My Life With Dogs
Testing out a slideshow service here.
Animal Cruelty
In a comment to the previous post, Chris Robinson makes reference to a poem from my book Magical Thinking. We bear a special responsibility, greater perhaps than the responsibility we bear toward each other, to care for animals. Whichever philosopher said that we reveal our character through our treatment of those weaker than ourselves was [...]
Guillermo Vargas Habacuc
I’m not going to link to the photos / video of artist Habacuc’s work. If you want to see a dog starving to death as an art installation, you can search on the name.
Proposal for funding: An art installation: Guillermo Vargas Habacuc comes to my house & we tie him to a tree out back [...]
American Boys
Just like to kill animals for fun, I guess. A mark of their — & our — pathology.
Home Notes
Carole is still in Hungary living it up in the high style college arts administrators have come to expect in this decedent, liberal society of ours. I’m home with the dogs & though our dog-guest Nugget went back home today, that still leaves four. Truth is, the dogs are bad for my intellectual life — [...]
Cold
At dawn it was -25° though as the sun came up it began to warm slightly. The dogs made quick runs out back, came in & ate their breakfasts & are now sleeping. The high today will be around 0°. I’m not going anywhere except for a quick trip to the post office. School begins [...]
“Dangerous” Dog Breeds
Someone pretending to knowledge & authority trotting out the tired idea that some breeds of dog are inherently more dangerous than others. There are no “dangerous dog breeds,” just dangerous dog owners. (Inbreeding & maltreatment can produce psychosis in dogs, which can make individual animals dangerous.) Every generalization about a breed in the blog entry [...]
Terriers
Terriers are merciless. We have three Jack Russells, one now going on thirteen years old, & the two younger dogs, after they have wolfed their dinners, try to push her off her bowl. When the succeed, the spill the bowl & then there is a snarling free-for-all. Almost never any blood, just grade-schoolers fighting by [...]
The Pure Product
I suppose there is some sense in which Tony Lagouranis is a victim, but I’m having a hard time working up much sympathy for him. According to the Washington Post, which has a weepy article about the effects of torture on torturers this morning: “Not long ago in Iraq, he [Lagouranis] felt ‘absolute power’ . [...]
And Candy Makes Four
Dogs that is. (Boy am I going to get splogged on that post title!) Anyway, here is a picture of the newest Jack Russell, who joins two other JRTs & a chocolate lab in our household. We got her from the shelter yesterday after our friend Amy spotted here there. Amazing how quickly she settled [...]
