ohmidog!

The British government this week announced that all dogs will have to microchipped by 2016.

“It’s ludicrous that in a nation of dog lovers, thousands of dogs are roaming the streets or stuck in kennels because the owner cannot be tracked down,” Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said.

Owners who fail to follow the edict will be subject to fines of £500, or about $785.

Paterson said the move will allow all lost, stray or abandoned dogs to  be traced back to their owners, ensuring people are held accountable for their animals.

A British talk show host – while he was quite genteel about it, at least from an American perspective — threw some hard questions at Cesar Millan last week.

Alan Titchmarsh, a UK afternoon talk show host, politely accused Millan of using old-fashioned and inhumane techniques that include punching, kicking and using shock collars on dogs.

The “Dog Whisperer” — appearing just slightly uncomfortable at some points — responded calmly, asserting that he never punches dogs, but only touches them to redirect negative behavior.

Millan, while some in America are critical of his methods, is even more controversial in the UK, where many, including the RSPCA, view his techniques as unacceptable.

“Adverse training techniques which have been seen to be used by Cesar Millan can cause pain and fear for dogs and may worsen their behavioral problems,” the RSPCA said in a statement read on the air. “The RSPCA believes that using such techniques is unacceptable, nor are they necessary to change dog behavior for the better when other dog trainers use reward-based methods to train dogs very effectively.”

“We’ve never had so many complaints about a guest,” Titchmarsh told Millan.

I’m looking forward to seeing “Tabloid” — the new Errol Morris documentary about the 1978  scandal that saw a beauty queen from America go to London to track down the object of her affection (a Mormon missionary named Kirk), kidnap him, according to police, and, if you believe the court testimony, have her way with him against his will.  

That’s because, for better and worse, that woman, Joyce McKinney, changed the course of my life, too.  

Thirty years after the scandal that erupted when McKinney tried to reclaim, one way or another, the man she saw as her one true love, I would spend more than 100 hours on the phone with her as she went about an equally — or perhaps even more — dogged pursuit.  

“Tabloid,” the documentary, focuses on the scandal and all the fun the British press had with McKinney’s exploits — from her arrest on charges of abducting the young missionary named Kirk and keeping him tied up in a cottage in the countryside, to the celebrity status she enjoyed after her release from jail, to her fleeing the country before trial disguised as a member of a deaf mime troupe.  

My book focuses on dog cloning, the first commercial customer of which was that same  Joyce Bernann McKinney. In 2009, McKinney became the first person in the world –  unassociated with the fledgling business – to pay to have her dog cloned, a deceased pit bull named Booger.  

My book revisits the old scandal, too, because, to me, there seemed to be some similarities between reclaiming Kirk and cloning Booger.  

As suggested in ”DOG INC.: The Uncanny Inside Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend,”  both were attempts to, at any cost, recapture lost love — one through feminine wiles, if not force, the other through science.  

As if her life hadn’t already oozed enough pathos and irony, McKinney’s attempt to resurrect Booger, or at least bring a genetically identical copy of  him back into the world, would lead to an embarassing resurfacing of the old scandal. While doing news media interviews, in exchange for a discount on her cloning bill, she was recognized as the women who, as the British tabloids told the story at the time, manacled and raped the young Mormon missionary.  

By 2000, McKinney had thought the scandal was finally behind her. She’d gone on to a new life by then, after years as recluse, living with her dogs and other animals, first in North Carolina, then in California. In California, she began using the name Bernann instead of Joyce and, having not lost  her soft spot for dogs, continued taking in abandoned and unwanted pit bulls.  

All were loved, but none were Booger, a dog she found on the highway in North Carolina who she says later saved her life when she was attacked by another of her dogs. After that, Booger went on to become her unofficial service dog, helping her with the day to day tasks her injuries made difficult.  

The author meets Snuppy

After Booger died, she sought to have him cloned — first through an American company that was working with Texas A & M University to clone a dog. That research was funded by John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix. Unable to produce a canine clone, Texas A & M dropped the project.  Scientists at Seoul National University picked up the research and cloned the world’s first dog, Snuppy, in 2005. McKinney then signed on with a South Korean company that had formed after that success.  

McKinney first contacted me while I was a reporter at the Baltimore Sun, after I ran an item about dog cloning on the newspaper’s pet blog that mentioned a then-anonymous woman who was paying $150,000 to have her dog cloned.  

So began a conversation that would continue, off and on, for a year, and lead me to quit my job, travel to Korea, and write a book about dog cloning.  

While we hit it off initially — both being dog lovers, both being from North Carolina — McKinney, as the months went on, would grow angry with me often. The first time was when I told her that, rather than writing a book with her about Booger, I wanted to write a book that looked at dog cloning overall — how the new business got started, how it was being marketed, and the animal welfare concerns it raised.  

That would be the first of our many “break-ups.” But always, she would eventually call me back, updating me and seeking assistance with this or that.  

On her trip to meet the newborn clones, during which she appeared globally in TV interviews, someone made the connection, raising the possibility, later confirmed, that the woman cloning her dog and the “Mormon manacler” were one in the same. She blamed me for that, though I had nothing to do with it.  

She had feared there was a possibility that might happen. I was pretty sure it would. (Although I had written a newspaper story by then, it didn’t mention the 1970s scandal; at the time she had only vaguely referred to it and I had only reached 99 percent certainty that she was the same woman — a fact that she would confirm, and go into great detail about, later.)  

After another period of silence, she reconnected with me again, this time asking me to go with her to pick up the clones. She wanted me to pretend I was handicapped so that I could claim one of the clones was my service dog, and she — if she found three more conspirators — could avoid having them fly home in the jet’s cargo hold.  

For ethical reasons, I declined. But she still stayed in touch during her trip to pick up and return the dogs, an effort that didn’t go smoothly, as you can read in this excerpt from “DOG, INC.”   

Joyce with a Booger clone

Back home with her clones, her troubles continued. At one point, all five clones, and her other dogs, were seized and impounded by animal control, though she managed to reclaim them.  

After an argument, she moved out of the house she shared with a friend, bounced with the clones from motel to motel, and eventually moved back in. 

 That was about the time she was contacted by Morris. 

I’m sure Morris, as was the case with me, found that dealing with her, to put it mildly, had some ups and downs. She, while appearing with one of the clones at an early screening of the movie, denounced its accuracy, even as Morris stood next to her.  

I won’t see it until this weekend, but I’d guess, from what I’ve seen of previews and knowing the work of Morris, it fairly portrays all sides. And given his trademark style of turning on the camera and letting the subject talk into it, I’m sure McKinney gets ample chance to share her version. 

I’ve only spoken with her once since my book came out, when she called, enraged, having seen a reference to it in a newspaper. She hadn’t read it by then, but denounced it, too, adding that I had no right to tell her story — either that of the scandal or that of the cloning. 

McKinney told me repeatedly she didn’t want to see the two stories overlap — for she saw one as “tabloid filth” and the other — cloning her dog — as pure and heartwarming. Her hope is to start a center where pit bulls can be trained to be service dogs. She wants to call it Booger’s Place. 

Some of those who see the movie, or for that matter read my book, may see her as manipulative and devious. Some may see her, in connection with the scandal, as a woman who holds little respect for the boundaries society imposes. Some may see her, in connection with cloning, as a person who was willing to jump over those nature imposes, as well. Some may see her, overall, as a person who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

I’ll say this much: She is without a doubt the most determined person I’ve ever known.

(John will be discussing and signing copies of “DOG, INC.”  from 6 to 8 p.m. at Barnhills, 811 Burke St., in Winston-Salem.)

(John will be speaking after the 3:30 and 6 p.m. showings of “Tabloid” at the Aperture Cinema, 311 W. Fourth St., in Winston-Salem, this Sunday, Aug. 21.)

(For more information on “DOG, INC.: The Uncanny Inside Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend, click here.)

“The next best thing to having the world at your feet is to have a dog at your heels,” Vogue — the magazine — observed in 1930.

Since 1909, dogs have played a role in the magazine’s portrayal of all things glamorous — as companions to style icons and royalty, as inspiration for fiction, as art (both paintings and photographs), and even appearing on the cover from time to time.

Now their contribution to the magazine has been captured in a book, “Dogs in Vogue: A Century of Canine Chic.”

Author Judith Watt came up with the idea as she was sifting through 100-year’s worth of Vogue (the British edition) while doing research for a  special millennial issue in 1999.

“I came across something quite unexpected among the fashion photographs in the magazine’s archive: thousands of canines,” Watt writes in an article in the UK Independent.

In the past century, dogs have served Vogue as “companions, accessories, barely-legible scribbles, caricatures, stars of the grandest photographic portraits and of whimsical fashion illustrations. They are the subject of essays and sometimes treated as celebrities. Taken together, the best of the photographs and features provide a fascinating record of society’s changing preferences for breeds and the evolving role of dogs in women’s lives.”

“Anyone labouring under the delusion that dogs are just man’s best friend and women prefer cats will think again.”

A stray dog named “Sandbag” who was taken in by British soldiers in Iraq has been transported to a safe house with his puppy in preparation for their flight to the UK.

Soldiers who adopted the dog as their mascot — he was rumored to have been shot five times by then – returned home earlier this year, according to he Daily Mail.

They were worried he would be put down by local Iraqis or killed by other dogs, but the Society for the Welfare of Horses and Ponies (SWHP) tracked down Sandbag, and his puppy, Dirtbag, around the port at Umm Qasr, near Basra, last week.

The dogs were believed to have been living on the streets for about three weeks.

The Mail reports that three armored vehicles were deployed last Thursday to rescue the dogs and transport them to a safe house in Baghdad where they will be cared for while arrangements are made to fly them to the UK.

A fundraising appeal to bring Sandbag home was launched on August 7 by the Blue Cross, a British pet charity, and the SWHP. Nearly 500 people worldwide have donated to the appeal since then.

Rescuers also found a cat the troops had befriended, named Hesco, and planned to ship him to Britain as well once temperatures cool enough to fly the animals safely to Kuwait, and then Britain.

To donate to the fundraising appeal, visit www.bluecross.org.uk.

(Photo:  Sandbag, right, relaxes with Dirtbag in Iraq)

A British physician, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says, all in all, dogs may be privy to a better health care system than humans — at least in his part of the world.

“In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog,”  Theodore Dalrymple, a pen name for British physician Anthony Daniels.

“As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs — or hamsters — come first.

“The conditions in which you receive your treatment are much more pleasant than British humans have to endure. For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; above all, the atmosphere is different … In the waiting rooms, a perfect calm reigns; the patients’ relatives are not on the verge of hysteria, and do not suspect that the system is cheating their loved one, for economic reasons, of the treatment which he needs. The relatives are united by their concern for the welfare of each other’s loved one. They are not terrified that someone is getting more out of the system than they.”

The only drawback to the superior care British dogs receive is they, or their owners, generally have to pay for it.

Still, even for those dogs, and owners, without means, there is the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, or PDSA, which serves as a safety net, providing free veterinary services for the poor.

The PDSA, he says, more closely resembles the National Health Service for British humans. “There is no denying that the PDSA is not as pleasant as private veterinary services; but even the most ferocious opponents of the National Health Service have not alleged that it fails to be better than nothing.”

The rest of other comparisons and conclusions can be found here.

The debate raging here on ohmidog! – and in the rest of the world, too — just had a little more fuel thrown on it: A new British study says dominance-based dog training techniques such as those espoused by Cesar Millan are a waste of time and may make dogs more aggressive.

Researchers from the University of Bristol’s Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences, after studying dogs for six months, conclude that, contrary to popular belief, dogs are not trying to assert their dominance over their canine or human “pack” and aren’t motivated by maintaining their place in the pecking order.

One of the scientists behind the study, Dr. Rachel Casey, in an interview with ABC News, said the blanket assumption that every dog is motivated by some innate desire to control people or other dogs is “frankly ridiculous.”

Read more »

The British government is taking a royal ribbing for distributing a list of pet care guidelines that some see as intrusive, some see as simplistic and still others see as an extraordinary waste of time.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it wanted to remind pet owners of their responsibilities under the 2006 Animal Welfare Act.

The document, which will be published as a leaflet and on Defra’s website, says owners must provide their pets with a “suitable place to live” including “somewhere suitable to go to the toilet.” It also advises cat and dog owners  to provide “entertainment” and “mental stimulation” for their pets.

Owners will not be fined for breaking the rules, but failure to comply may be used in animal cruelty prosecutions, according to a BBC article on the new guide.  (Be sure and check out the comments from readers at the bottom.)

The 26-page document on cat welfare begins with a warning to owners: “It is your responsibility to read the complete Code of Practice to fully understand your cat’s welfare needs and what the law requires you to do.”

Dog owners are given detailed instructions on ensuring their pets do not become lonely or isolated as “dogs are a social species and need the company of people, dogs or other animals”.

Bill Wiggin, the Tory spokesman on animal welfare, is quoted in an article in the Telegraph calling the new codes ”absurd … Defra has missed the opportunity to produce a set of sensible proposals that would protect animals from abuse and mistreatment. Here we have this ridiculous guide which tells people not to walk their dog in the heat of the day or feed it at the table. DEFRA are taking people for fools.”

However, as an RSPCA spokesman pointed out, “A new washing machine or pot plant comes with instructions, currently most pets do not. We think the new codes of practice will improve animal welfare and prevent animal suffering through education.”

What do you think?

It is simplistic, common-sense advice, and perhaps a little heavy-handed, but as anyone who’s viewed a dog overheating in a parked car knows, a lot of people still seem to need it – on both sides of the pond.

Perhaps there should even be a companion volume for raising children.