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Lifestyles Left and Right
Canine Compassion
Now the First Dog can help man’s best friend.
I’m full of hope that the surfeit of interest in the recent New York Times piece — the ninth most emailed “Does Bo Know He’s Top Dog”? — will shift over with equal gusto to what I feel morally compelled to write on behalf of under-privileged dogs.
The gift of a pedigreed pooch from Senator Kennedy to President Obama symbolizes a passing of the torch from one pedigreed politician to a politician who, by virtue of his open-armed acceptance of this dog, has now become pedigreed himself as a full member of a class he’s always shunned: limousine liberals. This also serves as a stark visual reminder that the president also went back on his word to adopt a pound dog.
But let’s let sleeping dogs lie — if only momentarily — and pound some pressing points instead. Adopting a mutt symbolizes a compassionate reaching out for the underprivileged, something Obama espoused in his books and throughout his campaign. Even his foreign policy approach of scanning the globe for international partnerships with a kinder, gentler intervention and personally reaching out to previously dismissed leaders reflects this nicely.
Though he missed the rich opportunities that come with having an underprivileged canine in the White House, it is not too late. President Obama can still bow to the cause and wow the world. If he takes the lead with my modest proposal.
But first, some background. Throughout the majority of this planet dogs run free. I learned this growing up in Brazil. My wondrously childish mind was moved by the common sight of these cute animals protectively curled up like Gerrit Dou’s discriminating painting “A Sleeping Dog.” I remember my constantly beseeching my dad not to run over them because my impish height prevented me from realizing that this obviously was not going to be the case. What was obvious to me is that street mutts either foraged for food or they didn’t eat. Indeed the word for mutt in Portuguese is viralata, one who turns over trash cans.
Before Slumdog Millionaire brought the horrors of poverty to the media rooms of the first world, I was fortunate enough to traipse across the magnificent lands of the developing world and take in the rich tapestry of cultures. And it is on these trips that it dawned on me that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs does make sense: If you are dirt poor, providing for animals, even those you call your own, is at the bottom of that triangle.
Unfortunately, it also opened my eyes to the sad reality that a dog’s plight is even more tortured than constant hunger and I don’t know which of these compounding realities is worse: disease or the cruelty inflicted by man which, I suppose, is a form of ignorance, at best. In Jaipur, India, with all my hot-blooded fervor, I took a man to task in the middle of the street when he kicked a flea-ridden pregnant pooch, so famished her ribs were a striking contrast to her hanging teats. My God, there is never be a reason for cruelty, I blurted out.
In the desert terrain of Jaisalmeer, towards Pakistan, I lost track of our guide when my eyes were riveted to the pained grimace of a black-and-white mutt whose brain, upon closer inspection, had been exposed by maggots feverishly eating him alive. And mind you, this on a skeletal body weak from malnourishment and pelted with open wounds from the ravages of scratching the hundreds of flea bites. I cried, in pain for his.
I was helpless in the flimsy hope that my caring voice and gently placing the fine sands of Jaisalmeer on his infested brain-matter would bring some relief. His grateful countenance, I shall never forget. And neither the sad reality that the relief I brought was also ephemeral and that he would soon, I prayed, be dead.
In Yangon, Myanmar, outside the ostentatious oasis of the historic Strand Hotel is a visual cacophony of third-world activity with people so oppressed they are dispossessed of even a scintilla of humanity. In a country whose collective moral sentiment drives even its impoverished citizens to open-handedly feed rice to the parade of red- robed monks in the wee hours of each morning, it was shocking to watch women mercilessly shove away a mutt who’d just been hit by a bus.
He struggled to the other side confronting the helter-skelter chaos of dust, exhaust, rickshaws, people and vehicles whizzing by on this six-lane avenue. His already paralyzed leg from a previous injury and dripping with infection was now torn open with muscle and ligaments hanging in shreds.
In all my sobbing and unenlightened despair the only thing I could think of was to give him some of the food from the hotel breakfast that I always carry in my purse for this very purpose. But again, thin relief for this pathetic little creature so painfully, well, on his last leg.
It was not till a few years later when we made the trek to the Pushkar Camel Fair that a humongous sign hanging in the midst of the intimidating barrage of its sights, sounds, and smells gave me great hope. “Help in Suffering.” An outfit in Jaipur that provides animal care via the superior knowledge of the kind-faced veterinarian Dr. Jack Reece, whom I instantly dubbed the James Herriott of India.
They’d brought a mobile treatment tent all the way from Jaipur and I spent the next two hours watching him treat camels, horses, and dogs for broken jaws, maggot infestation, infected wounds, and so much more. Reece and his teams tirelessly treated nearly 900 camels and about 400 equines at last year’s fair and with minimal resources, to boot.
This is the first and only such organization I’ve come across. It was here I realized there is an outlet to funnel my energy, time and donations to help fill that desperate need I’d known since childhood.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (20) | Leave a comment
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Pingback| 4.27.09 @ 10:18AM
Topics about Indian » Canine Compassion links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Michael Tomlinson| 4.27.09 @ 12:04PM
As the human companion of 2 non-specific breed dogs I hope BO (the pseudo-male occupying the Oval Office) will work to tear down the walls specieism that pervade our country and keep my well behaved and intelligent quadrupeds from enjoying the full benefits of living in an enlightened country.
When will they be able to marry other species, drink freely from toilets no longer chemically treated with blue water and lick their genitals in public without scorn? For that matter when will they like the dead be used by ACORN to steal elections for Democrats?
One can only hope that BO's Muslim heritage with its hatred of dogs hasn't so tainted him that he fails to change our antiquated laws and mores to insure Zulu and Peanut share fully in the benefits of the Obamanation.
L. Ross| 4.27.09 @ 1:53PM
Marilia,
You have a big heart, but you're an idiot. On a list of things that need fixing in the world, dog suffering is way, way down at the bottom. Next time you see a suffering dog, I suggest you just shoot it, and get on with your life. Don't worry, we're not going to run out of dogs.
MeowMix| 4.27.09 @ 2:00PM
Michael Tomlinson| 4.27.09 @ 12:04PM
Further evidence of the complete decline of the GOP and it's RANK and file. When you've got absolutely nothing in your own party of substance, by all means go after the dog.
What a bunch of FN losers.
JL / HCN| 4.27.09 @ 2:21PM
The rescue-only crowd insists that every dog purchased from a breeder is a death sentence for a stray. They make no distinction between responsible breeders who nurture sound-tempered dogs and puppy-mill operators who crowd breeding bitches so tightly into cages that they chew off each other's legs.
Rescuing a dog is indeed a noble gesture, even if there will never be enough humans to save every abandoned dog. But for the health of their daughter, the Obamas wanted a purebred dog. And last time I checked, Portuguese water dogs weren't turning up at the pound with any regularity.
Most of the purebred dogs that end up in shelters come by way of reckless backyard breeders or puppy mills, where dogs are routinely inbred, bred so narrowly for looks that they can't breathe properly, or bred with no thought for their health at all. Responsible breeders track their puppies assiduously and take them back if they don't work out. They don't put their dogs up for rescue, they "re-home" them.
For the record, I rescue dogs. I rescue, in fact, the kinds of dogs that end up in shelters in droves: Yippie, wild-eyed terriers and the much-maligned American Staffordshire (pit) bull terriers. I take them in, train them and keep them with me for longer than a decade; I work through their tendencies to bolt or their fears of men in baseball caps until they accept the compromises of life with humans. I am well set up for the task: My tolerant, dog-loving husband and I have no children; I love dogs that would drive sane women mad; and I have the tenacity to work with them.
But I also love purebred dogs and the whole notion that we humans have bred dogs for certain tasks. I love Newfoundlands that save drowning children, border collies that live to herd, brave terriers driven to hunt rats. And I despair that we may be heading into a world in which breeding dogs to do what dogs do -- work with, and beside, and indeed even for, human beings -- is considered, by some crooked measure, cruelty to animals.
There is something far worse than a family acquiring a dog from a conscientious breeder, and that's a family rescuing a dog that turns out to be fundamentally unstable or just plain unsuited to life with a family.
Childhood dogs shape attitudes toward animals for life; they can make kids lifelong advocates for animal welfare or create in them an ineluctable fear. A family that adopts a dog that incorrigibly nips children's hands, eats expensive furniture or lunges at other animals might at best end up investing in an expensive trainer. At worst, the dog ends up back in the shelter or on the street, leaving a family forever wary of canines.
In January, one month after the death of a beloved pit bull I rescued from the pound 13 years ago, I took in a 5-month old American Staffordshire named Tabitha. She is, from what we can tell, sane and hearty, a natural retriever, psychologically stable enough that neither ear-pulling nor toe-fondling nor the taunts of her Cairn terrier housemate, Thomas, faze her.
But Tabitha is still a puppy, and having lived with dogs -- seven in total -- nearly all my life, I know that puppies harbor secrets in their DNA. What we know about Tabitha is all good, but we could scribble it on a sheet of notebook paper. What we don't know could fill volumes.
We don't, for instance, know what her parents were like. We don't know if she harbors the gene for a debilitating neurological condition called ataxia that is common in her breed. Will she continue to put up with our ambushing cats? With the squeals of our friends' children? We think so, and we will work with her no matter what. If we had children to worry about, however, it might be different.
Symbolically, it would have been nice if the Obamas rescued a dog. But to insist that the only good dog is a rescued dog is to relegate our future with the canine species to random relationships in which humans are forced to settle for whatever renegade breeders produce and fail to care for.
And let it be said that the reason there exists such a thing as a Portuguese water dog at all, or any dog with a hypoallergenic coat and a game temperament, is not a happy accident but a triumph of the selective breeding humans have been practicing with canines for millenniums -- the very practice so many people who claim to care about dogs would prefer to see turned into a crime.
Judith Lewis
Tom Paine| 4.27.09 @ 2:52PM
Michael --
You're a jackass, aren't you?
MAS1916 | 4.27.09 @ 4:42PM
At least Obama remembered to include Bo in his Apology tours.
http://firstconservative.com/blog/uncategorized/obamas-next-task-apologize-to-the-dog
Pingback| 4.28.09 @ 1:25AM
» The American Spectator : Canine Compassion links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
glenda bayless| 4.28.09 @ 1:09PM
thankyou for publishing this marvellously enlightening and gut wrenchingly compassionate piece. it shows that you ain't been neutered. let's hope, that we as a dog worshipping nation, will run with it!
Pingback| 5.6.09 @ 7:25PM
Latest dog health, dog diseases, canine conditions news - The American Spectator : Ca links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: