It turns out both dogs are (mostly) Doberman Pinschers. To me, Dobermans never looked so good.
Why? Because these two females might be called “natural” Dobermans; their looks haven’t been tampered with by humans for the sake of meeting the ”breed standards” that are required for competition.
No, Raven and Lula (short for Talula) don’t have the cropped ears or docked tails that mark most Dobies -- which is why I didn’t recognize them. Both have floppy, natural ears that soften their appearance, making them seem much less menacing than these dogs can look.
Their owners, Julie Sanders and Cory Donovan, went to great lengths to find Dobermans with tails intact and ears untouched. Now Mercer County residents, they last lived in Virginia, where they finally found Lula, now 3 years old, hours away. (Her greyhound heritage shows in that great curving tail.)
Even earlier, they had searched extensively for Raven, now 9 years old, and they happily drove to North Carolina to pick her up.
Bucking the breed standards for Doberman Pinschers meant the couple had to find a puppy early on, before ears and tail were “done.” Along the way, they met some people who applauded their determined search for “natural” Dobermans.
Now, says Donovan, most people don’t recognize their dogs as Dobermans, admiring those floppy ears and even calling them “cute.” He works in tech, while Sanders is a veterinarian.
Not fish, but ‘sea kittens’
A few years ago, PETA campaigned to save fish by renaming them “sea kittens,” or “kittens of the sea,” to discourage people to from catching and eating fish. You wouldn’t want to mistreat, or eat, a kitten, would you?
Now, surprising no one who has thought about this, The Dodo has run a story declaring that “fish have feelings, too.” As obvious as that scientific conclusion may be, the timing of the Dodo’s non-bombshell might be just right: fish are reported to be “the most common pet in the world and are also now more widely eaten than beef.”
Can a creature with a name too cute to eat possibly deter the world’s carnivores?
Pet pen progress report
Once Harry and Billy Summers noticed the roof on their new pet pen – we hadn’t zipped it on at first – they kept looking up at it, as if realizing their escape route had been closed off. They regarded the pen more warily, maybe like a much bigger carrier meant to take them to the vet.
We put it on the deck, lined with towels and sprinkled with treats, then lifted each cat into it (via the partly unzipped roof). They sat in their pen outside with us for 10-15 minutes before their dinner recently, mostly looking back inside the house! Then before anything could go wrong, we lifted them out and took them in – and served their meal. (to be continued)
Leave pets home from fireworks!