"Oh, my dog could never live without me..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090406/ts_afp/australiaanimaldogoffbeat_20090406082210

For all of you "pet parents" of your "fur babies" which are perfectly happy to roll in shit, eat garbage and hump your boss's wife but which you believe will somehow wilt away into emotionally devastated, hunger-striking waifs if not in your glowing, beneficient presence.

Right.

If your dog is worth a damn, it will fall off of your yacht, swim five miles to a deserted island and develop a healthy taste for cabra del bebe.

for Bill's Wife...

Bill = Old acquaintance from the Boston days, frontman for bar band The Drinks, favorite memory thereof: Bill jupming around on the stage at the Midway screaming the singalong chorus of an absolutely excellent number called "Chemotherapy"....


Bill's Wife = A person I've never met, but who has displayed her awesome taste in reading materials by being a fan of this here blog.


How I Know This = At last week's memorial gathering for our friend, held at the Plough and Stars in Cambridge, I saw Bill (among dozens of other long lost friends) and he made sure that I knew that the Mrs. liked HOBD!

And so here it is again.

Because if I don't write bitter, unprofessional, sometimes distasteful diatribes against the ridiculous reality of the dog world, WHO WILL???

So thanks, Mrs. Bill, whoever you are. Consider yourself my stopgap Muse.

Please bring me to a place of karmic reckoning

So that these pieces of garbage might suffer the same fate:
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080906_Cops_looking_for_youngsters_who_burned_pit_bull_to_death.html

Philly, the City of Brotherly Love, where I spent SO many years of my life, has little frayed edges full of inbreds and multi-generational feral humans of every color and ethnicity.

My best friend from Philly, a 1st generation Korean-American, had relatives who set up the outposts of civilization one sees in the worst ghettoes: convenience stores, small textile factories, bars...And at one of these bars waaaaaayyyy up in North Philly, there was a guy named Two By Four. Two By Four was a human scab: the husk of what may have at once been an actual person with a conscience, with dignity and some sense of self-worth. But crack turned 2x4 into one of those modern day sideshow atttractions one can find if one spends enough time deep in the urban or rural extremes of any area. For $5 (as another friend said, as he purchased a perfectly functional and obviously stolen 36" color television for the same amount), you could buy anything. Because $5 was the entry level price for a cap of crack.
And for $5, a citizen could have the singular, primitive pleasure of hitting 2x4 with the piece of building material that gave him his name.

These scumbags that did this to the dog, well, who are they if not the product of the 2x4s and the pulverizers of same?

I say eye for an eye, torture for torture, and you can be damned sure I'd say the same if it was a human victim, unlike the pantywaists who only get themselves into a moral outrage if it's a widdle puppy or kitty but will give these same bastards a pass if they shoot a toddler.

And I love the commenter who actually blames George Bush.

how about this: BLAME THE PERP. Only the perp. Not the school system, not the gubmint, not the media. Blame and then appropriately punish the individual who MADE A CHOICE.

But it will never happen. The perps here will fade into the ooze of deep urban Philly and be indeterminate from the rest of the human plankton surrounding them.

Brotherly Love, indeed.

The Stooge in the Middle

Listen.

I'm about to bitch and moan about how tired I am.

In the middle of the day, sometimes I am struck by an idea of OVERWHELMING GENIUS which warms my insides like the first stirrings of romantic love. And I say "I MUST WRITE THIS DOWN!"

And I don't, because I am submerged in the daily grind of circulating the Boarding student dogs, answering correspondence, working in lessons and training sessions, freaking out over my lack of available hours, each obligation hanging over my head like an individual Sword of Damocles.

Then I get home, do everything, and sit down with a plate of food at 11PM, just in time to watch Iron Chef re-runs ( I'm talking about the original IC: Iron Chef America is actually too over the top, even for me). By the time I finish my dinner, I am in a catatonic state during which the last traces of my Great Idea fade into the background, only to be replaced with soporific musings on mortality and an admission that the Sham-WOW! guy is actually sort of compelling.

Got the old phantom limb stirrings where my musician self used to be. Driving me crazy as one day melts into the next, all the same, the numbing routines of dogs, bills, errands, sleep, wake, again, again....little bright spots always originating from the dogs and the dogs alone. Keeping me somewhat sane and placated even as the basses and guitars stare down at me resentfully and dust-covered. Ya can't do both.

And you definitely can't write the Great American Novel too.

Can you at least keep up with a lousy blog?

Last night I dreamed that I met Larry Fine in the bar of a Chinese restaurant. He was the young Larry, his usually wild hair slicked back and he was wearing a very nice suit. I got my courage up and approached him, and whispered "You were always my favorite."

He was charmed and flattered and he bought me a crazy Polynesian drink. Then, as we stood close by the bar, he put his arm around me and told me I better get my shit together.

For those who don't know, Larry was a profligate gambler who made and lost a couple of fortunes, and was considered to be kind of a good-hearted wildman by his friends and peers. He wasn't exactly a model businessman or Mr. Responsible. But in my dream, he was in a position to tell me to get my shit together. Which leads me to believe the shit in question has very little to do with dog training.

I woke up sad that he's been dead for nearly 35 years. I'd love to call him and ask him what he suggests, and if he'd like to get together for a Fogcutter over at Chen's.

And if you think I'm gonna lay off the "Definitely Not Dog Friendly" stuff...

...you would be wrong.

Cos stuff like this keeps happening. I'm just the messenger, kids.

Here we go again

It's my personal New Year, it's the part of the downhill slide into oblivion where one really picks up momentum, it's my fortieth frigging birthday.

My thirties were spent in a confusion of misspent loyalties, frustrating career roadblocks and crises de coeur. I hardly even noticed them.

In the time since I abandoned the good ship HOBD, I joined MySpace, which was good for a lot of reasons (re-establishing contact with lots of old pals). But this is better. Just writing. You read it, great. You don't, who cares.

I briefly toyed with the idea of playing music again, but abandoned it in favor of throwing myself full time into this dog biz thing.

Got a column in a local/regional dog rag. The same edition of my debut, there was Gail Fisher, in her debut (a rerun of an older one, nice effort there, Gail) railing against Cesar Millan like a dog training bunny boiler who was out to ruin the concept of good training at any cost. I let it get to me: briefly, but it did.

Today, my fortieth, my tipping point where I know certain things are gone forever in my life, I am moving into my own place of business. So it's a good thing. A well-earned thing, and something I knew I would do eventually. That its beginning falls on this Friday the 13th is auspicious. All done answering to the half-assed, the incompetent, the uncommitted, the scarily complicated, and every other brand of boss. Even the ones I've really liked, it still wasn't my show. Now it is.

Or should I say, it's ours.
Because now I have an official partner: Drago, bully of my heart, my other half: he's the brains of the operation, I'm just the talent.

It will be an interesting year. And like New Years' day, it calls for reflection, celebration, and a few resolutions I'd better damn well keep. One of them is bringing HOBD back.
Like bringing sexy back.
Only funnier, and with more mention of dogshit.

Problem solved

The other day I was talking with Sheela-Na-Gig, the kennel manager, about her job vs. my job.

When I am having a bad day, or if there are too many loud voices in the small space of the training room, I can be found out in the back kennels, herding turds and rinsing water buckets. I've always found a Zen-like satisfaction in mundane tasks. It's true, maybe my vocation is more rewarding in the Big Picture, but we both agreed that sometimes her job is more rewarding in an immediate sense.

Example:

Emotionally crippled pregnant woman and her mentally unbalanced giant breed with a multiple-bite history. Sobbing, begging us not to "hurt" her dog, actually, she characterizes the dog as her "child" (good luck to the baby that will emerge into his mother's twisted world in a few months). No, she won't prohibit the dog from sleeping in bed with her. No, she doesn't accept that the breed she chose to "rescue" has a natural, desirable sense of territorial behavior and is one of the best choices if you live in an isolated compound surrounded by hostile natives, but not so much if you live in a modern New England suburb. The dog must be bombproof around visitors, including children, and must be a wonderful, gentle companion to the new baby. And NO, of course she won't give the dog back to the fools at the shelter who placed it with her. After all, she doesn't believe in giving up on a dog. Wonder if she believes in plastic surgery and lengthy, debilitating personal injury lawsuits.
Problem? Unsolvable.

On the other hand:

There is some dogshit. Here is my pooper scooper. I pick it up.
Problem solved.

Let me spell it out for you (Whitman's sampler post explained EVEN MORE)

Someone read that post and expressed concern.
Someone who is smart, sensible and not a knee-jerk hysteric.
Someone who owns what I refer to as a "power breed".
Seems that I am sounding dangerously close to a BSL type when I talk about the physical strength or the inherent protective/territorial tendencies of one breed vs. another. In other words, it is very provocative, and not in a good way, when I describe a Dobermann picking up a child by the head and shaking him, and asking if a Yorkie could do that. It is not cool to imply that perhaps the giant molosser type dogs should not be compared favorably or even neutrally to Golden Retrievers or Poodles when it comes to selection of a family pet. The most important thing for dog professionals to emphasize is that ALL dogs require responsible upbringing, training and management. Leave breeds out of it.

No. I won't leave breeds out of it.

Not until every breed apologist who dares to stand up at a public hearing and attribute to toy breeds the same potential for damage as the breeds in question sits down.

Not until every well-meaning dog person who trots out a story about how viciously they were mauled by a Cocker Spaniel shuts up and considers the pain and trauma suffered by the victim the current conversation is about.

Not until every Pollyanna Rescue Martyr and every gene salesman who advertises in the glossy back pages of Dog Fancy stops calling their working breeds "gentle family guardians who require no formal training to tell friend from foe" or "affectionate couch potatoes who will protect by instinct alone".

Not until every wannabe trainerette with a copy of "Calming Signals" and a CPDT after her name stops attributing temperament to training methods, and spends one solid year of apprenticeship with a real dog trainer learning protection work.

We dog people are to blame. Before you point the finger at the media, at criminals and thugs, at stupid owners, at mean or incompetent trainers, turn it around on yourself. Admit what you have: a big dog with a strong instinct to defend property/persons/himself from people/predators/dogs (mix and match accordingly). A dog who may take a little extra work, and a little extra management. A dog whom you shouldn't expect people to welcome with open arms, based on his size and his intimidating appearance. If you can educate people past that because your dog is so well-trained that he is a pleasure to be around, more power to you. But remember that he is not an ambassador for the breed as it is, whichever breed it is. He is an ambassador for what it should be.

What's that? Your dog is "no different" than a Golden Retriever or a Poodle?

If your breed is no different than a Golden Retriever or a Poodle, then why didn't you get a Golden Retriever or a Poodle? The appearance?
Wait a minute, I thought that people who bought (or "adopted") dogs based on their appearance were shallow and not worthy of being granted ownership. What does that make you?
Oh, I see. Your breed is more intelligent/more devoted/more protective than another breed. So, there are only differences in the positive? No negatives? Not even one? That "protective" thing: that never goes the wrong way, does it? Only if you "abuse" the dog, right?

Right.

At the rescue where I trained, the worst hand-wringers and social judges tended to be lots of whiny, perimenopausal women who loved to condemn those big, mean men who kept Dobermanns so they would "look tough". I enjoyed pointing out to my colleagues that nothing spoke more loudly and pathetically of psychic penis envy than the attachment these weak, sad broads had for their large, male power breeds. "See, I'm a poor victim of life but this big, strong DOG represents my SOUL (or my HEART or my COURAGE etc)". No, actually, he represents your DICK, ladies, and the fact that you let him growl your husband out of bed tells me everything I need to know about the state of your mind.

My answer to my dog friends is this: get out of denial. Admit that what we own and love is not the same as what most civilians think of as a simple family pet. And they never should think of them as a simple family pet. One of my favorite dog books is "Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men" by Donald McCaig. It is an incredibly moving, honest account of working Border Collie life and Mr. McCaig's adventures as he tries to acquire a new dog in Scotland. At the end of this worshipful study of his favored breed, Mr. McCaig does something wonderful: he tells his readers to NOT get a Border Collie as a pet.

You dogpeople are right: when it comes to BSL, we are looking at a people problem, not a dog problem. But the people at the root of the problem are the people who look just like us. Clean your own house, ladies and gentlemen, or Uncle Sam is gonna come in and do it for you.