Dog vs Technology – Round II

nobody wins

It’s Not About Dogs…

I’ve had a nagging suspicion that an increasing number of dog-related laws were being passed across the country.  Apparently (and unfortunately), I’m not crazy.  Last month the HSUS reported that a record number of animal “protection” laws were passed in 2008.  Their website brags that; “The nation’s largest animal protection organization ushered in a whole new era of policies for animals by helping to pass 91 new animal protection laws this year, surpassing the previous record number of 86 new laws enacted in 2007.”

But do we really need more laws?  A post on “The Tyranny of Relativism” I read today at Never Yet Melted got me thinking, once again, on the function of culture in society (it’s an excellent piece BTW - go read it).  As I commented there:

It’s that constellation of fixed values otherwise known as culture that gives us the security and cohesiveness that allows us to recognize and accept those whose values are different from ours.

What the relativists seem to have forgotten (or prefer to overlook) is that the unwritten rules and sanctions of culture are fluid and mutable. Allowances are made. Slights are remembered and often forgiven. But in a governmental or relativist system we are forced to endure rigid, compulsory laws and regulations. We can’t make allowances (that wouldn’t be fair, now – would it?) and transgressions are always punished but then supposed to be forgotten.

Though they may seem to be more rigid and restrictive at first glance; culture and ethics are much more fluid and adaptable than relativism and regulation.

Because they are fluid, mutable and forgiving, cultural mores are a much healthier way to guide general group behavior (i.e. things like excess barking, picking up poop and pet limits) than laws and regulations are.  But if we don’t need  more of them, why are increasing numbers of laws and regulations controlling life with our four-legged friends being promulgated?  A thought-provoking answer comes from a piece written by Michael Brandow in today’s New York Yimes about the city’s poop-scooping law:

I believe that many dog “problems” are symptoms of other concerns that have little or nothing to do with dogs. Like rabies paranoia, these fears tend to be culturally based. Why did a large number of cities suddenly decide to get tough on dog owners after 2001? Just as anti-dog sentiment in the 1970s was a way to express anger over the urban crisis, believe it or not, the new wave of canine waste laws seems to be inspired by the threat of global terrorism. New attitudes on how far we have the right to go in dictating personal behavior, and to monitor compliance with laws, are leading to cleaner surfaces — but at what price? People are taking age-old grudges and dressing them as public safety issues. Suddenly the whole world is on orange alert for sidewalk bombs.

We’ve got all this unresolved stress related to abstract, diffuse, on-going pressures like “is there anything left in my 401K?”  ”did they really put melamine in Oreos?” and “will Al Queda bomb shopping malls?”  Add in the fact that we have an enemy that is, for the most part, nameless and faceless – and even the Department of Homeland Securityadmits that the potential health risks of unresolved fear and stress may outweigh the benefits of government terrorist threat alerts.  So, we cope by bitching about what a jerk our neighbor is and vote to pass a law that will make the ignorant b***ard get rid of his stoopid barking, crapping dog.

But do these laws regulating general group behavior really accomplish anything?  Referring specifically to New York’s dog poop law Brandow writes:

You are never going to catch one in a thousand people, not even if you live in a police state. Believing otherwise is only going to give you high blood pressure. Worse, every time you dial 311 and complain, you are giving government yet another opportunity to point a finger at those terrible dog owners. This serves a political purpose, just as it did in the ’70s. It distracts from matters weightier than a few stray piles, and gets government off the hook on the real problems that seem beyond its grasp.

Breed specific legislation, limit laws, mandatory spay-neuter and similar regulations don’t really accomplish much — but, compared to important things like campaign finance reform or balanced budgets these kinds of laws are really easy to write, enact and then – conveniently — forget about.  The legislators and lobbyists who “championed” the laws get their sound-bites. The wack-jobs at HSUS get another notch in their Naugahyde belts and life goes on.  Well, that is, except for dogs and dog owners who are now forced to endure yet another set of rigid, compulsory (and often non-sensical) laws and regulations that complicate our lives without solving any problems.

In the current state of things, dog-related legislation mostly affects law-abiding citizens who license their pets, give them regular veterinary care and engage in other activities that put them in the system’s database.  The irresponsible morons whose untrained, uninnoculated, unrestrained, unlicensed, unsocialized animals bark incessantly, have unwanted litters and attack the mailman fly under the radar until after they’ve committed the offenses these laws are designed to prevent.

Increased respect for and adherence to (gasp!) mainstream cultural mores would greatly reduce problems caused by things like noise and dog poop.  The very un-sexy options of education and increased enforcement of existing laws could significantly mitigate issues related to animal suffering, but these kinds of actions don’t generally lead to newspaper and TV interviews.  Unfortunately, increased enforcement results in media reports that arrests have gone up — which will, of course, be spun by the press to say that problems have gotten worse.  And no politician wants to be associated with that kind of publicity.

So instead of dealing with our pet-related problems within a flexible, forgiving system of common-sense cultural mores – we regulate them in a completely rigid legal system.  The politicians win. The lobbyists win.  And dogs lose.

Another Calendar Recommendation

The amusing, professionally published and somewhat politically incorrect Monthly Doo’s Calendar.

Don’t ask me why, but last year we hung this in our kitchen. It was a big hit with our friends (though some of the family didn’t appreciate our scatological sense of humor.)

Check it out. Order the calendar — and always pick up your dog’s poop.

Order HERE. Poop-themed cards, stuffed toys, candles, treats and more available as well.

Don’t Poo-Poo Stool Transplants!

From yesterday’s StarTribune:

The patient in his Duluth clinic was not responding to antibiotics, and now the stubborn infection in his intestines threatened to kill him. Then Aas found a similar case written up in a 1950s Norwegian medical journal.

The cure? Replace all the bacteria in the patient’s gut with a tiny dose of someone else’s stool.

A stool transplant?  Was Dr. Aas serious?  Yes, he most certainly was.

The “microbiome,” as it is known, is now the focus of a $115 million federal research project to investigate the symbiotic bond between humans and their bacteria.

Well, we’ve reported before that bugs can be good for us and that it’s possible to be too clean – but this puts a whole new perspective on things.  From the National Institute of Health:

Within the body of a healthy adult, microbial cells are estimated to outnumber human cells by a factor of ten to one. These communities, however, remain largely unstudied, leaving almost entirely unknown their influence upon human development, physiology, immunity, and nutrition.

While the term “microbiome” may be relatively new in biomedical research, most people are familiar with some of the effects — both good and bad — that microbes can have on our health. Consider the example of the biggest reservoir of microbes in humans: the digestive tract. The human gut harbors many beneficial microorganisms, including certain bacteria called probiotics. There is evidence these probiotics, found in dietary supplements, yogurt and other dairy products as well as various soy products, can stimulate the immune system and improve digestive functions. In contrast, previous research suggests that variations in the composition of microbial communities may contribute to chronic health conditions, including diabetes, asthma, obesity and digestive disorders.

We need microorganisms to survive.  It appears that the key is not so much to eliminate microogranisms from our bodies, but to keep them in the proper balance.  Again from the Star Tribune story:

Aas’ patient 10 years ago had a common intestinal infection caused by a bacterium called C. difficile. It sometimes takes hold when patients get a dose of antibiotics for some other reason. These can destroy the population of beneficial intestinal bacteria, or flora, that digest food and provide nutrients to the body. Then the spores of C. difficile, which can lurk in the gut, flower and take over, producing a toxin that causes severe diarrhea and, in time, destroys the colon lining.

Often, a dose of a different antibiotic will suppress the infection. But sometimes C. difficile just keeps coming back.

C. difficile is one of a growing number of micro-organisms that have become resistant to antibiotics, while at the same time becoming more common and more virulent.  According to the Mayo Clinic:

Healthcare associated infections — illnesses you acquire during a stay in a hospital or longterm care facility — aren’t new. But in recent years, the infections have reached epidemic proportions in hospitals and nursing homes around the world. One of the most widespread and potentially serious of these illnesses is caused by the bacterium Clostridium difficile, often simply called C. diff or C. difficile.

C. difficile bacteria are everywhere — in soil, air, water, human and animal feces, and on most surfaces. The bacteria don’t create problems until they grow in abnormally large numbers in the intestinal tract of people taking antibiotics or other antimicrobial drugs. Then, C. difficile can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammations of the colon. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year in the United States C. difficile is responsible for tens of thousands of cases of diarrhea and at least 5,000 deaths. And the problem is getting worse. The number of C. difficile infections doubled between 1993 and 2003, with most of the increase coming after 2000.

C. difficile isn’t confined exclusively to hospitals. It’s also a growing problem among otherwise healthy people. And although the infection can usually be controlled with antibiotics, virulent strains of C. difficile are now appearing that resist treatment with common medications.

Clostridium Difficilis Spores

Hence the need for a new cure.

Now, Rubin and Aas are researching which bacteria are the critical players in the hidden war inside the gut. If they can answer that, patients might one day get a pill with the right bacteria instead of a tube in their nose.

In a refreshing bit of candor:

Aas says he doesn’t know exactly why the stool transplant works. He presumes that the infusion of donated flora resets the bacterial balance in the gut and somehow keeps the C. difficile in check. Whatever the mechanism, it works 95 percent of the time.

Neither group of researchers expects that finding the answer would result in a new, blockbuster drug. There are probably not enough severe cases for that kind of payoff. They are after different stakes — a better understanding of the relationship between humans and their bacteria.

In an interview in the Washington Post, Aas stated that he views stool as an organ:

It is normally considered waste product, but it is in a way an independent organ, like the kidney, and it contains thousands of different bacteria living in symbiosis. These bacteria are needed for normal health. When you use some antibiotics, some of this bacteria population gets destroyed. If you later get infected with Clostridium difficile colitis, there is this competitive battlefield in the colon, and without the necessary bacteria, Clostridium has the upper hand. So what we do is take normal stool from a normal person, make an extract of it, put it in a blender with water, take two tablespoons of that cocktail, and introduce it into the patient’s body.

Fascinating stuff.  We hope their research leads to a better understanding of the ecosystems inside and outside our bodies.

It’s not just humans who are afflicted with this disease.  Dogs and other animals also suffer from c. difficile.  In June, 2006 the CDC reported that a toxin-variant strain of C. difficile was diagnosed in a healthy, 4-year-old toy poodle that was visiting patients in Ontario hospitals on a weekly basis. The canine isolate was indistinguishable from the major strain implicated in outbreaks of highly virulent c. difficile found in humans around the world. Although this was reportedly the first report of a human strain of c. difficile detected in a dog, many strains of the disease isolated from animals are indistinguishable from those associated with this disease in humans.

Want to know more about c. difficile?  Check out this great summary on the disease from from our friends over at Worms and Germs. 

And in the meantime – wash your hands, avoid taking unnecessary antibiotics – and don’t keep your house too clean.

Doody Calls

There is, apparently, a lot of money to be made in dog poop.  Yesterday we reported on spendy, trendy poop bags from a fashion house in Germany – today we’ve got the poop on a new product for socially responsible dog owners who are afraid of getting their hands dirty.

 The Doody Duffle, by Sly Innovations LLC is a cloth bag you attach to the handle of your leash.  The stylish cloth bag is lined with a disposable plastic bag.  The cloth bag and liner both close with drawstrings in what looks (at least to my dyslexic eyes) – to be a confusingly complex way.  Check out the product demo below:

The duffle is large enough to get in the way when held (as shown) on the loop of one’s leash – but looks too small to pick up piles left by most large or giant dogs.  I won’t be rushing out to buy one, but if it turns more people into responsible poop picker uppers – I’m all for it.

What’s New in Poo

From DVICE.com:

For those who are thinking it’s not worth it to have a dog because of all that poop you have to bag up and carry around, here’s your salvation. Each biodegradable Dog Poo Bag in the $30 pack of 16 has its own self-contained scooper, letting you scoop up that crap, dispose of the scooper, and seal it all up in one smooth motion.

German design firm JungeSchactel believes that dog poop should be carried in style.  We agree – these are marvelous!

Pooper Scooper Barbie

This just in from Terrierman’s excellent blog:

                POOPER SCOOPER BARBIE

WHY didn’t they have this when I was a kid?

From Terrierman:

Barbie’s dog is a generic-looking Labrador called “Tanner.” Barbie can feed the dog biscuits which then emerge from the dog’s rear-end. Barbie then has to pooper scooper them up with her baby-blue pooper scooper before Tanner wolfs them down again. Hey, that’s just like real dog ownership!

Well – yeah….  
So when are they coming out with Dog Trainer Barbie?

…. waiting with ‘bated breath …

Springtime Odds and Ends

Spring is desperately trying to make headway against winter’s insistent pull.  As soon as most of the snow disappears from our yard, another storm blows in and dumps a half-foot thick wet blanket on our warm weather aspirations.

The dogs don’t mind.  They love the snow.  The young dogs sprint through the slushy mess grinning as it splashes around them.  They roll and wrestle in the deeper bits and the old dog rouses his tired bones to join them, at least for a bit.

I sulk.  Unlike the soft, feather-light snows of our winter storms that can often be cleared off the walks with a push broom, the spring snows are more water than ice.  Water just cold enough to have an unstable, yet somehow inert, form.  It’s aptly referred to as ‘heart attack snow.’ 

To distract myself from the evil whiteness I’ve been listening to CDs on birding by ear as I putter around the house.  I got the first one at the recommendation of a friend whose husband’s encyclopedic ear is legendary.  I expected to listen to it a few times, lose interest and move on to something else.  Instead, I’ve become addicted. 

We live in a wonderful area for birding.  Our place sits on a wooded bluff above a spring-fed creek a few miles above the Mississippi River.  Hardwood forests, open fields, cliffs, creeks, broad river areas, marshes and suburban yards are all located nearby.  It’s a veritable smorgasbord of habitat.  The Mississippi flyway bottlenecks not far from us, where the River flows into Lake Pepin, making this one of the best birding areas in the country.

In just the last couple of days along with the regular avian visitors to our bird feeders I’ve seen great blue herons, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, a northern flicker, a  couple of robins and several red-winged blackbirds.  The robins and blackbirds were especially exciting to see as they are harbingers of… dare I say it…. Spring! 

And now that I’ve had just a bit of time to listen and study the song identification CD, even though I haven’t seen them, I can also tell that barred owls, saw whet owls and a sand hill crane have been by to visit. 

Another of my favorite springtime occupations is picking up the winter’s harvest of poop.  Odd, isn’t it?  It should be an unpleasant job but ambling around the two acres or so that we keep mowed gives me a chance to reacquaint myself with the ground my feet haven’t touched in at least four months.  And I sometimes find interesting things along with the poop.  Just this week I came across a disc-shaped wasp nest and the pinecone shaped nest from some bald-faced hornets.  I found an old udder tug that Zip was thrilled to see and the severed head of a rabbit.  The rabbit head disturbed me a bit at first, but I called my friends Sharon and Mark from Northwoods Wildlife Center and they told me that great horned owls often sever the heads of their prey.  So, though it may be a bit creepy, it’s just another bit of evidence that these owls are regular visitors. 

Since we’re spending more time indoors that we’d like (I think it’s safe for me to speak for the dogs here) I’ve been doing more fetch work with young Audie.  We’re moving on to having him pick up and carry large, awkwardly shaped items like bath towels and fleece jackets.  This is difficult in several ways.  First, he has to figure out how to grab the item - as a grabbing place is not necessarily obvious, then he has to work hard to pick it up because its heavy and finally he has to figure out how to drag it without stepping on it. 

I find it interesting to see that as we advance with fetch work, Audie carries around things similar to the ‘difficult things’ we’re working on with a Very Focused Look on his face.  I’m convinced that he does this to practice.  We just started working on large, awkwardly-shaped items on Sunday.  Starting last night, he’s begun to pick up largish fabric items he finds on the floor (sadly not a particularly difficult task in our house) and dragging them to me.  This am as I took my wakeup pee, he dragged the size XL long-sleeved t-shirt Mark slept in to me looking Very Proud of himself.  He made of point of handing the shirt to me, then strutted off.  I’m convinced that he was telling me “See, I CAN do this!”

Scottish Pooparazzi

Tuesday BBC News reported that the Edinburgh City Council approved a plan to enforce ‘dog fouling’ laws using a van equipped with video cameras that will record violations on the spot along with wardens who will immediately issue citations.  I must say that I think it’s a wonderful idea.

While I realize that some people might think that this is a bit of an extreme reaction to an excess of dog poop, I must say that I think it’s a fantastic idea.  Irresponsible dog owners that allow their dogs to eliminate indiscriminately and refuse to pick up after them are one of the main factors contributing to the ever growing list of public places that ban the presence of pet dogs.  Add to that inattentive owners who think that simply holding on to one end of a Flexi-Lead is an acceptable substitute for supervising their dog’s behaviorand we end up with a plague of dog-related problems across the country.

Just think what we could accomplish if (taking the Scots as an example) regular people started to use their cellphones and digital cameras to capture photos and video clips of the misdeeds of  rude, thoughtless dog owners. Imagine using technology to expose the misdeeds of millions of people who, in their thoughtless laziness and irresponsibility, are robbing responsible dog owners of their rights all over the world. 

Why waste your time trying to capture Brittany’s latest breakdown, Pamela Anderson’s most recent public sex act or Amy Winehouse’s latest fix on tape.  Not only are you competing with thousands of predatory professional photographers – but WHO FREAKIN’ CARES!  If, as a society, we spent one tenth of the time we devote to the pointless perusal of the puerile pursuits of pretty people publicized as a purely provocative pastime to championing civilized conduct by common citizens who care about causes JUST THINK WHAT WE COULD ACCOMPLISH! 

Maybe what we need right now is a grassroots movement for Responsible Dog Ownership.  If we work together to expose those who ignore leash laws, let their dogs poop indiscriminately and otherwise resfuse to take RESPONSBILITY for their dogs – just think what we could accomplish!

Jesus Held Hostage Over Dog Poop

A newsflash from our ‘strange but true’ files:

See The Whole Ugly Story Here
(sorry, we can’t imbed shockwave video)

A mysterious phone call, an anonymous ransom note, a concrete Jesus and an act of underground scatological activism combine to create a tale that sounds like it came right out of Tom Robbins’ imagination.

Dog poop is a subject that seems to bring out the 6-year-old in all of us. Partly because it’s still taboo to talk about fecal matter in polite society and – sadly – because so many of us are as irresponsible as spoiled 6-year-olds when it comes to dealing with it.

Otherwise responsible adults walk away from their dog’s fresh pile without even a glance. They leave steaming piles of poop on sidewalks and playgrounds like they think the poop fairy will come and clean up after them. 

So what’s the big deal?  Why would anonymous forces kidnap an elderly woman’s cherished concrete Jesus just to protest a few errant piles of poo?

There’s more to this than poop on our shoes. Even though aesthetic issues are the main reason that the public complains about dog poop, research indicates that unpicked up dog poop poses significant risks to surface water bodies and human health. And this problem isn’t going to go away on its own. 

According to a report prepared by the Stormwater Manager’s Resource Center:  

“The reluctance of many residents to handle dog waste is the biggest limitation to controlling pet waste. According to a Chesapeake Bay survey, 44% of dog walkers who do not pick up indicated they would still refuse to pick up, even if confronted by complaints from neighbors, threatened with fines, or provided with more sanitary and convenient options for retrieving and disposing of dog waste.” 

Amazing. Fines, peer-pressure and convenient bags and bins won’t convince hard core fecal scofflaws to mend their ways. Do we need resort to sending repeat offenders to jail? 

Better that than more dog limit laws and ‘no dogs allowed’ signs in public places.  Dog poop isn’t just unsightly and inconvenient; it is beginning to pose a significant threat to surface water.  Studies have shown that up to 95% of the fecal coliform in urban watersheds comes from non-human sources. And although wildlife and livestock are the major contributors of waste in most areas, 20% of the bacteria detected in watersheds in the Seattle area was found to have a canine origin. 

Zoonotic diseases and parasites from dog poop run off into surface water bodies when it rains or during the spring snow melt. According to the EPA, some beach closings have resulted from bacterial contamination originating from pet waste. 

And that waste isn’t just in parks and along pathways.  It’s also in our backyards.  In fact, dog poop laying around in yards makes up about 85% of the problem according to a study conducted by Snohomish County, Washington. 

Runoff contaminated by pet waste can lead to the eutrophication of lakes and ponds.  Eutrophication is the process where water bodies receive excess nutrients that stimulate rampant plant growth (nitrogen compounds in poop are a source of these nutrients).  The excess growth, often occurring to as an algal bloom, reduces dissolved oxygen in the water when the plant material dies and decomposes.  The poop itself also reduces dissolved oxygen when it decomposes in water. 

Algal blooms can be deadly to animals that drink the contaminated water.  Several dogs die from blue-green algae poisoning every year.

So – that poop your neighbor didn’t pick up in his yard can kill your dog when he goes for a swim.  It also kills aquatic organisms and other wildlife.

The woman who’s concrete Jesus was kidnapped seemed to be utterly dumbfounded that someone would care enough about ‘weiner poopie’ to resort to such a dastardly deed.  

I’m sorry that more of us don’t.