The Dog Blog

Days are shortening, Thanksgiving is behind us, we began the festival of lights — Hanukah — tonight at sundown! Speaking of sundown, we in the northern hemisphere are on that trajectory to get shorter and shorter days for the next 3 weeks before the solstice and only then, in what is often an excruciating slowness, a steady increase back to light. Strong evidence winter is on the way as the calendar flipped to December — whipping breezes in the wind tunnel of my driveway, hardening of the muddy dirt in the backyard along with some dusting of snow, and a realization that warm weather is for the most part gone from these here parts of Cleveland for at least another 3 months. No more running outside barefoot to grab the paper in the morning unless I want to risk great discomfort or masochism!

Martha is an 83 year old woman.  She's a lovely lady, but after losing her husband, is a bit lonely.  Her children are grown, with children and agendas of their own.  They're busy, they don't call as often as they used to.  Martha wants a friend, desirous of the companionship she so misses.  She gets in her car and makes a trip to the local "humane society."  "May I see the dogs?" she asks. 

She is brought into the kennel area.  Looking over all the dogs, she finds one that tugs at her heart strings.  Enter Beau, a seventeen month old black Labrador Retriever.  Beau looks a lot like the first dog Martha and her husband George had adopted together.  "That's the one,"  she says, pointing and smiling at Beau.  The shelter volunteer nods, "that'll be $150 adoption fee and you can take Beau home today!"

Martha makes out the check and walks out to her car with Beau.

This past month, puppies are presenting with persistent jumping jack-in-the-box behaviors, and owners seeking help, immediate help. Some I am seeing privately, others in class, and yet another in a board and train setting. One was a three year old Great Dane who had been woefully under socialized and had fear related behaviors. Some of the pups were athletically leaping to shoulder height, nipping and grabbing at clothes, and had left a few bruises and torn clothing items behind. This is not good. This kind of overly aroused wildly unfettered behavior needs to be nipped in the bud. Why do puppies jump up anyways? Because:

By now most of you have heard the story of Target, the hero dog originally from Afghanistan who was accidentally euthanized at Pinal County, Arizona's animal control last week in a case of mistaken identity. You may have also heard that the shelter worker who put Target to sleep has since been fired for making the tragic error.

My heart goes out to Target’s family for their loss, this is indeed a sad story, but I’m dismayed to see the shelter and shelter worker cast as the scapegoats or worse, as villains in this tragedy. They did indeed make a terrible, irreversible mistake but the real problem lies much deeper than this single, highly publicized incident.