Animals

You may know Michelle Rodriguez for her role as Trudy in Avatar, or as Ana Lucia on the hit series Lost, or for one of her many other "tough-chick roles" (as imdb.com puts it). But Rodriguez isn't just acting — she's tough off the screen, too. At Sea Shepherd's recent "Sea No Evil" fundraiser, Rodriguez became their newest celebrity campaigner. But unlike many celebrities who are spokepeople or donors for their favorite organizations, Rodriguez announced that she plans to join Sea Shepherd's next anti-whaling campaign in Antarctica.

"So you guys are actually helping support the next team to go out to Antarctica and bust their asses on that ship, trying to save some whales," she said to the fundraiser crowd. "So, I'm going to be one of those people on board."

A special reunion of seven of Michael Vick's former dogs took place at the home of Bad Rap founders Tim Racer and Donna Reynolds earlier this month. The shin-dig was to thank Professor Rebecca Huss for all of the countless hours she spent on the case. Professor Huss and I were in town at the American Bar Association's annual meeting.

It was a sight to behold. We drank and ate as seven former Vick dogs frolicked with each other and their people. The Racer/Reynolds property abuts a golf course, so golf carts zoomed around in the background, which provided endless fascination to the dogs. I kept wondering what the golfers would think if they knew they were being watched by a pack of Michael Vick's former fighting dogs.

Lunchboxes, school supplies, class schedules, bus routes ... It's really no surprise that animal welfare isn't top of mind for either parents or kids during the back-to-school crunch. But let's take a moment to clarify the opportunities at stake:  If you can turn this major milestone in your family's year into a teaching moment, integrating issues that are important to you into your daily family life, setting precedents you'll follow all year long ... Yeah, it's a parent's dream scenario. I thought so, too.

Here, then, is a parent's checklist of animal-conscious considerations for the back-to-school season. It's not designed to hand you all the answers in a neat, tidy package so much as it is food for thought. How can you incorporate cruelty-free products and practices into your kids' school day? What do you want your children to learn (and not to learn) about respect and compassion for animals? What does the shift in family schedules mean for your pet?

In 1992, the International Society for Animal Rights kicked off International Homeless Animal Day to raise awareness about the  pet overpopulation epidemic in the U.S., with  a focus on spay/neuter programs to reduce the number of unwanted animals. On the third Saturday of August, organizations around the world hold candlelight vigils, rallies, adopt-a-thons, microchip clinics, blessings of the animals, and other events to draw attention to animals in shelters.

At the heart of the matter, International Homeless Animal Day isn't unlike SpayDay USA, Adopt a Shelter Dog Month, Adopt a Shelter Cat Month, National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week, and several other similar awareness holidays. But with millions of pets dying in shelters every year, the heart of the matter is still broken and could use all the attention it can get. So, tomorrow is as good a day as any to start changing the future for homeless animals.

Here are five ways you can get involved:

A forward-looking and long overdue symposium called Compassionate Conservation will be held from September 1 - 3, 2010 in Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford. The meeting, sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and the Born Free Foundation, will focus on major themes including animal welfare and the conservation of wild animals, captive animal welfare and conservation, conservation consequences of wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release, and the international trade in live wild animals.

Compassionate conservation is no longer an oxymoron. Ethics must be firmly
implanted in conservation biology, even if difficult questions move us outside of our
professional and personal comfort zones. Ethical questions must be addressed, even if asking them means some projects might be put on hold temporarily or abandoned.

Earlier this year, Phil Mickelson, the golfer ranked second in the world, woke up and had such intense pain in his body that he says he couldn't walk. He went to a doctor and was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, and prescribed medication.

But Mickelson also took matters into his extremely competitive hands. After his diagnosis, Phil Mickelson decided to improve his health by adopting a vegetarian diet. The diet wasn't recommended to him by a doctor, but Mickelson said that he "read a book and just thought maybe it would help."

Vegetarianism is a big transition from Mickelson's former diet, as he is the owner of Five Guys burger chain in California. "Can you believe that?" Michelson joked with a reporter after admitting he'd been veggie for two months.

In Pipe Creek, Texas, you can pay six bucks to watch two mules plunge from a 22-foot high platform into a pool of water. It's reminiscent of the donkey forced to parasail over the Sea of Azor, except Smokey and Dipsy Doodle have been forced to perform this stunt thousands of times, and they've been doing it for years.

The "All-American High Diving Aqua Mules" show is not a secret. In fact, local officers have determined that there's no animal cruelty involved in the act because the mules are not physically prodded up the steep ramp and off the terrifyingly-high platform.

The rodeo boss, Bill Rivers, defended his show. "All I can say, you know, is what's wrong with a mule diving in a pool on a hot day?"