Escaping the mill

Content warning: this post is about the mistreatment and neglect of animals.  There's nothing graphic or gratuitous, but if you're sensitive to such things and would prefer not to read about them, you may want to sit this one out.

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I'm going to do something today that I almost never do: use this blog to plead with you, directly and personally, to do something.

I'll say it straight out.  If you are considering getting a pure-bred pet, please please please do some research and make sure that the breeder the pet comes from is reputable and treats their animals humanely.

This, unfortunately, rules out the lion's share of the pure-bred puppies and kittens you find at most of the big-chain pet stores.  You can often find "bargains" there -- pedigreed pets that will cost you one-half to one-third what you'd pay to a good breeder -- but that money saved comes at a terrible cost.

I'm not referring to the fact that most "puppy mills" and "kitten mills" don't do much in the way of screening for genetic health.  (An example is the most common congenital problem in large dog breeds, hip dysplasia.)  I'm also not going to get into the wisdom and logic of pure breeding as a practice in and of itself; perhaps that will be a topic for another day.

The reason you should never purchase puppies and kittens from unknown or questionable sources is because of the way disreputable breeders treat the animals they own.  Pure-bred dogs and cats owned by these people are used for one thing: producing income.  They are only valuable as money generators.  Dogs and cats who have been selectively bred for centuries for their ability to connect emotionally and bond to humans are kept isolated in cages, rarely if ever allowed to play with humans or the other animals confined in the same facility, and once their useful life as reproduction machines is over, they are either euthanized or given up to rescues.

The owners of puppy and kitten mills are usually pretty good at dancing on the line between neglect and outright abuse.  The difficulty for regulatory agencies is proving that they've crossed that line; it's time-consuming and often expensive to bring a suit against owners unless the case is clear-cut (which it seldom is).

An example -- and the reason this topic comes up -- is my new dog, Cleo.  I mentioned here that I got her from a rescue a month ago.  She's a pure-bred Shiba Inu, a Japanese breed that looks a little like a cross between a dog and a fox.  She spent her first four years with a breeder who should, in my opinion, never be allowed within a hundred meters of a dog for the rest of his life.  When Cleo was a puppy, she injured her left eye, and the injury was ignored until it looked like it might be life-threatening.  By that time, it was bad enough that she had to have the eye removed.  If that's not bad enough, her owner apparently decided the way to stop the dogs from barking was to bang on their cages with a metal pipe.  The result is that Cleo is terrified of loud noises -- even closing a cabinet door makes her startle.

It's taken her a month to begin to understand that she's not going to be locked up any more.  Her first three weeks with us, she became panicked whenever she saw a door closing.  We'd leave the door into the back yard open for her -- despite the fact that it's winter -- and at first, we thought it was kind of funny that she'd walk inside, then turn around and walk back out, then in, then out, sometimes for twenty minutes before she'd commit.  It became much less amusing when we figured out why she was doing it.  She's beginning to learn that she can go outside (or back inside) whenever she wants to, and doesn't need to freak out that once the door closes, she'll be stuck for hours or days.

She's also having to figure out how to play.  One really positive thing is that she and our other dog, a big galumphing galoot of a pittie mix named Guinness, hit it off right away.

Best buds.  Yes, the dogs have their own couch.  No, we don't spoil them at all, I don't know what you're talking about.

It was simultaneously heartwarming and heart-wrenching to watch her and Guinness romping in the snow two days ago.  We got our first big snowfall of the winter on Monday, and it quickly became obvious that she'd never had the opportunity to play in the snow before.  I spent a half-hour standing at my kitchen window watching them galloping around -- the contrast between Guinness's ponderous trot and Cleo's spring-loaded, gazelle-like bounce was hilarious.

Cleo's first time playing in the snow -- Monday, January 17, 2021

The emotional scars from her past aren't going to go away quickly, and I'm well aware that we are going to have to be patient, gentle, and reassuring to her, until she becomes convinced that she's in a safe place with people who love her.  The thing I've said to her the most often, when something panics her and she freezes, shivering uncontrollably, is, "You don't have to be afraid, little one.  You're safe.  No one will ever hurt you again."  I know she can't understand the words, but I think she's beginning to understand the intent.  She spends a lot of time sitting next to me, dozing, pressed against my leg -- making up for all those lonely, desolate years when she was never touched with love and compassion.  We're lucky that her mistreatment didn't make her scared of all humans.  Instead it's left her craving someone to trust and to bond with, and she's fortunate we're here to be that.

And so are we.  She's a sweet, gentle, funny little girl, who is beginning to learn how to be playful -- yesterday evening she bounced around in the living room, barking at her rawhide chew, tossing it up in the air, play-bowing and tail wagging furiously, and she kept checking in with us as if she couldn't quite believe we were letting her have fun with it.

So I'll reiterate my plea to be careful where you buy your dogs and cats from.  No animal, ever, should be treated the way Cleo was.  I know that it's not the fault of the puppies and kittens for sale in stores that they came from mills, and they need homes too, but the flow of money to disreputable breeders has got to be stopped.  Put pressure on pet stores to certify that their animals came from breeders who treat them kindly.  Put pressure on state legislators to pass laws cracking down on breeders who neglect the animals they own.  Donate to the Humane Society or the SPCA.  If you don't want to do a cash donation, then volunteer at your local shelter, or call them and find out what supplies they are in need of.

Consider adopting a pet from a rescue.  Yes, it means you'll probably have to work with your new friend to overcome what happened in the past.  But I'm writing this right now with Cleo snoozing peacefully in my lap, safe and warm and secure, and she is returning to me in love and devotion everything I've given her and more.

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Since reading the classic book by Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape, when I was a freshman in college, I've been fascinated by the idea of looking at human behavior as if we were just another animal -- anthropology, as it were, through the eyes of an alien species.  When you do that, a lot of our sense of specialness and separateness simply evaporates.

The latest in this effort to analyze our behavior from an outside perspective is Pascal Boyer's Human Cultures Through the Scientific Lens: Essays in Evolutionary Cognitive Anthropology.  Why do we engage in rituals?  Why is religion nearly universal to all human cultures -- as is sports?  Where did the concept of a taboo come from, and why is it so often attached to something that -- if you think about it -- is just plain weird?

Boyer's essays challenge us to consider ourselves dispassionately, and really think about what we do.  It's a provocative, fascinating, controversial, and challenging book, and if you're curious about the phenomenon of culture, you should put it on your reading list.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Such dog

When we lost our beloved old hound Lena in November, I really had no intention of getting another dog, at least not any time soon.  I went through the feelings of "I can't face going through this again" all grieving pet owners experience.  But then we started noticing that our other dog, a big galumphing galoot of a pittie mix named Guinness, was sliding into a serious depression.  He and Lena had been good buddies, and he was having a hard time adjusting to suddenly being an Only Dog for the first time in his life.

So Carol and I started perusing the wonderful site PetFinder, which pulls together listings for adoptable pets, sorted by whatever parameters you like -- breed, age, sex, temperament, proximity to your location, and so forth.  We wanted someone who would be a good companion for Guinness as well as ourselves, and initially thought another pittie mix would be a good choice (despite several friends voicing the sentiment, "Are you insane?  You don't have enough trouble with one?").

And the shelters have lots of pittie mixes.  Whether this is because of their largely-undeserved bad reputation or simply because they're common, I have no idea.  But we had our minds open -- the one firm criterion was compatibility with us and with Guinness.

That was how we stumbled on a listing for a little Shiba Inu rescue only an hour from where we live.  She had a sad backstory -- I suppose most dogs in shelters and rescues do -- she'd been used as breeding stock by a guy for whom the word "unscrupulous" is altogether too kind, and because of an injury and subsequent neglect, she was missing her left eye.  Despite this, the listing said she was sweet, friendly, curious, and intelligent -- and, best of all, loved other dogs.

So we put in an application with the wonderful non-profit rescue organization Home Stretch Dog Haven, of Moravia, New York, letting them know that the whole thing was contingent on getting along with Guinness, who (and I say this with all due love and affection) can be a little weird at times.  (When I talked to the owner of Home Stretch, she said the dog we were considering "didn't have any quirks."  My comment to Carol was, "yeah?  Wait till she's lived with us for a couple of months."  We've owned a lot of dogs, and none of them could be described as "not quirky," even the ones who kind of started out that way.  What that says about us as pet owners I'll leave you to decide.)

Anyhow, after passing the vetting process, the owner of Home Stretch invited us up this past Sunday to meet her.

My first thought upon seeing her was, "Holy smoke, she's tiny."  I've always had big-ish dogs -- not as big as our friends Wendy and Renée, who seem to specialize in Mastiffs and Great Danes, but still not what you'd usually think of as a lap dog.  (No one has explained this distinction to Guinness, who at thirty kilograms still thinks he's a lap dog, despite being more of a lap-and-a-half dog.)  But this little dog only weighs a little over ten kilograms.  At first glance, my impression was that her whole head was about the size of Guinness's paw.  But maybe, I thought, it'd be nice to finally have a Port-a-Dog, who if they're misbehaving, you can just pick them up and move them, unlike Guinness, who when he sets his mind on something, is like trying to tow a Sherman tank.

Well, the long-and-short of it is that they got along fine, and after a long, chilly walk in the fields behind the rescue facility, we wrote a check for the adoption and put Guinness and his new friend into the car for the ride home.

So, dear world... meet Cleo.

Such dog.  Much cute.  Many fuzzy.  So happy.  Wow.

She was a little nervous at first, but the evening we got her, she and Guinness were already chasing each other around the living room (the contrast between her quick, lithe, dance-like movements and Guinness's bull-in-a-china-shop approach is laugh-out-loud funny).  "Shiba Inu" is Japanese for "underbrush dog," apparently because their small size and agility make them useful for hunting in overgrown areas.  It was only after we got home, though, that Carol did some research on the breed, and sent me the following:

Some breeds are more difficult to train than others and the Shiba Inu is considered one of the most difficult breeds to train.  People fall in love with the “fox” look of the Shiba Inu but are not prepared to deal with their larger than life and stubborn personality.  Shiba Inus will only respond to activities that make sense to them and are very strong-willed and stubborn.  They will fight back if feeling threatened and will not back down once they have their mind set on something.  Shibas have a singular state of mind and once they focus on something, they become obsessed and giving up is not an option.  A Shiba will be willing to not eat, not get attention, not go on walks, and much more if they feel their pride is on the line.

My response to this was, "... oh."

No quirks, my ass.

In any case, Cleo is settling right in, and fortunately, we're no strangers to dogs with behavioral difficulties.  We've had a neurotic border collie who herded everything including our cats, a (very) mixed breed who was sweet and lovable but an absolute unholy terror at the vet, a hound who was so rambunctious that Carol's doctor saw her bruised arms and legs and asked if her husband was abusing her, and (of course) Guinness, who has richly earned his nickname of El Destructo.  And there's no doubt that after her rough first four years, she needed a warm, secure home with people who will love her no matter what.

Which is what she's found.  As I write this, she's curled up in my lap.  It's a little hard to write with a dog draped over your arm, but I'm managing.  I obviously can't ask her to move.  Wouldn't want to injure her pride, you know.

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I remember when I first learned about the tragedy of how much classical literature has been lost.  Take, for example, Sophocles, which anyone who's taken a college lit class probably knows because of his plays Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus.  He was the author of at least 120 plays, of which only seven have survived.  While we consider him to be one of the most brilliant ancient Greek playwrights, we don't even have ten percent of the literature he wrote.  As Carl Sagan put it, it's as if all we had of Shakespeare was Timon of Athens, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Cymbeline, and were judging his talent based upon that.

The same is true of just about every classical Greek and Roman writer.  Little to nothing of their work survives; some are only known because of references to their writing in other authors.  Some of what we do have was saved by fortunate chance; this is the subject of Stephen Greenblatt's wonderful book The Swerve, which is about how a fifteenth-century book collector, Poggio Bracciolini, discovered in a monastic library what might well have been the sole remaining copy of Lucretius's masterwork De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), which was one of the first pieces of writing to take seriously Democritus's idea that all matter is made of atoms.

The Swerve looks at the history of Lucretius's work (and its origin in the philosophy of Epicurus) and the monastic tradition that allowed it to survive, as well as Poggio's own life and times and how his discovery altered the course of our pursuit of natural history.  (This is the "swerve" referenced in the title.)  It's a fascinating read for anyone who enjoys history or science (or the history of science).  His writing is clear, lucid, and quick-paced, about as far from the stereotype of historical writing being dry and boring as you could get.  You definitely need to put this one on your to-read list.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]