Someone really needs to remind me that it is vital — not merely for my work, but for my sanity — to talk to like-minded women doing the kind of work that I do.
I just got off the phone with the magnificent president of this organization, and this project, who just added this project to their roster, and I feel like I just got out of a cool lake on a too-hot day, man. Amazing the difference a half-hour conversation can make.
I think I often forget how fringe people like me really are until I connect with others in the same or similar position, and then I hear that instant connection we have, and I remember, quite profoundly. Such a treat to be able to connect that way, to race to support each other’s work, and just be able to talk to someone else who loves all the obscure authors no one else even knows about who write about the kind of issues I work with, who I don’t have to explain the pertinent issues to, and who just plain Gets It.
A nice shot in the arm for me, too. I am hoping to be able to bust out a bunch of materials in the next week so that we can do a big Scarleteen fundraising and awareness drive on and around Valentine’s Day, so I needed the boost.
* * *
On an entirely different topic, this commercial?
This PSA is dirty, dirty pool, especially for those of us dog and animal people who ALREADY feel terribly about animals stuck in shelters or without homes. Hell, I can’t even ever let myself volunteer at a shelter because I know full well that I’d have dogs coming home with me nightly. I don’t even let myself get off at the bus stop that’s near the shelter here, even when it means I have to go several blocks out of my way: it’s just not safe for me.
It’s that “I know I am a good dog,” line which is the absolute worst. To the point that when I saw it, it caused me to burst into tears (which I just did again, in watching it so I could link it), clutch my dog (who was looking at me like I’d lost my mind and squirming to get the hell away from her deranged owner) and then race to the computer because I needed to see many pictures of happy dogs posthaste.
Sure, it’s obviously an effective ad, and sure, Pedigree clearly has a great agenda with promoting shetlter-dog adoption. Here’s hoping it helps.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t hate them and think they are a very bad dog right now. No biscuits for them.
February 1st, 2007 at 1:37 pm
You think that’s bad? There are a lot of pro-pit bull videos made that make me cry, but the first one I ever saw was this:
http://gprime.net/flash.php/thepitbullproblem
Now, I don’t think people should rush out and get a high-maintenance dog like a pit bull because they feel sorry for them. But the people who will insist, because the papers said so, that pit bulls are inately evil should be forced to watch stuff like this.
I’m not overly fond of anything that’s trying too hard to pull on my heart-strings, but I’m a sucker for dogs, and I think it’s well done.
I work at the SPCA and I have to face the dogs we put down for being pit bulls, the puppies. The hundreds on top of that Animal Control put down. No matter how great their temperament. Because almost no one who cares about responsible ownership wants a pit bull.
Sorry to jump you like this; it’s completely off-topic from your entry and your blog. But I think it’s worth watching.
February 1st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
:(
That’s….ugh. You know what that is.
Having had part of my lip removed by a pit (per usual, likely due to a serious lack of training), it’s not a dog I’d choose for myself just because I know I’d always be a little fearful around it, which never makes for a happy dog, but still.
The crazy thing w/the pit bull situation to me also seems to be — and this may just be my observation — how many people never spay or neuter them, so you have ALL these puppies and dogs of a breed that so many people don’t want. I look at shelter listeing often and it’s pits, pits, pits as far as the eye can see.
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Eii. Your lip?!
Yeah, the desexing situation is depressing. It’s next to impossible to convince lower income people to desex their pets, and honestly pits are probably most common in lower income social groups.
The main problem with pit bulls is that they’re a fad for people who want to look tough, so every moron is breeding them because of how much money they can make. Funnily enough, it’s also almost impossible to find responsible homes for them all and they end up in shelters.
It’s hard enough to find homes for any dog, let alone one with such a ridiculous reputation.
I belong to a pit bull forum and about 3/4 of the people who post regularly have been approached to breed their dog. As in, walking down the street, and people yell across the streed to ask if their bitch is spayed and are disappointed when they say no because “she’d have such beautiful puppies”. Uh, no?
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
The worst bit about all these dogs in shelters? People paying $2000 for not-actually-red-nosed “Red Noses”. Or “Blues” ( I put that in brackets because a lot of people are under the mistaken impression it’s a line or a breed. No, it’s a colour, and a recessive dilute at that that is often linked with health problems, especially when breeding specifically for colour!)
When there are beautiful purebreds in shelters. For $50-150. Every colour of the rainbow. Every shape and cross breed.
Then there are people who want a working dog and want good bloodlines. Bloodlines don’t guarantee drive (though they do guarantee registration I guess) - drivey dogs are the last to go from the shelters.
*siiiiigh*
February 5th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Pit bulls (American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier) do have a “higher prey drive” than lets say sheepherding dogs. And they have the highest degree of “gameness.” But aggression in dogs, particularly towards people tends to be a learned or trained behavior.
I’ve been approached (shouted to, actually from across the street) by shady characters inquiring about my housemate’s American Mastiff I walk every now and then. I tell them the breed is way expensive, I trail off my sentence and walk away.