Tribute to a Beloved Dog

Scout at his "bark mitzvah"

by Sandra Parshall

At 8 p.m. eastern time tonight, Poe’s Deadly Daughters will host Barb Goffman’s online memorial service for her beloved dog, Scout, who died recently. 

Why a memorial service for a dog? Barb, a mystery writer and program chair for Malice Domestic, has a multitude of friends in the mystery community, and through her we all got to know the often funny and always endearing Scout. Abandoned by his first owners, Scout spent time in foster care before Barb found him and gave him a life that made up for those early bumps in the road. When he died, many of us felt the loss keenly, not only because he was a wonderful boy but because we knew how much Barb loved him and what a huge part of her life he was.

It’s impossible to exaggerate the importance of pets in our lives, or to overstate the joy and comfort and love they give us. Anyone who has lost a companion animal — and most of us have — knows the grief can be every bit as intense as that for a human friend. Please join us tonight to help Barb say goodbye to Scout.

In the meantime, I’d like to reprise something I posted a couple of years ago about the unique relationship between humans and dogs.

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We give a lot of attention to the similarities between humans and chimpanzees – look-alike brains and all that DNA in common, plus a human-like family structure – but the animal that understands us best may be lying at your feet right now. Pure brain power is one thing, but when it comes to succeeding in a human-dominated world, no species can match the domesticated canine.

About 15,000 years ago, humans began to see the benefits of settling down in one place and growing their food instead of roaming endlessly in hunt-and-gather mode. Agriculture was born. And, inevitably, garbage resulted. Enter the dog. Human settlements provided a reliable supply of food. Making nice with the humans allowed easy access, and even some bonus tidbits. Dogs were undoubtedly happy to act as guards – after all, protecting the humans that supplied the food was in the dogs’ own best interests. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that has evolved and deepened into something unique.

Now it’s difficult to imagine a world without dogs. Those few human societies in which dogs are not kept as companions seem odd to the rest of us. We have learned that affection and rewards will buy us anything where dogs are  concerned. They lead the blind and assist people with other handicaps, sniff out contraband in luggage and shipping crates, chase down criminals and go into battle alongside soldiers, rescue us from burning buildings, locate both living and dead people buried under rubble after natural disasters, guard our houses and businesses and stand between us and anyone who tries to hurt us.

I can’t imagine a chimpanzee doing any of those things. In addition to intelligence, chimps share a prominent trait with us: they are self-centered. (And as much I adore my cats, our relationship is mostly give on my part and take on theirs.) Dogs, however, build their lives around humans. As long as we treat them right, they will do anything for us. And the amount of money spent annually on veterinary care, dog food, treats, toys, doggie apparel, beds, etc., indicates that we will just as readily do anything for them.

Research indicates that brain size and innate intelligence are less important to a dog’s success with people than an ability to focus on human behavior. In a testing situation, pet dogs demonstrate that what matters most to them is what the humans around them do and what they appear to expect from the dog. Dogs that can’t pick up cues from humans or refuse to do what people expect of them tend to be “selected out” – and that can mean anything from being removed from a breeding program to being dumped at a shelter. Paying attention to people reaps big rewards for a dog.

Far too often, humans abuse that devotion and force dogs to do things that go against their nature and best interests. The post-rescue stories of Michael Vick’s fighting dogs prove that viciousness is not an inborn trait of all pit bulls but a response to brutal training, an effort by the dogs to do what humans expect of them. The dogs rescued from Vick’s operation showed the same psychological trauma evidenced by abused children. In the hands of rehabbers at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (see http://www.bestfriends.org/vickdogs/ and http://tinyurl.com/5webyha), these scarred and terrified animals have learned to trust people and to show their true personalities. Some are now living as contented pets in homes with small children, other dogs, and/or cats.

The modern domesticated dog was, in a very real sense, created by people to serve our purposes. We have a powerful influence on the behavior of individual dogs. Humans can ruin a dog. But we can also save it.

How far will you go to save a pet?

by Sandra Parshall

Pet owners come in several varieties: those who ignore an animal’s illness and let it die; those who respond to illness by telling the vet to euthanize the pet, then promptly get another to replace it; those who willingly pay vet bills to help a sick pet, but stop when the expense begins to strain the family budget; and those who will do whatever it takes and spend any amount of money to save an animal or make its last days comfortable.

I don’t understand people in the first two groups. I understand the third, and I sympathize, especially when those people have children to support. I am the fourth type, and so are many of my friends. I would probably go bankrupt before I would give up on an animal that had some chance of pulling through.

When I began writing about Dr. Rachel Goddard, a fictional veterinarian, I knew I had to make her capable of doing things I could never do, such as euthanizing sick animals. She’s a professional, and she has to be tough enough to do her job, even though she shares my willingness to go to any lengths to help an animal in need. I’ve avoided difficult scenes with animals in most of my books because Rachel’s day to day veterinary work must necessarily come a distant second to her involvement in crime solving. Her connection with people through their pets, though, gives her the opportunity to get information and make connections that might elude Deputy Tom Bridger, chief investigator for the Sheriff’s Department.

The only book in the series that brings animals to the foreground of the action is Under the Dog Star, in which Rachel fights to save a pack of feral dogs and a collection of dogs that have been used for fighting. I was a little afraid that readers would be put off by Rachel’s zealousness, her willingness to take dangerous risks to help a bunch of pathetic animals, but the reaction from dog lovers was overwhelmingly positive. I can tell that many readers who love that book are the type of pet owners who would go to any lengths and spare no expense to help a sick or injured pet. They are people like me.

I don’t mind admitting that we’ve spent many thousands of dollars over the years on our cats' health care.

Sammy

We took Sam in when his previous owners moved and left him behind. He was barely more than a kitten then, and perfectly healthy. As he aged, he developed heart disease. We took him to a veterinary cardiologist regularly and gave him prescribed medications every day for the rest of his life.
 
Our Abyssinian cat Gabriel has asthma and a life-threatening condition called chronic cholangiohepatitis. When he was two years old he almost died a couple of times from liver failure, and since then he has been on a regimen of expensive drugs that he will need for the rest of his life. He also gets puffs from a steroid inhaler twice a day, delivered through a device called the AeroKat. 

Gabriel, I’m happy to say, is a cooperative patient – after we catch him. He knows we’ll find him, and he never fights us, but he makes a ritual of disappearing while I’m preparing his meds.

Gabriel the escape artist

Nicholas, our previous Aby, also had a lot of health problems, including asthma and later on, diabetes. 

Nicky

Injections and pills were part of daily life, and treatment kept Nicky alive and happy to the age of 13. When we made the painful decision to let him go, it was because his quality of life had suddenly deteriorated drastically and we had no hope that he would recover. The last time I held him, minutes before he died, he purred and licked my cheek. Putting him back down on the table so the vet could euthanize him was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.

My wonderful Simon kept me company when I wrote. He was my true soulmate. We even had the same birthday. Simon (who grew up with Nicky) was robustly healthy through most of his nearly 18 years, but in the end he developed both cancer and kidney disease. We took him to an oncologist, administered chemotherapy and fluids, and we bought a couple of years of high-quality life that he wouldn’t have had if we’d left him untreated. Once when we were in the oncologist’s waiting room, a young man who had brought in his little mutt told us he'd spent thousands of dollars he couldn’t afford on his dog’s treatment, but would not give up: “He needed the surgery and he needs the medication. I can’t just let him die.” We felt the same way about Simon.

Simon

I know some people would look at what we’ve spent on our cats’ medical treatment and tell us we should be ashamed to waste money on cats when human beings are going hungry and lack medical care. The same people are probably outraged when a wealthy person leaves millions of dollars in trust for the care of a pet. But we love those who are close to us, those who return our love and make us happy. We don’t abandon them when they need us most. And we don’t owe the world an apology or explanation if our most beloved companions happen not to be human.

Are you caring for a chronically ill pet? Does anyone ever criticize you for spending so much money and effort on an animal? How far do you believe pet owners should go before they allow a pet to die?

"Compassion, in which ethics takes root, does not assume its true proportions until it embraces not only man but every living being."
– Albert Schweitzer, in his speech accepting the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize

Cozy Pets

by Sheila Connolly

Recently a friend who writes cozies said that she had received a number of critical comments, both on panels and in blogs, about the pets who appear in cozies.

I recognize that cozies are kind of a middle child, often ignored in the greater mystery community, despite their continuing strong sales and the steady emergence of new writers with multi-book contracts from established publishers. Writers keep writing them, and readers keep buying them. Why the reading public and even some peers think that it is more worthy to write about violence and gore and destruction is beyond me. As far as I'm concerned, all mystery genres offer the reader a chance to escape the humdrum or even unpleasant realities of ordinary life, and give them a satisfying conclusion (which is often missing from ordinary life). It's only the details that vary, and there's room for everyone.

But to attack the pets in our books is hitting below the belt. Maybe a few of them are kind of odd, like the ones that claim to be psychic or solve crimes on their own, but most are ordinary non-verbal friends and companions to our characters.

What's wrong with that? Take a look at some statistics. The ASPCA reports that over 60% of American household have at least one pet. There are about 75 million dogs and 85 million cats in these households. The Humane Society adds that there is at least one dog in 39% of U.S. households (the average is two per owner), and at least one cat in 33% of households (the average is 2.2 per owner). The bottom line is, a majority of households, and presumably most readers, have pets.

In fact, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010 out of 117,538,000 households, only 60,384,000 or 51% included a married couple, so you could say that more households include a pet than a legal spouse.

Since pet ownership is something that many people share, a fictional pet should provide an immediate kinship for the reader. In addition, the character's relationship with that pet as defined by the writer can be a factor in establishing the character's, well, character. Villains kick dogs; heroes and heroines rescue them and take them home.

I'll concede that restless soldiers of fortune or wandering knights would have trouble caring for a pet. After all, if they don't have a fixed address, how can they take care of a companion animal? And we also need to recognize that animals possess varying temperaments as much as humans do, so the writer must be careful in pairing character to pet. I can't see Jack Reacher with a miniature Chihuahua, nor can I see Miss Marple with a Doberman or a pit bull. A cozy does not require a resident pet, but a pet does require a cozy: a small, settled town or neighborhood; a place where if the pet strays, someone will recognize it and return it to its proper owner.

I think a part of the puzzle is what readers want from a book. I see two broad categories: on one hand, you have the crash-bam-boom suspense/thrillers, where readers can be swept up in the breathless pace and at the end, heave a sigh of relief that it didn't happen to them; on the other hand, there are the cozies, with safe and recognizable settings, disturbed by a crime that sets the story in motion, until at the end order is restored. Two very different kinds of book, and different kinds of readers.

So, you grumpy mystery writers, don't sneer to us when we include "warm-and-fuzzy" friends in our books. We've got plenty of pet-loving readers.