DNA Study Unlocks Mystery To Diverse Traits In Dogs

What makes a pointer point, a sheep dog herd, and a retriever retrieve? Why do Yorkshire terriers live longer than Great Danes? And how can a tiny Chihuahua possibly be related to a Great Dane?

Dogs vary in size, shape, color, coat length and behavior more than any other animal and until now, this variance has largely been unexplained. Now, scientists have developed a method to identify the genetic basis for this diversity that may have far-reaching benefits for dogs and their owners.

In the cover story of June 24th’s edition of the science journal Genetics, research reveals locations in a dog’s DNA that contain genes that scientists believe contribute to differences in body and skull shape, weight, fur color and length — and possibly even behavior, trainability and longevity.

Click here for the full article.

Source:  Kitty MowMow’s Animal Expo

Posted:  Just One More Pet

Our 2-Year Old German Shepherd Has Started Biting…

I thought this exchange was worth sharing…  Comes from my animal group on AARP.org Dog Blog Group. Original Post:

Need some advice if any of you has had experience with this. Our GSD is 2 yrs old and in the past 3 days has bitten both my husband and myself as we tried to take a bone from her-two separate occasions. My bite was very hard and unexpected-I was taking a beef-jerky bone from in front of her-it was not in her mouth, just on the floor. But her paws were on each side of it. I said “you finished yours-and that one is for Levi”-she barked viciously as I had never heard her before and immediately sunk her teeth into my hand. I had to go to the emergency room to get it washed out, a tetanus shot and was put on antibiotics.

So yesterday my husband tried the same thing-don’t ask me why. He thought he was immune. She did not get him as hard but I heard her same wild bark and knew what had happened. Our trainers said she needs firmer control and possession-aggression classes. My doctor said whatever we do, don’t re-home her (which we would not as we would not want this to happen to someone else). I am waiting to consult with my vet, but just wondered if anyone had other experiences. She has been in training since she was a pup-both obedience and protection and  is very well-taken care of.

Responses:

CritSis:

I think the older a dog gets the more possessive he gets of his food. I was bitten by a dachshund and she was eating a treat I gave her. She was the gentlest dog I’ve ever cared for. However, from that incident, I learned never to reach down or interfere when they are eating or have food within their possession. Just a rule of thumb with dogs, no matter how well-trained a dog might be.

Magic:

Did something happen or was there some kind of event prior to those three days?

Aas she ever bitten before for any other reason?

Who is levi?  Another Pet?

Kate:

My ex has a huge German Shepherd that’s only a year and a half.  Scout was displaying the same tendency your dog is – so I told them not to give him any bones for a while and began teaching him the command ‘Give” .

I  wore heavy gloves, held one of his favorite toys – a  Ty-Baby cat – and commanded him to sit.  He was very excited at the sight of the cat and it took a couple commands.  When he sat I told him ‘Good Scout’ and held out the cat.  He’d start to lunge for it and I’d command, NO.  Then I’d make him sit again.  Finally, he’d sit and just watch it.  Then I threw it and he brought it back into the room and I would (with the glove on) grasp the cat still in his mouth and tell him “GIVE” as I forced his mouth open and removed it.  Then we started all over again.  It took several days with an hour training session for him to understand the rules of the game and the commands.

Then, still wearing the glove, I changed the cat to a bone and after about an hour, he was playing the game.  Now when my ex or his wife wants to remove something, Scout is made to SIT and if he tries to pick up the bone, he must GIVE.

One good deterrent I’ve found is a large spray bottle with a 50/50 mixture of vinegar and water.  If he’s barking and acting up or running around, or jumping on people in his excitement – all they have to do now is pick up the bottle and he retreats to his bed.

P.S. I’m 5 foot 3 inches and when he puts his paws on my shoulders, I have to look UP to tell him to SIT.

Good luck and don’t forget the heavy glove.

JOMP:

I agree with all three of the previous comments.  I think the re-training attempt with the glove is certainly worth a try!!  …Or perhaps getting some input from a private trainer.  It is odd that all of a sudden out of nowhere your dog would become that aggressive over her bone/food for no reason. However, many dogs are aggressive or protective when it comes to food.  It is in their nature, especially if you have more than one dog!!  Is Levi a second dog?

We have 4 (long story) a pure breed Chihuahua (mom), a Chiweenie – Chihuahua Weener Dog Mix (dad) and two of their pups.  The mom, who was always so even tempered has become somewhat possessive with her food and even became aggressive at times, but only with food, after the puppies grew up and stayed.  She has bitten me and my husband on occasion when she thought we were going to take away her food and will snap at the other dogs (over food)… but otherwise she is the most easy going dog in the world.  And now that the pups know better, she has calmed down.  She has claimed her dominant spot as the Alpha Dog among the pack of 4.

I think that some of it is instinct in dogs to protect their food… if you have more than one.  And I also think that sometimes it happens if they feel they are not getting their share of attention.  We over acknowledged and petted the mom for awhile as she went through this phase and that seemed to help a lot.  My husband also turned it into a game.  If she starts to growl over a treat… He calls her name and says, “Cookie??  Your Cookie??” in a joyful manner and moves toward her…  She then immediately barks and then grabs the treat and the game is over.

I realize that a German Shepherd bite is scarier than a Chihuahua bite, but I would try not to over-react on the negative side.  Also, now that you’ve had your Tetanus shot, if it is your own dog and just a nip type of bite… even if it is hard, you shouldn’t need to go to the emergency room or doctor if it happens again.  They also often over-react.

Children often go through biting phases when things are bothering them and I think the same thing happens sometimes with pets.

My two cents…

Wilson:

Excerpts from The Ten Commandments for Pet Guardians:

2. Give me time to understand what you want from me. Please don’t break my spirit with your temper, though I will always forgive you. Your patience and kindness and love will teach me much more effectively.

4. Treat me with loving kindness, my beloved friend, for no heart in all the world is more grateful for your kindness and love than mine. Don’t be angry with me for long and don’t lock me up as punishment. After all, you have your job, your friends, your family, your entertainment. I have only you.

7. Please, PLEASE don’t hit me. It hurts me, it confuses me, and it saddens me beyond words.

8. Before you hurt my feelings and confuse me by scolding me for being lazy or uncooperative, ask yourself if something might be bothering me or making me sick. Perhaps I’m not getting the right food or I’ve been out in the sun too long or my heart may be getting weak or I’m sad because you’ve been gone too long.

She’s in YOUR world and she’s doing the best she can with what she’s been given to work with.  But, something’s wrong.  Please try to figure it out and help her.  

Is there such a thing as too much training?

Posted:  Just One More Pet

Plan Ahead For Your Pets’ Care… Like Oprah

According to a close friend of Oprah’s, like Leona Helmsley, whose dog Trouble inherited $12 million, billionaire Oprah is planning on bequeathing her dogs and menagerie of other animals a sum that could easily serve as hefty lottery winnings.

When Oprah passes on, her pets are going to get $30 million for their care. A sum almost impossible for a handful of animals and their care-takers to go through, unless they have a team of experts at their disposal daily.

The $30 million Oprah is said to be leaving her pets is, however, a bargain compared to the $250 million her boyfriend of 21 years, Stedman Graham, supposedly received as a “keep quiet or else” severance package.

Not that any of us can leave our furry and feathered friends $30 million, making plans for their care in case we go first is something we should all do!!

In tribute to her Cocker Spaniel who died last March, Oprah said, “Sophie gave me 13 years of pure unconditional love. She was the true love in my life. In fact, she’s been one of the greatest reasons for me to be a kinder, more gentler person”

Posted:  Just One More Pet

Related Resources:

• Providing for Your Pet’s Future Without You

Order Your Copy Today

Every Dog’s Legal Guide: A Must-have Book for Your Owner

Under-bite Helps Pabst become World’s Ugliest Dog

AP – Pabst competes in the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair on Friday, June 26, 2009 …

PETALUMA, Calif. – A prominent under-bite, scrunched face and floppy ears are the hallmarks of a winner.

The winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog contest, that is.

Pabst, a boxer-mix rescued from a shelter by Miles Egstad of Citrus Heights, Calif., won the annual contest on Friday at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Northern California.

It was an upset victory for Pabst, who beat former champion Rascal, a pedigree Chinese Crested.

Pabst’s owner took home $1,600 in prize money, pet supplies and a modeling contract with House of Dog.

Miss Ellie, a blind 15-year-old Chinese Crested Hairless, won the pedigree category.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and his owners love Pabst just the way he is.

___

On the Net:  http://www.sonoma-marinfair.org/uglydogcontest.shtml

Posted:  Just One More Pet

Goldens Bearing Gifts

Cute story out of:  Sea Isle, N.J. — The big news here is that Simba, our one-and-a-half-year-old golden retriever, just won “Best of Show” in this year’s dog show on the boardwalk.

“Paws on the Promenade” is not exactly the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden, but he had dozens of good competitors, including five other top-notch goldens, a beautiful Bernese mountain dog, a cute Jack Russell terrier, and a big black poodle wearing a nylon net tutu.

Simba won $155 in prizes, consisting of two free tickets to the upcoming “Great Balls of Fire” concert on the Ocean City Music Pier (I don’t know if dogs are allowed, or if he can get a date), a $100 gift certificate at Parkway Vet in Cape May Court House (we donated it back for someone adopting a pet), and a $25 gift certificate from Pawsitively Pets, a local dog-toy store. Simba loves toys! His favorites are tennis balls, some furry stuffed squirrels and a musical Christmas tree.

The contest is sponsored by Beacon Animal Rescue, a local no-kill adoption shelter. They make money in the local beach communities in a unique way, offering a “Goose Chaser” service: “We’ll bring our dogs to you and let them chase the geese off your land. The geese find somewhere else to go, our dogs get exercise, and you get your land back. Small donation requested.”

Back home in Pittsburgh, Simba is fascinated with what began as our backyard bird feeder but ended up as a hanging basket full of squirrels. We bought him a family of toy stuffed squirrels of his own.

Goldens love to bring gifts and each day Simba carries one of his stuffed pet squirrels out to the basket of real squirrels. The floor underneath the hanging squirrel basket is littered each day with an assortment of toys and gifts from Simba. Perhaps these are a sort of peace offering to the real squirrels, we thought, until one morning we found him on the back porch with one of the squirrels squirming, feet flying and pinned to the ground. Simba had him by the neck (the squirrel got away after we yelled for Simba to back off).

Simba can act tough, but he’s afraid of the dark. When we let him out at night in the backyard, he treads cautiously, looking around for any monsters or giant squirrels that might be lurking back there, with his musical Christmas tree playing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” to ward off any evil spirits.

Simba’s toughest challenge, though, is our bed, which he has always thought of as his permanent puppy pile. But our 9-year-old golden, Chloe, thinks he has outgrown the pile, and so do we. So Simba is kicked out of bed most nights and left to fend for himself alone around the bedroom.

To keep him off the bed, Chloe makes a face at him with her eyes glowering and her teeth bared. That used to work for her with our other golden retriever, Nugget, but Simba simply won’t give up. He brings us crazy things in the middle of the night, which to him are sort of like hostess gifts. Some nights, crying and whimpering, he brings us his stuffed squirrels.

One night he jumped into bed between us with his largest stuffed squirrel, soaking wet, pushing it on our faces. We had no idea if he had left it out in the rain or if he had been dipping it in the toilet.

Last week, after being kicked out of bed by Chloe’s growl and evil face, he jumped back into bed crying and carrying in his mouth — the bathroom rug!

We could have told the people at “Paws on the Promenade” that there was no getting ahead of this dog (his Dad’s name is Bad-As-I-Wannabe). Simba came to the contest late and had to sign up in the only remaining category, “Best of Show.” He walked over to the judge, laid his head gently on her knee and looked up into her face with his soft dark-chocolate eyes. She patted his head and said, “He’s so sweeeeet!” As she started to melt, he laid his head on her chest and gently licked her neck.

“What’s his number,” she asked. There I was with a big number “35” around my neck but she couldn’t take her eyes off Simba. Said the male judge sitting next to her, “Boy, that dog knows how to win.”

By Ralph R. Reiland –   The American Spector

Posted:  Just One More Pet

Dogs Being Trained to Sniff Out Diabetes

A canine’s hyper-sensitive nose can detect tiny changes in blood sugar

AYLESBURY, England – Dogs are being trained in Britain as potential life-savers to warn diabetic owners when their blood sugar levels fall to dangerously low levels.

Man’s best friend already has been shown capable of sniffing out certain cancer cells, and dogs have long been put to work in the hunt for illegal drugs and explosives.

Their new front-line role in diabetes care follows recent evidence suggesting a dog’s hyper-sensitive nose can detect tiny changes that occur when a person is about to have a hypoglycemic attack.

A survey last December by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast found 65 percent of 212 people with insulin-dependent diabetes reported that when they had a hypoglycemic episode their pets had reacted by whining, barking, licking or some other display.

At the Cancer and Bio-Detection Dogs research center in Aylesbury, southern England, animal trainers are putting that finding into practice and honing dogs’ innate skills.

The charity has 17 rescue dogs at various stages of training that will be paired up with diabetic owners, many of them children.

“Dogs have been trained to detect certain odors down to parts per trillion, so we are talking tiny, tiny amounts. Their world is really very different to ours,” Chief Executive Claire Guest told Reuters TV.

The center was started five years ago by orthopedic surgeon Dr John Hunt, who wanted to investigate curious anecdotes about dogs pestering their owners repeatedly on parts of their body that were later found to be cancerous.

At around the same time, the first hard evidence was being gathered by researchers down the road at Amersham Hospital that dogs could identify bladder cancer from chemicals in urine.

The move into diabetes followed the case of Paul Jackson, who told Guest and her team about his dog Tinker who warns him when his sugar levels get too low and he is in danger of collapsing.

“It’s generally licking my face, panting beside me. It depends how far I have gone before he realizes,” Jackson said.

Tinker has now been trained by the Aylesbury center and is a fully qualified Diabetic Hypo-Alert dog, complete with red jacket to announce himself as a working assistance animal.

Posted:  Just One More Pet

Government Money Used To Build Monkeyless Exhibit Instead of Saving Rescued Abandoned and Homeless Animals and Stopping the Euthanization of Healthy Animals

Would you believe a story about the Los Angeles Zoo spending millions (about $7 million) in taxpayer money on a Chinese Golden Monkey exhibit — only to have the Chinese decide they don’t want to send the monkeys? Wait, what happened to the firefighters and the teachers? California’s government tells us they have no money for them, yet they are spending money on Chinese Golden Monkeys? (STORY) No wonder 90% of Americans, according to the L.A. Times, are concerned with government spending.

LA Zoo Searches for New Simians After Monkey Snub

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Zoo may have the nation’s only monkey lair approved by a feng shui expert. There’s only one problem: No monkeys.

The city spent $7.4 million building the China-themed primate enclosure — complete with Canary Island palm trees, artificial trees with extra springy limbs, and a viewing structure with Chinese-style tilework — after China promised to lend the zoo a trio of rare golden snub-nosed monkeys.

But now the Chinese government has taken the monkeys off the table, leaving zoo officials searching for suitable stand-in simians to take the place of the golden monkeys, known for their blue-faces and blond-hair.

“Within 60 days, some lucky monkey will have a home there,” City Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes the zoo, said Thursday.

Zoo spokesman Jason Jacobs said negotiations with Chinese officials broke down several weeks ago, but he did not know why.

The Chinese official that had signed the agreement granting Los Angeles the monkeys has since left his position, he said.

The Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles did not answer a call seeking comment and an e-mail was returned as undeliverable. The Chinese Wildlife Conservation Association, which was to oversee the animal loan, did not answer a call before business hours in Beijing.

Chinese officials had offered a 10-year-lease for the monkeys to former Mayor James Hahn during a visit to China in 2002.

Hahn had originally sought to lease pandas for the zoo, but Chinese officials refused, saying four zoos in the U.S. already have pandas, said David Towne, president of the Giant Panda Conservation Foundation, which helped broker the failed monkey loan.

“They use the pandas as somewhat of a diplomatic and political tool as a reward for supporting Chinese policies,” he said.

The city agreed to pay the Chinese government $100,000 a year for the monkeys that were offered instead of pandas. Officials voted in 2006 to build the enclosure designed to look like a rural Chinese village. The enclosure was finished in 2008.

A feng shui expert hired for $4,500 tweaked the final design with a water fountain and other features meant to promote the monkeys’ health and happiness.

Zoo officials are now consulting with their colleagues at other zoos to obtain native Chinese monkey species that will fit in with the surroundings.

“Of course we’re disappointed we didn’t get the golden monkeys, but the end result is we have a gorgeous new habitat, which is fully capable of housing any other variety of Asian primate,” Jacobs said.

By JACOB ADELMAN – L.A. Times –  Jun 11, 2009 – The Associated Press

Source:  GlennBeck.com

And what makes this story even more unbelievable and crazy is that not only is California virtually bankrupt and both firefighters and school teacher’s jobs are in peril, but how about instead of spending $7 million on Chinese Monkeys visiting L.A. on loan, that we look after thousands upon thousands of animals, healthy American pets, that are being abandoned and taken to California shelters statewide in record numbers because of the foreclosure situation and after ‘we over-bred’ them, both manmade situations, causing these animals to be euthanized in record numbers.

Just last week the ASPCA sent out an alert to stop Governor Schwartzennegger from cutting Shelter Funding: California: Protest Governor’s Plan to Cut Shelter Funding! .  His plan would allow shelters to euthanize healthy pets that are not picked up after 3-days or less rather than allow 60-days to find them homes; which in today’s environment, isn’t enough.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposal would suspend the state mandate and cut the minimum holding period to three days or less.

Due to the dramatic increase in home foreclosures, more and more animals are ending up in shelters—and if this proposal passes, shelters will be forced to euthanize scores of healthy, adoptable pets who might have otherwise found happy endings in new homes. These animals have already had their lives turned upside down. They deserve the opportunity to get a second chance and to live out their natural life span(s).

What You Can Do

Please take a few minutes today to call your California state senator and assemblymember to ask them to oppose the governor’s proposal to suspend the animal adoption mandate.

Visit the ASPCA Advocacy Center to find your legislators’ phone numbers and let us know you called.

If we insist on going along with this insanity of bailouts, then why can’t some of this TARP money that is just ‘sitting somewhere’ or is being used to study swine odor or why men don’t like wearing condoms be used to rescue living animals, stop the euthanization of all healthy animals, and cut adoption fees at shelters to help families adopt an animal or an additional pet.  Temporarily housing homeless and abandoned animals and then coordinating the various facets of matching homeless animals with potential families is a ‘shovel ready project’ that would save and create jobs in California and most other states while saving lives.

Perhaps the LA Zoo would like to offer up the the empty Chinese Golden Monkey Exhibit Facility  and funds for that program for the over-flowing LA, OC and Inland Empire shelters until some TARP money could be provided for a new facility, a central coordination program, food and supplies for existing shelters and rescue programs and and/or to update and enlarge existing facilities??   They could even set up an adoption center at the Zoo!?!

Thank you, California, for speaking up for your state’s neediest animals.  First priorities should always be for programs that affect live creatures directly… people and animals instead of many of the crazy things on the approved “bailout” project list.

-Ask Marion/Just One More Pet

Related Posts:

• California: Protest Governor’s Plan to Cut Shelter Funding!
• Stop California SB 250 – Save Our Dogs and Our Rights
• Doomed Dogs Get On The Rescue Wagon to Other Shelters
• Where there is a will…
• Help Pass California AB 233 – Pet Adoption Tax Credit
• Economic Forecast: One Million Pets May Lose Homes in the U.S.
• Just How Bad Is The Economy??
• GETTING TO ZERO
• 285 Dogs Are Out and Never Looking Back
• November Is Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month
• Shelters Full of Chihuahuas
• Adopting A Senior Pet Has Many Advantage For Families and Seniors
• Angels For Animals Event November 13th

Posted:  Just One More Pet

Turtle Crossing Stimulus Project Not Shovel Ready. As a Result, Many Turtles Are.

The office of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released a report [PDF] today highlighting 100 questionable projects in the stimulus bill.

My personal favorite, largely for the metaphor potential regarding the rate of stimulus spending, is number five: a turtle crossing in Florida. The “eco-passage” is an oldie but a goodie, this one clocking in at $3.4 million and counting in stimulus funds. Here’s a fun fact from the report:

The area has the highest road-kill mortality rate for turtles in the world.

But unlike many a neglected pet turtle, the project isn’t even “shovel ready.” It’s still in the design phase, according to Coburn’s report. So stimulus or no, the turtle genocide continues.

Reason has been all over another one of Coburn’s top ten—the John Murtha-Johnstown Cambria County Airport.

Read the whole thing here [PDF].

Katherine Mangu-Ward | June 16, 2009, 3:32pm

My question is if we have 3.4 Million Dollars to build a safe turtle crossing… how can California justify pulling the bulk of their shelter funds and killing thousands of healthy cats and dogs???  Hello, how about somebody in Congress or the Governor getting some stimulus funds to protect innocent animals in California?  –  Ask Marion/Just One More Pet

Please write/call/fax your State and Federal Congress-members, Senators, Governor Schwarzenegger, and the Stimulus Czar for aid for our helpless animal friends, and keep up the pressure until the funds come through.  A quick note to Oprah would help too!!

Related Articles:

• California: Protest Governor’s Plan to Cut Shelter Funding!
• Government Money Used To Build Monkeyless Exhibit While Governor Threatens to Cut Shelter Funding

Help Feed Hungry Pets

Hi, all you animal lovers!

This is pretty simple… Please tell ten friends to each tell a further ten today!

The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily so they can meet their quota of getting free food donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute (about 15 seconds) to go to their site and click on the purple box ‘fund food for animals for free’. This doesn’t cost you a thing.

Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising.

Here’s the web site! Please pass it along to people you know.

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/

(Yup, snopes says it’s legit (hasn’t been updated since 2007).

Confirmed by snopes.com as legitimate

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/animalrescue.asp

Posted:  Just One More Pet

18-year old charged in Florida cat mutilations

updated 6:34 p.m. PT, Sun., June 14, 2009

MIAMI – A teenager faces charges in a gruesome string of cat mutilations and killings that have horrified his neighbors and shaken animal lovers in two South Florida communities.

Tyler Hayes Weinman, 18, was charged Sunday with 19 counts each of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body and four counts of burglary related to the deaths.

In the past month, residents in the Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay neighborhoods have reported finding the bodies of more than two dozen cats. Police said some were likely killed by dogs. Some were missing fur — neighbors said some had been skinned — and appeared to have been cut with a sharp, straight instrument, police said.

“I hope it’s not true,” 77-year-old Robert Ehrman said about the teen, who lives across the street from her in Cutler Bay. He called his mother a “lovely person,” but said he didn’t know the teen well. “It’s like a death in the family, I’m sure.”

Weinman was taken into custody at a party and was being questioned at Miami-Dade police headquarters. Four of the confirmed cat killings were reported on the street where Weinman lived.

His attorney, David W. Macey, said in an e-mail that Weinman is innocent of the charges.

“Tyler welcomes his day in court, so that he will be completely vindicated,” Macey said.

According to online jail records, Weinman was being held on $154,500 bond. Jail officials said a court date was set for July.

Received hundred of tips
The curtains at the small, beige house in the Cutler Bay neighborhood listed on Weinman’s arrest affidavit were drawn shut and there were no cars in the driveway. Knocks at the red front door went unanswered. A welcome mat dotted with pictures of paw prints playfully encouraged visitors to “wipe your paws,” and a yellow and black crime watch sticker was displayed in the home’s front window.

A similar crime watch sticker was displayed in the window at another address for Weinman in nearby Palmetto Bay, along with a red and black warning that told rescue crews a cat lived in the house, in case of a fire. Lights were on inside, but no one answered the door.

Messages left at phone numbers for his parents were also not immediately returned.

“It’s shocking to think that someone who lives right here and is our neighbor could do something like this,” said Thomas Shad, whose black cat, Miss Kitty, was killed.

Shad, whose house is near Weinman’s, said he had suspected a local resident might be behind the killings, which investigators started to examine in May. Police said they investigated more than 30 cat deaths and received hundreds of tips from concerned citizens.

“This is so important to our community,” Miami-Dade Police Department Maj. Julie Miller said of the arrest. “So many lives have been affected — children, adults, citizens who didn’t even have animals affected.”

Arrested twice as a juvenile
Miller said more arrests might be coming, but she declined to name other suspects. Police said they have been watching the house where Weinman stays with his mother, and neighbors said he was taken to the police station for an interview on his prom night a few weeks ago.

Weinman was still wearing a tuxedo when officers whisked him away that night, they said, and he missed the dance.

“If they do get the wrong guy and it’s not him, they’ve ruined his life as it is right now,” said 19-year-old Kyle Hantzis, who lives next door.

Hantzis, who said his father dates Weinman’s mother, called the teenager quiet and well-spoken. Authorities said Weinman was spending his summer doing odd jobs, and his Facebook page says he graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High this spring.

Police said Weinman was twice arrested as a juvenile, though they said they could not provide details.

Hantzis said he had a hard time picturing the teen as a serial cat killer. “I don’t think, the way he acts and his demeanor, I don’t think he could physically do it,” he said. Weinman is listed on the jail record as 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 140 pounds.

For the Shads, his arrest brought a sense of relief to their quiet suburban neighborhood that they haven’t felt since Miss Kitty’s body was found in the grassy yard of an abandoned house.

“I felt that I could rest,” said Mary Lou Shad, who said she cried while she watched the televised police news conference on Sunday. “I was at peace with what was happening.”

In order for the police to make an arrest and release a photo of the 18-year-old in this case they have to be pretty sure that they have the right person.  It is important that if found guilty that Tyler Hayes Weinman and his accomplices are punished to the full extent of the law.  Animals are God’s creatures too and do not deserve to be tortured.  Also children and young people who victimize animals often go on to to do the same to children, spouses, the elderly and anyone else who in their mind wrongs them. Sociopaths often begin by abusing animals.

Posted:  Just One More Pet

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• Police Dog Killer Gets Life Without Parole
• Domestic and Animal Abuse
• Father Arrested for Allegedly Killing Family Dog in Front of Children
• Warning Signs That Your Child’s Behavior Is Dangerous To Pets
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