PEOPLE Magazine: check. it. out.

OMG OMG OMG please pretend you don't know me while I squee like a fangirl. Seriously, go to the BAD RAP Blog this minute and enjoy. They have all kinds of good news to share. [Get some rest, you guys -- you deserve it.]

Take a look at those happy dogs, will you...! And so calm [smothers laughter]. Here's a snippet of video taken during the photo shoot. Gah, I love pibbles. Good on ya, BAD RAP, for those great bully smiles.

PETA wants to kill my dogs -- and yours

Ever-so-true billboard courtesy of the greedy breeder at Frogdog Blog.

They do. Really. It's the old "we must destroy the village in order to save it" excuse for mass slaughter. Dogs are miserable, exploited slaves. Owning a dog is the moral equivalent of owning a human. Or so believe the leaders of PETA -- and their solution is to make dogs extinct. "Find companionship with your own kind," lectures PETA prez Ingrid Newkirk. Pity Ingrid wasn't around to give dogs that message when they first sidled up to our campfires: poor beasts might have been spared the misery of long walks, tennis balls, home-cooked meals, the best spot on the sofa and advanced medical care. Silly animals -- how dare they link up with us! Let's kill 'em all, the sooner the better, one breed at a time or in bunches. [Yes, this solution is brought to you by the same folks who equate chickens on farms with Jews in concentration camps.]


And these hypocritical little PETA fascists, sitting on a war chest worth millions, say they have to kill the dogs they collect because the organization can't afford to take care of animals waiting for adoption. How insane is that, to kill a good dog rather than make the effort to place him in a loving, responsible home? PETA calls it "helping to alleviate cruelty and suffering." Suffering like this, I guess.

Did I say "fascists"? PETA also wants the government to have the right to neuter your dog -- all dogs. Weren't planning to breed Scout? Doesn't matter: you're not responsible enough to manage an unaltered dog. Risk of bone cancer? So what? Better your Rottie or Rottie-mix should die an early, agonizing death than for you to look at the science and ask questions and discover that people who really care about animal welfare -- those wild-eyed radicals in Scandinavia, for example -- have made neutering without medical cause against the law. [Imagine that.]

And now, just in time for the Westminster Dog Show, PETA comes up with ads comparing the AKC to the KKK.

“When it comes to contempt for ‘mixed breeds’ and a fetish for ‘pure bloodlines,’ there’s not much difference between the KKK and the AKC,” says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch.

I'm not making this up. The same group that throws all its weight behind bills designed to restrict dog breeding to purebreds -- California's AB 1634 [until the last desperate minute], Los Angeles city and county neuter mandates -- is accusing the AKC of "contempt for mixed breeds." You know, just like the KKK! Sweet Jebus.

Daphna, you're the ones killing adoptable mutts by the tens of thousands! You're the ones backing legislation that will allow only pedigreed dogs to be bred! You're the ones galloping through town in white sheets, Daphna, taking good dogs out of rural shelters and killing them.

Meanwhile, the AKC helps countless mutts, mixed breeds and purebred dogs get home safely. The AKC isn't perfect by a long shot, but the last time I checked, cross-burning was not on their list of upcoming events.

***

Forty-eight years ago this month, a brave group of college freshmen changed the course of American history: they began a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest segregation and racism. The four students cited as motivation the lynching of 14 year old Emmett Till:

[I]n the middle of the night, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, showed up at the house where Till was staying. Armed with a pistol and flashlight, they pushed through the house to find Till, forced him to get dressed, then dragged him away as the rest of the family begged them to leave the boy alone. On August 31, three days after the abduction, a boy fishing in the nearby Tallahatchie River found Till’s submerged body. The brutalized corpse was missing an eye, had a severed ear, a bullet hole in the head and he was anchored by a 75-pound cotton gin fan that had been tied to his neck with barbed wire[...]

The trial of Bryant and Milam ended in acquittal, as the all-white, all-male jury–warned by the defense that “their forefathers would turn over in their graves” if the men were convicted–voted not guilty on grounds that the state had failed to prove the identity of the body.

“That sent me some messages,” said Greensboro Four member Franklin McCain[...] “I concluded rather quickly that if that is all this life has to offer, then it’s not worth living.” But McCain and the rest of the Greensboro Four decided to seek change rather than accept the type of life segregation offered, and with their sit-in, they sparked a revolution.

Daphna, tell me again: how do the people at Westminster resemble the KKK?

Gratuitous leftovers [yes, I'll be bidding]

Chicago Kennel Club, 1902.

They didn't get chosen for the Nitwit post, but here are a few more pieces of visual material [as the historians call it] that happen to be on eBay at the moment. I should get a commission. Kidding -- links to sellers are under each photo:

Basket o' pups. Last week this seller sold the cute photo below.

Note flying saucer in background.

Sit up, boy.

And another shot of the railroad surveyors with their dog:

The men of Deadwood.

I see an "eBay photo of the week" in this blog's future, yikes. This will have to be all for now. Two more wonderful photos from the same seller [and I think it's the same dog]:

Best buds.

"I am on a sandy beach..."

From the comments section, below:

Just want to note that portrait of the baby and the pittie on the ground can also be seen in "The Best Dog in the World" by Donna Long. All types of breeds, but some nice pit bull pictures, too, and the author notes how pit bulls were very popular family dogs.

Thanks for the heads-up! I've ordered a copy.

Toddler trains pit bull (with a little help from Mom)

Sam with Teddles

Sam is one terrific [and hugely adorable] kid:

[Vick dog Teddles] is so big that he has been compared to a bull in a China shop. Now he lives in a home with Sam, who is only two years old. Teddles has learned to be careful around a little person and Sam actively participates in his training. Every morning, under Mom’s supervision, Sam will say, “Teddles-Baby, sit" and will wait for the “look command” prior to letting him out for his first run of the day. Sam will even correct his mother’s training, and note if she has forgotten to praise Teddles for an appropriate behavior. Reynolds chuckles, “We have a two-year old toddler training a Michael Vick dog how to have good house manners and Ted is responding.”

Christine Allen, Sam’s mother and Teddles’ foster parent:

What's wonderful about children like my Sam is that every dog that he meets is treated like an individual with a clean slate because he doesn't have any stereotypical or preconceived notions about different breeds. And I hope that when he's old enough to understand what stereotypes or preconceived notions mean, that he will be continue to be compassionate and humane enough to judge all living things on his or her individual merit. Those community leaders who still believe that all pit bulls were bred for ‘unstoppable violence’ and are unfit to live as family pets have a great deal to learn and could take lessons from my 2-year old.”

See the complete article here, and be sure to check out all the other Best Friends articles opposing BSL. (Look! It's Wallace!)

Teddles with Isabella

Library of Congress photosets on Flickr

Bands of sheep on the Gravelly Range at the foot of Black Butte, Madison County, Montana. [Link]. Click on photos for a larger view.

Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana. [Link].

Photographs taken in August of 1942, by Russell Lee. The Library of Congress' Photos.

Pug degrees of separation

She had her nose fixed. Seriously. The poor wee girl on the left is Lily, with pink stitches in her nose. She just got home from the most excellent veterinary hospital at UC Davis, where in addition to the nose business she had soft palate resection and work done on her larynx, which is what happens to pugs that have 1) breathing difficulties and 2) loving owners, the loving owner in this case being my sis up north.

Lily is friends with pug Harley, who belongs to Stephanie Lam, a writer and artist who designed the website for Our Pack, a Bay Area rescue and the current home of former Vick dog Leo, a sweet, happy, charismatic gentleman now working as a therapy dog with owner and Our Pack founder Marthina McClay. [That's Leo in the blue bandana -- Harley is the Christmas elf.] Leo was featured this week in a terrific article by Linda Goldston in the Mercury News.




When she's not busy with portraits and writing and web design, Stephanie organizes pug meet-ups and shows her French Bulldog, Chubby. You may have seen the whole happy family on the BAD RAP blog last month with Stephanie's new dog, Miso.

[BAD RAP photo]

A small, happy, bully world ;~) Yes, Lily is the black pug in the navigation icon. Get well soon, Lily!

Vick dogs at Best Friends, and on the front page

Best Friends caregiver McKenzie Garcia with Squeaker. NY Times photo by Garrett Davis.

Front page of the NY Times, hey. A narrated slide show, too!

And I know I should be doing a happy dance over quotes like this:

“These dogs have been beaten and starved and tortured, and they have every reason not to trust us,” Mr. Garcia said as Georgia crawled onto his lap, melted into him for an afternoon nap and began to snore. “But deep down, they love us and still want to be with us. It is amazing how resilient they are.”

But in order to reach that great quote I had to get past this:

“The successful rehab rate for these kinds of dogs is unknown because nobody has ever studied it until now,” Dr. McMillan said. “You might see an incredibly friendly dog, but does that dog’s personality change over several weeks, over several months, after psychological trauma? Are they hard-wired to be aggressive, or can they change? What’s the best way to work with them?”

Honestly, you'd think people at the nation's best-known animal sanctuary would be old hands at caring for unsocialized dogs, abused dogs, fearful dogs, dogs with obsessive-compulsive issues. City pounds and reputable pit bull groups have dealt with badly-scarred ex-fighters, and adopted them out. Yes, a dog's personality can change after psychological trauma [but I'd be very surprised to see "an incredibly friendly dog" become a dangerous, brooding loner unless some underlying health issue were involved. Dogs aren't John Rambo]. Some pit bulls are hard-wired to be dog-aggressive, others not so much, some not at all. What's the best way to work with them? As individual dogs.

[On the left, trainer John Garcia plays pillow.] To be fair to Best Friends, the dramatics may be due to quotes taken entirely out of context over the three-day period the Times reporter spent at the sanctuary. I hope people will remember that all the Vick dogs were treated badly, and over half are already in foster homes and slated for adoption. No dog on earth can survive terrible abuse heart-whole the way a pit bull can: a fact that makes those of us who love pit bulls feel some particularly serious anger and contempt for their abusers, believe me. [I know, I know: Don't hate -- educate.]

Some pit bulls are predisposed to issues like separation anxiety and sound sensitivity, and can suffer from these conditions as much as any border collie. (My male pit bull shakes like a leaf when the wind blows and a door starts to bang on its hinges [or he would, if I hadn't developed door control OCD years ago].) It stands to reason that abusive treatment would make these conditions worse. When I read in the NY Times article about toothless Georgia, my first thought was that she might have worn her teeth to nothing by chewing obsessively on rocks or on her chain tether. And talk about zero socialization:

Little Red is a tiny rust-colored female whose teeth were filed, most likely because she was bait for the Bad Newz fighters. Handlers cannot explain why loud noises make her jumpy.

Cherry, a black-and-white male, has what seems to be chemical burns on his back. His file at Best Friends says he loves car rides and having his backside rubbed. But like many of Mr. Vick’s pit bulls, he is petrified of new situations and new people.

Oscar cowers in the corner of his run when strangers arrive. Shadow runs in circles. Black Bear pants so heavily that he seems on the verge of hyperventilation.

If someone wrote to the Border Collie Boards about a dog that jumped at every sound or rubbed its nose until it bled, you might see a response like this one [by a postdoctoral scholar involved in the Canine Behavioral Genetics Project]. Or a link to an article like this, by the veterinarian who literally wrote the book on companion animal behavior. Excerpt:

Storm and noise phobias are emergencies.

They will only worsen with exposure, and the rate at which they worsen depends on the neurochemistry of the dog and the severity and unpredictability of the storms [...]

Treatment not only saves lives, but it means the difference between a life of quality or a life of pain and suffering. Treatment can involve the dreaded behavior modification, but this is one case where drugs are essential and not optional.

But enough, already: I'm sure the Best Friends folks know all this. I wish for these pit bulls a comfortable future of long walks, cozy sofas and belly rubs from loving owners, and I know the people at Best Friends will do all they can to ensure that future. Follow the whole story here: Best Friends Blog - "They’re front page on the New York Times."

Edited to add: Here's another nice write-up, this one courtesy of ABC News.