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Balance

(reposted from February 2009. All dogs in this post were adopted.)

I’ve already spent the morning basking in the digital glow of hi-rez pixels, eating handfuls of chips, drinking yesterday’s cola and squinting at lines of computer code, trying to decipher the purpose of a certain program’s existence - which is still easier by far than reaching for the purpose of mine - and not trying to but succeeding at a gradual ruin of my eyes in conjunction with what you could call a petrifaction of human social interaction skills meaning that after many hours of communing with my hipper-than-all-other neon colored, iridescent, supersonic, multiphonic, ultra ultra-modern, multi-terabyte monster of a 100 pound computer, I looked into the eyes of everyone around me and my skewed vision could only see, could only comprehend matched pairs of little non-flat screen monitors staring back at me, and my voice, my input device to them, was as steady and monotonous as my typing on the ergonomically angled keyboard of my ultra, ultra sleek machine.

So to counter the erosion of all connections with the living, at noon, I go visit the dogs where they give me such smiles that even my mumbling, fumbling language with them is of no concern and I can laugh at all their secret jokes.

Copain

And when I say the dogs save me, I mean they save me from the inertia of butt planted in seat for 9 hours straight and they save me from eating a saturated fat saturated meal ordered from the nearest fry pit. When I say they save me I mean they reanimate my pixel infused brain, they pump life through my digitized heart and they re-inflate my micro-chipped soul.

Travis

The dogs dissolve away all my plastic pretense and wreck all this sleek, clean metal concrete glass architecture overhead and around (at what? a quarter million for 600 square feet?), and replace it simply with fur and drool and dirt. They replace it with bright eyes, excited ears and paws that pad through snow and puddles and mud and onward, always onward. They are a force field against the artifice of my bipolar commodity/consumer world, a world that suggests to me daily I would be happier indeed if I were an automaton permanently wired and 100% exposed to the marketing for the next future-is-now, must-have electronic device/pop star/investment opportunity.

But these dogs don't care. These uncivilized, unwanted, uneducated dogs don't understand and don't even try. They just laugh at all this and re-infect me with life.

Maggie



Update on Maggie here.

Update on Travis here.

Sunday, July 17, 2011 · [Print]

1 Comment to “Balance”

  1. rika says:
    July 17, 2011 at 5:11 PM

    I remember this post from "One Bark at a Time". Back then, these uncivilized and unwanted dogs had just started to save me.

    Thanks for reposting!

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A request

The reason for this blog is to help get specific dogs adopted from TAS but equally important is to try to normalize the idea of shelter dogs being just as good and just as desirable as any other dogs including those which are regularly merchandised by backyard breeders, puppy millers and those few remaining pet store owners who still feel a need to sell live animals. The single greatest stigma shelter animals still face is the belief that shelter animals are substandard animals. Anyone who has had enough experience with shelter animals knows this is untrue but the general public hasn't had the same experiences you've had. They see a nice dog photo in a glossy magazine and too many of them would never think of associating that dog with a dog from a shelter. After all, no one abandons perfectly good dogs, right? Unfortunately, as we all know, perfectly good dogs are abandoned all the time.

The public still too often associates shelter dogs with images of beat up, sick, dirty, severely traumatized animals and while we definitely sometimes see victims such as these, they are certainly not the majority and, regardless, even the most abused animals can very often be saved and made whole again.

Pound Dogs sometimes discusses the sad histories some of the dogs have suffered. For the most part, though, it tries to present the dogs not as victims but as great potential family members. The goal is to raise the profiles of animals in adoption centers so that a potential pet owner sees them as the best choice, not just as the charity choice.

So, here's the favour I'm asking. Whenever you see a dog picture on these pages you think is decent enough, I'd like you to consider sharing it on Facebook or any other social media sites you're using (I know many of you do this already and thank you for that). And when you share it, please mention that the dog in the photo is a shelter dog like so many other shelter dogs waiting for a home. If we can get even five percent of the pet buying public to see shelter dogs differently, to see how beautiful they are and how wonderful they are, and to consider shelter dogs as their first choice for a new family member, we can end the suffering of homeless pets in this country.
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