Heart of Dogness

Shelter for Pets in Flooded Cedar Rapids.

Great story in today's New York Times about the municipal animal shelter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which has temporarily relocated to Kirkwood Community College, uphill from the flooding.

UPDATE: IFAW's rescuing both pets and pigs.

The Rescue of Sassy

Here's that peach of a dog story from Shelia Duncan of Trouble Says Be Tough:

A farmer in Tennessee had sold his cows and therefore had no more use for a beautiful, pure bred Australian Shepherd girl named Sassy.  So he took her to a high kill shelter where it was discovered that she had heartworm, etc., etc., etc. - e.g. she was not adoptable.  Through our work with the SPCA of TN , I received an e-mail about her and started the wheels turning to save her.

I have a friend who owns a golf course in Rhode Island. He wanted a dog to chase geese and I thought Sassy would fill the bill.He paid for the treatment necessary to save her life. And 23 people drove legs in a transport to bring this little girl to Rhode Island.

Well, she is a perfect dog ... beautifully behaved and has charmed every person she's met.  Now, there are no geese since Sassy's arrival ... but that's ok as she's now herding the golf carts.  She is never alone for a moment ... and is the belle of the ball.

Imagine that farmer not giving her a second thought?

That's why I'd like to highlight the plight of the dogs in TN -- every single one we've rescued is absolutely wonderful ... and there are so very many that some people simply discount them ... like trash.  They don't neuter or spay their animals ... and if they lose a dog they don't even look for it ... they simply get another.

Blog author's note: This is not intended to characterize ALL the people of Tennessee as heartless clods who don't understand that dogs are living, sentient beings. Nor is this a problem confined to Tennessee, the South, or rural areas. I've heard and read stories of similar abuse from all over the country, and the world. You can help provide the education and enforcement needed by contributing to SPCATN or any of the following:

International Fund for Animal Welfare
American Humane
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Humane Society of the United States
Animal Rescue League of Boston
North Shore Animal League of America

Dog story from the Bark Blog

I've got about half a zillion True Dog Stories I'm working on, but my week's been chewed up by such nonsense as keeping house and family from falling down. You'd think the house and the family would just stand up on their own, but NOOOOOOOO!

Meanwhile I've just discovered that The Bark, one of my favorite magazines, has a blog, and there's a wonderful True Dog Story there about a Lab saving a boy's life.

Please try to make do with dog heroism until I can get back to my usual snide remarks and cheesy puns. 

Trouble Says Be Tough

One of the joys of the Licensing Expo was meeting Sheila Duncan, co-founder of Trouble Says Be Tough. Trouble, shown at left, is a very soft and comforting stuffed dog based on a drawing by Sheila's neice, Kendra. Read their story by clicking on the link above.

Trouble Says Be Tough supports several health and animal protection organizations, including St. Jude Children's Hospital (geezers like me will remember this as Danny Thomas's favorite charity), SPCA of Tennessee, Patriot Lab & All Breed Rescue, and the Marblehead Animal Shelter.

Sheila also sent me a peach of a True Dog Story, which I'll be posting next week.

I'd like to apologize to all of my reader for leaving out the snide remarks and dreadful puns I usually include in my posts. This may happen from time to time. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is sometimes.

Billy's Victory, um, Lap

Last week at the Licensing Expo, I was pleased to meet Jim Benton, creator of It's Happy Bunny and other fun stuff too numerous to recount here. When I gave him my card, he gave me a True Dog Story.

A friend of Jim's owned Billy, a Bulldog. I don't know if this was a French Bulldog or an English Bulldog, but the English Bulldog is what I think of when I think Bulldog, so that's what you get in the picture.

Anyway, Billy was a Show Dog who loved the Show Life. Lived for the spotlight. Drank Champagne and ate up applause. He'd won every show Detroit had to offer, year after year, until he came to believe he was invincible.

Until the day The Other Bulldog showed up. The Other Bulldog, nameless because I don't know his name, was sleek. He was beautiful. He had that sinister edge that said, "You lose, pal." He was, in short, everything Billy was. And more?

Billy paced the green room, attended by attendants and fanned by fans, while the judges judged in a secluded cell (you sick of this yet?). Finally, a verdict, and vindication. Billy's owner said simply, "Billy, you won."

Billy fainted.

Watch Billy faint again. Hit F5 to watch it again.

Little Fluffy Dogs Again

For no particular reason:

Little Fluffy Dogs: an Appreciation

Little fluffy dogs, although derided by some as Rat Dogs, as Dog Food, or as Squirrel Surrogates, are in fact Dogs. With actual dog personalities and actual dog behaviors.

This was brought home to me recently when I got back from the Licensing Expo and took Gus for a walk at Eagle Pond, which is where we go in the summer when they close the beach to dogs. (I contend that the beach should be off limits to people without dogs the rest of the year, but so far the town hasn't conceded this point.)

While there, we met Abby, a Border Collie, and George, a Little Fluffy Dog (Shih Tzu or Lhasa Apso; I don't remember which.) Abby loves to fetch sticks from the water, and had five or six in her mouth when we met her. George took one look at Gus and decided he was going to take no crap from this hulking fuzzwad. So George went off on Gus. Gus looked amazed.

George's owners, naturally, were mortified, and at a loss to explain this behavior. I, having seen Gus pull the same stunt more times than I'd care to count, about fell out laughing. It's a wonderful thing these little penwipers are real dogs.

Border Collie

The Border Collie is not, as some have suggested, a collie with a Borderline Personality Disorder, nor is it some Collie wannabe, like a schnauzer with a Lassie fixation.

A Border Collie is a real collie that originated along the border between England and Scotland, an area rife with sheep and smuggling. The Border Collie was bred to herd sheep, which it does by staring them down, then escalating through a series of maneuvers ranging from barking through gripping (biting) and small arms fire with rubber bullets. In extreme circumstances, a Border Collie will resort to reading the collected speeches of long-ago Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith. No sheep can withstand this impenetrable verbiage for long, and soon the whole flock will hightail it for anywhere the words aren't.

Less known is the Border Collie's role in smuggling. The dogs were enlisted to herd tax collectors, border police and other such vermin away from drop points where Angus might casually transfer a jar of whisky to Nigel for some trifling consideration. The authorities then recruited dogs of their own to herd Angus and Nigel into the Paddy Wagon, but the evidence invariably dried up before trial.

Border Collies are among the most intelligent of dogs, and although a dog may still herd sheep for exercise, the majority of Border Collies are now major players in the Financial Services industry.

Sources: Wikipedia, Border Collie Rescue

Box Turtle

I just took a load of trash to the dump, and on the way I saw an Eastern Box Turtle crossing the road. So I stopped to let it finish crossing, thereby holding up traffic for a few minutes. Nobody squawked at me, although one woman pointed out that I should have put my hazard lights on.

The Eastern Box Turtle is a Species of Special Concern in Massachusetts, which means it's not quite Endangered or Threatened, but it's not necessarily a major voting bloc either. This one is the first I've seen in years. When I was a kid, you could hardly leave your yard without tripping over a box turtle.

More Information: The Davidson College Herpetology Laboratory

Surrogate Dogs: Hasenpfeffer

I went to the Licensing Expo in New York last week, and stayed with my good friends Mark and Elaine. They have a surrogate dog, a lop-eared watch-rabbit that thumps loudly when an intruder approaches, and places his body directly in the line of fire should the intruder attempt to scratch the occupants behind the ears. This paragon of lagomorphic virtue is named Hasenpfeffer. Evidently, nothing adds sparkle to a bunny's day like a cheerful reminder of its own tasty mortality. Hasenpfeffer's greatest joy is bananas.

The household also includes two lovebirds, Petunia and Yumi. Yumi is, by all accounts, fairly normal, but Petunia plucks her own feathers -- all of them, or at least all she can reach. In this she resembles Gus.She's been doing this for a long time, and when Mark and Elaine first adopted her, they were told, "She can't last. Just try to make her as comfortable as possible for the two or three months she's got left." They've been keeping her as comfortable as possible for six years, in the desk-drawer condo she calls home.

Meghan Saves Chanel

Friend and former colleague Meghan reports that she's recently adopted a 7-year-old deaf Maltese named Chanel, rescued from the shame and struggle of life in a puppy mill. Poor little doggy developed a tumor after too many litters.

Chanel flew first class to Meghan on Super Bowl Sunday. No word yet on whether she's Chanel No. 5 or Chanel No. 19.