Tobias, Chapter 3

Adopted 16 December 2019 in Tulsa – died 18 June 2024 in Fayetteville

At 7:35am Christopher and I left  Fayetteville headed for the Keenan’s home in Jenks, OK,  to pick up Tobias, the 12-year old, food-aggressive, food-allergic, hypothyroid,  coprophagic Dachshund that used to belong to David Liner in Houston. Eleven years later, toddlers, jobs, and wife Michelle's Dog Everette being often savaged by Tobias determined the latter's eviction.  Given his age and temperament  his chances of being properly rehomed were nil.

 

In 2008 David had “rescued Tobias from a rescue” in Turley, OK. A professional nurse and part-time Dachshund rescuer,  kept 40 of the breed in a trailer -- a big heart often addles the mind. Tobias was one year old and suffered from ghiardia. To David’s enormous credit -- then a young man with many friends and interests other than cleaning stool -- he stuck by the dog. In David's words:

 

"The reason I picked Tobias among the multitude of Dachshunds running around the trailer is that he was posted on PetFinder.com (left photo below) I have no idea why Tobias was the one who needed to go, but he was the only one "available." The lady "rescued" him from a puppy mill because he had an umbilical hernia and was going to be terminated. ... Soon after bringing Tobias home, Tulsa had one of the worst winter storms in memory and the yard was iced over. He didn't like getting his paws cold ... that's how I found out he had giardia, when he proceeded to dump bloody poops exclusively indoors."  

 Being fastidious about cold paws doesn't mean that Tobias was a pussywillow. Fearlessness has been selectively bred into a Dog small and crazy enough to squeeze through a hole in the ground to face a Badger -- one of the fiercest beings on earth -- or a Fox in her subterranean den and not let go. The breed is grouped among the Scent Hounds, but anyone who knows Dogs will tell you they are Terriers -- bold enough to 'go to earth' in darkness to seize and drag the ferocious resident out, face biting face. They are not "stubborn" as people lable them; they just don't take orders from inferiors.

 

I have had the privilege of sharing my life with many Dogs, but none with Tobias' ferocity and tenacity. Soon after his arrival in Fayetteville, a potato chip happened to fall on the floor. Astra and Janowitz  were nearby only mildly interested when Tobias irrupted as a Tasmanian Devil between them, bit Astra who fled howling, and then clamped his teeth on Janowitz's withers and wouldn't let go. The scene of the 65-lb Labrador flying downstairs with a much smaller Dog suspended in midair like Superman's cape still attached to her is unforgettable. Weeks later, a similar scenario sent Astra to the emergency room with a serious bite wound also on her withers -- where the victim cannot reach the attacker. Clever! Christopher had to intervene to stop both attacks; I couldn't.

 

Other than aggressiveness, Tobias' salient features were his food-intake-to-poop ratio. Eating only 1/3-cup  of expensive prescription diet twice a day, this small dog could poop 5-7 times a day. Given a chance, sometimes he ate his own, sometimes others’ during our walks -- but he had discriminting tastes: some he chomped on with gusto and others he sniffed and haughtily rejected. Crunchy dry earth worms were another favorite aperitif. We tried to prevent all such snacking, but too often he was quicker than us.

 

Night crating was discontinued in late 2022 because after several incidents of soiled bedding, crate and dog combined due to an aging bladder,  I decided that cleaning just the floor was easier.

 

One by one his new companions -- Pertinax, Basmah, Astra, Janowitz ... died. Tobias didn't pine; he entertained himself bursting into high-speed races -- "look daddy! I'm rampant!" -- all over the house that often ended in dizzying crashes. By June 2023 he was alone, blind, and deaf. His hind legs became weaker and he shied away from the morning walks he used to enjoy. Tobias' world had shrunk; it was undeniably boring and yet the zest in him was not gone. Food, which had been rationed to prevent weight gain and forever restricted to Hill's d/d prescription diet still made him eagerly jump around the bowl. Despite near total incapacitation his joye de vivre was inspiring ... and will continue to inspire. Like any Dachshund worth his reputation, Tobias "never gave in."

 

"Enrichment" was lacking. We put Lammie (a Serta mattress promotion stuffed animal) in one of his beds. Never one for toys, he sat on it, which was something but not life changing.  To liven things up, on 6 August 2023 we took him "rivering," an activity invented by Christopher which consists of going to a river, sitting down preferably on a chair in the river under a bridge, watching Nature and drinking beer. We started small, at West Fork, a 15 minute ride from home. On the way there Tobias was trembling, leery of his destination, not "in control." We arrived, he pooped on the parking for all to see, and then we ventured unto the river rock and a little into the water. He felt Big; nay, "enormously Big" as he liked us to call him. We stayed a while and, not to overdo, we started back home. He was a transformed dog: No trembling, confidently "looking" around, feeling alive. We rivered more extensively on 3 September 2023 on the White River near Eureka Springs, where "River King" regained his spirit of adventure and enjoyed the cold water under close supervision. On 8 April 2024 he came with us, BethLiner and MikeWebb to Ola, AR, to experience a total eclipse of the sun ... which sadly he endured daily. But life gets in the way of enrichment and that was the extent of it.

Tobias-Ramón, as his adoring gampa-turned-father renamed him during a walk, had daily name changes: Corybant, Sir Turdsalot, Etouffee, Biggybig, Turdbias, Chardonnay, Potato, Misterwister .... We'll never know whether he heard us calling him by any name, but he listened intently, hoping ...

 

It is sad to see a living being give up because of the hardships of life and failing health; it is sadder yet to see a spirit like Tobias' who never gives up find reasons to rejoice about a monotonous bowl of food, and look around with blind eyes and deaf ears in anticipation that the darkness and the silence will end ... any minute now, any minute!

 

Tobias-Ramón closes an era of uninterrupted life transference of the influences that 19 Dogs, 23 Cats, and a Flying Squirrel had on each other since December 1971 when Majo came into my life. (We  have preserved Lammie, sealed in the odorous condition Tobias left it, as a possible surrogate for real life transference.) The continuum that kept them figuratively alive is now broken and the house feels sterile and pointless without other-than-humans.

 

Tobias' "Will" in the Schopenhaurian sense, however, lingers and will continue to inspire.

“Santa” Janowitz

Adopted 12 December 2010 in Houston,  TX – died 28 June 2023 in Fayetteville, AR
 
An animal trainer at the Houston SPCA once asked me to “borrow” the dog I was taking for a walk. “She looks non reactive and I’d like to use her a few minutes to train some aggressive dogs,” he said to my horror. Adding implausibly that the exercise would not endanger or frighten her but it would benefit the other dogs. “Johnson” had been through more than any animal should endure but on that “expert’s” word and hoping to help other homeless Dogs I handed her over. He walked her on the leash in front of some overreactive dogs who barked at her ferociouly, but she looked at them without barking back or acting afraid. On the second pass, the the barking was less enthusiastic and by the third some Dogs didn't bark at all. The "bait" Dog remained unperturbed. “Non reactive?” She was a saint! I thought.
 
All the more remarkable considering her background which, like all cruelty cases, was not devulged. As a volunteer, however, I had “contacts” like Cynthia who, witholding names (to my disappointment), told me that a case of criminal neglect was called in. As in "Houston Cops," on 22 October 2010, investigators went to the address with Constable Christine Kendrick and seized three Dogs. All had been confined in darkness, without access to water or food, living in their own feces, clearly destined to die by starvation. One was already dead, the other died on arrival at HSPCA, and "Johnson" was barely alive. Normally, in her condition she would have been euthanized to spare further suffering, but she had to serve as “evidence” for the arraignment and court case. Unable to eat on her own anymore, Johnson clung to life thanks to fluids and soft food intubation. The crime had occurred within Houston city limits.

Because the SPCA clinic provides no long-term care, cages are few and too small for a large dog to stand and walk, lacking a fostering volunteer Johnson was placed on the adoption line on 16 November, woefully too soon.
 
And there I met her while lookin for Dogs to walk: a black skeleton standing in the center of her kennel and shaking like a leaf. Her eyes anticipating more evil to come. As a volunteer I had seen the outcome of human cruelty and stupidity on many other beings; sights I’ll never unsee, and Johnson was among the worst. She needed an advocate – me. 
 
Sunshine and exercise were as essential to her recovery as food. I walked into the pen and she remained frozen in place, trembling while I patted and gently leashed her. She would not move. Since she was half her natural body weight, I could easily lift her, and I carried her. Half-way to the lobby she started grumbling; "there goes my face" I thought, but it was the sound of contentment. We made it outside and by her reaction I surmised she had never seen the sky. 
 
We did this every day and I left instructions for other volunteers to do the same. Every day we noticed improvement and soon she was looking forward to her walks. She would walk with other volunteers, but if she saw me, however far away, she pulled in my direction.
Fostering was the only way to expand her horizons, build trust, fatten her, and make her adoptable. But not all fosters are ideal and with Christopher’s kind approval we took her. We had two other Dogs (Farhaan and Astra) and at least four Cats. The newcomer was so modest they barely noticed her. In one week the improvement was noticeable and before we got too attached (I said to myself) I took her back to the adoption line, Kennel 49, shared with another unfortunate, Queen. It was traumatic for her to return to the turmoil of a shelter. Every time I walked by she was desperate. She would follow me with her eyes wherever I went. I heard her bark for the first time, and it was not a happy bark. She just wanted to go back to the only safety she had ever known. 
 
Fighting my impulses to adopt her, I posted this note on her kennel:
 
“Johnson” is the name of my past; perhaps you can call me a loving name for a better life than I have known. Let me tell you about myself:
 
Quiet, clean, and gentle.
Although still shy, I soon become attached to people, children, and dogs. Cats don’t bother me at all. I’m a great believer in peaceful coexistence.
Thoughtful and eager to please, I can go far if you take me along.
You can teach me how to fetch and other people games. I already love to play with dogs.
I have an elegant stride and walk well on the leash. Let’s avoid high-traffic streets until I’m more self-assured.
Sudden moves and angry voices still bring painful memories, so please be patient and gentle with me.
Because I have known starvation, I wolf down my food, but I will eat slower when I understand that you will feed me every day.
Because I’ve been ignored, I want to be in the same room with you; please don’t ban me to the yard.
I’m just looking for a chance to live in mutual kindness and affection in a forever home. All I have to offer (other than elegant good looks) is my total devotion and gratitude. Thank you. 
 
Hoping-for-a-Name (alias “Johnson”)
 
Obviously, I was not going to let just anyone take her and the Houston SPCA doesn’t vet prospective adopters. It’s a lottery; too often “out of the pan and into the fire.” I was going to the shelter every day to give her an extra ration of food, ensure at least one daily walk, and ward off creeps. While I was exhausted, Farhaan, Astra, and the Cats were being ignored at home. Enough is enough. On 12 December 2010 I sent an email to Chris who was traveling in order to persuade him that three Dogs were really no more trouble than two. It was a long, rambling, schmaltzy justification, to which he answered, “Do it.”
 
At the adoption line, sensing she was not coming back, she was befriending toddlers, Dogs, Cats, Rabbits and even a Budgie. Behind us there was a young woman adopting two Kittens. We exchanged stories and I mentioned I’d like to rename my new Dog "Janowitz" in honor of an infuential first-grade teacher of mine, but that it probably sounded as inadequate as her old name. The woman, a Russian Jew, informed me that both names had the same Ashkenazik root and Janowitz is the German form of several Slavic toponyms equivalent to, yes, Johnson. “Bad people called her Johnson; Janowitz sounds sweet, like your teacher,” she said. (I never keep former names, but the coincidence affirmed my tentative choice.) 

One of the first things Christopher and I noticed was Janowitz’s  (aka Jano, Witz, or "Santa," a title she earned) attraction to toys. None of our current Dogs cared for them, but Jano, who in all probability had never seen one, went for them instinctively. If food was being served … get a toy; if we got ready for a walk … toy; and anytime Chris asked “Who’s got a toh-oy?” she ran to the basket and got one or two. The house was strewn with them. Timid kisses and prolonged soulful stares were other means of expressing happiness. Her mildness made her every visitor’s favorite.
 
Then after a short time of living with us, this quiet Dog emitted an assertive bark as she ran toward the door. Someone had rang the bell and Janowitz had decided to protect her new “lifestyle.” She became the best home-invasion deterrent there is: a Dog with a deep, threatening, persistent bark that would scare any would-be intruder. She got so good at it that she “intuited” approaches well before we could see or hear anything.
 
Not surprisingly, her voracious apetite never abated. Food was not chewed but Hoover-sucked and although she was done long before the other Dogs, she never challenged their bowls, which having been starved to near death would have surprised no one.
 
In fact, given her torturous beginnings, any odd behavior on Jano’s part would have been understood and forgiven, but she only had goodness in her.  There was, however,  one sudden expression of fear that surfaced after several years of living with us: Sometimes she would climb the stairs from the backyard to enter the house, but then stop, cower, turn around and hide under the stairs. We had not given her any grounds for fear; not once had we yelled at her – didn’t have to. Her hiding hole was hard to access by a person. Coaxing her with words, food, toys … nothing worked until she was ready to come in, sometimes hours later in all kinds of weather. Chris then decided she might as well be comfortable covering her hiding spot with hay and she approved. This behavior continued with varying frequency until the end. The only posible explanation was that some sinister memories had come back to haunt her aging mind.
 
By 2023 Witz's hind legs were getting weak -- not unusual in tall dogs. A veterinary checkup revealed a tumor to be further studied. Days later she had a restless night and in the morning refused her usual treats and meds for the first time. She laid down and never got up. I managed to place her on her bed and slide her to her favorite place, behind my desk chair. 
 
On a long piece of foam I placed by her side I slept a few hours. In the morning she was breathing faster and I knew from experience that she was coming to her end. Medical intervention would only scared an old dog who was dying the natural way. I spent most of 28 June by her side and, law of Nature, just as I left her for a few minutes, at 15:00 she died. This happened 160 days after Janowitz's antithesis Astra, a fellow Houston SPCA adoptee, died. 
 
My father once said that in life we eventually "run out of tears," not for lack of sorrow but of exhaustion of having endured so much. While writing about the old-age fears that visited Janowitz is when I first cried ... not of sorrow, but rage. 
 
Like Holocaust survivors, Janowitz's "revenge" was living well. Given a chance she may have licked the hands that tortured her. To this day, I would starve the culprits to death in a filthy dark basement.

Eid al-Adha: whither civilization

 'With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.' Steven Weinberg

The world’s nearly 2 billion Muslims will celebrate Eid al-Adha on 28 June 2023. (1)  Sheep, Goats, Cows, and Camels will be brutally butchered, or “sacrificed” in the Muslim world by the millions -- 9 million sentient beings in Pakistan alone! Not only in the Middle East and North Africa, but significant Muslim enclaves exist all over the world and expanding. (2) 

As their mandated jihad progresses by way of migration to non-Muslim counties under the pretext of studies, business, marriage, and refuge they take with them the primitive notion of sacrifice, which in all civilized nations goes contrary to animal protection laws, humane slaughter laws, sanitation, public safety, and even the cannons of the predominant religion. (Lacking laws to protect helpless humans and other animals, a society is by definition uncivilized.)

The meekness of Western progressivism is an ally to Islamic ends. While in Muslim countries visitors are forbidden to worship in their own manner (no churches, synagogues, or temples allowed) or even wear a discrete symbol of their faith, Muslims abroad demand the free exercise of their faith in defiance of local laws and tradition. There are thousands of mosques in the US and Canada. There are mosques in South America, Australia, and a scandalous number of them in Europe. Jihad is regression and the end of Western Culture.

To gain Allah’s favor, Muslims target “clean” animals – i.e., those who chew the cud and have a divided hoof – in a feast of unparalleled savagery. Eid al-Adha cannot be understood without seeing the victims waiting their turn standing or laying in the blood of previous ones still thrashing and crying. The serial killing proceeds for days while Muslims ignore the agonies of the innocent.

To equate carnage and unfathomable suffering with holiness negates the very concept – or rather illusion -- of humans being the pinnacle of Creation. Dashain in Nepal, a frenzy of Hindu sacrifice, and other ritual mass killings survive in primitive ethnicities that can function only under brutal domination because reason and individuality require effort and intelligence. The danger ahead is that fertility rates are inversely proportional to common sense, and with at least half the human population being intrinsically cruel … well, you do the math.

And so, because of a sun-addled shepherd’s tale about a fictional “Ibrahim” killing a Ram in lieu of his son, trillions of animals have suffered and died needlessly in the name of Allah, who is as real and relevant as Little Red Riding Hood. Nor will the massacre abate soon.

Islam: Whither civilization.

https://www.islamicfinder.org/special-islamic-days/eid-al-adha-2023/  

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/muslim-majority-countries

Astra: Leader of the Pack

Adopted 1 June 2009 in Houston, TX – died 19 January 2023 in Fayetteville, AR

"Cuando!” I used to entreat Heaven when Astra’s eardrum splitting bark demanded our attention … or shredded yet another new Dog bed … or launched against passing dogs … or bolted out the door running wildly for hours killing forest creatures  …. or just stared at her food long after the other Dogs had eaten ... or the boarding kennel called informing us that our trembling, drooling Dog was a huge concern … but when the time came it was not welcome. 

Nothing less than the abiding conviction that other animals are our equals and deserve equal consideration … as does the child who doesn’t meet the parents’ expectations …  would have prevented the average person from returning Astra to the shelter.

The Truth About Snakes

 Fear of Snakes is one of the most common phobias. From mild repulsion to screaming to fainting, most people react negatively to Snakes. Many kill them, just in case.

 Is it because they are so different from the rest of us vertebrates, gliding effortlessly despite the absence of limbs or fins? Is it bad press and superstition since Genesis 3:1? Actually, of some 3000 species of Snakes worldwide fewer than 15% are venomous. 

 

Facts don’t matter to people like me whose fear of Serpents oscillated between screaming and turning to stone. Once I was returning to my car and the only way over the tangled sand-dune vegetation was a narrow trail I had successfully walked over a few hours earlier. But now, to my left I spotted a coiled Coral Snake. She was venomous, I knew, but that didn’t matter; had she been a Gartersnake I would have done the same: run back to the beach and look around for some man to carry me over that only viable exit.

 

My aversion didn’t improve until 4 May 1975, a fateful Sunday morning that would nearly become my last. On the kitchen floor there was a small snake, courtesy of one of my Cats who dragged her up from the basement. This time I screamed.

 

Bob, my then husband, still asleep at that early hour, came to the rescue and was amused at the sight of the harmless Gartersnake. Putting her out in the backyard was too close for my comfort; pets on the loose, neighbors, and pesticides didn’t bode well for the reptile. He offered to put the Snake in a coffee jar so I could release her in a field out of town on my way to work.

It took courage I didn’t know I had to agree to the insane plan, but my respect for life won and I allowed him to put the jar – breathing holes previously poked in the lid -- on the passenger seat. At 5 am on a weekend an unconfined glass container by the driver didn’t raise any alarms in our sleepy minds. We had not even heard of the “elephant effect” of loose objects in a vehicle.

 

I set off in the quiet dawn and just two blocks away from home I fearfully glanced over at the jar. The lid had come off and I saw the Snake as she was falling onto the floor. I hit the brake with force … only that in a state of absolute terror I hit the gas instead. My Toyota Corolla wrapped around a utility pole, and I was critically injured. Shattered glass from the coffee jar had severed my carotid artery. Still conscious and my eyes spared, I watched my blood spurting like a geyser from my neck.  

 

I would not have lasted 10 minutes in sleeping Tulsa, OK, had a man sipping his first cup of coffee not heard the crash through his kitchen window overlooking Lewis Avenue. He called an ambulance which dispatched from St. John’s Hospital just one block away. I received a transfusion just in time.

 

When the ambulance medic dropped by my hospital room two days later –those were the days of chivalry— I asked him whether he or anyone else had found “the Snake.” As if the medic knew the genesis of the crash! As if anyone could see a small Snake in the site of a wreckage! Of course, nobody had seen a Snake. And I found myself hoping that she survived and somehow made it safely away from the street.

 

Was that an epiphany?

 

Two weeks in the hospital with multiple broken bones, vocal cords severed, and permanent impairment of some of my abilities beg the question: Could any Snake have caused more damage than my fear of them? Not a Gartersnake to be sure, but very few others and none native to Oklahoma. 

 

I didn’t dwell on the errors of judgement Bob and I made leading to the accident. Nor did I run into any snakes until one sunny morning. I was reading in my backyard and not far from my feet, on the grass, I saw two Gartersnakes entwined with each other. I had never seen such a thing, but I knew what it was, and I was filled with wonderment and compassion that those two individuals were furthering their kind and, yes, loving each other. It was so clear to me, so beautiful, and I was free of fear.

 

I would urge anyone who is still in the grip of herpetophobia to visit Advocates for Snake Preservation https://www.snakes.ngo to learn truths that will help.

Day of Atonement

 On 22 December 1975 I killed my beloved dog Bruja. (If the Reader is so inclined, please search her name in this blog for a detailed account.) Short of a-life-for-a-life all I can do is hurt and repent. Her photo on my nightstand ensures that not a day goes by. But that’s not enough. 

The most meaningless expression in any language is “I’m sorry.” Sincere repentance demands: “How can I make it up to you?” Atonement.

 

Bruja would say: “Rescue another Red Bone Coon Hound from a killing shelter and this time, be strong, train her … don’t kill her.” Sadly, my victim is silent and so I resort to symbolism -- annual actions of atonement as banal as any religion or ritual, meant to help humans cope with their shortcomings.

 

This year, 47 years after euthanizing Bruja for no other reason than being a coward, I memorialize that innocent pup with some symbolic acts more to shame myself by their insufficiency than to fool myself into thinking they exonerate my action in any way. 

 

Fittingly, Thursday 22 December 2022 is a dreary winter day when I:

1. Bury my Cat Basmah, who died 95 days ago, to lay among the ashes of Bruja, Calpurnia, Magnus, Pertinax, Farhaan, Mago, and Argos, and also small animals from the surrounding wilderness interred at the “Companions Memorial Ground” by our house.
2. Make additional donations to nonhuman animal causes.
3. Abstain from drinking wine … when I want it most.
4. Publicly confess my crime –long after the fact—in this entry.

 Redemption is impossible and the burden of guilt well deserved.

No Heifer in a practical World Vision

 

T'is the Season of Giving. Just don't fall for the claims of two Gift Catalogs: Heifer International (Little Rock, AR) and World Vision (Federal Way, WA). Both suggest the gift of farmed animals to families in sub developed countries to help them toward self-sufficiency. It takes Lamb-like innocence to believe that. 

In countries conducive to a farm economy animals can be obtained right there. If they are not available it is because their upkeep is not feasible, as in arid environments, malaria endemic areas, etc. If farmed animals are available, however, and a person cannot barter or save enough money to buy a couple of Chickens or a Piglet then he or she shouldn't be "given" an animal.  Feeding, watering, sheltering, veterinary care ... require money and effort, and without them the "gift" dies. The family is as poor as before and animals have suffered needlessly.

Both gift catalogs picture smiling people, especially children, of every race in rapturous communion with the animals they've received from donors. The animal enclosures, pastures, watering pools, look like idealized developed-world equivalents. Let's get real: Anyone who has traveled the backroads of the USA or seen the interior of industrial farms anywhere knows that's not how animals are kept. Imagine then how they are treated in the Middle East, Africa, the Orient ... where the concept of animal welfare is alien, where there are no laws to protect animals, where the intended beneficiaries of farmed animals lack the comforts of the average Western pet. 

In reality, the animals portrayed in idyllic conditions are slaughtered inhumanely as soon as they are fattened ... if they are lucky. Else they will die of neglect, abuse, and disease. And the family in Nicaragua or the Philippines, will still be dirt poor.

Why? Because poverty doesn't happen by divine fiat, or capitalistic injustices, or climate changes, or lack of a Cow to milk, but because in much of the world people are incapable of extracting themselves from the hell they -- and no one else but they -- have created. Corrupt leaders rob and starve their own people; unbridled birth rates keep the people brutish and sick by design in places where, according to the gift catalogs, a couple of Rabbits or a Duck will propel them to a better lifestyle... And this is assuming the local strongman doesn't confiscate the animal and have a tasty dinner. It is also assuming that World Vision and Heifer actually produce what the donor has paid for.

Lies such as these organizations foist on the naive would be comical, were it not for the certainty that the animal "gifts" suffer and die miserably. How dare these so-called charities cause so much pain under the guise of altruism!? How do they get away with swindling the public and not paying taxes?