Yesterday, my good friend of over 40 years, Dan Gomez, left a reply to our introductory post for Brandy. Despite how long I have been blogging it’s rare for Dan to drop in. Indeed, yesterday may well have been his first comment in this place: “Beautiful animal, Paul and Jean! He’s going to have a wonderful country home too!”
Well it wasn’t that long ago that Dan’s previous dog, Bella, died tragically and about a month ago Dan sent me a couple of pictures and a short video of their new dog: Lexi.
So staying with the theme of new members of our respective families, here are a few glimpses of Lexi.
Lexi at Rancho Mirage.
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Lexi at two months old – 26th March, 2016.
As Dan said in his covering email:
What a fine animal! Sweet, adventurous, obedient, beautiful and loves the wet!
Saved our life and Bella would be proud.
May all those across the world that welcome and treasure their dogs live happy, safe and peaceful lives.
On Saturday morning Jean and two girl friends, Janet and Pam from close by, went to a $1 Clothing Fair. The Fair sold off donated garments raising money for a local charity for abused women. After they had had their fill of clothes Janet suggested going to a garage sale about three miles from home.
It turned out to be a couple and their daughter that were selling off stuff in advance of having to move to a much smaller house including needing to re-home their dog.
There in the garage was the dog, a beautiful tan coloured Great Pyrenees, as they are known in North America. Or as Wikipedia explains:
Jean, of course, went up to fondle the dog and enquired as to how they were going to re-home him. Taking the dog to a local dog shelter was mentioned by way of reply.
I heard all about this when Jean returned and we quickly agreed we should offer the dog a new home.
So after a quick lunch we both went to meet the dog.
An hour later Jean and I returned home with Brandy! He is gorgeous and here are some photographs of the first few hours of welcoming Brandy to his new place. Note: Brandy was recently shaved by his owners thus coat-wise doesn’t quite look like the Great Pyrenees that he is (possibly with a slight cross with a Mastiff but Dr. Jim doesn’t think so).
Brandy’s first look at his new home from the back of the car in the garage.Brandy signalling that he is ready for big changes!First sniff of our grass.Brandy, welcome!So far, so very good!Now the meet and greet with, of course, first up being the old king!And it didn’t stop with Pharaoh!More smells than you could shake a stick at!Yet more new friends to meet!Then time to settle down at home.What an adorable boy he is going to be.Sunday morning and everything is still going well.Just another dog for Jeannie and me to love.
Apparently, Brandy is a three-year-old dog but hasn’t yet been neutered. As soon as Brandy has settled down we will get Dr. Jim to check him over thoroughly over at Lincoln Road Vet Clinic, make sure everthing is fine and perform the neutering. (It was neighbour Dr. Jim who wrote the foreword to my book, by the way.)
Woman Rescues Burned Puppy and He Grows Up to Save Her Life
This wonderful story was recently published on the Care2 site and is republished here to share with you all and to underline the importance of always trying to find your next pet from a rescue shelter.
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Woman Rescues Burned Puppy and He Grows Up to Save Her Life
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on January 7, 2013. We are republishing it for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!
Anyone who has ever saved an animal will tell you that its the kind of experience that shakes up your DNA. You won’t regrow hair on a balding head or suddenly run a four-minute-mile, but there is a pulse of positive energy that churns through the human body much like a twister. In some cases, fragments of that emotional explosion are powerful enough to be credited with modern medical miracles. And for one Texas woman, the experience was profound enough to help wake her from a coma.
My Name is Danielle…
“My name is Danielle and it’s been over a year since something terrible happened to me. I am ready now to share my story,” explained the letter we received recently from veterinary technician Danielle Torgerson of Killeen, Texas. ”Four years ago somebody brought a puppy to the clinic. I was not assigned to that room but I was in the second room when I felt something pull me into the hallway. It was strange, but I glanced into the other exam room and saw a puppy on the table. He looked at me with so much pain and despair. A man had brought him in for a ‘sting’ but I knew instantly that was not the case. The puppy was horribly burned on the head like somebody had poured gasoline over him and set him on fire. He was there to be euthanized.”
But Danielle’s conscience began to wrestle down the injustice of extinguishing this young life before it had known the simple joys that every dog should know. She wondered if he might be able to have a bed of his own. Could there be walks through the park in the cool evening air? Was it possible that this puppy might wake up each morning beside a person whose first words were his name?
“I asked the vet if something could be done,” Danielle recalls. “He said that treatment could be carried out, but only with lots of money.”
The Rescue Begins
And that was all Danielle needed to hear. She wasn’t wealthy, but she was determined and if there was a chance at recovery, she’d already made up her mind to take it. So Danielle had the man who brought in the puppy sign over custody to her. She then contacted Dr. Elaine Caplin in Austin and the puppy was brought in for a surgical consulation to see what could be done.
“He was not able to eat or drink because part of his mouth was melted,” Danielle recalls.
Skingraft surgery was undertaken to reconstruct the mouth and soon the puppy’s condition improved dramatically and he began to function on his own.
Danielle named the puppy D’Artagnan (who served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard) or Mister D for short and introduced him to other dogs and cats who welcomed him.
Mister D began to grow into a large dog and earned a reputation for his generous nature. “He allows all the cats to sleep with him and we have actually seen him share food with other dogs. He picks out pieces of food and gives it to them.”
All grown up.But in the street, Mister D is sometimes regarded as a beast.“He looks like a werewolf with his skin grafts and people are kind of scared,” Danielle explains. “But he truly is my loving angel and I know that saving him is what helped save me.”You see, last year, Danielle was in a terrible motorcycle accident when she tried to avoid a collision with a car. Within seconds, she was on the ground bleeding with a broken skull and awaiting a lifelight helicopter to a trauma center where doctors would find no brain function.For 12 days, Danielle lay motionless in her pale blue hospital gown while her mother, who flew in from Germany, went back and forth between the hospital and Danielle’s home to take care of not only her dying daughter, but of the animals who meant the world to her.
At night, Danielle’s ex-husband would help look after the pets so that her mother could spend more time with Danielle, and try to get some rest, but everyone feared the worst.
But in the silence of the mind, a louder voice came from Danielle’s soul.
“I had to get back to Mister D and my other ‘kids’ because they needed me and I needed them,” Danielle says of her sense that she carried that desperate need to be reunited with her pets, despite the lack of medical evidence that she was processing those emotions during her coma.
I Had to Wake Up for My Animals
“After 12 days, a miracle happened,” Danielle says tearfully. “I woke up. The doctors and nurses have told me that the first words that I uttered were ‘Mister D.’”
For several weeks, Danielle remained in rehabilitation while she learned to walk and to fully speak again. It seemed so painfully long for her to be away from the ones she loved and that motivated her to work harder each day.
“When I finally got home, Mister D was so happy,” Danielle said. “He checked on me all the time. When he felt that I was hurting, he would put his paw very carefully on my head and sigh. I truly know that if it was not for Mister D, I would not be here. He has become my musketeer, my protector and has given me the security and protection that I never had from people.”
Now fully recovered, Danielle’s greatest hope is that her story will inspire others to rescue animals. She asks people to consider rescuing, rather than buying pets and explains that “the bond between you is one that can never be broken.”
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Please help share this message of the bond and love that is possible between us and our pets and to always consider taking on rescues.
It was after 3pm yesterday when I turned on my computer and wondered what today’s post was going to be; I wasn’t feeling especially creative!
But sitting in my ‘in-box’ was a link to the latest newsletter from The Smithsonian and within that newsletter was a perfect sequel to yesterday’s post What’s In A Name?
I’ll go straight to that article. (Apologies if you notice that there is a fair degree of overlap between the two articles.)
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Call a Dog a Pit Bull and He May Have Trouble Finding a Home
Dogs labeled as pit bulls at shelters may wait three times longer to be adopted—even when they aren’t actually pit bulls
An adorable shelter dog shouldn’t have a difficult time finding a home—but it might if it comes with the label “pit bull.” (LeticiaRose / iStock)
Regardless of a canine’s actual breed, simply labeling a dog a “pit bull” can condemn it to a significantly longer stay in a shelter and make it less attractive to potential adopters, concludes a new study in PLOS One.
Pit bulls are often stereotyped as aggressive and dangerous toward humans, though there is little evidence that those characteristics are inherent to the breed. The breed is popular among the dog fighting crowd, however, which contributes to its reputation for aggressiveness. To complicate matters, when attacks do occur, dogs may be labeled as pit bulls even when they are not. Indeed, in the United States, “pit bull” often serves as a catchall for a handful of breeds ranging from English bulldogs to American Staffordshire terriers; one person’s pit bull is another’s American bulldog mix.
This reputation follows the canines when they land in shelters. When potential adopters look at available dogs, they “don’t rate pit bulls any differently than look-alike dogs,” says the study’s lead author, Lisa Gunter, a graduate student in psychology at Arizona State University. “It’s only when we start attaching labels that people begin to perceive them more negatively.”
Most shelter dogs are of unknown origin, so employees often have to guess at an animal’s breed. Over a 10-year career working in shelters, Gunter noticed that she and her co-workers frequently arrived at different conclusions about a dog’s breed. And genetic studies have found significant discrepancies between descriptions of shelter dogs and their actual breed. One study found, for example, that half of the dogs that had been labeled as pit bulls at four Florida shelters had no pit bull ancestry in their DNA.
Gunter and her colleagues undertook a series of studies to find out how those potentially flawed labels might impact an animal’s chance of finding a home. They started by showing college students in California and users of the website Reddit photos of three dogs—a Labrador retriever, a pit bull-like dog and a border collie—without attached breed labels and asked questions about each, such as whether the dog looked smart or if the person would feel comfortable approaching it. The team found that participants ranked the pit bull-type dog as lowest on intelligence, friendliness, approachability and adoptability, and highest on aggressiveness and difficulty to train. When the pit bull appeared in a photo with an elderly woman or a child, however, it was rated more favorably.
Next, the researchers asked potential adopters at an Arizona shelter to rank dogs that appeared in photos and short videos on the animals’ approachability, intelligence, aggressiveness, friendliness, difficulty to train and adoptability. These scores were then summed to create an “attractiveness” composite for each pooch. To get around possible biases, such as apartment rules about animal sizes or bans on certain breeds, the team used phrases such as, “If circumstances allowed, I would consider adopting this dog,” to assess willingness to take a canine home.
These two dogs may look similar, but the pit bull label could mean that the one on the left may wait a lot longer to find a home. (Arizona Animal Welfare League)
When the dogs were not labeled as any particular breed, participants ranked pit bulls and look-alikes (dogs that were the same size and color as the pit bulls) as equally attractive. Potential adopters even ranked the pit bulls in video recordings as more attractive than the non-pit bull matches. When the researchers introduced breed labels, however, that trend reversed, with participants ranking the same dog as significantly less attractive than similar dogs without the label.
The researchers also found that pit bulls at that shelter waited over three times as long to find a home as their matched counterparts.
Finally, the team analyzed a set of data from an animal shelter in Florida that recently removed breed descriptions altogether. When freed from the loaded label, pit bull-like dogs were much more likely to find a home. Adoptions of these dogs increased by more than 70 percent, compared with the prior year, and the shelter’s euthanasia rate for the same group dropped by 12 percent, probably because more of them were finding homes.
Taken together, these results “are very convincing that breed labels negatively impact any dog that is labeled as ‘pit bull,’” says Erica Feuerbacher, who studies dogs at Carroll College in Montana and was not involved in the study. “Furthermore, we know from other studies that humans are quite bad at correctly labeling breeds, so many dogs could be erroneously labeled pit bull—even though they are not—and by that label they become less adoptable.”
Eliminating breed labels, which people seem to be using as poor proxies for stereotyped traits, may be the key to banishing a significant amount of dog discrimination—and getting more dogs into homes, Feuerbacher and the other researchers argue. There is also a need to devise better means of measuring dogs’ true personalities, including their potential for aggression, and of ensuring those assessments are valid not just in the shelter environment but also in homes, Gunter notes.
“We want to drive the adoption conversation toward evaluating whether an individual dog, regardless of the breed, is a suitable candidate for adoption,” she says. “Then we can match-make between the personality of the dog and that of the person, instead of just relying on labels.”
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You can see why it so perfectly followed on from yesterday!
Not just my post but yesterday’s comments. Such as this from Tony:
Another example of form over substance. When will we learn?
So I know you will all cheer Erica Feuerbacher who is quoted towards the end of that Smithsonian essay and I will close with her words, in part: “We want to drive the adoption conversation toward evaluating whether an individual dog, regardless of the breed, is a suitable candidate for adoption. Then we can match-make between the personality of the dog and that of the person, instead of just relying on labels.”
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.
That very well-known quotation from Wm. Shakespeare was the obvious sub-title to today’s post.
You will be aware that I have written several times previously about Pit Bull dogs. But I would like to draw your attention to a post that was published here back in 2013. It was called In praise of Pit Bull dogs and featured a guest post from Noella Schink, in Portland, Maine, where she then lived and played with her 3-year-old pit bull mix, Addie, 8-year old shih-tzu, Brutus, and 2-year old hound, Lula. Apart from all of them being a little older I trust nothing else has changed.
That post in 2013 also included a picture of our gorgeous Casey, as follows.
Casey doing what dogs do so well – picking up scents around his home.
Over on the Care2 petition site there was a compelling case being made for Pit Bulls to be given a different name. Read it and see if you are convinced of the need.
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How We Could Save More Dogs From Death Row by Changing One Thing
Whether we like it or not, labels matter — even for dogs. New research from Arizona State University published in PLOS ONE, suggests labels could even lead to a potential death sentence, if you’re a pit bull.
Pit Bulls Wait 3 Times as Long to be Adopted
The pit bull went from America’s darling dog to one of the most feared (and misunderstood) dogs today. Their fall from grace is evident in stories like Olive’s. Olive the Pit Bull was brought in as a stray and stayed in the shelter for approximately 11 years. Olive was lucky enough to find her forever home, but so many dogs like her aren’t — and our arbitrary labels aren’t helping their cause.
According to Science Daily, researchers from Arizona State University wanted to know if breed identification influences adoption. The researchers found that dogs labeled as “pit bulls” could wait three times as long to be adopted from shelters into their forever homes compared to their lookalikes without the label or labelled as another breed.
Compared to other breeds, like Labradors, pits were perceived as less friendly and more aggressive. They also were considered less “attractive” than their lookalikes. Weird, right?
Even the researchers were surprised by how much the pit bull label influences perception and, ultimately, adoption. As researcher Lisa Gunter from Arizona State University explains, “We were surprised how very similar looking dogs sometimes get labelled ‘pit bull’ and other times as something completely different. These dogs may look and act the same, but the pit bull label damns them to a much longer wait to adoption,” reports Science Daily.
Ultimately, the researchers recommend losing the pit bull label to stop inadvertently penalizing these dogs in the shelter setting.
Heartbreaking Pit Bull Statistics
If you thought that Olive’s story was sad, she’s actually one of the lucky ones — not only for getting adopted, but for staying in the shelter system for the 11 years that she did.
According to Pit Bull Rescue Central (PBCR) 200 pit bulls are euthanized in Los Angeles County animal shelters every single day.
PBCR emphasizes that “for homeless pit bulls the death sentence is almost always automatic.”
Villalobos Rescue Center (made popular by the TV show Pit Bulls and Parolees) had this to say about the pit bull plight in Los Angeles: “The pit bull population has now risen to 40% of all the dogs in 12 shelters in Los Angeles. That means that almost half of the entire Los Angeles dog population is pits or pit mixes! Most are strays, tossed out like dirty laundry. It’s heartbreaking.”
Sadly, the plight of pit bulls is not limited to Los Angeles County. A 2013 Nat Geo Wild infographic reveals that:
60 percent of the total dogs euthanized in U.S. shelters are pit bulls
30 percent of the total dogs admitted to shelters are labeled pit bulls
86.7 percent of pit bulls admitted to open admission shelters are euthanized
Do you know what the worst part of this sad situation is? There’s no such thing as a pit bull.
As Bark Post explains, the pit bull label is just “an umbrella term that most people use to refer to different types of dogs – the American Pit Bull Terrier, the American Staffordshire Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, any mixes thereof, and any dog that vaguely resembles these dogs.”
The breed isn’t real, but the stigma has real consequences. And time and again pit bulls prove that they can be great dogs with the correct guidance and training when they get a second chance. Remember how Jericho the Pit Bull went from death row to being an amazing service dog?
Take Action!
Sign and share this petition urging animal rescuers to lose the stigmatizing pit bull label that unnecessarily penalizes innocent dogs. It’s a matter of life and death.
Only idiots believe that pit bulls are bad! When are some morons going to finally wake up and realize bad owners are responsible for bad dogs! BSL should be banned everywhere. We must never stop fighting to end the senseless killing of this breed.
These days there is plenty to sigh about. Whether it’s presidential politics this side of the Atlantic or immigration and ‘Brexit’ in Europe. However, today’s post is not about our, as in human, sighs but is about the sighs that our dogs make.
We sigh when we’re frustrated and when we’re happy. What about our four-legged friends? (Photo: sgilsdorf/flickr)
Every dog owner has experienced it at one time or another. Your dog lies down, often with his head on his front paws, and lets out a sigh. Is he sad? Content? Disappointed in his life?
“When the sigh is combined with half-closed eyes, it communicates pleasure; with fully open eyes, it communicates disappointment: ‘I guess you are not going to play with me.'”
Geez. Guilt trip, anyone?
A dog’s sigh is “a simple emotional signal that terminates an action,” writes Stanley Coren, Ph.D. in his book, “Understanding Your Dog for Dummies.”
“If the action has been rewarding, it signals contentment. Otherwise, it signals an end of effort.”
So if you and your dog just finished a fun romp in the yard or a great walk in the park, that sigh means, “I’m content and am going to settle down here awhile.” If your dog has begged at your side all during dinner without a payoff, that sigh signifies, “I’ll give up now and simply be depressed.”
Dog trainer Pat Engel agrees.
“My own unscientific observation is that dogs usually sigh while resting, or when they are what I call ‘resigned,'” she writes in the San Francisco Chronicle. “These sighs seem to mark a physiological transition into a deeper state of relaxation.”
If you feel like your dog sighs (or yawns or makes other noises excessively), it’s worth mentioning to your vet, Engel suggests. There’s always a chance that a health issue might be at the root of the sounds.
If a medical reason isn’t to blame, then concentrate on reading the cues your canine is sharing.
Massachusetts dog trainer Jody Epstein says a dog’s body language is definitely the key to interpreting the noise he’s making.
“If his body is relaxed, ears soft, head down on the bed in what we might call a ‘sleeping’ position, and he’s in perfect health otherwise, then I’d expect it’s just a sign of uber relaxation,” she writes in her All Experts advice column. “If he’s laying there, but sitting up watching you and doing it, then it’s more likely an active communication that you may wish to address.”
Like, hey, buddy, isn’t it time for a treat? Or when was the last time we played ball?
One dog may sigh because he’s frustrated; another may sigh because she’s comfortable and is ready for a nap. (Photo: Brent Schumacher/flickr)
Is a sigh always a sigh?
“Dogs make many vocalizations, and they mean different things depending on various factors such as context, experience, relationships, the individual dog, and much more,” says certified animal behaviorist and dog trainer Katenna Jones of Jones Animal Behavior, in Warwick, Rhode Island. “There is also human interpretation: One person’s sigh is another person’s huff, moan, groan or whine.”
And, Jones says, some breeds tend to make more or different sounds than others.
“The most important thing is to remember there is no one answer. It’s important to not apply human feelings to dogs because dogs are not humans!” she says. “Look at the context of situations in which your dog is sighing, take note, and see if you can identify why YOUR dog is sighing — because it may be different than why MY dog is sighing.”
Just because we don’t always know what our dogs are trying to say, doesn’t mean we should stop trying to figure things out.
The AKC points out: “Dogs make sounds both intentionally and unintentionally, and they all have certain meanings. Just because we do not understand the wonderful variety of sounds that dogs vocalize does not mean that dogs are not doing their best to communicate with us.”
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So come on, you dear readers, send in some examples of sighing and other wonderful sounds that your dogs make!
Here’s my contribution from YouTube. The sound of a German Shepherd deep asleep and a very familiar sound in this house when Pharaoh is sound asleep.
Published on Sep 5, 2014
At first I had no idea it was him. I thought maybe it was my husband (who was downstairs in the living room taking a nap) and the dogs and I were upstairs….but soon figured out it was him! This was the first time I had heard Jax snore. I especially love his little face when he was woken up by his brother. Which I think he did on purpose. Haha. It is hilarious!
Smallbatch Pets has announced it is voluntarily recalling a select lot of its Duckbatch Sliders frozen dog food because it may be contaminated with Salmonella and Listeria.
Smallbatch Pets Dog Food Recall of March 2016
March 26, 2016 — Smallbatch Pets Inc. is voluntarily recalling one lot of frozen dog Duckbatch Sliders due to their potential to be contaminated with Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes.
The following image was copied in good faith by The Dog Food Advisor from Smallbatch Pets’ website and may not be a true representation of the recalled product.
What’s Recalled?
The affected products are sold frozen in 3 pound bags and can be identified with the following manufacturing codes:
Lot #: CO27
Best By Date: 01/27/2017
UPC: 713757339001
The “Best By” date is located on the back of the package below the seal.
Where Was the Product Sold?
Eighty cases of the affected lot of dog Duckbatch Sliders were sold between the dates of February 23, 2016 and March 10, 2016.
They were distributed to retail pet food stores in the following states:
California
Colorado
Oregon
Washington
About Salmonella and Listeria
Salmonella and Listeria can affect animals eating the products and there is risk to humans from handling contaminated pet products, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with the products or any surfaces exposed to these products.
Healthy people infected with Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever.
Rarely, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes can result in more serious ailments, including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation, and urinary tract symptoms.
Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers.
Pets with Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes infections may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever, and vomiting.
Some pets will have only decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain.
Infected but otherwise healthy pets can be carriers and infect other animals or humans.
If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.
No pet or consumer illnesses from this product have been reported to date.
However, because of their commitment to safety and quality, Smallbatch Pets is conducting a voluntary recall of this product.
Consumers should also follow the Simple Handling Tips published on the Smallbatch Pets package, when disposing of the affected product.
What Caused the Recall?
This recall was initiated after routine testing by the Food and Drug Administration of a 3 pound bag of dog Duckbatch Sliders that was collected at a distributor revealed the presence of Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes.
This recall is being made with the knowledge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
What to Do?
Consumers who have purchased the above lots of dog duck sliders are urged to stop feeding them and return product to place of purchase for a full refund or dispose of them immediately.
Those with questions may call Smallbatch Pets at 888-507-2712, Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM PT. Or email the company at info@smallbatchpets.com
U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area.
I have to thank our immediate neighbours, Larry and Janell, for sending on nearly thirty of these fantastic pictures under the general theme of Dog Tired! (Did you see yesterday’s picture?)
Dog Tired, selection one.
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These pictures are making me yawn already and it’s only two in the afternoon!
But at the top [of science] there is paralysis: leading scientific organizations do little except chase money and reinforce the ruling nexus of politics and finance — even since the financial crisis of 2008, which discredited the free-market philosophy that underpins that nexus. I argued years ago (see Nature479, 447; 2011) that scientific leaders had failed to respond in any meaningful way to that collapse, and I’m still waiting.
The political structure of the West is in deep trouble, and should it fall apart, there will be plenty of blame to go around. Most will go to political and financial elites, or to rowdy mobs. But some will belong to people in the middle who have taken public funds, defended elites and then stood back and watched as democracy got ridden over a cliff.
I think that fair comment and recommend the rest.
If one now goes across to that post from Colin here’s what one would read in the opening paragraphs:
The elephant in the room we can’t ignore
If Donald Trump were to trigger a crisis in Western democracy, scientists would need to look at their part in its downfall, says Colin Macilwain.
16 March 2016
The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC last month was one of the best I’ve witnessed in more than 20 years of regular attendance. The policy sessions were packed and genuinely stimulating. I met tons of smart, influential people I hadn’t seen for ages, and we all enjoyed a good chinwag about how better to engage with the public — the meeting’s theme for 2016.
The only trouble was what was going on outside the hotel — in the United States and the world at large.
Colin then makes the point that is neatly articulated in the extract that was published by Professor Murphy and is republished above.
I don’t have any answers other than wanting to share this with you, dear reader. For decent, ordinary folk must be aware of the multiple threats to our Western democracy that are taking place.
Just as I want to share with you an example of what a good honest person and his adorable Labrador get up to. An example from my old country (and Richard Murphy’s home country).
When one false step left Martin Kay literally drowning in ice-cold mud in the English countryside, he quickly found out who his two best friends are. Turns out one of them is a dog.
Holly Blue is a typical Labrador who has never met a tree trunk or a blade of grass that doesn’t smell good. So when Martin took out her leash one recent afternoon, his dog was over-the-moon with expectation of the crisp afternoon air and a landscape of wintery fields. Neither of them had any inkling that this simple walk would soon turn catastrophic.
This day, the two set out along a different route through England’s historic Thornham Parva village. Though it was a very cold day, the skies were clear and there was no reason for concern, or so it seemed.
“I hadn’t walked that route for about two years,” Martin said. “When I came across the mud, I tested the ground at the side and it felt firm, but as I walked into the middle the ground began to sink. I called for help but nobody heard me.”
Minutes turned into hours and Martin simply couldn’t extricate himself from the mud. Holly Blue circled anxiously, but there was nothing the dog could do except to stand guard beside her friend. She never left his side.
“I eventually drifted off,” Martin said. “I wasn’t optimistic about being found, but I wasn’t panicking – it was too cold for that!”
Fortunately, Martin’s good friend was scheduled to pick him up that day and when Martin didn’t return home, his friend grew concerned enough to call the police. Martin was reported missing to the police at 7:30 in the evening. Other friends and neighbors had already begun searching for Martin themselves, but they were all focused on his usual route, not realizing that he’d gone in a different direction.
Police used a thermal imaging camera during helicopter sweeps from above. After some time they came across a heat signature that appeared to be the warm body of dog curled up at the edge of the bog. According to police, indeed Holly Blue was found first, and sighting her led them to Martin. Watch a portion of the rescue below.
Police Constables Luke Allard and Clare Wayman were the first on the ground.
“The field was in the middle of nowhere and we were relying on the light from the helicopter and torch light,” Allard said. “When I got to Mr Kay I took hold of his hand and he wouldn’t let go – I told him he would have to let go or I wouldn’t be able to help him.”
Unfortunately Allard and Wayman began getting stuck themselves while trying to extricate Martin, so they covered him with their own jackets to keep him warm while waiting for reinforcements.
Martin was in and out of consciousness as he was taken to West Suffolk Hospital. When he awoke, he was told how Holly Blue had helped save his life.
“It was the first and the last time she had been called into action,” Martin said in an interview with Global News. “She’s a very loyal dog.”
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Now compare the behaviourial values of Martin Kay, Holly Blue and everyone else who ensured this had a happy ending with those being demonstrated in the first part of this post!
It’s no sinecure to say, once again, how urgent it is for humankind to learn from our fabulous dogs!
Learning from Dogs 