DawnWatch Indiana

Indiana DawnWatch: Positive article on vegetarianism in the Indianapolis Star

2006-02-16T10:06:17Z

On Wednesday, February 15, the Indianapolis Star included a short positive article on vegetarian diets. I will paste it below. It presents a terrific opportunity for those on plant-based diets to send letters to the editor singer their praises. You might want to write about the horrors of factory farming. (See www.FactoryFarming.com for information and photos.) The Indianapolis Star takes letters at http://www2.indystar.com/help/contact/letters.html

The Indianapolis Star (Indiana)
February 15, 2006 Wednesday
FEATURES - FOOD & DRINK; Pg. 3E

Balanced vegetarian diet is possible

By Jolene Ketzenberger, Star Correspondent

Though parents may worry that a vegetarian diet isn't healthful, rest assured that kids can get plenty of protein and other nutrients without eating meat. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines state that "vegetarian diets can be consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and meet Recommended Dietary Allowances for nutrients."

According to the American Dietetic Association, "appropriately planned vegan, lacto-vegetarian and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children and adolescents and promote normal growth."

Experts warn against dropping meat without finding other protein sources.

Margie Bryan, a registered dietitian with The Care Group, a statewide network of cardiologists and primary care physicians, says that teens going veg should strive for variety:

"Kids think they're eating healthy, but they're not reading the labels. The key to a healthy vegetarian diet is variety. You have to be concerned if you're only eating salad and potato chips."

She also notes that anyone going veg should be aware of the calorie content of foods that often accompany carbs, such as high-fat cheese, dips and toppings for baked potatoes.

"We can't hang the problem just on carbs," she says. "Portion distortion becomes more the focus than overloading on carbs. The risk of increasing calories would probably come from the accompaniments of carbohydrate foods."

But there's more to going veg than simply what's on your plate. Eighteen-year-old IUPUI freshman Jessica Collins, a vegetarian who has taught a class for teens considering the switch, offers some practical advice on how to go veg:

Bring your own dish to family gatherings so you won't have to go hungry if there are no veg options. Bring enough to share -- you never know who you might inspire with delicious food.

Never make anyone feel uncomfortable while they're eating -- don't say, for example, "You know you're eating the flesh of an animal who was brutally tortured before it was murdered just so you could eat its body, right?"

Be prepared to be criticized, but we all know how it feels, and doing it ourselves is not an effective way to shed a positive light on vegetarians.

Craft a polite, constructive response to criticisms and questions about your lifestyle. For example, "I'm doing this for my health and for the animals, and I feel great."

Don't think that you're going to last as a healthy vegetarian if you live on mashed potatoes, Fritos, Sour Patch Kids and Twizzlers. Just because you're eating food sans animal products doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy. Maintain a diet full of fresh vegetables, whole grains, fruit, beans and nuts (and low-fat yogurt, cheese and milk if you're not vegan).

(END OF INDIANAPOLIS STAR ARTICLE)
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(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.dawnwatch.com/cgi-bin/dada/dawnwatch_unsubscribe.cgi If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts please leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)

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Date: Thu Feb 16 10:06:17 2006

Indiana DawnWatch: Lovely Katrina rescue story in Fort Wayne Journal Gazette 12/8/05

2005-12-08T10:55:04Z

The following lovely article about Miss Lucy, from the Thursday, December 8, Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette presents a great opportunity for letters on the joys of adoption. The Gazette takes letters at letters@jg.net
Include your name, address, and phone number for verification. Name and city will be printed.

There is a nice photo of Miss Lucy at this link:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/13357177.htm

December 8, 2005 Thursday
SECTION: D; Pg. 1
Katrina canine's new home;
Stormswept dog's fragile life turns with local family's love

Dell Ford, For The Journal Gazette
--
There's something about Lucy.

It's the eyes. Sad. Wary. Little brown pools holding dark secrets she never will be able to share.

But one day she found someone ... or someone found her ... or they found each other. It doesn't matter how it happened, only that it did one hot September day at Pet Playground on Lima Road. That's when Lucy's life went from chancy to charmed.

Cindy Roethele and her husband, Terry, responding to a newspaper notice asking for donations of food, blankets, bowls and towels for dogs rescued from Hurricane Katrina, went to Pet Playground with some of the requested items "and to see what else they might need," Cindy recalls. Miss Lucy is held by her adoptive mom, Cindy Roethele.
Miss Lucy, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, has gone from being "very sick" to making progress every day in her new surroundings.

The notice also said survivor dogs would be available for adoption.

Five years cancer-free (as of April 2006) after surgery at Mayo Clinic for progressive malignant melanoma, Cindy was not looking for a dog to adopt. Mugz, her beloved Australian shepherd, had gone through the cancer with Cindy. And the recuperation.

"She was my motivation, my love. She was very patient with me. We walked together, short distances at first, then through the addition. Mugz was about 13 then," Cindy says.

The shepherd died in July 2002 and Cindy "closed the book on dogs ... I thought I'd never love another dog like that."

Then came the hot day in September.

The Roetheles had not intended to walk through the back of Pet Playground where dogs, transported by Pet Jamboree from a shelter in Alabama after Hurricane Katrina, were housed in cages. Didn't intend to, but did.

"I went past the row where this little dog was huddled in the back of her cage." All the others, Cindy remembers, "were up front (in their cages) saying, 'Look at me! Look at me!' "

When Cindy saw the little dog huddled at the back of her cage, "there was a strong pull. I couldn't get past her. She seemed lost ..."

A volunteer took the dog from the cage and placed her on a towel on Cindy's lap.

"Her heart was racing and she was trembling," Cindy recalls. "I stroked her ..."

The Roetheles left and went for breakfast at Bob Evans.

Cindy "sat there and cried and I said, 'I need to go back and see this dog.' I took her out of her cage and looked at her again and that was it ... for me."

Adoption papers were signed Sept. 12 but the little hurricane survivor did not go to her new home until Sept. 17, after she'd been spayed.

A reddish-brown, short-haired dog with a large splash of white on her chest, the new member of the Roethele family was given the name Lucy, reflecting Cindy's fondness for another redhead Lucille Ball in "I Love Lucy." More recently, the word "Miss" was added because, Cindy explains, "Lucy is a southern lady. Genteel."

Her breed is a question (Cindy sees a little spaniel) as is her age, probably 1 or 2 years old.

"She still has a little puppy in her. She'll try to catch a ball in midair, and she loves to run and chase squirrels," Cindy says.

In the company of strangers, Miss Lucy hangs back, still shy and more than a little leery. She utters a soft, barely audible "Grrr ... woof ... grrr" that seems to say, "I don't know you ... can I trust you? ... can I?"

Cindy scoops the dog up in her arms and the "Grrr" goes away, but the look in the brown eyes remains extremely suspicious. Overcoming the trauma she most certainly experienced in the hurricane and its aftermath will take time. And large doses of love.

Settling on a family room sofa with Miss Lucy in her lap, Cindy says the dog doesn't like rain, wind or storms.

She does like TJ (for Tiger Joe) the cat, once best buddy of Mugz, now Miss Lucy's pal.

"They play together, sleep together," Cindy says.

And she likes to ride in the car to McDonald's to watch people and to the bank where she knows she'll get a Milk Bone treat.

The Miss Lucy resting, paws crossed, in Cindy's lap is not the same dog the Roetheles brought home in September.

Wanting their little red-haired pet looked over from "every angle," Cindy took her to Dr. Steven S. Harry at Dupont Veterinary Clinic.

Dr. Harry found many things about Lucy to be "very."

"She was very thin and emaciated," he says, adding, "very scared, shy, lethargic, very weak. She had a severe cough, nasal discharge and sneezing. She was very sick. We weren't sure at that point she would make it."

Dr. Harry put his patient on an antibiotic and cough suppressant, but "she continued to go down hill." He then ordered blood work, a radiograph and tracheal wash to determine the bacteria he was dealing with and the antibiotic to best treat it. The diagnosis was bronchitis and pneumonia. On one visit it was determined Miss Lucy had an intestinal parasite (coccidia) and hookworm. Both were treated with drugs. Lucy's heartworm test was negative, but she will be rested in March.

Underscoring Dr. Harry's bleak assessment, Cindy says "when we brought Lucy home she was so weak we had to pick her up and put her on the grass to piddle. I slept on the (family room) sofa three nights. Lucy was on a pillow on the floor. I listened to her breathe. She'd cry the first week when we'd leave her at night and go upstairs to bed."

A combination of medical treatment provided by Dr. Harry and love and care provided by Cindy have done wonders for Miss Lucy.

When the veterinarian saw Lucy Nov. 3 "she had gained about 5 pounds (going from 13 to 18 pounds), and she looked great. Her heart and lungs sounded fine."

For her part, Cindy is "so thrilled and proud of Lucy. She makes progress every day."

One question about Lucy's behavior was put to the test when the Roetheles' granddaughters, Alexandra, 3, and Ainsley, 16 months, visited during Thanksgiving.

"She was really good with them ... gentle ... no snapping, no aggression. She followed them around watched them play," Cindy says.

Since September, Pet Jamboree has made four trips to bring about 250 hurricane survivors from animal shelters in the south to Fort Wayne for adoption. Christi Pelz, Pet Jamboree president, says all but about 10 have been adopted.

None could be more lucky than Miss Lucy.

"No regrets," says Cindy Roethele gently stroking Miss Lucy's back. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
(END OF JOURNAL GAZETTE STORY)
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(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts please leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)

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Date: Thu Dec 8 10:55:04 2005

Indiana DawnWatch: Indianapolis Star on preference for Louisiana animals over local animals 9/26/05

2005-09-26T17:21:17Z

The Monday, September 26, Indianapolis Star has an excellent article on the rush to adopt animals displaced by hurricane Katrina, as thousands of other animals are killed every year in Indianapolis for lack of homes. I will paste it below. It presents a great opportunity for letters in favor of adoption. Please write. The Indianapolis Star takes letters at: http://www2.indystar.com/help/contact/letters.html

Hoosiers open homes to storm pets
Officials praise adoptions, but lament the fate of local animals
By Tom Spalding
tom.spalding@indystar.com
September 26, 2005

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050926/NEWS01/509260406/1006

A wave of dogs and cats evacuated from storm-stricken Gulf Coast cities have had little trouble finding new homes in Central Indiana.

But the demand to adopt survivors comes at a price in a region that euthanizes thousands of unwanted pets each year.

"Everybody has kind of put the Indiana animals on the back burner," said Rosie Ellis, director of Southside Animal Shelter, 1614 W. Edgewood. "Everybody is wanting to rescue animals from Katrina."

Amid the calls coming last week to her shelter from folks wanting to adopt animals from the Gulf Coast were those from people trying to turn over unwanted litters of kittens or stray animals.

"It's either divorce, moving or 'Don't have enough time'" said Lisa Roberts, who works at a shelter in Johnson County, where she is seeing a similar pattern.

"We put down cats and dogs here every day that people are not coming to adopt," Roberts said.

Surge, an 8-month-old Siamese mix kitten, now lives in a veterinarian's office on Georgetown Road after surviving floodwaters and injuries in Louisiana. It's not the animal's pedigree but its past that makes Surge a hot property, according to Michele Fox, office manager for The Cat Doctor at 56th Street and Georgetown Road.

"Some people just want to adopt the cat just because it's a 'hurricane cat.' " Her office, however, will wait to find the right match for Surge, she said. "We want to make sure it's going to a great home."

Shelter operators say it's too early to determine the scope of the Katrina effect -- or the results likely when the sure-to-follow Hurricane Rita orphans begin arriving. Rescue groups from Indiana are likely to repeat the evacuation efforts that brought many animals north after Katrina swamped parts of the South.

Some impact is almost guaranteed.

Katrina displaced about 50,000 animals just in New Orleans, said Rachel Querry, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Humane Society of the United States. That number is likely to grow because of Rita.

Animal care workers in Louisiana and Mississippi eagerly have handed over abandoned or stray animals to visiting do-gooders as a good alternative to the prospect of mass euthanasia in the stricken region.

Yet pet overpopulation has been an ongoing problem in Indianapolis.

At the city pound, about 14,444 animals had to be put asleep in 2004 -- 70 percent of those were strays to begin with, said Media Wilson, spokeswoman for Indianapolis Animal Care & Control.

Lisa Tudor, IndyFeral president, estimates that there are 175,000 feral, free-roaming cats in the city.

Many of the same animal-loving facilities that have collected donations to send South -- to buy dog food -- hope people get the message that animals closer to home still need help.

Adopting an animal is a "15-year commitment" and not a responsibility that can be ended in six months when the novelty has worn off, said David DeBruzzi, director of community outreach for the Indianapolis Humane Society. His agency serves a seven-county area and is the
largest outfit of its type in the state.

To make sure an adoption is successful, the society includes fees that cover not only medical shots but also advice on how to successfully acclimate a pet to new surroundings.

When folks ask for an animal rescued from a hurricane from among the 400 dogs and cats held by the Humane Society, DeBruzzi counters with one question: "What exactly is the difference?"

But the Humane Society has a cat from Slidell, La., a black and white female dubbed Gale. She's up for adoption, and her background is noted on the card attached to her cage.

"We did struggle with it," he said.

Several people at the Humane Society's Michigan Road adoption lobby last week said they wouldn't mind being a foster or full-time parent of a displaced pet.

Patrick Baldwin, 21, an Indianapolis package delivery driver, picked out a 21-month-old brown boxer mix. He chose the unnamed dog because of her friendly disposition, not her background.

"Any dog that can be helped in any way, I'm glad to help."
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(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts please leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)

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Date: Mon Sep 26 17:21:17 2005