pet connection

How do you know I love my dog Rawley? I haven’t killed him.

I’m on my fourth Kindle thanks to his insatiable appetite for them. I blame myself for leaving them where he can get them, though.

But today he ate up his brand-new, never been used Garmin GPS locator, which was sitting on my desk connected to my computer, charging for its first use.

He has never taken anything off my desk, let alone something connected to the computer. I mean — my mouse, my phone, my speakers, my router are all right there. Why this? Why now?

Why, Rawley, why?

He complete destroyed the USB cable, but I’m not sure he’s actually destroyed the GPS unit itself. I’m going to order a new cable and keep my fingers crossed.

Metaphorically, of course. Otherwise it’s too hard to type.

I love him, I love him, it’s stupid but I love him.

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People and dogs milled around waiting for the doors to open. Look! A Leonberger. Rottweilers with tails. Is that a Chart Polski? Too late to ask; my attention has been caught by something else.

What were those cute little red and white dogs? “Go get a picture of them,” I told Jerry. I stared at them. Not Cavaliers. Not Brittanys. Then I remembered where I was.

“Are those Kooikerhondjes?”

A smiling nod of the head.

I’m in Paris at the centennial World Dog Show in which more than 36,000 dogs are entered. If you know me at all, you know that I usually think dog shows are boring unless they are benched, have a Meet the Breeds section or have dog sports and other displays. The World Dog Show wins on two out of three counts. (It’s not benched.) I’ve wanted to come to it for years, ever since I learned there was such a thing. World travel! Unusual dog breeds! What more could anyone ask?

We pick up our media credentials and start wandering the hall. It’s not that full yet, but we see Cesky Terriers, which were recently granted AKC recognition; a Neapolitan Mastiff who seems literally bigger than life; an Afghan wearing a sequined snood (some things are the same the world round), and at one of the breed booths a Braque Hongroi. That’s a new one. No, wait, it’s a Vizsla.

Tomorrow (well, thanks to the joys of jet lag, which has me up after midnight writing this, today) we’ll be watching my DWAA colleague Sandy Mesmer show her Silky Terrier, and checking out a few interesting breeds, including the Mudi, a Hungarian herding breed that looks a lot like the Pyr Shep; the Pyr Sheps themselves; and various Sporting (chiens leveurs de gibier, rapporteurs et chiens d’eau) and Sighthound (levriers) breeds. If nothing else, my ability to understand written French is getting a workout; none of the materials I have are in English.

Demonstration de cavage, anyone?

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I love medical words. Seriously, where other than the world of medicine do you get use words like siphonapterosis, cholecystoduodenostomy, or pheochromocytoma? They just roll off the tongue, and I get the same sensation saying them I as I do when I eat fine European chocolate. Sort of a lusty, tongue-coating warmth.

As fun as they are to say, the lust for them has to exist for the recipient as much as it does for the speaker. If I am talking to a fellow doctor, a long medicalese w0rd can convey paragraphs worth of information in a just a few (admittedly unwieldy) syllables.  Even though they are long and seemingly complex words, if every one involved digs their meaning, they become a sort of shorthand and we can get down to the healing portion of the work at hand. Everyone is on the same level, and information transfer from one brain to the next is smooth.

If the person listening is a non-doctor, though, as better than 99% of the world is, these wonderful words that pack so much meaning into just a few letters strung together work the opposite magic. The listener ends up confused, ill-informed and tunes out the speaker.  The transfer of information from one brain to the next comes to a screeching halt. Not only is the information not transferred, future attempts at communication falter because the listener no longer trusts the speaker and stops caring what they have to say because they know they won’t understand it.

We have seven brand new, fresh-out-of-the-package doctors at Purdue right now. They constitute our new class of interns. They have just spent four years filling their Broca’s area with these lusty European chocolate words, and they are itchin’ to use them. They have rightly earned the privilege of acting like a doctor, and, along with the stethoscope and lab coat, the lingo is part of the costume that we wear as we play doctor.

This, on occasion, causes problems.

We live and die by clients. They bring the animals in for us to treat, they pay the bills that keep the lights on, and they need to be an active and informed part of the medical decision making. But, they are usually neurotypicals and their mother tongue is usually Normalese. If they are flummoxed by a barrage of medicalese and don’t know what is going on, the process gets that much harder. The interns all go through the same arc of learning. They confuse the first couple dozen owners with their ginormous medical lexicon, suffer through the same quizzical stares and then, gradually, learn to speak civilian.

I did the same thing. I went through the same process. I don’t hit the mark all the time (due to my love of big words, sometimes I let some slip through) but I think I have developed a pretty good ability to talk to pet owners on their level and tone down the jargon. I think it helps people see that I am human, too, (for the most part) and I can explain things without resorting to buzzwords.

What has been your experience? Have you had conversations with your MD or veterinarian that left you wondering what is going on? Have you nodded through these, thinking ‘what the hell is he talking about?’ Or, have you stopped them and said ‘what does that mean?’  Do they communicate clearly so you can understand what is going on, and what the options are, or do they leave you with a head full of questions and ears ringing?

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I’ve been missing her for a while even though she’s sleeping at my feet.

Sleep is most of her life these days: sleeping and waking up to eat and go outside. Despite turning 15 in early April, Ginger has an interest in food that won’t quit. Her appetite, however, is not on par with her excitement and the highly-desired food sometimes goes unfinished. She still tries to jump up and down when the food bowl is about to come down, but her days of actually bouncing were gone six months ago. The head of my 19-pound mixed breed used to soar to my chest. Today her arthritic hind end stays on the ground.

Ginger – also known as Whinger for her habit of whining softly because in British slang, to whine is to whinge – suffers more from anxiety than any physical ailment. She’s on clomipramine (brand name Clomicalm) twice a day but still needs alprazolam (Xanax) to go the groomer. She doesn’t like to be touched unless it’s her idea, and her idea is for it not to happen very often.

She jumps when touched if she hasn’t seen you approach her. Her vision and hearing are old, too.

Catch her at a good time and she tucks her face into your hand and arm, and holds still to feel you holding her. Some mornings I see her running in the back yard after Dodger, although her age has slowed her ability to keep up. She loves to eat and go for rides. She loves to visit John across the street. John and I both joke that she likes him better than me. She pulls with what little strength she has toward him, or she turns towards his house at the beginning or end of a walk. John loves her and she soaks up his light, glows in it. Our “walks” take half an hour to return from a block and a half away. We go so slowly that I sometimes trip over my own feet. I think about how swift she used to be, and how feisty.

Eventually, and sooner rather than later, she will be so afraid of the world that her quality of life will drop to an unacceptable level. I won’t let her be unrelentingly anxious or afraid. When the world is incomprehensible to her, or her legs can no longer cooperate, she will be granted a peaceful departure.

After a difficult grooming session last week, I told the groomer that Ginger likely wouldn’t be back for another session.  I’ve made my list of what constitutes quality of life for her, and I will stand by it. I will not move that line in that gray sand as that would be the antithesis of generosity. Nonetheless, she will do her damnedest to stay with me. Whinger will keep putting one paw in front of the other, even if it takes longer to get the back feet moving than the front.

Eventually, I too will feel the need to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I know what the grief feels like, how it runs like flash floods through canyons, creating havoc and then slowing. I don’t feel ready to experience it yet again. I won’t ever feel ready to endure it. But that’s another day, another time, and right now she is sleeping at my feet.

Photo: Ginger, photographed in March

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I’ve seen Shakespeare’s comedy “As You Like It” multiple times. I never remember seeing a performance that included actual dead rabbits onstage during the performance. Nevertheless, that’s precisely what the Royal Shakespeare Company was proposing to do as part of New York’s Lincoln Center Festival this summer. As you can imagine, the outcry was swift and furious. RabbitWise quickly mobilized the forces, and on Sunday,

Michael Boyd, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and director of As You Like It, released the following statement today:

The Royal Shakespeare Company has decided not to use rabbits for its performances of As You Like It in New York.

The production opened in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2009 in the rural heart of the U.K. The dead rabbits used for the performances in Britain—part of a scene illustrating the contrast between court and countryside, where life was harsher and people hunted and prepared their own food—were sourced locally from gamekeepers as part of a farming control program.

The RSC and the RSPCA (the U.K. equivalent of the ASPCA) were satisfied that the rabbits used for the performances in Britain were sourced responsibly and killed humanely.

The moral of the story is: making your voice heard can make all the difference. (Thanks to Mary Cvetan for the heads up).

Rabbit bust in Oakland: Staying on the bunny theme, but with not as happy an ending, a scene out of a bad episode of “Cops” played itself out last week in Oakland, Calif. last week, when nearly two dozen rabbits were seized from a home in Lake Merritt. According to SFGate, the seized animals were malnourished and deformed.

The bunny bust comes just as Oakland enters into the debate over urban agriculture regulations, deciding how to monitor livestock – its treatment and slaughter – in one of the country’s hotbeds of urban homesteading.

“This blurs the lines for animal cruelty. When is it OK to raise something for food, and when is it cruelty?” said Megan Webb, director of Oakland animal services. “This is an issue we’re all going to have to sort out.”

In the case of the 21 rabbits, a neighbor alerted the East Bay SPCA to the rabbits’ condition last week, and on Tuesday, staff from Oakland animal services and the SPCA raided the home.

The additional details are grim, so read at your own peril. Thanks to Susan Fox for the link.

Generics meet veterinarians: It was just a matter of time. Generic medications are finding their way into the veterinary market.

Border Collie beach cleanup: Four different readers wanted to see this story covered, and it’s easy to understand why. Anyone who’s spent time at coastal beaches is familiar with the screech and the mess of seagulls. I’m a sailor, so I have a particular antipathy toward the obnoxious winged rats. The new solution? Border Collies! Back to SFGate:

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report today that suggests that using border collies to harass gulls has helped improve water quality at Illinois area beaches.

Trained to distinguish gulls from other varieties of birds, the collies patrol beaches from dawn to dusk to chase away gulls, whose droppings have been shown to contribute to E. Coli contamination.

Check out the accompanying video. I loves me some Border Collies.

Austin’s a doggy kinda town: Austin, Tex. is already a great city to visit and to live in. It already stands as a shining light of No Kill success. According to the Austin American-Statesman, it just got better if you’re a dog.

Differences between dog and cat people: Business Insider cites a survey from hunch.com that tries to detail the societal differences between dog and cat people. Check it out and see if you fit any of the survey results. I don’t, but perhaps you will.

Note: I’ll be away next week, but Christie Keith will be filling in as your news anchor. See you in two weeks.

I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories.  Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.

Image credits: Shakespeare, loc.gov. Ranger, bcxfour.

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