ohmidog!

A TV network just for dogs?

One part of me asks why? One part asks why not?

Dog TV – which offers programming not about dogs, but for them – is a fledgling project, now airing only on a trial basis in San Diego. But there are plans to make it available, at a fee of $4.99 a month, across the country by the end of the year.

Add one more exhibit to the growing pile of evidence that dogs are turning into humans. (It’s when they get their own cell phones, and start putting us on hold, that I’ll really begin to worry.)

In all fairness, given the number of channels for humans that allow us to watch people cooking and redecorating, shooting and stabbing, courting and breaking up, or just generally making fools of themselves, shouldn’t dogs get at least one … on which to watch other dogs … generally behaving in a far saner manner?

I think my opinion on Dog TV depends entirely on the programming — that’s a sample of it above — and whether it can somehow manage to operate on a higher plane than human TV.

I’d hate to see dogs subjected to all the evils of television — its addictive nature, its intellect-lowering content, its reality shows. I’d hate to see dogs become couch potatoes. I’d hate to see dog owners start relying on the television as babysitter, or as a substitute for attention.

But the folks at Dog TV, which is based in Israel, seemed to have done at least some of their homework, and put together some footage that — while not exactly edge of one’s seat stuff — does actually have some redeeming value, unlike, say, “Jersey Shore.”

The programming — now being enjoyed only by dogs who subscribe to cable through Time Warner or Cox Media in San Diego —  falls into three categories.

“Stimulation” programs show exciting animations, moving objects and frolicking animals, with camera movements and sounds and frequencies aimed at encouraging dogs’ playfulness, even when they’re sitting home alone.

“Exposure” programming aims at getting dogs used to those noises and situations they may face in life — crying babies, ringing doorbells, thunder, the mailman, riding in a car. It doesn’t bombard the dog with those things, but works them into the plot lines, or what there is of them.

“Relaxation” content — the example at the top of this post — is designed to relax the dog, reduce stress levels and keep him calm through soothing music, sounds and visuals.

The idea, founder Gilad Neumann explained in a Bloomberg report  about the new network, is to give dogs something to watch and do while their owners are gone.

“Veterinary associations like the Humane Society and the ASPCA have been recommending for dog owners to leave the TV or radio on when they leave their dog home alone for many hours,” said Neumann. But that, he says, could lead to your dog watching something inappropriate, such as fireworks or gunfire.

Dog TV, which calibrates the colors of video footage to suit dogs’ limited vision, went on the air Feb. 12 after four years of dog-market research. Jasmine Group, the Israeli production company behind it, hopes to expand across the United States by the end of the year and then internationally.

“We’re constantly doing …  focus groups … for dogs,” said Neumann. “We’ve noticed, for example, that dogs are not thrilled about barking on the channel, so we’ve removed almost all barking.”

The programming is inexpensive to produce, with the video shot either in San Diego or Israel and there being no actors to pay. The content is scheduled so that dogs can watch soothing videos, followed by stimulating ones.

The channel’s creators are planning to attract advertising to their website, but say they aren’t yet sure how to integrate it into their programming, since humans aren’t really expected to watch it. (As we reported earlier, advertisers, too, have been experimenting with commercials aimed at dogs.)

One of Dog TV’s veterinary advisors, Nick Dodman, of Tufts University, says it’s unlikely dogs will be riveted to the set when Dog TV is on.

“One thing that people shouldn’t expect is for their dog to sit, as we do, in front of the TV and stare at the screen for hours and hours,” he says.

In other words, they’re smarter than that.

One of the advantages of being a fiercely independent website that makes no money is that we don’t have to hold back in fear of upsetting advertisers, or potential advertisers.

Our ads are clearly marked as ads. We don’t sneak any in between the lines, we don’t use pop-ups, or blind links, or otherwise use our editorial space to sell anyone’s stuff. Thus, we are beholden to no one, except the Internet, and maybe Google.

That allows us, from time to time, to poke a little fun at what we see as new pet products that — while not totally useless and silly – maybe aren’t the  innovation, breakthrough or revolutionary cure-all they are being ballyhooed as.

Last week, for instance, we, in a mostly humorous vein, wrote about a new product called Dog Flags, banners for dogs or their leashes that, while you could easily make one at home, are being marketed in five colors with five labels, from “Friendly” to “Please Don’t Approach” – not that we found them to be an entirely bad idea.

Here’s an entirely bad idea.

Just in time for next Halloween, PetPaint will hit the market — non-toxic paints in a variety colors that you can use to paint your dog so that he looks like another kind of animal, or anything else you want.

I’m not saying they pose a clear health hazard, or that it’s the end of the world,  just that pet painting is the kind of behavior – annoying to and disrespectful of canines — that humans, being a far more peculiar species, will likely be prone to go overboard with.

I learned of the new product in an email from the company, announcing their presence at the upcoming Global Pet Expo, which is underway through Friday in Orlando.

“From decking your dog out in your favorite sports teams colors to dressing them up for the holidays, it’s always fun for pet owners to interact with their pets,” read the email. “But let’s be honest — most dogs don’t like wearing clothes, and while they might let you dress them up, they will spend the rest of the day trying to shake it off. Enter PetPaint, the first ever clinically tested colored furspray for dogs. PetPaint is changing the way people celebrate occasions with their furry friends.”

The founder of PetPaint is Abe Geary, who says he was inspired to create the product by his two furry companions –  Billie and Monkey, one a Giant Schnauzer and the other a rescue terrier.

“With PetPaint, safety comes first, followed by top quality as a close second. PetPaint is specially formulated, non-toxic, and veterinarian approved. It has undergone rigorous clinical testing to ensure complete safety. Available in a wide range of colors, PetPaint is made with the highest quality color pigment, so that it can show up even on dogs with dark coats.”

Harmless fun? Maybe. But at the risk of being labeled a party pooper — as happens when I speak ill of dressing your dog excessively — I’ve got to ask again: Why not let your dog be a dog? 

Is he (or she) not already a priceless work of art? What’s to be gained by turning them plaid, making them polka-dotted or transforming them into  skunks, tigers or zebras?

I’d guess most painted dogs would spend the rest of the day trying to lick the paint off. And I’d guess most people who paint their dogs, because their dogs are tolerating it, because it’s attention, will jump to the conclusion their dogs “like it.” There will be those who see it as the coolest thing ever.

And they’ll be wrong. Their dog is.

An eccentric Czech scientist says a single-celled parasite that can be passed on through contact with cat feces can lead people to behave in strange and destructive ways.

And Jaroslav Flegr has more than studies to back up his theory. He has the parasite — Toxoplasma gondii (or Toxo for short).

Flegr and his work are profiled in a fascinating (and scary) article this month in The Atlantic, which describes the 63-year-old evolutionary biologist as a “sloppy dresser … with the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought” and “frizzy red hair that encircles his head like a ring of fire.”

Flegr, the article says, has pursued his theory for decades in relative obscurity — partly because he’s not much of a conversationalist and rarely goes to scientific conferences, partly, he says, because people just don’t want to hear it.

“There is strong psychological resistance to the possibility that human behavior can be influenced by some stupid parasite,” he says. “Nobody likes to feel like a puppet.”

His theory is gaining credence, though, The Atlantic reports.

That parasites can be passed on through cat feces is nothing new, as the article notes:

Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death … (It’s) the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom.

Flegr thinks that, even in its latent stage, the parasite may be messing with the connections between our neurons, affecting our response to frightening situations, our outgoingness, our trust of others and our preference for certain scents.

He thinks the organism is a factor in car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. All tolled, he says, it might be, in an indirect kind of way, killing a million people a year.

Flegr had long wondered about his own behavior. Sometimes, he didn’t move out of the way of oncoming traffic, and exhibited other behaviors that might be described as self-destructive. He began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was manipulating his personality.

In 1990, he joined the biology faculty of Charles University, which was a leader in documenting the health effects of T. gondii and in developing methods for detecting the parasite.

Colleagues searching for infected individuals on whom to test their improved diagnostic kits asked him to volunteer, and that’s when he confirmed he had the parasite.

Read more »

There’s a new product on the market called “Dog Flags” — designed, their maker says, to “simplify the relationship between dog owners and the public at large.”

They come in five colors, with five labels — “Please Don’t Approach,” “Friendly,” “I’m in Training,” “Special Needs,” and “I’m Shy.”

You attach them to your dog’s leash. They cost five bucks. They also come in bandana form.

“With over 80 million owned dogs as pets in the United States alone, being able to know at a glance which canines you can approach and which ones you should leave alone goes a long way to avoiding unwanted incidents,” the company behind them says.

The flags may not be an entirely stupid concept. But they do over simplify things. Flag or not, it’s still best to ask the owner. Dogs, like humans, can be friendly one day, shy the next. To put a “Special Needs” label on your dog would seem to raise more questions than it answers — not that there’s anything wrong with that. And as for “I’m in Training,” aren’t we all? Pretty much always?

As for those dogs who need a red flag, some of them shouldn’t be out in the park/streets/coffee shops in the first place — at least not in those cases where they are still under the guardianship of the human who most likely turned them into a red flag dog. Then again, those humans aren’t likely to purchase a flag for their dog, anyway.

The tiered color system is similar to that used at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah, but that’s a special environment where dogs are being rehabilitated. To suggest that all dogs in society should bear temperament flags (though nobody is, yet) is a little too Big Brotherish for my taste.

While there may be situations in which they come in handy, Dog Flags seem a shortcut to a more desirable scenario, a public — and I’m talking about both dog owners and non-dog owners — that’s more educated about dogs and how to approach and treat them.

Planting flags on dogs — “I hereby proclaim you … Shy” — seems a tad paternalistic. As with shock collars, my opinion is, unless you’re willing to try one on yourself first, don’t subject your dog to it.

Then again, Human Flags could come in handy.

I would probably get a yellow one — not for Ace, but for myself — and perhaps a red one for times I want to be alone, and maybe a green one for when I’m feeling frisky.

If they ever come out with a purple one that says “Freak,” I would probably get it, too, for there are times — rare though they are — that I feel like letting my freak flag fly. 

If I did get one for Ace, it would have to be the green one. Sometimes, people veer away and cross the street when they see him. People often assume because he’s big he must be mean, or at least don’t want to get close enough to find out. But I’d probably rather a select and interested few take the time to slowly approach and get to know him than slap a “friendly” label on him and have children start climbing aboard.

“With … dogs increasingly going to human destinations, such as coffee shops, and cafes, Dog Flags become an important tool in preventing unnecessary incidents,” the Dog Flags website says. “…  When your dog is wearing Dog Flags, everyone will know what to expect.”

It’s not that quick and easy. One can never totally know what to expect, with dogs or humans. So we suggest approaching both with a little bit of caution — no matter what their flags say.

A California woman has been charged with driving her car into a Los Angeles County park employee after being warned three times to put her dog on a leash.

The county worker, who was not named by the Sheriff’s Department, was treated for leg injuries and released from a hospital hours after the Friday incident.

Arune Kavaliauskaite, 28, of Altadena, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, according to the Los Angeles Times

The Sheriff’s Department said Kavaliauskaite was warned repeatedly after her dog was spotted running without a leash at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center in Pasadena.

After the third warning, Kavaliauskaite became angry, grabbed her dog and got into her car, the sheriff’s department said in a statement.

“The victim was standing a short distance away from the vehicle taking a picture of Ms. Kavaliauskaite in the vehicle for future identification. Ms. Kavaliauskaite accelerated forward with the vehicle into the victim striking her in the legs and knocking her back into a parked vehicle,” the statement said.

Kavaliauskaite drove away from the scene but was arrested at her home later that evening.

Here’s some amazing camera work that gives you a dogs-eye view of an afternoon at the dog park.

Kelsey Wynn teamed up with his Great Dane, Bishop, to shoot the footage. He attached one GoPro camera to Bishop’s harness and used a second to capture dogs at play from different angles.

The unusual angles, and use of slow motion, provide a different perspective of dogs at play — closer, likely, to how it all appears to dogs.

I’m as absorbed with taxidermy and its variations as the next guy (unless that next guy is Charles “Speedy” Atkins), especially when it comes to using it to preserve our pets.

I was fascinated enough to make it a chapter in my book, and curious enough to take a peek at “American Stuffers,” Animal Planet’s new series that each week follows people who are getting their pets, to use the common but erroneous nomenclature, “stuffed.”

But do I want to watch it every week? No.

“Stuffers,” I think, falls into the ever-expanding category of shows we watch to see humans behaving bizarrely — so strangely that we, by comparison, feel normal. You know the ones I’m talking about, those that focus on dysfunctional, obsessive, extreme behavior, like hoarding, kiddie beauty pageants, excessive tattooing, or just the travails of being a punk on the shore of New Jersey.

Flipping the remote these days, it sometimes seem as if Jerry Springer is choreographing what’s on every channel.

The Learning Channel, despite its name, has become one of the worst offenders — offering nearly a steady diet of human dysfunction. Animal Planet, despite its name, is getting more that way too.

I’ll admit that I’ve always been drawn to the bizarre behavers among us, but what makes them interesting to me is why they’ve become that way and the ramifications of it. Those aspects, and any context at all, are almost always missing from these shows, be they weekly series or pseudo-documentaries. Rather than advancing knowledge, they simply gawk. They just put the camera on the oddballs, and we learn nothing except what we already knew: People are weird.

Net gain: Zero.

“American Stuffers” centers on a taxidermy shop in Romance, Arkansas — one the show incorrectly describes as the only one of its type — where Daniel Ross freeze dries dead pets for bereaved owners.

Ross is founder and owner of Xtreme Taxidermy, which he operates with assistance from his wife LaDawn and his three sons. There seems a steady, sideshow-like stream of customers, and a steady stream of drama — real and manufactured — as he freeze dries pets and unveils them in their finished poses to their owners.

The show airs Thursdays at 10 p.m.

“While nothing can bring back these animals, Daniel and his artistic team attempt to come as close as science and art can allow,” Animal Planet says on the show’s website. “They recreate the illusion of life, and clients return home with their pets for eternity.”

That science these days allows much more than freeze-drying is shown in my book, “DOG, INC.: How a Collection of Visionaries, Rebels, Eccentrics and Their Pets Launched the Commercial Dog Cloning Industry.”

But the book also looks at how, through history, our inability to part with our pets has led us down some other strange roads, including stuffing them.

“Stuffing,” in the 1800s, was an apt name for the process. Almost every town had a tanner, who would cater to hunters seeking to memorialize  their kills. They would remove the innards and sew up the carcasses, filling them with rags, straw, paper and cotton, then use sticks and brooms to beat the animal into something resembling its original shape.

By the early 20th century, taxidermy had become far more sophisticated. Mounts of the original animal were made of wood, wire and later plastic, and the animals pelt was stretched over it.

Freeze drying, an invention of the 1970s, began being used by some taxidermists by the late 1990s, including one in West Virginia, Perpetual Pet, who was featured in my book. The process involves removing the animal’s organs, posing it in the desired position, freezing it and then putting it in a vacuum chamber that removes all the moisture.

The point, as with Victorian-era pet portraiture (sometimes painted after an animal was deceased), as with modern day “digital photo urns,” and as with the most technologically advanced method of all, cloning, is the same — to keep at least a semblance of a departed animal around.

It was while researching “DOG, INC.” that I came across the story of Charles “Speedy” Atkins, who, though he died in 1928 in Paducah, Kentucky, remained above earth, intact and upright (when leaned against a wall) well into the 1990s.

Atkins was an active 50-year-old bachelor. His nickname was said by some to have stemmed from his work habits at a local tobacco factory, but others maintain it described his way with the ladies. He drowned one day while fishing on the Ohio River.

His body was taken to the black-owned funeral home in Paducah operated by A.Z. Hamock, who, inspired by methods the Egyptians used on mummies, had been experimenting with ways to preserve bodies for longer periods.

Speedy wasn’t stuffed, but he was pumped full of Hamock’s secret long-lasting embalming fluid. Hamock’s motivations were practical: Preserving a body with the fluid would allow him to wait for the families of his clients, usually poor, to raise enough money for the funeral.

No family ever came for Speedy, though. And time didn’t reclaim him either. Hamock died in 1949, taking his secret formula with him. But Speedy Atkins stayed above the ground, pickled and preserved, for the next 66 years, most of which he spent stashed in a closet, though funeral home operators would sometimes put him on display for tourists.

He was finally buried in 1994. It was time, Hamock’s widow, Velma, decided. “Sixty-six years is a long time to be with somebody,” she said in an interview with Jet magazine, which covered the funeral.

“It was all an experiment, but it was a success,” she said. “Speedy’s never been duplicated, he’s the only one that we know of. He’s not stinking, nothing. The amazing thing is he hasn’t lost all of his features. He doesn’t look like a corpse laying up in the casket for 66 years.

“I never saw a dead man bring so much happiness to people.”

(Freeze dried pet photos of Tiny and Cisco, courtesy of Perpetual Pet.)

It was five years ago when strange things started happening at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

Somehow, the same group of dogs were escaping from their pens at the shelter at night and proceeding to raid the food area, where they ate, played and partied all night long.

The shelter at first suspected staff wasn’t propertly closing the gates. Then they thought maybe it was a practical joke.

Finally, to find the answer, they installed three cameras. The first couple of nights, nothing happened, but then the cameras caught a greyhound mix named Red in the act — first freeing himself, then freeing his friends from their cages.

In Great Britain and Ireland, they call the mixed breed “lurchers,” and they’re known for their stealth and cunning.

Red certainly fit that bill — and better yet, shortly after shelter staff brought an end to the late night parties, Red got adopted.

Ace has a new top obsession — a neighbor named Tom, who has taken over the first place spot previously held by a neighbor named Al.

Ace hit it off immediately with Al, an older man who lives about five doors down. When Al started giving Ace treats, his apartment became the first place Ace looked when he went outside. When Al bought a jumbo bag of chicken jerky treats to hand out when Ace went by, the relationship grew even stronger. He loves Al, but he loved those jerky treats the way an addict loves crack.

Since Christmas, though, Ace’s priorities have changed. My next door neighbor got a kitten.

He is a very cute kitten, and very tiny. Ace — and we should point out here that cats are the only species Ace seems more taken with than humans — has met Tom once, sniffing him while his owner held him.

Ever since then, the first thing Ace does when he goes outside — even before peeing — is to run over to the neighbor’s front window to see if the cat is there. He stares up at the window, then he jumps up, putting his paws on the sill. The first time he did that, the cat jumped down and disappeared.

The next time, the cat wasn’t bothered in the least. And now the cat seems to be waiting for him. He’ll gaze at Ace, paw at the window and press his face against it. After a couple of weeks, they both seem to view the visits as a regular part of the day’s schedule, and Ace seems to think checking on the cat is his new job.

If the cat is not in the window, Ace will jump up, peer in, crane his neck, look side to side and get upset. Eventually, the cat will appear, and then they will stare at each other as long as I allow it.

It takes a lot of urging to pull Ace away.

I am 99.999 percent sure Ace does not want to eat the kitten. He has shacked up with cats before, and been enamored with them, though only one we visited seemed to tolerate his interest.

But because the kitten is so young he would only be one swallow, and because the kitten has had some health issues, they’ve yet to hang out together unrestrained and in person.

As for Al, Ace still bolts off when sees him, even though we’ve dropped the chicken jerky treats. They were made in China, and — though I doubt they were responsible for Ace’s recent health issues — both Al and I had read some warnings about them.

I’m 99.99999 percent positive that Ace isn’t looking at Tom as a treat — even if he does sometimes drool a little while staring in his window.

But Ace’s Tom-excitement and his jerky-excitement appear to be two different things. With the jerky, he gets all drooly and subservient. With Tom, his tail and ears perk up. He seems more intent, more studious, less zombie-like, as if it’s more an intellectual hunger than a physical one.

One of these days, they’ll get to spend some time together. Maybe, with all the anticipation behind him, that will make him less obsessed, or then again it could make him more that way. Until then, they’ll continue to relate, three or four times a day, through glass and screen.

Note to neighbor: You might detect some small holes in your screen; I fully (or at least 99.999999 percent) intend to buy you a new one.

It’s “National Dress Up Your Pet Day.”

And — with apologies to any advertisers or potential advertisers we might offend, to the founder of the day, and to dog dresser-uppers everywhere — we hate it.

We abide it, when it’s just done once in a while; when it’s done for purposes of warmth with dogs of the tiny, short coated, shivering variety; and, to some extent, on Halloween.

But overall, we’re every bit as tired of it as most of the dogs who get dressed up probably are.

For all those who will respond saying how much their dogs love being dressed up, I’d submit that it’s the attention, not the attire, that they are appreciating. (Though I will admit Ace does seem to love it when I change his bandana — generally when it gets crusty and/or stinky, or about every three months.)

While we’re at it, we’re tired, too, of all these “national days” being proclaimed — at least those that aren’t for a good cause, but are instead marketing gimmicks.

It’s got to stop somewhere. What’s next? National Clone Your Dog Day?

And one more note of concern: If we keep humanizing dogs, through dressing them up and such, might the day come that they get so like us that they start proclaiming “national days?”

National Rawhide Chew Day, National Pet Your Dog All Day Long Day, National Don’t Forget the Belly Day, National Double Up The Dinner Serving Day, National Dig A Hole Day, National Fetch And Then Fetch Some More And Perhaps A Little More Fetch Day.

It could get totally out of control.

I’m pretty sure President Obama didn’t declare Jan. 14 “National Dress Up Your Pet Day,” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an act of Congress. Instead, it seems National Dress Up Your Pet Day was founded in 2009 by Colleen Paige, a “celebrity pet lifestyle expert and animal behaviorist,” who has proclaimed several dog-related national days (though I don’t begin to understand what gives her the authority to proclaim days).

It is sponsored by the Animal Miracle Network “as a fun way to celebrate our beloved pets and to support the pet fashion community.”

“It’s important to remember though,” notes Paige, “that it’s not … a day to disrespect our pets with uncomfortable, vulgar and/or seasonally inappropriate costumes for the sake of a laugh or photo shoot.”

“Have fun with your pets by dressing them in cute outfits and safe costumes – but keep your pet’s comfort level in mind when involving him/her in this fun novelty day. Make sure that your pet can see and hear properly and that they aren’t wearing something that might overheat them or incorporate any parts that they may chew off and swallow.”

Dogs are too smart to fall for “National Dress Up Your Pet Day,” but at least some of us humans seem to buy into it.

Here’s a snippet from a recent article that appeared on Petstyle.com:

“With the big day just around the corner, now is the time to coordinate some fabulous outfits so your pet can celebrate in style! This is your chance to make Fido fit for the runway. But remember, there is more involved than just pulling your pet’s favorite frock out of her wardrobe. As a pet owner, there are a few things to consider as you prepare for the main event …

“Think about your pet’s personality. Your regal Doberman will not appreciate being dressed in a pink sweater with maribou trim. He is more likely to appreciate a fashionable camo fleece or a suitable biker hat … Then again, your Bichon Frise might love the pink sweater. Or put some prep in your pet with this yuppie puppy attire …

“If rain is expected in your location, opt for a totally ‘in’ rain coat and possibly even a matching set of boots. After all, being hip doesn’t mean being impractical. And you don’t want your pet to catch a cold as he shows off his fabulous fashion sense.”

Geesh. We’ve made this point before, unpopular as it may be with a large segment of dog people. If a dog requires protection from the elements, fine. If once a year, on Halloween, you want to decorate your dog, safely and comfortably, fine.

But if dressing your dog, merely for decoration’s sake, is a daily, or even weekly diversion, if you’re constantly putting him or her in outfits, if you have more than, say, two dozen of them, perhaps you might want to consider a doll instead.

Even on National Dress Up Your Dog Day, which, come to think of it, might be a good time to change Ace’s bandana.