funchy

Did you file a complaint against him with the state Medical licensing board? Perhaps his license is in need a review.

I am involved in equine rescue and sometimes I find myself at a huge regional livestock auction. They handle everything, not just horses.

My question for you: how do you feel about those who aren't impoverished illegals who are involved in this industry?

Some of the most disturbing behavior I've ever seen was at this livestock auction. These are Americans, not poor. They're usually middle class white men who have choices and chose to do this.

I saw men kicking animals through the sides of a pen for sadistic fun. For example a crowded pen of hogs where a few had snouts sticking out between the bars: one man kicked the shouts as hard as her could mumbling something like "f'ing pig". I can only assume he didn't see me watching?

Another time I stayed after the sale. I was walking around the back of the sale barn while four men ran a small herd of steer to the loading chute. They all ran into the trailer but one who panicked and got stuck in a corner. The men surrounded it and the steer was still panicking trying to climb the pipe corral. One man kept hitting it with an electric cattle prod. One it didn't turn and run to the trailer, he hit it again. And again. And each time the steer facing the corner lunged up. The men laughed. Then they started shocking the steer for fun, a hearty round of laugher each him it jumped upward.

The auction has a long history of abuses. Every sale dead and dying animals are tossed into a dead pile around back. They get complaints about still living animals in that pile, but it takes a lot of phone calls to get anyone to even go look. Every sale I've been to has had lame or emaciated animals. Local law enforcement won't charge owners who drop off the horribly lame or injured animal. I've seen blindblind horses illegally run through the sale. The whole SYSTEM is broken. The people with the money and power are the ones who bring their animals there, run the sale, load their trucks.

These aren't poor immigrants running the factory farms, sales barns, and plants. How do they justify it?

If these people treated a dog this way they'd promptly get an animal cruelty investigator at their door, possibly lose the animal, and possibly lose the animal. When they do it to a pig or cow somehow it's not "abuse"? It's business as usual.

How do you not end up hating people?

Ditto to this.

Call an ambulance. The EMT or emergency room doctor generally isn't interested in calling police to get drug charges filed; their goal is to save lives. And generally HIPAA makes it hard for them to talk to anyone about a patient's case without a court order.

Even when I saw withdrawal babies (newborns coming into the world with serious opiate or alcohol in their system), the most my local hospital does is notify social services so they can monitor the home situation. The mothers were not charged with a crime. The addict-mom just came and picked the baby up days later, when the hospital released the infant, and they acted like nothing was wrong. (Sad for kids... but a reminder that drug users aren't typically prosecuted based on what is seen by hospitals/doctors)

Anyway, if you come across someone who may be ODing from drug or alcohol, CALL 9-1-1. If there is some complication and/or other drugs were also used, narcan won't necessarily be enough to save the person. Patient may need to be intubated (put on a ventilator) for awhile until the drug(s) clear the body. Waiting around for an OD remedy to work in the home before calling 911 may cost valuable time and possible the victim's life. Source: I am a Registered Nurse, and I have seen a few OD cases come through when I did my emergency room rotation.

Do you feel like some other athletes don't take you as seriously when they hear you're vegan? Does anyone hassle you over it?

I have found that there's so much (unjustified) social pressure not to go vegan or even vegetarian.

I head up a large animal rescue. My biggest challenge is that I'm exhausted. There's never enough donations to help all the people who can't keep their animals. Animal control in many areas is lax. In some counties it to downright joke, and they simply won't send anyone out. But we don't have the authority to seize animals or trespass without animal control authority. The few times we can get Animal Control involved, there very reluctant to press charges. The few times abusers go to court they either win or they go home with only a slap on the wrist and the animals are returned to them. The government doesn't want to fund welfare enforcement laws sufficiently so enforcement in rural areas is weak. There isn't much money for training officers in welfare issues for species other than dogs . Donors don't understand why sometimes extremely aggressive or elderly animals may be candidates for euthanasia. Animal trainers that are any good won't work for free consistently. Donors dont understand why it costs a lot of money to retrain a single animal. How do you keep from going crazy in a world that demands everything from you and give you no resources to do it?