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The Nation's Pulse
Rex’s Blues
The notion of Puppy Uppers used to be funny. Now it’s just sad.
For centuries writers have predicted the death of satire. Reality, it was said, was becoming weirder than anything our most talented satirists could come up with. Eventually, life will resemble one vast Theatre of the Absurd, though most people will be too dumb to get the joke.
Whether life is one long Samuel Beckett play depends on your outlook, I guess. But it certainly has its moments. Those of us of a certain age will remember the fake commercial on Saturday Night Live for Puppy Uppers and Doggy Downers. Today, it’s no joke. You really can buy Prozac for your pooch. As Beckett’s Winnie would say: “Oh, it is going to be a happy day!”
Modern medicine’s miracle workers, it seems, have manufactured a beef-flavored drug guaranteed to reduce pet separation anxiety. Apparently, dogs suffer this horrible malady whenever their owners leave the house. If you have small kids going in and out all day long, poor Spot is probably a basket case and a prime candidate for institutionalization.
Fortunately, help is here. This new wonder drug will mellow out your mutt. And it will ease separation anxiety for the dog owner, too. Give your pooch a pill and you’ll instantly feel less guilty when you leave for work (though probably no less miserable). Instead of leaving a whimpering, sad-eyed dog behind, Fido will be all like, “Oh, you’re leaving? Dude, do you think you can pick up some doggie snacks on the way home? Cool.”
So how do you know if your pooch is one of the 10 million dogs experts say suffer from this problem? Does he exhibit tendencies of destructive chewing, excessive barking or whining, pacing, drooling, yawning, inappropriate urination or defecation? If so, he may need professional help. All this time what we thought was normal dog behavior has been a cry for help.
A cynic might say that if your dog is blue it isn’t because he feels left behind — it’s because he is bored to tears. Dogs, after all, were bred to do certain jobs. Dachshunds, for instance, were bred to hunt badgers and rabbits. Border collies were bred to herd sheep or other livestock. These dogs don’t need pills, they need to do what nature intended them to do: herd and hunt and snap the necks of bunny rabbits. They need the taste of blood.
I AM NO EXPERT in dog psychology (and I doubt anyone else is either), but I have lived with a few dachshunds in my time, and I think I understand them as well as anybody. One of my dachshunds is downright ornery, while the other is a big baby, but I don’t recall either one of them suffering from a mental disorder. I mean, what can a dog possibly be anxious about? He’s got a dog’s life, right? He gets to lounge around the house all day. (I’m the one who’s chained to a desk in a cubicle for nine hours.) Only for pets is there such a thing as a free lunch (and breakfast and supper). We tell ourselves that our pup is miserable without us (we have no such illusions about our cat), and we imagine how depressed we would be if we sat around the house all day by ourselves. Some of us put cameras in our home so we can watch our pets while we are at work. We see them sleeping all afternoon and we imagine that Fido is too depressed to get out of bed. We see that our cat sits and stares mournfully out the living room window for hours at a time. Then we start to feel guilty and hire an expensive dogwalker to come by our house. And still it is not enough.
Partly this is the dog’s fault. Some breeds, like dachshunds, can be terribly whiney. Pomeranians appear easily agitated. Bloodhounds are born sad-eyed and lethargic. Faced with a whiny, sad-eyed pet, today’s enlightened pet owner immediately calls the doggie shrink. This wouldn’t be an issue if we kept laughing, smiley-faced dolphins for pets.
I don’t want to start a rant about obsessive dog owners, those people we see carrying bags of poop around the neighborhood. I know that dogs can sometimes be preferable to people. But I do want to bring a little sanity to this topic. Your dog is not mentally ill. He is not suicidal. Nor is he a sociopath for trying to kill as many bunnies as possible. He is a dog.
The idea of Puppy Uppers used to be funny. Now it’s just sad.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (37) | Leave a comment
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Martin Owens| 4.2.10 @ 7:11AM
This is the good part.
Wait until some ultra-liberal pain in the ass
figures out a way to give dogs the vote....
or at least wolves...
Mojo Risin| 4.2.10 @ 2:26PM
ACORN workers, those performing census duties, already have pets registered...
Quartermaster| 4.2.10 @ 5:54PM
Wolves already vote. You may recall, Carter called Congress "rapacious wolves." The Congress then, as now, was dominated by the Dimocrats.
victor| 4.2.10 @ 8:23PM
We already have that ULPA (ultra-liberal pain in the ass) in the White House by the name of Cass Sunstein.
The Right To Sue.
The Right To Live Well.
The Right To Be Free.
The Right To Vote
will soon be here.
AvantiBev| 4.3.10 @ 5:36PM
Well, considering that 3 of my dachshunds have been smarter than the voters who made Danny Davis my congressman, and Turban Durbin and How-Much-You-Want-For-the-Seat Burris senators, I would WELCOME that development.
And neither my dachsie nor I are a bit WHINEY!
Matt Morehouse| 4.2.10 @ 10:26AM
Puppy "personhood" is maybe next?
toad| 4.2.10 @ 1:23PM
Hmmm, the basic problem is that dogs are pack animals. Some breeds have a lot of trouble being alone in an apartment. There are several methods of handling this that don't involve drugs. Crating the dog to invoke his "Den Up" instinct can keep it sane for up to 8 hour separations. If you have to drug the dog maybe you shouldn't own one till your life style changes.
Sparky| 4.2.10 @ 4:22PM
I think most breeds have trouble doing nothing all by themselves for 8-10 hours a day. All dogs need lots of exercise and mental stimulus or they get bored and neurotic. People like the idea of getting a dog, then leave it alone all day and let it outside for 5 minutes at a time. Dogs are pack animals, meaning the pack doesn't separate.
Achilles Toejam| 4.3.10 @ 1:08PM
At a boy Sparky! You know your dogs. Having been involved in border collie rescue for almost 10 years I've seen a lot of cases where a perceived problem with a dog turned out to be a problem with the owner not understanding the dogs needs or unfortunately caring about them, that's when they come to us and anyone who knows this breed understands that kind of intelligence and drive needs to be channeled into some kind of job either working sheep/livestock or something like agility competition.
As far as tranquilizers we use them when it's necessary, I have seen some BC's that have chewed through a chain-link fence during a thunderstorm, tranquilizers also reduce stress on a dog during a long transport so I have nothing against their use when it is needed. There are however other solutions and devices a dog owner can utilize I highly recommend a product called "Anxiety Wrap" it's like a jacket of light material held on with Velcro and it works on the dog psychologically to calm them I've used it many times on foster dogs and it really works.
The Valium I've been told by our veterinarian is mostly prescribed for older dogs because it's gentler on their system.
Sparky| 4.3.10 @ 7:54PM
I have a Yorkie who walks about 2-4 miles a day and is very balanced. I've seen younger poodles, St. Bernards, goldens, labs, who don't walk and are, frankly, a mess. Walking is the big deal.
Joe Redfield| 4.2.10 @ 5:35PM
Next major health care crisis - uninsured dogs.
Margie| 4.2.10 @ 6:57PM
Ode to Heidi
I love dachshunds. When I turned 12 my Dad said I could have a pup, but it had to be a dachshund. We went to the owner's home and he let me choose her. She was a miniature black and brown, so tiny she could fit in a shoe box with plenty of room to spare. I named her Heidi, and she was with us till my Dad had to take her to be put to sleep many years later. He never could bring himself to get another dog!
That was before Prozac even existed, as far as I know. Thank goodness. I agree with Sparky's post. Exercise is a much better medicine. For both people & pets.
victor| 4.2.10 @ 8:32PM
"Dogs, after all, were bred to do certain jobs. Dachshunds, for instance, were bred to hunt badgers and rabbits. Border collies were bred to herd sheep or other livestock. These dogs don't need pills, they need to do what nature intended them to do: herd and hunt and snap the necks of bunny rabbits."
This reminds me of when I listened to Warren Eckstein.
http://warreneckstein.com/
He would get calls from people who had herding dogs such as Border Collies or Australian Shepherds who then called him with tales of the dogs herding little children in the backyard at birthday parties.
His reaction was always "duhhhhhhh",
well ma'am or sir, what did you expect, this is what they were bred to do and they were herding the children as though they were sheep.
Or the dog who would "herd" the UPS or FEDEX guy to the door and back.
Roy| 4.3.10 @ 8:00PM
You are exactly right! Ideally, dog lovers should know what their dog was designed/bred to do and work with that. (Or get a different dog) Hmm. Obviously, we as humans have educated ourselves to the point that if we do not understand it, we drug it.
MikeBee| 4.2.10 @ 9:32PM
Give a dog that drug to calm him down when his owner leaves, and you're probably going to have another problem when you get home. It would be called, "drug-induced incontinence." Drugging pets so that we humans can feel better is wrong. It's already bad enough that we are drugging ourselves out of all of life's pains; now we drug Fido out of his pains, too? When I was a teenaged punk, I heard that other kids up to 10 years older than me were very much into illegal drugs. Hmmmmm. Could it be that society's answer to everything in life has become taking drugs?
No thanks. Not for me. I'll take the pain, to a point. It makes feeling good even better when you've experienced some pain. Pain is part of life.
Sparky| 4.3.10 @ 8:15PM
This is really not a great story - dogs are really okay when they're left alone for 10 hours and we should be happy about it? They should, what, work on their novels? Practice their elocutions? Dogs are as unhappy as they were 30 years ago when Mom left them home all day as they are now when we do? Perhaps a little less Obama Derangement Symdrome and a little more dealing in the real world... Pretty stupid story, if you know any dog lovers.
Gwendolyn| 4.4.10 @ 5:31PM
Ya know, our pets probably would be fine if we were feeding them their natural food. The processed garbage sold as pet food is as bad for them as our processed food is for us. Who ever heard of wild animals getting cancer?
Dave| 4.5.10 @ 9:26AM
You are so right Gwendolyn. I first heard of the "bones and raw food" thing - BARF - a few years ago. The wife wouldn't let me try it on our black lab/shepherd/golden mix Goliath.
Until last summer. We nearly lost G in the spring, but the little Rasputin was given a reprieve and a cortisone shot. I finally asserted more control over his diet, and stretched 2 months into 7 before we put him to sleep last December 1. Goliath got a chicken thigh in the morning and evening, plus the occasional egg, cabbage, carrots, asparagus, what have you. Worked like a charm.
Also good fun it was. The dog's jaw was so wide that he inhaled the smaller thighs without even a single crunch. I'd time him with a stopwatch.
Till my dying day I'll carry the guilt over not having done this earlier. I'm working off some of this with our "new" purebred Golden, Murphy. Amazingly, he likes raw meat too. Who knew?
Jeff Perren | 4.4.10 @ 8:16PM
Well done article!
Even an unregenerate dog lover like myself can appreciate the sentiments expressed. I can't claim never to have spoiled them, but I do draw the line at taking my spot on the bed.