A half dozen balls of fluff sat in the glass enclosure at ZooQuatic Pet Center in Christiansburg on Wednesday morning. The puppies pawed at the glass, all but saying, “Pick me.” They rolled on their backs, exposing soft, pink tummies primed for rubbing.

They were cute. They were fuzzy. They looked like the perfect thing to curl up with on the couch.

And they were for sale. Just $750 to $1,600, according to the clerk, and I could take one home.

I would love to have a dog, even if it would freak out the cats, but I know I cannot be a good parent to it. I’m away at the office all day. I travel. It wouldn’t be fair.

ZooQuatic only recently added puppies to its inventory, and the outrage from animal lovers has been swift. The howling grew louder after 167 dogs died in a recent fire at a Bland County kennel that, it turns out, did not have a required county permit.

Most breeders genuinely care about their animals, take superb care of them and want them to go to good homes where they will be loved. Unfortunately, there are exceptions.

Those exceptions operate “puppy mills.” They are deplorable places. I’m no vegan and no card-carrying member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the conditions documented at some turn my stomach.

Breeders keep adult dogs alive simply to reproduce. Their offspring grow up in cages until they are big enough to ship off to a store. Conditions are often cramped and dirty. It’s like producing canine veal.

Yet they are regulated and legal. Sure, the U.S. Department of Agriculture could better inspect facilities, and the rules appear pretty lax, but as long as there is money to earn, puppy mills are not going away.

I can’t fault ZooQuatic for selling puppies from whatever legal source they obtain them. The store’s owners have decided it makes good business sense, so more power to them. I wish them well and will probably continue to buy crickets for my lizard there.

That does not mean consumers have to like it, though. Just as the store can legally choose to sell dogs, shoppers who disapprove can take their business elsewhere. There’s a puppy-free pet store down the street. The marketplace works that way. If puppy sales cannot make up for lost sales, ZooQuatic might change its mind.

People should also confront the real culprit in all this: the laws that allow puppy mills to exist. Lobby legislators and congressmen to improve standards for breeders and to provide better funding for USDA inspections.

Not that Virginia lawmakers appear likely to do anything. The House of Delegates this year could not even agree to stiffen penalties on illegal cock fighting. It will be fair to ask candidates in November’s election where they stand on such laws.

The most important thing people can do, however, is encourage dog-seekers to head to local animal shelters instead of retail outlets.

The puppies and full-grown dogs in places like the Humane Society of Montgomery County need good homes. The Humane Society has 25 to 35 dogs at any given time. There should not be a market for puppy mills with so many canines already available.

“If you’re looking for a puppy, you can always find one at a shelter,” the county Humane Society’s manager, Jamie Burton, said.

Nearly all of their dogs are already spayed or neutered. If they are not, new owners must agree to have it done. No one with a heart wants to kill these poor animals, and we don’t need them making more little balls of fluff that will one day be desperate for homes.

There are plenty of dog types from which to choose at shelters, including papered purebreds.

Not that purity should really matter. Unless one is a diehard, a mutt will loyally love a family just as well, perhaps better.

Shelters make good financial sense, too. The $750 to $1,600 at ZooQuatic will get a purebred puppy with all its shots. It even comes with a three-year guarantee against congenital diseases.

The Humane Society charges only $60 for an adoption. That includes similar up-to-date vaccinations. If the dog is not spayed or neutered already, the cost drops to $15, but taking care of the surgery will cost around $100 at local vets.

Alternatively, one can have the fixing done at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, which runs a teaching hospital at Virginia Tech for residents of the New River Valley. Their rates are competitive, and taking a pet there provides valuable training for student vets.

Either way, it is a bargain for unconditional love that did not come from a puppy mill.

The most haunting part of the sad, gruesome, middle-of-the-night scene on Interstate 44 was how quiet things were.

A double-decker horse trailer en route to an Illinois slaughterhouse had crashed and was perched on its side. Forty-one horses were trapped in the mangled wreckage. Yet when Earlene Cole arrived, there was little noise beyond the clattering of a few hooves.

“I just said ‘Oh, my God’ three or four times,” Cole said, “and then I got to work.”

The work began around 3:30 a.m. on that grizzly night last September. Using huge straps attached to a tow truck winch, workers lifted and moved horses that were pinned on each other and within the confines of the thin, sharp, flesh-slicing aluminum shell of the trailer.

Six months later, this survival story is being played out at the Longmeadow Rescue Ranch – the rehab facility Cole runs – where 25 of those horses have been given the most unlikely of second chances after their trip to the slaughterhouse took an unexpected and, some say, miraculous detour.

The story of the Miracle Horses – among them, a spunky thoroughbred named Stan, a pregnant mare named Mama and a horse they call Willie because of his will to live after being trapped beneath four dead horses in the trailer – offers a sad and uplifting reflection on the world of horses and horse racing.

It’s a speculative industry that has, over the years, become overrun with animals that risk being left behind if they don’t help the bottom line.

Mostly, it’s a business with no easy answers, as breeders and trainers, traders and rescuers, recreational riders and lawmakers try to come up with solutions to an overpopulation problem that shows few signs of abating.

All those parties had a stake in this trailer wreck in rural Missouri, and half a year later, the aftermath is still being felt in big ways and small.

“It was something where you close your eyes at night and all you could see was horses laying on top of each other,” said Tom Adams, who trims and treats horses hooves for a living and was called to the scene. “It’s something I hope I never have to go through again.”

Too many horses

Standing at the ranch, watching these horses nickering and playing, many of them fully restored to health, the first question is, why were they heading to a slaughterhouse – to be processed and sold for people to eat in Europe – in the first place?

They certainly weren’t all old, which punctures one myth about the slaughterhouse business – that only the old horses get sent there. Among those saved were a yearling thoroughbred, a 4-year-old Appaloosa named D.D. and a young quarter horse mare named Karma who recently took sixth place at a local riding show.

They certainly weren’t all decrepit – one look at Willie playfully harassing his corral-mates on a sunny spring day at the ranch would put an end to that thought.

In almost every case in which a horse is sent to a slaughterhouse, it has outlived its usefulness to the owner. In some instances, that means a horse was bred for racing or show, but never flashed the speed or beauty to become a star. More often, horses are bred or bought for recreational purposes by people who later lose their love for the animal or don’t have the money and patience to deal with it.

Dogs or cats might be given to a friend, taken to a shelter or left on the street in a situation like this. Unwanted horses aren’t as easy to dispose of.

They can be turned loose in the wilderness. They can be euthanized and buried or cremated at the cost of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. Often, they are simply taken to an auction, where sellers try to salvage a few bucks and might even hope a good home will be found for their horse.

Of course, nobody can ever be sure.

“The problem with the slaughter industry is that the people who buy to sell to the slaughterhouses aren’t always honest with the people they buy from,” Cole said. “I’ve heard stories where people sold their horse to someone who said they’d find a good home for it, and it ended up on a slaughter truck.”

There are an estimated9.2 million horses in America, including about 37,000 registered thoroughbred foals and 144,000 newly registered quarter horses in 2006. The majority of these registered horses often become expendable when they fail to find glory on a racetrack or showing ground, but they account for only a fraction of all horses.

“It’s not the bigger breeders doing most of this,” said Don Treadway, an executive with the American Quarter Horse Association. “At the bottom end, it’s hard. You can’t regulate it. You get ol’ Joe down the road who has a stud and someone else who has a mare and they want to raise a baby. You get a lot of unwanted horses that way.”

Almost everyone involved hopes that eventually the market and plain, old common sense will serve to diminish the excess numbers. Among the good signs is that breeding in the thoroughbred and quarter horse industries has flattened out over the last two decades.

Still, there are thousands of horses out there with lots more being born each year, and they can’t all have homes forever.

Legislation isn’t perfect

Sparked by a powerful lobbying group that includes nearly 100 Hollywood stars and 40 horse industry groups, a bill that bans horse slaughter for human consumption passed in the House last year by a 263-146 vote. But a companion bill was never passed in the Senate, which means the legislative process has begun again for the 2007 session.

Former Texas Rep. Charlie Stenholm, who lobbies on behalf of the slaughter industry, said not every law and regulation is 100 percent enforceable.

“But 99.9 percent of horses that go to processing plants have their lives ended humanely, as certified by a federal veterinarian,” he said.

About 90,000 horses were processed at the three U.S. slaughterhouses last year – one in Illinois and two more in Texas that are currently not slaughtering for human consumption and could be shut down permanently depending on the outcome of ongoing legal and legislative maneuvering. Those who favor keeping slaughter as an option wonder where those 90,000 animals would go if slaughter were made illegal.

The American Quarter Horse Association, the biggest horse association in the nation, is among those that lists slaughter as a viable alternative for unwanted horses.

“We don’t recommend or prefer slaughter,” Treadway said. “But is it AQHA’s business to find a home for every member’s horse when they’re done with them? I don’t think it is.”

Looking for solutions

Longmeadow is certainly doing its share. After the accident, the horse population on the 165-acre ranch, about an hour west of St. Louis, rose past 130. Add the pigs, llamas, goats and other animals to the mix, and the eight full-time employees and handful of unpaid volunteers have plenty of work on their hands.

The Humane Society of Missouri needs about $800,000 a year to run the ranch, bought in 1988 with money given by a generous donor. The cost of rehabbing the horses from the accident has reached well into six figures. But the accident, in a strange way, has helped because of the publicity it has generated for the ranch, widely recognized as the largest of its kind in the United States.

Longmeadow already has adopted out five of the rescued horses. Several more are available, and interest is high in the adoption days the ranch hosts every other week.

After some negotiating, Longmeadow gained custody of these Miracle Horses. Many are still looking for homes. A couple still aren’t completely out of the woods in their recovery.

But irony of ironies, they are in a better place than if that truck had not crashed. They have been given the rarest of second chances, and their story has offered an uplifting respite from the harsh realities of the world of horse slaughter.

“A lot of people ask me why I do this,” Cole said. “It’s the animals that reward us. When you get a horse that can barely walk, or a horse like Stan, then you see them out there running like that, that’s all the reward I really need.”

Goeldi’s monkeys are endangered. They are native to South America and considered to be a relatively “new” monkey. No one knew anything about them until 1904 when a man named Emilio Goeldi discovered them.

Azee and Cinco seem to be very happy living with each other at the Denver Zoo. They arrived here last fall.

Azee is the female. She is 3 years old. Cinco, the male, is just a year old.

They are constantly on the move in their exhibit in the “monkey house”. They also live with some tamanduas, as they would in the rainforests of South America.

Goeldi’s monkeys like to be around one another. In the wild, they live in extended families in the rain forest. They have a very loud call which they use to keep in touch and warn each other if predators are around.

If you go to visit Azee and Cinco at the zoo, you will probably be able hear them call out from the other side of the glass.

The Zoo’s Spring/Summer hours begin on Sunday, April 1st. The zoo will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. until the end of September.

From her home, a woman watched a tragic situation unfold before her eyes, but then she saved an animal’s life.

Daniel Dexter Darling Jr., an ex-con, is facing charges of animal cruelty, police said.

Darling’s neighbor, Kelly Ann Vanvoorde, said she saw, Floosie, a 1-year-old Jack Russel Terrier, in a cage on Darling’s balcony on Saturday. Vanvoorde said she saw Darling throw the cage off the balcony and then into a creek behind her residence.

Vanvoorde said he appeared intoxicated at the time and actually fell into the creek with the cage.

Vanvoorde’s boyfriend retrieved the cage and dog from the creek, she said.

“He was shaken and scared and was whining a little bit,” Vanvoorde said after Floosie was retrieved from the water.

“(Darling) came over and asked for the dog back, but we told him he could have it back after we talk to the cops,” Vanvoorde said

Police said Darling is facing one count of felony animal cruelty.

Police said Darling told them he was at a Detroit strip club during the time of the alleged incident.

“We’re going to fight to get the dog into our custody,” Lyle Herman of St. Clair Animal Control said.

Darling is expected in court next month, and could face up to four years in prison if convicted.

You can’t put a dollar value on a pet owner’s love for their cat or dog.

But that’s exactly what the Streetsville, Ontario, pet food company Menu Foods faces in reimbursing local owners of animals who ate contaminated pet food linked to the deaths and illnesses of animals across the country.

Dolores and Robert Weise’s 8-year-old cat Pee Shoo was in Dunnellon Animal Hospital with renal failure for a week – at a cost of more than $1,000 in critical care – after eating Special Kitty wet food from a pouch bought at a local Wal-Mart.

Social Security is the only steady income the retired couple has, but fortunately for Pee Shoo, they had enough money saved up to cover the costs. The cat is home again with a daily IV drip being applied to make sure the feline stays hydrated.

But not every person with a sick animal has the resources to get them better.

“I know there are people who have to take their animals home to die,” said Robert Weise.

The couple shares a tale common with people whose animals have been diagnosed with kidney failure after eating recalled pet food.

Across north central Florida, thousands of dollars have been spent on the testing, critical care and aftercare of pets that have eaten the tainted pet food. Higher-costing prescription food or other medicines are ongoing costs owners like the Weise family face, with little or no guarantees about how long such measures must be taken.

Upon learning about the possible connection between Pee Shoo’s illness and the company’s food, the couple tried 20 to 30 times to reach Menu Foods.

They often got a busy signal. When they got through, their name and number was taken, and they were told someone would call back.

“Nobody would call back,” Robert Weise said. None of their calls were returned to date.

Across the country, several lawsuits have been filed against Menu Foods. The company has been criticized for not acting quickly enough after its own tests showed animal deaths and for not responding fast enough to a rising tide of customer complaints.

The Weises have thought about hiring a lawyer, but they’ve heard about Menu Foods’ recent promise to make good on all the veterinary bills associated with the recall. They’re waiting to see if that actually happens.

“There’s a little nagging doubt in my mind that Menu Foods can handle all the claims,” Robert Weise said.

Knowing about several cases at the Dunnellon Animal Hospital and hearing about more in Ocala, Robert Weise wonders just how widespread the cases must be.

Cases of kidney damage in otherwise healthy cats and dogs, which veterinarians suspect are the result of the contaminated pet food, have been seen in Ocala at Paddock Park Animal Care Center, All Pets Clinic and Airport Road Animal Clinic. At Dunnellon Animal Hospital, two cats had to be euthanized after kidney failure veterinarians believe was the result of eating bad pet food.

Veterinarians say they’re getting a steady stream of pet owners bringing in animals for testing if they’ve eaten recalled pet food. But trying to figure out exactly how many animals may have been sickened by the bad pet food across the country is like throwing a dart at a constantly moving dartboard.

“If this is typical, there will be thousands of claims made,” Robert Weise said.

A press release on Menu Foods’ Web site reports the company has heard from about 200,000 consumers regarding the recall. Not all of those are claims.

Menu Foods is advising people who believe their pet has been made ill by contaminated pet food to save receipts from pet food purchases and copies of their veterinarian bills. The company is telling consumers to keep any pet food pouches or cans with the recall-specific dates and UPC codes on them, but in a place where they can’t be mistakenly fed to pets.

Dolores and Robert have receipts from Wal-Mart showing purchases of Special Kitty cat food, and a pile of vet bills.

“I’d like to think if Menu Foods stiffs us that Wal-Mart would honor the claim,” he said. “If not, we’d take them to small claims court.”

Dolores has been angered by Menu Foods lack of response and depressed that veterinarians can’t give her assurance her cat will fully recover. She’s been stressed by the veterinary bills, knowing more medical bills are on the way with her husband going in for surgery in April.

“It’s getting hairy,” Dolores said about the family finances.

But Dolores won’t skimp on medical care for Pee Shoo, named for the sound she made to scoot the cat off furniture when it was a kitten (as in p-shoe). More than anything, Dolores wants her admittedly spoiled cat back to her old high jinks.

“My animal is my heartbeat,” she said.

Lynn DeKrey got interested in saving golden retrievers when she saw a group’s booth at a dog show, but she never thought she would be doing it three months after signing up.

DeKrey, of Steele, was among volunteers who helped take 83 goldens from the Apple Creek Kennel last weekend.

They were removed from longtime breeder Leonard Moos after a routine inspection by the USDA, which licenses dog breeding operations, found violations including dirty and poorly bedded kennels.

Moos handed over the dogs voluntarily and said he was thankful the USDA came.

Nearly all the goldens went to foster homes in Minnesota, because the rescue group, RAGOM, is based there and it aligned with Animal Ark Shelter of Hastings, Minn., to care for the animals.

Seven of the goldens – two adult females and one of the female’s litter of five puppies – stayed in North Dakota with Lynn and Tim DeKrey, who have a boarding and grooming business at their farm and who love and have the golden retriever breed themselves.

The DeKreys will keep the saved goldens for at least another month, or for however long it takes for them to be adopted into proper homes. The puppies are just 3 weeks old.

The goldens were in pretty good physical condition and had decent body weight, though they all needed some veterinary attention for updated shots and immunizations, DeKrey said.

What’s been more difficult is the grown goldens’ behavior toward humans, especially in a breed that’s known for being tolerant and laid back toward people.

DeKrey said the goldens lack socialization skills because they haven’t had much human contact.

She’s named the adult females. One is Nevaeh, “heaven” spelled backward, the mother of the 3-week-old puppies. She named the other younger female “Miracle.”

It’s Miracle, who’s probably not yet 2 and who just had a litter, who makes her feel the most sad, for the way she’s so shy and frightened of human contact. She sits back in the kennel, afraid to come forward and be touched, DeKrey said.

She said dogs can’t be treated like livestock because they have generations of human contact bred into them.

“They’ve been raised for a long time to be companions to people,” she said. “I’m hoping we can rehabilitate them to be tolerant and accept people.”

Nevaeh is beginning to enjoy being touched and petted and will lick DeKrey’s hand, she said.

DeKrey said she’s most concerned with the health of the puppies. Two of them have heart murmurs and another has some laxity in its hips, which could develop into hip dysphasia.

She said dog breeders should monitor the genetics of the dogs to prevent life-threatening and debilitating characteristics from being carried on. Moos was not available to comment on the genetics of his dogs.

She said it’s too soon to know how the heart murmurs will affect the puppies in the long run. Some dogs can’t live with the condition, while medication controls it in other dogs.

After it happened, Moos said he was relieved to have the dogs removed. He said they were in good shape, but his operation was getting down and out and going “pretty fast downhill. I told the USDA I was glad they came.”

DeKrey said she hopes the dogs she’s fostering will be able to remain in North Dakota, partly to demonstrate that people here care about the animals.

Applications will go through RAGOM, which stands for Retrieve A Golden Of Minnesota. The group takes found and surrendered dogs and finds homes for them. People who want dogs have to apply and be interviewed and their home inspected before they can have one.