Rusty is a Cambridge dog; Strummer knows him from Norton's Woods at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (map). Chigger, of blogdogs ( For starters, dogs never refer to any human as "Mom," "Mommie," "Mum" or any other human variation on the word bitch. We don’t use bizarre phrases like "T.T.ing" to refer to "taking a piss." And we certainly don’t lapse into some kind of mid-20th-Century-blackface-plantation-movie-pseudo-patois as a way to suggest that we’re not human. I quote: "Mum sez the evil vetman sez I should have a bath evvy WEEK with de medisin soap!!" In today's Globe, Kristen Green has an article about the canine internet. somerville dog is honored to be included among the sites mentioned in the article. Activity on somerville dog has been a little bit low of late: For more information about what's going on in Somerville, please visit the website of the Somerville Dog Owners Group (som|dog). We're walking with our dogs in the Somerville Memorial Day Parade! You can also see a slideshow of Somerville dogs on Dogster. Strummer has a diary on Dogster. Give her a bone! via Boston Dogs I recently learned of a yahoo discussion group for the issue of agressive behavior in dogs. The aptly named "Aggressive Behaviors in Dogs" group (agbeh) includes over 300 experienced dog trainers from around the world, who discuss with pet owners via Boston Dogs DogFriendly.com has published its 3rd Annual list of Top 10 Dog-Friendly Cities To Visit in North America. Boston residents, who, because of its dearth of safe and legal options for off-leash recreation, consider Boston one of the least dog-friendly major cities in the U.S. in which to live, will be surprised to learn that of the top ten dog-friendly cities to visit in the U.S. Boston is number three. Families with dogs who are planning to visit Boston should be advised that some of the dog-friendly attractions listed for Boston are not quite as attractive as DogFriendly.com makes them out to be. For example, do not book a hotel on the basis of its proximity to the Charlesgate Dog Run. See for yourself: the "dog run" is not used and not usable by families with dogs. I just learned about dog-trainer Nancy Freedman-Smith's blog, "A Dog's Life." The Canine University e-mail newsletter refered to Freedman-Smith's recent post, "No vaccines for us this year." Friedman-Smith advises pet owners to request that our veterinarians, before administering annual vaccinations, perform a titer to determine if our pet already has adequate levels of antibodies in her blood to protect her from disease. Good advice. Friedman-Smith also discusses the advocacy work of Kris Christine to pass legislation requiring more detailed disclosure on animal vaccinations in Maine. You can learn more about pet vaccine legislation tonight on the 11:00 news. In an e-mail printed in the CU newsletter I received this morning, Christine writes, Fortunately, I don't have my own cautionary tale about the risk to dogs riding unrestrained in cars, but my friend, Dave Trowbridge, does. Dave's story has a happy ending: his German Shepherd Dog, Oka, was properly restrained in a VariKennel and survived the accident unscathed. But Dave's admonition is one that responsible dog owners should take seriously: Worse, it's all too likely your dog will suffer horribly for quite some time before it dies: you may not leave the scene of an accident, even if you can, and there are no provisions for severely-wounded animals, save the doubtful mercy of a peace-officer's gun. Very few people know how to quickly and painlessly kill an animal with a firearm (draw a line from each ear to the opposite eye, and fire into the point of intersection), and it generally can't be done with a frightened, thrashing dog, anyway. How will you feel, when it's all over, knowing that a $100 crate could have prevented a horrible, prolonged death for your beloved pet? In my compact four-door sedan, however there just isn't enough room for a crate that can accommodate a standard poodle. I asked a member of the Poodle Club of Massachusetts how to travel safely by car with my dog, and she said: the best vehicle restraint harness for dogs is Ruff Rider. With a tensile strength of 9300 lbs., it surpasses SAE standards for human seat belts, and its design is orthopedically sound, ergonomically correct, and warranteed for the life of your animal. Restraining a dog in a vehicle insures the safety not only of the dog but of the human occupants of the vehicle as well. The owner of Ruff Rider, Carl Goldberg, says "If you brake hard at 30 mph, a 60-pound dog will fly forward with a force of 1,200 pounds per square inch." That's a dangerous projectile--at only 30 mph: even on short, local drives, say to Sheepfold in the Middlesex Fells or to Canine University in Malden, I exceed 30 mph. In my car (as in all things), I try to do right by my dog. Strummer travels in the Roadie LX, and she loves to go for rides! As far as I know, Somerville does not have a skatepark. Skateboarders are invited to join forces with Somerville dog owners in the interest of creating a dog skate park. Admittedly the constituency of potential users for a dog skate park is one, and he lives, not surprisingly, in Huntington Beach, California. I'm ashamed to admit that Tyson, the Skateboarding Bulldog, has better control of his board than I ever did. In my defense, my board was a yellow plastic "Banana Board." Skateboarding Bulldog via Boston Pooch* *UPDATE 22 February 2006: The Boston Pooch site is, alas, defunct. Chigger, at blogdogs.com, offers sound advice to dogs regarding identity theft and protecting your identity. Blogdogs.com offers a dog's-eye view on the internet. Though infrequently updated, it is funny. Fall-off-the-couch roll-on-the-floor funny. Seriously, though. Permanent positive identification can mean the difference between finding your dog and never finding your dog again if he ever gets lost. Collar tags are good: Somerville dog owners are subject to state laws requiring that dogs wear tags indicating that they are licensed by the City and that their rabies vaccinations are current (see Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140: Section 137 Registration and licenses and Chapter 140: Section 145B Vaccination against rabies; certificate; tag; proof of vaccination; penalty). But tags and collars can, themselves, be lost (and stolen). If your dog is lost and is not wearing his collar and tags, chances are you will never see your dog again. Dog owners have two options for permanently identifying their dogs: tattoos and microchips.1 The American Kennel Club Companion Animal Recovery (AKC-CAR) program "provides 24-hour recovery services for microchipped and tattooed pets. The enrollment database is located in Raleigh, NC, but maintains records from around the world." The benefit of a microchip is that it is "encoded with a unique and unalterable identification number".4 You can change or add additional contact information by contacting the registry in which you enrolled your dog. In the early days of the microchip technology, a valid concern was that chips manufactured by different companies were not readable, and in some cases not recognizable, by all scanners. In 1996, however, a universal scanner was developed. Universal scanners have since been widely distributed to animal shelters.5 I have chosen to have my dog microchipped. Strummer was microchipped last month. 1A website called Dognose ID claims that the nose print of a dog is, like a human thumbprint, a unique identifier. If nose printing were an effective method of permanent positive identification, it would certainly have the benefit of being non-invasive. However, the company claims that "the Canadian Thoroughbred Kennel Club, the equivalent of the American Kennel Club, or AKC, in the U.S., has accepted nose prints as proof of identity of dogs since 1938." The Canadian equivalent of the AKC is, in fact, the Canadian Kennel Club/Club Canin Canadien. The Canadian Kennel Club sponsors CANADACHIP, a national pet rescue program. 2 Norma Bennett Woolf, "Microchips: Grain-sized microchip can be Fido's ticket home," Dog Owner's Guide. 3Ardeth Baxter, "Tracking your dog or cat: identification methods," PageWise, Inc. 4 Microchipping, AKC-CAR. 5 Banfield veterinary clinics, which operate out of Petsmart stores, introduced a new microchip in February 2004. Unlike the microchips of the leading manufacturers, Digital Angel Corporation, formerly Destron Fearing, (manufacturer of HomeAgain) and Avid Identification Systems Inc., which use a 125kHz frequency, Banfield uses a 134.2 kHz chip, the international standard. According to Sandra Eckstein, writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 18, 2007
Local Celebrity
Strummer offers a playbow to Rusty on the occasion of his being featured as "Mr. November" on the MyCorgi.com 2008 Wall Calendar.
May 7, 2006
On the internet, no one knows if you're a dog
alas defunct UPDATE: reinstated June 2006!), observed in February 2004, I'm becoming increasingly concerned with the issue of identity theft online, and feel compelled to express some of my concerns. If you spend much time on the web, you soon realize that there are web sites written by dogs, and web sites written by humans about the dogs they live with. And that's all fine and good. But more and more what I’m finding is web postings that are identified as written by dogs, when in reality they are written by… yes, you guessed it… humans. . . .
May 23, 2005
Agressive Behavior in Dogs
how to modify the behavior of dogs which sometimes exhibit aggressive behaviors toward dogs and/or toward people.
May 21, 2005
Top 10 Dog-Friendly Cities To Visit in North America - 2005
May 18, 2005
Vaccinations and a dog's life
News about the pet vaccine issue is spreading rapidly and getting more national coverage. NBC's Boston station, WHDH-7 News, sent journalist Christina Mattingly and her cameraman to Alna to interview us as part of a pet vaccine story they are running Wednesday night at 11:00 p.m., May 18th.
January 14, 2005
Modern Pooch
September 2, 2004
Dogs in Cars
If you have a serious accident with your dog unrestrained in your car, your dog will die. If you have any sort of accident with your dog tethered in the back of your pickup truck, your dog will die. (And if you carry a dog in your pickup truck without restraint, you should be publicly flogged.)
June 26, 2004
Dog Skate Park
June 5, 2004
Identity Theft and Missing Dogs
A tattoo is etched on the inside of the dogs thigh near his abdomen. The area is shaved to make application easier and less irritating to the skin, but it grows back and can obscure the number.2
Tattoos can be altered or removed by a determined dog thief, but the real problem with the tattoo is its permanence. What do you tattoo on your dog? Your phone number? What if you move? There is no consistency in the identifying marks , which can include anything from a coded series of digits and letters officially assigned by a national tattoo registry, to a graphic symbol, to a phone number. . . . [P]eople move, or give their pets away, and a tattoo with a no longer valid phone number or address will probably not be helpful.3
AKC-CAR recommends that pet owners choose a unique, alphanumeric tattoo number.
Banfield stopped shipping out microchips this month and won't resume shipping until mid-July. During that time, it will distribute about 700 additional scanners. The chip manufacturer also will distribute 900 scanners, according to Alex Schrage, vice president of business development for Banfield. Those scanners . . . will detect both frequencies of microchips ("Banfield veterinary clinics to temporarily stop shipping microchips" ).
