We dogs have dominated the news headlines this week, from the presidential campaign to the Massachusetts Senate race. Time to pick up my pen (metaphorically speaking -- I can't pick up a pen with a paw) and start addressing all the doggy details!
Romney camp dishes out sneak attack
First, I wasn't happy that Mitt Romney's henchmen launched an unfair dog-related attack on President Obama. Admittedly the details made me wince (as much as a dog can wince, anyway). It turns out, from Obama's autobiography "Dreams From My Father," that when he was six years old, his stepfather served him dog meat while they were in Indonesia.
The Romney camp is making much ado over this. And I must say, it makes me feel rather queasy. Yet I should also point out that this happened when Obama was SIX YEARS OLD ... just a kid who hardly could have been expected to politely turn down the, ahem, meal. Today, our now 50-year-old president is a thoughtful pet owner who takes his Portuguese water dog Bo in limo rides and on Christmas shopping trips.
Romney, on the other paw (oops, I mean hand), was in his mid-thirties when he strapped Seamus atop the family station wagon on a cross-country drive in 1983. So I don't think his supporters are right when they say Obama's doggy no-no was as bad as Romney's.
Brown 'Snuggles' up to overexposure
Republican incumbent Sen. Scott Brown has brought a new supporter into the limelight: His 15-year-old Shih Tzu, Snuggles, makes his campaign debut in a video lasting 1:08 on "The Dog Blog."
Snuggles is twice described by Brown as "camera-shy" in the video, in contrast to Koda, the family's 5-year-old Yorkshire terrier puppy (Go Terriers!), whom the senator says thinks he's "literally 10 feet tall" and will growl at Great Danes.
Brown says that Snuggles, meanwhile, will "probably give a quick look and then try to hide under the table." In the video, he keeps his face away from the camera, much like I do whenever my human friends Rich and Laura try to take my photo (I guess I have my Greta Garbo side).
While I commend Brown for his "Dog Blog," which includes photos of staffers' rescue dogs (I owe a great deal to the kind folks at Westie Rescue), I wonder if it is wise to adopt a Koda-style aggressiveness instead of a Snuggles-esque decorum. For instance, I note that in one of the 26 photos on display on the "Dog Blog," Brown wears a Red Sox jacket. This support for the hometown team is one aspect of his campaign he touts to the public. Yet he has two holes in his Sox: at one point in his career, he supported the Sox moving the site of their now 100-year-old home, Fenway Park ... and more recently, he took a $2,500 donation from a New York Yankees executive: team president Randy Levine!
Sometimes it's best for a candidate to snuggle up to the cameras ... and sometimes it's best to turn away from them.
Daisy is a 9-year-old West Highland white terrier living in Cambridge, Mass. Her column appears regularly.
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