Pets and their price--worth every penny and every pain

So, the sun was just coming up this morning as I looked over to see my little girl holding tightly to a tiny, stuffed version of the K9 Advantix dog. Working in veterinary medicine has its perks. To her right lay a stuffed beagle that she frequently carries around the house.

At almost 18-months, she is starting to get lots of words. Yesterday she got the word "puppy." She's already been saying "Mo Mo" for months.

As I watched her sleeping and thought about these things, an all too unwelcome lump arose in my throat, and I felt myself tear up. That lump and those tears have flared several times over the last week. 

For nineteen of the last almost twenty years, there has been at least one dog in my family's life. Blue taught me that love can fill holes and make a home. Scrubby taught me patience and joy. And Mo has taught me unbridled, hold-back-nothing, unconditional love.

I know that on more than one occasion I have sworn that I would never be without a dog again. And yet I know that I will be--sooner than I want to even try to comprehend. 

I wasn't going to go down this path yet. I was going to try and just let the days pass and be what they are. But that's not how I cope. Quiet acceptance is not who I am. And I'm not going to get through this loss, the one that I am now anticipating, by keeping it to myself. 

I always wonder if it is worse to lose a loved one suddenly or to know that losing them is imminent. We knew our other dogs were "old," but as I so frequently told clients, "age is not a disease." We knew that the aging process takes its toll on a body. But we were still taken by surprise when it was suddenly time to say "goodbye" to both of them. And now, Mo. We learned last week that she has a nasty cancer that is going to leave us without a dog in our family. 

There is more that we could do, but nothing that will buy forever, and nothing that will buy more than a little bit of comfort--for a little while. There is no expense that we would spare if it meant forever and feeling good. I know. Not everyone feels that way about their pets. 

When I think of the care we have provided to our three dogs over the last nineteen years, I am sure that we could have put aside a nice little chunk for our daughter's education. Perhaps we could have purchased a car, or paid off other debts sooner. Granted, I could probably say the same thing about travel, concerts and shoes. 

The money we have spent to care for our pets bought us things that has no monetary value, but those things have been priceless. It bought us a sense of family when we little understood what that meant. It bought us comfort during heartache. It bought us security whenever we were afraid. It bought us friendship when nobody else understood or cared for our troubles. It bought us the ability to care for those who cannot, or struggle to care for themselves. 

Over the years, I have watched people struggle with decisions. Sometimes I know the struggle is real, and other times, I know that the struggle is with priorities I can't understand. These struggles are part of what makes being in veterinary medicine so difficult. People can choose not to care. People can fail to care. People can even be cruel. And there is very little that we can do. 

There are plenty of people who think that we are crazy when it comes to our pets. They wouldn't justify hundreds of dollars for tests, hospitalization or medications, let alone what we have spent. They wouldn't have driven hours to get "the right" care. And while it is true that being part of the veterinary profession afforded us the benefit of discounted care at times, we never based any decision on affordability. In some people's books, that makes us frivolous. After all, they are just animals. To plenty of people, humans are "in dominion over" them, or they are just food--certainly not to be valued at the same level as us.

But that's just it--our pets gave us what we needed to become more than what we were before they came into our lives. More than the dumb animals we were. Not many things we've spent money on have done that.

As I have been contemplating the period of time when we will be without a dog in our family, I have been contemplating another cost--the one that is unquantifiable and much higher--the pain of losing them after what will always be too short a time. 

We have said goodbye before. We have felt the unbearable pain before. Until I sit down and weigh what we have gained against what we have suffered, there is no question that the high cost is worth it. Knowing this doesn't decrease the past or coming pain, but it makes bearing the time we will wait to bring another family member home a little easier since we know what our daughter might possibly gain from having a "puppy" at the right time.

They are always worth everything we can give and everything we have. In this life, you only "get" what you are willing to "pay" for. I would pay every price for them, again, and again. 

Gender neutrality in the toy department right on Target

So, I have been surprised by the negative feelings some people have toward Target for deciding to remove gender based signage in their toy departments. Until the last year and a half or so, I really hadn't given the toy department an awful lot of thought, but as Target announced the decision, I thought it was great.

There's been a lot of talk lately about people becoming too easily offended by symbols. Most recently, there have been weak arguments by those who still think it's appropriate to display the Rebel or Confederate Flag in spite of its strong association with racism and the South's secession over slavery. It is unfathomable how people can so erroneously claim the Civil War had little or nothing to do with slavery. I also can't figure out how anyone waving that flag can imagine that doing so doesn't fan the flames of interracial strife among blacks and whites. 

While I agree that we sometimes get our feathers unnecessarily ruffled by symbols, frankly, some symbols and symbolism really are harmful. 

The gender differentiated toy department is harmful to kids, especially girls.

When we look at the current political climate, it is clear that women still have a long way to go to be seen as equals in this nation. 

Legislators are targeting Planned Parenthood and promising to defund it because the organization's facilities perform abortions. They don't care what the real numbers are, and they don't care about the many other health services that are provided to women in need. The leading Republican candidate has openly remarked that a female journalist, whom he felt was being unkind to him, had "blood coming out of her eyes, out of her wherever." Women are treated and talked about by powerful men as if they are children in need of a firm hand and lots of guidance. No man would tolerate the level of disrespect women are expected to stomach everyday. Every election cycle brings us back to the argument about women's reproductive rights. Every election cycle regenerates "the war on women," that leaders on the right always claim does not exist. 

What, you may ask, does this have to do with the girls' and boys' building sets signs in the toy department at Target?

It's about controlling the message to young girls. "These are the toys girls are supposed to play with." "You are limited to coloring your life experience in shades of pink." 

For children, play is work. It is how they learn about the world around them. It's how they develop new skills and gain knowledge. But play is also how children develop socially, and how they become who they want to be. It shouldn't be your toys' job to tell you who to be--it should be your job to tell your toys what to be. 

Now, it is true that parents can ignore labels and they can purchase any toys for their children that they want, but if labels are there to be ignored, why even have them? Wouldn't it just be easier to take all the labels away? 

I don't frequent the toy departments at Walmart as often as I do the ones at Target, in part because I can't seem to make heads or tails of the ones at Walmart. They seem to kind of be all over the place. But I really tried to peruse one of the Walmart toy departments yesterday. Interestingly enough, I didn't notice any signage. I don't know if I just overlooked it out of my normal Walmart induced confusion, or if it just isn't there. It made the negative backlash about Target's toy signage decision even more mind boggling.

Let's be honest, changing the signage in the toy department is only a first step in the right direction, and when you walk into the toy department, you will still be able to easily guess which toys girls are "supposed" to play with. There is still going to be an aisle that nearly vomits pink at you from a Barbie or Disney Princess package. Nobody is proposing the idea of gender-neutral packaging or removing toys that reinforce the gender stereotypes that all girls want to and should play with dolls and toy vacuum cleaners. Nobody is suggesting that toy trucks and toy guns won't still be targeted at boys. Frankly, I think the world would be a much better place if those things did happen, but there's too much money to be made by reinforcing patriarchal positive gender stereotypes. 

There are plenty of other places in the average retail establishment in which gender differentiation is obnoxious. 

Little girls' summer shorts are still shorter and tighter than little boys' summer shorts, and it recently occurred to me that the bottom half of almost all little girls' bathing suits are bikini-ish in cut. Not a boy cut leg in sight. If you want something different, you have to get outside of the "box" and look or special order. There are no Speedo style swimming trunks for little boys. 

And I am sure every woman can bemoan the difference in price between merchandise for women and merchandise for men--even if the item is only different because it is a pastel color or teal, or it says "lady" on it somewhere. 

It would be great for equality among genders to infiltrate every aspect of my retail experience. But if I have to make a choice between paying a little more for a disposable razor and my daughter not having labels to point out what toys with which she should play, or telling her that it is appropriate for her to show a little more leg at 18 months, I am happy to pay that difference. 

It is our job as parents to help our kids become who they are, and who they want to be. Some of us are comfortable with the status quo. Some of us momentarily cringe when our daughters are given their first doll to play with--only because we don't want our girls to get any kind of message about what their place in the world should be or that there are limits to what she can achieve. Girls have been getting that message for too long. And as I watch all of the political drama play itself out in the same vicious cycle, with women and their bodies to be controlled as pawns, I have little hope that the times are changing soon. 

At the end of the day, our kids need choices without labels. If my daughter walks into the toy department and wants a Lego set that builds a Star Wars Millenium Falcon instead of a Disney Princess castle, I appreciate that she's not going to feel awkward because her choice came from the "boys" section. At the same time, no boy should feel weird about wanting one of those Little Tikes toy vacuum cleaners.

I've made my argument for gender neutralization of the toy department because of my own feelings about how positive such a move could be for girls, but without question, it will be a positive for those kids who are wrestling with their gender identities. And those kids are real and their pain and confusion is real.

Playtime should be a safe place to express yourself and be who you want to be. It shouldn't be wrought with labels and heavy guidance. Our kids are smart. They don't need signs to tell them how to be kids. They will figure out what's right for them without help from clever marketing, and without all the old "rules" about how to make their choices. 

Slavery vs. Racism: apologize for what?

So, a friend recently raised an argument on social media against Senator Bernie Sanders' proposal that the United States should formally apologize for slavery. He discussed a number of reasons why apologizing for something for which currently living Americans were neither responsible or personally victims of would only perpetuate a victim mentality and sense of entitlement among African Americans. His argument sparked a fairly heated debate in which I chose not to become involved, at least in part because I was reading it in the wee small hours of the morning and didn't feel I could be intelligent at the time.

I think that, perhaps, the argument against making such an apology is the application of a narrow view to a much broader, and irreconcilable issue. We as a nation often hold ourselves up as an example to the rest of the world. As that example, I think many people believe that we should apologize and take responsibility when doing so is right and reasonable. I know I do, and I expect other nations to do the same. 

So that begs the question: For what actions should a nation or institution formally apologize? 

Obviously, nations take actions in their own self-interest that cause harm to others all the time. I count our own nation among a handful of nations which seem to believe themselves to be beyond reproach much of the time. I think that a reasonable standard for making an apology should be whether the harmful action would be considered a crime. 

In the case of slavery, our nation was complicit or involved in the kidnapping, physical assault, occasional sexual assault, human trafficking and occasional murder of citizens from a nation outside of its own borders. If the nation were an individual, it would be eligible for prosecution and subsequent punishment. 

Other nations and institutions have made similar apologies. Germany apologized for its role in the Holocaust. As a representative of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II apologized for the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, its own complacency associated with the Holocaust, burning people at the stake during the Protestant Reformation, the sexual abuse of children within the Church and transgressions against women by the Church. 

Did those apologies undo any of the harm caused by those actions? Nope. But there is one thing they did do. They validated the hurt feelings of those who felt wronged. And they gave everyone the cue to move on. 

For what should we not apologize? Racism. Yeah, I just said we shouldn't apologize for racism. Why would I say something so outrageous? I would say it because if you consider the behavior of all animals, racism really isn't an unnatural behavior. 

There certainly are arguments for and against it, but I have noted similar behavior among my own dogs. Our oldest dog was a dachshund mix and our youngest is a dachshund. Our middle dog was a beagle. Our oldest dog looked more like a dachshund than the beagle, and he and our youngest dog never fought. But both our oldest and youngest dog scuffled with, or persecuted the beagle. He wasn't like them. 

Of course, we can all point out exceptions to such natural behavior. We have all seen the videos on social media of cats nursing abandoned puppies, dogs befriending elephants, etc. And when we see these videos, we all think about how adorable the behavior is and get a warm fuzzy. The reason we get that warm fuzzy is because such behavior is out of the ordinary. It is not the norm. 

We humans like to believe that we are the most intelligent and civilized link in the evolutionary chain, but when we are in new situations, with new people, we tend to look for people who are similar to ourselves. We gravitate toward those who are like ourselves because as animals, it is a means of attempting to predict the behavior of others and assess our own safety in an unfamiliar situation. We do it defensively and offensively to protect ourselves in situations where we feel discomfort, misunderstanding and fear. Even in a situation where all individuals are of the same race, we will frequently gravitate toward individuals that share our own traits, mannerisms or behaviors. 

Am I saying that these natural tendencies absolve us for discrimination and mistreatment of others? Nope. I'm just saying that there is not a resolution of the underlying issue of racism, because whether we want to accept it or not, we all have racist tendencies. Myself included. If we try to deny it, we are only fooling ourselves.

Growing up in a small Missouri city, I was able to tell myself that I wasn't racist. And I was horrified by racism in my own family. But in thinking about it, I can only recall a handful of African American students with whom I attended school from kindergarten through high school. I was never truly exposed to people who didn't look and behave similar to myself. When I moved to a much larger city, my exposure changed, and I not only more frequently saw African Americans, but I saw them behaving in ways I didn't see myself behaving. Based on appearance and behavior, I developed an unconscious sense of judgement that I had never had before. I am sad to know this about myself.

Does that mean we give up on trying to be fair and even to each other? Nope. I hope to raise my daughter to be as color blind as possible. But I know that I can't be everywhere she is throughout her life, and I can't counteract nature. I can, along with her father and trusted friends and mentors, do my level best to teach her how we should treat each other and every other living being with whom we make contact. 

I certainly don't believe that racism justified slavery, but I think to a very large degree racism between blacks and whites is viewed as being far more unacceptable than racism among other peoples because of slavery. And that is why the issue of a formal apology matters. 

So where does that leave us as a nation and whether we should apologize for slavery or not? There is not only a precedent for other nations and institutions formally apologizing for their wrongs, there is a similar precedent in our own history. 

After an investigation initiated by President Jimmy Carter's administration, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act, which made formal apology for the wrongful internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. 

Apologizing for slavery, racist laws, the Holocaust, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition or any other human atrocity doesn't erase those acts of the past, and it shouldn't be perceived as a blanket justification for criminal behavior or a victim mentality that promotes a sense of entitlement ad infinitum. But it does acknowledge our responsibility for those acts and lays a foundation for learning how to live with one another in spite of our past. 

We are stronger when we are alive

So, I was outside with my daughter this morning. She loves to run around on the driveway in the morning. She likes to pick up leaves and carry them around. She usually dances and sings a little as well. It's a great time of the day. Sometimes, I don't appreciate it the way I should. I'm usually thinking it's already too muggy to hang out in the Arkansas sun, and that I would really like to go back inside where it's cool and have some breakfast. But this morning was different.

As she was collecting her leafy treasures, she did something all toddlers do. She started tearing and crumpling them. I've read destructive behavior is a natural part of toddler exploration. If you look at various pieces of furniture, almost every children's book in the house, and just the general state of constant disarray in our home, you would know that our daughter is an expert at such "exploration." 

She seemed to notice something about the leaves as she was trying to disassemble them. The brown leaves were much easier to destroy than the green ones. As I watched her fascinated consternation, a thought flashed through my mind: We are stronger when we are alive than when we are not.

Now, this would be a point at which someone might accuse me of going all "Captain Obvious," because of course, we are stronger when we are living than when we are dead. That's not really what I mean. What I mean is that we are stronger when we are engaged in the process of living than when we are not. 

As an introvert, I often relish in the comfort and safety of cocooning here at home, and figuratively "snuggling" with all the things that make me feel at ease and secure. Sometimes, being  "checked out" from the rest of the world is like unwrapping a Godiva milk chocolate with almonds bar. I always anticipate the way it's going to enfold me like a warm and gentle hug.

But also as an introvert, I recognize that my need for quiet and down time by myself can leave me off on the sidelines of my own life. Staying in our sheltered, comfortable places can prevent us from the experience of truly being alive. It might make us feel safer and protected from harm, but it also puts us at risk for being more easily crumpled and torn to bits.

Someone in a management position once told me that we "grow outside of our comfort zones." By now, that's a giant cliche, and at the time, he was using it to pressure me into something that was not in my own self-interest. But, there is a great deal of validity in that statement, inside the professional spaces of our lives, and in the "living" spaces of our lives. 

A few years ago, my husband encouraged me to go on what seemed like a crazy huge trip--all by myself. It was a trip to New England that involved airline travel, booking hotels, renting and driving a car. I felt a little anxious about doing all of those things by myself--not because I'm not capable, but because it meant I had to potentially fail at any or all of these things and there would be no one to catch my fall. As it happened, I missed one flight connection and I found myself lost trying to get to Edgar Allan Poe's house in Baltimore (it was right under my nose the whole time, but not well marked). 

Up until this trip, I had always had a travel partner, or there was very little chance of failure. The only non-traditional things I routinely did by myself were go out to eat and the movies. The only thing that made me feel any sense of security is that most things can be remedied with a credit card. 

That trip to Baltimore, and then to Salem was so amazing. There is something fabulously liberating about traveling on your own. You are literally free to make all of the decisions, and to explore in ways that you just can't when you are being considerate of someone else's feelings. When I got back to my room at the end of each day, I was gloriously exhausted, but also so inspired and invigorated. I thought as deeply as I breathed, every single day. I wrote every single day. I lived every single day. I swear, It's better than dessert. 

And it changed me. I have no doubt that I could do it again, and with even more pleasure, because it's not as hard as I thought it would be. I believe I could take on an even more challenging trip after that success. And I believe I could help someone else do it. It made me an "expert," or at least an expert in the eyes of a few of my friends. Sometimes that's all you need to be.  It was only about five days, but what it did for my self-confidence was nothing short of spectacular. 

Sometimes simple risks like going out to dinner alone, or taking a trip alone can teach us so much about ourselves as well as the world around us. And doing such things always reminds me how important it is to "live." Friends have praised my "courage" to go it alone, and tell me how they could never do something like that. My response always is that if I was alone and wanted to do something, I can't imagine letting that keep me from doing it. What a waste that would be. 

Life hands all of us a bushel of things to sort through, live through, and learn through. Some of those things are joyous and wonderful, while others take the wind out of our sails and leave us doubting everything. I think the more opportunities we take to truly live, the more opportunities we find to strengthen who we are and become who we truly want to be. It allows us to offer so much more to the people we care about. 

Sometimes that means we try things and fail. We may try to take on a new career or job and realize that it's just not something for which we were cut out. We may move someplace we have always dreamed of living, only to find it isn't a dream come true. But sometimes it means we soar. We may go back to school to restart our lives or to fulfill a hope in our hearts that has nagged us for years. We may pursue that job we've been passionate about since vet school, or we might even buy our own practice. We may go out on a limb and allow ourselves to believe what we have to say or share can have meaning for others. We may write that novel. We might become mothers or fathers late in life, and understand what we would have missed if we hadn't taken the risk. 

And we may be surprised to find our place, even through our failures. 

But if we don't take those chances, we're just as vulnerable as that brown leaf in my toddler's hands. We are more, we are stronger, we are fuller, when we fully live. And when we do that, it is much harder for others to tear us apart, because we know who we truly are and what we have lived.