Would You Pay Someone $150,000 A Year To Poison Your Dog?
Yesterdayís Page One LA Times story, profiling a chick with a plastic surgery hobby who walks celebritiesí dogs, seems to end with one or more of the dogs sneaking some of her latte:
Each time she escorted a dog to his home and returned to her car, a pair of dogs took over the front seat. She shooed away Hugo and Sophie, two German shepherds.Lever put the key in the ignition and eyed her coffee cup.
"Who," she asked, "has been drinking my latte?"
Now, to be fair, itís unclear from the way this is written whether sheís just pretending the dogs drank from her latte, or whether they actually did. One hopes sheís not so focused on how ìfancyî she is (to borrow a Marnye Oppenheim word) for being a celebrity dog service provider, that she forgets coffee is poison for dogs. Happily, the milk in a latte usually just makes dogs leave brown puddles on the new white sofa...which is almost as appealing as a dog walker who drops more starsí names than a ìproducerî without a deal.
Now, Amy, you know my Linda used to sneak coffee from the table and grab cigarettes from the garden when she was a puppy, and then jump on my lap with her Louella Parsons breath, and she remains a very healthy mutt. I don't think a dog is really going to be poisoned by a little latte! At least they've been running some good pieces on page one lately. I loved the Camp Granada one too.
Cathy Seipp at August 22, 2003 12:25 AM
At least she's managed to stay off hard drugs!
(Amy Alkon) at August 22, 2003 12:43 AM
And I liked this piece -- was just appalled by the ending, since my vet told me dogs can die from chocolate, coffee, nuts, and onions, among other things. Have to go search for the Camp Granada piece.
(Amy Alkon) at August 22, 2003 1:12 AM
Advise the $150,000/year pooper-scooper that Starbuck's lattes come with LIDS, which would solve the problem of the latte-lapping.
On the subject of giving animals what is not good for them, I used to be a live-in caregiver for an elderly couple. The gentleman, a retired editor who has had at least one dog his entire life, doted endlessly on his black Lab-Chow mix, Samantha. Talk about nauseating. He would use baby talk and lovey-dovey terms that he never used on his own wife. Of course, the most repulsive part was the dinner table. Not only would she be fed from the table from every single course including dessert -- chocolate, too -- he would feed Samantha RIGHT OFF HIS OWN FORK! And he actually had the nerve to wonder why I never ate with him and his wife at the dinner table. Though I must admit I was impressed when Samantha managed corn on the cob.
And before anyone tries to remind me that dogs' mouths are cleaner even than ours, let ME point out that human beings don't clean their privates orally. (And spare me the "dogs lick their privates because they can" jokes.)
I'm not really sure how chocolate is supposed to kill a dog. I've heard that only certain kinds of chocolate are actually fatal. Someone else told me that there's a certain toxin from chocolate that stays inside them, until they reach a certain level. Then it kills them.
Patrick at August 22, 2003 10:50 AM
Well, I should also mention that Cathy's dog is close in size to that of a Shetland pony, and I'm sure that makes a difference. Chocolate, actually, is supposed to be among the worst things a dog can eat. Whether they get sick or dead depends upon their size and the amount and kind of chocolate (or other substance they consume), according to some of the stuff I looked up on the web.
(Amy Alkon) at August 22, 2003 1:13 PM
A Shetland Pony?!?! She's a 28-pound terrier! Your notions of dog size have been distorted by 2-pound Lucy.
Cathy Seipp at August 22, 2003 2:39 PM
Well, I was actually thinking of one of these:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_3080000/3080201.stm
...which would also make a lovely friend for Ken Layne's goat.
(Amy Alkon) at August 22, 2003 3:40 PM
Cathy Seipp: A Shetland Pony?!?! She's a 28-pound terrier! Your notions of dog size have been distorted by 2-pound Lucy.
2 pounds? My cat is bigger than that. (Which means nothing, since Seraph's a big coward, anyway. She'll look at the tiniest, most harmless puppy and bristle so she looks like an orange hedgehog. She would run from Lucy as soon as Godzilla.)
I'm actually more of a dog person, myself. But Seraph was abandoned by my horrid neighbors when they were evicted from their apartment. No food, no a/c (which in Florida is a must)and it was an entire week before the landlords came to release her. She survived by drinking out of the commode. (Hey, you do what you gotta do.)
I didn't realize she was abandoned, though, and took her in just in case they came back looking for her. They never showed up and I learned that she was abandoned, so I adopted her. Peculiar law of Florida was told to me by a vet at the SPCA. It seems that if you care for an animal for ten days, you own it, regardless of any ownership papers or shot records anyone produces. (I will assume he meant housepets and livestock, not just any animal. Some in this state would be stupid enough to try to adopt an alligator.) So Seraph was now my legal property. Leaving her in that hot apartment with no food was so despicably cruel.
My cat gets into everything. I swear she does it on purpose. I will be typing away on my keyboard and she'll jump up on my desk and stand in front of the screen. I could be lying in bed reading Amy's column and she'll just lay right on it. Stupid cat. And I have to shut her out of my bedroom when I make my bed, because her eyes just go all pinwheels and she jumps up and attacks the sheets.
Funniest thing my cat ever did? Give herself a bath. I was taking a bath one day and didn't shut the door completely. Seraph nudged her way in and jumped up on the edge of the tub. She started batting at the shower curtain. Then she saw some crinkle in the curtain just out of her reach. She jumped for it, slid down the plastic curtain and SPLASH into the tub! Silly cat. And of course, the cat's attitude when it does anything dumb is "I meant to do that!"
Anyone else got a silly pet story?
Patrick at August 22, 2003 5:13 PM