Anniversary

One year from the day that Cole, Jasmine, and Barry White were confiscated from the abusive hands of their former owner:

Eat it Cold

Another fantastic PSA from the Norwegian Association of the Blind:



I would so raise a guide dog puppy for these guys.

I Lied

In this post, I laxed wyrical about young Cole's quick discovery that human children were super-kewl, even though he had never seen one in his life.

Today I wanted to find some puppy photos of Cole's brother Charlie.

While reviewing my files from January, I discovered that I had lied.

On one of my last days in Billings, Operation New Beginnings got some special visitors.

The woman who filed the cruelty complaint against Linda Kapsa with Yellowstone County, and then took it in her teeth and would not let go until the authorities acted, brought her two young children.

She wanted the kids to see why Mommy had been so preoccupied. What all the fuss had been about. Why we do what is right even when it is not what is easy.

The kids could not come inside the sheriff's perimeter fence. So I broke another rule (I hadn't realized it was a rule) and randomly selected a puppy from the seven in the bitch barn to bring outside. (Or did I pick up the first one to come to me?)

The photos don't lie -- it was young Cole, not any of his siblings, romping with the children on that warm day in January.

I am not posting the cutest of the pictures, because they necessarily expose the children's faces. Not gonna do that.

Did those few minutes playing in the winter sun open up a channel in Cole's brain while his synapses were still being pruned?

There were few takers

H/T to commenter "straybaby" over at the Pet Connection for this article about veterans and homeless dogs.

Hooray!

One of my obscure antiquarian book treasures is this:

History of Dogs for Defense
by Fairfax Downey

Part historical record, part public relations campaign, and part excruciating period piece. Mr. Downey's attempt to affect a breezy gee whiz style provides cringe-inducing passages about "Japs" and "Nips" and lots of references to the dogs as "chum" and "pal" in stilted fictionalized dialogue. The style it most evokes is that of the miserable self-serving hack Albert Payson Terhune.

Nevertheless, it is an original source, and valuable even in the face of a possibly unreliable author. It is sometimes difficult to parse out the difference between a normal absence of foresight and an appalling lack of self-awareness on Mr. Downey's part.

Downey did not grok, for example, that his account of dogs (or more properly, dog ownership) as therapy for "shell shocked" veterans would be one of the saddest things I have ever read:

These Dogs for Convalescents as they came to be called were in effect a revival in a new form of the casualty or ambulance dog, used fairly extensively in the First World War though little in the Second. On the battlefield they ahd searched out the wounded and led parties back to their aid. Now these dogs helped wounded men find themselves. And they led their masters back to health as surely as Seeing Eye dogs guided blind veterans.

Soon after the advent of "Fritz" the Air Forces hospital and its pleasant grounds, formerly a boarding-school, began to resemble a kennel club show, an obedience class in more or less continuous session, and a K-9 training camp. Dogs were everywhere. For a time those that were house-broken were allowed to sleep at the foot of their masters' beds in the wards, but the situation reached a point where it was more than the staff could cope with, and kennels were required.

"Fritz" had created demand. Mrs. Preston and fellow-enthusiasts managed supply. Most calls were for Spaniels, German Shepherds, Boxers, Doberman Pinschers, Fox Terriers (both wirehaired and smooth), Boston Terriers, Collies, Setters, Pointers, Airedales, Scotties, Dalmatians, Beagles, and Retrievers. Aside from breed, patients almost always asked that their dog be a veteran of the K-9 Corps or purebred.

Insistence on purebreds was based on the wounded men's pride in the dogs' appearance, their adaptability to training, and on eagerness for pets to make a good showing in the dog show and exhibitions which commenced to be staged as part of the program. When mongrels were offered or a basket of foundling puppies was left at the gate, there were few takers.

There it is, right there. The post-war conversion of dog from working partner and companion into consumer product and brand-name ego surrogate.

Mrs. Preston, the helpful dog "fancier" who ran dog shows and brought in an AKC judge to appraise the "quality" of the wounded soldiers' kennel-bound pedigree pets -- we can thank Mrs. Preston for jump-starting the degradation of American middle-class dogs into brand-name consumer satisfaction.

Men who had given nearly all, and who had watched their friends die, to fight Nazis and Nazi ideology, now encouraged to cultivate pride in the purity of their living property, and pride in winning a contest of appearances. Taught by The Fancy as part of their government-run therapy what makes a "better" dog. Rassehund uber alles.

What decades of genetic damage and cultural delusions might have been avoided in 1944 if someone had been there to take the veterans coon hunting instead? If fair and open contests of obedience and function had channeled the soldiers' competitive urges?

Might compassion have combated consumerism in post-war America if the men had been encouraged to rehabilitate dogs who needed them, rather than demand dogs with the appearance they had been conditioned to want?

Sixty-five years later, thanks to Pets2Vets, the basket of foundling puppies finally has some takers.

Recall

Come!

See. Worked.

Timing is everything.

A joyous Solstice to you and yours

Lilly's Choice Biscuits

Ten years ago, Lilly was the celebrity judge for a dog biscuit baking contest at a local animal shelter's fundraising fair.

Mel was disqualified for being insufficiently discriminating in her "food" choices. But she did a dandy demonstration of opening dog-proof containers.

This was the winning recipe, and I've never found a dog who disagreed with Lilly about it.

I usually make a double batch of these, and will cook some up tonight. I got a lot of shredded cheese very cheap -- the local stores are pricing them as loss leaders this week.


Lilly's Choice Biscuits

Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats (oatmeal)
1/3 cup butter or margerine
1 cup boiling water

3/4 cup corn meal
1 tablespoon sugar
1-2 teaspoons bouillon (I use the paste-type soup base)
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1 cup (4 oz by weight) shredded cheddar
1/2 cup milk
1 beaten egg

2-3 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour

Pre-heat oven to 325
Grease cookie sheets

In large bowl combine
oats
butter/margarine
boiling water

Set aside for ten minutes while the oats swell up.

Mix in well
cornmeal
sugar
bouillon
milk
cheese
egg

Add flour one cup at a time, mixing each cup in well. This will form a stiff dough. Continue adding flour while kneading in to dough ball on a floured surface until dough is smooth and no longer sticky -- about 3-4 minutes of kneading. Roll dough* to 1/2" thickness. Cut out with cookie cutters.

Place 1 inch apart on greased cookie sheets. Bake for 35-45 minutes -- until golden brown. Smack Professor Chaos' hand with spatula as he steals them. (These are delicious, but once cooled, a bit hard for human teeth). Cool completely before storing.

* I use a pastry cloth and stockinette roller cover for all my pastry rolling needs now. Has made life much easier.

Snapshot Saturday: Fosters' First Snow

Jasmine and Cole were puppies when they were seized almost one year ago.

As a throwaway unsold pup out in the infamous "J-pen," Jasmine's baby experience of winter and snow does not bear contemplation. Cole, who was found in a hole under a trailer, experienced less of winter, but more than any month-old puppy ever should.

Barry White is perhaps five or six years old. He has known Winter.

Some of the older dogs have shown some behavior regression as snow and ice take over the landscape of their new homes.

Though Jasmine and Barry White are now sleeping indoors and spending part of each day in the house as well as their time in the well-sheltered kennel and their walks and playtime, they are now eating twice as much food as a month ago. Winter is hungry for calories. The Snow Queen will take those animals who can't get enough.

Barry White is not comfortable in the confines of the house -- he's still nervous about tight spaces, narrow doorways, and traps of all kinds. But when I go out to bring him in on the coldest nights, he pulls me towards the front door and the promise of warmth. I put the dogs out in the morning while I layer up and fill water buckets for morning chores. While the youngsters romp, Barry White stays on the porch staring at the front door, waiting for me to appear. He doesn't want to come back inside -- he wants me to come out. Once I reappear, he will trot off to scombre and even join the frolic for a moment.

This morning was our first real snow, and our first snowy frolic. The fosters' lesson for this day is that the Snow Queen does not reign here.