ohmidog!

Did you hear the one about the gay bulldog?

Of course you did.

The story that quickly rose to the top of the dog news charts yesterday all stemmed from a Facebook post by a Tennessee woman who regularly visits her local animal shelter and posts photos of animals who might be euthanized if they’re not adopted.

This week, she met Elton, a bulldog — actually a bulldog mix — at the shelter in Madison County, and was told that his owner had surrendered him because he had seen Elton hump another dog and thought he was gay.

She took a photo of Elton and put it on Facebook, along with Elton’s not exactly confirmed but fairly sensational story: 

“… His owner says he’s gay! He hunched another male dog so his owner threw him away bc he refuses to have a “gay” dog! Even if that weren’t the most assinine thing I’ve ever heard, its still discrimination! Don’t let this gorgeous dog die bc his owner is ignorant of normal dog behavior! He’s in kennel 10L and he WILL be put down tomorrow bc there is no room at the inn!”

The post was picked up by the website Gawker, and went viral from there, with news articles appearing in everything from the Daily Beast to the Daily Mail. It also led to a barrage of phone calls to the shelter, mostly from people who wanted to adopt Elton — one of whom did Thursday.

“Stop calling the Madison County animal shelter — the gay bulldog was adopted hours ago,” the Nashville Tennessean reported yesterday. 

The Facebook poster is a mother of four who calls herself “Jackson Madison Rabies Control Stalker” (rabies control being what the animal control office in Madison County calls itself).

According to the biographical information on her Facebook page, she started visiting the shelter a year earlier and adopted a schnoodle that had both a neurological disorder and, it turns out, parvovirus.

Because of the dog’s suffering, she and her husband decided to have it put down, but changed their minds and called the veterinarian back 15 minutes later, which was too late.

What followed, she says, was a depression that lasted for weeks:

“I felt like all my joy and happiness left with that schnoodle! my depression went on so long my husband became concerned! i told him there was nothing to replace my loss, and i didnt know how to get over wanting the schnoodle back!”

A month later, her family adopted another schnauzer-poodle mix in Memphis, and named her Tess.

“… Tess came into my life and the healing began for me … But, I sit here crying even now …  I will always feel as if I gave up on the (first) schnoodle, like I never gave him the chance he deserved. I will always wonder if I had tried, would he have made it.

She adds, “I hated Jackson Rabies Control for the parvo. I blamed the place for my heartache. Until I went back, a few weeks later….I went back and started taking pictures and sharing their stories. and friend requests came in and I sent more out….and my page blew up with people who had no idea Jackson TN had a kill shelter…

Her other recent posts depict a dog at the shelter who she says was being overlooked because he is black, and a dog who was “allegedly poisoned.”

(Photo: Facebook)

“All a Twitter”

My word for the day:

When you Tweet the same thing twice

You “tweeiterate”

 (Highway Haiku is a regular feature of “Dog’s Country,” the continuing tale of one man and one dog spending six months criss-crossing America. “Dog’s Country” can be found exclusively on ohmidog!

At 56, it’s not every day I spend the night with a 25-year-old woman, and if it ever did happen, you’d normally be the last person I’d tell.

But, on Thursday night, that’s exactly what I did.

A “complete stranger” invited Ace and me into her home in Albuquerque, went out to dinner with us at a dog-friendly restaurant (Kelly’s Brew Pub) and, though still a kid (relative to me, anyway) taught me a few things about trust and keeping the doors to one’s life open enough that new people can get in.

And she saved me a few bucks, as well.

For this, I can thank couchsurfing.org, a website that, realizing not all of us have money to spare for mint-on-the pillow accommodations, unites people looking for a place to stay with local people kind enough to offer one — on a global scale.

I first heard about it through a comment left on ohmidog! — offering me, a penny pinching traveler with a dog at my side, some advice on finding dog-friendly, cheap, even free, lodgings.

I went to the website, created a bare bones profile, paid a $25 verification fee (though they — see comment below — prefer to call it a donation), and explored the options, especially those members who lived along my somewhat fuzzy route who were open to opening their homes not just to travelers, but their dogs as well.

Jen Walker in Albuquerque was the first one I found. Through the website, I sent her a message, told her a bit about myself, and what Ace and I are up to, and inquired as to whether I might crash — a word I haven’t used in 25 years or so — on her couch.

Sure, she wrote back. She was cool with that.

She’s got a charming little dog of her own, an Italian greyound-Chihuahua mix named Cali who likes to hang out on the roof of the apartment that joins hers, and a cat named Autumn, who likes to crawl into suitcases and more than once has almost been accidentally abducted by a departing couchsurfer.

Ace, once spotting Autumn behind a pillow, immediately hopped in Jen’s bed to better stare at her. Jen was cool with that.

Jen, as she has been with the 67 previous couchsurfers she has taken in, was the consumate host — and even supplied an air mattress for me to sleep on instead of the couch. She’s working, and going to school at the University of New Mexico, and is a delightful young woman — God, how old do I sound? — with a laid back aura, a kind heart, and a curious and open mind.

Taking new acquaintances into her home, she says “allows me to meet people I probably otherwise would never meet.”

It occurs to me that, by hosting couchsurfers, she’s doing what I’m doing — both by taking this trip, and when I made the career choice to be a journalist: ensuring I would see new things, meet new people, keep learning, and not live the insulated life.

She’s made some lasting friends, and — one of the big side benefits –  accumulated a long list of places to stay around the globe. As with those who stay with her, she knows those she stays with will offer her much more than any hotel, or even hostel, ever could. Staying with a local person or family provides much better insight into local culture, far more tips on where to go and what to see and allows one to make a more intimate connection with the place they are visiting.

The concept is based on a slightly hippyesque, pay-it-forward kind of philosophy — taking in others leads others to take in others, and so forth. And it gives credence to the belief that in this world there are no complete strangers, only partial ones … friends we haven’t met yet, as I like to think — at least when the cynical journalist, untrusting, worst-case-scenario side  of me doesn’t get in the way.

Jen, in her two years as a member, has only couchsurfed once, in Durango, Colorado, but she’s hosted close to 70 times, many of those being visitors from other countries. They might stay a day, or even a week. (Jen is cool with that.) For her, it has led to many long term friendships and not a single negative experience.

In college, and even afterwards, she notes, she had a core group of friends — all with similar backgrounds and interests. Through couchsurfing, she has expanded her friend horizons, and met lots of different types of people.

Jen grew up in Hastings, Nebraska and at first was hesitant to tell her parents about her involvement in couchsurfing. When she finally did, “they thought it was great,” she said. “Some of my friends think I’m crazy, but I’ve met a lot of cool people.”

She’s now averaging two to six visitors a week, and I — who am sitting, not surfing, on her couch right now, Cali on one side of me, Ace on the other (Jen is cool with that) — am number 68.

As couchsurfing.org explains on its website mission statement: “For one reason or another, some of us may not have the opportunity to explore. There could be any number of obstacles that keep us from venturing as freely as we might otherwise, whether it’s economic limitations, cultural constraints, or simply fear of the unknown … If we could address and overcome those barriers, more of us would naturally tap into our own curious nature and actively explore the world.”

That philosophy, too, is sort of similar to the one behind my current journey — having no money is no reason not to travel; maybe, even, it can be a reason to travel. (Bear and his famiy notwithstanding.)

Couchsurfing.org got its start when founder Casey Fenton bought a cheap ticket to Iceland for a long weekend. Rather than stay at a hotel or hostel, he came up with idea of e-mailing over 1500 Icelandic students in Reykjavik and asking them if he could crash on one of their couches.

That led to numerous offers from Icelanders offering to show “their’ Reykjavik.” After his week in Iceland, he vowed to never again get trapped in a hotel and tourist marathon while traveling.

Originally, I planned to stay two nights, but after one I’m heading to Santa Fe to see an old friend who — assuming her three dogs get along with mine — might let me house/pet sit when she and her veterinarian husband are out of town for a week in July.

I’ll send Jen an email, and leave her a note — in case she’s not back from work by the time I have to leave. I’m sure she’ll be cool with that.

(To read all of “Dog’s Country,” click here.)

Your dog may soon be tweeting.

Japan’s Index Corp., a mobile content provider, plans to launch an iPhone adaptation of the “Bowlingual” dog emotion translator that it says will translate dog barks into English and tweet them out to the world.

The original Bowlingual device, first offered in 2002 by Takara Tomy, consists of a microphone that goes around the dog’s neck and a handheld receiver with LCD screen that gives a written readout of the emotion a dog’s bark is expressing: sad, frustrated, needy, happy, on guard and “self-expressive.” 

(That last one puzzles me. I wouldn’t consider it an emotion, and it seems any bark would be self expressive. Then again, maybe something is getting lost in translation.)

The Japanese company plans to launch the new iPhone app this summer, PCWorld reports.

Index is planning to charge $4.99 for the app, said Sonoko Tatsuno, a spokeswoman for the company in Tokyo — considerably cheaper than the $229 stand-alone version. A Japanese version of the new app will come out first, followed by an English version.

In addition to translating a dog’s bark, the software can capture a picture of the dog, using the iPhone’s built-in camera. The resulting picture can then be combined with the “translation” and sent directly from the iPhone to Twitter.

The original product proved to be a hit in Japan selling around 300,000 units, It was also put on sale in the U.S. and South Korea.

Cool or creepy? You decide.

SNIF Tag is a device you attach to your dog’s collar, allowing you to go online and monitor his activity. It doesn’t tell you where your dog is — only what he’s doing, within the boundaries of sleeping, eating and playing anyway.

The website explains it this way: “You’d like to be home with your dog all day long but sometimes the little things like work and travel get in the way. With the SNIF Tag, you never have to wonder what your dog is doing while you’re gone. Using motion-sensing and wireless technology, the SNIF Tag records all of your pet’s activity indoors and out and displays the information through a simple, clear, online interface.”

On top of that, the device records all encounters with other dogs wearing SNIF Tags, meaning, when you get back home, you can go online and read about the other dog’s owner.

You may, for example, be afraid to talk to the babe with the boxer, but with SNIF Tag, assuming the boxer is wearing one as well, you can look up her profile back home and send her a message.

“By recording encounters with other SNIF dogs, your SNIF Tag becomes more than a pet monitoring device– it’s a tool for social networking that expands your circle of friends every time you take your pup for a walk.” As the video points out, it can lead to new “friends … or maybe more.”

I can see how the device could provide useful information, such as making sure your dog walker is really walking the dog and for exactly how long, but all in all it strikes me as a little covert — and as a tool that will make life easier and more guilt-free for absentee pet owners, who shouldn’t have a pet in the first place.

Here, though, is the most disturbing part of all, it’s regularly $299! (A special $199 introductory rate is now in effect.)

Founded in 2005 by four MIT Media Lab graduates, SNIF Labs designed the SNIF Tag and touts it as an opportunity to network and learn more about your dog’s behavior in real-time.

“We loved the idea of using real-world social networking to let your dog do the relationship-building work and act as a kind of social catalyst,” said Noah Paessel, CEO and co-founder of SNIF Labs. “SNIF Tag not only gives dog owners peace of mind, it also offers a non-threatening way to meet new friends and companions via their dogs’ encounters.”

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’d rather see my now dog run and wrestle in person, than as a blip on the computer screen. That’s just not how I like my interface — be it canine or human.

Once you’ve gone to the trouble of dressing your dog up, you might as well enter him or her in the DoggySpace Halloween costume contest.

DoggySpace, a social networking site for dogs, is sponsoring a costume contest to benefit local chapters of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals (SPCA). Dog owners can post pictures at DoggySpace, where site members can vote for their favorite costume.

DoggySpace will donate $6,000 to the winning dog‘s local SPCA chapter.

“Many SPCA‘s are privately funded, which means they are under-funded,” said Levi Thorton, Doggyspace founder. “Prize money from this contest will go directly to a local SPCA to help with the organization‘s mission of raising awareness of animal abuse and promoting programs such as good pet care and spay/neuter awareness initiatives.“

Over 75 SPCA chapters have joined the cause, and more than 2,000 votes have already been cast on photos posted at doggyspace, including this one of Blanco, a Chihuahua dressed as a bumblebee.

Dog lovers have until October 31 to push their favorite costume to the winning spot.

Doggyspace.com is a social network for dog owners, with free membership. Dog owners can create a doggy portfolio, form groups, and post their favorite photos and videos while connecting with other “friends“ in the neighborhood, from the dog park, across the country or in another country.