Introducing our first blog contributor, Miss Coco Puffin!

Posted on August 23, 2012 by wellsdc

We could use a little company around here (the royal “we,” of course), so I have invited a blog contributor to post now and then, whenever it fits her busy schedule of napping, eating bacon, and bringing joy to people everywhere. I am proud to introduce one of the kindest, sweetest, most beautiful young women I know, Coco Puffin.

I had the honor of meeting Coco for the first time more than two years ago, when she was still recovering from some pretty serious injuries and looking for a forever home. The incredibly awesome people at Love-A-Bull (yes, I am quite biased) got her back into full tail-wagging mode and found her a new home and a new mom that helps channel her inner muse. Here’s a bit from Coco’s bio:

Coco (also known as Coco the Magnificent, Puffin, Cocos, Coconut, The Puffster, and Puff-a-luffa-gus) was found as a stray in East Austin, limping in the cold spell during Austin’s 2010 winter. She’d obviously had it rough, and the signs of abuse and neglect were evident. It is very likely that she was used as a breeding dog and had been tossed out or had managed to run away. To make matters worse, there was blunt trauma to the back half of her body and the injuries had “healed” on their own. When she was found by a Good Samaritan, she was dragging both of her hind legs, she was about 30 pounds under weight, flea-covered, extremely weak, and she had recently delivered a litter. She was brought to Love-A-Bull and then went straight to the medical experts at Animal Trustees of Austin where they determined that she would need to get stronger before having surgery to address her physical injuries.

She received hip surgery there and recovered successfully, all the while gaining strength through regular meals, proper flea/tick/heartworm meds, vaccinations, and a warm bed in a loving foster home. After visiting a canine neuro-specialist in Dallas, it was determined that the back limbs would not require amputation, and indeed, her foot could regain some function with therapy. Coco received 5 weeks of physical therapy (underwater treadmill, ball and balancing, and bracing). Coco sustained some semi-permanent nerve damage which causes her to drag her back paw or, sometimes, it flips under on the knuckles, but, today, she is able to place her foot correctly most of the time. She will likely always need a brace (and has a very cool one!) for physical activity, but this condition does not slow her down a bit!

Today, about 3 1/2 years old, she weighs a healthy 55 pounds (after our last vet visit Aug 2012 – make that 59 pounds 😀 Well deserved treats & grandparents that spoil her rotten are doing great things for her curves) and is a happy, loving, gentle, and very respectful girl. She may walk a bit funny, but her spirit is going strong and she hasn’t looked back. She LOVES carrides & roadtrips, enjoys Starbucks whip cream, LOVES cuddle time and getting dressed up, and she really has never met a person or child she hasn’t liked. She has also very quickly become a shining example of what it means to be a FABULOUS ambass-a-bull! Her personality shines with 100% Diva-liciousness and, of course, a true social networker, she has many, many real-life friends in Austin, across the country, and even around the world! Her wonderful, friendly temperament around people and children, with a special affinity towards little dogs, especially Chihuahuas, has left a special place in the hearts of her foster families, and it finally found her adopted and into a permanent home Spring 2012. An ardent lover of being petted and loved, she will offer up her belly for rubs all day until the cows come home!

I tend to blog about whatever issue is bugging me on any given day, or about geeky stuff like Star Wars or Game of Thrones. I am also quite riled up about animal welfare issues, and Coco Puffin is here to offer the voice of someone who has seen the worst, and the best, of both people and dogs. Please welcome Miss Puffin and make her feel at home.

The BAMF Bichon

Posted on August 14, 2012 by wellsdc

Behind this smile, beats the heart of a BAMF

This story is why I will never make fun of the Bichon Frisé breed ever again. (Trigger warning for animal neglect, injury)

They may look small and dainty, but Sophie the Bichon Frisé proved that these dogs are powerful survivors. It is tempting to focus on the colossal failure of the human in this story, to condemn him as a fool at best or a monster at worst, to wax legalistic about how he should go to jail or never own a dog again, and so forth. I’m sure plenty of people will cover that ground, so I want to focus on Sophie, whom I shall dub the Wonderpup.

A dog that was dragged accidentally behind a truck by its owner for about a mile Sunday will recover from its injuries, officials said.

David Bolduc said that after walking Sophie, a small bichon-frisé, outside his Water Street residence, he slipped the leash over the tow hitch of his vehicle while he did a couple of tasks in his garage. When his wife called him to invite him for lunch at McDonald’s on Kennedy Memorial Drive, he got into his truck and headed off to meet her, without remembering where Sophie was.

“I just forgot about it,” a distraught Bolduc said Tuesday.

According to a report filed by Chris Martinez, animal control officer, the dog was dragged for nearly a mile before the leash came off of the tow hitch near KMD Florist and Gifts.

A little farther up the road, another motorist alerted Bolduc to what had happened, and he rushed back to recover Sophie, who was on her feet on the sidewalk, alongside the road.

The dog suffered injuries that were significant but not life-threatening, including the total loss of patches of skin on an area from its abdomen running to the chest, and on the knuckles of its front paws. The pads of all four paws also suffered injuries.

***

“I would like to commend the animal control officer for doing a fine job,” Bolduc said. “He got a hold of the veterinarian and made him open up for me.”

Sophie was admitted to the Kennebec Veterinary Services in Oakland, where Dr. Paul Smith sedated her and treated her injuries.

She remained in the veterinarian’s care until Tuesday, Bolduc said, and was responding positively to antibiotics.

Bravo to Sophie for being a seriously tough cookie. Bravo also to Dr. Paul Smith, owner of Kennebec Veterinary Services, for being available on a Sunday to treat Sophie.

It should go without saying that a dog is not like a Big Gulp that you might accidentally leave on the roof of your car. Sophie should not have had to go through that ordeal to prove how incredible she is. We can’t know what was going through Sophie’s mind, but I suspect she wanted to follow her human and tried to keep up with the truck–if she had fought the leash, her injuries might have been far, far worse. Dogs have a way of reminding us of their enduring, determined love. It’s up to us to remind our fellow humans, and ourselves, that we bear the burden of being worthy of that love.

Photo credit: ‘AG Cody’ by Rocktendo (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Screw You, Belfast

Posted on July 13, 2012 by wellsdc

The city of Belfast, Northern Ireland has killed Lennox for looking like a pit bull. The Dog Files has had excellent coverage of the situation. I have nothing constructive to contribute, so I’ll just let them speak:

It is with great sadness that I must tell you that the Belfast City Council in Northern Ireland has officially given word that they have murdered Lennox on this morning of July 11, 2012.

Despite million of pleas from millions across the world, including their own bosses. Despite Victoria Stilwell, host of Animal Planet’s It’s Me Or The Dog, offering to pay for Lennox to come live in the USA, the Belfast City Council killed Lennox.

And because they are such nice folk, they wouldn’t even let Lennox’s human family, the Barnes, see him one last time or at least get his body. They said they will send them ashes in the mail. Some say that this is because the Belfast City Council had already killed Lennox a while ago. No one will ever know unless they have an official investigation and after seeing how Belfast is run, I’m not putting money on that happening.

If you are unfamiliar with Lennox and the Barnes Family story you can read about it here.

You can support the movement to get rid of breed-specific legislation (BSL) here:

Stop BSL
Love-A-Bull’s BSL resource page

Where pit bull prejudice began

Posted on July 5, 2012 by wellsdc

The caption for the cover just says “On the Cover: Don Mattingly, Baseball, New York Yankees; Photographed by: Jerry Wachter”

I mentioned a 20+ year-old Sports Illustrated article in an earlier post that was instrumental in drumming up negative and unfair prejudices against pit bulls. I vaguely remember the article when it came out in 1987 (I mistakenly said 1988 before), and I bought into it for a long time. It is rife with misstatements and all-around bad reporting, to the point that Sports Illustrated writer Jim Gorant, while covering the Michael Vick case in 2008, took responsibility for the magazine’s role in fomenting hysteria about the dogs.

The 1987 article, written by E.M. Swift, gets it both right and wrong, in that it blames pit bull attacks on the human owners, but also blames the breed for being “aggressive:”

America has a four-legged problem called the American pit bull terrier. And the pit bull, its “ridiculously amiable disposition” notwithstanding, has a two-legged problem called Man, to whom Stratton’s second quote could also be applied. These two species are not new to each other. They have intermingled for some 200 years, and some say their common history goes back as far as the Romans. But something has happened to the pit bull in the last decade that says as much about the nature of American society as it does about the nature of this aggressive animal. Far from being an aberration, the American pit bull terrier has become a reflection of ourselves that no one cares very much to see.

“They’re athletes. They’re wrestlers. They’re dead game,” says Captain Arthur Haggerty, a dog breeder and trainer in New York City who owns five pit bull terriers and has trained hundreds of others. “They will literally fight till they’re dead. If you found that quality in a boxer or a football player, you’d say it was admirable. Will to win. That’s what a pit bull has.”

Others call it a “will to kill.”

The article goes on to cite discredited theories about “multiple bites” and “locked jaw.” It goes on quite at length. Pit bulls developed a reputation as dangerous dogs, so people who wanted a dangerous dog tended to select pit bulls. Continue reading →

Blame the humans

Posted on July 5, 2012 by wellsdc

This little one had nothing to do with the reported incident. That’s just an awesome smile.

Someone in a pickup truck in Cedar Park reportedly commanded his two dogs, identified by KVUE as pit bulls, to attack a family at a park yesterday. The family was apparently going for a walk the morning of the 4th of July, when a man pulled up in a pickup truck and ordered his two dogs to “get ’em.”

Aundrick Richard told KVUE News around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, he, his wife, three daughters and pit bull, Cane, were walking at a nature trail off Arrow Point Drive in Cedar Park. He says it’s part of his family’s morning exercise.

Richard pointed to a grassy pathway and said a truck drove up close to the trail, off-road, toward his family. That’s when he says the driver of the truck let his two pit bull dogs out of the back of the pickup, and they came charging toward Richard’s children. Richard says his dog was on a leash but jumped in front of the baby stroller to fight off the dogs.

Richard says the dogs started fighting, the kids were screaming and his wife tried to kick the dog away.

“I’m telling the guy, ‘Hey come get ’em man, come get your dog. Your dog’s hurting my family man. Get your dog. Come get your dog. Please come here.’ The guy’s sitting there, he’s staring at me, and he goes, ‘Get ’em boy, get ,em. Get ’em boy, get ’em, antagonizing his dogs,'” said Aundrick Richard.

Richard says he grabbed a large tree branch and began hitting the man’s dog until it whimpered. Then he says the owner called the dogs back to the truck; they packed up and left.

“His dog screams. He says ‘Come on,’ clap, clap, calls them. They get in the truck. He burns out,” said Richard.

The full story is here (warning for somewhat graphic dog injury pictures).

Note that the only dog in this story that verifiably is a pit bull is the family’s dog, Cane, who by all accounts is a hero.

A friend posted this story to Facebook this morning, sparking one of the most thoughtful, least-combative combat threads in the history of my own Facebook use. Not all discussions of the incident have been so civil, apparently; one person said they were called a “one percenter” for defending pit bulls. Huh? Anyway, I’m re-posting my own comments from the thread here, for posterity or something. Please forgive the off-the-cuff writing style. Continue reading →

To brighten your Monday morning, a dog dancing the merengue

Posted on March 26, 2012 by wellsdc

Enjoy your week.

A brave pit bull and a viral internet story

Posted on March 19, 2012 by wellsdc

'Baby puppy pit bull, Bach' by Beverly & Pack on Flickr

Not a picture of Chief, but intended to elicit an emotional response

The story of Chief, an American Pit Bull Terrier in the Philippines who sacrificed himself to save his human family from a cobra, showed up on my Tumblr dashboard a little while ago. It is a beautiful but tragic story, evoking all of the emotions that dog stories like that tend to do. It also set off some skepticism warning bells for me, since the internet has a way of embellishing and propagating stories well beyond the original facts. Chief’s story needs to be told, but in order to be told it also needs to be true, and supported by news sources.

WARNING: Some of the links below include a picture that might be Chief but is definitely triggering.

Hopeful Veterinarian posted a link on Tumblr on March 19 that leads to a post on the blog Cool Story, Dog! dated March 13, 2012. That post contains no external links, which is what caused my initial skepticism.

A Google search led to a post on pets.ohio.com dated October 27, 2009. The cited source is a March 1, 2007 DogsInTheNews.com post. This post leads to what appears to be the actual source material:

A post dated February 16, 2007, authored by Herbie Gomez, on the blog site for the Cagayan de Oro Journal;
An article dated February 24, 2007 in the Manila Times (dead link); and
A post to the site forum.dog-tracker.com (access forbidden).

The incident evidently occurred on Monday, February 12, 2007, in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, a city of just over 500,000 people on the island of Mindanao. The article has some journalistic problems (secondhand quotes and such), but it lays out the entire story rather well. From the Cagayan de Oro Journal post:

A pit bull terrier proved beyond doubt that a dog can become a man’s best friend when it saved and gave its life for its master’s wife and her grandmother in Barangay Lapasan here.

The dog named “Chief,” saved 87-year-old Liberata la Victoria and her granddaughter Maria Victoria Fronteras from a cobra that snaked through an opening in the family’s kitchen shortly around 8 a.m. Monday.

On two occasions, the snake was about to attack the women when the dog dashed from a corner and used itself as a shield.

Marlone Fronteras, an employee of Nestle Philippines who owned the terrier, said Chief seized the venomous snake in the neck with its teeth and repeatedly slammed it on the floor until it died.

The dog was bitten too by the cobra; it died a few minutes later after giving its master a farewell gaze, according to the dog owner’s friends Mare Sabelita and Derf Ian dela Rama.

***

“The snake was in front of us., maneuvering a deadly attack,” Sabelita quoted Maria Victoria as saying. “I screamed out loud to ask for help.”

Hearing this, the four-year old pit bull terrier dashed from its sleeping area to fight off the deadly snake, said Sabelita quoting Maria Victoria.

The cobra fought back and bit Chief at the lower left portion of the jaw. The dog then repeatedly slammed the cobra after it succeeded in immobilizing the snake with its sharp teeth, she said.

Dela Rama said la Victoria was watching television when she panicked and alerted her granddaughter. The old lady said the cobra was about to attack her and the dog came to her rescue.

Maria Victoria said she saw the cobra expand its neck as soon as she turned the lights on. She said the cobra looked like it was spitting as its inched closer, about a meter away, toward her.

De la Rama said the terrier, “out of nowhere,” jumped on the cobra , bit it the neck, and then shook it till it died.

Moments later, the dog slouched flat and fainted, spreading its arms and feet on the floor, after killing the killer snake.

De la Rama said the dog went wobbly and lost control of its organs some 30 minutes after being bitten by the cobra; it started to urinate and defecate uncontrollably as it grasped for air and panted heavily.

The Fronterases sought the help of veterinarian but they were reportedly told that it was too late because the snake bite was near the dog’s brain and the venom had already spread.

Sabilita said Marlone rushed home when his wife called him up to tell him of what had happened and the dog’s master was stunned.

The Fronteras children, who treated Chief like a member of the family and who called the dog “Kuya Chief,” were deeply affected, according to Sabelita.

The last thing Chief did was waggle its tail and gaze at Marlone who had just come from work, said Sabelita.

“Chief gave his two deep breaths and died. (It) was fighting and saving (its) last ounces of breath to see a glimpse of (its) master for the last two seconds of (its) life,” added dela Rama.

Sabelita said he hoped people would change how they look at pit bull terriers, a breed strongly discouraged in many countries and banned because of their “cruel looks.”

We never get the change [sic] to know them more,” said Sabelita.