Dogged Blog

Obligatory Cheney Got a Gun Reference

Jon Stewart says he's going to send back his paycheck this week; the material just wrote itself. I laughed so hard tears were pouring down my face. The link is up at Crooks and Liars if you haven't seen it.

The Laramie Project

I really can't review movies ... I have terrible taste in films and mostly like to be entertained, not reduced to tears and anger. I put The Laramie Project in my Netflix queue without really thinking about it, and even after it arrived, it sat around unopened while I watched fluffier fare. But tonight I put it in the DVD player, also kind of without thinking. That didn't last long.

The Laramie Project is the film version of Moises Kaufman's stage play of the same name about the town of Laramie in the aftermath of Matthew Shephard's death.  Kaufman and his theater group went to Laramie and interviewed about 200 people before, during, and after the trials of his killers. The film is a dramatization of that interview process, with actors portraying the theater group and townspeople, intermixed with actual news footage of the time. Even though it was filmed on location and not on a set or stage, it had that inescapable play-iness that plagues a lot of filmed versions of plays. After about ten minutes, though, I forgot all about it, and got drawn in by the painful power of the words themselves.

There were two passages that I found devastating. One was the speech given by Matthew's father at the sentencing hearing of one of the killers - the most merciless plea for mercy I've ever heard. The other was this statement by a 40-ish gay farmer, in response to the frequently heard comments that Wyoming is not "like that," but is a place where people "live and let live":

"There's this whole idea, you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. It's even in some of the western literature, you know, live and let live. That is such crap. Basically what it boils down to is, if I don't tell you I'm a fag, you won't beat the crap out of me. What's so great about THAT? That's a great philosophy?"

I saw Brokeback Mountain on a date and commented later that it's a terrible date movie ... well, put this on that same list. But having let nearly five years pass by without seeing this film, I'm wishing now I had seen it sooner. If you haven't, do.

A Dogged Valentine

"Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love." -Shakespeare, As You Like It

I really hate Valentine's Day. More than any other fake holiday, created strictly to sell stuff, this one works my last nerve. That's because in addition to the fact that I'm probably the least romantic person you can imagine, it seems the teenaged, hormone-sodden, delirious state of being "in love" has become the gold standard of adult love, too. And all I can say to that is, you couldn't get me to be "in love" like that again for ten million dollars.

The thing is, I ran this sentiment past my mom once, and she rolled her eyes and informed me that she had no problem imagining me "googy eyed and breathless," because she could count a number of times she'd seen me that way, like just about every time I got a new dog.

Yeah, mom, you got me. When it comes to my dogs, I do all the things I neither do for my fellow humans nor enjoy when they are done for me: Sweet little gifts, baby talk and kisses, dressing them up special for holiday pictures ... although I do draw the line at putting actual clothing on my dogs. I stick with fancy collars and the occasional antler hat.

So yeah, there might be some heart-shaped dog cookies on the shopping list this week, but flowers and candy? Not hardly.

Jumping Through Hoops

"It's like adopting a kid, for god's sake!"

This plaintive cry can be heard from a wide variety of people who are looking for a pet. They say it when they are trying to buy from a really good breeder, or adopt a homeless pet from a shelter or rescue group. They've said it to me.

They won't say it when they are getting a pet from an irresponsible breeder or from a pet shop, though,  and to many, this is the very reason they want to get a pet from these sources. But consider this first:

Why would you want to bring a living, breathing creature into your home, to become a part of your family, who was born and raised in the hands of someone who doesn't give a damn what happens to that animal?

Sure, there's a downside to giving a damn. From questionnaires to references to home inspections to narrow restrictions on what kind of homes they'll place their pets in, the many requirements of reputable breeders, rescue groups, and shelters not only can seem absurd, they sometimes really are. Some shelters won't place a dog in a home where anyone owns a pickup truck, assuming that at some point the dog will be loose in the back of said truck, flying down the freeway at 80 miles an hour. Others won't place a cat in a home where no one is home all day. Many breeders have strict requirements on how you can feed or exercise your puppy or kitten, including complicated diets, supplementation schedules, and even lists of proscribed veterinary procedures.

It's important to realize that all these requirements, from the most reasonable to the most intrusive, arose from real situations where animals were placed in inappropriate homes. In an attempt to protect the lives and happiness of the animals in their care, these breeders and rescuers have devised tools to make sure the home is a good one – and a permanent one. Although many of the requirements will seem excessive to you, it should be of some comfort to realize that you are getting your future pet from someone who really cares about that animal. Especially in the case of a breeder, it is reassuring to know that they are so attentive to details. This would likely mean they were also very careful in how they bred the puppies or kittens, and how they raised them. It is you who will benefit from this conscientiousness.

However, this isn't the whole story. Some dogs and cats are deprived of perfectly good, loving homes by the overly restrictive policies of some breeders, shelters, and rescue groups. This is especially unfortunate in those situations where the shelters are euthanizing for shelter space, as either this pet or some other will pay with his or her life for these policies. No matter how good the intentions behind these restrictions, they need to be re-evaluated. And if you find yourself blocked by restrictions you can't meet, you really have no choice but to walk away.

But in walking away, do not make the mistake of going to the opposite extreme. You won't be asked any tough questions down the street at the house of the family who let their two dogs have a litter to show their kids the miracle of life, and you won't be asked anything more than to flash your Visa card at the pet store. But in buying a pet from these sources, you are using your dollars to support practices you probably would rather not support.

Puppies and kittens sold in pet stores are mass-produced in circumstances that range from truly hellish to sterile, lonely, and boring. The mothers and fathers of those puppies and kittens spend their entire lives in cages, bored beyond belief, sometimes kept in filth and misery, having litter after litter until they can't produce anymore. Stop and think hard before you support these practices with your dollars.

Pet store staffers will tell you, and probably believe, that their puppies and kittens come from "private breeders," and not "puppy mills," but this reassurance is meaningless. Reputable breeders, those who are committed to improving and preserving their chosen breeds and bringing the healthiest possible puppies and kittens into the world, would never in a million years consider letting a third party, such as a pet store, place them in new homes. Those frustrating restrictions and contracts and those intrusive questions are your guarantee that the breeder of your pet is a good one. The easier it is for you to get that puppy or kitten, the less careful the breeder of that puppy and kitten is.

While condoning breeding the two pets down the street together to show the kids the miracle of birth isn't as bad as supporting the mass production of pets in puppy and kitten mills, you might still encourage these casual "backyard breeders" to produce more little warm, wiggly bodies to go out into the world without a safety net, without health guarantees, without genetic testing on the parents, without any of the basic hallmarks of reputable breeders.

Some breeders will assure you that they are not "backyard breeders" and aren't "snobby show breeders" either. They just want to produce happy, healthy pets. It can be extremely difficult to evaluate this type of breeder, as they may in fact produce lovely pets and their breeding animals may live the happy life of family members. The best advice here is to judge the breeder on how hard it is to get a puppy from them, as well as the answer to one single question that I call the acid test: If I cannot keep this puppy or kitten down the road, will you take him or her back?

All reputable breeders will screen their buyers and will guarantee a lifelong home for that pet if the buyer cannot keep them. If the breeder does not meet those basic standards, look elsewhere for your pet.

There are two good sources for family pets. One is an animal shelter or rescue group. The other is a reputable breeder. While you may need to do a lot of homework, and yes, jump through some hoops, you'll sleep better at night.

Maybe Later It Will Be Better

I was kind of encouraged by the results of a  Zogby poll asking high school seniors about their attitudes regarding lesbian and gay rights including marriage and adoption:

Three-quarters of the high school seniors throughout the country favor the legal recognition of same-sex relationships, either as marriage or civil union.

The survey found that three in four seniors oppose a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Sixty-three percent support adoption by gay couples.

I guess I could take a nice long nap and wake up when they're running things?

Just Think

It's enough to make a girl want to stop even using the word "holistic" anymore.

I'm referring to the continuing flood of lies, unfounded assertions, and half-truths being swallowed whole and sadly, regurgitated, by the gullible hordes who are out there looking for suggestions on how to care for their dogs. This is nothing new, and neither is my impatience with it. But for some reason I've had even less patience lately than I usually do (which is not much at the best of times) with sloppy thinking.

Last week I was sitting in my vet's office while she did acupuncture on my dog Rosie for her arthritis. (The skeptics out there can scoff and ridicule me all you like for doing this - but Rosie is not the first dog I've owned whose objective measures of comfort have visibly and dramatically improved while being treated by an acupuncturist, and who noticeably got stiffer and less active when an appointment was missed or delayed.)

While I was sitting there watching Rosie snooze with her needles in, I was flipping through a pet care magazine aimed at the holistic market, and saw an article about how to choose the best protein source for your pet. I got a bad feeling in my gut and should have just put it down and read People instead, but my vet doesn't subscribe to People and anyway, even though I knew what was going to happen, I couldn't stop myself.

The author began by citing a human nutritional writer, Peter D'Adamo, as the source of her inspiration for this canine quest for nutritional excellence. Since I think D'Adamo's  whole "Eat Right 4 Your Type" thing is a load of crap, I didn't have a heck of a lot of confidence in the dog version either. But D'Adamo has a thousand, a million, times more science to back up his theory than those people who have constructed the "Bratwurst for Schnauzers" school of canine nutrition.

Ummmm... Bratwurst for Schnauzers? Sure. Didn't you know that you should be feeding your dog according to the land of origin of his breed? Haggis and oats for border collies, fish for sled dogs, that kind of thing. (Please don't ask me what my neighbor should feed their chihuahua/shih tzu mix.... sweet and sour tacos?)

You'd think the author might possibly, when making outrageous statements such as "I have found that when we gear the 'foundation' meats, fish and vegetables to the regions our dogs developed in, magical health changes occur," offer one single shred of evidence to support it?

She did give an anecdote about a Siberian Husky whose eye discharge cleared up when put on a fish and sweet potato diet, attributing the magical cure to the inclusion of fish. That's great, although I'm not sure where sweet potatoes fit in. And of course, the fact that most likely the dog had an allergy to something in the previous diet that wasn't in the "novel ingredient" diet he was switched to doesn't get touched on at all.

I don't really care whether this theory is true or false. I think it's a load of hooey, but if someone proves me wrong, I'll cheerfully eat my words and let my Scottish Deerhounds chow down on all the haggis they can consume.

No, what I care about is that we have simply got to learn to use our brains and apply our powers of critical thinking to our consumption of holistic pet care recommendations. Just because you read it in a magazine, website, or yes, even a book written by a veterinarian, does not mean it's true. Is the theory substantiated by reseach, reason, or significant amounts of anecdotal data? Is it in harmony with basic scientific knowledge or heck, even common sense? Does the writer have the slightest familiarity with, I don't know.... FOOTNOTES? I'm not saying we have to have forty double-blind, randomized, crossover studies to back up every food choice we make for our dogs; I'm saying we have to ask for more than we usually get in the way of evidence from people trying to sell us pet food, and even from people "selling" us ideas, theories, and ideologies about pet care.

Sometimes the consequences of this are even more serious than in the dietary realm. That's because it probably doesn't matter what type of meat your dog eats, and there's really no harm in feeding fish to sled dogs, and probably a lot of benefit. Where this gullibility really bites is when it's applied to medical care for our dogs.

I own a pet health email list called BeyondVaccination, and we frequently get people asking about holistic alternatives for the prevention and treatment of canine heartworm disease. Now, I am a bit of  a skeptic about some of the "conventional wisdom" about canine heartworm disease, but on one issue I'm a fanatic.

People say they want a safer alternative to the drug Immiticide that is usually used to treat dogs with adult heartworm infections. So naturally they look to herbal medicine to provide it. This isn't necessarily an irrational thing to do; there  are many herbal remedies that have long histories of traditional use for a number of conditions, that really are safer overall than conventional drugs used for the same conditions - or at least are equally safe and effective.

But that is not the case with canine heartworm disease, for two basic reasons. The first is that there is no traditional herbal treatment for this disease; the herbs commonly used for canine heartworm have  traditionally been used for treating intestinal worms and skin and coat parasites, not for treating a parasite that lives in the circulatory system. There is also no study or research that supports or even suggests the safety or efficacy of using herbs to treat heartworm in the dog.

But the second reason is far more critical. No matter how you kill heartworms in the dog ... with conventional drugs or with herbs, even if the worms die of old age ... the greatest risk comes not from the substance you are using to kill the worms, but from the presence of dead worms in the dog's circulatory system. These dead worms form clots that can kill a dog. Dogs treated with conventional drugs are hospitalized during the administration and the owners are supposed to keep the dogs completely inactive - as in, CRATED - for at least one month, sometimes more, while the worms die off. Even among dogs kept very quiet, there is still some risk of clots going to the lungs, especially in dogs with many worms.

One loony site about herbal heartworm treatment that someone posted the URL for into my holistic chat a few months  ago insists that her herbal treatment causes the worms to dissolve so completely that there is no risk of clots.  This is plain nuts - what do you suppose would happen if you put something caustic enough to disintegrate a worm into your bloodstream? Are people even thinking when they write these things?

And even more importantly, are people thinking when they READ them?