There's is no way I would get as far as the car with the "wrong" dog...The wrong Grandpa, we'll that just depends on what kind of mood the ol' coot is having.

I'm sorry, did you want an update on our deer friend Snowball?

This story has national potential.

There was a shooting a few blocks from my house last night on SE Washington - I heard the shots, and then the sirens. Couldn't sleep the rest of the night. I could absolutely not give a rats' a** about someone bringing the wrong dog home from the kennel. Why does that even qualify as news????

Okay, it shouldn't be front page news, but I love the idea of the new dog trying to pass itself off as the old dog to avoid going back to the kennel: "Oh, there's the water dish! I was getting tired of wondering where it was and pretending I wasn't thirsty."

Some comments also reminded me of the classic Les McCann song, "Tired old lady kissin' dogs, I hate the human love of that stinking mutt (I can't use it!)
Try to make it real compared to what?"

Definition of News:

1. If it bleeds, it leads.

2. In bloodless news cycles, get one that barks and one that meows and sic 'em on each other.

3. Talk about the weather, versus the global climate, but don't do anything about it.

4. Go to 1.

I feel bad for Dixie, too.

I would like to see MORE animal stories in the press, but stories with substance. It seems to me that, over the years, some advocacy groups have created the impression among some in the news media that covering animal issues detracts from covering important social issues. But it's a false dichomtomy imho. Animal stories can reflect important social issues/trends. For example, we can come to understand the needs of the poor and mentally ill through animal stories. I have worked with these populations and with animal issues quite a bit; often I have seen deep compassion and empathy for animals in the most dysfunctional of humans. People who are accepted and nurtured by no one are candidates for love and acceptance from cats and dogs.

Last month, I volunteered to help when the 'Neuter Scooter" came through Umatilla County; in four days, veterinarian Tess Peavey from Bloomington Indiana spayed/neuteed about 370 cats in Pendleton and Milton-Freewater: feral, stray and the pets of the poor. At that event, I met the disabled woman who wrote the Cat Trapper's Journal, a blog I think I first saw linked here. She reported that the feral cats who accepted her when she was homeless, living along the river in Corvallis, caused her to committ to action to end their suffering and increase their public acceptance and esteem.

The Neuter Scooter was awesome; it was a beautiful experience to see volunteers, from a 12 year old boy who says he wants to be a vet to older adults who work hard all week on their feet. put in 16-hour days, working together for a good cause. Dr. Peavey, who travels around the country with her husband and four children, is a story in herself: before going to vet school, she was a wildlife biologist in Rwanda, during the genocide. After seeing that horror, as well as reports of wildlife professionals disreagarded and/or destroyed while poachers paid off corrupt officials, Dr. Peavy had about lost faith that there was any good in people, until she started running the Neuter Scooter and seeing that honesty, integrity and compassion still exist among grassroots Americans. While in vet school, she had a poem published on the cover of a magazine about a dog she was ordered to euthanize, who could have been saved. It got her expelled, but a lawyer she met on a plane got her readmitted. When taking the vet's exam in a southern state, she realized the dog she was operating on had a microchip; when she told the proctors, they told her to shut up or she'd flunk. If I read the novel, I'd be in awe.