Featured in the show is Hector and Hector's adopted human, who also this week got cancelled on by Oprah (stupid Oprah). It's okay guys. NPR is way classier.
It's a good show, so you should give it a listen, if not tonight then the next time you're sitting around folding laundry or something. There's never anything good on TV, anyway.
Michael Vick seems to be everywhere on any news program these days. The general consensus seems to be "Everyone deserves a second chance," and I say, sure. Give him a second chance to suck a fat one and choke to death. That would be pretty spiffy. I stopped watching professional football (professional sports, really) after Michael Vick. This nation needs to get it's shit together, seriously. We completely revere people who do nothing more than bash each other and play with balls on a field, and the thinkers of the country go completely unnoticed. And then we sit around and wonder why we're getting more stupid with every passing second. Priorities..
So since all anyone can talk about is Michael Vick, when this morning's show on NPR was about brain damage sustained by playing football (see, some stereotypes are right), as soon as the word "football" was uttered, I thought Michael Vick. And of course, inevitably, of his dogs.
So here I am driving to work, half listening to a show on chronic traumatic encephalopathy and thinking of all the rescued Vick dogs and some of the things I learned from listening to Monday's Fresh Air when a thought struck me. Apparently, only one or two of the dogs out of Vick's kennels needed to be put down. Some of them need to live in sanctuary, but the majority of them, like Hector, are incredibly loving and forgiving dogs. How does that happen? What makes one dog come out of hell fairly unscathed while another has been turned into a demon? Is it all just personality traits, or is it possible that the dogs who were so volatile that they needed to be euthanized had chronic traumatic encephalopathy? We know Vick tortured those dogs. Repeated blows to the head will do it. If it happens in people, why not dogs?
you know, my goal this week was to listen to all the Fresh Air's but I only accomplished listening to The Lost Dogs segment.
ReplyDeleteIts an interesting premise, this chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
They are talking now about dogs suffering PTSD, esp the land bomb sniffing dogs.
I think its totally valid that dogs can suffer from both "human traumas".
I was also a football fan until last year. I guess Thanks to Sicky Vicky I took a step back and realized what industry I was supporting, and, well, I'm out.
I know there's not unlimited resources to spend on these dogs, but I'm wondering if, with the seemingly "hopeless" cases, they could have any improvement with the use of anti-seizure medication. Dr. Dodman has had good results using it for Springer Rage Syndrome. Of course, you'd need a really good behaviorist who's a little bit crazy to work with them.
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