Man’s Best Friend

On the way to the lanes the other day, a car passed me on the left. Through the half-open rear passenger window was the head of a very happy dog. Eyes squinting and ears flapping in the wind, he seemed ecstatic and I believe I know why.

A dog’s sense of smell is so dominant, we have yet to fathom how it works as well as it does. We haven’t been able to create machines that find people lost in the wilderness or under destroyed buildings, discover hidden contraband or even detect cancer cells in people the way a dog can sniff them out. We should be grateful that we have gotten along so well with the species this long.

A Load o’ Labs (Santa Fe, 22 March 2013)

With a brain only one-tenth the size of ours, a dog’s olfactory center is forty times larger. Depending on the breed, a dog has 25 to 60 times the number of scent receptors inside that cold, wet nose. That would make them up to 10,000,000 times more sensitive to smell than we are.

That dog in the car was being blasted by the scents of every animal, person and thing that had been in the area for who-knows how long…smacking him in the nose as he flew by. “Cat! – Dog! – FEMALE dog!! – Garbage can! – Someone dropped a burger! – A dead thing! – Turd!

Analogies would be mind-boggling. As I have noted in earlier posts, I’m a visual guy. My sense of smell is fair and my hearing sucks. If I could see as well as a dog smells, an object you mere mortals could see 600 yards away I could see just as well from 3000 miles. I wouldn’t just see a tree on the side of the road, I would ‘see’ every crease of bark, every nest and creature living in the tree and every bug on every leaf. I would see the fine mist of a trail left behind by a cat that passed by long ago. It would be like that x-ray vision I wish I had growing up…only better.

I do not have a large catalog of dog pictures but I have some candid shots of pets I have known. Since that sighting in the car, I’ll include a few here. The blog is about images after all.

Grandma Elsie and Malachi (Christmas 1972)

Grandma lived upstairs and did quite well the last 80 years of her life after meningitis left her with one eye and no hearing. Three years after Toulouse was gone, I brought Malachi home because I thought it was time to have a dog in the house again.

Malachi had just a little of that dopiness you find in some Irish Setters. The last family dog (Mom kept cats for the rest of her days) prompts one memory. One day in the living room, someone told Malachi to ‘sit’…and he plopped his rear end down on the couch, with his paws on the floor just like the rest of us.

“Who wants to go out?” (27 November 2010)

Jack and Jo have a wonderful country home in Chapel Hill. Large lots in the woods in between small horse farms. They have dogs, as do many of the neighbors. The neighbor dogs visit each other and this was one of those days when the menagerie was all present. When someone decides he wants to go out, everyone wants to go out.

O.5 seconds later (27 November 2010)

As I learned after telling the stories about Toulouse, we do love our pets. I suspect many in my ‘exclusive’ readership would prefer animal stories over rants and tombstone tales. I’ll see what I can do.

When I am King # 6 – Drug Commercials will Change

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller

I’m a news junkie. Political biases notwithstanding, I like to watch TV shows that try to tell me what’s going on in the world. Given the unfortunate demographics of news viewers, I endure constant commercials for pharmaceuticals. I appreciate that Big Pharma sponsors the news even if only us old farts are watching.

My beef is with the commercials themselves. First off, I appreciate the requirement to tell us about the side effects even if it can be a buzz kill. We’re watching active, happy people as the narrator tells us there’s a chance we could die if we use this drug. That aside, the part that really fries my shorts is the “Ask your doctor” nonsense…especially the “Tell your doctor about all your conditions…the other meds you take and if you are about to undergo surgery.” Excuse me? If this person you’re talking to really is YOUR doctor, shouldn’t she already know those things? I’m sure the marketing pros and their legal advisors have a valid reason to add that part but it just sounds like the pitch is more like, “Find a doctor who will write a script for our drug. If it’s not your regular doctor, you might want to tell her a little more about yourself.”

When I’m the Big Kahuna, there will be at least two changes. I was going to say I would sponsor the news. I can’t think of anything more important for keeping a government honest than a well-informed public. But if I sponsored the news, where would the drug commercials go? Wherever they go, I would decree that commercials cut the crap and be straight. Something like this…

Reclining Nude With Pills (2 June 2015)

“Hello.

“The people you see here are not models and paid actors in ideal settings. They are regular folk who suffer from moderate to severe (add condition/disease here) and have been helped by (add your product name here).

“We spent a pile of money developing and testing this medicine and after meeting a bleep-load of regulatory requirements, we can now offer it to you. Since you don’t want to understand science, we’ll just say that we tested this stuff up and down and it works…much of the time…on many of you. Please note that no proper study ever produced 100% positive results. That means in addition to the percentage of people who were helped by our drug and the percent of people who were not helped, there were some who developed additional problems to deal with…even a few who really regretted taking it.

“But we have proven this drug works and it will make it easier for you to (add activity here). AND… (Insert drum roll) since our new King sponsors the news now, we will save millions in advertising expenses and will pass along the savings to you. You can now get this life-saving drug for less than your life savings."

Vote for me for King.