ohmidog!

Closer, the trashy magazine that brought you Kate Middleton’s breasts, is making news again — this time with a story about a 44-year-old California woman who breastfeeds her pug.

The Oct. 20th U.K. edition of Closer features an interview with Terri Graham, a mother of two human children.

Breastfeeding her pug Spider, she says, makes her feel like a better mom.

“Having Spider suckle on my boob means I finally feel complete and a better mother,” said Graham, who was unable to breastfeed her children for reasons unexplained.

Graham said she has been breastfeeding Spider for two years — ever since the dog licked a bottle of breast milk she had pumped for her newborn son. Apparently, Spider liked it so much, she decided to let him start drinking directly from the source.

There’s definitely a boundary line between what’s acceptable and what’s not when it comes to how close we get to our dogs, and how humanly we treate them — and we meant humanly there, not humanely. I don’t assume to be the one who defines that line, but, in my humble view, this crosses it.

Even though we “ooh” and “aww” when we see a female dog take on the feeding responsibilities to newborn animals of other species, most of us will probably “euuwwww” at this example.

The significant difference between those cases and this, of course, is that a nine-year-old pug doesn’t require breast milk to grow, and the surrogate mama dogs in those cases don’t generally seek headlines.

This, in my view, is fairly outrageous, which accounts for the story’s popularity. We seem to have an appetite for the outrageous, and no shortage of media happy to serve it up and let us suckle. A photo of the article about Graham was posted to a Reddit forum devoted to strange news, and it quickly rose to the site’s front page.  It was subsequently regurgitated by The Huffington Post, and given good play by Doghatersunite.com, a website that says it serves “people who hate dog-loving idiots and their Darwin-defying fleabags.”

One has to wonder how the original publication got onto this story:  A phoned-in tip? Peering through a window? Logging into breastfeedingyourdog.com? (Just kidding, there’s no such website.) Or did the subject of the story, sensing the magazine’s zeal for boob coverage, volunteer the information?

All said, while the case of the breastfeeding pug raises some interesting questions, one should probably consider the source — not just tabloid readers, but  especially Spider — and perhaps seek their nourishment elsewhere.