March 2010 April 2010 May 2010 June 2010 July 2010
August 2010
September 2010 October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 July 2011 August 2011 September 2011 October 2011 November 2011 December 2011 January 2012 February 2012 March 2012 April 2012 May 2012 June 2012 July 2012 August 2012 September 2012 October 2012 November 2012 December 2012 January 2013 February 2013 March 2013 April 2013 May 2013 June 2013 July 2013 August 2013 September 2013 October 2013 November 2013 December 2013 January 2014 February 2014 March 2014 April 2014 May 2014 June 2014 July 2014 August 2014 September 2014 October 2014 November 2014 December 2014 January 2015 February 2015 March 2015 April 2015 May 2015 June 2015 July 2015 August 2015 September 2015 October 2015 November 2015 December 2015 January 2016 February 2016 March 2016 April 2016 May 2016 June 2016 July 2016 August 2016 September 2016 October 2016 November 2016 December 2016 January 2017 February 2017 March 2017 April 2017 May 2017 June 2017 July 2017 August 2017 September 2017 October 2017 November 2017 December 2017 January 2018 February 2018 March 2018 April 2018 May 2018 June 2018 July 2018 August 2018 September 2018 October 2018 November 2018 December 2018 January 2019 February 2019 March 2019 April 2019 May 2019 June 2019 July 2019 August 2019 September 2019 October 2019 November 2019 December 2019 January 2020 February 2020 March 2020 April 2020 May 2020 June 2020 July 2020 August 2020 September 2020 October 2020 November 2020 December 2020 January 2021 February 2021 March 2021 April 2021 May 2021 June 2021 July 2021 August 2021 September 2021 October 2021 November 2021 December 2021 January 2022 February 2022 March 2022 April 2022 May 2022 June 2022 July 2022 August 2022 September 2022 October 2022 November 2022 December 2022 January 2023 February 2023 March 2023 April 2023 May 2023 June 2023 July 2023 August 2023 September 2023 October 2023 November 2023 December 2023 January 2024 February 2024 March 2024
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29
30
31
News Every Day |

Confessions of a Dogfather

I haven’t always been a dog lover. I never had a dog when I was growing up because, for one thing, my parents, like many Polish Jews, were conditioned to be afraid of them. For another, dogs are messy which would have been an affront to my mother’s immaculate housekeeping and for yet another they cost money and, as erstwhile penniless refugees pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, my parents had none to spare for such frivolities. Besides, it didn’t help that my older sister was bitten by a dog shortly after our arrival in the New World. Therefore, I must admit that I too was early on infected by apprehension with respect to our canine friends. However, one of my high school friends had a pooch and from him and his family I learned to understand and love them and was determined to acquire one of my own.

The saying goes that all dogs go to heaven and I have no doubt that this is true.

My first acquisition was the result of pure happenstance. When I was an undergraduate living away from home, I literally had a dog thrust upon me. During my senior year someone left a frail and sickly foundling in the hallway of my apartment building right near my door. I quickly decided that I wanted to rescue him and asked my roommates for permission to go ahead. In the end they did consent and I nursed this baby dog, who I named Moby, back to health and in time his natural little puppy spirits completely revived. However, shortly thereafter one of my roommates had a reversal in her life and alas, for reasons that I will never understand, decided to take it out on Moby and me. There followed a great deal of strife in our household and since puppies, like their human counterparts, are very sensitive, not wanting Moby to be caught in the crossfire, I ended up giving him away to a nice elderly couple who lived in the neighborhood and who had expressed a fondness for him. I too moved out but not without a considerable amount of loathing. Some years later when I was a graduate student in another city I ran into the hostile roommate; she apologized profusely for scapegoating me and Moby but it only made me regret giving him up all the more.

I have sometimes said to myself, as one who married late, that had I acquired a puppy during my early years of bachelorhood that I would have married rather sooner. The theory behind this thinking is that the parent of a well cared for and lovable pet is a magnet to the opposite sex. Anyhow, that didn’t happen, but when I finally did marry it was to another dog lover so there was no opposition when we adopted a pet. Our children were eight and ten years old at the time and made all sorts of commitments to help take care of him but, as is typical, did not fail to disappoint. Still, they gave their new sibling oodles of affection.

We got a rescue puppy that had been born on a First Nations reserve a couple of hours out of town. He was a sweet and furry little thing with big feet when we got him and on the basis of the promise of those feet grew up to be a 95-pound lumbering bear. Unfortunately, the foster family had named the poor darling Che but what did he know about that? Calm and gentle — a baby could poke a stick in his eye and he would barely flinch — I never could understand how someone could name such an adorable beast after a blood-drenched butcher. His only flaw, if you can call it that, was that he drooled a bit, which is not uncommon for dogs of that ilk. Whenever someone approached us and asked if they could pet him — which happened quite often because he was so adorable — I would always warn them about the drooling but no one ever seemed to mind. Good looks help a lot.

More than being a great friend Che was also a life saver of sorts for me. During a bad patch in my life taking Che for a walk, even during the winter — especially during the winter, actually — always revived my spirits. The brisk air and his happy hunkering were a tonic for me and sometimes, when we were out for a winter walk, I would say to myself wouldn’t it be nice if we could just keep going on like this forever and ever. Of course, I would not have been allowed to become one of those homeless people with a pet in tow, but I couldn’t help thinking that I would always be happy walking or cuddling with Che in the cold.

A dog park is more than a green space where dogs are permitted to socialize and play off leash, it is a little community for dogs and dog-people. But with the onset of the pandemic lockdowns, just as might be expected, a safetyist obsession arrived at our little Eden. At first many dog-people disbursed because, in the pandemic of fear, a groundless rumor spread that dogs were super-spreaders. After that, however, a trend occurred in which single people confined to their homes began adopting dogs in great numbers ostensibly on account of loneliness. At the peak of this craze available rescue dogs became as scarce as hens’ teeth. Some of these rescuers became good dog parents but others hadn’t a clue. Most dogs, especially puppies, are hardwired for sometimes rough and competitive play, but some of these dog-parents-by-convenience could not stand conventional dog play and as soon as their dog got involved in it, they would put him on leash and leave, often giving you a dirty look if your dog had initiated the play. The worst of it, though, is that now that the lockdowns have been lifted many of these dogs that were adopted for entirely selfish reasons are now being returned to shelters and since they are older now will be more difficult if not impossible to place.

The saying goes that all dogs go to heaven and I have no doubt that this is true. After Che died, we mourned him for about a year and then acquired another rescue mutt. All children are different and so are all dogs. Che’s successor, who we named Banjo, is a very different kind of animal, smaller, sleeker and also more active. Most importantly, he is a food hound and food hounds are something else. Early on in his life he was wont to snatch and consume what our vet likes to call “dietary indiscretions” and on two different occasions managed to snatch and swallow whole someone’s glove. We had to make him chuck them up and once this meant spending a lot of money at an emergency dog clinic, but that was not the worst of it. With his super sense of smell Banjo can detect a morsel of food at a great distance and is capable of making a precision strike for it at lightning speed. When he is on leash, I can prevent this, but off leash is another matter. On two occasions at a large off-leash dog park he managed to snatch two different people’s breakfast pastries, a bagel and a croissant respectively. We needn’t go into whether it is advisable to be breakfasting at canine level in an off-leash dog park, but it turned out that the bagel person was very gracious and laughed the whole thing off. The croissant person not so much. He angrily declaimed that my dog sucked and stomped off when I offered to pay for the stolen pastry.

I don’t think he really meant that my dog sucked but that I, as his parent, did and I’m inclined to say guilty as charged. I am definitely not a dog whisperer. In fact, I secretly don’t think that they really exist except on television, in which case it is all staged with a thousand takes and clever editing or CGI or some such thing. A dogwalker friend of mine to whom I confided these woeful stories told me that he too had once cared for a dog that was a food hound and therefore had made it a habit of always carrying a little cash around with him when said dog was in his charge in order to reimburse the hapless victim of stolen food.

Don’t get me wrong. I do work at training my dogs and with some success. This is how it goes. For a couple weeks I will work assiduously at some command and be delighted at the considerable progress that we make. However, the next week the pooch will regress and it will be as if all the work was for naught. Pathetic, no? But many of the dog-people I speak with have had the same experience. We shrug our shoulders and console ourselves with the thought that our beloved pets are just going through rebellious phases, much as human children do. Moreover, I contend that this doggy rebelliousness is definitely not a matter of a lack of intelligence. On the contrary, the more intelligent puppies also seem to be the ones that are more rebellious — go figure! But what can I say? Having a dog is like having a child, it’s a life sentence and I, for one, through thick and thin, am happy to be serving the time.

The post Confessions of a Dogfather appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WTA

Виктория Азаренко вышла в полуфинал турнира WTA-1000 в Майами

I was diagnosed with cancer aged 39… you are never too rich, too famous or too young, says Dr Philippa Kaye

Top 5 Websites to Watch FREE Movies - TV Shows (No Sign up!)

The 10 Intense New Action Movies on Netflix That Left Me on the Edge of My Seat!

Top 10 Love Affair Movies of the 2000s and 2010s

Ria.city






Read also

Punters set for biggest Grand National winner this century as horse Corach Rambler is ‘absolutely hammered’ in betting

Get out and do something this Easter weekend in central Ohio, March 28-April 2

Everyone can see the cars but you have 20/20 vision if you can spot the money symbol in under 20 seconds

News, articles, comments, with a minute-by-minute update, now on Today24.pro

News Every Day

The 10 Intense New Action Movies on Netflix That Left Me on the Edge of My Seat!

Today24.pro — latest news 24/7. You can add your news instantly now — here


News Every Day

The 10 Intense New Action Movies on Netflix That Left Me on the Edge of My Seat!



Sports today


Новости тенниса
WTA

Александрова обыграла первую ракетку мира на турнире WTA



Спорт в России и мире
Москва

Трехкратный обладатель Кубка Гагарина уволил тренера и назначил нового



All sports news today





Sports in Russia today

Москва

Отставка Кудашова и уход Гусева и Уила: кого «Динамо» рискует потерять после вылета из Кубка Гагарина


Новости России

Game News

Пробный запуск вампирского градостроя Vampire Legacy: City Builder


Russian.city


Москва

Эксперты КА «Главный Советник» приняли участие в форуме «Тренды и антитренды корпоративного видео сегодня»


Губернаторы России
Шапка

Шапки женские на Wildberries — скидки от 398 руб. (на новые оттенки)


Движение транспорта перекрыли на юго-востоке столицы из-за пожара в жилом доме

Metaratings: "Спартак" может уволить Абаскаля по ходу сезона, клуб ищет тренера

Шапки женские на Wildberries — скидки от 398 руб. (на новые оттенки)

Силовики нашли Telegram-чат, где вербовали боевиков для терактов в Москве и по России


Концерт группы «Пикник» в Петербурге начался с минуты молчания о жертвах теракта

Аранжировка Песен. Аранжировка Музыки. Создание Аранжировок.

Джиган раскрыл свой вес и описал причину похудения словами «надоело быть жирным»

«Отрешенность от РФ»: адвокат объяснил молчание Пугачевой о теракте в «Крокусе»


Битые корты: Медведев и Александрова вышли в четвертьфинал Miami Open

Российская теннисистка Калинская покинула WTA-1000 из-за проблем со здоровьем

Россиянка Александрова обыграла первую ракетку мира Свентек

Теннисистка Александрова оказалась сильнее полячки Швентек на турнире WTA в США



Заказать недорогой ремонт кухонной мебели в районе в Москве и Московской области

Рынок вторичной недвижимости Крыма: цены растут, а спрос?

Выпуск ЦФА на платформе «Атомайз» поможет снизить нагрузку на экологию

В России назвали топ самых благополучных регионов по итогам 2023 года


Выпуск ЦФА на платформе «Атомайз» поможет снизить нагрузку на экологию

Путин назвал культуру духовным каркасом народа в трагические для страны моменты

Шапки женские вязаные на Wildberries, 2024 — новый цвет от 392 руб. (модель 466)

«Единая Россия»: Вопросы для «Диктанта Победы» составят ведущие историки


«Единый заказчик» берется за реставрацию Коронационного убежища и Дома призрения Баева

Пострадавший в результате ДТП на улице Свободы ребенок умер в больнице

Квиз ко дню основания Большого театра опубликовали на портале «Узнай Москву»

28 марта в Москве стартует Международный экономический форум стран Содружества



Путин в России и мире






Персональные новости Russian.city
Людвиг ван Бетховен

ДНК Бетховена показала отсутствие у него музыкальных талантов



News Every Day

The 10 Intense New Action Movies on Netflix That Left Me on the Edge of My Seat!




Friends of Today24

Музыкальные новости

Персональные новости