Of bad breeding, vet checks & harmless cicadas

Most of us who are into animals are probably aware of the health issues some dogs confront because of their “squished-in” faces.  It’s hard to look at some of those animals -- including college mascots! -- whose lives may be shortened or at least very uncomfortable.

That’s what happens when people “style” dogs for their own purposes, changing their looks and often their health.  

Play back the pictures you saw of canine contestants at the recent Westminster dog show: Afghan hounds, with long, narrow snouts and impractical coats; bulldogs and others with relatively flat faces; teeny-tiny short-haired dogs with spindly legs and high-pitched barks.  All of them and many others: “designer dogs” -- far from the gray wolves they all descended from.

A welcome relief from canine modifications and their mixed results is Alexandra Horowitz’s succinct answer to the question, “Has Dog Breeding Gone Too Far?”  (Answer: Yes!)

A cognitive scientist who studies dogs (and whose work was cited earlier here for her compassionate take on President Biden’s dogs who bit people), Horowitz has nothing good to say about either inbreeding (at its worst, the equivalent of human incest) or selective breeding (“designing” dog breeds – from 4-pounders to dogs of 170 pounds).

Her wonderfully illustrated opinion piece took up a full page of the Sunday, May 19 NYTimes – with most space devoted to images of dog breeds and their related problems.  Some anatomical changes humans have caused in dogs are so “drastic” that they affect reproduction, respiration and recreation.

“We are a species that is willfully damaging dogs,” Horowitz writes, and shows.  Unarguably.   https://tinyurl.com/4bhusx6s

Saluting Savannah

She was so much more than a beloved pet.  Savannah, an 8-year old retriever, spent 7 years walking around the world with her dad, a New Jersey man who adopted her in Texas, early in his 25,000 miles over 6 continents.  

As she grew from a 4-month-old puppy, Savannah moved from being pushed in a cart to walking 30 miles a day, experiencing and enjoying wildly different places and adventures.  Unable to rally from health issues, Savannah died earlier this month.  https://tinyurl.com/y96ffra7  

Pet consumer report

People who want to buy a “pre-owned” car often ask their mechanic to check it out first.  I did that myself. 

But how about adopting a pet?  Should would-be parents ask their vet to take a close look first, to assure the animal’s good health?   I didn’t do that myself.  >sigh!<

That omission helps explain why my dear rescue cat Jersey needed major dental surgery soon after moving in with Billy and me.  He had no teeth (from an unknown life outdoors before then), yet he still needed to have tooth shards and debris extracted, to assure his future good health. 

Soon after he got here, I realized Jersey is deaf.  While a recent MRI showed no tumor or massive trauma, the specialist said a microscopic inner-ear infection could be behind the problem.  At which point I remembered that a really bad ear infection had caused a long delay before I could adopt him.  ("Just sayin’!")

Jersey’s my smart and fun little lovebug for as long as he and I may live.  Even so, readers, I still recommend having a vet go over any could-be pet you hope to adopt into your family!  

Cicadas are safe -- just noisy!  

From her Tennessee home, essayist Margaret Renkl has written appreciatively about the cicadas making their presence heard in her state this summer.  Their numbers and noise may suggest otherwise, but cicadas are wholly harmless. 

They don’t bite or sting, and they have no means of self-protection.  Nor do they hurt the trees they’re intimately related to.  That coexistence is so strong that if the tree dies, the cicada nymphs attached to its roots will too.  

Once up and out from under the trees where they waited for years, cicadas star on countless animals’ menus, their great numbers providing a feast. https://tinyurl.com/3ywahfxk  

                   Start thinking about this now! 

Annie

June is “adopt a shelter cat month,” so please seriously consider doing just that!  The cat and you will both be better off. 

. . . & start protesting this now!  

Canada geese continue to be slaughtered all over in New Jersey.  They are cruelly trapped when they can’t fly and gassed to death: a horribly inhumane fate!  Watch for or request APLNJ (www.aplnj.org) specs about a protest on Saturday, June 1.   

 

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Dominionism revisited & animals, of course, pay the price

 

As I type right now, the media are all agog about the coming-up Kentucky Derby race – part of the so-called “sport” of horseracing.  More accurately: “horse-killing.”

 Last year’s “Triple Crown” races (the Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes) were the worst of the worst for horses (beautiful sentient beings who are involuntarily trained and forced to run in circles).  In 2023, seven horses died during Derby week, then in the days after, five more were fatally injured.

The overriding question behind an investigation by the NYTimes: Why were “so many horses, supposedly in peak physical condition, breaking down so frequently?”

In answer, “The Times found that reckless breeding and doping practices, compromised veterinarians and trainers, and decades-long resistance to changes that could save horses’ lives have placed a multibillion-dollar ecosystem in peril and put the social acceptability of one of America’s oldest sports at risk.”

Especially horrible for the horses involved, of course, this ugly (and criminal!) situation goes far back in racing history.  Despite all the platitudes offered by the countless uncontrite people involved, thoroughbreds continue to be treated like commodities rather than athletes.

Some “sport”!       https://tinyurl.com/4wdmzvbf

Day after the 2024 Derby:    https://tinyurl.com/yd47pmhw

                                                                                                     New animal abuse

It thrilled scientists, medical practitioners and patients when a recent “landmark transplant” operation appeared to work.  A kidney from a genetically modified pig was implanted in a woman who declared she was “at the end of her rope” without it.  (Of course, the “donor pig” had utterly run out of rope in making that possible.)

This is a hard situation to understand, and even harder to accept.  After two seemingly successful attempts at animal-to-human transplantation, the future for pigs looks very grim.  No doubt they will be in even more demand than they are (and historically have been) already.  Poor pigs: bound to be tapped for another human purpose, this one, besides being slaughtered and eaten in myriad ways.

Time for a reminder:  Dominionism is the worldview or belief held by one species that it has a divine right to use animals and everything else in the living world for its own benefit.   

Sort of siblings

Dove or pigeon?

My last post mentioned a pigeon who liked landing on people’s heads.  Did you too think the pigeon looked like a dove, and wonder how to tell the difference?   

It’s easy: While there’s no real scientific difference between them, doves are generally smaller than pigeons – and nowadays, they get “better press” than pigeons.  (Think only of the image of a white dove with an olive branch in its mouth – a symbol of peace.)

Cat & Pat

I think my cat Jersey has secretly been listening to Cox & Box, a one-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan (later of Gilbert & Sullivan fame).  Two men both rent the same lodgings, unbeknownst to each other. 

Jersey

Returning from work, one sleeps at night, then gets up and goes to work.  Soon after, the second man returns from his night job and goes to bed.  And so on.  This works for both of them -- until they find out what’s going on.

In cold weather after I get out of bed, I've noticed that Jersey has curled up in my flannely warm spot, where he sleeps for hours.  So now I wish him a good morning and a good rest -- and make the bed later.

Protest to save geese

The words alone are awful: gas chamber.  In any era, with any kind of living being, those words conjure up horror.  Or they should, even when Canada geese are the innocent victims of this dreadful practice, which reportedly is widely used here.

Of course there are humane alternatives; it’s just that people either don’t know, or want to know, them. Which is why the Animal Protection League of NJ (aplnj.org), which offers a proven humane alternative, will sponsor another protest at a place with that “ignorance is bliss” outlook.

Please click this link, then mark your calendar.  https://conta.cc/3WfMYSV

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