pet connection

What would I do without “The Daily Show”? Last night, Lewis Black trashed Michael Vick (among others) during his rantcommentary. Here’s the link.

Vick, by the way, offered a “not guilty” plea to charges related to dog-fighting today.

Laugh until you cry.

When my deerhound Raven was diagnosed with bone cancer, I knew it was a battle we’d ultimately lose. The number of dogs who go into genuine remission from osteosarcoma is very small. But she was young and strong, and, well, I loved her. So we fought.

I’ve never regretted amputating her leg, because despite the dire predictions of many people, unless a dog already only has three legs, he or she will probably do fine after the surgery. Raven did; she was running up and down stairs before her staples came out.

After the surgery, we began an aggressive course of chemotherapy, and I also took her to a holistic veterinarian for supportive care. Every night Raven jumped up onto my bed and slept next to me. And every morning she opened her eyes, her face lit up and her tail thumped, and she gave me a big kiss.

We only had four and a half months. It cost me $14,000. She died nearly two years ago, and I’m still paying off her vet bill.

I’m also still paying off the $10,000 I spent trying to save my dog Bran from acute renal failure three years ago. I first cashed in my 401(k), and then borrowed on my charge card and then from family, to take him for dialysis at UC Davis. But he was only four years old, and you know — I loved him, too.

In the current issue of Newsweek, Frederick R. Lynch tells about his fight to save his cat, Fritz:

I recently paid $11,000 in veterinary bills for my cat, Fritz. I’ve been hesitant to tell friends about this expenditure, which I know seems extravagant. But after hearing a radio financial guru answer questions from two callers about tapping their 401(k) accounts for veterinary bills, I realized I am not alone.

[....]

Fritz’s rear left leg was amputated at a California veterinary cancer center. The cost was about $4,300. He rebounded just fine, only to be struck two months later by severe pancreatitis—a potentially lethal affliction that required extensive diagnostic tests and a one-week stay in intensive care. He also needed round-the-clock medications—including an expensive anti-emetic drug originally developed for humans undergoing chemotherapy. The bill was $3,250. A second, less severe attack two months later cost an additional $1,250, and follow-up visits and medications racked up $2,200.

“That’s what credit cards are for,” I said when preauthorizing treatment. But an agent from my bank called the day after Fritz came home. “Is this ‘veterinary services’ charge for real?” he asked.

[....]

I admit sometimes questioning the reality of spending $11,000 on my cat when there are greater human needs. I am fully aware that Fritz is not a person. But I have to believe that as a society, we’re a long way from 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes, who claimed that animals have no right to humane treatment because they have no souls. Today, I’m one of many who think that higher mammals are self-conscious, spiritual creatures.

Do I have doubts about Fritz’s extensive, expensive treatments? Sometimes—mainly insofar as they caused him pain. But as I watch him romp around the house, those doubts fade and should dissolve altogether if, in October, we beat that 600-day average prognosis.

I wasn’t so lucky with Bran, who I lost after a ten-day battle. Raven didn’t even make it to the six months most dogs get with amputation alone, let along the year they get with chemo. If I’d known Bran’s ten-day fight would end in death, I’d have put him down the minute he started to suffer. But it wouldn’t have had anything to do with the money, it would have been about the quality of his last days.

And I’d fork over $14,000 tomorrow with a smile on my face to have Raven back again.

So I guess, as the headline on Lynch’s story reads, for some things, no price is too high.

Last week some friends stopped by to visit, along with their dogs, Gypsy and Stella. The whole family had been travelling for more than a month, starting at home in Florida, heading to Alaska, back down to Northern California and heading home again, visiting friends all along the way.

While they were here, Bruce and Doris showed off Gypsy and Stella’s neat-o trick, singing to the ringtone on the cell-phone. They asked if our dogs liked the Empire Today carpet ads, which Gypsy and Stella also find highly entertaining and worthy of comment.

I’d never heard of the company, which is apparently an East Coast thing. But turns out G&S aren’t the only dogs who like the ads. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Dear Dog Lady:

I read your column about the dog yelping at the Empire carpet commercial and started to laugh. My 2-year-old Chihuahua does the same thing. My girlfriend and I, however, think it’s funny. My dog has even won a contest at Petco. My girlfriend saved the carpet jingle on her phone and we played it back on the store speakers. Everyone laughed and we won a gift certificate. So there are other dogs that react to this. – Gary

Dear Dog Lady:

My dog, Rocky, a 6-year-old Pekingese, barks at the Empire carpet commercial. I adopted Rocky seven months ago from an older gentleman, and I thought the voice in the ad might sound like his previous owner. Rocky barks, but he does not act as if he is hurt by the sound. It’s more as if he is talking back to the television. I manage it by laughing about it. He sometimes barks when he sees dogs or cats on the television but does stop when told. The television is only on for a few hours a day, so I live with this bad habit. It is more important to me that he is friendly and happy. – Brigitte

So I went to the company’s Web site and played the ads, figuring there would be a barking dog, a doorbell or something? I don’t get it. What’s the deal, East-Coasters? What, exactly, are your dogs barking at?

Is there anything else on TV that get your pets’ attention? I’m proud to say that Clara the kitten loves to watch horse-racing. She couldn’t care less about any other programming, but when the gates open, she watches the race.

Just like mom, that girl!

Mandatory spay-neuter for idiot celebrities who keep impulse-buying pet-store puppies. According to People:

Paris Hilton already has a huge family of pets – but she added one more to the brood with a new Chihuahua on Wednesday.

The heiress adopted the young, male pooch from Pets of Bel Air in Los Angeles just after 1 p.m.

“She loved the puppy, she was all smiles and carried him out of the store in her arms,” an onlooker tells PEOPLE. A store employee said Hilton was “so sweet.”

The store is the same one where Britney Spears bought a $3,000 Yorkie puppy less than two weeks ago.

And speaking of celeb purchases: Earlier on Wednesday, rocker Fred Durst and his son came into the store and purchased a Chihuahua as well.

Hilton, who has said she really missed her pets while in jail, also recently bought a new Yorkie named Cinderella, and has another Chihuahua named Tinkerbell, among other pets. (In 2005, she was forced to give up her kinkajou, Baby Luv, because it was considered an exotic species and was illegal to own.)

I guess because the pet store  has “Bel Air” in the name, that makes it cool. Hey … whatever happened to the last Chihuahua? Hmmm?

Mourning the death of a true hero: A search and rescue dog’s life ends at 12 (hanky warning):

A black Labrador retriever who searched for survivors in smoking debris after September 11 and flooded rubble after Hurricane Katrina has died after battling cancer.

Owner Mary Flood had 12-year-old Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. Flood said Jake had been in pain, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.

[...]

Flood adopted Jake as a 10-month-old puppy. He had been abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

“But against all odds he became a world-class rescue dog,” said Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, a federal search-and-rescue team that looked for human remains at ground zero.

And while you have your hanky out … there’s this slide show about how we measure our lives in the generations of great dogs in our lives. (Thanks, Patti).

Wrapping up with this piece about a cat whose visits seem to predict death:

Oscar the cat makes his grand entrances just as life is about to leave.

“He’s a cat with an uncanny instinct for death,” said Dr. David M. Dosa, assistant professor at the Brown University School of Medicine and a geriatric specialist. “He attends deaths. He’s pretty insistent on it.”

In the two years since Oscar was adopted into the third-floor dementia unit of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, he has maintained close vigil over the deaths of more than 25 patients, according to nursing staff, doctors who treat patients in the home, and an article in tomorrow’s New England Journal of Medicine, written by Dosa.

Here’s the rest.  Love you, Oscar, but please … cancel the visit. I’m not ready to goooooooo …..