Thankful

Well, the US Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone.

It is the real Thanksgiving to me, since I grew up with it. I was so into it that when I lived in Germany I went to great lengths to throw a huge dinner for ten people every year - before I became a vegetarian, of course. I ordered the turkey fresh weeks before because it was never in the stores that long before Christmas, and I scoured the markets for yams and sweet potatoes, and made pies without pie pans (Germans don't make pies like that), and so on.  A huge production, but always worth it to see the surprise and delight on faces that never tasted the unique combination of flavors before. A few Italian friends I knew - the most skeptical guests, naturally - famously had five or six helpings apiece, of absolutely everything, and still managed to have a few pieces of pie with whipped cream. I never saw a 25 pound turkey demolished so fast.

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So this year I skipped it. It would have been so great to be able to really celebrate and be thankful for getting Brindi back. Or for my house being finished. Instead I spent part of the day hauling water, literally. I never dreamt she would be gone this long or my house would not be finished - instead of both hanging by threads. No way to cook and serve a turkey dinner with my pots and dishes and floors unwashed.

Not that I am not thankful. There are many things I can be thankful for. I am thankful my transmission hasn't given up the ghost just yet. I am thankful I am not exactly a petite flower when it comes to womanhood, or I would have gone mad with the condition of this place eons ago. I am thankful I know how to change a fuse, use a tester, and so on. 

But those are material things. What really counts is that I am thankful for my two healthy cats, Amelia and Rudy, who are the best ever. I am thankful for my lawyer, it's only fair to say; he stepped forward when dozens in Halifax and other cities stepped way back, and he's been awesome. And so has his assistant. I am grateful for a few neighbors who have not ceased checking on me and offering H2O and solace now and then, even if I don't see them for weeks on end.

I am very thankful for the loving and kind people I've met during this hellish ordeal who care deeply and unreservedly about all animals, and don't exclude people from their caring. I am so thankful to people that genuinely care about me and my dog, even though I have never set eyes on most of them. I am deeply thankful they are willing to sacrifice time and effort and hard-earned money and even possessions to help us out. They really do keep my spirits going. 

It's amazing to talk to people in Alberta and BC and Texas and Montreal - places I've never been, let alone had phone calls from - emails from Colorado and California and Wisconsin. These are of course not superficial chats; they are from the heart and go right to the heart. Not to mention the comments on the petitions, so many telling me not to give up. 

I guess I have to be thankful for at least one or two more material things, then, because without the computer, the phone, and the internet, I would not be able to connect to these people.

Of course, it would have been far more preferable to meet all these wonderful people under less horrible circumstances. And I have to say, I am not without frustration and a bit of shame when the calls are over. This is a truly emasculating experience. I've not been successful at a whole lot lately, didn't really need any more lessons in humility, or so I thought, right? But I would love nothing more than to be able to return the concern with some really great news and it hurts so much that I just can't; not because of pride but because I hate not being able to leave people with more positive reports - all I seem to have is more bad stuff to relate, even when I'm holding back the real crap...

Often I wake up totally bewildered and then remember the horror just as descends. In the past I would usually reach for the laptop to check my mail and facebook for a bit of reassurance before losing myself to agony and more bewilderment, because frankly, I have no idea what I am supposed to do every day, and little satisfaction whatever I manage to get done. There's always so much more to be done and it doesn't seem to add up to a whole lot.

Sometimes I don't make it as far as reaching for the laptop - okay, I admit it, a lot of times - and I just roll over, checking the cat's whereabouts as I move, and climb right back into dreamland. I can't fight the urge anymore and I don't even try. Often the phone is the only thing that gets me fully awake - although it's no guarantee I won't go right back to sleep afterwards. Because 999 times out of 1000, that's where I'd rather be. I can often influence my dreams; certainly more than I can influence reality for the past four months. This doesn't really explain why I don't let myself fall asleep at night. It's just harder to do somehow.

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I was thankful Thursday night for something special: I was able to help cheer up my friend Tracy just a little bit. Her dog Kasba - I'm sure I spelled it wrong -  is a beautiful white boxer who is sadly losing the use of his legs to a deteriorating nerve disease. She's been so stressed out, and who can blame her. He's a sweet guy, and his sister Chevelle is just as sweet, but the sight of him dragging his legs around is so heartbreaking. 

It's been really hard on Tracy, understandably. She found two medical treatments and can't get her vet to prescribe the one that could really deal with the disease; the other slows it down, but she couldn't afford the customs fee and sent it back! And weeks and weeks ago Tracy acquired not one but two different doggie wheelchairs, of different designs, but hasn't been sure which one to keep. Tonight- after I dropped by to fill the water jugs and invited myself to a shower -we took him for a spin in one of them (pardon the pun), mainly to satisfy my curiosity to see if he could manage. 

We took both dogs out for a little turn around the church's well-lit parking lot, and everybody felt so much better. Kasba seemed truly surprised - this was his first walk in the contraption, I think - he kept standing still, gazing around in awe. He'd move about thirty feet with no trouble, then just stop and do it again. After we got home I swear he was smiling. I mean, I could see the difference. And Tracy was smiling right along with him. Excellent.

We tried him in the other wheelchair - they actually look like chariots - and weighted the pros and cons of each. Then we played around with adapting them a bit, to see if we could improve on the weight and straps. The main thing was that it all worked! It was so great to see how he can really navigate around the house, and how thrilled he was. As I tried to check out the fit with Tracy, he kept blocking my view to lick my face, eyes alert and happy. When I sat on the floor he came and positioned himself over my lap as if figuratively sitting in it, though in reality he was suspended over it - nearly ran over my knees, but it was totally okay. It was more than just hope, it was a very positive experience.

I will continue to look for more things to be thankful for. It's a very worthy exercise.  

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The questions that come up again and again. Yes, Brindi is still in the pound. No, I still have not set eyes on her since July 24. 

The next key date is Dec. 2: we ask a judge to order the city to give access to her so that a behavioural assessment can be done by Silvia Jay. This is one of the things I was telling the SPCA last week, to give them a head's up. I figured they'd done this before, they must have a drill or something. Imagine - I was told, "no, never." Hmmm. Not that I consider the assessment all that valid. The real issue is, is this law enforceable? Is it being fairly enforced?

The next date: Dec. 4, a meeting for all of Brindi's angels at Dalhousie University next Thursday night in the Student Union. With Joe Cool. 

Then December 16 will be here before I know it, and the nerves will be increasing proportionally as it gets closer. I saw the courtroom last week; I counted the spaces, fortunately not too many. I know where to park. I'm nervous even writing this, so I'd better stop, or I won't sleep at all, and it's well after 3 am already. 

Let's quash that thing, quash it real good. Get that dog back home, for good and forever.

JULY 24 - NOVEMBER 24: FOUR MONTHS AND COUNTING

Torture is not a good word to bandy about. People are being tortured every day and their pain is unimaginable.

Emotional torture is in a different category, and that is what I feel I am suffering without Brindi here, and knowing where she is, and the agony of this unending nightmare and the necessity of fighting against the insensate system that brought this about - regardless of my attempts to steady myself it is emotional torture. My heart has already been broken so many times I thought there was no way it could ever happen again, but the universe found a whole new way to do it - not with a man, but a dog. Who would ever believe it possible.

It is a badiversary worth sleeping through, instead of not sleeping at all the night before, which I have not. Last week I had two completely sleepless nights, and in between those nights, a few with only about four hours, and a very slow recovery. It starts all over again. 

I am not satisfied with where I am in this fight and it is a frustrating thing to visit the SPCA to drop off bones and share information, only to be told I'm upsetting the staff, and that the supervisor doesn't know if I am a good dog owner or a bad dog owner. Bad attitude, SPCA. Bad timing. If your staff is upset, ask them why. Have a discussion, for a change. It doesn't look like that happens much, because nothing has changed over the last four months: I still encounter staff and volunteers who believe things that are not true - about the pound having "nothing to do" with the shelter. Some of them still don't know who they're working for - or don't want to know, since one of them claimed the shelter had nothing to do with the provincial board of the SPCA; none of them seem to know or want to know who is financing the shelter - hey, the annual reports are online, and it looks like the six-figure pound contract pays for a goodly chunk, if not half, of the annual budget - money from, guess who, HRM taxpayers. To run the pound FOR THE CITY: not separately; BY THE SAME ORGANIZATION. 

Ah, but the truth is upsetting. It's not my fault, nor is it my problem, if the staff is upset. In my opinion they're not upset enough. Because they're not upset enough to check all the facts, or to speak up if they don't like them. If they are volunteers, they still have a right to express their opinions. Muzzling yourself is not the way to improve things. Telling me that the staff get attached to the "long term residents" and get upset... leaving the rest of the sentence unfinished. Let me finish it: they get attached, and then they get upset WHEN THE RESIDENT - the DOG - is KILLED. Euthanize is the powder-puff term that doesn't make anybody feel better about it. It's not euthanization for Brindi, it's out and out killing that one day, ladies, who knows, you may have to carry out, especially if I end up running out of money and health. Because nobody else can adopt her under the circumstances. In case you don't know, I have not been charged with any offense; therefore, animal services does not claim that I am guilty of anything in particular. So one could conclude that as an owner I am no different from anybody else. The law actually says I am guilty of an offense, but the department chose not to charge me with it, and no such offense was even mentioned in the papers used to seize Brindi - I suppose any such mention would require that I be charged. It's very perplexing. 

I do know that the lack of charges is why it is taking so long for me to get to a judge: I had to BUY my day in court, and it costs a pretty penny indeed. Meanwhile other dog owners (even when their dogs bite people) before and since get their day in court free of charge, and much sooner. Until recently, the mayor firmly believed, like most of the populace, that it was impossible for Animal Services to seize a dog without charging the owner with some sort of violation. He also did not realize the sizable number of cases of by-law prosecutions - well over a dozen - since last year involving owners of dogs with two to three incidents of biting humans and/or other dogs, supplemented by "running at large" charges, in which the owners were charged, went to provincial court a month or two later, and were either fined a few hundred bucks, or had the charges dropped. With the one exception of a human-biting dog that was put down, they all fared eons better than Brindi and me. He knows the truth now, but so far it hasn't prompted him to do anything about it. He ought to seriously question the advice of HRM legal counsel that he remain apart from the matter, because he and Council created the situation facilitating the denial of due process. Following that, he ought to seriously review the motives and practices of animal services in regard to my case, because it's the only way to prevent something like this happening again - or something even worse happening again, like Ducky.

Our last four months, the outrageous sums involved, and the agonizing separation without visits, are a form of punishment (not yet over) that nobody else has had to bear for the kind of minor infractions involved, not even for worse ones!

Brindi is a bad dog, according to HRM, and in the one-dimensional world of the by-law, bad dogs must be destroyed, just like a bad... (actually I can't think of any comparison, because there is none). So she is not up for sale. She is up for dying, that's all. 

As far as I can make out with the law, it makes no difference if I sign her over. Nor would I ever do that. HRM would not let her out of its jurisdiction even for training subject to approval; it would not let her go to a foster home, and it will not agree to release her to me pending the December 16 date. It won't even hear more proposals out of court - how, since it renegged on two meetings? Brindi, my friends at the SPCA should note, is being cruelly caged again after two years in a shelter and barely a year out, in part also because no one at that organization has stepped up to help. And so the battle drags on, and I am powerless to stop it, despite thousands of signatures and notes from folks all over the planet, despite letters to every relevant public official in the province and beyond. 

Brindi is punished very severely by this long wait, a significant period of time in the short life of a dog, all because of a loophole that was used to create a black hole of bureacracy, whether intentionally or unintentionally. In fact it's irrelevant which it is. Much more relevant are the intentions since that time of the parties involved, once the contrast is known between our case and the others on record. A contrast, I should note, that nobody was going to ever mention or notice, unless a crack internet researcher took the time to find the records - and thank goodness she did. 

Brindi has been condemned to death for an alleged propensity to attack "unprovoked". You all know the latter is debatable. To a dog, the natural territorial boundary is the road edge, not the easement - (what's a 16-foot easement to a dog??) - and since a dog remembers quite well when another dog was aggressive to it at some point in the past, there can be a prior provocation, and the response detached in time, but a response nonetheless. These are all provocations in the dog world. And what does it mean, "propensity"? Some kind of propensity to attack is quite obviously inherent to the nature of every dog on earth. No dog does not possess this trait in some degree; if it didn't, it would be a stuffed animal, not a live canine. 

So I haven't sobbed hard, the really hard and long sobbing, in a few days now and I know I am overdue. I am not feeling well enough to sustain it so I pray the sobbing will pass me by today, against the odds. It's so hard, I can't predict what will trigger it. Every other commercial has a dog in it; every other series or movie plot seems to involve a dog, and a look out my window is easily pierced with the sight of a happy human-canine pair strolling down the street. A call-in show on the radio is invariably about pets; or somebody comes up with yet another bad story about a dog and the law. I cringe and cringe. 

About me being a good dog owner or not - I guess it would be a lot less upsetting to believe I'm not? Good luck on that one, ladies. Willful ignorance is no answer and certainly no excuse. If my dog is unjustly ordered euthanized, it doesn't hack it to say "just carrying out orders"; that is, as I#ve said, tantamount to the infamous Nuremberg defense (which didn't stop the court from convicting the Germans). But to add to "just carrying out orders", the claim "I don't know who I work for," "We are separate from the NS SPCA," -- well, it's a bit like saying not only am I not responsible; heck, I'm not even in the German army. A bit hard to swallow.

And I'm feeling sick enough and angry enough on this four-month anniversary to say: you are participating willingly in this ordeal. So please, keep it to yourselves if you're upset, unless you plan on doing something constructive about it - like speak up (not to me). Otherwise, you have no right to tell me how upset you are about Brindi, or how attached you are. I'm absolutely sure you are, but with all due respect (however much is due), so what? I believe I'll begin to care about your upset staff and volunteers right about the same time the SPCA starts caring about how upset I am, and how attached I am, not to mention how upset Brindi was to be taken away; when it starts caring enough to intervene on our behalf, if only to give me permission to visit her; when it starts caring enough to include ALL dogs, including the ones in the pound, in its mission to protect animal welfare.

Otherwise - talk to the paw.

One last thing: since you work for a group holding the monopoly on anti-cruelty law enforcement in this province (which in turn works for the group holding the monopoly on violence against animals in HRM), if you really cannot tell a good dog owner from a bad one, well then, perhaps you'd better get out of the business, hadn't you?

 

Nice news from near and far

Under six to eight inches of snow, huddling with rudy on the heating pad, it's so wonderful to read there will be a comedy fundraiser for Brindi on Dec. 10 - in Montreal! 

It's happening at a place called Bourbon Street West, at 9 pm, with the help of the facebook group "Comedy with a Cause" and comic Kenny Robinson, at the request of a very kind and determined young woman named Tammy Kramar. Tickets are only $10 and the place seats 100 people. Wish I could be there! 

Those angels in Quebec, what would we do without them?!

In the comedy mode - this is the most comic picture of Brindi I could find. Other than the ones with antlers or masks. In this one, she's listening out for small furry creatures under the snow. Or trying to tune in to a Montreal station. (The youtube clip of her trying to ski on her back isn't bad material, either!)

Other good news: three more bids on the auction items!! Both the quilt and the week at a lakeside cottage are off and running, and a first bid is in on the private obedience class by Meaghan Lumley. Meaghan's second item, a dog grooming session, was already scored by Jenn Richardson for her Jessie, the Chessie. Jenn, please send me a picture of the results, please!

AND two new items donated for the auction! This elegant candy-colored sofa, and a Pedi-Paws trimmer, both brand-new. Thank you, Joan!! As if it isn't enough that you've been the best legal eagle on the case even my lawyer is getting nervous. Hopefully the city's lawyers too. If they only knew what we know!!

 

Here it is modeled by Buttercup, of Me and my Dogs in Halifax fame. It's a bit too small for her, sadly, because she looks marvelous otherwise. But it's perfect for dogs of a more diminutive persuasion --  perhaps 15 lbs. or so.

Meanwhile, Halifax is subdued by this weekend of storms, and everybody's staying off the roads after the sobering experience of a four-hour highway shut-down last week. It caught a lot of people off guard.  

Water is gone again here, and I'm deeply worried about the concrete. On Friday morning they first broadcast the storm warning for that night. I was not sure what to do. Nobody was available to get a truckload of dirt down, and then straw; the ditches next to the footings always fill with water anyway. So I ended up sprinkling calcium chloride around them, mainly to dissolve in the water, so it wouldn't freeze (I hope). I had the sense that it was either a very smart precaution or very stupid fatal blow. No way to know until it's too late.

The clouds look very dark and full with more snow right now. 

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today my father would have been 89. We lost him ten years ago. Today my four sisters, my mom, and I are all remembering how blessed we were to have him and how much we miss him.

Had multi-infarct dementia passed him by, he would be fit as a fiddle today. He was so very good at taking care of his health. Dementia is a cruel trick to play on a man like him.

My father was not known to be overly sentimental about animals, so we never really knew how much he really loved our dog Scooter until she was hit by a car. It happened not long after he and my mother moved to a suburb of Chicago. My private theory is that she got loose and ran off to hunt for our previous home in another state. When we first moved from New Jersey to Michigan, she wouldn't want to go back home on walks; she'd just keep pulling ahead. I figure she was doing it again in Illinois, looking for our dirt road amidst the sidewalks of Hinsdale.

Fortunately, my folks lived around the corner from a vet's office. After she was hit, some kind soul scraped her up and took her there right away. She had some broken bones and a terrible concussion. Many people would have put Scooter down there and then. But not Dad. He took it very hard, perhaps out of guilt, knowing she was probably trying to run to Michigan. He nursed her back to health himself (my mom has a hard time with blood, injuries, etc.). When my mom called to tell me, I instantly got chocked up - I could already tell something bad happened from her tone when I answered and she said "Francesca..."

I went to see Scooter as soon as I could get a ride from Ann Arbor. What a nightmare to see this lump of fir bandaged up, and still wagging her tail. My dad would take her outside to pee on a piece of plywood. He gave us all regular reports on her progress. It seems to me it was weeks and weeks before she could lift her body, months perhaps before she could walk along, and she never really lost her lopsided limp.

Scooter was a great dog. She fully deserved the special dispensation to have her life prolonged. She was smart, fun, crazy at times, and a real dog. Our family life was far too chaotic to focus on her training, but kids and adults muddled through it somehow, and did our best with vets, tags, collars, and the like.

We chose her because she was the most active, sharp one in the litter of a beagle-type mom and unknown dad, advertised on a residential lawn by means of a scrawled sign offering free pupies (sic). As far as we were concerned, it came down to choosing her or the beauty of the bunch, a honey-colored, gorgeous male. But Scooter won paws down because she literally scooted all over the place and exuded sheer glee at everything. We used the same reasoning when we picked out our canary, who my folks named Enrico (after The Caruso of course).

I gave training Scooter a try, though I was only ten. I found a huge book on dogs in the bookcase, and skimmed through it one evening while sitting on the kitchen floor with our new, rubbery-limbed puppy. I worked on "sit" and "come", but didn't succeed much further. In a family of seven, it's kind of hard to be consistent. We spoiled her rotten, there's no denying it. Luckily she was good-natured and trained herself more or less, like so many family dogs do. Still, it was a real struggle to deal with the poop until she got the hang of walks. She did prove tremendously smart - and terrifically talented at getting into things she shouldn't. When that happened, she'd run and hide under our beds, with a pincushion or a hairbrush chomped halfway through, or worse, our miniature turtle. If I could get to her before Dad did (he could be a bit rough), or sometimes, after he gave up, I'd extricate the object from her jaws, being the only one
of five girls willing to do it. My sisters were either too afraid or grossed out, but I was pretty rational-minded about such things. Blood never made me faint, though I don't know why. So whenever Scooter got something in her mouth, I'd race to pull her from under the bed and carefully pry her jaws apart with thumbs pressed on the inner jaw joint, a technique I read about somewhere. Scooter was just small enough for us to pick her up, so I'd hang on to her, and she never snapped at me, though reluctant to give up her catch of the day.

As a puppy, Scooter nearly gnawed through the rungs of all eight kitchen chairs. Forever afterwards, you couldn't rest your bare feet on them without risking a splinter, even though Dad tried to sand them down. Eventually Scooter taught herself a special way of begging for food invisibly from under the kitchen table, by persistently beseeching one and all for tidbits, with a ghostly wail of howled arias, launched as shortish alto murmurs and worked up into lengthy and elaborate soprano phrases. Sometimes she'd eerily match Grace Slick's voice from the Crown of Creation, one of my sister Mary's favorite records. Scooter used the same high-pitched voice to utter squeals of delight whenever a man arrived at our door. The one exception was my friend Pat, who responded just as warmly, declaring her reciprocal and undying love above Scooter's crescendo shrieks and wagging body.

Scooter was indeed a very friendly dog.  But she was no fool, just the same. You never really saw Scooter at the dinner table, but you could certainly hear her. She stayed quiet, though, whenever my dad carved the Thanksgiving turkey and tossed her bits now and then. It was an unspoken deal between them. He wold scold us for doing the same thing, so he kept his transgression quiet. Scooter would just park her little body below the counter while he worked, and he'd toss her pieces of skin, gristle, and fat, and the odd scrap of actual meat without a word.

Scooter never failed to catch a piece of food thrown to her, however badly aimed. It became a past-time of ours. Some of us argued that she caught and swallowed in a single motion. I tested this theory by throwing something she wouldn't normaly eat, like a piece of lettuce. She caught it expertly as always, then spit it out a second later. (Whereas, Brindi will catch dog treats in her mouth just as accurately, but if she doesn't like one, she'll discreetly move to a corner and gingerly deposit them on the floor, as if reluctant to seem ungrateful or impolite!)

We used to take Scooter, squirming in our arms, up into our treehouse, where she could see birds a little closer; on occasion we'd walk her to the "sand pit" (an open slope where we sledded in winter), to let her run around in the deserted grass while we rolled down the hill. My little sister called this a "vacation".

After college, when I shared an apartment in the city with my sister Nancy, we took Scooter in for a week when my folks went away. We found we could cure her of her begging habit without too much trouble, and were very proud of ourselves for it, too. Sadly, we neglected to train my parents not to feed her from the table after they returned, so Scooter of course resumed begging as usual. It was useless to lecture my parents about it. They'd agree vehemently that begging was bad, then within seconds my mom would absentmindedly drop a scrap of food over the side of the table into the patiently waiting little jaws. You can teach an old dog new tricks, but human habits die pretty hard.

Our experience with Scoooter is a big reason why I was adamant about not giving Brindi food from the table, whether tossed to her or placed in her dish, from day one. I never did it. As much as I adore her, I know that giving in once virtually means a lifelong battle and I didn't want a dog constantly at my elbow with that expectant look in her eye. I found myself having to keep a sharp eye on friends and guests here because she sometimes gave it a try with them. It paid off, though. For instance, I don't have to think twice when I leave a plate of my food next to the bed or even on it to go down for a glass of milk. I know I will return to find the plate unmolested and Brindi lounging quietly two feet away, just as I left her. Not bad, I'd say! (It's a different matter with kitty food, however - it's got to be up on a table or out the door!)

My dad and Scooter were a funny pair, though. I don't remember him walking her all that much before I left for college though he must have. In general I guess it was our job, and fair enough. He made occasional comic half-hearted attempts to curb Scooter's begging, bellowing at her in his fluent Longislandese, "This is human food. You're a DAWG!" He gave the impression that she was a full-fledged German Shepherd as he ruggedly moved her around by the collar. But he didn't seem to mind if we dressed her in our old pajamas for fun, and was good-natured about it if she slept with us instead of the blanket "box" he set up for her downstairs. Usually she'd make the rounds of our beds and her box throughout the night - not his bed - but she'd always insist on being invited up first. I remember many a night being roused by her soft doggie murmurs. Not until I'd pat the bed once would she fling herself up and snuggle into the curve of my body for an hour or two before departing for somebody else's bed.

Scooter lived to be fourteen years old. The last few years she not only still limped, but her little head, with its big brown eyes, never fully lost the palsy from the concussion after the car accident. She was still our beautiful girl, though. And we all loved her deeply and told Scooter stories with relish. 

Dad used to pretend to complain to guests that he was the only male in the house of six women, "Even the dawg!" Scooter was a woman to us. I guess he felt the same. I will never forget how tenderly and devotedly he took care of her after that accident. I can forgive his impatience with her in later years; if I could have taken her to live with me, I certainly would have. 

In many ways Brindi reminds me of Scooter, even some of her markings. Brindi's luxurious eyelashes are more prominent, though, maybe because Scooter was only half of her size. Brindi is just as loving and affectionate, I think, although much more sparing about kisses. Scooter had deadly aim with her tongue and was quite aerobatic: during her customary gushy greetings, Scooter could jump up mid-wag, lick the kid or crouching adult right on the mouth, and be back down on the floor with split-second timing, never touching their bodies. They never knew what hit them.

We were so lucky to have Dad, who had a great sense of what kids liked without being asked. He built us girls a tree house and taught me how to hammer a nail and use a screwdriver, and let us have Scooter, tolerating the extra pandemonium she brought to the household. It made for great copy, if nothing else!

I love you, Dad. Happy Birthday, wherever you are! I'm sure Scooter is right there with you, waiting for savory treats. 

You decide

Chickens and dogs. 

Well, I heard another story. A German Shepherd in Shad Bay about three weeks ago killed a few chickens while their owner watched out her window. She hadn't had the birds for very long. Horrified, she called 911, and the cops that arrived put the dog in the back of their cruiser. They were followed by animal control, who issued a ticket to the marauding dog's owner, on the scene by then. End of story, except to say that the woman soon got rid of the surviving chickens. 

Was this a proper application of A300 when a dog kills two or more animals?

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And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

30 Million Dangerous Dogs?

Here's an excerpt from a recent paper that came my way, published by the Animals and Society Institute:*

"Dog Bites: Problems and Solutions - a Policy Paper"
Existing and Proposed Legal Remedies - Attempts to Identify and Remove high risk animals: Dangerous Dog Laws"

The second common legislative approach (the first is breed bans) to remove dangerous dogs from the population targets the behaviour of the individual dog, designating dogs with labels such as "potentially dangerous", "dangerous", or in some cases "vicious" based on actual incidents, and then either eliminating the dogs or limiting the conditions under which they may be kept (such as requiring sterilization, micro-chipping, training, behavioural consultation, muzzling, etc.) Such laws increasingly also specify civil and criminal liability incurred by people whose dogs injure someone after receiving such a designation.

There is some evidence that a "prior behaviour" approach to the "dangerous dog" designation may decrease injurious bite incidence. This has only been demonstrated, however, where the dangerous dog label is limited to dogs who have already bitten and injured someone. A program in Oregon showed a decrease from 25 percent to 7 percent in repeat injurious bites (of people) after the implementation of a program restricting conditions of ownership of dogs who had injuries.

Many dangerous dog laws try not only to control dogs who have already injured people, but to predict which ones will do so in the future and attempt to prevent this. Typical legal descriptions of "dangerous" dog behaviour include "approaches in a vicious or terrorizing manner", "in a menacing fashion", having a "known disposition, tendency, or propensity", or "engages in any behaviour that requires a defensive action by any person to prevent bodily injury".

Aside from the subjectivity of these descriptions, the main difficulty with such an approach is that the best research to date indicates the likelihood that a majority of dogs engage in such behaviour without hurting anyone.

One groundbreaking study found that 41 percent of the dogs studied had growled, snarled or snapped at a familiar person at some time, but only 15 percent of those dogs actually bit anyone. Of those who bit someone, only 10 percent of the bites were considered injurious, making the total incidents of injurious dog bites only 1.5 percent of the total dogs studied.

This means that a hypothetical net cast to identify the 1.5 percent of dogs actually captures at least 41 percent of the dog population. And since this study only included behaviour toward family members and other people well known to the dog, and only included guardians responsible and caring enough to provide veterinary care for their companions, the percentage of potential problems within the entire dog population must certainly be considerably higher.

A history of threatening behaviour has not been shown to predict that a dog will bite, much less that she will injure if she bites.
...

Other Outcomes

With regard to dangerous dog laws based on behaviour, as discussed above, definitions of dangerous are so varied and subject to interpretation that most dogs' behaviour could be interpreted to qualify.

A conservative estimate would be about 30 million dogs would likely meet the criteria (this estimate is based on a study that found 41 percent of dogs growl, snarl, or snap at a familiar person, and thus does not include dogs that only threaten strangers, so the real percentage is almost certainly considerably greater).

Some statutes require only that the dog "endangered" a person in some way, leaving the way open for complaints by anyone who simply felt (but was not really) endangered.

All this creates a serious danger of abuse in any system that attempts to weed out "potentially dangerous" animals who have not bitten anyone. It casts a net far too wide to be enforceable.

When laws exist without the practical means to widely enforce them, the result is selective enforcement based on grudge complaints, and widespread non-compliance.

*Boldfacing, underlining, a few parenthesized notes, and paragraph separations, added by me).

Do You Feel Lucky?

Pump going again, did two loads of laundry. I owe the flow to a kind man named Sheldon who lives up the road from me and came to fix the second leak, and redo the first. It was a pretty gusty afternoon to be standing on a ladder cutting copper tubing, with the risk of getting drenched when it was time to test the system.

I have an obscene amount of dishes to do now. No rush...

Okay, I've been looking at this deal with my dog from all sorts of angles for almost four months now - the next badiversary is the 24th - and the more I learn, the more I see, the more absolutely incredulous I become. (Hint: see the poll in the left column). Animal control officials from the US and Canada write to me or comment on the petitions expressing their dismay and disapproval for what is going on. When the pros do that, something's got to be off somewhere. And it is not merely the system; that's a fundamental factor, but one of many. Even with the various bureaucratic limitations, there were and still are a number of ways out of it that do not require me to spend practically a year's salary to go to court.

Essentially Brindi is being held without charges. The charges should go to me of course, and I'd have the option to challenge them in court. But they didn't, and I don't. So the result is either sign her over, or take on some sort of court process, and the question becomes, which kind? There are so many ways to shape injunctions, applications, and suits, with a spectrum of risk vs. timing. I'm no lawyer - though at times I may seem as argumentative as one - but from what I gather, it's like this: you cannot appeal an injunction, but you can get one within a matter of days. You might reverse the kill order and even win damages in a lawsuit, and you can appeal the outcome, but takes a year to schedule the first day; an interim application takes a few weeks, and I have no idea actually if it can be appealed; we've filed another kind that takes two months to go before a judge. And we could base them on a number of different factors, from the lack of charge to the by-law itself. How much more confusing can it get? And the way things are going, I'll probably wind up with whichever judge ruled twice against the poor dog that roughed up a greyhound last year. As if he never heard of training, or a fence, or anything.

It pains me deeply that so many dog owners out there in HRM seem to fail to grasp the danger, never mind the injustice. Maybe it's easier to label the owner irresponsible, rather than the authorities, if only to be able to sleep at night. I really don't know. But I doubt my lone struggle will tone down the zeal of animal control. The truth is, an order to destroy can happen to any dog at any time. If nobody from the city deemed it appropriate to apologize to Jean Hanlon for the loss of her family cat, anything is possible, it seems to me. If I happened to own some other dog and not Brindi - and there's lots of big strong dogs out there, bigger than her - could I quietly watch this struggle? It's a troubling thought. Like everybody else, I'm distracted by the animal abuse cases popping up on a regular basis; they deserve all the attention and action they can get. But the threat of a seizure and kill of our own dogs is still there. You don't always get a 14-day grace period, either; it can be as few as three days. I know of no local group actively working to change that.

So, if you have a dog in HRM, I guess what it all comes down to is, are you feeling lucky?
Just how lucky?

Drenched

OK. So the pump is fine, it just blew a fuse, which I grudgingly found out. I say that because accessing the fusebox means mounting a lightweight ladder balanced on the rocks and dirt next to a footing with two-foot rebars sticking out of it, and carefully removing plastic covering and tape. Fortunately, a friend who happened to stop by on her way to a tea in Musquodoboit Harbour (gosh I hope that's the spelling) was willing to hold the ladder for me so I wouldn't fall and be impaled on the rebars.

As soon as the pump started, my joy was detoured, because had to shut it right off again. A pipe split open right over my head and the pump, cascading rusty water on both of us. Only an hour to spare before closing, I made it to Home Hardware, looking absolutely lovely of course, and bought some plastic joints. It was dark and rainy once I got home so I waited until today, when it was gray and rainy, to attempt to repair the break. This meant the ladder straddling the water tank, and using a hack-saw to trim a section of copper tubing - which had broken cross-wise along a copper joint. Then a struggle to reach up and sand the ends smooth so they'd fit into the plastic sleeves, and match them up straight. I didn't have great sandpaper and I should have sawn off an extra millimeter or two, because it was not quite aligned. But it was close enough for jazz, and when it comes to repairs done over the past 100 years, this is a very jazzy house. Extremely jazzy indeed.

Then a prayer and a throw of the switch. Instead of a cascade, this time, a torrent of water from directly under the kitchen soaked everything in all directions - the floorboards, the steel, the cribbing. Great stuff. Took minutes to slow and stop after I shut off the pump. I cried. The break was at a joint with a shut-off valve. I must have been psychic, because yesterday I happened to buy a valve just like it. I moved the ladder over to the spot, and once the water stopped pelting my head, I took a closer look, and soon realized I cannot possibly fix it myself. I can't get it off, for starters. So another day without water. At least there was plenty of it around the footings. I filled one jug for flushing the toilet. It's not pretty in and out of this house, let's face it. Tomorrow I will have to find somebody with plumbing tendencies, if not a plumber, and try it again - I won't be surprised if another waterfall turns up. Then I've got to wrap the pipes with the stuff I bought last week. Loads of excitement.

Meanwhile. I have another serious problem with my laptop. After a period of loosening, the power supply stopped working altogether in early September. A friend took it for repairs as a favor. I haven't seen it since. It's my brain; Brindi's my heart; both gone. Don't even ask what's on it; everything, just everything. There was no way to back it up, since it had no power and the battery was dead, of course, no power to charge it. Last full backup was three months old. Inexplicably, it's been torn apart so much that it might be useless now. If I don't already have an ulcer, this will give me one. I didn't want anything more than the power supply to be fixed but my wishes evidently did not count. I don't know what to do now; I hijacked a Dell from a friend and he needs it back. He will get it because I intensely dislike PC's, no offense, and physical limitations make anything other than the Powerbook feasible for me. Apple no longer makes the one I have (titanium G4), which even Apple salesmen regret. Last I looked, they don't make anything comparable. If I had the money to buy a new one, which I don't. As it is, I have to buy myself a crown to cover my implant, about four thousand. Been walking around with a gap for months. I only mention this - why do I mention it? Not really relevant. Sorry.

Today I wrote to more people about Brindi, and forwarded the letter to Best Friends in Utah with a brief note. We don't have a place lined up for a Facebook meeting yet, but I hope we will soon. Yesterday I spoke to Heather Anderson again; she was so kind to call. She sure has her hands full with her own animals, four or five dogs, six cats, hedgehogs (!), and more, plus running the D.A.I.S.Y? Foundation. It's amazing. She was hoping to call Tom Young's call-in show tomorrow, on 95.7, if her duties permit her. Other radio possibilities: on Friday afternoon I may be a guest on CKDU (88.1 FM at Dalhousie University. The only station left, as WRFL at the University of Kentucky says of its same location on the dial). More on that as and if it develops.

Since this whole thing began, I've heard from two people with dogs that look remarkably like Brindi. It's really something, because I'd never come across anything like her before. I remember that when I dropped Brindi at the kennel last January, there was a dog that looked so much like her, it fooled me for a second. She was paired with another dog owned by the same people. She might even be a puppy of Brindi's, or maybe a littermate - none of Brindi's pups look exactly like her. She and her larger friend, sort of a greyhound, were recent arrivals and the kennel owner put them in an outdoor pen to get Brindi used to being there with other dogs. She was fine, just directed all her attention to me, out there on the icy ground. I hated to go, and I just cringe now when I remember her look of confusion changing to distress as I began to leave; it's so awful. It was a great kennel, new, clean, lots of room, lots of outdoor runs, but she was not thrilled, I can tell you. She didn't spare a second to look back once when I picked her up. That was a ten-day stay. I don't blame her, after being cooped up for two years, she paid her dues in spades. Now her stay at the SPCA is well over three months, going on four. I know she's tough, but inside, she's got to be hurting, and who wouldn't be?

Running dry

So. Another week sped right by.

No response from HRM's lawyer, Scott Hughes, to a number of letters and documents filed by my lawyer, Blair Mitchell.

No response from the SPCA's legal counsel to a letter Blair two weeks ago, with a second letter to the Minister of Agriculture.

We are filing an "interim application" to request access to Brindi for Silvia Jay to assess her. I forget why we are doing this now.

I am trying to organize a meeting for local Facebook members somewhere in HRM so we can meet face to face and work on strategy, and possibly a benefit concert. Where to meet???

Without a dog around to get me up and out in the morning, I'm losing the battle against major insomnia so that I have slipped into an odd schedule and I only see about three hours of daylight. Usually I only see it out the window. The muscles in my back, neck, and arms are really sore and tender; ditto my head. I made it to the last yoga class on Wednesday my the skin of my teeth about ten minutes late. As soon as I joined in, though, I felt an overwhelming urge to run from the room and sob, not necessarily in that order. Somehow I made it to the end of class, but my thoughts and emotions never stopped working like a roller-coaster, even during the relaxation/meditation at the end. The tears welled right up again when the teacher added a new instruction to the usual relaxation aids: "See if you can think of three positive things about yourself." Hmmm. I could hardly keep focused on the task. As it is, I forget urgent things to do from one day to the next.

Partly because of the insomnia, partly due to logistical reasons, I still have no water. No laundry or dishes done for over a week. To be honest, I couldn't care less. I really could not. I might run out of glasses. but I've got lots of plates. I bought prepared frozen food so I don't have to cook.

Rudy, one of my two cats, has taken to my side more than usual, snuggling in bed (where he's claimed the geographical center for his own). He's been licking my hand lately, a weird thing for a cat to do, especially when your hand is not covered in tuna fish or cheese. Amelia would be snuggling with me too, except that Rudy has become more territorial lately for some reason. One glance from him and she scatters.

Several more contacts this week, promising, I hope. Heather Anderson of D.A.I.S.Y? Foundation is connecting with local media. On the auction, so far there are bids on four of the eight items I posted on epier.com. I have to go pick up a few more - some WWII-era German stamps that a kind man in Dartmouth is offering.

Nothing more to report.