By Stacy Dexter
In my last article, I delved into the many ways our pets lives have improved: from ownership to guardianship, from floor to comfy beds. Now, there are microchips to help find lost or stolen pets, dog sitters/walkers, daycare, better shelters, rescues, and animal adoption information. It isn’t perfect, but it’s so much better.
Pets come along to most activities. They’re not locked in a room when company calls. We make cakes for their birthdays and treat them to “pup cups” from our favorite drive-thru coffee shop. We plan trips that include our pets whether we’re camping, hiking, or visiting friends.
There are even cruises just for dogs and their guardians! Leaving them home can feel like a betrayal…and we truly miss them.
Back in the day, dogs rarely went with us in the car, much less on a vacation. If you had a pickup truck, they were loaded into the back, bouncing around wildly while Uncle Bubba laughed hysterically, careening around each corner, putting them at risk.
As children, we were told that the dogs loved it. Just a few years ago while driving through Texas, I was alarmed to see a dog in a crate in the back of a Ford F150. It was 100 degrees and there wasn’t any shade. I wanted to follow the truck home and kidnap the dog.
I feel this way about dogs kept behind fences or locked in garages. They are prisoners, sentenced to a boring life without walks or camaraderie with their humans inside a home.
Why do some people have pets? Animals have feelings. They get lonely, scared, bored, and feel the separation from their “pack,” whether it’s animal or human. It is unkind to treat dogs this way and as some of us say, “there outta be a law.”
In my childhood neighborhood, there was one dog who we kids treasured; Snoopy was a friendly yellow lab mix, with big soft ears that looked like oval slices of ham framing his adorable face and pink nose.
He lived in a grassless, filthy backyard full of trash and junk and slept outside in a disheveled doghouse. My siblings and I (to my mother’s chagrin), would sneak Snoop into our house and get him up on the sofa tucking him in with a pillow and blanket.
Any chance we got, we had him in our house, on the sofa, sharing our beef baloney and slices of cheese.
Regrettably, he was put down because of his “incessant wandering and lack of obedience.” (Now, whose fault was that??) The night before his execution, we cried and howled at the moon from our bedroom windows and made up a mournful song in his honor.
We kids begged our parents to let us adopt him, but they wouldn’t be swayed−probably because Snoopy was seen as a problem.
This wouldn’t happen today, as “inconvenience euthanasia” is uncommon. Snoopy would’ve (hopefully) been surrendered to a shelter and maybe had a second chance. Poor ol’ Snoop.
Back in the day, dogs were often outside day and night, since there wasn’t a leash law. My Grammie Dexter always had three or four dogs, all different types. Bourbon was a cagey, black Lab mix; Governor, a messy, drooling basset hound; Missy, the elderly beagle mix with a huge benign tumor on her side; and Canus, a doltish yellow Lab.
They were all required to come inside at night, but Bourbon wasn’t the obedient type and would ignore my grandmother and her “demands.” Her throat hoarse from calling his name, Grammie sometimes resorted to an old trick that was sure to work: if she saw Bourbon in the woods out back, she would light a firecracker and whip it out the kitchen window.
Terrified by the sound, he would come running to the front door. Imagine doing this today? It would be all over Next Door!
Across the street from my grandmother’s house, there lived a gigantic St. Bernard named Chief who loved to venture onto the property to antagonize Bourbon. In preparation, they would circle each other and then Bourbon would go at Chief like it was a fight to the death with his mortal enemy. Bourbon, at 35 pounds, would be a complete maniac trying to maul the 140 pound Chief.
My siblings and cousins and I would be screaming bloody murder for Grammie to come out and stop them. She would march out of the house, grab the garden hose, and blast the cold water at them to break it up.
She always remained so calm (she raised 10 children, after all)… it was thrilling! And just think; nobody sued or called the police or sent over a Karen to lecture anyone about it.
Times for our pets have definitely changed for the better. It is up to us to make sure that our fellow humans who adopt animals have evolved and will see their beloved new family members for who they are; friends to cherish, love, protect, and nurture. They are precious gifts who are counting on us. Let’s not let them down.
