Subject: Animal Rights

• Bebe Vows to Drop Fur, But Not Fast Enough for PETA

  November 2, 2007

• 'Full House Of Horrors': PETA Is Even Batshittier Than Imagined

  December 14, 2007

• Hang On to Your Nuts: Spay/Neuter Pit Bulls For Free

  January 21, 2008

• PETA's Kooky New Campaign: Give Peas A Chance

  January 22, 2008

• Berkeley vs. Animal Rights Protesters: You're a Terrorist. No, YOU'RE a Terrorist.

  March 6, 2008

• The Most Pointless Light Brown Apple Moth Hearing is also the Most Deliciously Ironic

  May 9, 2008

• Photos: Saturday's Hearing Dog Program Protest

  June 3, 2008

• Nina the Pit Bull Put Down After Owner Enters Witness Protection

  July 9, 2008

• Photos: PETA Takes A Shower At Union Square

  August 5, 2008

• Savage Love

  July 26, 1995

• Every Dog Has His Day -- In Court: $500,000 Bequest Spurs Legal Dogfight

  Never fear, a probate judge is hereNot quite a year after it abruptly curtailed its 29-year-old hearing dog program and all but frog-marched several workers out of the building, the San Francisco SPCA is now claiming that, no, the hearing dog program never really ended -- and the SPCA should get a $500,000 bequest earmarked for the program. That's the basis of a literal legal dogfight scheduled for Tuesday in San Mateo County Probate Court when the SPCA does battle over that half-million dollars

  March 20, 2009

• Legal Dogfight Over $500K Bequest Remains Unresolved

  A legal battle over which hearing dog program is entitled to a half-million dollar bequest went into overtime yesterday. The Hearing Dog Program, a San Francisco nonprofit formed by the workers laid off by the San Francisco SPCA when it liquidated its 29-year-old hearing dog program in 2008, objected to the money going to the SPCA. Its directors claim the money is rightfully theirs -- while Canine Companions for Independence -- which took SPCA referrals last year -- says the money should go ther

  March 25, 2009

• Mayor Newsom Signs Resolution Commending SF Restaurants That Remove Foie Gras From Their Menus, as Plumpjack Restaurants Remove It From Theirs

  Photo by Rui OrnelasGather ye fattened duck or goose livers while ye may.It seems as if the tide of pc history is against you.Mayor Gavin Newsom signed the resolution that was unanimously passed by the Board of Supervisors commending SF restaurants that have removed foie gras from their menus, ahead of California Health and Safety Code 25980, which will make it illegal to sell or produce foie gras in California effective in 2012.And, in a related development, foie gras was removed from any menus

  April 7, 2009

• Dogs also losing their homes in foreclosure

  February 11, 2009

• How Much for That Kitty in the Window?

  December 10, 2008

• SF Weekly Letters

  June 25, 2008

• SF Weekly Letters

  June 18, 2008

• A Time to Kill

  June 11, 2008

• Animal Welfare Commission Wants to Outlaw Cruel Art

  May 14, 2008

• Kiva's Microloans Underwriting Cockfighting in Peru

  February 27, 2008

• Bambi Must Die

  The efficient killing of invasive deer is being fought by concerned animal activists in Marin. But who's looking out for S.F. venison connoisseurs?

  March 21, 2007

• Boycott Feinstein

  A new proposed law would put activists in jail for hurting a company's bottom line

  November 29, 2006

• Undead Can Dance

  Dog Bites braves crime scenes and liquor lines to cover a dance-off between two zombie hordes

  November 9, 2005

• Save the Cute Animals!

  The inside story on protests against dog-eating, foie gras-enjoying, and fur-wearing

  April 27, 2005

• Dog Bites

  Phil Matier and Willie Brown raise eyebrows by doing TV together; no cow eyes at the Exploratorium; and more!

  February 11, 2004

• Best Reason to Watch the San Francisco Government Access Channel

  SPCA Pet Adoption Programming

  May 14, 2003

• Letters to the Editor

  Tale of the Whale; Night Crawler: A Cure for the Common Cold

  December 12, 2001

• Hold On a Minute!

  Ecologists are still trying to spin their phony save the whale campaign

  December 12, 2001

• Crying Whale

  Environmental groups sent out a worldwide call to save the gray whale from a Mexican salt plant. They got millions of dollars and thousands of new members. But scientists found no threat to the whales.

  November 21, 2001

• Resurrection

  After a 70-year hiatus and a confrontation with the world, the Makah tribe resumes its communion with the gray whale

  July 11, 2001

• South to the Future

  March 22, 2000

• Night Crawler

  September 30, 1998

• House of Tudor

  September 23, 1998

• Dog Bites

  February 11, 1998

• Letters

  September 24, 1997

• Unspun

  Two Barks Up the Wrong Tree

  August 27, 1997

• Shouldn't We Just Kill This Dog?

  June 11, 1997

• Men Behaving Viciously

  How ACT UP San Francisco spreads spit, fake blood, used cat litter, and potentially deadly misinformation through the AIDS community

  March 19, 1997

• Dog Day Afternoon: Battle Over $500K Bequest For Hearing Dog Program Continues Today

  Which organization will be top dog? Throw a pile of food on the ground, and all but the most beatific dogs will scramble for what's theirs. Turns out, if you do the same thing with a pile of money, hearing dog programs don't share well, either. When a $500,000 bequest was recently awarded to the San Francisco SPCA's hearing dog program -- despite the fact said program was very publicly curtailed last year -- the SPCA claimed that, yes, of course it still had a program. Meanwhile, the staff of

  April 28, 2009

• Urban Cat Hunting: Out Trapping Feral Felines For the SPCA

  Joe EskenaziThe trap is baited...The sun was starting to dip beneath the horizon when the call came in. It was supposed to be a relatively easy job -- we were to finish cleaning up a colony out by Ocean Beach. Four kitties had already been bagged and, tonight, our mission was to snare the lone holdout -- a stubborn little tortoiseshell who, so far, had proven trap savvy. On any given day, one to 10 volunteers are off trapping feral cats for San Francisco's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty t

  April 29, 2009

• Is Costco's Foie Gras Ban a Big Fat Hoax?

  Is an animal rights group pulling a hoax centered around a high-profile foie gras ban? Earlier today, Eater SF picked up a press release stating that warehouse retailer Costco had pledged to ban sales of foie gras, the controversial luxury liver produced by gorging certain poultry fowl. Sounds like Costco took a bold step, one that puts it in line with a California state ban that takes effect in 2010. Problem is, a Costco vice president told SFoodie he knew nothing about the ban. What's more, he

  May 28, 2009

• Japanese Railway's Cat Mascot Brings in Millions. We've got Railways. We've Got Cats. Why Not Here?

  Tama the railway cat has boosted her employer's revenues by 10 percent. Care to come to San Francisco on your vacation, kitty?​By now, many of you will have read the made-for-the-Web story of Tama, the calico savior of Kishikawa station. When the owners of the Japanese Wakayama Railway got wind of the adorable, social cat hanging out at the station greeting passengers, they reacted the way basketball scouts did when they saw LeBron James dunking in junior high school. The rail line designated

  August 17, 2009

• San Francisco Animal Control Did NOT Suffer Guinea Pig Apocalypse. But That's The Only Good News.

  'I'm super. Thanks for asking.' ​Earlier in the summer, we wondered if the success of the movie G-Force would lead to a glut of guinea pigs overwhelming San Francisco Animal Care and Control once the novelty of pet ownership wore off. While it may seem only a foul dream, the talking guinea pig film was the nation's top-grosser for a spell, and Animal Control confirms they did indeed adopt out every last piggie that was to be had, likely as a result. Now, months later, the backlash experienced

  September 9, 2009

• What Do You Do When You Lose Out on $500,000 Inheritance? Hold $500 Garage Sale.

  Readers may recall a series of stories we wrote earlier this year about San Francisco's Hearing Dog Program. The non-profit, composed of former employees of the 30-year-old program abruptly discontinued by the SPCA in 2008, in April lost in a court case in which it claimed that it was the rightful beneficiary of a half-million dollar behest for the SPCA's hearing dog program, not the SPCA. So what do you do when you can't pick up $500,000 inheritances? You attempt to raise a cool $500 bucks with

  September 10, 2009

• Cruelty-Free Hookups? Vegan Speed Dating and More at the World Veg Festival

  T. PalmerFind your dairy-free love at World Veg Festival.​SFoodie enjoyed eating healthy and creative vegetarian food at last year's World Veg Day, but organizers have stepped up the extracurricular excitement for 2009. This year's World Veg Festival, hosted by the San Francisco Vegetarian Society and In Defense of Animals, expands to two days, and with the extra time comes a little more playfulness with the format, including the oh-so-promising-sounding vegan speed dating session (Saturday, O

  September 16, 2009

• San Francisco SPCA Offers to Train Deaf Woman's Dog Over the Phone

  'Sit!'​A woman who obtained her assistance dog from the San Francisco SPCA several years ago has told SF Weekly that she was shocked that an SPCA trainer e-mailed her asking if her scheduled in-person refresher training session could instead be conducted over the phone. While dog-training over the phone is a novel concept, the kicker here is that Patricia Frieze is deaf -- and the animal in question, Cragmont, is her hearing assistance dog. "It was suggested ... that I deal with her and Cragmo

  September 18, 2009

• More Shake-Ups at San Francisco SPCA

  ​ After being closed all day Thursday for a series of mandatory staff meetings, San Francisco's SPCA re-opened today -- but not, it seems, with all the services available previously. The SPCA has now posted on its Web site that its internationally renowned Academy for Dog Trainers -- which instructed animal trainers from around the nation and world -- will be shut down. Instructors Jean Donaldson and Janis Bradley will be working to "develop a new educational offering outside the SF SPCA."&nbs

  October 2, 2009

• SPCA Thanks Volunteers for Their Efforts, Reminds Them To Keep Mouths Shut

  ​The San Francisco SPCA is in the news for the wrong reasons of late: a scathing feature in Northside Magazine; layoffs of 15 percent of the workforce (which critics say will expedite the euthanization of animals in the name of economic savings); and a TV report in which SPCA brass admitted they're hemorrhaging money on their new, for-profit hospital. With that in mind, SPCA volunteers were sent a note earlier this month reminding them they're "an amazing group of volunteers," and their "suppo

  October 7, 2009

• Critics Slam SPCA's Hiring Priorities As Valuing Money Over Animal Welfare

  A neat trick​Less than a month after shedding 22 employees -- 15 percent of its workforce -- the San Francisco SPCA is hiring again. It is not, however, seeking trainers or other personnel who work directly with animals to replace the many who were shown the door in the latest round of budget-related cutbacks. But if you can make donors jump through a hoop -- send a resume. The SPCA is seeking a major gifts manager as well as a communications associate and development assistant to aid with PR

  October 27, 2009

• Detractors Rejoice After SPCA President Jan McHugh-Smith Announces Departure

  Jan McHugh-Smith​The brief and controversial reign of San Francisco SPCA President Jan McHugh-Smith will end in March of 2010. At that point she'll pack up and move back to Colorado and begin a job with Humane Society Pike's Peak Region, the largest animal shelter in southern and western Colorado.A sizable group of animal-loving San Franciscans couldn't be more delighted. "It's fantastic that her contract is not being renewed," said Hope Johnson, an SPCA volunteer-turned-outspo

  November 19, 2009