Althouse: You wouldn't treat an adopted child like that.

May 3, 2015

You wouldn't treat an adopted child like that.

22 comments:

Deirdre Mundy said...: Because people are not puppies. But yeah, don't dump your animals, find a new home!; 5/3/15, 9:24 AM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Holy cow. That was awful. Comparing an adopted dog to an adopted child is tone-deaf and offensive.; 5/3/15, 9:31 AM
Gahrie said...: IIRC correctly some people have tried to treat adopted children like that, or at least send them back to their orphanages in Russia.....; 5/3/15, 9:32 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Holy cow. That was awful. Comparing an adopted dog to an adopted child is tone-deaf and offensive."

Well, that was the point. It was incomprehensible that people would treat a child like that. Then you substitute a dog and you know that people treat dogs like that all the time.; 5/3/15, 9:35 AM
Ann Althouse said...: There's a giveaway right in the beginning when the child is put in the car but the seat belt isn't attached.; 5/3/15, 9:36 AM
chickelit said...: Holiday In Vulgaria or how not to treat children like dogs.

From the best non-Disney family movie, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

There's even a reference to mice!

It'a all fiction, of course.; 5/3/15, 9:36 AM
Michael The Magnificent said...: I adopted one of my dogs, Van Gogh, five and a half years ago. He had been picked up as a stray in Bloomington Indiana and had spent two weeks in their shelter, during which no one came to claim him.

They couldn't keep him any longer, and he got shipped to the Milwaukee County Humane Society, where I spotted him, and adopted him. After getting him home and bathed, I sighed him up for an obedience class, which he and I enjoyed so much we enrolled in three more obedience classes after that.

Today, as we do every other Sunday morning, him and I are going to an adult living facility, where he has regular visitors who take turns petting him, talking to him, and having him do tricks in exchange for treats. I honestly don't know who loves it more.

To the person(s) who abandonded Van Gogh, it's your loss. It may have taken me a year to overcome his fear of getting into a car, but now he cannot wait to jump in, eager to go visit friends, family, and his four legged friends at the dog park.; 5/3/15, 10:10 AM
chickelit said...: We have a rescue dog, a tiny Maltese. She was found abandoned and pregnant in LA. She's still a bit of a mess emotionally.; 5/3/15, 10:16 AM
Wince said...: Unwanted children are aborted and dogs euthanized.

So it all evens out.; 5/3/15, 10:49 AM
Etienne said...: When I was stationed in Germany, I lived with a German girl who accidentally called me Yuki sometimes (I guess that was the spelling).

It upset me because I didn't know if she was seeing two men, and maybe kept getting our names mixed up.

One day her sister saw me on the street and said "Hallo Yuki!" and then I could tell she was embarrassed, and then said my real name. So I said, OK, what the hell is this Yuki stuff?

She hoped I wasn't going to be upset, but it was their nickname for me. They had a stray dog who followed them home from school when they were young, so they adopted him.

Oh crap...; 5/3/15, 11:01 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: M the M,

That's a great little pup! Sounds like you were both graced the day that bond was formed.; 5/3/15, 11:32 AM
Deirdre Mundy said...: Yeah, I found the seatbelt thing weird. And then decided it must be Europe? Because in the US, you'd of course put your kid in a seat.

Except, then, why are we supposed to be sad that the sister gets new toys and a big cake, and the girl doesn't?

Who throws a party for the DOG?; 5/3/15, 11:35 AM
Fernandinande said...: We have a new stray dog, a maybe 60-pound shepherd kinda mix, terrified of everybody.

If you lay down on the ground he'll come up to about 10' away and pace back and forth, tail wagging, whining and grimacing (looks like a snarl, but isn't). But he sleeps on the porch and hangs out all day and loves one of our other dogs. We call him "Po' Boy".; 5/3/15, 11:37 AM
Fernandinande said...: Er, "lie down". How uncouth.; 5/3/15, 11:43 AM
jeff said...: Now their called "rescue dogs" I got my 1st mutt 45 yrs ago,corse back then it came from the dog pound, now called "Domestic Control Commissions". Just a couple of pens next to the sewage plant, after two weeks if no one took them home they we're put down, nice way of saying someone put a bullet to their head.; 5/3/15, 12:11 PM
furious_a said...: It was incomprehensible that people would treat a child like that.

It's Portlanddia's world, we just live in it.; 5/3/15, 12:51 PM
Quaestor said...: In German Gift means poison. I'm sure that's purely accidental.; 5/3/15, 1:22 PM
Mary Beth said...: I suspected she was meant to be a dog when she didn't have a seat belt and he patted her on the head (plus the title of the post).

It's incomprehensible to me that people abandon pets. I know it happens, but I don't understand why they think it's okay.; 5/3/15, 2:40 PM
Deirdre Mundy said...: Rewatching KNOWING it's a dog made a lot of it less poignant for me. Like the dad ignoring her because he wants to work, or the mom cooking. When I thought the video was about a child, it bothered me that they weren't TALKING to her and her instead treating her as some sort of dumb beast.

When it's a dog, well, yeah, why is the dog tugging on your shirt while you try to cook, or refusing to let you work? And of course you don't say "Look, give me 15 minutes and then we'll play" to a dog.

Also, the fact that they clearly favored the blond? Less worrisome when it's a child and a dog. Of COURSE they favor the child!; 5/3/15, 3:16 PM
SeanF said...: Ann Althouse: "Holy cow. That was awful. Comparing an adopted dog to an adopted child is tone-deaf and offensive."

Well, that was the point. It was incomprehensible that people would treat a child like that. Then you substitute a dog and you know that people treat dogs like that all the time.

But that's a meaningless point. There're right ways and wrong ways to treat animals, but it is not true that any treatment which is inappropriate to direct towards a child is necessarily inappropriate to direct towards an animal.

As someone who has adopted both children and animals, I find the comparison just a tad offensive.; 5/4/15, 11:25 AM
gerry said...: @Michael the Magnificent, good heavens! Is Van Gogh a Border Collie? Even with his markings, he looks like a BC to me. My wife picked up a stray which was mostly BC, and in the twelve years he was with us he always did our taxes.; 5/4/15, 1:02 PM
Michael The Magnificent said...: The adoption counselor suggested that Van Gogh might be a Catahoula Leopard Dog.

I'm not so sure. He has a long coat, and Catahoulas typically have a shorter coat.

I don't think he's a Border Collie because he doesn't have the body shape, energy level, intelligence (I've taught him a bunch of tricks, but he isn't able to solve problems like the Australian Shepherd I had prior), and doesn't exhibit typical behaviors of the breed.

And except for the coat and body shape, for the remaining reasons given above I also don't think he's an Australian Shepherd.

He quite obviously has the Blue Merle gene, though.

Our first meeting at the Humane Society of Milwaukee, I was sitting on a bench, and the adoption counselor brought him into the room on a leash. He walked right up to me, sat on my left foot, leaned up against my right knee, and looked right up into my eyes. Each year, we go back to the humane society, I tell the story, let him pick out a toy and a treat, and make a donation.

Whatever he is, he's my best friend now.

There is a special place in hell for those heartless enough to dump a domesticated animal in the wilderness.; 5/5/15, 2:59 PM