Taco and the Zen of Hopeful Optimism

I have always considered myself an optimist. Not a rose colored glasses Pollyanna, by any means, but someone who gives people the benefit of the doubt and expects that eventually good will win out over evil.

This has often been a personal outlook at direct odds with my partner of 27 years, who sees the world as a dark and malevolent place where danger and misfortune lurk around every corner. Ironically, she does not consider herself a pessimist, even though her perception encompasses the first two definitions of the word ‘pessimism’ on dictionary.com.

Lately, perhaps as a result of the constant barrage of apathy over empathy, and cruelty over compassion that I encounter daily in my work of animal advocacy, I have found my sense of optimism flagging. It’s hard to stay positive when the innocent continue to suffer and it feels like the bad guys are winning.

I’ve been thinking a lot about optimism lately and I’d like to introduce you to the reason why.

Meet Taco.  

By the age of three, she had already been discarded by two previous owners. When she came to live with us, in this; her third home, she had baggage. She was beset with insecurities. She has had to find her place in a constantly shifting pack of rescued pets, where she has learned to fly under the radar. She is now eleven years old with a bum knee and a skin allergy, and she is the target of IQ-challenged Rocket-Boy’s exuberant extremely-loud-and-incredibly-close barking campaign to make her deaf.

All things considered: Taco is the living embodiment of hopeful optimism.

Whenever one of us heads toward the kitchen, Taco is right on our heels. She knows that food is handled in that room and that sometimes it falls on the floor. She has always been on hand to clean up errant cookie crumbs, pieces of chopped vegetable, the occasional piece of fat, spilled milk, and bits of cereal.

If we glance her way, she makes eye contact and wags her tail happily. The wider we smile, the more vigorously she wags her tail. The sparkle in her eye belies her eternal hope:  that one day, in the kitchen, someone will drop an entire steak.

We can all learn a thing or two from her attitude. When we lose a job, or a friend; as we struggle with pain or illness or just the next idiot in a long parade of puzzling acquaintances, we should remember to remain hopefully optimistic about what’s through the next door.

There might be a potato chip, or a sugary froot loop; a dollop of peanut butter or a piece of carrot. A gift; a friendship, a new opportunity; the possibilities are endless!

(I wanted to capture Taco’s optimism on video, but the instant a camera is pointed at her she becomes the most miserably depressed dog in the universe.)

Change, not Chains

It’s that time of year again. It’s almost Valentine’s Day and that means it’s time for the annual Dogs Deserve Better valentine campaign. Dogs Deserve Better is a 501c3 non-profit advocacy group devoted to rescuing chained, penned and neglected dogs and advocating to pass anti-tethering animal welfare legislation.

Last year when I shared the valentine campaign on my Facebook page, one of my nieces thought it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard of. Also during the past year, a cousin reading my blog asked “Rescuing chained dogs? Like, dogs chained in a yard?”

Two years ago, I didn’t know much about this movement, but I’ve spent some time educating myself since then: so let me tell you what I’ve learned.

Dogs are social creatures. In nature, they live in packs with a social hierarchy. When we domesticated dogs and took them into our homes, we essentially became their ‘pack’. As this relationship evolved, we made a pact with them: we will provide food, water and shelter. We will be your “pack” and you will help us hunt and will protect us.

Dogs kept their end of the bargain, and did so much more: they became companions, confidantes, protectors, therapy dogs, search and rescue dogs, drug sniffers, police dogs, trackers, hunters, and entertainers. They want nothing more than to please us.  But at least half of humanity has failed them. Many dogs do not even receive basic vet care. Some cannot rely on their owners for regular feedings. A good many of them are chained outdoors, more often than not without adequate shelter or water. Many of them die on the end of a chain, starved, sick, lonely and forgotten. More die that way than you would care to know. Some of them hang themselves when their chains get caught on trees or fences.

Close your eyes and imagine for a minute what life is like for a dog on a chain. They wear a chain around their neck, sometimes without a collar – sometimes with a collar that is so tight that it becomes embedded in their neck.

This dog was chained with a collar so tight that it became embedded.

Sometimes the chain is so heavy, they can barely move around. Sometimes the chain is so short, they cannot reach food or water or shade and they are forced to stand and lie in their own waste. They are outside in all kinds of weather – rain, snow, blistering sun. Worst of all, they are alone. They may see their people and other people and animals coming and going, but they are tethered to one spot. Alone. Unnoticed. Unable to interact. Aching for a gentle hand or kind word. Remember how I told you they are social animals? Tethering is like solitary confinement – and for what crime? For being a dog.

Chained dogs are not socialized the way they need to be, and they are often fearful and protective of their territory. They defend what they have, even if it’s an empty dish and a four foot circle of dirt. Chained dogs account for most of the dog bites in the US each year, because being unsocialized makes them much more likely to be aggressive. It’s no wonder they resort to barking and digging. They are bored out of their minds.

Who is going to untangle him? Some dogs lose legs this way.

Chaining a dog is inhumane. Dogs are made to run and play and socialize. Even those who are fed and watered regularly…even those who can crawl out of the weather under the porch or into a flimsy doghouse…even those dogs need love and attention for their basic well being.

All around the country, people are beginning to understand these basic tenets. Laws are beginning to change that limit the amount of time a dog can be tethered, and under what conditions. Cleveland City Council is currently considering an ordinance that would restrict the tethering of dogs in the city to no more than three hours a day, and only under certain conditions. (read more about that here.)

So, back to valentines…

Dogs Deserve Better hopes to send 18,000 valentines to owners of chained, penned and neglected dogs this year.  The valentines come from the dogs chained in their yards. They are meant to remind the dog’s caretakers that they are failing. They are not living up to their end of the bargain. The valentines are accompanied by educational brochures about tethering and coupons for food or treats.

DDB needs your help to reach their goal. They need people to make valentines, to tell them the addresses where dogs are chained, and to donate postage. February 5th is the deadline.You can see some samples of valentines from previous years on their website.

Send your valentines and postage to: Dogs Deserve Better – 1915 Moonlight Rd., Smithfield, VA 23430.

Use the form on their website to report addresses (you will remain anonymous). Or email the information to: info@dogsdeservebetter.org

Many dogs starve to death on the end of a chain.

Call Cleveland City Council at 216-664-2840 and tell them that you support the anti-tethering ordinance.

Dogs deserve so much better.

Will The Real Dog Please Stand Up?

If you have ever lost a dog or cat that by your estimation was the most unique and remarkable of all companion animals, then you may understand the allure of wanting to clone that pet. It’s a romantic and enticing concept; to resurrect a pet that has died.  But that’s a common mistake that people make when they think of cloning.

Waldo's petfinder doppelgangers. Which one is he?

I’ll admit, Dalene and I talked about cloning Dillon when we heard that the technology had arrived…but boy, am I ever glad we didn’t try to bring that to fruition. Think about it for a moment…there’s always that one, remarkably special pet that will break your heart when he/she dies.  That one-in-a-million pet. A clone will be a genetic reproduction – not your beloved pet resurrected.

Even putting aside the question of whether or not dogs have souls, (I personally think they do), in order to recreate your beloved pet into not only a physical replica, but one with a similar personality, you’d have to recreate every event in the pet’s life that shaped him into his unique self. Animals are as much a product of their experiences as humans are. How would you know which were the formative experiences, and would you really want to recreate them ?  Even the bad ones?

Rocket Boy's petfinder doppelganger

I just finished reading the book Dog, Inc. by John Woestendiek. It is a non-fiction account of the advent of the pet cloning industry, and it is extremely disturbing. Woestendiek doesn’t make any moral judgments in the book, but it’s impossible to read it without considering all the implications.

When four million pets are put to death in shelters every year, I question the ethics of breeding – so cloning seems above and beyond that; the most reprehensible and irresponsible action a pet lover can take.

Consider some of the facts that Woestendiek brings to light:

Maria's pet pardons doppelganger.

At the beginning, in order to get a successful clone, scientists had to harvest eggs from as many as 115 dogs. After they re-nucleated the eggs, it resulted in 1,095 reconstructed embryos, which were then transplanted into 123 surrogate dogs. Out of these, three were viable pregnancies, bearing two live births. One died several weeks later.  Although this procedure has been “perfected” –  now taking “only” somewhere around a dozen dogs to create a clone of a pet…the procedure often results in multiple clones.  So suddenly, you don’t have one clone of your pet, but 2 or 3 or 5.  

And what about those extra clones and the dogs it took to make them? Pet cloning is only being done in South Korea, and for a very good reason: they don’t have the animal welfare laws that we have here in the US.  The dogs they use for harvesting eggs and implanting embryos come from farms where dogs are raised for the meat trade…and when the scientists are finished with them, they go right back there. The extra clones end up living their lives out in cages in the laboratory where they can be studied.

How does any of this honor a special pet?

Plus, the clone isn’t going to live forever, and may in fact have a shorter life span than the original pet.

If this isn’t the pinnacle of human hubris and disregard for life, I don’t know what is.

Taco's petfinder doppelgangers. Can you find her?

When you lose that special pet, you will always have the memories – and those last forever. And  if you MUST have another pet that looks just like the one you lost…start searching petfinder and pet pardons….I guarantee you’ll be able to find a similar looking pet…who incidentally, will have his or her own set of peculiar and individual traits to love.

Maybe it would be more prudent to memorialize that special pet in ink.

via Modern Dog Magazine

The Only Motivation You Need is Compassion

Troll said he wanted to be "just like the silver dog"

Lately, I’ve noticed more and more animal rescuers and crossposters on Facebook making noise about some of the graphic photos of animal abuse being shared.  I wrote a little bit about the issue here Up on the Woof two posts ago.

In spite of that post, somebody did it to me again on December 7; sharing a video of a case out of Brazil. It’s made the rounds, so if you are a rescuer with a presence on Facebook, chances are you’ve seen it. The description was written in Portuguese, which I do not speak, so I clicked on it. I watched about 15 seconds of it before I’d reached my limit.

All year, I’ve been doing my best to advocate for animals. Some of the stories have been truly horrible. I guess that all year, every time I read about a case or saw a photo of extreme abuse I was like a sponge filling up with water. After 15 seconds into the video from Brazil, I reached my saturation point – I couldn’t absorb one more cruel thing. Then it was like a little safety switch went off shutting me down emotionally before anything shorted out.

For a moment, I was very very angry. I typed a comment on the “friend’s” share (under the “sharing” “sharing” comments) that basically said “Don’t share this, report it!” Then I posted a question to all rescuers on my own wall:

“I would like somebody to tell me what the point is of sharing photographs of horrific animal abuse that has taken place last week, last month or last year in a foreign country? Tell me, please. Because if I see any more of them, I’m going to have to go back on meds.”

Only one person answered me, and it went something like this: “I think it’s important to remember the abuse. In my world, it somehow honors the memory of the poor creature(s) that have died… or not. Some quickly put the horror out of their minds so as not to deal with the pain & I want it fresh so I will keep fighting.”

Dillon the "silver dog". Told me to quit complaining about his bark, because it didn't intimidate anyone.

In other words, the person who had replied used the posts to stoke her anger, and her anger kept her motivated.

Anger doesn’t motivate me – anger makes me feel washed out and exhausted and depressed, and therefore is not a useful emotion for me. Ten seconds of that video went beyond angering me.  I’ve kind of been floundering since seeing those ten seconds…spending less and less time on Facebook, and therefore, not advocating as much as I could be.

It’s Compassion that motivates me, and I don’t need to be reminded of what lengths people will go to to hurt animals in order for me to feel that compassion. I feel it just seeing their beautiful eyes peering out at me from behind the bars of the shelters they are in. I feel it when I see them hanging their heads because they’ve lost hope.  And when I hear their simple stories of being left behind; of being discarded; of being betrayed by the people they’d die to protect – I feel it.

I had a life-changing experience in 1989. That was the year that my lifemate and I took our four dogs to see an animal communicator. That was the day my whole perspective on animals changed, because that was the day I realized just how much they understand; just how deeply they feel; and just how individual and special each one of them is. That was the day I realized that they had hopes and goals.

Studies have shown that the average dog has the intellectual and emotional intelligence of a three-year-old child. Think about that for just a minute. Can you grasp the profundity of

Taco wanted to know "What is going to happen to me?" because we are her third home and she was worried that we were going to dump her, too.

that? Try to imagine the confusion and suffering of a three-year-old child in a kennel; or chained out in a yard alone with no food, water or shelter from the elements; or abandoned in a foreclosed house. Do you need any other reason to be motivated to help them but that they are sentient and they are innocent? Aren’t those images motivating enough without seeing the graphic violence?

I am so very, very tired. Saturated by the level and quantity of the cruelty I’ve seen this year. I just want to help the animals I can help without being terrorized with graphic images that will haunt me forever.

Out to Lunch — Up on the Woof

I don’t know how almost a whole month has passed since my last post here Up On The Woof. How is that possible?

I apologize for not being more present here. The good news is that I’ve been insanely busy.  I was recently offered a national column on Examiner.com. My local column: Cleveland Pets Examiner, has been demanding enough on its own, because there have been a million pet events in the greater Cleveland area in preparation for the holiday and the end of the year. Then there’s Examiner’s America Inspired contest…

Last week, I entered an article in the contest nominating Karlie Smick as Outstanding Youth. Karlie is the extraordinary 9-year-old girl from Columbia Station who runs an annual pet food drive/fundraiser for local animal shelters, called Karlie’s Cause.

Karlie Smick and Rogue

If Karlie’s story makes it into the finals, she and I will need your votes during the month of January!  Karlie has already committed to donating half of her winnings to Karlie’s Cause, and if we make it to the finals, I will finally be able to repay Valley Save-a-Pet for Waldo’s double-knee surgeries in 2010. The sooner I can repay them, the more funds they will have to help other pet owners in need.

My new national column is National Animal Books Examiner, devoted to reviewing animal-themed books and their authors. Being a dogaholic, I naturally read a lot of animal themed books, so this column seemed like a no-brainer for me…except now with two columns to write I don’t seem to have nearly enough time to read! I’ve managed to make it through a handful of wonderful books though, and post reviews for them. Of those, I just can’t stop thinking about Hannah’s Dream, by Diane Hammond, which turned out to be a real gem.

If you haven’t checked out either of my columns, consider yourself officially invited to do so. I hope you’ll stop by there often, comment, subscribe and share. My success on Examiner depends on how many people stop by my column, so I hope you’ll find the content there interesting enough to make it a habit.

In between all that reading and writing, I organized two online fundraisers for Ashley Owen Hill’s Lucky Dog Rescue in Meridian Mississippi. The art auction was very successful thanks to the kindness of the artists who participated and the astounding generosity of the bidders. The book raffle fundraiser has been moderately successful, but has gone on hiatus now until January 1^st, and then it will start up again with six to eight more weeks of books to be raffled.  Check out the yelodoggie/LDR raffle web page after January 1 to see what great books are being offered.

Somewhere in between all that stuff I had to squeeze in the design and production of our annual holiday greeting card, create some Yelodoggie designs for new items in the Yelodoggie Café Press store, and knock a few queries out in an attempt to interest a literary agent in the manuscript for my second book Circling the Waggins: How Five Misfit Dogs Saved Me From Bewilderness.

I guess that explains how I never noticed all that time flying by.

Before I lose track of the next two weeks, I want to wish you a very Happy Holiday Season, and I hope you will stick with me Up on the Woof in the coming year.

 

Unspeakable Acts of Cruelty and Making Enemies

A couple of months ago, as I was advocating shelter pets, I came across a cute little dog named “Roo” on Pet Pardons, and I sent the photo to my brother with the little dog’s information. Since my brother had recently lost two dogs, I thought Roo would make the perfect companion for his remaining dog, Riley.  Among the info that I sent him along with the photo, was an unemotional statement that Roo was on death row and had three days before he would be euthed.  Advocating is what I do. .. if I got emotional over every precious face I saw on Pet Pardons or Facebook that only had 72 hours or less to live, I’d be an emotional wreck. So I just do what has to be done and try not to let it get to me.

My brother is not an advocate, so he became very emotional. He couldn’t adopt Roo. He and his wife don’t want another male dog because they’ve had marking issues with Riley. He doesn’t have a network of friends he could share Roo’s info with. Knowing that there was nothing he could do to save Roo made him very upset. He told me that he couldn’t concentrate, he couldn’t work. Basically, he couldn’t do anything but agonize about the cute little dog he’d seen in his email. I felt terrible.

I advocated for Roo all that weekend, and on Tuesday I got the great news that he’d been pardoned. (That meant that a rescue group had stepped up to take him and he was saved.) When I let me brother know, he told me that he could not adequately convey what it meant to him to learn that Roo was safe. I was grateful that I had been able to give him the good news, because otherwise, I was afraid he might never forgive me.

Fast forward to today.

When I logged onto Facebook, I was assaulted by a photo of one of the most unspeakable acts of animal cruelty I have ever seen. (I will spare you the details). This was the fourth such image in my newsfeed this year, and like the others before it, it was about an animal in another country. The four most heinous acts of animal abuse I have seen this year took place in Lebanon (2), Bosnia and Afghanistan.

I carry the images of those dogs in my soul. I will never forget their faces or their suffering.  There is nothing I could do for any of these dogs. The news of three of them came long after the abuses had occurred.  I do not know who the abusers were or how to tell the authorities about them. I do not hold out any hope that even if I could, there would be any justice for the animals involved.  The abuses happened in other countries, in different cultures. And here is where I am likely to make some enemies…

I do not close my eyes to acts of animal cruelty in the US, no matter how horrific. That’s because there is something I can do about it. There are judges and prosecutors I can write to, there are places to donate, there are media outlets, there is advocacy.

But I do not want to see images of animal cruelty of this magnitude from other countries. Because it’s the culture that is the problem, and until the culture of the country changes, the animals cannot be saved. It’s like trying to put a band aid on a chainsaw wound.  The abusers will not be punished, the animals will never have justice, because the mindset of the culture is one that does not value them. When a culture advocates putting humans to death for homosexuality, infidelity, and secularism, how can we expect that culture to care about how their animals are treated? How can anyone hope to change minds that are shuttered by such staggering ignorance?

Sharing those photos with advocates who have no resources to help the victims creates the same pain and agony that my brother felt over not being able to help Roo. If you are going to show us the abuses, then give us the tools and hope to make a difference.

Putting the “Fun” in Fundraising

I just want to send a shout out to everybody who bid in the online art auction that I organized for Lucky Dog Rescue in October. The auction was very successful, and raised over $1,400 for Ashley’s rescue.  An extra special tip of the hat to Chris Hoar, Ashley’s Pet Pardon’s co-founder and loyal friend, who stepped in at the last minute with a challenge. Chris offered to match the highest bid in the auction with a direct donation, and it was his generous gift that sent the auction soaring over $1,200. Ashley was surprised by all of it; by the idea for the auction, by the generosity of the donations, and by the super generous bidding.

I’m still trying to figure out how my little yelodoggie paintings consistently bring in such nice bids when I donate them to charity events, but it remains a struggle for me to sell them outright from my etsy shop for only an eighth of what they bring at charity auction. What’s up with that?

The art that was donated came in a wide variety: from anime to comic book art, to impressionistic painting, to photography and even handmade jewelry.  Additionally, a couple of people wrote to me that they were donating to Lucky Dog directly. I hope Ashley got a lot of that action, too.

While I was begging artists for donations, my friend Bob McCarty (author of the Planet of the Dogs series) had no art to offer, but was willing to donate a book. That gave me an idea.

Now that the auction is over, I’m starting a second phase fundraiser for Lucky Dog Auction. Sticking to the arts, phase two will be donations from writers. And since everybody likes to gamble once in awhile, especially if it doesn’t cost much…this will be another fun fundraiser.

If you love to read and if you like animal-themed books, then you are going to want to get in on this action!

Beginning November 1, 2011, I will be hosting a weekly book raffle to benefit Lucky Dog Rescue. The books being raffled will all have animal themes, and each book will be autographed by its author! There’s even some special fun stuff a couple weeks in…when the book to be auctioned will be Garth Stein’s “The Art of Racing in the Rain”. For that week, anyone who buys a certain number of tickets will automatically receive an Enzo bookmark and “goenzo” lapel pin.

There will be one book raffled per week, for as many weeks as there are books donated. Some of the authors who have already agreed to donate are:

• Garth Stein – The Art of Racing in the Rain 
  
• W. Bruce Cameron – A Dog’s Purpose
• Ted Kerasote – Merle’s Door
• Barbara Techel – Frankie the Walk ‘n Roll Dog
• Deborah Eades – Every Rescued Dog has a Tale; Stories from the dog rescue railroad
• Robert McCarty – Snow Valley Heroes
• Tim McHugh – Ivan! A Pound Dog’s View on Life, Love and Leashes
• Pam  Houston – Sight Hound
• Kelly Meister – Crazy Critter Lady
• Carolyn Parkhurst – The Dogs of Babel
• Bo Hoefinger – Bad to the Bone
• Bob Tarte – (with a title to be announced)

…and more authors may be joining the cause.

I’ve already kicked off week one with my own book:  Born Without a Tail. The raffle for the first book will run from November 1-7. Tickets are $1, with discounts available for buying multiple tickets.

All proceeds will benefit Ashley’s Rescue, which is “saving the world, one dog at a time”.  Lucky Dog Rescue is a 501c3 non-profit that depends on donations in order to operate.

To help out Lucky Dog Rescue and buy some chances to win, please visit: www.yelodoggie.com/ldrbookraffle.html.  Be sure to bookmark the page and stop by every week throughout the months of November , December and January for a chance to win great books!

And please share!!  The more the word gets around, the more it will benefit Lucky Dog Rescue.