Weekly Recap

It's been another full week here at the Dogman's Den.


Thanks for stopping by and reading my work. I am appreciative of what people's time means to them, so anyone who gives up some of their day to read these natterings has earned my gratitude. I hope you'll keep stopping by, and enjoying what you find here. If you see something you like, and want to make it viral across the internet, that's perfectly alright with me.

On Sunday, I devoted a piece to Karen, my late wife, and, I suppose, the dogwoman. I didn't set out to collect all these animals on my own.

Monday brought Levi's anti-Obama editorial that seemed to come out of nowhere. Levi's kind of an inscrutable fellow, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at his views.


Tuesday I was lazy, and stuck a YouTube clip of The World's Ugliest Dog Contest. Look, it was the first day I haven't written something original since I started doing this. I'm just saying, worse crimes have been committed.

On Wednesday, I told about my ugliest dog, my first dog, Holden. He was ugly, stupid, fat and smelly, but I still adored him. Go figure. I guess that's the thing about dogs.

Finally, on Thursday, I took a piss on the Rainbow Bridge. It's a lovely sentiment, and nice to imagine it's real, but when you break the thing down into its logistical components, you're looking at potentially a very bad scene.


Tomorrow: Saturday's News of the Dog. Let's hope for a better week than last one.



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

The Problem with the Rainbow Bridge

If you have a dog or cat, or spend any time on the internet, you've almost certainly come across the prose-poem called, "Rainbow Bridge." 

It's very sweet, and sentimental, and can make grown men sniffle, yet all I can do is take great solace in the knowledge that there is no such place, because, if there were, I'm afraid it wouldn't be nearly as nice as it's made out to be.


Here's the piece, of unknown authorship, for those who have somehow escaped it thus far:


Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge


When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food and water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.

The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing: they miss someone very special to them; who had to be left behind. They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. The bright eyes are intent; the eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to break away from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster. YOU have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart. 

 

After reading these beautiful paragraphs, who wouldn't want to meet their dearly departed pets there on the banks of the Rainbow Bridge? 

Me, for one.


If I died today, there would be forty or fifty dogs and cats waiting for me at Rainbow Bridge, all demanding my undivided attention, each considering me their one and only master. Imagine the hell that will break lose when Holden and Levi each rush to be first to see me. Poor Holden will get pulverized.


I've "owned" all my dogs and cats with Karen. Did they all meet her at Rainbow Bridge? And what about Arthur? He was Karen's Seeing Eye dog, but she died before he did? Is he sitting at the banks of the Rainbow Bridge psychotically guarding his Frisbee, waiting for me to throw it, or is he on the other side, pushing his way between Karen and Lyric? And, assuming poor Levi goes before I do, is he going to be forced to wait for me with Arthur, his tormentor, until I finally show up?


No, Rainbow Bridge is one of those things that works fine in theory, like communism or having sex with "just friends." It's only when you get to the nitty-gritty details and necessary implications and repercussions that you see the glaring flaws in these seemingly perfect ideas.



Of course we want to be with the pets we love forever. It's only natural. But under the Judea-Christian-Islamic system, animals don't have souls, and certainly won't enjoy a heavenly afterlife like that described in the Rainbow Bridge. It's peculiar, then, that this particular writing seems to appeal especially to Christians. 

According to Wikipedia (the source of all truth) the Rainbow Bridge has similarities with the Bifröst bridge of Norse Mythology, which was the bridge to Norse Heaven. Surely that's not where our American pets wait for us. So where did this idea of Rainbow Bridge come from? Could it just be made up, like every other answer offered regarding what happens after death?


What happens after death, to us and our pets, is the big question. Are we reunited forever in the afterlife, is there a special paradise for animals, or do we all molder for eternity in the cold earth?


I say we molder, but it doesn't matter. As long as each of us live, the love we had for each pet in our life lives on with us. As I wrote yesterday, Holden, fifteen years dead, will always be my dog. So will Lyric and Vinnie and all of them. I don't need to wait until I die and get to the Rainbow Bridge to be with them again. I'm always with them.

All the dogs and cats I've ever had are with me, inside me, now, and that sure beats the huge dog pack and clowder of cats that would be waiting to mob for me at the bridge. There would be so many jumping at me so fast, that I'd surely fall off, into who knows what sort of limbo.



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

My Ugliest Dog

Speaking ill of the dead is usually considered bad form, but, if I'm going to write truthfully, unflattering facts will need to be addressed from time to time. The fact is, the first dog I ever got on my own, with Karen, in the early 80's, was an unattractive, unintelligent, pretty much altogether unappealing, beagle mix of some horrible kind or the other, whom we named, Holden. I don't have any pictures of Holden, so those posted with this article are approximations.


Holden wasn't grotesque like the dogs in the ugliest dog contest. He was just an ugly dog. He was represented as a "beagle-mix," but exactly what that meant was anybody's guess. He was about standard beagle size, and he had floppy ears, but the resemblance essentially stopped there.

Like Levi, Holden was a yellow dog. But Levi's yellow is a bright one, evoking sunlight and gold, while Holden's yellow had a dullness, like dead leaves on a forest floor. It was a muddy yellow. He had a dark, saddle marking, visible across his back, not enough to make him two-tone, just enough to make him muddier. 

His coat was short and bristly, like a pig's. His eyes were beady. He was fat, with bad breath, and gassy, to boot. On top of all of this, Holden was dumb as a doorknob. He had a certain slyness he could call upon to do things, like escape from the house, but nothing that would indicate anything that could reasonably be termed intelligence.

The day before we got Holden, Karen and I had moved into our first apartment, a tiny second-story walk-up in a 100 year old house on Monroe St. in Bloomington, IL. The first thing we had to get was a dog. We'd been in dorms, and, setting out on our own, we were going to have dogs with us. Karen was going to get her first Seeing Eye dog in a few months, so we wanted to get a dog immediately, so it would be acclimated by the time the new Seeing Eye dog arrived.

It was early March, and when we looked through the newspaper, usually full of free dogs, we were disheartened to see very slim pickings. In fact, in the age and size range we were seeking, there was only one choice, and it was about 25 miles outside Bloomington in a little town called Rantoul. We got in our completely unroadworthy car and drove to meet our destiny.

We got to a manufactured home with a poorly constructed wire fence around the yard. It was cold, so no dogs were outside. We rang the bell and a howling arose, the likes of which I honestly haven't heard since. It was the howl of at least a dozen dogs, every one of which matched the description I've given of Holden almost exactly. They were all ages and colors, and it seemed like a dynasty of dump dogs had been assembled in this humble home.


We were shown the puppies, two of which remained for adoption. The ad had said they were three months old, but with my subsequent knowledge of dogs, I'd venture Holden was at least six months old when we met. His sister, our other choice, was too badly socialized to even approach us. Holden did, and so we took him. He proved to have been badly socialized as well.



I'm a terrible shopper. I'll always take the first one I see that meets my needs, whether it's a pair of jeans, a used car, an apartment or a puppy. I try to have someone with me during these important purchases now, but that day Karen was my companion, and she was blind, so I don't think she fully appreciated the lack of attractiveness of Holden. Or, maybe, like me, she was determined to get a dog that day, and, having no other options, it was going to be Holden.


After vomiting and urinating on us several times during the ride home, we brought him in, where he proceeded to act like a petrified freak for a week. Of course he finally came around, and grew to love us, then his sisters, Lyric and Chelsea.

I adored Holden. I doted upon him like I now do on Levi. I objected vehemently whenever anyone else pointed out that Holden was ugly and dumb (he was bad, too, but examples of that are for another day). He was my dog, and I loved him, and that's all that matters. He didn't have to do anything but be Holden to be loved, and with all his deficiencies he seemed to understand this basic fact. I think back objectively about Holden, and, as you can see, I can't exactly articulate a redeeming quality, but somehow I loved him with the same devotion as I now do Levi, who happens to be the best dog in the world. 


That's the thing about dogs and people. It doesn't matter to one if the other is ugly and dumb any more than it mattered to me that Holden was. He was my boy, and that's about the end of the story. 

And when I remember Holden, before words like "dumb" and "ugly" and "smelly" come to mind, I remember that I loved him with everything I had, and thinking about him does nothing but help me revisit the glow of an old friendship. The faults of dogs, or people, that we love, don't die with them, but neither do they diminish the love we feel for them. With twenty years distance, I can look back and see Holden for the poor specimen he was, but I don't feel any less love for him than I did when he was my dog. 

Excuse me. Holden will always be my dog. 


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

2009 World's Ugliest Dog

Father Flannigan said there's no such thing as a bad boy. I think he was wrong. I've known some very bad boys in my time.

But the Dogman knows there's no such thing as an ugly dog. Of course, there are especially handsome dogs, like Levi, but I've never known an ugly one. Not even Chi-Chi.

Watch this contest and see if you think these kids are ugly. I know Pabst can come live with me today! And I really doubt Levi would give him any grief at all.

My Turn: NO-bama, by Levi

The current inhabitant of the White House must go. Ordinarily, I do my best to keep my political views to myself, but in this instance, the need to speak out, for my country, outweighs my normal habit of discretion. Though I've been a yellow dog democrat my whole life,  I repeat; Obama must go!

First, he's not even American. Being American is one of the requirements, right? Obama's not! It says so right on his birth certificate!

Second, Obama is an "elite." In these times, do we need an "elite" in the White House? As usual, that question was rhetorical, and, as usual, I'll answer anyway. No! The White House should be inhabited by a regular American, not by a foreign "elite," which is exactly what that Obama is!

Third, he's way too young for his position. I don't even think that's an assertion that can be debated.

Finally, there is the issue everyone skirts around whenever they discuss Obama; his color. He's black. I don't know about you, but all the blacks I've known have been stupid and lazy and mean and bad. There is no reason for us to have a black at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It doesn't make sense. We non-blacks have to come together to restore the natural order to our country.

For the above-stated reasons, I hereby declare that Bo Obama should be impeached, and removed from the White House, in a van with cages in the back, preferably by men with long poles.


In support of my position I say:



Look at his papers! It says right on them, "Portuguese Water Dog." Where I come from, "Portuguese" is just another way of saying "foreign." And what the hell is a "water dog?" I'm a meat dog, and that's the only kind of dog there should be!


Speaking of papers: He has them! What's up with that? Bo Obama, that AKC registered, son-of-a-bitch, walks around like he's better than everyone! Well, you're not better than me, Bo Obama, no matter how many Secret Service goons you have to pick up your poop!

Bo Obama's youth and inexperience is a definite strike against him. He is a puppy! Puppies are stupid! I usually have to beat up puppies, just so they will stop being stupid! And now this stupid puppy is romping around the Rose Garden, which my taxes pay for? 

A smart dog should live in the White House, and if a puppy like Bo is going to be there, a smart dog, like my big brother, Arthur, better be there, too, to show the stupid puppy how to do things right, so he will grow up to be a good boy like me.


Then there's the color card, and I am going to play it. Black dogs are stupid and lazy and mean and bad. Everyone knows that. I don't know how many times I've heard that at the dog park, and if you hear something enough, it's true. 

So, if Bo Obama is a black dog (and he is), then he is stupid and lazy and mean and bad! Q.E.D. The President of the United States should not have a dog who is stupid and mean and lazy and bad. Therefore, Bo Obama should be taken away, in a van with cages in the back. 

If the president does not want to do this, then Bo Obama could be given a shot, like the one the vet gave Arthur, when he was limping, and then get taken away in a black, plastic, bag. One way or the other, though, Bo must go!


Dad says I'm intolerant and irrational about black dogs, and says that they're not stupid and lazy and bad and mean. He said Vinnie was a very nice dog. Maybe, but I've heard stories about him, and he doesn't sound smart. So, maybe, black dogs are just stupid or lazy or bad or mean. Either way, it is manifestly evident that Bo Obama must be forcibly removed from office by men with long poles! With extreme prejudice!

"But, Levi," I hear some of you stupid readers saying, "Bo isn't all black. He has a white chest and white front paws." If you say that, you're stupid, because having some white in you does not make you not a black dog, does it, stupid? Even a stupid black dog would know that. If someone drops white ice cream on a black floor, when I'm done licking up the ice cream, the floor is still black. 

A black dog isn't fit to live in the White House, and having some white in him doesn't change that. It's not like he's a white dog with some black in him. That would be a totally different story.

So, in conclusion, I have proven that Bo Obama is a bad boy, and he must be removed from office. He is foreign, and "elite", and a puppy, and a black dog. He should be replaced by an American dog, finely blended from different breeds, like myself. I'm set with dad, but there are other good dogs, besides me. Yellow dogs, brown dogs, white dogs! Tri-color dogs of all stripe and spot! Mr. President, the good dogs of America will be glad to chase your tennis balls! Just get rid of that Bo!


If I ever meet Bo Obama, I will beat him up and make his ear bleed! Then, when someone asks, "What's black and white and red all over," the best answer will be, "Bo Obama." And everyone will rejoice with laughter, because Levi has made a good joke!

Editor's Note: First off, I want it known that I don't endorse any of Levi's views, nor do I know where he gets a lot of his ideas from. As is my habit, I offered to edit this for Levi, removing certain things, like saying his taxes pay for the Rose Garden. Levi is a dog. Of course, he doesn't pay taxes, but when reminded of this, he says he won't pay taxes because he has no representation. 
I also tried to explain to him that before he could possibly beat up Bo Obama, he would be shot down, like the proverbial mad dog, but Levi still insists he wants to fight the president's puppy. 
A number of other instances of wrong-headed thinking were pointed out to Levi prior to this posting, but he insisted that not a word be changed. I strongly urged him not to call the readers stupid, as this might be offensive to some of them. "Yes," he said, "The stupid ones." So, please, be sure any comments or reactions are directed to Levi, not me. 
For the record, I am an enormous supporter of President Barack Obama, and wish him, his family, and, especially, Bo, nothing but the best. R.S.

For more of Levi's views, see last week's editorial, "Those People at the Door." Levi has informed me that his "My Turn" pieces are the only thing worth reading on this entire site, and he has demanded a weekly column. I've agreed, so next Monday, and every Monday, check back for another steaming pile of Levi's thoughts and opinions.

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

Karen

In my case, at least, I didn't become a dogman on my own. I had a co-conspirator who collected dogs and cats with me, my wife, Karen who passed away from breast cancer in January, 2002. She remains alive, not only in my memory, but in a number of the stories that come out of the den. In order to tell you enough about Karen, I would need to write a book, which I may ultimately do. For now, though, allow me a slight diversion from dogs and cats to tell you just a little bit about her.



Karen and I met in college in 1979, when she was still Karen Frerichs. She was memorable in that she was the only blind student at the university. You never would have known she was blind from a distance, and, except for one eye that was sort of misdirected, you wouldn't have known up-close. She was a psychology major, beautiful with long, chestnut, hair, and dating my friend, Jeff. We were nothing but friends for the first year and a half we knew each other.

Then Karen and Jeff broke up. I read her The Catcher in the Rye one January. According to international law governing the behavior of hot blind girls, once a guy reads Catcher in the Rye to one, they are obligated to fall in love with him, or, at very least, sleep with him. Don't complain to me about this. I didn't  draft the law, I just benefited from it.

Once Karen and I were together, we were spiritually married. The real marriage would take place sometime later, in a dog park, of all places. As soon as we got our first apartment we got our first dog, who we named Holden, appropriately enough. Then Karen got her first Seeing Eye dog, Lyric, and it was a whole lot of dogs and cats ever after.

Karen went to the University of Illinois College of Law. Though I read her curriculum to her, and her dog, Lyric, got her around campus, the accomplishment of graduating, and then passing the bar exam in New Mexico, belong entirely to Karen. Law school's hard, and the bar exam is harder, for those who can see. A blind person could get through law school on charm and pity, but there's no way to influence the bar exam. It's a two-day test from hell, and having to take it with someone reading it out loud to you seems incomprehensible.

Karen was also frighteningly funny and easy going. She was a hard drinking and smoking gal, and she loved to swear.  Making prank phone calls was a kind of specialty. Once, I was working at a personal injury firm, where I met my good friend, Rick. We did intakes about injuries sustained by people who had seen our firm's commercials on T.V. It wasn't much of a firm, and we didn't get many calls.


One day, Rick got a call from a lady downstate. She spoke in a thick accent, that sounded like that of black people from southeast New Mexico and southwest Texas. She talked to Rick for over an hour about her injury, supposedly sustained at the pet store she worked at, when a crazed chimp (who wasn't even supposed to be there) bit her on the face. Now she was worried that the chimp's owner, the caller's boss, was going to maliciously sic the chimp on her, and Lord help her if that happened!


Of course the caller was Karen, and the three of us laughed for months over it. I just got an e-mail from Rick about the call that brought the whole thing back and had me laughing, hard, again. I have no doubt that Rick was laughing as he wrote it. I could give a million examples, but, suffice to say, she was a very funny woman.

She played piano, and sang in cocktail bars, and could do "Me and Bobby McGee" in a way that would do Janis Joplin proud.


She originally got a job as a prosecutor at the D.A.'s office, but had to leave over ethical issues. She learned that the D.A. encouraged, no insisted, that his lawyers be dishonest with the court on occasion. After she was ordered by her supervisor to tell a judge she has witnesses ready for trial, when in fact she did not, Karen chose to do the ethical thing and resign from the D.A.'s office. 

She became a criminal defense attorney, and she never lost a single case she took to trial against the state, and continued to find it a very rare occasion when the state prosecuted their cases in an honest and ethical manner. I went to work with her as her assistant, and she and I both believed that only with strong, ethical, defense attorneys, would prosecutor's office's operate within the bounds of the law and fundamental fairness.

She always used guide dogs and loved the independence and safety they afforded her. She loved all dogs, and if there was a stray dog or cat within a five mile radius, it would find her. We had a chicken coop in the back of our old Albuquerque house, and Karen insisted we fill it with chickens, and a rooster, named Buff.

Karen had a host of medical problems, the main one being, of course, her blindness, which had a mysterious cause, with an onset just prior to puberty, and no cure. She also had early, pre-cancerous, incidents, where, in every case, the pathologist would eventually shake his head, and say, "These cells aren't cancerous, but I'll be damned if I know what they are!" 

She had migraines, and she got banged around a lot. I'd yell at her, urging her not to move around like an idiot like she could see, but Karen figured the occasional egg-sized knot on her forehead was a small price to pay for normalcy.

I'd been with Karen just under 20 years when she died, after fighting breast cancer like she'd fought everything else throughout her life. She had to fight society to be allowed to be a blind girl in a public high school in the 1970s. Not only did she attend, she was a cheerleader.

She had to fight the Department of Rehabilitation to get any help through college and law school. She had to fight discrimination, first for being a woman, and then for being a blind woman. She had to fight for her clients, and fight for the truth. 

She would have just as soon not have fought so often and so hard, but she wasn't going to back away from any fight that was just and necessary, and she would fight to the death, if that was required. What really sucks is that she died fighting cancer, which isn't just and only questionably necessary. Karen always wanted to live, but if she had to die, I wish she could have died fighting an adversary, not a stupid, random, epidemic disease which, if malignant enough, can't be beat.



I never knew Karen not to love a dog or cat (or horse, chicken, etc.), and I never knew a dog or cat not to love her back. She was a true dogwoman. 

There's a lot more to say about Karen, of course, but the main thing for now is Erica, Levi and I miss her a lot, and you need to know who she was to fully appreciate some of my recounting of things that happened to us.

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

Saturday News of the Dog

Frankly, it's been a horrible week in dog news. I just cover good dog news here, and there are slim pickings. If you want to read about dog concentration camps, and torture, and euthanization and organized fighting rings, and a million other awful things, that's what's all over the news this week. It's enough to turn your stomach. But, here are a few items of non-horrible dog news from this week.


 

There's a judge in South Carolina who likes to bring her dogs to court with her. They're good dogs who behave themselves, and I don't see a problem with it. The city council, though, wants to make her stop. I have no doubt this is the most pressing issue before the city council. 

San Francisco city supervisors vote to ban declawing in the city and county. Very cool. Declawing is an atrocity. It's hard for me to believe there are still vets who are willing to do it.

This is good news, I guess. After the biggest dog-fighting ring ever in the U.S. was broken up, almost 300 of the dogs have been rehabilitated and given 2^nd chances in adoptive homes.

Finally, I've been a huge Al Franken fan for more than 30 years, and now I'm a big Senator Al Franken fan, and a big service dog fan, as well. As if to specifically appeal to me, Senator Franken's first bill introduced in the senate is the "Service Dogs for Veterans Act." Its purpose: To provide service dogs to veterans. As long as the city council in that South Carolina town doesn't get to vote on it, I would think it will go through. Well done, Senator!


© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands

ScottsdaleDogMan.com

ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

The Dogman Speaks and Weekly Recap

What an exciting week in the Den!


Readership of this site is steadily increasing. My page hits are way up, due to listings with Entreecard and Adgetize, but those numbers mean relatively little. A lot of those people drop by my page, click an ad, and leave, which is cool. That's the way those programs work. But at least some are staying and reading the writing on the wall (of the den), and from what I can figure, it seems about 100 people a day are actually reading this thing. And that's not bad.


On the other hand, it's not near enough. If you like a particular piece, or the whole blog, pass it on to a friend. My motive for the moment is simply to entertain. I write these pieces for the joy of writing, and to rebuild the habit of producing work daily. I try to make every piece I post as entertaining, informative, moving or funny as possible. Naturally, I'd like them to reach as many people as they can.

Also, thanks to you 100 or so people who are reading regularly. I have one other request. Leave a comment now and then. Subscribe by e-mail, or follow the site in a feed reader. Drop a note on Facebook. It's enormously helpful to me to know you're out there.

Finally, this weekend I'm babysitting my favorite dog in the world (who isn't Levi, that is), Henry. Henry is a pretty enormous mongrel of some kind or the other. Some pictures of him will be up next week. He and Levi used to be good friends. They hadn't seen each other in a few years, and last night they were reunited. 

Things could have gone better. There was some fighting, which is always adrenaline pumping with dogs that size, but nobody got hurt and it was mostly a jockeying for position sort of thing. Henry's mom and I will get the boys together more often, so they can get used to each other and be friends again, but for this weekend, Levi will be staying in his own house when I'm taking care of Henry.


And now, the weekly wrap-up:

Levi wrote a guest editorial, all by himself! I asked him to write something about what he perceives are the problems in the world, and he promptly produced a "My Turn" piece entitled, "Those People at the Door." It seems Levi has some pretty serious (and to my mind, unfounded) problems with "those people at the door." Check it out. Levi worked hard on it.


A Cast of Characters went up, which will always be accessible from the main page. If you forget which dog was which, or when they lived with me, this is where you can go to get the facts straight.

Vinnie Goes to the Zoo, is a gently funny true story about guide dogs, where they're allowed, and what it's like for them when they visit the zoo. 

All Dogs' Eyes Are the Same Size! An interesting animal "fact." The title says it all.


And, while you're at it, make sure you take a look at the two part story, "Levi's Issues." It's Levi's history, and helps explain why he is like he is, and why his dad adores him anyway.


I'll see you tomorrow with the weekly edition of News of the Dog!

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

All Dogs' Eyes Are the Same Size!

The Seeing Eye breeds all its own dogs, and keeps meticulous record of any genetic defect that could affect a dog's fitness for work, such as hip dysplasia. Although Vinnie was perfectly healthy, his bloodline had been stopped because of a hereditary retinal defect. Since the Seeing Eye had a definite interest in making sure none of their dog graduates went blind, they arranged for Vinnie to be checked, annually, by a veterinary ophthalmologist.



Even in this age of specialization, it's difficult for me to imagine what it is that makes someone get on the path to become a veterinary ophthalmology. Before Vinnie had to be checked, I had no idea such a specialized vet existed, and was apparently busy enough to have a thriving practice in a smallish city such as Albuquerque.

I bring this up because this doctor, whose name I can't recall, told me something I've never been able to forget. He told me all dogs eyes are the same size.

Initially, I didn't understand what he meant, so he explained. "If you scooped out the eyeball of a Great Dane and a Chihuahua," the vet told me, "And laid them out on the table, the eyeballs would be the same size." What can you say when you're given a piece of information like that?

"Oh."

"The eye is the first major organ to develop in a fetus," The doctor explained. "It's a series of genetic switches being pulled, or not being pulled, as the dog develops, that determine what kind of characteristics they have. A small dog, for instance, has genetic switches for growth flipped to the 'off' position, sometime early during gestation. A giant dog, like a Newfoundland, never has those genes flipped off."


"But all the variation you see in dogs, size, color, temperament, all the variation, takes place on the genetic level after the eyeball has developed. That's why small dogs often seem to have bulging eyes. Their skulls are holding the same size orbs as their gigantic brethren."

The vet allowed that there were minute differences in eye size, and that disease, or bad genetics. could result in an eye larger or smaller than usual, but, all things being equal, all dogs have the same size eyeballs. 

I've refrained from scooping any dog's eyes out to compare size, but as I look at dogs I know, I'm fairly confident the vet was right.

I can find no confirmation, or denial, of this "fact" on the internet. I once spoke to another vet, this one a general practitioner, who adamantly denied the assertion. So I don't know, for sure, but, as is my habit, I go around repeating it as fact anyway. After all, a veterinary ophthalmologist told me. Why wouldn't I believe it? You, on the other hand, are being given this information by some lunatic on the internet. Believe it or not, the choice is yours. I'm simply truthfully sharing what I was told.



I'll say this. What the doctor said makes sense. Little dogs do seem to have enormous eyes, while bigger dogs can seem to have a beadier countenance, and I choose to believe what the specialist contracted by the Seeing Eye told me. It squares with my understanding of neology and dog evolution and development. Mainly, though, I choose to believe this because, in any situation, when the room falls silent, and no one knows what to say, this is guaranteed to cause some sort of reaction:

"Hey, did you know that if you scooped out a Great Dane's eyeballs and a Chihuahua's eyeballs, you could put the Dane's eyes back in the Chihuahua, and vice versa, and they'd fit?" 

If that doesn't start the conversation up, it's probably time for everyone to just go home and go to bed.



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