This is Linus, my foster puppy. And since it’s Pit Bull Awareness Month, I’d like to tell you a bit about him.
Linus was found on the side of the road in a North Carolina as a puppy. A concerned citizen took him to a shelter and eventually he found his way north thanks to the Underhound Railroad. We picked him off of a truck — along with his buddy Dora — on Labor Day weekend.
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The first time I laid eyes on Maybelle she was behind bars, in a kennel between the two dogs I’d come to see at the Humane Society. They were big German Shepherd-mixes. One was mostly black and impressive, and the other was about as striking a dog as I’ve ever seen — yellow like a lab, but with the profile of a Shepherd. And between them was a little 45-pound cattle dog mix with oversized ears that stuck out at a strange angle from her head. While the other dogs jumped and barked, she leaned up against the bars of her kennel and waited for someone to give her a scratch.
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This project wasn’t technically on my To Do List, but I thought it deserved a William Morris shout out. A couple of months ago I embarked on a mission to keep my dog from eating cat food. It hasn’t been easy. Those of you with both canine and feline housemates know that there is nothing tastier to a dog than a bowl of ash-filled cat food. But it isn’t good for them, and it often results in your dog waking you in the wee hours of the morning to take her outside for an emergency potty break. And because one of my cats needs to gain weight (I know…who has that problem?) I can’t have the dog sneaking in and eating her food out from under her. For everyone’s sake, I had to get creative.
I’d do anything for this face.
I am, to put it mildly, an “animal person.” As I write this, one of my cats is asleep on my desk beside my laptop, and my dog is asleep at my feet. I find them endlessly fascinating. As someone deeply devoted to rescue, I often find myself in heated discussions with people who think breeders are the best (or only) option. This is a pretty common divide among dog people. Amy Schumer knows this.
For me, though, it’s not even really about rescue vs. breeders (though buying a dog is not an option in my book). I find breeding for the sake of it to be downright unethical. It leads to unhealthy dogs, even when they conform to so-called “breed standards.” Even “responsible breeders” are often producing dogs that are inherently less healthy simply for being a good specimen of its breed. Continue reading
and I wrote about it for Dogster. Check it out.
It recently occurred to me that I am going to need an author photo. This presented a bit of an issue for a few reasons:
So I turned to my friend Leah and asked if we could have a photo shoot. She always makes me look good. We got some good author photo options, but as per usual, I ended up acting like a goon and taking a bunch of goofy pictures — and some with the dog.
Pinned! Is she down for the count?
Maybelle’s radio debut.
My dog is one of those dogs that always makes people say, “Why wouldn’t someone want her?” This basically translates to, “How did this calm, well-behaved, healthy dog end up in a shelter?” I have my theories, most of which involve elderly owners — or Maybelle chasing a deer across the rural Georgia county she came from. Once you see her lock onto some kind of prey animal, you can see how she might end up separated from her loving family. Continue reading
Me & the world’s cutest dog.
When I began reading Farhad Manjoo’s “No, I Don’t Want to Pet Your Dog” I was expecting to hate it…but something surprising happened. Despite being an all-around animal-lover and owner of the world’s cutest dog, I realized that I don’t really want to pet your dog either (in the most general of terms). Here’s what Manjoo had to say:
“Sometime in the last decade, dogs achieved dominion over urban America. They are everywhere now, allowed in places that used to belong exclusively to humans, and sometimes only to human adults: the office, restaurants, museums, buses, trains, malls, supermarkets, barber shops, banks, post offices. Even at the park and other places where dogs belong, they’ve been given free rein. Dogs are frequently allowed to wander off leash, to run toward you and around you, to run across the baseball field or basketball court, to get up in your grill. Even worse than the dogs are the owners, who seem never to consider whether there may be people in the gym/office/restaurant/museum who do not care to be in close proximity to their dogs.” Continue reading
I made this video a couple weeks ago after Maybelle experienced another one of her weird late-night “episodes.” Today I brought the video to the vet with us, but we still aren’t sure what’s going on. I’m supposed to keep a log of these episodes, which are pretty infrequent (once every three months or so). My vet — who I love — had one other suggestion for me. If we determine that she’s not having small seizures — or can’t figure out what’s going on — that perhaps we should see an “animal communicator.” Apparently she’s got a couple she trusts and now I just kind of want to go anyway…
Anyway, has anyone ever seen something like this? It fits some of the “small seizure” criteria, but I’m still kind of hoping for ghosts.
Every year I start to get an urge to write about how much I love autumn. Frankly, I feel stupider for it… Of course I love autumn. I live in New England. I like sweaters and boots and crunchy leaves under my feet. I love walking in the woods without being swarmed by bugs, or having to balance my need to be cool with my need to protect my body parts from things that bite. I love apples and I loooooooove cinnamon… I even kind of like raking. (mostly because my yard isn’t that big, and I don’t have to bag my leaves because the town comes and picks them up).
I don’t always love the garden cleanup — it’s a little depressing and messy — but that’s OK…because this:
Obviously I’m talking about the abdominal muscles.
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