I don't know that Frank Bruni reads The Daily Parker, but his column yesterday made for a nice coincidence with my post earlier today:
My interactions in Central Park are partly about having a dog but just as much about what the dog encourages, even compels: spending time in public spaces that are open to everyone and well situated and appealing enough to guarantee that people from all walks of life cross paths.
And we need dogs, or at least we’re better off with them. They yank us outside of our narrowest selves. They force us to engage. In a perfect world, we’d do that on our own, but in this one, Regan plants herself squarely in front of a Central Park sprinkler, opens her jaws wide, treats the spray as an unusually emphatic water fountain and attracts an eclectic cluster of admirers who then fall easily into chitchat — about the cooling weather, the blooming skyline, new movies, old routines — that probably wouldn’t happen otherwise. We walk away feeling a little less isolated, a little less disconnected. I know I do.
Parker has certainly done the same for me that Regan has done for Bruni. And here's to a few more years with him.
On 1 September 2006, I adopted this guy:
I can scarcely believe it's been 13 years. Here's the comparison:
Here's to a couple more!
This morning, as Parker and I went for our pre-breakfast walk, we encountered this fluffy girl trotting down the street with no humans in sight:
We manage to corral her in a neighbor's yard, while I posted on Facebook and called animal control. She seemed healthy, well-fed, and accustomed to people and other dogs (though really scared and disoriented). Unfortunately she didn't have a name tag or a phone number.
Happy ending, though. After about 45 minutes her owners came by. They'd been canvassing the neighborhood for her. Apparently she jumped out of the car (saw a squirrel, maybe?) and then couldn't figure out where to go.
So, dog and family were reunited:
Her name is Ella, she's 2, and she's home.
No, literally:
You know that face your dog makes, the one that’s a little bit quizzical, maybe a bit sad, a bit anticipatory, with the eyebrows slanted? Sometimes you think it says, “Don’t be sad. I can help.” Other times it quite clearly asks, “No salami for me?”
Scientists have not yet been able to translate the look, but they have given it a very serious label: “AU101: inner eyebrow raise.” And a team of evolutionary psychologists and anatomists reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that dogs make this face more often and way more intensely than wolves. In fact dogs, but not wolves, have a specific muscle that helps raise those brows.
The scientists hypothesize that humans have unconsciously favored eyebrow-raising dogs during fairly recent selective breeding. Dr. Burrows said that one tantalizing hint that could lead to future study was that one of the dogs, a Siberian husky, was more like the wolves and did not have the levator anguli oculi medialis.
I had a conversation the other day with a scientist (not a biologist, however) about when natural selection ended and breeding began for dogs. We didn't have any conclusions but we hypothesized it might be as recently as 8,000 years before present or as long ago as 40,000 YBP. This article suggests that it may be both, depending on the breed.
Is it that I set a new personal record for steps, getting over 15,000 every day for the last 11? Nope.
Is it that, for only the second time in three years, I got enough sleep four nights in a row? Nope.
Is it that Parker turns 13 today? Yup.
And just check out his fashionable birthday present:
For comparison, here he is 10 years ago:
Due to climate change and gentrification, rat sightings in North America have gone up:
New York has always been forced to coexist with the four-legged vermin, but the infestation has expanded exponentially in recent years, spreading to just about every corner of the city.
Rat sightings reported to the city’s 311 hotline have soared nearly 38 percent, to 17,353 last year from 12,617 in 2014, according to an analysis of city data by OpenTheBooks.com, a nonprofit watchdog group, and The New York Times. In the same period, the number of times that city health inspections found active signs of rats nearly doubled.
Milder winters — the result of climate change — make it easier for rats to survive and reproduce. And New York’s growing population and thriving tourism has brought more trash for rats to feed on.
Chicago — crowned the nation’s rat capital in one study — has more than doubled its work crews dedicated to rats, who set out poison and fill in burrows in parks, alleys and backyards. It also passed ordinances requiring developers and contractors to have a rat-control plan before demolishing buildings or breaking ground on new projects.
Yah, thanks for that "rat capital" thing, New York Times.
Rats don't bother me, despite their urine often containing deadly bacteria. They clean up after us, feed crows and coyotes, and spread disease less than other local rodents. (Rabbits have made Parker sick a lot more often than rats.) And squirrels? Just ask a moose.
Today actually had a lot of news, not all of which I've read yet:
And now, good night to February.
Parker got his leg stitches out yesterday. Mysteriously, the suture in his neck had already dropped off. Regardless, both incisions have healed well enough for him to ditch the cone:
His fur is growing back pretty quickly too, in part because it's winter. He really, really liked going to the vet yesterday. And he's a much happier dog today.
A week after his surgery, Parker seems a lot better. He's resumed his previous walking pace, and seems generally less sullen, despite the fact that I'm out of the house a lot more this week than the last few. We also switched up his antibiotics which should help his body get rid of the last bits of gunk around his knee.
His stitches come out next Wednesday, and with that, his cone comes off.
Further updates as the situation warrants.