Goodbye Erica Kane

On November 6, 2010, Erica died in Scottsdale, Arizona. Click here to refresh your memory of Erica.

This is the last photograph on my precious Erica, from Friday, November 5th. She was gorgeous until the end. Karen raised her from a very sick kitty into the best cat I've ever know.

My consolation is she died quickly, without lingering illness and dimishment of her powers. She was my cat to end all cats.

Webbings and Nails

Erica's Dreams.

Sleeping Arrangements

This was Erica's House; We were just tenants.

A philisophical exchange between Erica and Levi.

Don't want to hear about the damn Rainbow Bridge!


I'll miss that girl for as long as I live. She was a great cat.

They Were Winners, Who Became the Doggie's Dinners

You've got to love this story from Dallas. Two pugs who ate their owners are now up for adoption! That's right. ATE their owners! It seems the married couple who owned the dogs committed suicide, together, leaving the dogs to fend for themselves, for at least days! What are two little doggies supposed to do? That's why Levi maintains dogs should always be allowed to determine their own necessary amount of fat reserves!
This reminds me of one of my favorite dog songs by proto-punk rock legend Nick Lowe, Marie Provost (sic). The song, below, is about a silent film star, Marie Prevost, who, after great early success, died alone in her Hollywood room at the age of 38. Her body was eventually found because of the incessant barking of her dachshund.
Rumor has it that Marie's legs were covered in tiny bites when the medics removed her. Nick Lowe sings that, "She was a winner/who became the doggie's dinner."
If you've not heard Nick Lowe's song, or if you have, have a listen now and enjoy this little video. It's a great tune that you'll be humming all day, as you make sure to feed your dogs plenty. But first, the lyrics:

MARIE PROVOST
Nick Lowe


Marie Provost did not look her best
The day the cops bust into her lonely nest
in the cheap hotel up on Hollywood west
July 29

She'd been lyin' there for two or three weeks
The neighbors said they never heard a squeak
While hungry eyes that could not speak
said even little doggies have got to eat

chorus:
She was a winner that became a doggie's dinner
She never meant that much to me
Whoa oh poor Marie

Marie Provost was a movie queen
mysterious angel of the silent screen
And run like the wind the nation's young men steamed
When Marie crossed the silent screen

Whoa she came out west from New York
but when the talkies came Marie just couldn't cope
The public said Marie take a walk
All the way back to New York

-repeat chorus-

Those quaalude bombs didn't help her sleep
As her nights grew long and her days grew bleak
It's all downhill once you've passed your peak
Marie got ready for that last big sleep

The cops came in and they looked around
Throwin' up everywhere over what they found
The handiwork of Marie's little dachshund
That hungry little dachshund

-repeat chorus-

poor Marie

My Turn: It’s My House, So Follow My Rules, by Erica Kane

I've lived with dogs since I was a tiny kitten, and I have to say that they are literal minded to the point of idiocy, usually, or, at their best, like Levi, they are a mass of neuroses and misguided perceptions. Don't interpret this to mean that I don't like dogs. I'm very fond of them indeed, though the things that worry or excite them are quite beyond my understanding. Do you have to act like hooligans because the doorbell rang? It just means someone's here, but they'll leave soon. You dogs need to learn to concentrate on what's important.

Because of the inattention of the dogs and humans I cohabit with, I have had the opportunity to mark everything and everyone in the house. Those stupid dogs (and humans) see me rubbing my face on chairs, tables, walls, everything, and they don't do a thing to stop me, or mark their things first. I've proceeded with some caution, but at this point I can announce, with no fear of contradiction, that I own the entire house, all its contents, and the surrounding lot and landscaping.

Though my clever encroachments have given me indisputable title to the family home, it is not in my nature to be a tyrant. I shudder to think of what antic rules might be imposed were Levi to become lord and master of our domicile. I have no intention of evicting anybody, human or dog, now that I have obtained title, and as a practical matter nothing will change. I just have a bit more security, which I need for my psychological well-being.

Which brings me to the real object of this essay: my fear of imminent starvation.

Despite being a cat of property and distinction, I am dependent upon dad for my very sustenance, and his inattention makes me fear that I might starve to death in the near future. By noting this now, and publicly, I hope to aid the possible service of justice in the event of my negligent homicide by starvation.

Of course, I free feed. My food must be available to me 24/7. Who knows when I'll be hungry? Certainly not dad! He is so inattentive!

I have what's known as a "gravity" feeder. It holds about two pounds of food. As I eat what's in the bowl, the food is replenished from the canister. It's an amazing invention, so simple but necessary and useful. Rather like the wheel. It's the kind of creation that makes me realize what useful and creative creatures humans really are.

Despite the manifest cleverness of humans, my dad will often let this device become so empty that it holds less than a pound of food! I understand that his intent is to fill it up again, sometime, but who knows how the future may conspire to make that intent untenable?

Once my gravity feeder is one quarter empty, I loudly notify everyone in the area of the potential disaster that lies ahead. If my yowls are heeded at all, it's by dad looking at my feeder and saying something wholly irrelevant like, "Erica, there's enough food there for a month. Stop it."

"Enough food for a month." What then, dad, what then?

So he lets the feeder get ever lower, dangerously lower, until I'm forced to spend much of my energy motivating him to fill my feeder up all the way! I "meow," I yowl, I run back and forth from wherever he is, to my food bowl, and he'll do nothing at all! Dad may be "the dogman," but he certainly doesn't know how to properly appease a cat. It's times like this that I wish I were big, and could make dad do what he's supposed to!

Finally, things will get dangerous. The feeder will be half empty. That's when I switch into high alert, and I will no longer be denied! I will not stop bugging everyone until the feeder is full to the top.

My rational side knows that with the feeder half-full, there is enough food for at least a week. But are my wishes so extreme? Is it too much to ask that my feeder just be kept full? Especially considering I'm the landlord around here. Really, that's all I want out of life.

Especially now that I legally own everything else.



Ed. Note: This is ordinarily Levi's column, but late Sunday night he informed me that he wasn't a machine who wrote on cue. I reminded Levi that he had known about this deadline for a week, and that he himself had insisted on a weekly column in the first place. Levi then asked for a cookie, which he got.

Erica said she would fill in for Levi, and that she had an important issue of which the public needed to be made aware. I told her that would be fine.

She handed in the above at the last minute. It's actually fairly accurate, except, of course, I dispute Erica's legal ownership of the house by virtue of her markings. 

If you don't care for Erica's opinions, feel free to check out some of Levi's past work here.




© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands

ScottsdaleDogMan.com

ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Saturday News of the Dog

It's been my policy to stay away from disturbing news when I present my Saturday wrap-ups of the week's dog news. The papers are full of stories about puppy mills and dog fighting and people throwing dogs off balconies and such, and I don't want to fill people's heads with that kind of stuff.

Still, this first story today is far from pleasant. Bizarre, sad, disturbing story about a guy who wanted to be a dogman, and what went wrong. Robert Brunette, of Boulder, CO, kept about 50 dogs and lived with them as their "Alpha." Weird, Lord of the Flies type antics ensued. Now he's been convicted on all counts, and it seems, this putative "dogman" is facing 4 years in prison. The moral of this story: Kids, don't try this at home. Or, perhaps, try not to go too crazy.

Science has weighed in, and it's official, verified and scientific. Dogs are smarter than cats! I can't imagine this finding will result in any controversy whatsoever. I am refraining from mentioning this finding to Erica Kane, however.

Here's something positive, for a certain dog, anyway. Liza, a dog of uncertain provenance from Iraq, survived a suicide blast last week that killed 125 and injured 500. Humans. But Liza is alright, and has been reunited with a 14 year old boy who is the sole surviving member of his family. Of course the dogman wishes both Liza and her young master all the best.

With so few shopping days until Christmas, let us be thankful for The USA Today for providing us with a handy guide for the top ten gifts for dogs and cats.

Speaking of dogs and Christmas gifts, it's gratifying to know that Bo Obama will have his own Christmas stocking in the White House. Naturally, Levi opposes this, claiming that it will add to the deficit, but Levi's feelings about the First Dog might color his opinion somewhat. For one, I'm hoping Bo and the whole Obama family have a great Christmas!


This dog talks! Again, this particular dog talks!







© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands

ScottsdaleDogMan.com

ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Wish They All Could Be California Girls

For Karen and me, not much good came out of Los Angeles in 1984. We'd moved there without a plan, with our two dogs, Lyric and Holden, and were soon overcome by a fear and loathing of the mass of humanity we found ourselves amidst. We decided that the logical reaction to our new found misanthropy would be to increase the canine to human ratio in our household. We decided to get a puppy.

There were two primary rationales for getting a puppy. Lyric, the Seeing Eye dog, was smart, young and strong, everything a German shepherd should be. Our other dog, Holden, was a fat, dim-witted, beagle mix, and he was simply not an ideal playmate for her. Often, in her fun, Lyric would send Holden sprawling, and we didn't want him to get hurt. We wanted Lyric to have as full a life as possible, and we thought that should include a relationship with a dog with which she could have some parity. Forcing her to play with Holden seemed like forcing Bobby Fisher to play chess with Sling Blade (look, he liked fried potatoes, OK?). It couldn't be very satisfying for Lyric.

Furthermore, Sling Blade…I mean, Holden, needed another dog, too, we believed. Though he may have been satisfied with Lyric as a playmate, since Lyric was a guide dog, when we went out, Holden would be left alone. Holden was a bad boy when left alone, prone to tremendous acts of destruction, and we reasoned that if he wasn't left all alone, but had a better behaved dog keeping him company, then maybe that would help him straighten up and fly right. We knew even then that was unlikely, but, who knows, maybe.

Let me say right now that both of the above rationales were based on false premises. After thirty years as a dogman, I'll say, with some certainty, that an intelligent dog does not need an equal for a playmate, and, with total certainty, that leaving a good dog home alone with a destructive one is much more likely to corrupt the good one than it is to mend the ways of the bad. But, back in 1984, we were at the beginning of our learning curve, and those two reasons for getting another dog seemed reasonable enough.

Anyway, Los Angeles sucked and we wanted a puppy!

We found an ad in the paper and decided to get a three month old, German shepherd/Australian shepherd mix, puppy. We figured this would be a dog that could keep up with Lyric and who might be smart enough to reform Holden. We got to the house, and met both the parents. The father, a German shepherd, was a very friendly, stable, fellow. The Australian shepherd mother seemed just a little "off," but to be fair a couple of strangers were looking over her puppies, so I guess she had every right to be.

There were four or five puppies, but we were instantly drawn to one little grey and white female who seemed more outgoing than the others. We named her Chelsea, and took her away in the car to begin her new life.

Chelsea was not only adorable, she was perfect. She was alert and interested, liked the car ride, and didn't cry for a second when separated from everything she'd ever known. She was infested with fleas, so the very first thing we had to do, before we even brought her in the house, was give her a flea dip.

It's easy to forget now just how awful a problem fleas used to be. Whatever horrifying odorless poison is in the Frontline Plus and other flea and tick products we use today is an absolute godsend. Back in 1984, the only way to de-flea a dog was to immerse it in a fluid that stunk like kerosene, let it dry, and then dip the dog again. When we first saw Chelsea, we thought she had some small scabs on her. On closer inspection, we saw they were flea colonies, massed so as to appear solid. The flea treatment had to be traumatic for a three month old puppy, but Chelsea went through the ordeal with a happy dignity.

I haven't thought about Chelsea as a puppy for a long time, and now the memory of her is flooding me with warmth. The pictures that appear with this article are not Chelsea, but they show basically what she looked like then. She was so smart, and happy, and bright-eyed, and eager to join her family.

Lyric and Holden both accepted Chelsea at once, and she was thrilled to have two other dogs to play and live with. Everyone was happy, at least for a while.

Lyric, Holden and Chelsea would live together for the rest of their long lives. Other dogs would come and go, but those three remained the core of the pack for their entire lives. Going to California might have been a bad idea, but when we left, we had our Chelsea, so, as it turns out, something good came out of us being in Los Angeles that awful summer of 1984.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands

ScottsdaleDogMan.com

ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Dog Torture at 30,000 Feet

(Over the next several days, I'll be telling a more sustained story than I normally do. My goal for this site has always been to have every story stand on its own, independent of anything previously published. The chronology of the next four or five days entries will be sequential, comprising a larger narrative, though at the same time I hope they will each stand on their own merits, apart from the larger arc.)

It was late spring of 1984, and it turned out that Big Brother wasn't in charge after all. Ronald Reagan was. To a couple flaming liberals freshly graduated from college, this wasn't necessarily preferable.

Karen and I were living in Bloomington, IL, the town we'd gone to college in, with Karen's first Seeing Eye dog, Lyric, and Holden, a generally worthless cur whom we nonetheless adored irrationally.

For reasons too convoluted and stupid to go into here, we decided that it would be a good idea to move to Los Angeles to begin our adult lives together. We didn't have jobs, didn't know a soul there, but with Randy Newman's, "I Love L.A.," echoing in our obviously hollow heads, we knew without doubt that it was going to be the Promised Land for us.


We just had to get there. We were working on a tight budget, so we had to get there as efficiently and economically as possible. It was decided that I would drive from Illinois, in a Chevy Malibu stuffed with our belongings, and find us a place to live, and then Karen, Lyric, and Holden, would fly out.


Because this is a web site of dog stories, I'm going to skip my nightmare solo trek across the continent, involving major engine trouble in Denver. Bad as my trip might have been, it was nothing compared to poor Holden's.

Karen and I always considered the dogs to be ours, jointly. But Lyric was Karen's first Seeing Eye dog, so there was a special bond, and Holden was my special boy, because…well, because Holden needed to be someone's special boy, didn't he? Not every dog can be a Seeing Eye dog, or handsome, or smart, or consistently housebroken. I won't argue that Holden had any intrinsic or objective worth, just that every dog, A.K.C. champ or lowly cur, deserves to be someone's special boy or girl.


Initially, we considered me driving to L.A. with Holden. The difficulty there was Holden was a terrible traveler. He was alternately carsick and disruptively buoyant, with a hound's howl that he could keep up for hours when he was unhappy, and at that stage of his life, car rides made Holden unhappy. Obviously we knew he wouldn't like the experience of flying more than driving, but at least it would be over for him much more quickly.


We had used acepromazine successfully on Holden before. Acepromazine is best described as knock-out drops for dogs. If you wanted to date-rape a dog, acepromazine is what you might want to slip it. I know now that acepromazine is not absolutely safe for all dogs, but our vet at the time said it was, and none of our dogs has ever had an adverse reaction to it. One little white pill, and Holden would sleep peacefully for a two-hour car trip. Two pills, and we had the bio-equivalent of a dead dog on our hands. For his cross-country voyage, it was decided that Holden would have four acepromazine tablets.

As a Seeing Eye dog, Lyric was, of course, entitled to not only fly in the plane's cabin, but to board first with Karen. As a worthless mongrel, Holden was lucky the airline let him fly as a piece of luggage. A special crate had been purchased for Holden, and furnished with his blanket and Myron, a pink, stuffed, pig that was Holden's favorite toy. He had been given one acepromazine for the two hour drive to the airport, and slept like a contented baby for the entire ride.


Upon arrival at O'Hare, Holden's sweater was put on him, he was placed in his crate, and given the rest of his tranquilizers. Karen reported that he was doped up to the gills. Then Karen brought the crate to the guys who would load Holden onto the plane, and extracted promises from them to be extra careful with him.


The second Holden was transferred to the custody of the airport crew, he woke up and began to scream. His screaming got louder as he was carried away from Karen and taken to the plane.


I wasn't there, so I'm not sure how Karen did this, but after she and Lyric boarded, she had a chance to ask a crew member how Holden was doing.

"He's making an awful lot of noise," she was told.


Five or six hours later, the plane arrived in L.A. Karen and Lyric were the first to disembark (ah, the perks of being sightless!), and we hurried to the area where we were to pick up Holden. We were there waiting as the crew member carried Holden in his crate out of the baggage area. We knew it was Holden because we heard the screaming as soon as the door to the luggage area opened.


The crate was set down in front of us, and Holden grew quiet. I was on the floor, opening the crate to let my poor boy free.


Holden half crawled, half staggered, out of his crate. His eyes remained on the floor.


"Holden, my good boy!" I exclaimed, petting and hugging him. He continued to look at the floor, and turned away. He didn't seem to have any idea who I was, or Karen and Lyric, for that matter. Never a bright bulb, the light behind Holden's eyes was completely out.


Holden ultimately recovered, mostly, but he was never quite the same dog again. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, his innocence was gone. Before his flight, he still had a puppy's outlook on life as an invariably joyful place. Then he'd been drugged, put in a box, taken away from his mom, and put in a small, cold, noisy place, alone, for hours. The dog that got off the plane in L.A. wasn't a puppy anymore. His flight had been a rite of passage, a journey into the existential void from which one can never fully return.

Meanwhile, the whole family had entered an existential void from which we were lucky to ultimately escape; we were the four newest citizens of America's Wasteland, Los Angeles.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

My Turn: You’ve Got to Stop and Smell the Urine, by Levi

Dad's web site is misleading. If you read what he writes about me, you get the impression that I do not like puppies. Of course I like puppies! I am not a monster.


Of course, when puppies are acting wrong, I do not like what they are doing, but I still like them. My motto, concerning puppies, is, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." 


Now that I have reached an age of maturity, my experience and accumulated wisdom can be offered to stupid puppies, so they can stop being stupid and begin their journey towards being good boys, like me. 

Teach these rules of life to puppies early, and they will stop being stupid and annoying sooner.

When you go for a walk, don't pull around crazily on your leash in every direction, puppy! Walk right! But don't forget to stop and smell the urine on the way. Often you'll find that your mom or dad doesn't understand the delight of a particularly piquant prior piss, (Levi loves alliteration!) and they will try to hurry you along. This is where you should expend your energy, in learning how to STOP, really stop, in a sudden and irrevocable manner, so you can take the time to really get to sniff your neighbors. This STOP might have to stop your mom or dad while they're jogging, so make sure you really know how to plant yourself like a tree. If you can pull your human off their feet, or make them swear at you, you know you're doing it right. And don't just STOP at the beginning of a walk. Mix it up. This is your time.

Regarding your peeing, three words: learn to pace yourself. If you are going on a walk, and you empty your bladder all at once, what's the point of even continuing? Here's a good rule of thumb. Figure you're going to need enough pee for about thirty squirts per mile, and never forget that the last pee, where you're just squeezing out three drops, is just as critical as that first pee, a comparative torrent. The person walking you might indicate some irritation at your frequent stops, as my dad does, but you know what? These are your excretory habits, and you need to be firm. I don't tell dad how to pee, nor do I permit him to tell me.

Another thing puppies need to know is to be sure to take advantage of opportunity, whenever opportunity comes your way. Nothing gnaws like regret, not even a bulldog with a knuckle bone. Do you remember July 11, 2004? I do. On July 11, 2004, I had the chance to get a pan of eggs and cheese that everyone had forgot about from the counter, and I did nothing! "I'll go check the other room and make sure no one's coming," I thought, and then something was going on in the backyard, and the next thing you know, I was outside with Rocky! When I got back in, someone had moved the pan! Some of you puppies may not have had eggs and cheese, but take it from me, they will change your life if you can ever get them. They are good, like meat, but they are not meat! I love them, and I could have had a whole pan of them of July 11, 2004, but I made the mistake of not realizing that the window of opportunity will not remain open forever.

Also, puppies, hold your ears right! Most puppies let their ears flop down. That is not right! Hold your ears up proud, like I do! If you do not learn to hold your ears up when you are a puppy, then you will grow up to be a floppy-eared dog! You do not want to be a floppy-eared dog, because floppy-eared dogs look stupid, and you do not want to look stupid and have floppy-ears! So hold your ears up, puppies (except if you see me! Then put them down, submissively, or I will beat you up!)!


I have learned many things in my life, and these paltry tips merely scratch the surface of advice I have for young dogs everywhere, but they are a start. I will continue to offer life advice to stupid puppies, so they will love me and be grateful for me like everyone should be!

One last thing. Puppies, about that tail chasing stuff. It makes you look retarded, so stop it! I mean it. If I catch any of you doing it, I'll bite your ears and make you bleed! I'll…

Editor's Note: This is where I had to stop the dictation session. Levi was becoming very agitated at the thought of puppies chasing their tails, so I suggested a late walk to get his mind off the image. For the record, I think it's pretty cute when puppies do that, but that's not an argument I'm willing to have with Levi again. As usual, the dogman expressly distances himself from all of Levi's stated opinions. 

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Holden’s Sweater

Do clothes make the man? In many cases, it seems they do. Police uniforms, priests' vestments, prisoners' orange jumpsuits, all instantly define their wearer. It's further been my observation that clothes can make the dog, or, I should say, that clothes can make the dog sick. I'm referring to Holden's sweater.



Holden was my first dog, and I've written about him at some length in the past. He was ostensibly a beagle-mix, a fat, dim-witted, coarse-coated fellow, foul smelling and ill humored. To make him even less appealing, he was something of a sickly puppy.

In his first year, the harsh Illinois winter made Holden sick, giving him a cough. Since his hair was fairly short, we bought him a red argyle sweater to keep his chest warm. Because he was big-boned (I'm joking; he was fat), the only sweaters that fit Holden were, in all respects aside from his neck and chest, far too big for him, so they would hang in the back, half-way down his tail.



That first year, Holden loved his sweater. It did minimize his coughing, and he managed to be a badly behaved, though generally healthy, puppy because of it. In those olden days, dogs would just be "let out." Of course, Holden was especially terrible about coming back when it was time. He preferred to roam the neighborhood, looking for garbage to eat or doing god knows what. Most of our neighbors didn't know my name, or Karen's, but everyone knew Holden, because we were screaming for him so often.

Once we left the house to go look for him, because he'd been gone for too long, and we were walking down the street calling for him. We came across some strangers. I asked them if they'd seen a little yellow dog.



"Oh, Holden?" they asked. "No, we haven't seen him tonight." These people might have been strangers to us, but they definitely knew Holden.



We walked a little farther looking for him, and ran into another stranger. We asked him if he'd seen a little, yellow, dog.



"Was he wearing a cape?" the guy asked.

"No," I said, "It's a sweater. It just hangs long in the back."



For that first year, whenever Holden started to cough, we'd put the sweater on him. In his second year, when he was no longer a puppy, we continued to do the same. By this time, though, when Holden was coughing and feeling poorly, he didn't have even his characteristic minimal energy. By the second year, if Holden was sick, and was wearing his sweater, he was feeling essentially incapacitated.



Though Holden was a low-energy dog, who liked to conserve his calories, he was still capable of being a bad boy, especially in new situations. We were renters, and it's always more difficult to rent with dogs, and we had either two (Holden and Lyric) or three (add Chelsea). So when we met potential landlords, it was imperative that we present as a well-behaved pack. Lyric, the Seeing Eye dog, was, of course, a perfect charmer, and Chelsea was always a good girl, but Holden was unpredictable and could be decidedly squirrelly.

Then we made the discovery that controlled Holden from then on, in situations where he needed to be controlled. I don't remember how we discovered this, but we found out that if Holden was acting up, and being a little wild, if we put the sweater on him he instantly became placid. Since he associated the sweater with not feeling well, a quasi-Pavlovian syndrome had developed. When the sweater was put on him, Holden instantly believed he was sick, and acted accordingly sedate. We were able to present him to landlords and pass him off as an elderly, sedate, harmless fellow, instead of the little tub of trouble he actually was.



I wish I had some pictures of Holden, particularly in his sweater, but you'll just have to use your imagination. He looked a lot like the second dog shown in this article, except a dirty yellow color. Aesthetically unappealing as he might have been, though, Holden will always be remembered, by at least one anonymous guy in Bloomington, as that dog wearing a cape, and that's an epitaph I think Holden would be pleased with.


© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

My Turn: A Weighty Matter, by Levi

I have a bone to pick with the vet. Ordinarily, I enjoy picking bones (I am, lest you forget, a dog), but in this case, the sport of chewing is overshadowed by the seriousness of the issue at hand. According to our vet, Dr. Mengele, I assume, I need to lose weight! Me, Levi!



To further his agenda of starving dogs and cats, the vet said that Rocky and Erica were "a little overweight" as well. Chi-Chi's always been a fatty, but then it turned out she has diabetes and she's not nearly so fat now. In fact, I'd say she's just about right. Dr. Kevorkian would disagree. He says dad should be able to feel all of our ribs and spines easily. That's loony! Sure, he should be able to feel we have ribs and spines, but there shouldn't be anything easy about it. This is what I look like now:



I've heard it said that you can never be too rich or too thin. Maybe that's true about being too rich, but I can assure you, anyone thinner than me is dangerously thin.



"Why dangerously," you ask. "Aren't you engaging in hyperbole again, like when you compared the Fed Ex man to Hitler?" To that I say, "No, a hundred million times, No!"

I am not fat! This is what I would look like if I was fat! I do not look like that!


When that deranged vet says that I'm overweight, he's just demonstrating his ignorance. What he calls, "overweight," I call, "famine-proof." A smart dog like me knows trouble often lurks right around the corner. With an extra 10% or so bodyweight, I will be able to face that trouble head on, without crippling hunger thwarting my ability to plan and think clearly.



Let's suppose, for an instant, that, heaven forfend, dad and grandma ate some bad clams and keeled over dead. It could happen. Where would Chi-Chi, Rocky, Erica and I be then?



Certainly we'd be hungry, but we wouldn't starve to death. If we were what Dr. Crippen says is "ideal" weight, we would be so hungry that we would have no choice but to start eating dad and grandma immediately. Then, when help arrived, we'd look like the bad guys. That won't do. Levi never plays the villain!

With our famine-proof physiques, though, if sudden death overtook dad and grandma, we'd have at least a day before we had to start eating them to fend off death by starvation. We'd have a whole day to figure out which parts of them would be best to start with. We wouldn't have to just start eating willy-nilly, like "ideal" dogs would be forced to do. Also, maybe we'd be able to wait it out, until fortune smiled upon us once more.



In a horrible situation like that, it's possible someone could come save us. Or maybe dad and grandma would stop being dead and feed us, because we would be very hungry. But if dad and grandma stopped being dead, that would mean they hadn't been dead at all, just sleeping, maybe.



So, if we were maintained at what that crazy bastard vet says were our "ideal" weights, it could be a tragedy waiting to happen! Dad and grandma might be sleeping too long, and in our state of near starvation, the pack and I might think they were dead forever, and start eating them! Not only would we be in trouble, but it would be embarrassing. I do not like to be embarrassed.

So, in conclusion, dogs and cats should, ideally, be 10% above their "ideal" weights, so that they are famine-proof, and terrible mistakes happen less frequently. If a veterinarian says something different, he is wrong and a bad vet! He doesn't care if your dog eats you! Do you really want a guy like that treating your pets? No, of course you don't.



If your dog is more than 10% overweight, you still might want to be careful about trying to impose a diet on him. Talk with him, emphasize the health consequences, but whatever you do, let his weight-loss be his idea. When a fat dog is put on a diet he gets very hungry, and while I'm not saying a fat dog is going to eat you and your family if he gets extra hungry, I'm just saying it isn't something you want to find out about.

Editor's Note: I don't have a note today. This is just how Levi wrote it, and I think it speaks for itself. For more of Levi's interesting views, click here.


© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Old Dogs

No kind of dog makes me feel as good as an old dog.


Puppies are cuter. They'll do things to make you laugh and then make you go, "Aw." Their enthusiasm for everything is their charm.

Adult dogs are great. They can be your best friend and constant companion. They've learned the art of control and the virtue of patience, but they still remain ready for anything. If you want to get up at two in the morning and go for a walk, an adult dog will always be happy to go with you. For an adult dog, "going with you," is about as good as it gets.


But as the puppy turns into the adult, so, at some point, does the adult dog become an old dog. In an increasingly frenetic world, the old dog becomes increasingly still. He can't compete for attention with a puppy, but he knows he doesn't have to.


As a rule, old dogs know who they are, and are comfortable with it. We see an old dog with bad hips struggling to get up and think it's sad. But the dog isn't sad about it at all, and doesn't know what the fuss is about. He's just getting up, and it's not quite as easy as it used to be.


Puppies are taking everything in, starting to figure out the world. Adult dogs are alert and, hopefully, confident, and every decision they make helps define them. Old dogs are secure in themselves. Let the kids watch and strut and worry. An old dog's done that for years, and has begun to understand the futility of that sort of world orientation.

An old dog has learned acceptance, of his limitations, and the world's. An old dog doesn't sweat it, not because he doesn't care, but because he's learned that sweating it never helps. Old dogs don't get as embarrassed as they did when they were younger. When a young dog stumbles, for example, he's like a person, pretending that it didn't happen, or that he did it on purpose, or that his ankle isn't sore now. When an old dog stumbles, he slows down more so he won't stumble again, and understands that stumbling is just something that happens every now and then.


Over Thanksgiving, I pet sat for an old dog, Benson, a 13 year-old golden retriever who was suddenly consigned to home when his grandma decided she didn't want dog hair on her carpet. Benson lives one door down from me with his mom and dad and two young boys, and he adores his routine. Every morning he walks out of the house to bring the paper to dad in bed, just like a dog from a 50's sitcom. He's unfailingly polite and well-mannered.

And he was unhappy that he'd been left behind. When I came to see him Thursday morning he regarded me coldly and didn't want to be petted or comforted. He wanted to sit there, being mad at the family who left him behind when they left in the car. But then breakfast was served.


An old dog can be mad at the whole family, but he won't let that stop him from eating. Starving yourself never helped a situation. As Benson ate, he wagged his tail. Just eating his plain dog food, that he eats every day, is enough to make Benson happy, even after the terrible betrayal by his grandma. After he ate I gave him a special treat, a piece of a dog treat very much like chicken jerky. He was happy with this unexpected delight, but not overwhelmed. He took it with dignity, lay down where he'd been standing, and ate it happily.

Benson likes me, and he's happy to be fed by me, but he still knew he was left behind, and he still felt the injustice. He's always a good boy; he's earned the right to go on family trips. He doesn't let his sadness ruin the good things about life, though, and one of those good things, for Benson, is eating. He might have been ditched, and been sitting around home, alone, bored, all night, but those aren't reasons not to eat joyfully when he has his breakfast, and then to lie back down with the beautiful dignity you can only find in an old dog.


Most of the dogs I've had grew old with me. Lyric lived with us longer in retirement than she did as a worker, and for whatever reason, remembering her old makes me happier than remembering her in her prime. It's as if all the sweetness of a dog has been concentrated in an old dog, while energy, ego, overwhelming instinctual desires, and other less essential elements of the dog's being have been boiled away. Look into the eyes of an old dog, assuming cataracts don't render them unreadable, and you can see all the dignity, love, and understanding that have made dogs our partners for all these millennia.


Next time you see an old dog, get down on the ground and pet him, and really commune with him. Soak in the wisdom he's accumulated over his lifetime, and be quietly thankful for the opportunity. The dog will be glad for the contact, and will be happy to share his life's knowledge with you, if only you'll stop for a moment, and listen.

(This piece inspired a blogger friend of mine to write her own celebration of her older dogs. It's excellent and moving, and you can read it here).

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Saturday News of the Dog, now with various internet stuff!

Welcome to Saturday's News of the Dog.
There's a small change in the format of the Saturday News starting this week. You know I don't include dog horror stories in the news, like stories of dog fighting, abuse, etc. That being the case, it's sometimes hard to find enough good dog news in a week to fill a web page. So, from now on, instead of strictly news, Saturday will be weekly dog news as well as dog and cat stuff I find around the internet. I guess the main thing to remember about Saturday's posting is, I still don't write any of it myself. Not that it isn't still hard work, of course.
Now, without further ado, this week's News of the Dog:

50 homeless, puppy-mill, dogs, get a Thanksgiving feast in Chicago on their way to new homes in New York. Excellent!

What was the deal with dogs at the first Thanksgiving? I was idly wondering, and then I stumble across this news story.







As has become a Saturday tradition, here's another freakishly large dog, this one is Boomer, from right here in the USA (well, South Dakota, but that's close enough).

This is so great! A squirrel attacks a dog who is going after her babies. Poor dog. Good for you, squirrel! See here!

What are you getting your dog or cat for Christmas? It'll be here before you know it.

This might be the saddest dog story I've ever read. At least it's the saddest I've read recently. It's called, "The Rescued Lab and His Tennis Balls." Proceed at your own risk here.














And, finally, a dog that does her own laundry! This is pretty impressive.