pets – Starshine Roshell

Why Are So Many Folks Hankering for a Pandemic Pup?

Published on October 5, 2020

Santa Barbara Columnist Takes This Quaran-tunity to Adopt a Furry Friend

Looking back, it may not have been the best idea to get a puppy right after replanting our entire backyard. In the course of managing COVIDoldrums, they both just seemed like smart, unrelated projects to occupy our time.

Even as I type this, though, there’s a muddy-muzzled, filthy-pawed, remorseless little furball on the pale rug beside me gnawing maniacally on one of the five plants she uprooted today and lugged into my office, dirt clods and all.

It’s not like we needed a puppy. We have a perfectly good adult dog already, and our life was pleasantly predictable. We could sleep through the night. We could open our front door without fear of any residents escaping. Our hands were not covered in lacerations from tiny, “YOW!”-inducing needle teeth.

But when it became clear that life outside of our wearisome walls would not be resuming anytime soon, we joined thousands across the nation and took this quaran-tunity to adopt a furry friend.

Dog People Are Happier Than Cat People

Published on May 28, 2019

Study Settles One Part of Age-Old Debate

You may not like it. Heck, you may not even contribute to it. But in today’s America, you simply can’t escape it: Most of our citizens shake out into two diametrically opposed camps and seem to be constantly squaring off — often neighbor against neighbor, even — squabbling through the same old debate with clenched fists, raised voices and closed minds, dismissing one another’s points of view as so much flapjaw hogwash.

I’m referring, of course, to our nation’s flawed but abiding two-pet system — and I ain’t talking donkeys and elephants.

For perhaps centuries, animal lovers have fought like cats and dogs over which is the better pet: the domesticated hound or the common housecat. Now, at long last (it’s been, like, millennia in dog years), a study finally settles one aspect of the quarrel: Dog owners are just happier than cat owners.

Dog Hair: The New Superfood

Published on July 19, 2012

Dear medical researchers in Finland,
You have made my flipping day, and I want to tell you why. Your recent study linking pet ownership to healthy kids is the best news I’ve heard since … well, since my obstetrician said, “Okay, you can stop pushing; it’s out.”
I’ve read that Finland is the seventh happiest country in the world (source). With good health, a high employment rate, and more saunas per capita than cars, why wouldn’t it be?
But here in the United States, aka Land of the Free and Home of the Seriously Stressed-Out, anxiety is a religion — and moms are the high priestesses. From conception to college graduation, American motherhood is basically a series of humiliating episodes confirming that we’ve gone about parenting all wrong.
I’m no exception. I failed to introduce healthy vegetables to my kids before they could say, “Eww, get that off of my plate,” and neglected to start them on scholarship-earning string instruments before they could say, “Violins are for dorks.” I allowed them to eat sugar and watch television too soon — and sometimes, god forgive me, simultaneously.

Enough for Two

Published on April 29, 2010

You know the best thing about being an only child? There’s no math involved. No fractions required to divvy up the last piece of cake. No pie chart needed to see who got the most TV time.

Sibling-free, I got it all. All the love. All the attention. I got praise for the academic subjects I mastered, like French, and even those I didn’t, like trig. When there’s no competition, you get kudos for succeeding at arithmetic as simple as this: Love divided by one is one.

It wasn’t until I was an adult — and pregnant — that it first occurred to me that love might have a numerator and denominator. My husband and I worried how our beloved dog would cope with having a cooing, pink love-hog in the house. Isn’t it a crime to lavish affection on something and then ask it to share that affection with someone new? I asked our vet.

“Love grows,” he said.

“What does that mean?” I asked with a seriousness that should be reserved for conversations about heartworm and distemper.

“The heart expands,” he purred cryptically. He was one of those hippie earth-father vets with tons of his own kids and a fluffy, wisdom-indicating beard. “Love multiplies.”

Damn it! There would be math.

Tag: pets