Animal Abuse

A dog owner who didn't want a litter of nine puppies allegedly buried them alive, but their mother rescued them the next day by digging them out of their 2-foot-deep grave. All nine survived, and the veterinarian caring for the mother and squirming, sightless puppies has received 25 adoption offers. The puppies are a Rottweiler-chow-Labrador mix, and most are black and tan. Prosecutors will decide whether to file charges. The owner could be charged with aggravated animal abuse.

Six farm employees in Iowa were charged with animal abuse and neglect Wednesday in connection with a video obtained by an animal-rights group that showed workers abusing pigs. Authorities in Greene County northwest of Des Moines began investigating about a month ago after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released a video of workers at a farm in BayardIowa, hitting sows with metal rods, slamming piglets on a concrete floor and bragging about sodomizing sows with rods.

Mike McCusker is on the trail of an irresponsible trapper. For more than a week, the lieutenant with the Nevada Department of Wildlife led a team that operated around-the-clock surveillance on illegally set animal traps near a popular Sierra Nevada hiking trail. Investigators waited in the brush to spring their own legal trap. No arrests so far, but McCusker isn't giving up. “Where these guys set these traps just isn't very bright,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

Barbara Fabricant is frustrated. More than 20 pet poisonings and maimings have occurred in the Silver Lake hills in the past five months and she hasn't got a clue about the culprit or the motive. "I've seen hundreds of strychnine poisoning cases," she says. "Usually it's a neighbor who doesn't like the sound of dogs barking or hates cats because they spray. This time it's both dogs and cats." Fabricant, 67, is no novice when it comes to defending helpless creatures.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is reconsidering a campaign comparing images of animal abuse with those of slavery after complaints from civil rights groups and others. The animal rights group's "Animal Liberation" campaign included 12 panels juxtaposing pictures of black people in chains with shackled elephants and other provocative images. The group, based in Norfolk, Va., wrapped up the first leg of the tour in Washington on Thursday, visiting 17 cities before deciding to put the tour on hold.