pet connection

I had this idea a couple years ago to follow the fattest Labrador I’d ever seen through a reduction program. The dog was so obese she looked like a sausage roll on four toothpicks, and your didn’t need a veterinarian to tell that she was unhealthy and unhappy.

Her owner, though, couldn’t see it. Well, she admitted that the dog was “a little” overweight, but said that the dog’s obvious pleasure in eating more than made up for whatever potential problems those “few extra pounds” — try 50 to 75, at least — gave the dog.

The owner, by the way, is one of the most beautiful women you’ll ever see, with not an ounce of extra weight on her own willowy frame.

I tried to talk the owner into making the dog a Pet Connection project, following the dog’s diet and exercise regimen for a year or so. At first, the owner agreed, taking dog to the veterinarian for a pre-program physical. But then a funny thing happened: At the first weigh-in, the dog had gained weight.

Eventually, I came to suspect the dog was sort of a psychic stand-in for the woman’s own appetite. She nibbled a tiny portion of anything she picked up, and handed the remainder to her dog. And even though the dog was a skilled counter-cruiser, the owner left food on the counter, often near the edge. That way, she could buy a pie, and be certain most of it would end up in the dog’s mouth, not her own.

I soon realized I was in over my head with this one. I deal with pet problems, after all, not the mental-health issues of my fellow humans. So I dropped the idea.

But the folks at the Chicago Sun-Times have found some people who truly seem interested in helping their pets get healthy. Leslie Baldacci is following cats Monster and Milo through the process:

Yes, there was crying. There was a nip or two to the ankle. And there was even some sneaking of morsels from the dog’s dish. But both of the Sun-Times’ “Fat Cats” lost weight in the first month of their diet.

Milo, who started out at 20 pounds, 1 ounce, lost 7 ounces. Monster, who started out at 18 pounds, 1 ounce, lost 3 ounces.

It may not sound like much, but on a cat’s frame, that’s the equivalent of two sticks of butter off Milo and one stick off Monster. Too-rapid weight loss can send a cat into liver failure.

“We said no more than a pound a month,” said the veterinarian, Dr. Colleen Currigan of Cat Hospital of Chicago, after examining Milo, who was sporting a snazzy new blue collar with white fish on it. “He’s on track. I think he could do better.”

Follow the program here. And if you have a pet like that Labrador, I highly recommend Dr. Marty’s “Fitness Unleashed: A Dog and Owner’s Guide to Losing Weight and Gaining Health Together.” It’ll get you both in better shape.

China chooses dog slaughter over rabies shots, and now South Korea is going to kill dogs and cats in reaction to an outbreak of bird flu:

South Korea plans to kill cats and dogs to try to prevent the spread of bird flu after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus at a chicken farm last week, officials said Monday.

Animal health experts, however, suggested it was “a bit of an extreme measure” when there was no scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans.

Here’s the link. Arrrrgggghhhhh.

Since moving five weeks ago, I’ve been on a quest for new dog beds for my giant breed dogs.

I used to use Drs. Foster and Smith’s orthopedic beds, and was always happy with them, despite the fact that I pretty much had to take out a second mortgage to afford the largest size. Truth is, they lasted forever and held their shape perfectly, so they were worth the massive price tag.

I am, I guess, in the minority among dog owners, in that I actually care what my dogs’ beds look like, and want them not merely to blend in with my decor, but actually complement it.

In other words, I want them to be pretty as well as functional.

Sadly, Foster and Smith has discontinued many of their fabric choices, and the few they still offer just don’t work in my new house. So my poor dogs are huddling on piles of quilts laid over old, semi-stinky, seen-better-days, really-belong-at-the-landfill beds.

Okay, scratch the “poor dogs” thing, because they don’t care. They consider the odor and soil a welcome patina. It’s poor Christie, because I’ve always been pretty house proud and at the moment that’s not easy. Because beds for giant breed dogs take up a lot of floorspace and make a definite statement in the room.

I put out a call on the Deerhound list, asking where people bought their dog beds. I got a lot of links to sites that make beds for giant breed dogs. Apparently, everyone who owns giant breed dogs lives in a log cabin, because plaid and denim are pretty much my only fabric choices.

A few other people sent me instructions on how to make my own dog beds. I found this quite charming. The only problem with this suggestion is that when I lose a button off a shirt, I stop wearing it. Me and sewing, not so much. Make that, not at all.

And most of the really cute dog beds? The designer-fabric, custom-look-upholstery, brocade and tapestry and ultra-chic piped-edge beds? The wonderful little donuts and faux-sofas and just about every fabulous and gorgeous dog bed in the world?

Too. Darn. Small.

Yes, I need a bed not much smaller than a twin bed. Beds whose dimensions are given in feet, not inches. Four feet by five feet is good. Something a dog who, when standing on his rear legs, could play professional basketball would like to stretch out on.

And did I mention pretty?

Meant to post this follow-up in the L.A. Times about the birder arrested for killing cats in Texas (here’s the previous post):

Jim Stevenson says he is not the hate-filled serial cat killer he has been made out to be.

But if he was shooting the feral cats that roam the sand dunes of this picturesque Gulf Coast island, argues Stevenson — the founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society — he would be breaking no laws.

In his view, he would be performing a public service by saving the lives of beautiful birds at one of the nation’s best bird-watching locales.

“These birds, virtually all of them, are protected by state and local laws. Do we ignore what is happening with these stray cats, or do we finally stand up and do something about it?” Stevenson said. “Sometimes you get pushed to a point where you can no longer ignore a situation.”

I absolutely do believe that people should not allow their cats to roam. It’s for the cat’s safety, and it’s the responsible thing to do as far as your neighbors go. But of course, these are feral cats — domestic cats gone wild, and their wild-born offspring — and although trap-neuter-release programs are the best way of controlling these animals, I also believe that in some sensitive environments trapping to remove feral cats is a better way to go. I would prefer to see the animals then tamed and placed or at least moved to a less environmentally sensitive area. And I realize that some of them would have to be euthanized because they couldn’t adapt to new homes or locales.

But I absolutely disagree with the “open season on cats” approach, and I believe that feral cats are a convenient target (so to speak) for the frustration birders feel about problems they cannot control: Like the wholesale destruction of vital habitat on every continent (for timber and beef production) and the development of areas that used to be prime American birding areas.

Are you a cat-hater if you take your .22 out in defense of birds? Doesn’t really matter, I suppose, since not matter what else, you are breaking the law in most places. And if convicted, Stevenson — who admitted to killing other cats, but not the one he’s charged with now — will get two years in jail.

The mainstream media have recently discovered that good veterinary care is expensive, and that medical insurance for pets is as a result getting at least a look from many more pet-lovers than ever before. I have seen at least three pieces on pet health insurance in the last month, and through newspaper wire services, one of these pieces has been in almost every newspaper in the country as a result. The excellent Web site The Urban Hound has done a comparison study, as well.

For some people, of course, any money spent on pets (not to mention pet health insurance) is ridiculous. They’re “just” animals, after all, say these cold-hearted chuckleheads, arguing that “pet freaks” have gone over the top.

But I really had to laugh this morning at a piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Cynthia Billhartz Gregorian, in which people complain that other people talk about pets the way parents talk about children. They seem to think this devalues their precious two-legged darlings:

When one began talking about raising her teenage son, another friend at the table, who doesn’t have children, chimed in with an elaborate story about her dog’s mischievousness. The friend with the son became visibly irritated.

“I’m sorry, but it’s insulting that you would compare your dog to my son,” she said. “They’re not the same.”

[...]

Who knows why pet owners have decided that Fido and Fluffy are fodder for conversations about child-rearing. Perhaps they don’t realize what they’re implying. Or maybe parents are mistakenly inferring comparisons, when none is intended. And could it be that spinning long cat yarns and detailed doggy tales are a way to turn the tables on parents who prattle on about how precious or, worse, precocious, their toddlers are?

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! A five-minute conversation over the holiday weekend with someone I’m related to — no names, please, but we have the same parents — has driven me to order the bumper sticker shown here, from here.

See, this person’s children are phenomenally perfect. Brilliant, talented, athletic. Destined to go to the finest universities, if only they can choose between them and then further choose between the academic and athletic scholarships they’ll surely be offered. Full ride, of course.

Look, they’re nice kids. They’re good kids. But … they’re normal kids. And it doesn’t seem possible for moderately affluent parents to have normal kids any more.

So when I talk about my dogs to people who aren’t interested, it’s not because I think they’re children — on the contrary, I like having pets because I know they’re animals not because I think they’re furry people. Rather, I pipe up because there are days when if I have to hear one more time how some college coach was sniffing around an 8-year-old soccer player or how some choir teacher offered helpfully that a 12-year-old has a future in opera, I will scream.

As my (other) brother the teacher says: Kids, I love. Parents, not so much.

The same often goes for people with pets, by the way. Animals, I love. The people who gush on about them, well … give us all a break, will you?

A little bragging goes a long, long way, no matter what you’re bragging about.

And besides, only my pets are perfect. If you have a few minutes, I’ll tell you how much.