Tangi Adopt A Rescue (TAAR)
www.taar.petfinder.com

Kentwood, Louisiana 70444
Email: taar.rescue@gmail.com

Leg Traps Trap Pets Too!

Louisiana - Warning Leg Traps Can Trap Your Pets Too!
by Joni Solis (true account)

I want to let everyone know that in Louisiana people can set out inhumane leg hold traps for our wildlife and sometimes our pets can become their victims too.

I was walking four of my dogs yesterday evening (5:30 pm 3-10-2005), as I do twice a day, on my sister's property which is right behind my property, when two of my dogs were caught in metal leg hold traps.

The first one caught was Gigit my 29-pound corgi/heeler mix. She screamed and screamed in horrible pain. I have never heard a dog scream so loud and for so long and with so much panic in her voice.

I ran up the trail trying to find her and see what had her. I knew it couldn't be a snakebite. Then I saw her. She busted her mouth biting at the trap trying to free herself. She twisted and twisted around and around as she screamed. The steel jaws of the barbaric metal trap had slammed shut and were crushing her foot. Her eyes showed pure terror.

I tried again and again to free her from the trap but I knew nothing about how to go about doing that. I pulled at the chain that went into the ground but it didn't come loose or even budge in the slightest.

My hands shook, my legs shook, I screamed for help. I dug at the chain with a stick and a rock. I tried to calm Gigit. Her blood specked the ground, my hands, and our legs. Tears blurred my vision. My other dogs circled around us whining. I screamed for help again.

I heard my mother’s voice. She was on her land not far away. She started to run down the trail towards me and I ran toward her. My dogs ran with me. Then we heard Lobo, my 95-pound German Shepherd screaming in pain. Now he too was caught in a leg hold trap right in the middle of our trail.

He was too frantic with pain and fear to try to help so we ran passed him to Gigit who was now not struggling. My mother tried to remove the trap from Gigit smashed foot but she couldn’t release her either.

Lobo’s screaming stop and he was running towards us. He had somehow twisted himself free from the trap within 2 to 3 minutes time! My mother took, Snippy, one of my small dogs that I had on a leash and went for help. I held on to Lobo’s collar and held BoBo my smallest dog in my arms as I talked to Gigit trying to keep her calm and not pulling on the trap. I felt so helpless unable to release her from this vicious torture device.

Gigit started to scream and pull at the trap again. Lobo frighten, pulled away from me and ran, but he didn’t run back up the trial or down the trail, he ran right through the heavy brush and blackberry thorns. I held BoBo and ran up the trail home hoping that I too wouldn’t step into a trap on the trail.

Getting Lobo and BoBo home safe I called the police begging for help and headed back to Gigit with a bowl of water. She was patting very hard but wouldn’t drink. Blood dripped into the water from her injured mouth.

My 17-year-old son, Felix, met me on the trail and held Gigit while I worked a shovel around the trap’s chain. Then he took a turn with the shovel. The hole was about a foot deep but the chain was still not budging. Then I asked him to try to release her foot from the trap. With his first try the trap’s jaws gave just a bit and Gigit screamed and struggled.

I made a muzzle with her leash and held her tightly to me as he tried again, then once again.

On the third try he was able to get the trap’s mouth open enough for Gigit to pull her foot free. I bust out in tears and cried into her fur.

She was trapped for at least 30 minutes and I worried how badly she was hurt. Felix carried her home.

The police still hadn’t shown and I called them again. They acted like they could do nothing. My sister, Barbra, who was now here, got on the phone with the police and they told her they contacted Wildlife and Fisheries and someone would come out tomorrow to check the traps. I should have told them that it was my daughter caught in the trap not a mere dog (to them).

Where were the compassionate rescuers like they show on Animal Planet that zoom to help and risk life and limb?

I called the vet and she told me wash and ice down Gigit’s foot, and give her a baby aspirin, her rest, and bring her to the clinic in the morning. Gigit didn’t drink until 10:30 pm and then only a little. She moaned a little off and on and first seemed too hot and then too cold. I lay besides her on the bed.

Photo of Gigit At Home:

and on a wooded trail:

(No I did not get a photo of Gigit in the trap, I would have if my mind had been clear enough to think about crabbing my camera)

At 5 am in the morning of 10-11-2005 after an almost sleepless night my mother, my sister, and I, went on the trail by the traps to await the trappers return. I brought along my digital camera and photographed the traps. As it grew a little lighter I spotted another orange streamer and looked for another trap.

My sister picked up a tree branch and poked at the ground that looked a little to smooth and clear. The hidden trap’s jaws slammed into the branch with a crunch.

We sat and waited the trappers’ return. At about 6:15 the eastern sky was beautiful with the morning sunrise.

Photo of the sunrise:

I walked down the trail to photograph the other traps again since the sky was lighter now. While photographing the trap that had held Gigit the evening before I heard a scream and I thought it was a coyote trapped in a trap we had yet to discover.

I yelled for Barbara and ran down the trail towards the screams. It was dog, but not mine this time!

Photo of dog in trap struggling and chewing on the trap:

Photo of trap: (I am not strong enough to open this trap.)

Bloodstained: 4 dog leashes, two pairs of pants, one sweater, two small towels, and two bath towels.

Thank you for reading my personal account of my dogs being caught by leg traps.

Notes of Warning: (Louisiana)

• Trapping season is now running until March 31, 2005.
• With the right permit a trapper can set traps year round not just in the trapping season!
• Your neighbors do not have to inform you that they are setting traps on their property.
• Trappers do not always know property lines and can set traps on your property by mistake or intension. (This is what happened to our dogs and us.)
• Louisiana children and young teens can trap by purchasing a $5 licenses. (Incentive to turn children into trappers!)
• Fur Harvest: Trapping in Louisiana coastal wetlands generates approximately $2 million annually (LDWF 2004). http://dnr.louisiana.gov/crm/coastalfacts.asp
• Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries - TRAPPING REGULATIONS TRAPPING REGULATIONS Trapping Rules

Leg traps are a cruel and inhumane way of trapping animals. They catch animals indiscriminately-meaning that the preferred prey target is not always the one that steel jaws of the trap slams shut on.

Many domestic dogs and cats are also trapped. Other "accidentally" trapped animals: Blue Jays, Owls, ducks, porcupines, flying squirrels, rabbits, and sometimes even endangered species, like eagles, and others. These "unwanted" animals are often killed and tossed or let free, many with painful and sometimes fatal injures.

Trapped animals suffer immense terror and excruciating pain for many hours and sometimes for days awaiting the trappers return. Sometimes they bleed to death, break their legs or joints or teeth in their frantic struggles, or chew off their foot or leg trying to free themselves. Leg traps are barbaric torture devices that need to be outlawed. We must demand an end to the use of leg traps -- now!

Please post this email to other dog and cat welfare groups and on you website to help warn other dog owners that this could happen to them and their pets. And so people will want to put an end to trapping animals!

I would like to hear from anyone whose dog has been trapped.

Please visit the following website to learn more about traps...

Ban Leg-Hold Traps Dot Com - www.banlegholdtraps.com

A non-profit society working to stop trapping cruelty, Fur-Bearer Defenders (Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals) is a registered non-profit society working to stop trapping cruelty and protect fur-bearing animals.

More about leg traps and photos of animals in traps: http://www.banlegholdtraps.com/traps.html

Tangi Adopt A Rescue
Kentwood, Louisiana 70444
Website: www.taar.petfinder.com
Email: taar.rescue@gmail.com

This web page is maintained by Joni Solis . Please email if you have any problems or questions.

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