Here, for Google's indexing purposes, is a photo of a puppy called Sissy. See below. If you don't see other dog photos, blame it on Google, the site's misbehaving again. The site has misbehaved enough, so far this week and it's only Monday, that I've started keeping a log for a complaint to the FCC. I'm well acquainted with the usual excuses for computer misbehavior; this is different. They claim there's some sort of network connection problem. Hmph. Not here, if there is one. Anyway, for each dog story there's a link directly to the dog's Petfinder page, which may have additional photos as well as the dog's full story and the shelter's contact information.
Some local lurker can so easily make it a better world for this dog. I went to Petfinder to see whether a fancy breed generally regarded as impractical was within the average pet adopter's price range. Lo and behold, the first dog photo on the "local" page was a Dalmatian mix you can take home on a trial basis free of charge, with food and basic veterinary care provided.
Now the NaPoWriMo poem, which takes us back to the cat side, briefly, although this is a dog day...
From the fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons, which has often been denounced because no character's actions have real-world consequences, so the differences between "lawful," "lawless/chaotic," "good," and "evil" are that playing a lawful or good character gives the player fewer options and less chance of success...
For cats it'd be similar, I suspect. The cats labelled "chaotic" and "evil" look as if they might be the liveliest, most interesting pets. Age and diet have more to do with cats' levels of energy and activity than color has, but melanin does bond chemically with adrenalin and the gene for orange fur is most often expressed in males, so among litter mates the orange and black ones might be more energetic than the white and grey ones.
Cats are capable of...I wouldn't say evil behavior, but behavior intended to show what they think of us when the Burying Gesture is not enough to communicate the depth of their disapproval. Not all cats use the Burying Gesture but enough of them do to indicate that cats know, if they pay attention to words, exactly what humans mean by using the rude S word.
Some years ago, a member of this web site was a half-grown kitten called Viola the Cybercat. She contributed lots of characters to my blog posts, most of which were edited out, and also gave me facial dermabrasion treatments while I was writing. Viola was supposed to be guided and supervised by a geriatric cat who claimed one of the web site's hosts, that season, as her human. This bit of Bad Poetry is dedicated to that senior cat.
As if there weren't enough humans already
in this house, now mine's brought another in.
Just as the sunshine on the rug grows steady
that one sits down and typing does begin.
I've learned to take my naps beside such strangers.
The young one is adventuresome and bold
and scrubs its face with no thought of the dangers
to health such vulgar intimacy may hold.
And then, with her tongue clogged with human dander,
she comes to me and tries to groom my coat.
Though I have every right to reprimand her
the humans have some duty to take note
of how they have disrupted my routine.
They type and chatter underneath a shelf
on which a tasteless china figurine
collects dust and displays its ugly self.
There! I've jumped to the shelf, and I have twirled
my tail, smash! I have made a better world!
Now, speaking of "chaotic"...Although it began with a cat meme and poem, this week's post is supposed to be about dogs. And I've just read a really funny comic novel--review will go live in May, when the printed book should be available in shops--in which a character prepares for a trip to London by watching old favorite videos, and then expresses disappointment about not having seen any Dalmatian dogs yet.
Dalmatians can be rather chaotic animals to live with. Some of them are calm and clever, though hardly up to the standard set by the cartoon characters in the Disney movie. Some seem to inherit defective brains; Temple Grandin thinks something that may be an animal counterpart to autism, across species, tends to go wrong with the brains of two-colored individuals. It's not caused by having a spotted coat and not always found in animals with spotted coats, but it's most likely to appear in animals with spotted coats. Much as autistic people used to be dismissed as idiots, these animals used to be labelled "crazy" or "untrainable" and put down; now they're recognized as just very hard to train--and still many of them are put down. Due to the incidence of this trait in Dalmatians, although these big showy dogs were traditional mascots of fire fighters because they can be brave, smart, and strong, their average intelligence level is rated low.
What makes Dalmatians an impractical choice of pet for some people is their size. Like police dogs, fire truck dogs have relatively short lives during which they need relatively high amounts of food, vet care, and exercise. They're good pets for some people. If you are considering adopting a dog, consider carefully whether a Dalmatian would be a good pet for you.
It occurred to me to check Petfinder. Are there homeless Dalmatians? If there are, how realistic are the adoption fees?
Petfinder never misses a chance to display the animals seeking homes near where you are. There aren't a lot of dogs of any kind in local shelters, I'm glad to see--though there are some--and breeds locally available are the usual suspects: bull terriers, large dogs whose humans can't walk with them, and small dogs whose humans are tired of keeping them indoors.
Dalmatians are, however, available for realistic adoption fees. Like Sissy, the pup from Knoxville shown above, who is homeless but has been kept in a foster home. Sissy's foster humans want very much to spare this smart, sensitive puppy from the shelter experience. If you live in east Tennessee and want to live with a Dalmatian on a trial basis, why not offer to be her next foster human? Her current foster humans are sure she's one of the clever Dalmatians (she's almost completely housebroken), probably less chaotic than the average puppy; she's part boxer, so expected to be smaller (and possibly live longer) than most Dalmatians, with a healthy adult weight around 50 pounds; and, as a foster pet, she comes with prepaid vet bills and free food. If you agree to keep her and show her to other people, she will come to you free of charge. You pay only if you find that she's worth the expense of keeping a large(ish) dog.
Zipcode 10101: Marshall from Pennsylvania
His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/marshall-66656001/pa/royersford/willing-hearts-dalmatian-rescue-pa75/
They don't claim that he's an especially clever Dalmatian but he certainly is a typy one, and they say he's a nice one, well behaved for a year-old pup. Runs to where he wants to be, plops when he gets there. I'm not sure how that makes him worth $300 but that does seem to be what the local market for mixed-breed rescue dogs will bear. Good luck haggling down.
Zipcode 20202: Neo from Harrisonburg
His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/neo-71316940/va/harrisonburg/rockingham-harrisonburg-spca-va149/
If not the best Dalmatian photo I've ever seen, it was the only Dalmatian photo near DC that was showing today. There just aren't a lot of Dalmatians in shelters near our nation's capital. There are some dogs with known Dalmatian ancestors but no spots, and some mixed breeds with spots but other kinds of body shapes--and there were only a handful of those.
About Neo, specifically, they say he's shy and takes time to get comfortable with places and people. He may be one of those Dalmatians with high-strung, hypersensitive personalities that remind Temple Grandin of autistic humans. They recommend him only to families where everyone is over age 13 but think that, given patience and quiet time/space, he'll be a good pet.
Zipcode 30303: Liana from Alabama
Liana was born in a shelter, to a dog who had been abused and neglected so it's anybody's guess what her ancestors were. With shelter dogs breed identity is usually a matter of type rather than pedigree. She's part boxer, probably part retriever, as well as part Dalmatian, but doesn't she have a Dalmatian look? She is small for the breed--just 35 pounds at two years old. She is said to be a clever, responsible Dalmatian, the alpha pup in the litter, well behaved with humans. They don't mention any vision problems; she just has one pale eye.
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