Stymied...for now

Yesterday was supposed to be Laporte's hearing and sentencing, but the defense lawyer asked for a postponement and got it! We are all very disappointed as we were so ready to champion our cause. Our friends in Montreal were armed with binders of our petitions and CDs that Mom, Christine and Elizabeth worked so hard to compile; the media were all coming and many others including foster parents; people who helped in the rescue of the wires and even my pal Bingo!

But, I Axel G Chocholoza am the eternal optimist. This setback is not going to make me depressed. Instead, I see this as an opportunity to add to our petition binder print outs and get many more signatures! We are now at 13,766 - I am sure we can get to 20,000 by the next hearing date scheduled for April 8. And I am very proud to tell you, we have signatures from 64 different countries, WOW!

Besides, word on the ground in Montreal is that the press are still interested in the story and were very impressed with our petition. They interviewed Elizabeth and Bingo - I hope to get that link on the blog soon so we can all watch it.

Mr Laporte, enjoy your freedom for 2 more months, you will get your just desserts yet!

In local news, we got 3.2" snow yesterday. I've been having lots of fun hopping about. Photos soon, me promises.

AGC

Snax for everyone!

Dear Friends,

Many of you have written and asked where you can buy your own Snax toys - those fun, round, squeaky rubber toys from Petco - you can see me at right with my Snax collection. Some of you went to Petco and asked for Snax - that made us laugh a lot around here cos Snax is our pet name for the product, not the official one! Some of you tried describing them to the salespeople, but could not find them. They are also NOT on the Petco website.

So, Mom wrote to Petco for more information - and we are happy to say we got a great note back (Mom sent a link to my blog photos of me and Snax - and note that he said I was "a beautiful dog!" ). The Petco rep even referred to them as Snax too - I thought that was lovely. Here is the letter:

Dear Daniella,
Thank you for contacting PETCO. I am excited to hear that Axel has enjoyed having Snax around. Axel is a beautiful dog.
The product you described is the 2 inch Puppy Sweetie Latex dog toy SKU 938424. Regrettably, this product is not available on PETCO.com but can be found in various PETCO stores. I have notified our E-Commerce and Merchandising teams of your suggestion to have this product available online. I would advise your readers to contact their local PETCO store and provide the SKU 938424. They will be ble to verify if the physical product is available in their location.
For assistance with finding store locations, please visit www.petco.com/storelocator
Thank you for your continued patronage. We greatly appreciate your kind comments and we will continue to serve you as best we can.
Sincerely,
Manny B.Customer Relations Floor Supervisor

Mom was impressed with Manny B's lovely note and appreciation for my good looks. So go out and find your Snax people - just take the SKU number along. Let me know if you enjoy them as much as I do!

And in other breaking news: Our petition JUMPED up another 500+ signatures. Mom can't believe it and nor can Dean-O's mom - many jigs continue...

AGC

WE DID IT!!!!

I was fast asleep on the couch when I heard mom SCREAM. I got a big ugly fright. Then I saw mom grinning from ear to ear. A smile wider than any I'd ever seen before lit up her narrow face.

"Axie Pax, We did it!!" she yelled.

The crazy woman tried to lift me in her arms (fat chance mom!) and do a jig, gave up and did a private jig by herself around the coffee table.

"We exceeded our goal of 10,000 signatures Axie Pax, can you believe that??!! 10,000 people said No More Dogs for Marc Andre Laporte!"

Then I understood her joy. I felt this feeling of intense joy creep from the tip of my tail all the way to my little black nose. It was a wonderful feeling folks! I thought of Bingo and of Honeybee and all the survivors of Laporte's hell, and of all the wonderful people who cared for those wounded dogs and all the special people who answered our call to sign the petition, and of our relentless partner in this campaign Christine and Dean-O in Montreal. And it was a very special moment indeed.

We will be printing out the petition and our dear friend Elizabeth will be presenting it to Judge Sirois at Laporte's hearing on February 22.

Stay tuned...we will of course update you as to the outcome.

A great big thank you to everyone out there who helped us attain this awesome accomplishment.

AGC and one happy Mom

Laporte Crusade Hits YouTube

Thanks to our friend Nancy for creating this moving YouTube show to highlight our all important campaign against Mr. Laporte:



Please spread it around, everyone should see it!

I end with this petition entry which made Mom laugh out loud...

# 7792: Dec 18, 2007, Claire leone Domney, United Kingdom
Lock him up i his own filth with a dead convict for dinner the ba**ard

We are 3 entries away from 7,800 signatures!!

AGC

A Message from BingoLaporte Survivor

Who would believe by looking at that beautiful photo at right of smiling, happy Bingo and his Mom Helene, that Bingo survived the Laporte House of Horror? In two years, they have travelled a very hard road together, Helene helping Bingo overcome his traumatic past. When Mom and I look at Bingo and his Mom, we can't help smiling and feeling warm all over. To think of what Bingo survived shows just how resilient and special our breed is!

Bingo was very happy to see himself on my blog with his pal Honeybee that he wrote me an email:
I diid see mee an honeebee!!!. Wee wur so happi to bee onyur paige dat we juzt leeped inde aire wit joy! Wood uue tell awl de peepol onyur blog how happi wee R?
Woof …oops I forgawt…I don’t bark anymor.

Well Bingo, you just told everyone yourself. Well done buddy!
Bingo sent other wonderful photos of himself which I'd like to share with you here at left. Mom says he reminds her of me!

By the way, unbelievably, the petition has now accumulated 6,548 signatures! Even the Russians have found us and the Christmas Island people - what do you think they call themselves? Christians? LOL!
I liked the post today from Mary "Mare" Moore #6,539 from Canada - she wrote:

"I am simply appalled at what this man (and others like him) has done to those poor dogs. I'm even MORE appalled at the thought that the judge just might allow him to get some of his dogs back!!!! Only a LIFE-TIME BAN on owning ANY animal is what this guy needs! He doesn't deserve to own a lowly slug let alone anything higher up on the food chain!!!! There is absolutely NO excuse in the world to justify either what he did, nor being allowed to ever own another animal for eternity! "

We couldn't have said it any better Mare. We just hope Judge Sirois feels the same way.

I wonder if the good judge would appreciate an artistic interpretation of the Laporte legacy? Bingo's Mom Helene goes to Honeybee's Mom for art lessons and painted "a series of little dogs coming out of the darkness" to represent Bingo's journey. We think that the painting speaks volumes! I am sure Asta's Mommy who is a great artist, will agree that this is a pawsome picture!

Keep up the good fight! Tell your friends to sign the petition!
Oooh, and before I forget - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DEAR CANADIAN PAL DEAN-O! WHO IS 7 TODAY! He and his fabulous Mommy Christine have been working flat out at promoting our petition! Wishing you many more happy and healthy years pal!

AGC

Happy News on the 8th Night of Hanukkah

Mom has gotten me hooked on refreshing the No Dogs for Laporte petition website every 5 minutes! We have been doing jigs around the room all day because the numbers keep jumping upwards! First we aimed for 1,000, then 2,000 and then so many came in today, that Mom kept yelling, "Ax - we need to up the goal dude!! What do you think?" I give a wag for every 1,000, so to date, I told Mom to go with 4,000, but I might have to wake her in the middle of the night with 5 wags if the petition continues to rise. I will be on refresh duty tonight!

Boy the jigs and refreshing is getting tiring, I haven't even had time to eat my Dingo which you can see I left on my keyboard...helping other wires is more fun and gratifying than eating a million Dingoes. That much I can tell you!

So in between the refreshing and the jigging - we did still make time tonight to light our menorah. Tonight alas, is the last night of Hanukkah, so as you can see, we lit 8 candles and the chief candle in the middle known as the shamash. We didn't get to play dreidel again - but when we were doing our petition jigs, we made sure to jig in many circles so we became canine/human dreidels instead!

We also found time to snack as we need our sustenance to keep on fighting for the Blainville wires! Dad worked late tonight and came home with some KFC chicken - I LOVE chicken - eventhough Mom had coincidently barbequed chicken for his dinner already (and I got half of that too!). I won't tell you which chicken I prefer - the Colonel's or Mom's 'cos, I live with Mom!

I'm sad to see the end of Hanukkah - but who can be sad when one only has to run upstairs and hit refresh on the computer. In the time it's taken me to write this blog post - the number has jumped from 3,782 to 3,865 (and I'm a fast blogger!!). Pawsome! And also, I still have one more Hanukkah gift - the postman left a slip in our mailbox to pick up a parcel - I suspect it is the package from Ricky Pepper and his family that "got lost" for a while! Woohoo!

AGC

"FERMEZ LAPORTE" Update and Don't I look dashing?

Mom and her friends continue the crusade against Marc-Andre Laporte - the convicted wire fox terrier abuser in Montreal, Canada who has the gaul to ask the court to return the very dogs he abused back to him on February 22, 2008. To all sane humans and dogs, this is clearly an INSANE proposal, so the petition, aptly called "No Dogs for Laporte" or "Fermez Laporte" continues. Signatures now stand at close to 1500! If you haven't signed yet or told all your friends to sign, please do now at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/no-dogs-for-laporte

We also ask you to write a letter of protest and mail it to:
Elizabeth Pierce
119 16th Street
Roxboro, Québec
Canada
H8Y 1P1

We are hoping that both the petition and the letters will be presented to the Judge Sirois, and that as a result, Sirois will say, "No dogs for you Laporte, get your pathetic ass to jail!"

And now in other, more cheery news - I got a haircut Friday just in time for the holiday bash at Asta's place in NYC. As you recall, I had a horrible haircut courtesy of Pet Stupid a few months ago - they destroyed my coat by shaving it. Color and texture went out the window. But thanks to new groomers, Pooches Choice, I have been restored in two sessions over 3 months, to my former glory. This is what I looked like before my session on Friday:

I do look cute as can be in my scruffy mode and you can see that the colors were starting to return on my shoulders and back. But look how dashing I looked after my appointment:

Mom and Dad did a jig when they saw me, they keep oohing and ahing about how handsome I am, and who am I to protest their praises?

Hanukkah continues, sans latkes - my mother is very lazy indeed. Today is the family party at our cousins and I am NOT invited because they have a new Yorkie pup and I guess they're nervous I might mistake it for a hairy, yappy latke? Harumpf! So I get to stay home - at least Mom gave me a juicy marrow bone to enjoy to assuage her guilt.

Thank you to Bigfoot Fletch and Maxie for the cute Hanukkah gift that arrived on Thursday. It's a blue Hippo with his name "Zaftig" embroidered down the side. Mom explained that "zaftig" means "FAT" in Yiddish. Amazing that they're making Yiddish/Jewish Hanukkah gifts in China! Mom went holiday shopping yesterday for today's party and was dismayed to see that practically everything she picked up to buy is made in China! We are trying to boycott due to their terrible record in animal rights and environmental issues - but holy cow, it's difficult!

Now, don't forget to sign our petition!

AGC

500 Signatures and still counting

Thanks to everyone who has responded so enthusiastically to our "No Dogs for Laporte" campaign. We are thrilled to see over 500 signatures to our petition and many promises of letters being mailed to Canada. Please be sure to include the zip code on those letters (H8Y 1P1) - if you already sent one without it, don't fret, it will get there, it will just be delayed.

Every minute Mom hits the refresh button on the petition page, she whoops in delight and we do jigs around the living room. We are amazed at the countries represented - from Australia to Greece, Costa Rica to Poland, Malaysia to Italy, South Africa to Sweden and on it goes. It is good to see such evidence of love and concern the world over.

My astute Canadian Buddy Dean-O has been helping me a lot - today he sent me some links to videos of the coverage of the case in Montreal TV.
Click here to see a report in English:
http://montreal.ctv.ca/cfcf/video_popup?news_id=17190
Click here and here to see reports in French.
We understand some French but those folks in Montreal have funny accents. But you don't need words to explain horror at Laporte's house and you sure as heck don't need words to see what constitutes a happy wire in a safe home on her Mommy's lap!

Please continue to tell all your friends about our campaign - to sign the petition and write lots of letters.

With all this activity going on, we've scarcely prepared for Hanukkah. We promise to do a special Hanukkah installment tomorrow, as the holiday begins at sunset tomorrow.

AGC