Captain to live

Captain asleep

When the National Lampoon magazine came out for January 1973, some people were upset, and some people laughed. Well, the dog was named "Cheeseface". Three years later someone came to the farm where he lived, and shot him dead. I believe, there are some countries where this could not have happened.

Cheeseface was assassinated. An assassination attempt was made on Andy Warhol, a successful assassination was made of John Lennon. Some people will be upset, that, i compared the lives/deaths of animals with people. No, that is not my point. A point is there are individuals that will kill a celebrity, because of the existence of the celebrity. There is another point of the insane having easy access to guns, but we cannot make that point because the gun fanatics will not allow such conversation. The magazine did not intend the dog's death, they forgot about his existence, but someone did kill Cheeseface because of the magazine cover's foto and copy.

What of a dog's violent death, dogs are property; and in America people were property too. The owner is entitled financial reimbursement, sometimes. The property has no rights, the property owner does.

I have two dogs, greyhounds. My first is Captain America. He is mine because he came in last place, the last three times he raced. Greyhound racing is an industry, a business. There are currently eighteen operating dog tracks in the U.S., twelve in Florida. Forty states do not allow tracks, recently Texas has allowed dog racing....because Texas. Dogs are property, the owner of property can value property as he wishes; sometimes that value becomes nothing. He is free to dispose of that property. The traditional way was to kill the dogs. It is hard to get a real figure, but the estimated figures are between two and twenty thousand dogs are killed yearly now in the U.S..

Now, some forty years ago, greyhound shelters and adoptions became organised. This is how i obtained my hounds. First this idea was poo-pooed, these dogs could not become pets. Why? Alexander of Macedon, and Odysseus of Ithaca had greyhounds, the faros of Egypt had greyhounds, the Mohammedan Arabs had greyhounds and their religion looks down on dogs, the aristocracy of Europe had greyhounds, George Washington's greyhound was called 'Cornwallis'.

Of course, if i had not adopted Captain, someone else would have and would give him a different name. I found Captain at a very caring shelter in Chagrin Falls. A year later, i was told, he and three other hounds were not supposed to have been there. They were to go to Michigan, but there was not room there. There are more greyhounds than places to care for them. If greyhounds were not available, i would have other dogs; but how would i not want Captain to live?