Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

Anyone who has ever had a pet knows how easy it is to get attached to them.

They are members of families and are usually treated accordingly.

People are very protective of dogs and cats, both their own and other people's. In popular culture, a dog often carries more clout than a room full of babies.

In an incident that upset a lot of people last week, a dog was locked in a sweltering car for a number of hours in Toronto. According to accounts I heard on the radio (interestingly, I didn't see any coverage of this incident in the editions of the Toronto Star and Sun that I read), authorities had to be called to rescue the animal, breaking into the car to get it out, and charges were pending against the man who was allegedly responsible. As well, during the ensuing commotion there were accounts that the man involved was phyically attacked by a bystander.

It was also reported the following day that the dog was doing well, although I gather it was too soon to determine if it would make a full recovery.

This item led off several radio newscasts I heard last Wednesday, and the topic came up in a couple of talk shows I heard in the course of the day. One person calling in questioned whether such a fuss would be made if people had been so victimized.

Things caught my attention as I listened to the 7 a.m. news Thursday morning. There was a brief mention of three incidents in the GTA the day before, two of which in York Region (one in Vaughan and one in Newmarket) in which small children had been locked in cars. Fortunately, all three kids were rescued before there were any serious consequences. I heard little in the way of public outcry over any of those three occurrences.

Now true, the dog at the centre of these issues was much more seriously injurred, and as of this writing, may not recover. But I also think this says something about what sort of position animals occupy in our society. I sometimes think that position is a little too elevated.

If that's a failing with society, than I'm partly to blame too. I was angry when I first heard about the dog being locked in the hot car. Any story about an animal being misstreated gets my blood up.

My wife and I adopted a cat some years ago from a pound, meaning it was either abandoned or a stray. She's an indoor cat, and Beth and I are very careful to make sure she doesn't get out. That's not too difficult, because she has never tried to bolt through an open door. That leads me to lean more toward her being abandoned. Also, shortly after we got her, we were assured by the vet that Sidney (Beth named her, not I) had had at least one litter of kittens, which further leads me to the assumption that her departure from her previous home was likely not her idea. As well, there are components to her personality that contain hints of previous abuse. For example, she likes to be in the same room with us, but runs away if we get too close. And she hates being picked up. Sidney had her annual visit to the vet a couple of weeks ago, and it took some careful and strategic planning to get close enough to her so we could put her in her kennel for the trip.

I'm not much of a cat lover (I'm just married to one), but my anger gets elevated at the thought of the abuse that I only suspect Sidney endurred. I don't want to think of what my thoughts would be if I had actual proof, or information of who was responsible.

It's not a new thing that domestic animals, especially dogs, are held in a certain amount of esteem in our society. For example, there is sort of an understanding in the world of movies that you don't kill the dog. There are very few movies when you actually see a dog die. The only one I can recall seeing was Lasie Come Home. No, it wasn't the title character that died, but one of the supporting dogs, killed by ruffians in a particularly tear-jerky scene.

Politicians have also learned, over the years, about how people relate to dogs; any dogs.

In 1952, Richard Nixon was on the brink of political oblivian, owing to charges that he had accepted gifts he shouldn't have. He went on TV and involked the name of his pooch Checkers in order to save his professional hide, and somehow, it worked. I have seen tapes of the speech. It wasn't particularly welldelivered. Nixon tripped over his words a few times, and he somehow managed to go over his allotted time, with camera fading out on him in mid-flow. One might have expected better from a seasoned public speaker like him. But, with the help of his dog, he pulled it off.

There have been other politicians who have benefitted from their relationships with their dogs. The mayor of a municipality where I used to work submitted columns every couple of weeks, mainly on topical issues in the community. But one submission he devoted to the ordeal he went through deciding his dog had to be put down. He later told me that one column sparked more calls and letters to his office, from people expressing sympathy, than any of his other submissions.

And not too long ago, I was reading about former governor-general Ray Hnatyshyn, who in his days as a cabinet minister, also had to cope with death of the family dog. His kids had already made the arrangements with a pet funeral outfit, and said they needed $385 to settle the deal. The overly preoccupied minister approved it, and a couple of weeks later, was mortified to learn that his name had been broadcast as being among the victims of a pet cemetery scam.

"My whole political life flashed before my eyes," he's quoted as saying to then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Peter C. Newman's book The Secret Mulroney Tapes. "Who is going to vote for someone who parted with $285 like a village idiot?"

The upshot was Hnatyshyn received about 100 letters of support from fellow dog lovers over the next couple of weeks, as well as an offer of an honourary title in the Saskatoon Kennel Club.

A person can be the most virtuous human being on the planet, but if he or she can be identified as a dog lover, they have it made.

There's something there that just doesn't figure.