I didn’t really want another dog.
We enjoyed Shadow for nearly sixteen years, the last couple of which were very difficult for us all. Weimaraner life expectancy is 11 or 12. Shadow was a wonderful dog, but once she passed after almost 16 years, I didn’t want to take on the responsibility again, not for a while anyway. Nor did I want my travel to be constrained by the complications of boarding a dog.
Some dogs have no problem with staying for a few days or a couple of weeks at a commercial kennel, but others do. Shadow hated kennels. So would I, if confined like that with strangers.
Finally, I relented. Shadow had been Cynde’s first dog; she wanted to get another Weimaraner, but I opposed the idea. “You cannot replace Shadow, ever; we need to find another kind of dog, a different one.” I was adamant. Cynde was so attached to Shadow that I knew another Weimaraner would be difficult, not only because of the breed’s tendency to be hyperactive and its size (females run 55-75 pounds) in context of her back injury.
My resistance had already weakening when we accidentally discovered Vizslas. We were in the lobby of the Eldorado Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after an environmental awards presentation, when a young girl walked by, led by two beautiful copper-colored hounds, one older, one young. We asked the girl what kind of dog they were. We had never seen Vizslas before, nor did we know anything about them.
Vizslas are smaller than Weimaraners (females 40-55 pounds), look very similar. We soon found out that they also have sweet dispositions as well as being too smart for humans. They are an old Hungarian breed of hound. I’ve been told that the Weimaraner and the German Short Hair were bred from Vizslas. According to the AKC:
“The Vizsla is a versatile, red-coated gundog built for long days in the field. For centuries, these rugged but elegant athletes have been the pride of Hungarian sportsmen and their popularity in America increases with each passing year.”
Well, that was it. The Vizsla hunt was on, accompanied by my mixed feelings. Love of dogs versus responsibility aversion. When we found her, we just had to name her “Copper” because of her beautiful color. Dogs can be a great addition to a household, but ownership entails responsibilities. Humans need to be trained to properly relate to dogs. No other animal has a relation to humans anything like that of a dog.
In the U.S., the consumption of commercial pet food parallels that of human food; it is a huge carbon-intensive industry. Dogs evolved as domesticated animals because some former wolves gradually over generations, as scavengers, entered a symbiotic relationship with humans. The feeding of scraps became a central feature of our inter-species bonding. We certainly have enough food scraps these days to sustain our pets. Do we really need a major industry to supply specialized diets for the world’s greatest scavengers? Dogs and cats account for a quarter of the carbon emissions of all “animal agriculture.” For more on carbon emissions and the global costs of affluence, see various posts at www.thehopefulrealist.com.
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 