Through a Dog's Eyes

Be sure to set your DVR on April 21st (and probably grab a box or two of tissues) because this documentary on PBS is sure to be a gem.

(And be sure to check out their website.)

I'm on a Highway to Lipitor*

Sometimes I wonder if the internet is healthy for me.  Sure, I've learned much more information from online sources than I ever learned in school, but then I encounter such items as the ones following, and I'm certain my blood pressure doubles, which can't be healthy.

(*And yes, I know that Lipitor is for cholesterol and not blood pressure per se.  But I couldn't find any recognizable name brand blood pressure medicines that would work for my title.)

First, I watched this video today.



This must be some footage from an Iranian protest, right?  Or maybe it's file footage of Socialist Soviet abuse of it's citizenry?  Well, if not those, then it must be video of protesters or rioters from some foreign, third-world nation?

Actually, according to the Washington Post:

The FBI is investigating an incident last month in which three Prince George's County police officers in riot gear used their batons to beat an unarmed University of Maryland student after a basketball game -- an event captured on video and aired nationwide on Tuesday. 

(...)

The FBI probe is the third investigation by authorities into the beating and the criminal charges filed against John J. McKenna, 21, and Benjamin C. Donat, 19. Charging documents filed against the two students are contradicted by the video. Prosecutors have dropped assault charges against both.  

Are you freaking kidding me?  SERIOUSLY?  Assault charges were brought against the students?  Why, did they break one of the officer's batons with one of their skulls?  Did one student's face break one of the officer's hand?  Did one of the officers throw out his back while slamming his riot shield into the obviously dangerous and threatening student who happened to be skipping by?  And, yes, prior to being turned into a modern day Rodney King, that student was skipping down the sidewalk.  Oh, the horror.  Thank God the police were there the squelch the madness.

I've watched that video a handful of times, and I just couldn't help but imagine what an uproar there would be had a group of the students cornered one of those cops and put an equally punishing beating onto him.  It would be a national scandal of epic proportions. 

Un-freaking-believable.

So, my blood has been boiling all day.  And then I read this article from the Boston Review in which Colin Dayan discusses "breed bans, euthanasia, and preemptive justice" with regard to dogs.

I've always been a philosophically opposed to breed bans for dogs and Mr. Dayan makes some great points in his article.

The seizures, detentions, and exterminations of pit bulls—sanctioned by laws in many states—expose the statutory logic for making preemptive justice constitutionally permissible: canine profiling supplies the terms for inclusion and ostracism, and even the suspension of due process rights. No criminal conviction of the owner is required for state seizure and destruction of property. In other words, the Constitution’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the government from depriving anyone of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” can be suspended for the public good without evidence, without trial, by classification alone.

In legal rationales, realities are created. Old inequalities and radical discrimination are repackaged in unexpected forms. In breed-specific legislation, the taint and incapacity of the disenfranchised live on. At a time when our government is labeling certain persons as threats—alleged terrorists, enemy aliens, illegal immigrants, ordinary people who want to get on airplanes—we need to ask how the seizure and destruction of dogs deemed contraband becomes a medium for the intimidation and debasement of humans in turn. Who should suffer deprivation without redress so that we can live in reasonable—safe and secure—consensus? And who gets to decide?

Those are some mighty fine questions. 


And how did it get this way (at least, according to Mr. Dayan)?

Pit bulls were once known as “America’s Breed”: RCA’s “Nipper” (pictured head cocked while listening to “his master’s voice”); Buster Brown’s “Tige”; “Pete the Pup,” part of the Little Rascals gang in the Our Gang comedies; and the pit bull pictured on the celebrated World War I poster proclaiming: “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.” Sergeant Stubby, the most decorated dog in military history, fought for eighteen months in the trenches, saved several soldiers’ lives, and captured a German spy. Now the pit bull is the most demonized breed, the poster dog for dogfighting, the herald of criminality and drug-dealing, the mauler of children.

In 1987 Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, and Time Magazine all ran articles featuring pit bulls. Rolling Stone’s “A Boy and his Dog in Hell” reported on pit bulls used in street fights by gangs in North Philadelphia. Valued as proof of their owner’s mettle, the dogs were subjected to unimaginable torture and death if they lost. The cover of Sports Illustrated showed a snarling pit bull with the headline “Beware of This Dog” and branded these dogs with the locking-jaw myth and “a will to kill.” It was bested by Time’s “Time Bombs on Legs,” which compared the pit bull to “the vicious hound of the Baskervilles.” According to the Time article, the pit bull “has seized small children like rag dolls and mauled them to death in a frenzy of bloodletting.”

Since then the pit bull has been the media’s choice for horror stories about dogs labeled “four-legged guns” or “lethal weapons.” Citing pit bulls’ “vicious propensity,” hundreds of towns large and small throughout the United States have adopted the first ever breed-specific dog bans. Regulations vary from one city to the next, but once a ban has been enacted, any dog considered a threat to public welfare can be summarily seized and put down. This despite the fact that other breeds of dogs also bite, but we hardly ever read about them. “Dogs that bite people,” as Malcolm Gladwell has pointed out, “are vicious because they have owners who want a vicious dog.” That is, what predisposes a dog to bite is not its nature, but its environment. The most loyal dogs are the most abused. Ever ready to please, these dogs become victimized by those they love most. They are either the tools of human-initiated aggression or, as Karen Delise writes in The Pit Bull Placebo, the targets of “every type of positive or negative emotional and physical circumstance humans are capable of imposing on dogs.

 [Emphasis mine]


Which is one of my biggest pet peeves, so to speak, about breed-specific legislation, the fact that these laws rarely take into account the bigger problem than a dog's genes:  shitty owners.  Many of these dogs are raised to be vicious.  It just turns out that the pit bull is the dog of choice for these horrible people who train, torment, and torture the dogs into fighting machines. 

Mr. Dayan also walks through the legal history and case law with regard to dogs.  Are dogs property?  If so, what legal protections are they afforded?  Is a dog's breed the index for his disposition?  Or can we look past its looks and instead focus on its actions?  He notes that, "Nowadays, dangerous-dog hearings decide if dogs live or die. Vicious-dog law, or what some simply call “dog-bite law,” usually precludes any legal challenge—especially if the offending animal happens to be identified as dangerous simply because of the breed."

(NOTE: while I am in agreement with much of the author's thesis throughout the piece, I must take issue with his decision to close the piece with an analogy that includes the word "Nazi" as it is way too much slippery slope/straw man argumentation for my taste.  That final paragraph nearly destroys strength within the rest of the article, and for some people it may undercut it entirely.)

So, what's the point?  I guess I don't like it when police brutalize the citizens they are entrusted to "serve and protect".  I also don't like it when legislative bodies enact laws breed-specific dog laws that make judgments about "big schweeties" based upon their genes and not their behavior.  And now you know where I sit on these two extremely specific issues.

Oh Deer

The Wife and I have been talking about getting Brodie a friend to play with, but concerns over our eventual move back to Colorado and our lack of space has led us to sidebar this plan for now.  Little did we know we had multiple options in friends for our pooch.

(Also, I find this video much more enjoyable on mute.)



In related news, chalk a victory up for K-9s everywhere.



(h/t Sullivan)

World's Tallest Dog

This week, the Guinness Book of World Records announced that Giant George, at 43 inches tall, is the World's Tallest Dog. 



 And, the Guinness Book of Records is using this announcement to let people know that they will be "searching for other, less obvious record-breakers such as the smallest dog (length), the dog with the longest ears, the oldest dog, the smallest cat and the oldest cat."

Well, if that's the case, I'd like to make a nomination for "Biggest Schweety".  I present, Sir Brodie Edmond Fredrickson Lundy III, Esq.

_________________________________________________________
SONG:  "Diddy Wah Diddy" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Looking forward to:  whooping Miah and Erica's booty in our American Idol bet this year.

Thinking back on:  nothing today.

Day of Thanks

On this day of Thanksgiving, I have so much for which to be thankful, so here are some of them, in list form, in no particular order:

• I am thankful for my beautiful wife.  She has been busting her ass for the past year and a half in law school and I couldn't be more proud.  This semester she has been working part-time at a law firm and going to school with a full-time schedule.  I can't wait to show her off at my 10 year high school reunion!!!
  

•  I am thankful for my dog Brodie, for always keeping me in the moment, because when I'm not in the moment, I might miss his awesomeness.  Like this morning, while playing fetch, he saw a prairie-dog hill, so he struts over, lifts his leg, and marks it as his territory.  I'm not certain that dogs possess emotions other than excitement and fear, but today, I'm certain, he had a look of pride on his face at a job well done.
  

• I am thankful that my sister stayedwith us this summer.  It was great having family out in Omaha and she pulled us out of our cocoon of comfort because the wife and I don't mind being boring, but we can't have my little sister thinking we're boring.  We went to concerts, tried different restaurants, went to baseball games, and took the dog to the lake and state park.  It was also awesome that our being in Omaha allowed the Sis to work at a very fine contemporary art studio as an intern.  
  

• I am thankful to have a great political sparing partner in my brother-in-law.  At his blog, he has started putting out policy proposals, which I challenge him over, but I feel the need to make my own counter proposals so as to not just be the grumpy, anti-government curmudgeon sitting on the sidelines throwing stones.  I need to actively defend and explain my beliefs. 
  

• I am thankful that we were able to move to a better part of town and live in a modern home.  This summer the wife and I moved from our Mid-Town duplex to a home in west Omaha.  The neighborhood is much, much nicer, and the house is not drafty and old.  It also has a half-basement which is the perfect place for the pup to hang out while we are at work.
  

• I am thankful for technology.  This past year, I joined Facebook and Twitter, and started blogging.  I doubt that I ever would have done this had we not moved away from home.  These online places allow me to be connected with my family and friends no matter where we are.  I have also reconnected with some old friends, which never would have happened had these sites not existed.
  

• I am thankful to have experienced one of the greatest golfing years ever.  I got to play weekly at an amazing course for free.  I played in three tourneys.  I created my perfect bag of clubs.  My golf goal is to work my handicap down to under 10 next year.  I also want to play as many different courses in the area before we leave.
  

• I am thankful that our basement is so awesome.  Half of the basement is our two-car garage.  The other half is a family room.  I have a place for my drum set and the wife has a place for her treadmill.    But what makes this room the great room, is that it is the perfect set up for a home theater.  We bought a digital widescreen projector, which throws nearly 100 inches of picture onto our wall.  We also have our surround sound system set up, which provides the most amazing home movie experience we've ever experienced.  This has also lead me to start playing my PS2 football games again, which has been nice now that the weather and shorter days have limited my golfing.
  

• I am thankful for my awesome parents and in-laws.  The wife and I would definitely not be where we are today without their support and guidance.  I can't wait to see them this Christmas.
  

• I'm thankful for all the visitors the wife and I have had this year.  We've had my sisters, parents, in-laws, wife's cousins, my cousins, and my wife's lifelong friend all come to visit.  I has been fun trying to find new ways to entertain our guests.  It has lead us to find countless new restaurants, which we've enjoyed.  
  

• I am thankful that I got to see the Dave Matthews Band in Des Moines with my cousins, and that I saw Mat Kearney with both of my sisters, and OAR w/ Brett Dennen, and The Script with my sister who stayed with us this summer.  It was a great year for concerts and for music.   
  

• I am thankful for five years of marriage to an amazing woman.  To celebrate this milestone, my wife and I went on our first cruise.  Also, my mom and dad had their 30th wedding anniversary, and my wife's mom and step-dad were celebrating their 5th anniversary, so we made it a family event and all 6 of us went cruising.  Our trip took us to San Diego, Catalina Island, and down into Baja, Mexico.  We had a great time.  The wife and I also made a trip out to Colorado over Labor Day weekend where we and my siblings suprised my parents with a weekend in Estes Park to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.  It was a great year for marriages.
  

• I'm thankful that I was fortunate enough to be able to watch one of my high school classmates, Luke Hochevar, compete in professional baseball this past season.  He started the season with the Triple-A Omaha Royals.  It was such a treat to be able to head down to the ball field and watch him compete at a high level.  And no one tries harder to get you to have a fun time than a minor league ball club.  $1 beer nights and $1 hotdog nights were my favorite.  When Luke got called up to the big league, I was able to go to five of his Kansas City Royals games and watch him pitch against the best of the best.  Also, sports related, I am unthankful for the thunderstorms that ruined the one drag racing event I was able to go to this year to watch my cousin race. 
  

• I am thankful that my mother-in-law loves me so much that she would pack four Pass Key Specials in her carry-on luggage when they came to visit us.
  

• I am thankful that I have been able to raise $226 for prostate and testicular cancer research during Movember, and that my team has raised over $500.
  

• I am thankful that I have a stable job and a steady paycheck and get to work with some really great people.
  

You get the idea.  I know I'm forgetting countless things I am thankful for, which shows me how blessed I really am, and for that I am thankful. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Why old dogs are the best dogs.

I was tipped off to this article on Andrew Sullivan's blog the other day and have been meaning to post about it.  It was written by The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten, and is, in essence, a defense of old dogs.

And I barely made it through the thing without crying.

It starts off with a doozy of an opening paragraph:

Not long before his death, Harry and I headed out for a walk that proved eventful. He was nearly 13, old for a big dog. Walks were no longer the slap-happy Iditarods of his youth, frenzies of purposeless pulling in which we would cast madly off in all directions, fighting for command. Nor were they the exuberant archaeological expeditions of his middle years, when every other tree or hydrant or blade of grass held tantalizing secrets about his neighbors. In his old age, Harry had transformed his walk into a simple process of elimination—a dutiful, utilitarian, head-down trudge. When finished, he would shuffle home to his ratty old bed, which graced our living room because Harry could no longer ascend the stairs. On these walks, Harry seemed oblivious to his surroundings, absorbed in the arduous responsibility of placing foot before foot before foot before foot. But this time, on the edge of a small urban park, he stopped to watch something. A man was throwing a Frisbee to his dog. The dog, about Harry’s size, was tracking the flight expertly, as Harry had once done, anticipating hooks and slices by watching the pitch and roll and yaw of the disc, as Harry had done, then catching it with a joyful, punctuating leap, as Harry had once done, too.

Harry sat. For 10 minutes, he watched the fling and catch, fling and catch, his face contented, his eyes alight, his tail a-twitch. Our walk home was almost … jaunty.

Rereading it, I still get choked up thinking about how our lives will change once Brodie gets out of his middle years and heads down the home stretch.  He's already lost a bit of his youthful energy, and his muzzle is starting to gray.  His pace going up the stairs in the house is not what it once was.  And his gas is much, much more toxic than when he was a younger lad.  It is hard to imagine not being able to take him to the lake, or to the park to repeatedly retrieve his Kong toy, or how we'd ever get his 90 lb. body into the car should his hips give out.

But reading such skillfully worded stories of people who have lived with dogs for years and years (which I have not), and the wisdom they've gained from being around these K-9s helps me to remember to cherish the time we do have with Brodie.

As Mr. Weingarten points out,

What dogs do not have is an abstract sense of fear, or a feeling of injustice or entitlement. They do not see themselves, as we do, as tragic heroes, battling ceaselessly against the merciless onslaught of time. Unlike us, old dogs lack the audacity to mythologize their lives. You’ve got to love them for that.

And,

In our dogs, we see ourselves. Dogs exhibit almost all of our emotions; if you think a dog cannot register envy or pity or pride or melancholia, you have never lived with one for any length of time. What dogs lack is our ability to dissimulate. They wear their emotions nakedly, and so, in watching them, we see ourselves as we would be if we were stripped of posture and pretense. Their innocence is enormously appealing. When we watch a dog progress from puppy­hood to old age, we are watching our own lives in microcosm. Our dogs become old, frail, crotchety, and vulnerable, just as Grandma did, just as we surely will, come the day. When we grieve for them, we grieve for ourselves.

So I will work harder not to look to the future fearfully or timidly, whether it is about the day we no longer have Brodie, or what we will do once the wife is done with law school, or any other worry that I have.  But instead, I shall strive to live each day as Brodie does, happy to see the ones I love, excited for each meal that is in front of me, glad to get some fresh air and stretch my legs outside, and spending each night hogging as much of the bed from my wife as I can.

Mr. Weingarten's stories about his much loved dog Harry S Truman are stories that most dog owners experience once or twice throughout the years.  I highly encourage you to read the entire story, as it is very well written.

And do yourself a favor, and hug your dog tonight.

Brodie

This is our dog Brodie. And just like many of the choices/decisions/purchases/arrangements my wife and I have made over the years, we adopted him without putting much thought into what an important, life-changing decision it would be. And, as with most of the others, adopting Brodie was one of the most rewarding decisions we've ever made.


For a little background, here are some of the other "snap" decisions my wife and I have made:

We started dating one week after meeting. Engaged after 6 months. Married 10 months later (and 1.5 years of knowing each other). Bought a house after viewing it one time each (and before either of our parents could check it out). Bought our first car the first night we started looking at the first car lot we went to. Rented the first house we viewed the first day we got to Omaha. Etc., etc., etc.

And of course, the third member of our family came into our lives in a similar fashion.

During my second year of teaching elementary school, I wore a Cabella's logo shirt to school on a casual Friday. My principal asked me if I hunted. I told her I had in my youth, but hadn't done much in recent years. She then asked me if I needed a hunting dog. I kind of stood there, so she proceeded to tell me that her daughter was trying to find a new home for their 2 year old black lab, as they had two young daughters, with another on the way, and he was too much work for their busy lives. She emailed me the flier her daughter had put together, which had his stats and a picture. I emailed it to my wife and she said it was up to me. So, of course, after about 3 nanosecond I said yes.

My principal was happy, but she was smart enough to know a hasty decision when she saw one, so she suggested we meet Brodie first. I agreed and we scheduled a time for her daughter to bring Brodie to our house.

When that day arrived, and when we opened our door upon seeing my principal's daughter K.'s family pull up to our house we were greeted by a hip-high, 80 pound bundle of energy. Brodie gave us the obligatory crotch-sniff greeting. We took him to our backyard so that we could get to know Brodie a little better (and so K. and her family could decide if we were suitable parents for her pup). After an hour of playing fetch, we all knew Brodie would not be leaving our house. So, K. and her family gave us Brodie's Kong, food dish, and his favorite blanket, and, with tears in their eyes, headed back to Denver. And, as they say, the rest is history.


At the time, my wife and I had a cat named Tom. We would later discover that his name suited him well, because he was the classic tomcat. He was an indoor/outdoor cat. When he was inside, he ran the joint. He was constantly pouncing on our legs, or, when we were in our bed, any appendage that was not under the covers. When he was outside, he would constantly brawl with the neighborhood wildlife. He was covered with scars from these adventures.

So when we adopted Brodie, one of our chief concerns was how/if he and Tom would get along. The first few nights he kept them isolated from each other. At one point, we got the bright idea to bring Tom into the room that Brodie was in. To say it didn't work would be an understatement. So, we eventually let nature take its course, and Brodie and Tom became accustomed to each other and before long they were laying with each other in the same room. After a while they even became buddies.



Brodie is an amazing creature. He is the epitome of unconditional love. He is always happy to see us when we get home. He is literally "man's best friend".

He gets me off my butt when I'm feeling lazy. He nudges me outside when I'm too wrapped up in my computer and should be enjoying whatever weather awaits me outside. He loves playing fetch, going on walks, and, especially, retrieving his buoy in any body of water that we can find.

He is kind and gentle and affectionate. He loves cuddling on the couch or bed. He loves wrestling with my wife on the floor.

He is my wife's protector and bed mate if I'm ever out of town. And his bark is the best home security system money can buy.

He has taught me a level of responsibility that, short of having kids, I have avoided most of my adult life. I am his caretaker. I am his friend. I am his parent.

While his nose and stomach often gets him into trouble (he has consumed 2-3 pans of brownies, one bag of chocolate chips, one chicken carcass, countless loaves of bread, and bags of bagels), it is impossible to stay angry with him for long when he puts his head down in shame and refuses to look me in the eyes until the tone of my voice returns to a more neutral state.

His puppy eyes, wagging tail, and slobbery tongue melt my heart like nothing else. The joy he feels from a pat on the head or a rub of the tummy is priceless.

He'll never know how much he has changed our lives, and I hope that we provide him 1/100th of the love he gives us. For these reasons, and those that I'm unaware of or am unable to express, I dread the day that he is no longer in our lives. I have no idea the emotions that K. and her family experienced when they gave Brodie up for adoption, but I will be eternally grateful to her and her husband for raising such an amazing boy and for allowing us to become his parents.