Anyone who does animal rescue needs to see the documentary Mine, about people trying to reunite with their pets in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Even if you don’t have animals, it’s a powerful statement on perseverance, how humans treat each other, and the meaning of home. For rescuers, it’s a powerful magnifying glass about the ways people are affected by animal rescue.
Before I saw the film, I wrote about the premise for the documentary over on the Change.org blog. I thought it could tell an important story about the connection between people and their pets, particularly in crisis situations, and the complications of custody battles. It did. But it also told the story of how people are treated when it comes to animal rescue. And it’s not always pretty.
People in rescue don’t have a ton of resources and usually don’t have much information on the animals we’re rescuing. We get in, we help the animal, we get out. Then we move on to trying to find the animal a good home so we can help more because the pool of animals in need is bottomless. As a group, we’re doing the best we can with what we have.
On the whole, we are a very judgmental group. Even those of us who try to keep an open mind tend to read between the lines of an animal’s situation and assume we know the type of people who caused it. We’ve seen enough abuse and abandonment to have good reason to be cynical. Our fellow humans rarely get the benefit of the doubt.
Mine highlights a group of people who suffered from these judgments. Hurricane Katrina was a unique situation in many ways, but the way people were treated was not.
Rescuers made judgments about the entire pet owning population of New Orleans, and many decided that “Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened for these animals.” For some of the abused, that may be true. They got a second chance when their suffering might not have otherwise been discovered. You can find those cases in any city, in any state in this country. But many of the rescued animals had been in homes where they were loved. Why keep those pets from their families only to add them to a shelter system where 6-8 million animals are euthanized every year because there aren’t enough homes?
New Orleans residents who were literally forced to leave their homes without their animals, who were told they would be allowed to return in a day or two, who had to evacuate entire families with little-to-no means of transportation were accused of abandoning their animals by rescuers in other states who have probably never seen a natural disaster stronger than a thunderstorm.
People who lost everything, who were shuffled to emergency shelters, who had no phones, and didn’t know if or when they’d get to go home, were criticized for not being able to track down their animals (who could be anywhere in the country by this point) within the first month or two after the disaster.
People who tried for months, even years, to track down their dogs, while trying to rebuild their lives, were treated as if they didn’t care enough.
One man man finally tracked down the rescue group that had ended up with his dog, who had been adopted out by then, and the rescuer never contacted the adoptive family to inform them that their dog’s previous owner was looking for him. The adopters found out years later when the man secured a pro bono attorney to help find his dog and they were served with a court order.
We rarely get to see ourselves, and our flaws, larger than life on a movie screen. Even more rare is getting into the lives of the people we deal with when trying to help animals. Yet every single animal we help has been a part of someone’s life.
Sometimes the people involved ignored the animal’s suffering, or caused it. Sometimes they are every bit as uncaring and undeserving of an animal’s love as we think they are. But sometimes, it’s not that simple.
The man set down his gun to retrieve some duck decoys a few yards away. That’s when the dog stepped on the shotgun, disengaged the safety, and fired at her companion a la Dick Cheney.
One headline on this story read: Hunting dog triggers shotgun, hits master. I wonder how they think “master” is defined…
There was a recent interview with Nikki Stafford, author of five unofficial guides to the show, on the role of literature in Lost. The quote the excerpted quote from the GalleyCat post:
“The books are essential. The second season was the first time they came out a head of time actually told viewers that they would flash a book and they should watch for it…in the beginning of season two…Desmond chucks a whole bunch of things into his backpack, one was a copy of the book, ‘The Third Policeman.’ This was a book that came out in the 1960s by an Irish writer [Flann O'Brien]. I interviewed an editor at that publishing house and they sold 20,000 copies of that book in the weeks leading up to the episode.”
My previous post about the show had focused on how it’s written — the character development and use of backstory. But I absolutely should have included the books themselves. As Stafford said, they’re essential. Like everything else in the show, the books are details that add depth to the characters and the scenes.
For books to have such an important role in a show with the “if you were stranded on a deserted island…” premise, is a huge win for writers and bibliophiles everywhere. The network even started a Lost Book Club on their site, featuring titles that make a cameo on the show. Anything that promotes reading gets a virtual fist-bump from me.
And how much sexier was Sawyer for reading all the time in the earlier seasons?
There are never too many holidays, right? The latest addition to the calendar is the declaration of January as National Train Your Dog Month by the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT).
The year is full of days, weeks, and months that have been designated for various animal awareness causes. Some make more sense than others. So, do we need a National Train Your Dog Month?
Considering how many dogs are turned into shelters for behavior problems? I’d say yes. And considering that people not only think TV trainers can solve all of their problems, but believe that celebrity training books qualify as curriculum for public schools? Double yes.
With dogs in millions of homes, they’re an important part of our society. But they are a different species, and it’s important to understand the way our dogs think, what motivates them, why they need socialization, and why training is so crucial, even if you don’t mind sacrificing a shoe now and then in the privacy of your own home.
In honor of National Train Your Dog Month, APDT has provided a lot of great resources for trainers and for dog owners. Even with fewer great links, this initiative would have gotten my stamp of approval just based on the adorable customizable e-cards they created for the month. Have fun sending them to every distressed dog owner you know (and then direct them to Patient Pup Training for assistance)!
I just read an article about physicists in Sweden who have developed a formula to find an author’s “literary fingerprint.” Here’s the gist of what they found:
As the researchers write, “These findings lead us towards the meta book concept — the writing of a text can be described by a process where the author pulls a piece of text out of a large mother book (the meta book) and puts it down on paper. This meta book is an imaginary infinite book which gives a representation of the word frequency characteristics of everything that a certain author could ever think of writing.”
Apparently this is an alternative to a 75 year old linguistic theory that has something to do with a universal pattern of word usage.
To those who could care less about linguistics (probably most of you reading this), this is gibberish. To those of you who are authors, you’re probably bristling like I am at the concept of what we do being reduced to a research paper hypothesis.
On the one hand, I suppose it’s flattering that the writing process is mysterious and exciting enough to warrant decoding, like DNA. On the other hand, where’s the magic in that? People (except research scientists) don’t interact with DNA because they like it or relate to it on an emotional level. But when you strip writing down to its elements you take away the personal connection, the power of the story, and the human experience that went into crafting it … all the things that make reading enjoyable.
I guess it’s a step in the right direction that at least this latest development in science is allowing writers individual creativity, but maybe some things are better left out of the lab altogether.
Nor is it because of the agoraphobia-inducing crowds around any place where money can be spent.
It’s not the carols that are so ubiquitous they embed themselves in your mind with brainwashing efficiency. And I’ll never understand eggnog, but hey, I’m not one to begrudge others their holiday traditions, especially since I come from a gefilte fish background.
My Christmas Pet Peeve is this whole “Season of Giving” concept.
Charity and compassion are not seasonal phenomena. At least they shouldn’t be. The whole concept of being generous and considerate to your fellow human beings really shouldn’t be chained to one month a year. Whoever is on your holiday donation list — whether it’s animal shelters or environmental causes or cancer research or the local soup kitchen — their needs are year-round, too.
I’m not saying to unleash your road rage on holiday shoppers or anything like that. After all, ’tis the season of higher-than-usual suicide rates, so people can use a little patience and understanding this time of year. It also won’t help to tear up your tax-deductible checks to your favorite organizations because they’ve come to rely on the slew of December donations to pay for the good work they’ve been doing all year.
I just wish more people would roll that holiday spirit into their New Year’s Resolutions (except make this one the kind that’s kept past February), and pledge to keep on giving long after the fruitcake has decomposed. Be that person who keeps their lights up all year if it’ll keep you in the spirit.
That’s why I love The Grinch. I always hope he’ll shove December – stress and all – into his bag and haul it off to his cave … leaving behind the compulsion people have this time of year to make a difference in the world.
Whenever there’s a debate over whether an “aggressive” dog could, or should, be “saved,” such as the recent case with a certain cookie-named dog, I always wonder how much people actually understand dog aggression. Based on the number of arguments along the line of “I rescued an abused dog once that just needed to learn to trust people,” I’m guessing the average knowledge library on this issue has some seriously empty shelves.
Aggressive dogs aren’t just distraught children who need a hug. Dogs are faster, stronger, and have much sharper teeth than humans. A dog bite is not the same as your puppy nipping you in play. It’s painful and can do serious damage. Despite all the things that are wrong with way the media reports dog bites, the potential damage is not a lie and is not unique to just that one dog. I wonder how much people really realize this when they’re so quick to want to release a dog deemed aggressive into society. I wonder if they’ve ever met a truly aggressive dog. Maybe some have, but I’d bet many haven’t (which is a good thing because if aggression was that common, we’d have a problematic relationship with our best friend).
Aggression is a deviant behavior, meaning it’s outside the normal reaction you’d expect. That doesn’t mean all types of aggression can’t be managed or that you have a “bad” dog (for instance, aggression toward other dogs*), or that aggressive dogs don’t deserve a chance. But the difference between certain types of “regular” dog behavior and aggressive behavior is an important distinction because a lot of people assume they’ve witnessed aggression when they haven’t. So, your neighbor’s dog barking as you walk by the fence isn’t necessarily aggression – it’s a dog telling you it’s protecting its territory. Now, if the dog was actually trying to bite you through the fence or was redirecting on whoever else was in the yard, that might be another story. A growl is not a sign of aggression – it’s one of the few ways that a dog has to express its displeasure. Can it be a sign of aggression? Absolutely. Growling needs to be taken seriously because it certainly can lead to a bite. But, in and of itself, it doesn’t mean the dog is aggressive, just that it’s unhappy at the moment and you need to pay attention to that.
Most aggression does stem from fear at one level or another, but even then, that doesn’t mean it can always be fixed. There are some fears that are so deep and so pervasive, they just can’t be taken away. (Fear in dogs, that’s another thing that seems to be woefully underestimated. Even without the aggression piece, fearful dogs – and I’m not talking about the ones who tremble in the bathroom during thunderstorms or run away from the vacuum cleaner – are a work in progress for their entire lives.) It’s not wise to assume that all aggression is fear-based; there are some dogs who are clearly just not wired right. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re inherently mean or it’s somehow their fault, but sooner or later someone will get hurt. There are humans that fall into this category, too. They’re called serial killers, and no amount of “showing a little love” and “teaching them to trust people” will change that. Luckily, that’s not the norm in the human or the dog world, but denying that it’s a reality is dangerous.
Aggression comes in many colors from resource guarding (i.e. biting the hand that feeds) to aggressive behavior toward a certain group (such as dogs/cats/bald men). Sometimes you can predict what situations will get a certain dog riled up, and you can even guess why. That’s helpful in overcoming the behavior. But sometimes you can’t find rhyme or reason, and sometimes you know why the behavior exists, but there’s nothing you can do to change it. That’s why one experience of working with one dog who was a little untrusting is not enough to judge what can or can’t help another dog.
I’ve worked with several different types of aggression cases (many of you know who is who in the picture…and why that’s the perfect one for this post). Even after several success stories, I learned the hard way – with a broken window, a bitten leg, and the hardest decision of my life – that they can’t all be saved. Rehabilitation is about a whole lot more than time and love. The stronger the aggression, the more that’s going to be true. It takes controlling the dog’s surroudings and interactions so that they have the right kind of experience. It’s about understanding that every move you make in the presence of your dog is sending a message, which could be one of leadership and trustworthiness…or not. It’s about keeping your dog safe from stress and keeping everyone else in the world safe from your dog. And much, much more.
*Obviously dog aggression could be its own post. I want to stress that dog aggression doesn’t mean your dog is bad or is automatically dangerous around humans. It doesn’t mean there’s something “wrong” with your dog, but it is something that needs to be properly worked with and managed for the dog’s entire life.
A man and his dog happen upon a wild animal, the wild animal defends itself. This scenario is neither unusual nor inexplicable. But check out the description from this encounter earlier this week:
Rickard said he was walking his blue heeler, Rocky, on Sunday morning when they surprised a sleeping kangaroo in Arthur’s Creek northeast of Melbourne. The dog chased the animal into a pond, when the kangaroo turned and pinned the pet underwater.
When Rickard tried to pull his dog free, the kangaroo turned on him, attacking with its hind legs and tearing a deep gash into his abdomen and across his face.
Rickard said he ended the attack by elbowing the kangaroo in the throat, adding Rocky was “half-drowned” when he pulled him from the water.
Maybe those cartoon kangaroos with boxing-gloves need to be updated with more of an ultimate fighting look.
Never doubt why it’s a good idea to keep your dog on leash when hiking, especially if you’re in the outback.
Change.org, that is. This socially conscious social network just launched a shiny new Animal Welfare blog…and I’m lucky enough to get to write for it.
If you’re not already on Change.org, you should be (and if you are, why aren’t you my friend?). Every day, I’ll be blogging about animal stuff – the latest news, primers on the issues, updates, amazing/tragic/fillintheblank stories, or whatever happens to be on my mind. Got something on your mind that you’d like to see a post about? Let me know!
Check out the new blog, join the cause, and help me spread the word!
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Last week, a hunter in California was 
Two and a half years ago, I blogged about 
