ohmidog!

 
The Christian Science Monitor recently took a look — a far deeper one than newspapers usually do — at the rising status of dogs in America, and concluded that there’s more behind the trend than a handful of wacky, dog-coddling pet owners.

It’s actually a huge story — one that’s been roundly missed because it has been a gradual shift, a slow evolution, and because the news media tend to be unable to look at dogs as serious subject matter. Instead it gives any pet story the cutesy pie treatment, complete with overused puns and chuckling anchorpeople.

The Christian Science Monitor story, by Stephanie Hanes, a former Baltimore Sun reporter, avoids that trap, and makes an effort to look at the reasons behind the dog’s rise from backyard denizen to full-fledged family member. It opens at Wagtime, the D.C. doggie day care center where around 60 canines show up each day, and whose owner is so busy she’s thinking about starting a waiting list for the full-time, $900-a-month slots.

“For many in the dog world, Schreiber explains, pet day care is no more of a luxury than preschool. Buying high-end dog food feels no more frivolous than serving organic fruits and vegetables; Prozac for the pup no more outrageous than Ritalin for the teenager.”

Wagtime, and all the other lengths Americans are going to for their pets, represent “a widespread cultural trend, a phenomenon that could easily be called America’s pet revolution,” the article says.

The revolution is bolstered by the country’s exploding pet population, which has increased threefold since the 1960s, according to some estimates, and pet industry sales that have grown to $46 billion this year from $17 billion in 1994, according to the American Pet Products Association.

But, the story adds, “… it is the dog that has nuzzled his way to the forefront of our pet revolution. Love him or hate him, Fido is changing American society – in ways municipal and medical, emotional and economic, social and scientific – as never before.

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Laika, a Siberian husky “dog-napped” by a well-meaning passerby from the front of a Fort Greene shop where she was left tied last month,  has inspired a new bill that would make dog-napping a crime in New York. 

Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol, who represents part of Fort Greene, wants to make sure pet-napping is taken seriously by the law, the New York Times reports.

Lentol’s media coordinator, Amy Z. Cleary said that under current law, stealing a dog is treated the same as stealing a VCR. Society, she said, has evolved to the point where a pet is considered a member of a family, and the assemblyman wants the law to reflect that, she said.

The bill aims to raise dog and cat-napping to a Class E felony with two years of jail time if convicted.

If a dog-napper aims to sell the animal for scientific research or for malicious purposes, such as for use in dog fighting, the crime would be upgraded to a Class D felony, under the bill, with four years of jail time if convicted.

The assemblyman is most concerned about those who would sell the animals for scientific research,  Cleary said. The National Association for Biomedical Research says 97 percent of all animals used in lab tests come from breeders or lab animal dealers.  About 66,000 dogs are used in scientific research yearly.

Some Internet commenters have expressed concern that the law could end up snagging animal rescuers, but Cleary said the assemblyman is working to address those concerns.

The couple who took Laika, Giusseppe Francis Leonardo and his wife, apparently thought she had been abandoned after she spent several hours tied up outside a shop. The dog was returned to its owner.

The Brooklyn Paper is taking credit for reuniting the elderly dog with her owner. Leonardo, who uses a wheelchair, confessed to taking the dog in the comments section of a story about the case. Surveillance video had captured images of a man in a wheelchair taking the dog.

The sad and disturbing case of the infant who was critically injured when he was snatched from his bassinet and carried to the woods by the family dog, now appears headed for a happy ending.

The baby, A.J., is home from the hospital, and is expected to recover fully. Meanwhile, Dakota, the 4-year-old “Native American Indian Dog, ” remains under the care of Jessamine County Animal Control’s SAVE Center where they are working to find him a home, ZooToo reports.

“We’ve had some nice offers from private homes,” said Jenise Smith, the center’s director.

At the time of the incident, in Nicholasville, Ky., just outside Lexington, AJ was just 3-days-old, having arrived home from the hospital on Sunday, July 19. He was snagged by the dog the next day, and spent nearly a week at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, suffering two collapsed lungs, a skull fracture, broken ribs and various cuts and bruises.

The 4-year-old dog is one of three the family has had for years. Dakota had never shown signs of aggression to the family’s two other children, the Smiths said. The dog has she shown no signs of violence since being taken from the family.

On a less uplifiting note, the SAVE Center reported hearing that scammers were apparently at work, fraudulently attempting to raise money for Dakota. SAVE officials issued a statement last week explaining that “any other websites, emails, etc, soliciting donations for Dakota are NOT connected to the SAVE Center.”