Jan Creamer—president and co-founder of Animal Defenders International (ADI), which specializes in educational efforts and campaigns internationally that tend to focus on animals in entertainment and other realms—recounts growing up with assorted pets, and a light bulb moment in her younger years when she was handed a leaflet about beagles being used in smoking experiments. Creamer recalls working in various capacities for the organization responsible for that leaflet, The National Anti-
Vivisection Society of the U.K., which, in a sense, evolved into the new entity that she launched with her husband, Tim Phillips, Animal Defenders International. She addresses the re-introduction to Congress the previous week of the Traveling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Protection Act (TEAPSPA)—a bipartisan federal bill that aim to end the use of wild and exotic animals in circuses and other entities that travel across the U.S. Creamer explains that TEAPSPA has been brought to Congress multiple times, and 
doesn’t particularly expect it to pass this time around, either, but aspires to attract more Congressional co-sponsors for the bill, and generally build more awareness of it. The current effort, she notes, is undertaken against the backdrop of New Jersey and Hawaii now having statewide bands of wild animals in circuses, while a similar ban is under consideration in California—while some 40+ countries have passed national prohibitions on using animals in circuses. For these reasons, and others, including the palpable momentum, Creamer speculated that TEAPSPA may well pass during the nextsession in which it’s re-introduced, especially if folks who care about animals email, call, or—best of all—meet with their congressional representatives, using contact information provided on the ADI website. (http://www.ad-international.org/adi_usa/)
ALSO: I spoke with Dr. Lincoln Parkes, a retired veterinarian, who is certainly not retired from his lifelong enterprise: building custom-made carts for paralyzed animals—a task he’s undertaken for more than 60 years. Now 92, Dr. Parkes described how he got started in this work, carts he’s created for some animals beyond the usual patients of dogs and cats—like chickens—and new cart designs he’s come up with that he hopes to execute soon with some help and/or investors. (http://www.k-9cart.com)
COMEDY CORNER: Eddie Pepitone’s “Dog Therapy” (https://eddiepepitone.com)
MUSIC: Rebekah Pulley’s “Talking Animals Theme,” instrumentals
NAME THAT ANIMAL TUNE: Bent Fabric’s “Alley Cat”
AUDIO ARCHIVE:
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