Three Dog Tales

#1.  Why did the Dachshunds cross the road?

Picture this scene on a busy Midland street recently.  Two cute little brown Dachshunds on the loose, waddling toward the busy street.  Then they entered the traffic as if they had the right of way -- it was a heart stopping moment.  But the traffic did stop for them.  It was as if Moses parted the seas as traffic going both directions came to a halt to let them cross.

It was an amazing sight.  Of course, no one wants to run over a dog, but accidents do happen, you know.  Lucky dogs!

#2.  Pit Bulls -- nature or nurture

Pit Bulls have a reputation to some as dangerous and vicious dogs.  Is it deserved?  It's hard to say and impossible to prove.  But a lot of dog bite cases seem to involve Pit Bulls.

The breed is used by those who want to engage in the illegal activity of dog fighting.  And most likely the owners of Pit Bull who want to make them fighting dogs strive to make them as mean and aggressive as possible.  One example of what they will do, provided by Odessa Animal Control director Cheryl Brom, is walk them down an alley and wrap on fences to try to stimulate some aggression in the resident dogs so that the Pit Bull can work up his own aggression.

In any event, Pit Bulls seem to work up some aggression among humans, too.  Apparently, there a dog serial killer loose in Michigan.  See Detroit News.

But here's a good Samaritan story.  It seems that a woman saw what she thought was a dead dog along side a road, but it turned out to be alive, barely.  It was a badly damaged Pit Bull, the woman took the dog to the Vet, and the dog is recovering, badly scarred and minus one leg.  Read the story and see photos at Ernie's House of Whoopass  (Via MsFanni's Neighborhood).

#3.  My own dog, and the soon to be completed dog park

He followed me home from school.  Honest.

It was eight years ago this summer, I was jogging near a school and a dog started following me -- actually he led, but he made sure we were always going the same direction.  I put signs on telephone poles and an advertisement in the paper -- "found" ads are free thanks to the Midland Reporter-Telegram.

A few people called, and one woman with a child came for a visual ID.  A lot of dogs had been lost, but no one had lost that dog.

He's an Australian Shepherd mix with one brown eye and one blue eye.  His name?   "Old Blue Eye."  And he's a great pet.

Anyway, about a month ago he developed a severe pain in his backside.  All he could do was pace around because it hurt too much to sit or lie down.  It was awful.  The Vet diagnosed it as arthritis of the hips and gave us an anti inflammatory drug and suggested daily Glucosamine.  So the episode passed, and he has had a few mild attacks since then, but none as severe as that first one.

What does this have to do with the dog park?  Well, the one thing that the dog seems to enjoy more than anything else, if his anticipation is any indicator, is to go jogging with me around the neighborhood.  If he does have arthritis then that can't be good for him.

That's why I'm really looking forward to the new dog park.  He can run, walk, sit, stay, or whatever he wants to do.  And the good news is that the park is almost complete.

See Dog Park Almost Complete! for an update on the dog park.

Comments

[msfanni]

Dog parks are great. We have alot of them in Portland. I am glad to see Midland is getting one. Hurray for the dogs.

[Gritsforbreakfast]

Couple of related items - Malcolm Gladwell had some interesting thoughts defending pit bulls on his blog recently, see:

http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/03/the_pitbull_par.html

while my own pit-bull-mix pups are developing a reputation with the neighbors:

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2006/03/egg-sucking-dog.html

best,