 |
| Feel free to email me with any feedback at [email protected] This site has had almost 30,000 hits site wide since May of 2002! This page is Leonard approved! |
| This is Dinah - a boxer bulldog mix who makes everyone kick a basketball around for her every morning and night at Seaview Park. |
 |
| Charlie does NOT love Peter Duffy!! Peter Duffy who is employed by the Chronicle Herald is an enemy to all dogs and dog lovers and is doing nothing but killing dogs who are victims of bad ownership. It is time we stand up and point the fact out to him every time that he mis-speaks!!!! The Chronicle Herald's website is at http://www.herald.ns.ca/ and I would strongly suggest you voice your opinions AGAINST this journalist (very loosely termed!) if his writings (also loosely termed! bothers you! Every time he writes something bad about dogs I'm going to write him and publish it here - if you write something as well - email me and I'll put it here too!!! In the April 4, 2004 edition of the Sunday Herald, along with other rantings Mr. Duffy wrote the following: "Such an awful thing the other day when that woman's dog got loose in a Halifax parking lot and bit four men. As one victim said, what would've happened if children had been around? Makes you shudder to think. I predict the day is fast approaching where man's (former) best friend will be legislated into wearing a muzzle when outdoors, certainly in urban areas. And the sooner the better. " I felt I had to respond to this absolute horror of a mis-informed opinion. Peter Duffy has written garbage in the past - but this is just about the worst he's come up with about dogs so far. Written below is my response - I copied it to the Editor at the Chronicle Herald along with to Rick Conrad, who writes the wonderful Petpourri Column - which also (ironically!) runs at the Chronicle Herald: From: Joan Sinden <[email protected]> Date: Sun Apr 4, 2004 9:41 am Subject: Peter Duffy's "Hindsight and Opinions" Sunday, April 4, 2004 The Halifax Herald Limited I was looking forward to my bagel and cream cheese and now I can't finish it because I feel so sick to my stomach after reading Mr Duffy's "Hindsight" column this morning in the Sunday Herald. Specifically the sentence where he talks about dogs as mans (former) best friend and legislating all dogs to wear muzzles in public. These 2 hugely misleading and uneducated statements seem to be very typical of what comes out of Mr. Duffy's fingers whenever he talks about MY best friends. May I just say that muzzling dogs is not the answer to people being bitten. Statistics bear the fact that the vast majority of dog bites do not happen as the tragic (for the dog - because he was killed) dog bites happened in Clayton Park this week. They happen in the home with dogs that the people know, or by dogs who are unattended and are approached by people that the unattended (and usually tethered in some manner) dogs feel threatened by - for whatever reason. Muzzling as well makes dogs feel frustrated and threatened and can create a dangerous dog just by putting one on - and if we legislate all dogs to wear muzzles how many people will stop training their dogs to be good members of society because they THINK they are safe? We know that dog bites happen most often in the home - muzzles are off at home. Mr. Duffy may believe he has all the answers to life's questions, but on this topic I really wish he'd either keep his mouth shut or at least educate himself on what the questions are that he should be asking. Maybe Mr. Duffy is afraid of dogs? Maybe he just needs to be around some well socialized, well mannered, well trained, highly valued, humungously loved - and very large dogs - to get over his obvious aversion to them. Dogs have nothing to do with all the bad things that are happening to them - it's their owners' laziness, lack of love and training that has EVERYTHING to do with all the dog bites and fear mongering that is going on in the media today. And I for one am sick of it. ESPECIALLY when it comes out of Peter Duffy's mouth. Sincerely, Joan Sinden Halifax, Nova Scotia [email protected] http://www.geocities.com/charlieloveshalifax/index.html The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different. - Hippocrates ***** Although other animals cannot reason or speak the way humans do, this does not give us the right to do with them as we like. Even though our supposed possession of a soul and superior intelligence are used to create an arbitrary dividing line over rights, the fact remains that all animals have the capacity to experience pain and suffering, and in suffering they are our equals. Nathaniel Altman (1948- ) On April 6, 2004 Peter Duffy replied to my email with: From: "Peter Duffy" <[email protected]> To: "Joan Sinden" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 1:20 PM Subject: Re: Peter Duffy's "Hindsight and Opinions" > >Dear Joan: > > I appreciate you taking the time to write. > Obviously, this topic is important to you. > Thank you for the input. > Sincerely, > Peter Duffy So I took the opportunity for another kick in the can and wrote back: Dear Mr. Duffy: Thank-you for your reply to my letter to the Editor - you are exactly right, this topic is very important to me as it is to 1,000's of other dog lovers locally. These are the lives of sentient beings that you are playing with so that you can fill column space and or shock and enrage people just for sensationalism. Rest assured that every time you publish something about dogs that I feel is incorrect from now on - I will be using it as an opportunity to try and educate and inform you with other thoughts, ideas or accepted philosophies on the subject. Sort of like you would try to correct me if I tried to pretend I understood anything about lead-footed, surly, op-ed Nova Scotia newspaper columnists. Sincerely, Joan Sinden The morning of April 7, 2004 my inbox was graced once again with an email from Peter Duffy which read: >Dear Joan: > That's a very generous offer of yours, to educate me, however I > think, given the tone and the less-than-polite phrasing, I think I'll > pass. > Thank you for your input, but I'd prefer if you don't write again. > Sincerely, > Peter Duffy Since my original letter wasn't in fact addressed to Peter but was a letter to the Editor at the Herald - I will continue on with that. The only letter I wrote to him was the one right above here, which was in response to his direct contact to me. I wonder what it was that got him - do you think it was the surly bit? Just to help Mr. Duffy a little bit I offer the following from one of his co-workers - Rick Conrad - who writes the wonderful "Petpourri" column in the Herald. In the March 30, 2004 Chronicle Herald in an article entitled "Breed Bans Barking up Wrong Tree" he wrote: "But rural councillors aren't the only ones bitten by the bad-breed bug. In December at Halifax regional council during a debate on off-leash parks, Coun. Harry McInroy (Eastern Passage-Cole Harbour South) suggested that dogs be muzzled at all times while running free in a park. It's too easy to say let's muzzle all dogs or ban certain breeds. It's a lot more difficult to hold bad owners responsible for their actions. Or, gosh, here's a revolutionary idea: How about devoting more money to enforcing the bylaws and other legislation already in place? Bring the hammer down on people who train dogs to fight, or on puppy mills who keep their dogs in deplorable conditions. It's time for tougher penalties in animal cruelty cases. Maybe if our political leaders would make a commitment to real solutions instead of reactionary ones, then we, including our pets and our kids, would all be in better hands." And that's all I have to say about that!!! On Sunday April 14, 2004 the Chronicle Herald DID publish my letter though! Here's what they published: Dog days Re: Peter Duffy's "Hindsight" column in which he talks about dogs as man's former best friend, and legislating all dogs to wear muzzles in public (The Sunday Herald, April 4). Muzzling dogs is not the answer to dogs biting. Statistics show that the vast majority of dog bites do not happen like the tragic (for the dog, because he was killed) recent case in Clayton Park. They happen in the home with dogs that the people know, or by dogs that are unattended and are approached by people the dogs feel threatened by, for whatever reason. Muzzling also makes dogs feel frustrated and threatened, and can create a dangerous dog just by putting one on. And if we legislate all dogs to wear muzzles, how many people will stop training their dogs to be good members of society because they THINK they are safe? We know that dog bites happen most often in the home - and muzzles are off at home. Mr. Duffy may believe he has all the answers to life's questions, but on this topic I really wish he'd educate himself on what the questions are that he should be asking. Dogs have nothing to do with all the bad things that are happening to them. It's their owners' laziness, and lack of love and training that have everything to do with all the dog bites and fear-mongering that is going on in the media today. And I, for one, am sick of it. Joan Sinden, Halifax I'm happy about that! ************************* September 2004: Mr. Duffy wrote again about dogs - Peter Duffy wrote in his column today about the pit bull attack in Ontario last week and he was predictable awful about it. So I had to write in and say something. I'm sure it won't get published since they've published my other letters about him, but I had to do it anyway. So here's the letter: Peter Duffy's Sunday Herald Column Comment re Pit Bull Attack in Ontario Letter to the Editor: I struggled whether or not to write a letter to the editor about Peter Duffy's completely predictable paragraph about the pit-bull attack in Ontario last week that he mentioned in his column by saying "a pedestrian was attacked by two pit bulls the other day... Some places have already banned ownership of these dogs; others are debating it. Until that happy day, may I suggest a very simple interim solution: muzzles. The sooner owners are made to muzzle beasts like these, the better." But because of what he said - the inaccuracies of his reporting and the fact that he had to mention muzzles again and how inappopriate they are - I had to write in. Number 1 - the victim was not a "pedestrian". The victim was in fact the breeder of the dogs - most dog bite victims are members of the dog owners family and not strangers and the bites usually happen on the dog's own property. So Mr Duffy calling the victim a "pedestrian" was giving the tragedy a random action that it certainly DID NOT deserve. And number 2 - muzzling a dog can produce or make worse fear induced aggression because they don't feel like they can protect themselves and it can also make them very unpredictable - especially if they have to have them on for any length of time. So legislating dogs to have muzzles on whenever they're off their owners property will have a whole bunch of walking time bombs in our city - does Mr Duffy want that? I'm sure he thinks that's what we have right now - but sometimes you have to watch what you wish for - it's a lot worse than the devil you know. I get the impression that Mr Duffy would prefer to see all dogs dead. I don't know what traumatic event precipitated this - there's a lot of people out there who don't like animals - but they don't have newspaper columns! |
 |
|