Friends and Family Use Social Media to Fight for Phineas the Dog's Life

The death-row Labrador, accused of biting a girl, went missing days before an appeal hearing.

Amber and Patrick Sanders have been fighting for 16 months to save their yellow Labrador, Phineas, from being euthanized. Mayor Gary Brown of Salem, Missouri, declared Phineas to be "vicious" after the dog was accused of biting 7-year-old Kendall Woolman in June 2012 while she was visiting for a play date. On Thursday, Oct. 17, the Sanders had a hearing before the Missouri Court of Appeals, and brought a dog-bite expert to testify that the teeth marks on the girl's skin couldn't have been made by a dog. The judge is expected to bring a verdict within a week, but the decision might be moot at this point: the Saturday before the long-awaited hearing, Phineas disappeared from the veterinary office where he was being held.

The question of whether Phineas lives or dies has brought up a lot of bad blood in the town of 5,000. There have been allegations of threats and abuse on both sides, and one woman was charged with third-degree assault and harassment for allegedly threatening Wayna Woolman, the mother of the girl who was bitten. Woolman told a local reporter, "My life and my family's life have been turned upside down because of threats from Phineas supporters." The mayor, who made the original decision to have Phineas put down as "vicious," also says he's been threatened. Patrick Sanders says that although his family hasn't been threatened, friends of theirs have.

Phineas has become a cause célebrè with dog lovers far beyond Missouri. He has his own website, Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a Change.org petition that has garnered 75,000 signatures. There is virtually no part of the social web that the Sanders family has not used to spread the word about their dog.

Jim Crosby, an expert on dog bites and canine aggression, testified that the bite marks left on the Woolman girl's skin were the wrong size and shape to have been made by Phineas. Crosby used a canine skull and jawbone to show how the long canines would have punctured the skin before the front teeth even made a mark.

The immediate assumption after Phineas disappeared was that his abductors killed him. Even the family's own lawyer, Joe Simon, told the press that "there's a 95 percent chance the dog is dead." However, on Saturday, Sanders family members announced on the Save Phineas Facebook page that they'd received a letter signed "Friend of Phineas," from someone claiming to have taken the dog. The letter is in part a manifesto about animal rights and vegetarianism. It concludes:

Help one friend like Phineas every chance you get.

Thanks for all you do for our fellow earthlings. And shame to the selfish.

If I were on death row I wouldn't want my fate in the hands of a judge. So Phineas is now safe and happy playing with friends.

More to come -- Friend of Phineas

Now on their second attempt to have the mayor's kill order overturned, the Sanders family is obviously hoping that the letter is genuine. However, there aren't any photos or other evidence of its authenticity, or at least none that have been made public. For now, all anyone can do is wait: not only for the court's decision, but also to find out whether someone has made that decision irrelevant.

Via: Fox2Now

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No Kill Conference 2011: Social media

Alan Rosenblatt, Ph.D., of the Center for American Progress is doing a presentation on social media advocacy. Not particularly animal-related.

Talks about additive summation. Used Pres. Obama asking everyone to call congressional reps last week, they call — and crash the phone system — but they also post to reps’ Facebook pages, protest outside of their offices, etc. Hit them everywhere, they’re more likely to budge.

Same for us if we want to mobilize people we know. Reach with Twitter, Facebook, signage, talking in coffee shop, house parties, dog-washing parties. Bring people together, spread the message. We know repetition works with messaging. When we hear from more than one source, there’s this thing called “source amnesia,” they may not remember where they heard the message, but they remember the message.

Social media. “Here Comes Everybody.”

The way things were: Talks about email lists of the past. Email is a closed communication loop.

The way things are now: Eg, Congress can’t ignore FB, Twitter, etc. on social networks is because the world can see. Because the reason most people are there is to share what they find.

Social is not intrusive. It’s not in your email box. It’s just in your news stream. That is the nature of the platform. It’s there, then it’s gone, you don’t have to do anything about it if you don’t want to.

Members of Congress may not care to hear from non-constituents by email, phone, via web contact, but they have to care that people from anywhere can shut down their Facebook page with posts, or organize to raise money for their opponent.

You can’t target everyone. You have to focus your message and pick key people. (I AGREE!!!!)

A 9-second sound bite = around 140 characters, Twitter limit.

He’s never found a haiku longer than 80 characters, and they can describe the universe. “Imagine what you can describe with 140.” But he says stay at 120 if you want people to re-tweet — 80 percent RT manually, so they can add their own comments or hashtags.

Discussion of hashtags. This conference is #nkc2011, but people on #nokill don’t seem to know. Need to announce a new or event-specific hashtag by announcing to more widely-used hashtag what the new hashtag is. Eg, tweet to #nokill and mention that #nkc2011 is the hashtag for this conference.

Long discussion about using “Facebook page takeovers” and the “etiquette” of removing posts on your wall and comments that you don’t like. Your shutting down your critics can hurt you. Big time.

The movement of sophistication on these platforms is different from old time PR (how to make you LOOK good, not be good) to new PR, where they’re really being told they have to  BE good, DO good, to walk the talk.

I just noticed David is reading this liveblog while he’s sitting next to me listening to it in real time. I AM DEAD OF THE META.

Interesting that most interest at this presentation from the audience is about Twitter!

Question from audience: Do hashtags have RSS feeds? Answer: Yes.

Q: How to find someone’s Twitter name? A: He recommends searching on Google with the person’s name and the word Twitter rather than searching on Google.

Twitter reaches INFLUENCERS, Facebook better for grassroots.

Experts are more trusted than the most trusted institutions, so not just your organization should be on Twitter and FB, YOU and YOUR PEOPLE should be on FB and Twitter.

Better to have a few influential followers than many more who aren’t.

To get more followers:

Step one: Make a connection. Fan or friend them, follow them.  Talk with them on social media — it’s SOCIAL. wefollow.com. listorius.com. keyword search or location search on search.twitter.com.

Step two: Engage the people you want to get in your audience. Share their stuff with your audience. Ask them for their expertise so they can help you, which massages their ego.

Step three: Recommend them. #followfriday or #ff. Create lists who are influencers in your field, then rec the list. On FB, like a post, or comment, and share on your wall. Once they follow you, keep repeating “engage” and “recommend.” The more you give the more you get.

Web is altruistic. We draw people to us to send everyone to other places.

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