Dog day afternoon

Editor's Note: Commedienne Pam Stone writes her column for The Tryon Daily Bulletin twice each month from her office in the "Unabomber Shack" on her Gowensville farm. Want a chance to respond to this column?
Go to Pam’s blog at www.tryondailybulletin.com.
I have more than once told friends that if they ever hear that I have been arrested, it will be because I will not have been able to control my "inner mullet" in regards to treatment towards an animal. Living in a rural area, one simply sees more animals, I suppose, and generally, my dismay is inflamed by the all too common sight of wretched and lonely dogs, chained to a stake with little food or shelter and certainly no human or animal interaction. One can only imagine the despair of an animal that is imprisoned this way for 24 hours a day and always begs the question, "Why on earth do you have a dog?!"
Animal control can only do so much. I have telephoned them on occasion and they have responded quite promptly. There was a day last summer during the wave of 100 degree temperatures, that I drove past a young Doberman chained to a stake in the mid-afternoon. His owners were not at home and the pup had wound the chain around the stake until he couldn't move more than a foot in either direction. There was no water, no shade, and he was in such distress that he could neither lie down or stop moving, panting uncontrollably. Animal control arrived, unchained him and he bolted under the house for shade. Water was given to him that he immediately ingested and threw up. A "warning" notice was tacked to the front door as two pit bulls, in a tiny chain-link enclosure around the side of the house, barked profusely. I felt I had at least released the young dog from his distress that day but as the owners moved a few days later, taking their dogs, I don't know what the future held for him.
I wish I had the ability to articulate the indignation I feel to the owners of such animals. I go from zero to spluttering anger in about 4 seconds. I know by opening my mouth I won't be able to diplomatically reason or educate, so I stay quiet: a coward, ineffectively smoldering.
The same feeling washed over me as I drove along Highway 14 from my farm to town, last week. It was pouring: a raw, penetrating rain that my windshield wipers were useless against. Ahead of me, in the bed of a bright green truck, easily traveling 70 mph, were four adult, golden, Labradors. One was distinctly advanced in years and they huddled together, fighting for space behind the truck's cab, to get out of the worst of the downpour and wind. Untethered and agitated, they circled the truck bed, sat, rose, pushed against each other and waited for their ordeal to end.
It was all I could do to safely keep up with the speed of the driver and when we finally arrived in town, thankfully detained by a traffic light, I was able to maneuver up alongside the truck. He looked straight at me and my outrage was impulsively released with an angrily pointed finger at first him, then the dogs, as I mouthed the word, "Idiot!" He remained expressionless and continued on his way.
Man's inhumane actions toward man have always broken my heart and when it comes to animals, who ask for so little and give their all in return, I am beyond bewildered. It's the ignorance that kills me. I'm sure the owner of the Labs would have dismissed my concern with, "Ah, they've got heavy coats, they're fine." Or the people responsible for the thin horses in a nearby, muddy, field with no grass or shelter from the elements would wave a hand and say, "Hell, they're OK."
I think of the old cowboy proverb that says, "You can tell the inside of a man by the outside of his horse." Nothing truer was ever written and it applies to any animal. Man might like to think his best friend is his dog, but one can only imagine who his dog would choose...

Houston, we have poop!

Editor's Note: Commedienne Pam Stone writes her column for The Tryon Daily Bulletin twice each month from her office in the "Unabomber Shack" on her Gowensville farm. Want a chance to respond to this column?
Go to Pam’s blog at www.tryondailybulletin.com.
Yes, I was aware this title might raise an eyebrow or two... read on, it will all make sense.
Having spent something like 20 years on the road touring as stand up comics, Paul and I know what it is like to go out for New Year's Eve. It's the big "money gig" of the year for any comedian, generally earning triple what one would normally make, simply for one night's appearance. I've been in front of restive, drunken, patrons, five minutes until midnight everywhere from San Francisco to Atlanta. I've jumped off stage in Chicago, five minutes after midnight, to grab a cab to O'Hare to catch a flight to London. And each one of those nights, as I reapplied make-up between shows with a trowel and 'Spackle,' I would say to myself in the mirror, "I cannot wait to just stay home for New Year's!"
That fervent wish came true when Paul and I moved, fulltime, to South Carolina in 1999. New Year's became a gloriously mundane tradition of sprawling on the couch, with terrier bookends and a cat on each lap, in front of a roaring fire and Dick Clark on the television. We'd never, ever, have to go out on New Year's again!
Funny how naive some folks can be.
This year found us indeed out, not only in the wee hours of New Year's but the following night as well. With a very sick Mini-mule. Some of you might recall an earlier column I wrote entitled "Lionel the Mini-Mule" which described how Paul discovered the ancient, abandoned, fellow at his nursery. We brought him home and tended to his parasites and neglected hooves and were pleased that he had had a lovely year of Mini-mule bliss living among my other horses and, in particular, Moose, a 27 year old draft horse. Now he lay before us, as the effects of the injected pain-reliever, Banamine, wore off, beginning to writhe and thrash with the pains of colic.
Winter sees a lot of colic cases, particularly in older horses with a slower digestive system. Like people, horses don't feel particularly thirsty when it's freezing outside and the food they eat, without the necessary fluids, can become an impaction inside their intestine. As their throat is a one-way street, there is no relief from this distress and they become agitated, rolling and, the fear is, "twisting a gut." At the age of 25, Lionel was no candidate for surgery and the vet's exam revealed a 'displacement' inside, not good, but moving gut sounds, which was good.
Twice was inserted a long tube down his nose to his stomach which was pumped with a bucket of water to see if we could flush something through but to no avail. Not sure if there was indeed a twist, we were in a dilemma: put him down now to avoid any unnecessary suffering, or try a last ditch effort: hook him up with an IV to fill him one last time with fluid while keeping him comfortable on the banamine. By the morning, if there was no movement, we would put him down. What was heartbreaking was that each time the pain was taken away by another injection, he was completely at ease with bright eyes and a braying welcome. It was easy to kid oneself that he was just fine.
Throughout the night, Paul and I traded off checking on his progress. His last shot of banamine would wear off by around 3 am. The wind whipped up and the air was brittle. Walking through the crunching frost of the paddock at 3:30, Paul saw him peering comfortably out of his deeply bedded stall, Moose standing sentry by the open door, dozing. The beam of the flashlight, flashing within the stall and along the ground revealed what was possibly Mini-mule droppings although Moose appeared to have stepped right in the middle of them, flattening them out, so it was difficult to tell who was the owner. At 5 a.m., it was my turn and with a nod towards the Saint Francis statue calmly surveying the fields from the front yard, and a quick prayer under my breath, I ducked through the apple orchard and opened the paddock gate. At first, I only saw the pale outline of Moose, standing nearby, and then Lionel poked his head around his buddy's shoulder and with a shuddering bray, welcomed me from both ends.
Some people treat themselves to a champagne toast on New Year's. Others go out dancing. Still others cram themselves into Times Square. But nothing, nothing, I tell you, is as glorious as the sight of Mini-mule poop at 5 a.m.