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.)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.