Jon Katz Quotes
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When people buy, rescue, or otherwise acquire a dog from unscrupulous breeders or amateur rescue groups, they are making a decision with ethical consequences. They have a profound responsibility to consider their actions; to gauge the dog's behavior, to train it thoroughly and rigorously, to protect other humans and dogs from harm.
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Lifetime dogs intersect with our lives with particular impact; they're dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable, ways.
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Owners sometimes think their dogs have already suffered so much that they couldn't possibly inflict any more criticism. Yet it's that very firm, effective training that would make those dogs happier and more secure.
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When you write about animals, of course, you are really writing about the people who love and live with them. Animals mirror and reveal us. Dogs in particular are often reflections of us, and what we need them to be.
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Dog rescue remains a gamble, of course. For all the good will, hard work, and noble motivation, nobody can really predict with certainty how a traumatized, dislocated dog will respond in a new environment.
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I'm always happy when people choose to get another dog because it's a healthy and healing thing to do, and there are millions of them needing homes. But there is no single time frame to do it in because grieving is an intensely personal experience.
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Owners who buy aggressive dogs for security may be kidding themselves: The chances that the victim of a fatal dog attack will be a burglar or human attacker are 1-in-177. The odds that the victim will be a child are 7-in-10.
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When an animal dies, it gives you the chance to love another animal. That's an insightful and profound way to look at it.
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Some rescue groups are highly organized, experienced, well-funded, nearly professional. Others are small amateur operations run out of garages and back yards. Their members may identify strongly with animals as victims, sometimes because of traumas and disappointments in their own lives. Others simply love animals and want to help them.
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Personally, I don't want to own a dog that inspires fear. I choose my dogs carefully, have their temperaments observed and evaluated, train and socialize them day after day. Yet I know any dog can be unpredictable.
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It is possible to take something beautiful and lasting out of the heart-wrenching experience of seeing the animal you love move inexorably toward death.