Many observers have been having a grand old time making light of President Elect Barack Obama’s promise to bring a puppy into the White House for his children. I would like to suggest that there is a bit more to this story than throwaway fluff pieces and one-liners for Leno and Letterman. Obama addressed this briefly during is first press conference.

Between addressing his plans for the economy and his transition to the White House, Obama noted that whatever dog they get will have to be hypoallergenic so as not to aggravate daughter Malia’s allergies.

He also confirmed that the family’s intention is to adopt a dog from a shelter, although Malia’s medical concerns may preclude that.

“But, obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me,” Obama said. “So, whether we’re going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.”

Having volunteered for and supported the Humane Society - as well as other animal support and rescue groups - for most of my adult life, I applaud anyone who makes room in their home and their life for our four legged friends. I’ve also picked up a thing or two along the way and would like to bend our next president’s plus sized ear on the subject. (Yes, yes… now that he’s officially elected, let me be among the first to begin making fun of Obama’s “open taxi door” ears. If you don’t like, you can go whistle.)

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Usually reporters are used to getting the finger at the White House, not getting their finger bit:

This video shows you how pervasive anti-press feeling is at the Bush White House…

It would seem that our merry band has increased by one.

My wife finished all of the paperwork and legal wrangling and brought home a new addition. He’s a schnauzer who was rescued by animal protection services from a puppy mill where he had been kept in a crate as a stud dog for six years. He’s had virtually no human contact or warmth, so he is understandably skittish and not sure if he belongs here or what he should be doing. Before coming to my house he spent a couple of days at the vet’s office getting his teeth taken care of, shots, a general checkup and a bath.

The problem is, we think he needs a name. During his incarceration it seems that he was never given one. The workers at the rescue had been calling him, alternately, “Salty” or “Mr. Whiskers.” Frankly, I find both of those choices intolerable and he shows no signs of responding to either. I’m kind of stuck, though. We’ve never been terribly inventive when it comes to pet names. Our last dog who passed away was formally named “Kenya” but most often she was just called “Dog.” Our Basset Hound’s name is Mr. Basset. Perhaps you could suggest an appropriate name for this little fellow? I’ll check on any suggestions later. For now I need to go convince him to come out from behind the sofa. (*sigh*)

Barack Obama told daughters Malia and Sasha that “you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House” during his victory speech Wednesday morning, a promise he presumably will have to keep since billions of people were looking on.

A source close to the Obamas says that the new puppy probably won’t arrive until the spring and, when it does, presumably will have to be hypoallergenic. This is because Malia has allergies, so you can rule out a golden retriever, collie and numerous other sneeze-inducing fur balls.

So what breed should the First Dog be?

His name was Christian the Lion. He was raised by humans, got too big, and was reintroduced to the wild. A year later, the humans wanted to go back to see if the could find him in the wild, even though it could be dangerous.

And, they did…

It’s all over You Tube, TV’s “The View” and the Today Show. The video explains — and shows — it all. A MUST VIEW for all:

If you’re an old (14 years) hound who naps 18 hours a day and not prone to moving around a lot, cruel people will occasionally dress you up and take pictures of you. Oh… the indignity.

To arms, citizens, to arms!

I will confess that I do, on occasion, make jokes with some of my more Libertarian leaning friends about rounding up all the conservatives and liberals and sending them off to reeducation camps once President Barr is sworn into office. All humor aside, though, I’m opposed to internment for anyone. Stories like this, however, make it awfully tempting to start rounding up some vegans and putting them on trains heading west.

Parents of ill vegan girl may face police

A 12-YEAR-OLD girl in Scotland brought up by her parents on a strict vegan diet has been admitted to hospital with a degenerative bone condition said to have left her with the spine of an 80-year-old woman.

The girl, who has been fed on a strict meat and dairy-free diet from birth, is said to have a severe form of rickets and to have suffered a number of fractured bones.

Even given my natural distaste for the subject, I tend to adopt a “live and let live” attitude toward vegans, providing they are independent adults. As I see it, it simply means less competition for the available supply of Kansas City ribeyes for yours truly. What you do with your own body is your business. But when this philosophy is taken to extremes and applied to children who may have no choice and not know any better (particularly during their formative years when nutrition is so critical) the stakes go up. How people can continue this madness when we keep hearing about case after case after case of vegans literally starving their children to death is a mystery to me.

And don’t even get me started on the complete loons who try to force a vegan diet on their dogs and cats! (I need to start typing more quickly at this point so I can finish this column before my head explodes, so please forgive any typos.) You might be able to dance around some of the realities of omnivore living when it comes to your own body, but your helpless canine and feline wards are carnivores, like it or not. The odd bit of grass they may chew on to relieve indigestion on occasion does nothing to change the fact that, in the wild, they live on a diet of other animals.

Personal liberty and freedom are wonderful things, and a cornerstone of our society. You can go out and join a plants’ rights movement if you really feel so inclined. But when you start imposing these rules on vulnerable children and helpless animals, you have crossed a line which society should not accept.

To arms, citizens! Herd those vegans into the internment camps before it’s too late!

For those who may have missed it, President Bush has enraged much of the nation of India, by appearing to blame its growing middle class for rising food prices.

In addition to a series of articles on this subject, WORLDMEETS.US just posted this tongue-in-cheek warning to President Bush, about the growing demand for pet food among new members of India’s middle class.

Amit Baruah writes for the Hindustan Times of India:

U.S. President George W Bush should be a worried man. Not only are Indians eating more and better and driving up food prices, their dogs and cats are eating better, too … Read the rest of this entry »

My apologies for this being non-political. Today we took a trip which we knew had been coming for some time, but was made none the easier from knowing it. Our oldest dog, Kenya, (shown here in happier times with a number of her toys and gifts at Christmas) was diagnosed with cancer of the bladder last fall. She was put on an aggressive treatment schedule of Peroxicam and some low level pain relievers to reduce the size of the tumor, give her relief from discomfort, and give her a few more good months with her family. Our goal was to spoil her as much as possible and give her enough time to have one more good springtime to go lay in the sun on our back deck, soaking up the heat, which is what she always seemed to enjoy most in her later years. In this, at least, we were successful. She was sixteen years old.

Sometimes, when I try to describe the loss of a pet as being similar to losing a child, people will scoff harshly and tell me that the two are nothing alike. I would beg to differ.

When I first met my wife, Georg-Karen, we were both volunteering at a Humane Society animal shelter in Upstate New York. During a frustrating period of time when I kept asking Georg out on a date and (in what was doubtless a demonstration of her good sense) she kept turning me down, it was also when we first met Kenya. The dog had been found by animal control, abandoned at around two years of age and wandering near a rural stretch of highway. When brought to the shelter she suffered from worms and a urinary tract infection, both of which she was treated for. As bad luck would have it, she showed up during a period of time when the shelter was struck by a wave of canine diseases which devastated the facility and shut down all intake and output for a couple of weeks. The dog, already ill, was hit in turn by a respiratory infection followed by canine distemper and, finally, parvo.

For those not familiar with the disease, Parvo is almost universally fatal to dogs not belonging to families rich enough to have 24/7 care and IV liquid infusions. It dehydrates the dogs until they just waste away. However, it does have a predictable, if long, course that it runs and eventually goes away. Sadly, this usually takes far longer than the dog lives. My beloved lady spent all of her time for weeks doing nothing but going to work and then staying at the shelter until bed time. While caring for the many dogs in quarantine (most all of whom, sadly, were lost) Georg would go and sit in the dog’s pen, cradling her head in her lap and picking up handfuls of water to hold to her lips to try to get some liquid into her system. It was during this period that, in one of her occasional fits of morgue humor, she named the dog Kenya. This was not out of love for any particular African nation, but as a short version of “Can ya survive?”

(I fear this will run a bit long, so you’ll need to click through for the rest of the story.)
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In remembrance of the lost blog tradition of Kitty Picture Fridays, I offer you this image of some kind of illegal political shakedown. I think this cat works for Senator Obama. I imagine him going across the country, forcing people down and demanding they contribute to Obama’s campaign. And from the look on his face, whoever took that picture is next.

I’m trying to figure out how I read/watch/hear so often now that Rev. Wright was the end of Obama and that white Americans will say they’ll vote for a black(ish) man to a pollster, but won’t really do it. Then how did Obama rake in another $40 million (to Clinton’s $20 million) in March? Is it possible that, despite the media orgy, most Americans got past the Wright thing? Not past so much, because it still angers me when I think of it, but maybe they put it in perspective. With 80% of Americans believing this country is in bad shape, is it possible that 5 sound bites from a preacher isn’t what really matters to voters? And if so many people are only lying about voting for him, why are they giving him their money at a time when most don’t have a lot?

While Clinton is getting mostly big singular donations, Obama (in addition to some big donations) is getting double the money in small increments from actual individual people. More than 400,000 people donated to his campaign in March, including more than 218,000 first-time donors. He has had the highest number of donors contributing $200 or less although the analysts have noticed a jump in the $2,000+ individual contributions last month. These are not only minorities and college kids don’t have two dimes to offer. So who exactly are these cat enforcers shaking down for money?

I guess, considering he made $55 million in February, someone somewhere will be crazy enough to spin this $40 million as a bad sign. However, if you add to this the fact that he completely lost the respect of 1/2 the world’s population by bowling a 2 in PA and the emergence of SmokingAgain-Gate, He Cheats With His Human Foibles: Barack Obama Has Smoked Some More Cigarettes!, I predict he’ll only raise $30 million in April. What a loser.

And wouldn’t it be better if all these millions (for all the candidates) were going towards something better than cheesy ads no one believes anyway?
Obama’s fundraising outpaces Clinton’s - Yahoo! News
ABC News: Clinton Backers Growing Nervous About Prospects
NYDailynews.com: Obama raises $40M to Clinton’s $20M
Obama’s $40 Million Haul (And What It Means) - The Fix
Obama boasts wealth of ‘partners’ - - The Washington Times
Clinton Camp Feels Spent, and Outspent - washingtonpost.com
Political Punch: Obama is Smokin’

Since a blizzard has dropped a foot of snow on SW Ohio and I’m not going anywhere, I’ll treat you to a photo of my cat being cute. Here is Samuel on my bed:

This is another Guest Book Review by fiction writer Jessica Schneider who also writes for the highly-visited site Cosmoetica, is Book Editor for Monsters and Critics and is the only contributor to her own blog.

Book Review: Paws & Effect by Sharon Sakson

by Jessica Schneider

I admit that I am a dog liker but a cat lover. Still, despite my like for dogs I was interested in reading Paws & Effect because as an animal lover, I have always been curious in knowing more regarding their “healing power”. It has been observed that dogs have an uncanny ability to not only sense physical danger (as in natural disasters) before it happens, but also an ability to detect cancers and illness in people.

Paws & Effect provides readers numerous anecdotes where not only dogs detect illness but also the book details the ways in which the physical comfort of an animal can have a healing power on the person. In the beginning of the book, the author discusses how after the death of her mother she had suffered a depression so severe that she contemplated suicide. But ultimately it was the presence of her dog that forced her to push past it and live on, since the human-canine bond had made her realize that her dog needed her and so therefore she must stay alive because of that.

Several of the other examples include one dog that began to scratch and bite at its owner’s mole (which turned out to be cancerous) as well as another dog that went up to a man with heart trouble and rested on his chest. There are even dogs that are trained to respond to those humans suffering from seizures, and one of the other points the book mentions is the importance of that human-dog bond and how more often than not, it is the dog which chooses the person and not the other way around.

One man who was ill and dying of AIDS was at least comforted by his dog snuggling up against him while the man shivered with fever. Then, upon falling so ill, the man had to be rushed to the hospital.
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December 24, 2007, After Dark in the Rockies, the Full Moon, Mars Shining Bright, 15″ of Snow…
posted for The Moderate Voice

UPDATE: IT IS DONE…

PEPINO

Big Boy Dalmation, Guardian of the Family

Born 1994, Died December 24, 2007

Go well dear, dear, loyal old friend. Thank you for showing us, we who are far more frail, what bold unconditional love a soul can truly give to others while on earth.

And, don’t rest in peace, Pepino. Run in happiness. Strong again and to your heart’s content. There is a little boy in heaven just waiting for you, and all our mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers have just now come to heaven’s gate to meet you.

Let our tears be the river that takes you there Pepino.

December 24, 2007, Early Afternoon in the Rockies, posted for The Moderate Voice

When your grown children call you ‘mommie,’ their childhood name for you, you know they are in need.

The call came just an hour ago. Pepino cannot stand up. They are carrying him to take him outdoors to the bathroom.

Six months ago I had a hunch. Christmas. I thought Pepino would make it through Christmas. That’s not to be.

I promised my family six months ago, I would…. well, what? Certainly be there to take Pepino to rest, for the family has suffered a loss of a son 11 years ago, that makes it all come rushing back now that Pepino is so ill, and devastatingly so. On the phone just now, I could tell. The boat with the dark sail has pulled up and moored right outside my family’s minds, and they are building sandbag walls as well as they can, so as not to slip back 11 years, to not have that vault that took so many years to shut, crack open again…. Just trying to stay here in the grief of Now. It may not be possible completely. The worlds do leak into one another, sometimes.

I just pulled on my snow boots a few minutes ago. Then, I’ll get in my black pickup and drive through the snow to get down to the city where my family and Pepino are waiting for me …

But, I stopped as I was lacing the boots, thinking for the millionth time this year about my elders who are all gone to heaven now … and suddenly I thought “I am putting on my father’s boots, my grandfather’s and grandmother’s boots”… the big shoes of the people who stayed up all night to help the mares, the people who had their arms up to their elbows to turn an ewe or a colt in the birth canal, and the ones who looked angry while in tears, when they laid the horses and the dogs down as their times came.” I hope I can do as well.

I understand now, they weren’t angry, just so intent to do the right thing by their animal, by this loyal, stalwart soul who’d been their familiar for so long. In the end, to focus the most infinite tenderness and love possible in one burning star of might, enough to do what must be done, to do what no one in their right soul, can hardly stand to do…

….to lay this grand dog, Pepino, our relative, down.

Maybe I’ve lost it, but before leaving, I’ve stumbled around gathering up Pepino’s Christmas gifts to take to him, a little red mesh stocking filled with bones and a label showing a silly Dachshund in stocking cap dancing on back legs. Pepino always liked other dogs, even pictures of dogs. He would always grin like he’d just seen Chaplin take a prat-fall.

And two things keep conjuring to mind, one, a prayer for the dying animal by William Stafford the poet, and the other a tiny child’s prayer that keeps translating itself in my mind to Pepino: Now I lay you down to sleep, I pray the Lord your soul to keep….

Six months ago I had a hunch. Christmas. I thought Pepino would make it through Christmas. That won’t be. But just now I thought, maybe Pepino will have made it … it’s literally Christmas already on the other side… of the world.

Big breath. Prayers. I can do this.
Without losing my mind. I hope…

_____________

July 17, 2007, posted for The Moderate Voice

I Promise The Last Voice You Hear Will Be One of Such Love: Pet Loss
By Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The worlds leak into each other sometimes… Most often when our lives are surrounded by people who are facing life and death challenges, we don’t want to burden them with sorrows going on in our own lives. So I was thinking.

…until July 1st of this year, when, on Freecycle ads, I saw “WANTED: Christmas wreath.” I had one. I contacted. The son of a father who is dying quickly wants to make one more Christmas for his dad. In July. No better place my Christmas wreath could go. But too, when this stranger, this good son wrote back to me, copying my email back to me, I saw I’d made a huge Freudian/ Jungian/ Adlerian typo in my email to him. Instead of writing “Christmas wreath,” I’d accidentally or otherwise instead written, “Christmas grief”…. I’m a shrink. I get the picture. The worlds leak into each other sometimes. Being a shrink does not insulate; if anything, it sandpapers the senses all the more, right down to the walls of the arteries.

This summer, in my family world, there are waves of “know it’s coming, try not to think about it right now.’ Pepino, our family “big boy,’ is a 13 year old Dalmatian who last week was just a crazy bitey, grabby, wacko-grinning pup jumping all over, mistaking all of us for a fun trampoline. Today, Pepino is a brave elderly dog who sleeps most of the time and has cancer throughout his whole body. So far he is not in pain, but my family has known for months… “time, time time keeps slipping into the future…’

I know. I do. I’ve been here before over these many decades, with my team of Huskies, with our “found on the road’ dogs… all of them, “throw yourself into the grave with them’ times… but I’ve never been here before in “this way,’ not since a hideous “watershed event,’ took place in our family’s life… an event that all things of our lives are now measured against forever, as “before’ that event, and “after’ that event. I’ll get to that time in a moment; it’s a place in the psyche that I have to circle to build courage to look, not for the last time… there’ll never be a last time.. but for one more time…

In the meantime, there’s Good Boy Dog Pepino. God, if I describe this, I know you will be able to see him vividly: Read the rest of this entry »

This is another Guest Book Review by fiction writer Jessica Schneider who also writes for the highly visited site Cosmoetica, is Book Editor for Monsters and Critics and is the only contributor to her own blog.

Editor’s note: This is a special review, particularly poignant and fitting for the holidays. We urge readers to read it in full (click on the MORE).

Book Review: Taro & Tomi: My Feline Son and Daughter by Shizue Tomoda

by Jessica Schneider

For anyone out there who is a cat lover, I’d like to recommend this short yet delightful story about a woman adopting her 2 cats and her experiences with them.

From demanding attention, to plopping on desks while work needs to be done, to being warm and affectionate to then turning cold and distant, the story begins with her adoption of her male cat Taro. From fleas, to getting him settled into her apartment, to his unconditional love, this book briefly chronicles the development of the human-cat relationship.

The book is short—only 118 pages divided into 40 chapters, yet there are also adorable illustrations by Edwin Batawala that give this story a child like feel. Each chapter is contained and deals with a different anecdote, such as Tomoda installing a cat flap and teaching him how to use it, to Taro stepping on a hot stove, to even falling into the toilet.

Anyone who has had affection for an animal could certainly appreciate this story, which can be easily read in one sitting and also appreciated by a young adult as well. Later in the tale, Tomoda decides to adopt a female kitten that unfortunately lives only a very short life, but she (Tomi) and Taro quickly bond, forming a brother-sister relationship. Ultimately the kitten dies possibly from having been removed from her mother too early and Tomoda is left to grieve, and of course, express some hesitation towards adopting another kitten.

Ultimately, she adopts another female, who happens to be a stray, and she also names her Tomi. Tomi #2 and Taro bond once again, yet Tomi remains somewhat distant towards her owner and is not as affectionate as Taro. The 2 cats learn to respect one another’s space, as well as their space when it comes to their owner (Tomi prefers the foot of the bed while Taro goes by the pillow).
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Maybe your grandmother is like mine; they see the world with ‘other eyes.’

My grandmother would sometimes say upon seeing the glee in her little dog’s eyes when she returned home: Dogs are heart medicine for humans. Other times when her butter yellow canaries would sing and sing just because the sun rose, she would say, Birds are heart medicine for humans. But then, when her kitties would adorn various kitchen cupboards to help her cook by waving their tails like pendulums, she’d say Cats are heart medicine for humans.

I was thinking of this, because a friend who is so ill, has an oncologist who understands the grandmother/ grandfather wisdom… and lets patients lie in big green vinyl recliner chairs wearing their living kitty mufflers, kitty aprons, and kitty head warmers during IV chemo.

Blessed oncologist whose chemo rooms are like a menagerie. When I’ve been there for my own infusions… another story for another time, I have a recurring anemia… the most unusual thing is that the dogs lying against people’s legs or lying quietly in laps, and all the kitties are on a mission; no fighting goes on there, no scouting for mates, no being sidetracked. Each creature, fully present to their person. It must be so: Creatures are medicine for their humans.

We’ve got Mother’s Day, whether every mother is ‘good enough’ or not. Same, Father’s Day. But no Cat Day. No Dog Day. No Bird Day. Some of the very few creatures on earth who will try to uncritically stay with us no matter how weak, how strong, how strange, upset, preoccupied we act, no matter what.

So two stories, each mythic in its own way; they are from two different cultures where many people are still fighting, arguing and hating one another over a war that occurred 67 years ago. But also their two cultures despite all else… have a great unifier: their shared love of cats, large cats called tigers, and smaller tigers called cats.

The first story is a true one that came in a news release from China some time back.

The Tigers In the Temple

Walking fully grown tigers on a leash is all part of a day’s work for a group of Buddhist monks who have taken on the task of protecting the endangered animals by offering them a home within the walls of their temple.

The sanctuary is run by head monk Phusit Khantidharo, who insists all 10 tigers living at the Pha Luang Ba Tua temple in western Kanchanaburi province in Thailand have adopted peaceful Buddhist ways.

“We are a big family here and we live together, not just with the tigers but many animals,” said Phusit, sitting cross-legged on a rock surrounded by five large tigers that take turns to affectionately nuzzle up to their saffron-robed master.

The tigers, with names like Storm, Lightning and Great Sky, live among monkeys, horses, deer, peacocks, geese and wild pigs in a scenic gully where they are free to roam and feed during the day.

Visitors to the remote temple, about 200 kilomet