pet connection

Dr. Marty Becker — a/k/a my Dad — went to the Big Apple last week to do television and radio. If you missed his appearances on “Good Morning America” and GMA on XM radio (Channel 155) ,you can go to ABCNews.com and take a look or listen. “On Good Morning America” he profiled some of the top new pet products from the Global Pet Expo and was his usual corny self; for example, when profiling a bird stroller (which contained a crow by the way … where was the live bird?) he pretended to be a New York City pigeon elbowing another bird in the wing to draw his attention to a feathered friend traveling not via wing or foot, but in a pimped out bird mobile! I hear you groaning, can you imagine having lived under his wing for 22 years hearing crap like that (no pun intended)!

After GMA, Dr. Daddy — a/k/a “America’s Veterinarian”– taped two segments for ABCNews.com — one on pet obesity, the other on new equipment to make walking dogs safe and easy — and these will show up on ABCNews.com this week. Then it was time for a quick car ride about 10 blocks south to tape two segments for “The Martha Stewart Show.” These two segments, one on tips to give pets meds, the other on household products your veterinarian may ask you to use in an emergency, will air on the Monday, March 24. (Check your local listings for air times.)

If you’ve ever given your own cat a pill in the privacy and sanctity of your own kitchen, imagine Dad’s task for the “tips on giving pets meds” segment, of taking a strange cat, adding in new smells, a dog, dozens of staffers, cameras, microphones, rehearsals, a live studio audience, then meeting up with Martha to do the segment live. If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it almost was. (more…)

Like many pet journalists, I’ve been working on a piece about the anniversary of the pet food recall. A year ago March 16, Menu Foods began a nationwide recall of “cuts and gravy” style food in cans and pouches. Soon more recalls were issued by other companies and the scope extended to dry foods. By the time it was all over, it had become the largest pet food recall in U. S. history.

One of the people I talked to was nutritionist Marion Nestle, Ph.D. Nestle, best known for her 2006 book What To Eat. She is the Paulette Goddard professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. After writing What To Eat, a guide to shopping the grocery aisles, she decided to turn her attention to pet food, which had received short shrift in the earlier book. To her surprise, she ended up writing two books: Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine (September 2008) and What Pets Eat (2009). Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

KT: Did your interest in the food supply chain as a whole lead you to write about the pet food recall, or do you have pets whose welfare sparked an interest?

Marion Nestle: I did a book a couple of years ago called What To Eat that uses supermarkets as an organizing device for talking about food issues. Supermarkets have this great big aisle devoted to pet foods, and I didn’t say a word about them. I felt very guilty about that. My partner in life is a former animal nutritionist and I thought, ‘You know, this would be a great project for us to do together.’

KT: And then the recall happened… (more…)

When I’m on book deadline, I tend to obsesss about things that are unrelated to the book I am writing. Things like, oh, cleaning out the hall closet, or planting flowers in the hanging baskets on the patio. Things, in other words, that can perfectly well wait for another week or two, but when I’m on book deadline become really, really important to me.

This book deadline, I seem to be obsessed with catching up on all my DogCars.com vehicle reviews. I’m only a dozen or so behind, after all, and it’s not as if I have Something More Pressing To Do. Like finish the book that’s due Monday.

Anyway, in wastingspending time thinking about DogCars.com, which I have been, lots, I realized that we have been horribly, horribly dissed. It’s true: The L.A. Times’ great Pulitzer Prize-winning auto-writer Dan Neil got to drive the new Mini Cooper Clubman before I did. As I write over on the DogCars.com blog:

I may have mentioned a couple thousand times before that I (heart) the L.A. Times autowriter, Dan Neil. I (heart)  him because he writes about cars in a way that has never before been done, a way a non-gearhead can get into, funny, witty and relevant to the lives of people who don’t go to car shows, as in, um, women. I (heart) Dan Neil because he got a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, previously given only to guys who write about Serious Stuff like Architecture, Ballet and Art, not whether there’s a difference between a “guy car” and a “chick car.”  (Yes, and duh, of course there is. Guy car: Mustang. Chick car: VW Beetle.)

Honestly, having Dan Neil win a Pulitzer gives me hope — dim, dim hope — that someday a syndicated pet-care columnist will win one, too. And that that syndicated pet-care columnist will be me.

That’s why I (heart) Dan Neil.

But right now, I hate Dan Neil, because as the God of All That Is Good About Auto Writing, he got to drive the Mini Cooper Clubman before I have even cast eyes on one in person.

I ask you: Is that right? Is that fair?

Of course not. Because the Mini Cooper Clubman has the look of a serious city DogCar, and I can barely live with my desire to drive one very, very soon. Because a lot of really practical DogCars are — how shall I say this nicely? — dull, and I know that is not the case with the Clubman. I know this, because driving the regular Mini Cooper (along with the Mazda Speed3) last year was just about the most fun I’ve had in a car since I was 17, and Michael Vianni and and I took his Dodge Charger to Folsom Lake and … uh … well now, you just never mind.

Read the rest.

I take this one rather personally, since most of the dogs in my family are flat-coated retrievers, a breed commonly (but incorrectly) described as a “black golden.” (Flat-coats also less commonly come in brown, called “liver,” and very rarely, in yellow, called, “wow, is that a golden?”) See, we flattie fans know the truth: the golden retriever started as a “freak mutation” in flat-coats, and in fact, the golden was called a “flat-coated retriever (golden)” at the start.

Where was I .. oh yeah, black dogs. Pip my German shedder-brainy collie rescue is also mostly black. The only dog in my home who isn’t mostly black is The Drewbinator,my second-hand Sheltie (actually, I’m his fourth home, go figure) whose lush golden coat and white ruff and mane attract people from a quarter-mile away when we go out. Except … Drew would really rather strangers not paw at him. He’s friendly enough, but crowds just aren’t his thing. Whereas the retrievers would like nothing but people people people, except people often are a little afraid of Big Black Dogs … BBDs.

Me, I love BBDs. But …

You folks who rescue know where I’m going with this. BBDs are the heartbreak of shelters and rescue groups. No matter how nice a BBD, no matter how well-mannered, people tend to ignore or pass over these dogs in favor of the lighter-colored ones. MSNBC.com’s Melissa Dahl takes a look at the phenomenon:

To the uninitiated, the idea seems so strange — doggie discrimination? But among those in animal rescue circles, the phenomenon is commonplace enough to have earned its own name: “black dog syndrome.”

“There’s not a lot of that type of statistics on many aspects of sheltering,” says Kim Intino, the director of animal sheltering issues for the Humane Society of the United States. “But I think that every person that has worked in a shelter can attest that in shelters animals with black coats can be somewhat harder to adopt out — or to even get noticed.”

[...]

“They’re the hardest to adopt out, they’re in the shelters the longest and therefore, they’re most likely to be euthanized if nothing happens,” Bernstein says. [...]

Bernstein has plenty of theories about why people might not want black dogs in animal shelters. It’s mostly an unconscious thing, she says, which may explain why black cats have the same problems finding a home. People who are aware of superstitions about black cats (don’t let them cross your path!) may also be unconsciously harboring superstitions about black dogs.

Well, whatever.  I love my ebony-coated guys, and my little Drewbie, too. And interestingly enough, Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue’s folks have told me that they have no more problem adopting out their “black goldens” than their “golden goldens.” So there may be some dispute: Is it more about marketing and reaching out to people vs. a defeatist attitude towards getting pets placed, as the no-kill advocates say?

And by the way, if you have a black dog or cat, you know it’s very hard to get a good picture. Christopher Butler, who has taken pictures of tens of thousands of black dogs, has some tips.

Pictured: My boy Ben, who came to me “second-hand” at 18 months of age and died at age 11 (cancer, of course) in 2005. He never met anyone he didn’t love from the very first second he saw them, and he was so reliably good-natured and well-mannered he went to all my book-signings and public appearances. Sweetest dog ever born. … and I added a picture of The Drewbinator because his feelings were hurt.

The thermometer is registering somewhere near 10 degrees below zero and the wind is whipping of the inlet at a brisk 25 mph. But that minor irritation can’t possibly stop you from arriving early to get a good spot to stand along Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage for the start of what many people call the toughest sports event in the world.

It’s the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, where highly trained dog teams race more than 1,150 miles across the frozen Alaska wilderness — from Anchorage to Nome — in search of adventure and a grand price of $70,000 to the winning team. This year’s race started Saturday with the traditional “Ceremonial start” in downtown Anchorage, and will continue for the next 10 to 17 days until a winner emerges from the trail to claim the prize in downtown Nome.

A record number 96 mushers are entered in this year’s race. They come from all over the world with their teams of up to 16 dogs, truckloads of food and medical supplies, and a support crew to help keep the dog happy and healthy as they prepare for the big day.

During the seven-plus years that I lived in Alaska during the 1980s, I made several trips to the starting line to get an up-close look at these hardy beings — dogs and people — as they set out on “The Last Great Race.” On this day, everyone is smiling and jovial. The mushers are happy to finally have all the months of training and preparation behind them as they make their way to the starting line. The media is there and the crowd is abuzz with wide-eyed excitement and anticipation.

And the dogs are ecstatic. Barking, yelping and pulling at their harnesses, they know the big day has finally arrived and they are ready to run. In fact, they are too ready, so most mushers add extra weight and even a second sled for the start to help slow their dogs down so they don’t burn themselves out too early. This race, after all, is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s an endurance test of unbelievable proportions.

My former colleague, Craig Medred of the Anchorage Daily News, writes a wonderful story about the late Joe Redington, who will forever be known as the “Father of the Iditarod.” In it, Craig points out a couple of facts that help to put the Iditarod in perspective:

More people have made it to the top of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest and deadliest mountain, than have made it to Nome in the Iditarod.

The number of men who have played in the Super Bowl outnumbers the approximately 600 men and women who can say they have made it to Nome in the Iditarod.

The number of cyclists who have ridden the Tour de France vastly outnumbers the people who have ridden a dog sled to Nome.

Of course, like any ultra-endurance challenge, this is not a race for softies and the squeamish. In the best of weather, the Iditarod is a brutal, life-threatening adventure that requires every ounce of energy and stamina from humans and dogs as they push to make their way across the frozen Arctic. Other times, when Mother Nature unleashes her winter furry, the Iditarod becomes much less of a race and more of a test of survival where failure — or even just bad luck — means paying the ultimate price.

For complete race coverage, including detailed profiles of some of the sled dogs, visit the official site of the Iditarod.