/hand-washing/HQ00407 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov/ cleanhands
Pet Health Poisonous plants and safe plants: ASPCA Poison Control Center, www.aspca.org Questions about poisonous and safe plants:
[email protected] Natural Resources Defense Council, “Poisons on Pets: Health Hazards from Flea and Tick Products”: www.nrdc.org/effects/pets/pets.pdf
Pets and Human Health American Veterinary Medical Association: www.avma.org U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov. Search “transmission of diseases from pets to people” and “health effects of manufactured products or processes.” Food and Drug Administration: www.fda.gov National Institutes of Health: www.nih.gov
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Resources
Delta Society: www.deltasociety.org Companion Animals and Child Development, Dr. Gail Melson, Professor Emerita of Developmental Studies, Purdue University: www.cfs.purdue.edu/CDFS/pages/fac_staff/melson.html
West Nile Virus U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov/ ncidod/dvbid/westnile/brochure.htm American Veterinary Medical Association: www.avma.org, Search “domestic animals and West Nile virus.”
Labels and Certifications Decoding Labels Greener Choices Eco-Label Center: www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels
Product Certifications Biodegradable Products Institute: www.bpiworld.org U.S. Composting Council: www.compostingcouncil.org American Society for Testing and Materials Specifications: www.astm.org
Pet Diets and Food Production Cats and Dogs American Pet Product Manufacturer’s Association: www.appma.org Organic Trade Association: www.ota.com Pet Food Institute: www.petfoodinstitute.org USFDA CVM Animal Feed Program: www.fda.gov/cvm/petfoods.htm USDA Organic Certifiers: www.ams.usda.gov
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Exotic Pets To identify the veterinarians who specialize in your pet species and manufacturers of dietary prescriptions that work best for your pet, contact these organizations: American Board of Veterinary Practitioners: www.abvp.com Association of Avian Veterinarians: www.aav.org The American Ferret Association: www.ferret.org House Rabbit Society: www.rabbit.org Association of Reptilian and Amphibian Veterinarians: www.arav.org Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarians: www.aemv.org
Pet Necessities Paraphernalia Finding Eco-Retailers Greener Choices: www.greenerchoices.org Organic Trade Association: www.ota.com Organic Consumers Association: www.organicconsumers.org
Buying New but Recycled Materials Dog Fencing Materials American Recycled Plastic: www.itsrecycled.com Trex: www.trex.com
Cat Fencing Systems Affordable Cat Fence: www.catfence.com Cat Fence-In, cat containment system: www.catfencein.com/ comments.php Purr . . . fect fence: www.purrfectfence.com/info.asp SafeCat Outdoor Enclosure: www.just4cats.com
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Resources
Pet Doors High Tech Pet: www.hitecpet.com/powerpetdoors.html Moore Pet Supplies: www.moorepet.com/Electronic-and-AutomaticPet-Doors-s/24.htm Mats, Mats, Mats: www.matsmatsmats.com/eco-friendly
Freetailers and Shares Freecycle: www.freecycle.org Craigslist Online Community (Please don’t use Craigslist as a source for pets. Use established humane organizations.) iShareStuff: www.isharestuff.org Neighborrow: www.neighborrow.com Throwplace.com: www.throwplace.com
E-tailers General Green Product Sources www.ecoproducts.com www.gaiam.com store.greenfeet.com www.Debraslist.com www.ecomall.com
Pet Products Sources, Including Green Products www.drsfostersmith.com www.cherrybrook.com www.petsmart.com www.petco.com www.naturalpetmarket.com www.naturespet.com/index.html www.onlynaturalpet.com
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www.yourparrotplace.com www.globaldognaturalpetproducts.com www.Purrfectplay.com www.forotherlivingthings.com www.planetdog.com www.animalsensepetproducts.com www.weissorganics.com www.thewholisticpet.com www.earthbath.com www.kenaf.com www.swheatscoop.com www.worldsbestcatlitter.com www.yesterdaysnews.com www.biobagusa.com www.skooperbox.com www.westpawdesign.com www.everydaystudio.com www.worldwise.com www.simplyfido.com www.kong.com www.earthbath.com www.cybercanine.com www.composters.com www.bpiworld.org/BPI-Public/Approved/1.html
Reading about Green Practices Magazines and Newsletters E/the Environmental Magazine: www.emagazine.com. Information, news, and resources for people concerned about the environment who want to know “What can I do?” to make a difference. Free e-newsletter available. Plenty Magazine: www.plenty.com. Explores the green revolution in a digital version as well as paper. Podcasts and daily updates available.
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Resources
Greener Choices: www.greenerchoices.org. Articles related to cleaners and air purifiers, and household interest, for increased demands that pets place on keeping homes clean. Washington Toxics Coalition: www.watoxics.org. Provides information about problems in the news, such as toxic substances in toys, which apply as much to dog toys as to children’s toys. Greenopia: www.greenopia.com, and Redirect Guide: www.ReDirect Guide.com. Listings of green businesses in major urban areas. Consumers beware whether businesses are green or simply greenwashing.
Food and Diets Wendell Berry. The Unsettling of America Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986. Michael Pollan. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
Pet Food, Diets, and Related Nancy Kerns, ed. The Whole Dog Journal. www.whole-dog-journal.com Tom Lonsdale, D.V.M. Work Wonders: Feed Your Dog Raw Meaty Bones. Wenatchee, Wash.: Dogwise Publishing, 2005. Advanced raw diets. Richard H. Pitcairn and Susan Hubble Pitcairn. Dr. Pitcairn’s New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, 3rd ed., rev. and updated. Emmaus, Penn.: Rodale Books, 2005. Kymythy R. Schultze. Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Diet. Carlsbad, Calif.: Hay House, 1999. Donald R. Strombeck, D.V.M. Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, 1999.
Pet Services Pet Care Services Association: www.petcareservices.org
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Pet Remains International Association of Pet Cemeteries: www.iaopc.com
Pet Preservation Anthony Eddy’s Wildlife Studio: www.pet-animalpreservation.com Pet Preservation: www.petpreservations.com Perpetual Pet: www.perpetualpet.net Life Gem for Pets: www.lifegem.com
Pet Sitters Pet Sitters International: www.petsit.com National Association of Professional Pet Sitters: www.petsitters.org
Pet Waste Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists: www.apaws.org Pet Butler: www.petbutler.com Poop Butler: www.poopbutler.com Doody Calls Pooper Scooper: www.DoodyCalls.com
Trainers and Behavior Experts American College of Veterinary Behaviorists: www.dacvb.org Association of Pet Dog Trainers: www.apdt.com Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists: www.animalbehavior.org Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers: www.ccpdt.org International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants: www .iaabc.org National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors: www.nadoi.org Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians: www.svbt.org
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Resources
Veterinary American Veterinary Medical Association: www.avma.org American Animal Hospital Association: www.aahanet.org
Pets in Public Bringing Cats Indoors American Bird Conservancy: www.abcbirds.org. Get help moving your cats indoors. Humane Society of the United States: files.hsus.org/webfiles/PDF/Safe_Cats_brochure_general.pdf
Dog-Friendly Restaurants State-by-State listing: www.dogfriendly.com/server/travel/guides/rest/ rest.shtml
Dogs on the Trail Yahoo Group, Trail Dogs: www.groups.yahoo.com/group/traildog
Dog Parks Finding Dog Parks Dog parks in the U.S. or Canada: www.dogpark.com Dog parks by state or province and city: www.ecoanimal.com/dogfun Off-leash dog parks in the U.S. and Canada: www.alldogparks.com
Dog Park News A news group about dog parks around the world: pets.groups.yahoo.com/ group/Dogpark-National-News
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Dog Park Know-How Robin K. Bennett and Susan Briggs. Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety and Fun. Woodbridge, Va.: Dream Dog Productions, 2007. Cheryl S. Smith. Visiting the Dog Park: Having Fun, Staying Safe. Wenatchee, Wash: Dogwise Publishing, 2007.
Feral Cats Alley Cat Allies: www.alleycat.org
Travel with Pets Information on travel with pets worldwide: www.dogfriendly.com
Pet Population Control Spay USA: www.spayusa.org National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy: www.pet population.org
Yard Care Native Plants National Wildlife Federation: www.nwf.org Canadian Wildlife Federation: www.cwf-fcf.org State native plant society: Do an Internet search for “native plant” and your state name.
Pesticide Substitutes Environmental Protection Agency: es.epa.gov/techinfo/facts/safefs.html Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides: www.pesticide.org
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Resources
Roaming-Animal Repellants Contech CatStop: www.contech-inc.com Lentek Yard Control: www.lentek.com Silent Roar: garden stores, mfg. in UK
Storm Water Handling Oregon Environmental Council: www.oeconline.org
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Bibliography Chapter 1. How Do Pets Affect the Environment? Australian Companion Animal Council. Contribution of the Pet Care Industry to the Australian Economy. PIAA. 2006. 14 July 2008: 1–5. 2007–2008 APPA National Pet Owners Survey. Greenwich, CT: American Pet Products Association, 2007. Bloom, Jonah. “Marketers, Not Consumers, Need Environmental Education.” Advertising Age Midwest Region ed. 28 Apr. 2008. Clark, J. M. “Section 3B, Part II: Putting Numbers in Perspective.” Hollins College Math Department. 14 July 2008
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Chapter 3. Choosing Green Pet Food “Animal Nutrition Program.” Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources. National Academy of Sciences. 30 Dec. 2007 . Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986. Brower, Michael, and Warren Leon. The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999. Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health. “Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods.” Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press: 2004. 30 Dec. 2007 . Keith, Christie. “Homemade Diets for Cats.” Cat Hobbyist 6 Apr. 2007. 30 Dec. 2007 . ———. “The Environmental Impact of Pets.” San Francisco Chronicle 27 Nov. 2007. 22 Dec. 2007 . Kerns, N. “How to Choose a Food: You Are Uniquely Well-Qualified to Select the Best Food for Your Dog.” Whole Dog Journal July 2005: 8–11. ———. “In the Dog’s Kitchen: What We Have Learned So Far from Touring Pet Food Production Facilities.” Whole Dog Journal Jan. 2007: 2–5. ———. “Take It with a Block of Salt: Foods That Are Labeled ‘Complete and Balanced’ May Not Be Either.” Whole Dog Journal Feb. 2007: 3–8. Mercanti Group. “Are You Barking up the Right Investment Tree?” Chronicle Feb. 2007: 1–16. ———. “What Is Organic?” Chronicle June 2006: 1–5. Pitcairn, Richard H., and Susan Hubble Pitcairn. Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. 3rd ed., rev. and updated. New York: Holtzbrinck, 2005. Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. Schultze, Kymythy R. Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Diet. Carlsbad, Calif.: Hay House, 1999. Stein, A. “Measuring Your Ecological Footprint.” Orion May–June 2007.
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Index
A AAHA (American Animal Hospital Association), 177–178 Aardbarks, 53 aggression, pet, 202–203 airing, 149 ALF (Animal Liberation Front), 235, 236 algae, 107 Allen, Carrie (Animal Sheltering), 227 allergies, 39–40 Alley Cat Allies, 35, 36, 236 amaryllis, toxicity of, 156 American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), 177–178 American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), 56, 67, 68–69 American Association of Veterinary Nutritionists, 63 American Bird Conservancy, 35, 36 American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, 181 American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, 63 American Kennel Club (AKC), 44, 202 American Pet Products Association (APPA) Habitattitude, 34 National Pet Owners Survey, 3, 21, 22, 42, 50, 104 pet-related product sales, 75 pet remains disposal, 217 pet services use, 166 veterinary services use, 177
American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), 121 American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) cat litter, 118 feral cats, 35 list of poisonous plants, 154–156 Poison Control Center, 154, 158 puppy mills, 44 American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), 141, 197–198, 201–202 amphibians, 33, 78–79 ANCA (Australian National Conservation Association), 229 animal control agencies, 194–195 Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, 236 animal hoarders, 201 animal law, 244 Animal Liberation (Singer), 233, 234 Animal Liberation Front (ALF), 235, 236 Animal Protection Institute, 28 animal rights, 233–237 Animals, Men, and Morals (Godlovitch and Harris), 234 Animal Sheltering (Allen), 227 animal testing, 12 animal welfare, 230, 232 antibacterial compounds, 145 APPA. See American Pet Products Association aquariums, wastes in, 123 ASPCA. See American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Association of Pet Dog Trainers, 181
289
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Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists (APAWS), 114, 183 Association of Zoos and Aquariums, 57 ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), 121 attacks, by pet reptiles, 28 attitudes about animals animal rights, 233–237 animal welfare, 232 feral cats, 228–229 national differences in, 230–232 what humans seek from animals, 226–228 Australian National Conservation Association (ANCA), 229 autumn crocus, toxicity of, 156 avian flu, 142–144 AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association), 141, 197–198, 201–202 azalea/rhododendron, toxicity of, 155
B backyard fencing, 93–94 bacteria, from pet waste, 105–106 bags biodegradable, 16, 110 plastic, 110 for waste disposal, 87, 110, 122 baits, poison, 153–154 baking soda, 148, 149 basilisk lizard, 31 bathing products, 82–83 BBMG Conscious Consumer Report, 9 bedding, for exotic pets, 121, 123 beds, 84–85 behaviorist, animal, 180–182 Bennett, Robin K. (Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety and Fun), 100 bentonite, 117 biodegradable, definition of, 110, 119 biodegradable products bags, 16, 110 time to breakdown, 119 use by groomers, 178–179 Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), 121 biogas, 115–116 Biosolids Rule, EPA’s 503, 112 bioswale, 172
bird-borne disease, 140 bird flu, 142–144 birds bathing, 83 breeders, 45 cryptococcosis, 132 diet, 63 feral populations, 204–206 health-care services, 167–168 invasive species, 32 life span and daily care, 37 number of pets in U.S., 4 nutrition, 57 pet care costs, 38 play outside of cage, 84 popularity as pet, 22 predation by feral animals, 33, 35 psittacosis (parrot fever), 134, 140 supply list, 79 talking, 22 toxicity of chemical fumes, 158 West Nile virus infection, 140 bites, animal, 202 Black Spiny-Tailed Iguana, 32 bleach, 151 boarding facilities, 179–180, 186 bowls, food and water, 80 BPI (Biodegradable Products Institute), 121 Braungart, Michael (Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things), 239 breed clubs, 41, 215 breeders, 43–45 breeding bans, 198 Briggs, Susan (Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety and Fun), 100 Brown Tree Snake, 32, 33 brushes, 82, 83 building materials, 170–171 burial, 219. See also remains, pet Burmese pythons, 31
C cages, crates, and barriers, 81–82 calcium, 61, 255 campylobacteriosis, 131 carbohydrates, 253
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Index carbon label, 54 carbon offset, 245 car restraint systems, 96–97 carrying capacity, 240 castor bean, toxicity of, 155 Castor & Pollux Pet Works (retailer), 55, 150 catch basins, 171 CatGenie, 86 cats avian influenza, 143 breeders, 45 calories required to feed, 51 diet, 60–63, 65 diseases associated with, 130–139 domestication, 21 fencing for, 94 feral, 33–36, 204, 228–229 health-care services, 167–168 life span and daily care, 37 meeting needs of, 23 NRC’s mineral intake recommendations for, 256 NRC’s nutritional requirements for, 56, 253 NRC’s vitamin requirements for, 254–255 number of pets in U.S., 4 pet care costs, 38 popularity as pet, 21, 22 reason for surrender to shelters, 29 reproduction rates, 30 spaying and neutering, 30 supply list, 78 taurine requirement, 61 toxoplasmosis, 137, 138 vegetarian diet, 39 waste, 116–120, 207–208 worms, 130, 138 cat scratch disease, 131 cemetery, pet, 218 Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 119, 128, 129, 138, 145 certification Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), 121 decoding labels, 11–16 description, 12
291
Integrity Certified International Organic Certification, 70 International Certification Services Organic Certification, 70 International Federation of Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), 12, 70 organic, 69–70 U.S. Composting Council (USCC), 121 Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers, 181–182 Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists, 181 chemical sterilants, 112 children age-appropriate pet choice, 40 benefits of pet ownership to, 128–129 canine aggression and, 202, 203 green initiatives and, 10 learning about themselves through animals, 50 pets and children’s health, 243–244 roundworm infection, 130 volunteering, 41 choosing the right pet acting on choices, 47 age appropriateness, 40 consequences of poor decisions, 28–31 exotic pets, 24–28 health concerns, 39–40 housing covenants and, 40 meeting needs of pet, 22–23 outside environment, 40 personal environmental ethic and, 36–40 popularity of pet types, 21, 22 resources, 48 sources of pets, 42–46 sustainability score (quiz), 46–47 why pet choice matters, 21–24 chrysanthemum, toxicity of, 156 CITIES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), 26 clay litter, 117 cleaning chemicals, 157–158 cleaning ingredients, 148–149 cleaning methods, 149–151 cleaning products, 147–148, 150 Clean Water Act, 108
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Clorox, 146–147 collars, 81, 82 combs, 82, 83 community ecology creation of community by pets, 212–215 dog parks, 212–215 future issues, 220 laws and ordinances, 23, 194–195 neighborhood ecosystem, 192–193 noise from pets, 206–207 pet aggression, 202–203 pet population control/regulation, 195–201 pet remains, 216–220 pet waste, 207–208 public spaces, 208–211 resources, 222–224 roaming pets, 203–206 sustainability plan, 222 sustainability score (quiz), 221 compostable, definition of, 110 composting, 111–113, 213–214 confinement systems, 81 Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices (Union of Concerned Scientists), 50, 51, 225 Consumer’s Union, 77 contraceptives, 199 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITIES), 26 Co-op America’s Green Business Network, 12 Coqui Frog, 33 coral, 27 corn, plastic production and, 16 Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (McDonough and Braungart), 239 Craigslist, 91 crates, 96–97 cremation, 220 cryptococcosis, 132 Cryptosporidium, 105, 132 Cybercanine (grooming product retailer), 83 cyclamen, toxicity of, 155
D Delta Society, 129 deodorizing, 149 diet. See also pet food blended approaches to, 68 convenience, 58–60 cost, 58–60, 243 factors in selection, 58–59 homemade, 60–61 ingredients, 58–60, 71–72 natural, 66, 67 nutritional requirements, 56, 252–256 organic, 65–66 raw, 64–65 selection process, 59–60 vegetarian, 62–63 digester, pet waste, 113–114 dingo, 229 disease. See also specific diseases pet-associated, 129–140 preventing infections, 151 disease prevention cleaning the home, 146–152 flea and tick prevention, 158–160 hand washing, 145 toxin removal, 152–158 disinfectants, 151 Dogaware.com, 65 dogfighting, 195 dogfriendly.com, 98, 211 dog park, 100, 212–215 dogs aggression, 202–203 avian influenza, 143 barking, 23, 206 breeders, 43–45 calories required to feed, 51 chasing wildlife, 99, 209 diet, 60–68 diseases associated with, 130–139 domestication, 21 fencing for, 93, 94 health-care services, 167–168 life span and daily care, 37 meeting needs of, 23 NRC’s mineral intake recommendations for, 255–256
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Index NRC’s nutritional requirements for, 56, 253 NRC’s vitamin requirements for, 254 number of pets in U.S., 4 pet care costs, 38 popularity as pet, 21, 22 in public spaces, 208–211 reason for surrender to shelters, 29 reproduction rates, 30 spaying and neutering, 30 supply list, 76–77 vegetarian diet, 39 waste management, 122, 207 worms, 130, 138 dog walkers, 209 domestication of dogs and cats, 21 doors, pet, 92–93 DoSomething.org, 41 Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats (Pitcairn), 61 Dream Pet (Sega Toys), 231 dusting, 149
E Earthbath (grooming product retailer), 83 Eastern Gray Squirrel, 32 Ecological Footprint Quiz, 246 EcoLogo label, 11 ecology, 192. See also community ecology economic forces as motivators, 240–242 ecosystem, degradation by unleashed pets, 24 ecotourism, 25 electric fencing, 93 embalming, 217 Energy Star label, 11, 13, 16 English ivy, toxicity of, 156 Environmental Defense Fund, 242 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Biosolids Rule, 112 dog fecal output, 104 drinking water contamination, 107 indoor air, 149 pesticides, 160 remains disposal, 217 waste disposal, 109, 112–113 Environmental Working Group, 152, 243
293
Epicurean Simplicity (Mills), 246 equipment beds, 84–85 bird supply list, 79 car restraint systems, 96–97 cat supply list, 78 confinement systems, 81 dog supply list, 76–77 fencing, 93–94 fish supply list, 78 food and water bowls, 80 green purchasing, 77 grooming, 82–83 leashes, 98 litter, 85–87 muzzles, 99 pet doors, 92–93 reptile and amphibian supply list, 78–79 resources, 102 sharing, reusing, and recycling, 90–91 shopping for, 87–91 small mammal supply list, 79 sustainability plan, 102 sustainability score (quiz), 101 toys, 84–85 Escherichia coli, 105, 106 e-tailers, 87–90 euthanasia, 29, 30, 35 exotic pets/animals. See also specific pet types bedding, 121, 123 depletion of natural populations, 24 description, 24 diet, 60 global trade in reptiles, 26–28 illegal, 25 invasive species, 31–33 nutritional requirements, 56–58 owner and public safety, 25, 27–28 expectations, of pet by owner, 22–23
F family members, pets as, 49–50 farmer’s market, 58 fats, 252, 253 FDA (Food and Drug Administration), 63, 210 feces. See waste
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294
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Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 14 fencing, 93–94 feral animals birds, 204–206 cats, 33–36, 204, 228–229 fertilizers, 153–154, 156–157 fiber, 253 filters, 123 fish disposal of unwanted, 34 ecologically sensitive capture practices, 27 life span and daily care, 37 MAC certification, 27 number of pets in U.S., 4 pet care costs, 38 popularity as pet, 21, 22 supply list, 78 waste management, 123 flea-borne diseases, 140 flea comb, 82 fleas, prevention, 158–160 Florida, invasive species in, 24, 31–32 food. See also nutrition; pet food distance traveled by, 53–54 factors in diet selection, 58–59 organic, 65–66, 70 resources required to produce, 51–52 Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 63, 210 food bowls, 80 food production, environmental effects of, 50, 51–54 fostering, 41 Freecycle Network, 91 freshwater fish. See fish FTC (Federal Trade Commission), 14 Fuller’s earth, 117 fumes, chemical, 158 fungal infections, 132, 135, 139 fungus, 139 furniture, pet, 84–85 furniture polish, 150
G Garrett, Leslie (The Virtuous Consumer), 54, 150 genetic engineering, 16, 243 Giardia, 100, 105, 107, 133, 209
gifts, giving pets as, 215–216 Global Organic Alliance (GOA) Certified Organic Program, 70 Global Strategy Groups, 10 Godlovitch, Stanley and Rosalind (Animals, Men, and Morals), 234 green, meaning of term, 7 Green Business Network, 12 GreenerChoices.org, 77 green marketing, 7–16 green purchasing, 77 greenwashing, 13–16 Green Works, 146–147 groomers, 178–179, 186 grooming products, 82–83 Guam, invasive species in, 33 Guide for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (FTC), 14 guinea pigs, pet care costs, 38
H habitattitude, 34 hair, grooming products, 82–83 hand washing, 145 Harris, John (Animals, Men, and Morals), 234 Hawaii, invasive species in, 33 HDPE (high-density polyethylene), 94 health concerns of pet ownership, 39–40 diseases associated with pets, 129–140 flea and tick prevention, 158–160 health-care expenses, 168 health-care services used, 167–168 improvement from pets, 128–129 resources, 163–164 sustainability plan, 162 sustainability score (quiz), 161–162 why pets matter to your health, 128–130 heartwater disease, 28 heating, cooling, and ventilation systems, 169 Help in Suffering, 227 hemp collars and leashes, 82 herbicides, 153, 157 high-density polyethylene (HDPE), 94 High Tech Pet (pet door retailer), 93 hoarding, pet, 23
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Index home cleaning, 146–152 removing household toxins, 152–158 home life, pets and, 39–40 homemade diet, 60–61 home modifications for pets backyard fencing, 93–95 mudrooms, 95–96 pet doors, 92–93 homeowners associations, 195 Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative (Strombeck), 61 hookworms, 106, 130, 134 horses life span and daily care, 37 number of pets in U.S., 4 popularity as pet, 22 West Nile virus infection, 141 households, pet ownership in U.S., 3, 21, 22 housing covenants, 40 Humane Society International Asia, 26 Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) animals in shelters, 43 feral cats and, 35 formation of, 235 legislative fund, 237 reptile ban, 26 wild animals as pets, 25
I immune system, effect of pets on, 128 In Defense of Animals (IDA), 233 India, animals in, 227 infections, preventing, 151 influenza, avian, 142–144 insect breeders, 45 insect-growth regulators, 159 insecticide, 159–160 integrated pest management, 152 Integrity Certified International Organic Certification, 70 International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, 182 International Certification Services Organic Certification, 70
295
International Federation of Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), 12, 70 invasive species, 31–33 ISEAL (International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling), 70 Isharestuff.org, 91
K kalanchoe, toxicity of, 155 Katz, Jon (The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family), 220 kennels, 179–180, 186 kids. See children KidsCare Clubs, 41, 42 kitty litter. See litter Kong (toy manufacturer), 85
L labels American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), 56, 67, 68–69 American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), 121 Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), 121 for carbon footprints, 54 decoding, 12–16 EcoLogo, 11 Energy Star, 11, 13, 16 FTC requirements, 14 Green Business Network, 12 ingredients list, 71–72 International Federation of Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), 12, 70 interpreting, 69 keywords, 68–69 meaningless, 11 No Animal Testing, 12 organic certification, 69–70 Organic Trade Association Member, 12 pet food, 68–72 understanding, 72 U.S. Composting Council (USCC), 121 landscaping, 171–172 lawns, 156–157
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laws and ordinances. See also regulations effect of consumer attitudes, 244 enforcement, 194–195 limiting pets, 200–201 spay/neuter, 29, 198, 199–200 LCM (lymphocytic choriomeningitis), 134, 139 leashes, 81, 82, 98 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards, 169, 170, 172 legislation, sterilization and breeding bans, 198 licensing of pets, 23, 194 LifeGems, 218 lilies, toxicity of, 154 litter green alternatives, 85–87 health concerns, 118–119 plant-based, 118 types, 116–118, 120 litter box, self-washing, 85, 86, 119–120 livestock waste, 105 locavore, 7–8, 53 The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA (Phelps), 234, 236 lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM), 134, 139
M mad cow disease, 70 marijuana, toxicity of, 155 Marine Aquarium Council (MAC), 27 marketing green, 7–16 greenwashing, 13–16 labels, 11–16 socially conscious consumer, 9–10 terminology, 8 McDonough, William (Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things), 239 meat, cost of production, 52 medications, unused, 83 melamine, 63 Mills, Stephanie (Epicurean Simplicity), 246 minerals, 255–256
mold and mildew removal, 150 monkeys, 25 Monk (Quaker) parakeet, 32, 204–206 Moore Pet Supplies (pet door retailer), 93 mosquitoes, West Nile virus transmission, 140–142 mudrooms, 95–96 muzzles, 99
N National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors, 182 National Center for Animal Law, 244 National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, 28 National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species, 32 National Pesticide Information Center, 160 National Resource Council (NRC) mineral intake recommendations, 255–256 nutritional requirements, 51, 56, 253 vitamin requirements, 254–255 National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), 159 native plants, 156–157 natural foods, 66, 67 natural populations, depletion by collectors, 24 Nature Conservancy, 245 NAVS (North American Vegetarian Society), 234–235 needs, hierarchy of, 193 Neighborrow.com, 91 neutering, 29–30 The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family (Katz), 220 Nike, sustainability and, 239–240 Nile Monitor Lizards, 31 nitrates, 107 nitrogen, from wastes, 105, 107, 123 No Animal Testing label, 12 noise from pets, 23, 206–207 no-kill shelters, 30, 200, 235 North American Vegetarian Society (NAVS), 234–235
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Index Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, 153 Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI), 172–173 Norwalk virus, 105 NRC. See National Resource Council NRDC (National Resources Defense Council), 159 nutrition carbohydrates, 253 exotic pets, 56–58 fats, 252, 253 minerals, 255–256 National Research Council requirements, 56, 253–256 proteins, 252, 253 vitamins, 253–255 NWEI (Northwest Earth Institute), 172–173
O offgas, 158 Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety and Fun (Bennett and Briggs), 100 OGS (Organic Guarantee System), 12 oleander, toxicity of, 155 online communities, 90–91 online retailers, 87–90 Oregon Environmental Council, 171 organic, meaning of term, 7 organic certification, 69–70 Organic Consumers Association, 53, 90 organic food certification, 69–70 ingredients, 70 methods of production, 52 pet food, 53, 55, 65–66 store-bought, 65–66 Organic Guarantee System (OGS), 12 Organic Trade Association (OTA), 12 organic waste, curbside recycling, 115–116 Osborn, Matt (The Professional PooperScooper: How to Start Your Own Low-Cost, High-Profit Dog Waste Removal Service), 114 oven cleaner, 150, 157
297
overpopulation, pet, 30–31, 44, 195–201 ownership choosing right pet, 21–48 community concerns, 23 ecosystem effects, 24 meeting needs of pet, 22–23 sources of pets, 42–46 of wild animals, 25
P Packaged Facts, 9, 243 packaging green terminology, 8 labels, 11–16 pet food, 54–55 parasites, 106, 130, 132–134, 136–138 parking areas, reducing runoff from, 171 parking tickets, dog, 210 parks, dogs in, 209, 211 parrot fever (psittacosis), 134, 140 parrots, 33, 180, 204–206 pasteurization, 112 peace lily, toxicity of, 156 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 12, 233–236 pest control, 151–152 pesticides, 153–154, 156–157 pet care costs, 38 Pet Care Services Association (PCSA), 179–180 pet doors, 92–93 Petfinder.com, 36, 43 pet food calories required to feed pets, 51 consumer decisions, 243 convenience, 58–60 cost, 58–60, 243 diet selection, 58–60 distance traveled by food, 53–54 homemade, 60–61 inexpensive, 67–68 information resources, 74 ingredients, 58–60, 71–72 labels, 54, 68–72 manufacturers, 66 natural (store-bought), 66, 67 nutrition, 56–58
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pet food (cont.) organic (store-bought), 53, 55, 65–66 packaging, 54–55 quality variation, 67 raw diets, 64–65 recalls, 8–9, 62–63, 243 resources required to produce, 51–53 sustainability plan for, 73–74 sustainability score (quiz), 73 vegetarian diets, 39, 62–63 why green pet food matters, 49–51 pet hoarding, 23 PetHobbyist.com, 54 PetPartners program, 129 petroleum, in plastics, 16 pet service business. See also specific services building materials, 170–171 eco-friendly, 168–174 frequency of use, 167 green questions to ask, 174 heating and cooling, 169 LEED standards, 169, 170, 172 office functions, 172–174 parking areas and landscaping, 171–172 pet services, ecologically sensitive boarding, 179–180, 186 business elements, 168 frequency of use, 167 groomers, 178–179, 186 health-care expenses, 168 health-care services, 167–168 pet sitters, 175–176, 186 pet taxis, 184–185, 187 resources, 189–190 selecting, 186–187 sustainability plan, 188–189 sustainability score (quiz), 187–188 trainers, 180–182, 187 veterinarians, 177–178, 186 waste removal, 182–184, 187 why they matter, 166–167 pet sitters, 175–176, 186 Pet Sitters International (PSI), 175–176 pet stores, 9, 45, 46 pet waste digester, 113–114 pet waste services, 114–115 Phelps, Norm (The Longest Struggle: Animal
Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA), 234, 236 phosphorus, 61, 255 Pitcairn, Richard (Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats), 61 plants disposal of unwanted aquatic, 34 invasive, 52 lawns, 156–157 native, 156–157 toxic, 154–156, 158 plastic bags, 110 plastics, 15–16, 54, 94, 171 play groups, dog, 215 Points of Light Foundation, 41 pooper-scooper, 108, 122, 183–184 population control achieving sustainable population, 30–31 animal shelters and, 195–197 overpopulation estimates, 197 spay/neuter programs, 196–201 pothos, toxicity of, 156 products. See also equipment green marketing, 7–16 greenwashing, 13–16 labels, 11–16, 54, 68–72 where to shop, 87–91 The Professional Pooper-Scooper: How to Start Your Own Low-Cost, High-Profit Dog Waste Removal Service (Osborn), 114 protecting your pet in public, 99–100 protein, 252, 253 PSI (Pet Sitters International), 175–176 psittacosis (parrot fever), 134, 140 public safety, pets and, 98–99 public spaces, pets in dog parks, 212–215 parks, 211 sidewalks, 209–211 trails, 208–209 public transportation, pets and, 97–98 puppy mills, 44 purchases conscious consumer, 9–10 green purchasing, 77
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Index locavore, 7–8, 53 purchasing decisions, 6–7 PureAyre (retailer), 150
R rabbits, pet care costs of, 38 rabies, 135, 139 rat-bite fever, 139 raw diet, 64–65 recalls, pet food, 8–9, 62–63, 243 recycling office materials, 173 online communities, 90–91 organic waste, 115–116 pet products, 90–91 plastics, 54, 94, 171 unused medications, 83 Red-Eared Slider Turtle, 33 regulations. See also laws and ordinances community, 23 licensing of pets, 23, 194 noise, 23 permits for reptiles, 28 pet remains, 219 pet wastes, 108 releasing unwanted pets, impact of, 31–36 remains, pet attitudes about, 216–217 cemetery, 218 cremation, 220 green burial, 219 regulations, 219 statistics, 217–218 reproduction rates, pet, 30 reptiles bedding, 121 breeders, 45 dangers to owners and public, 27–28 invasive species, 31–33 life span and daily care, 37 mortality rates, 26–27 number of pets in U.S., 4 permits for, 28 popularity as pet, 22 salmonellosis, 137, 138 supply list, 78–79 trade in, 26–28 water containers, 83
299
rescue organizations, as sources of pets, 43 restaurants, dogs and, 210–211 restraint systems, 96–97 retailers, online, 87–90 ringworm, 135, 139 roaming pets, 203–204 robotic pets, 231, 232 Rocky Mountain spotted fever, 136 rodent-borne diseases, 139 rodents, 23, 84, 134, 139 roundworms, 105, 106, 130, 136 runoff, reducing, 171–172
S safety chemical fumes, 156 cleaning chemicals, 157–158 dangers from exotic pets, 27–28 dangers of pet waste, 104–108 dog parks and, 213 flea and tick products, 159 household toxins, 152–158 leashes, 98 muzzles, 99 pesticides and fertilizers, 153–154, 156–157 protecting your pet in public, 99–100 toxic plants, 154–156, 158 sago palm, toxicity of, 155 saliva, allergens in, 39 Salmonella, 28, 64, 105, 137, 138 saltwater fish. See fish sanitizers, antibacterial, 145 schefflera, toxicity of, 156 schools, green initiatives in, 10 scrubbing, 150 shampoos, 82–83, 179 sharing a pet, 41 pet products, 90–91 shelters impact of sheltered animals, 29 no-kill, 30, 200, 235 pet overpopulation and, 195–197 reasons for pet surrender to, 28–29 as sources of pets, 43 volunteering, 41 Shepard, Paul (Where the Wild Things Aren’t), 226
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Shigella, 106 sidewalk, dogs on, 208–211 Sierra Club, 146–147 silicon, in cat litter, 117–118 Simply Fido (toy manufacturer), 85 Singer, Peter (Animal Liberation), 233, 234 small mammals breeders, 45 life span and daily care, 37 number of pets in U.S., 4 pet care costs, 38 popularity as pet, 22 supply list, 79 Smith, Cheryl (Visiting the Dog Park: Having Fun, Staying Safe), 100, 213 snail bait, 153–154 snakes exercise on pegged board, 84 invasive species, 32, 33 permits for venomous, 28 soaps, 82–83, 145 socially conscious consumer, 9–10 social networks, 215 Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians, 182 soil, 52 solar panels, 169 sources of pets breeders, 43–45 neighbors, 45 pet stores, large, 45 pet stores, specialty, 46 shelters and rescue organizations, 43 spay/neuter programs, 29–30, 196–201, 204 stain removal, 150 steaming, 151 sterilants, chemical, 112 sterilization. See spay/neuter programs Strombeck, Donald (Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative), 61 supply list bird, 79 cat, 78 dog, 76–77 fish, 78 reptile and amphibian, 78–79 small mammal, 79
sustainability description of concept, 5–6 growing into, 20 purchase decisions, 6–7 sustainability plan acting on pet choices, 47 acting on pets and community ecology, 222 choosing green pet equipment and toys, 102 choosing green pet food, 73–74 ecologically sensitive pet services, 188–189 pets and household health, 162 responsible pet waste disposal, 124 twenty-first-century issues for pets and sustainability, 247 sustainability score (quiz) choosing green pet equipment and toys, 101 choosing green pet food, 73 choosing pets, 46–47 ecologically sensitive pet services, 187–188 managing pet waste responsibly, 123–124 pets and community ecology, 221 pets and household health, 161–162 starting point, 17–20 twenty-first-century issues for pets and sustainability, 247
T tapeworm, 133 taurine, 61 taxis, pet, 184–185, 187 TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, 11 Tesco (supermarket chain), 54 tethering dogs, 210 Throwplace.com, 91 tick-borne diseases, 140 tick prevention, 158–160 tigers, 25 topsoil, erosion of, 52 toxins chemical fumes, 156 cleaning chemicals, 157–158
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Index dangers to pets, 152–153 flea and tick products, 159 pesticides and fertilizers, 153–154, 156–157 plants, 154–156, 158 in toys, 84 toxoplasmosis, 86, 116, 137, 138 toys, 84–85 trails, pets on, 208–209 trainers, 180–182, 187 trap, neuter, return (TNR) program, 35 trash, pet waste disposal in, 110–111 tulip/narcissus bulbs, toxicity of, 155 turtles, 33 twenty-first-century issues animal law, 244 attitudes about animals, 226–237 carbon offset, 245 children’s health, 243–244 consumer decisions, 243 economic forces as motivators, 240–242 resources, 248–251 solving sustainability problems, 239–240 sustainability plan, 248 sustainability score (quiz), 247 vegetarianism, 237–238
U Union of Concerned Scientists, 50, 51, 225–226, 238 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 44, 69–70 unwanted pets, release of, 31–36 urine, allergens in, 39 U.S. Composting Council (USCC), 121
V vaccination, rabies, 139 vacuuming and sweeping, 151 vegetarianism, 39, 62–63, 237–238 veterinarians as ecologically sensitive pet service, 177–178, 186 spay/neuter services, 197–198, 199–200 The Virtuous Consumer (Garrett), 54, 150 viruses, in pet waste, 105, 106
301
Visiting the Dog Park: Having Fun, Staying Safe (Smith), 100, 213 vitamins, 253–255 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), 158 volunteering, 41–42
W waste amount produced, 104 bacteria from, 105–106 cat, 116–120, 207–208 cleanup in the wild, 99–100 community ecology and, 207–208 dangers of, 104–108 exotic pets, 121, 123 intrusive nature of, 103 litter, 85–87 livestock, 105 parasites and viruses, 106 resources, 125–126 sustainability plan, 124 sustainability score (quiz), 123–124 waste bags, 87 water contamination from, 106–108 waste bags, 87, 110, 122 waste disposal bagging, 87, 110, 122 burial, 111 composting, 111–113, 213–214 curbside organic waste recycling, 115–116 principles of disposal, 109–111 removal services, 114–115 responsible, 108–116 sustainability plan, 124 sustainability score (quiz), 123–124 in toilet, 109–110 in trash, 110–111 veterinary clinic, 178 waste removal providers, 182–184, 187 water bowls, 80 water contamination, from pet waste, 106–108 West Nile virus, 140–142 West Paw Design (bed manufacturer), 84 Where the Wild Things Aren’t (Shepard), 226 Whole Dog Journal, 61, 71
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wildlife. See also exotic pets/animals chasing by dogs, 99, 209 ecotourism and, 25 private ownership of wild animals, 25 traders, 25, 231 window cleaner, 150 World Conservation Monitoring Center, 27 World Conservation Union, 32 World Health Organization, 105, 144 World Wildlife Federation, 27 World Wildlife Fund, 26 worms, 105, 106, 130, 138
Y yard and garden, toxins in, 153–157 yew, toxicity of, 155 Youth Venture-Lorax Challenge, 10
Z zoonoses, 129
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This book gives you all the information you need to understand sustainability as a pet owner and arms you with the know-how to make the best choices for your pet and the environment. You’ll get a list of the best available options for:
Thoroughly researched and packed with realistic guidelines for putting ideas into practice, Pets and the Planet is a virtual road map for sustainable pet parenthood.
Carol Frischmann is the author of two books and many articles about animals and nature. As a zoo educator, wildlife rehabilitator, and science teacher, she has been lecturing to the public about pets and wildlife for more than twenty years.
Cover Design: Suzanne Sunwoo Cover Photographs: © Jupiter Images
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A Practical Guide to Sustainable Pet Care
Choosing pet food (and decoding labels) Purchasing green pet equipment and toys Disposing of pet waste responsibly Pets and household health And more
Pets and the Planet
You care about your pet. You care about the environment. You want to make informed decisions when it comes to involving your furry or feathered family members in your mission to live more lightly on the planet. But how do you know if you’re providing for your pet in a way that will leave the Earth as resource-rich as it was before you acquired your dog, cat, or bird?
Frischmann
PETS/General
Pets and the Planet A Practical Guide to Sustainable Pet Care
Carol Frischmann
