The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's.
July 14, 2017 4:30 PM Subscribe
Humans are so disappointing lately. Here are some stories of remarkable dogs:
- Sergeant Stubby: The Most Decorated Dog of The First World War
- The memorial alone can't quite convey the whole story: "In commemoration of the devotion of Tip. The sheepdog which stayed by the body of her dead master Mr. Joseph Tagg on the Howden Moors for fifteen weeks from 12th December 1953 to 27th March 1954."
- An associate editor for the Global Journal of Addiction & Rehabilitation Medicine, Olivia Doll, lists some very unusual research interests, such as "avian propinquity to canines in metropolitan suburbs" and "the benefits of abdominal massage for medium-sized canines." That's probably because Olivia Doll is a Staffordshire terrier named Ollie who enjoys chasing birds and getting belly rubs. In all her spare time, Ollie also has sat on the editorial boards of not one, but seven, medical journals.
- The Final Resting Places of 7 Famous Dogs
To cleanse the sad reminder of Laika the space dog from your last link, I offer Hachikō, the most loyal dog in Japan.
posted by Flannery Culp at 5:15 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Flannery Culp at 5:15 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
Wikipedia: list of individual dogs. Includes Faithful dogs, Other heroic dogs, Notorious dogs, Dogs of unusual size, Ugly dogs, and Unique dogs.
posted by larrybob at 5:33 PM on July 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by larrybob at 5:33 PM on July 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
I need to boast for a minute. One of my dogs is a therapy dog. Actually, I mentioned her in the last Johnny Wallflower thread.
Anyway, for the last three years she has worked with special needs elementary school kids; they practice reading to her. This morning, she and I were sworn in to our county court as CASA* volunteers. My beautiful dog will be allowed to attend court in order to provide comfort to abused and neglected children, and children whose foster/adoption status is changing, on the most stressful days of their lives.
There's an old saying, that I strive to be the person my dog thinks I am. I strive to be the person my dog is.
*CASA = Court Appointed Special Advocate. Children can't retain attorneys, so specially-trained CASA volunteers represent the child's interests in court. They are heroes, unpaid and facing some of our society's ugliest realities every day. It's essentially the same function as a guardian ad litem, but performed by non-attorney volunteers.
posted by workerant at 6:43 PM on July 14, 2017 [26 favorites]
Anyway, for the last three years she has worked with special needs elementary school kids; they practice reading to her. This morning, she and I were sworn in to our county court as CASA* volunteers. My beautiful dog will be allowed to attend court in order to provide comfort to abused and neglected children, and children whose foster/adoption status is changing, on the most stressful days of their lives.
There's an old saying, that I strive to be the person my dog thinks I am. I strive to be the person my dog is.
*CASA = Court Appointed Special Advocate. Children can't retain attorneys, so specially-trained CASA volunteers represent the child's interests in court. They are heroes, unpaid and facing some of our society's ugliest realities every day. It's essentially the same function as a guardian ad litem, but performed by non-attorney volunteers.
posted by workerant at 6:43 PM on July 14, 2017 [26 favorites]
The second author of this paper (J.Ex.Med. 1978) is Galadriel Mirkwood, an Afghan Hound.
The linked story is told from a different angle than I had learned it; Matzinger drafted a very impactful research article and some major (bullshit) criticism was that "there was no way that a single author could have accomplished so much" - I can't remember if the fact that Polly Matzinger is a woman (with an interesting background) was explicitly stated or just strongly implied.
Matzinger resubmitted the manuscript with "Mirkwood, G." as the second author/PI. The paper was eventually accepted, but the editor of JEM found out afterwards and banned Matzinger from publishing at JEM. Upon his death, iirc, Matzinger submitted and got another paper accepted at JEM (more of a lark; her scientific output was good enough to publish in other as-prestigious-if-not-moreso journals*).
JEM (Journal of Experimental Medicine) is actually a real journal (and a pretty good one) unlike the ones that Ollie, mentioned in the FPP, is on the boards of.
*prestige is far from the end-all of choosing which journal to submit articles to; other reasons are for specialized subject matters, some fields tend to gravitate towards certain journals (especially before open access and certainly before pubmed/online search/distribution**), and some journals have reputations for certain things (like, a particular technical specialty), and other disparate reasons
**I started college in '97 and my resource for scientific journals was located at an academic library in Iowa City 25-35 minutes away by car. There were monthly journals and "volume collections" of past issues. If you had a reference, it wasn't hard to find it (if the library carried it/or request an interlibrary loan) and make a photocopy. If you were interested in a particular topic, you'd go and - at the very least - skim the table of contents of ALL the journals that are relevant to <your field>/<your specialty interest> every.single.month. If you were starting a new search - geeze, easier to contact someone in the field that you're interested in and try to meet them in person to get a starting seed pool of references with which to go down the rabbit hole.
That's why there are "prestige" journals that publish very broad fields of research, and typically results in less technical/detailed articles. Back then, if you got into a "prestige" journal, it means that lots of people might be interested or at least, exposed, to your work.
Now, keywords and search save a lot of time - but decreases the odds of finding "some random" article that "blows your mind" and potentially help you develop a new paradigm/way-of-questioning despite being germane, happens not to have the relevant keywords, because the old way was just so damned tedious. This, I think, is also why older PIs/managers are so keen about "journal clubs" - nowadays, journal clubs are more of a skills training thing.
posted by porpoise at 6:58 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
The linked story is told from a different angle than I had learned it; Matzinger drafted a very impactful research article and some major (bullshit) criticism was that "there was no way that a single author could have accomplished so much" - I can't remember if the fact that Polly Matzinger is a woman (with an interesting background) was explicitly stated or just strongly implied.
Matzinger resubmitted the manuscript with "Mirkwood, G." as the second author/PI. The paper was eventually accepted, but the editor of JEM found out afterwards and banned Matzinger from publishing at JEM. Upon his death, iirc, Matzinger submitted and got another paper accepted at JEM (more of a lark; her scientific output was good enough to publish in other as-prestigious-if-not-moreso journals*).
JEM (Journal of Experimental Medicine) is actually a real journal (and a pretty good one) unlike the ones that Ollie, mentioned in the FPP, is on the boards of.
*prestige is far from the end-all of choosing which journal to submit articles to; other reasons are for specialized subject matters, some fields tend to gravitate towards certain journals (especially before open access and certainly before pubmed/online search/distribution**), and some journals have reputations for certain things (like, a particular technical specialty), and other disparate reasons
**I started college in '97 and my resource for scientific journals was located at an academic library in Iowa City 25-35 minutes away by car. There were monthly journals and "volume collections" of past issues. If you had a reference, it wasn't hard to find it (if the library carried it/or request an interlibrary loan) and make a photocopy. If you were interested in a particular topic, you'd go and - at the very least - skim the table of contents of ALL the journals that are relevant to <your field>/<your specialty interest> every.single.month. If you were starting a new search - geeze, easier to contact someone in the field that you're interested in and try to meet them in person to get a starting seed pool of references with which to go down the rabbit hole.
That's why there are "prestige" journals that publish very broad fields of research, and typically results in less technical/detailed articles. Back then, if you got into a "prestige" journal, it means that lots of people might be interested or at least, exposed, to your work.
Now, keywords and search save a lot of time - but decreases the odds of finding "some random" article that "blows your mind" and potentially help you develop a new paradigm/way-of-questioning despite being germane, happens not to have the relevant keywords, because the old way was just so damned tedious. This, I think, is also why older PIs/managers are so keen about "journal clubs" - nowadays, journal clubs are more of a skills training thing.
posted by porpoise at 6:58 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
The story of Olivia Doll is not distracting me from the disappointing nature of humans as much as was promised.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:08 PM on July 14, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:08 PM on July 14, 2017 [3 favorites]
Oh, and congratulations. This sentence:
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:18 PM on July 14, 2017
This monument is dedicated to the memory of the beloved Toto of the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz." After the death of Toto, originally named Terry, in 1945 Owner and Trainer Carl Spitz buried the Cairn Terrier on his ranch in Studio City. The 1958 construction of the Ventura Freeway destroyed her resting place.is the most depressing sentence I've read today, possibly the most depressing of the entire week and I finished a Halldor Laxson novel 2 days ago.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:18 PM on July 14, 2017
The Sergeant Stubby story suggests a solution to a mystery that I've pondered for years. In my late father's photos, he had a picture of his first dog, Stubby.
There was nothing stubby looking about that dog but since my dad was born in the early 1920s, it makes sense he'd name his dog after a famous WWI dog hero.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:03 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
There was nothing stubby looking about that dog but since my dad was born in the early 1920s, it makes sense he'd name his dog after a famous WWI dog hero.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:03 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
(Awesome dog, workerant, but that was actually a Room 641-A post)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:50 PM on July 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:50 PM on July 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
The sentimental part of me finds the story of Tip and Mr Tagg very poignant.
The more pragmatic and curious part of me (which reads articles like this) wonders what Tip lived on for 105 days.
posted by Major Clanger at 8:13 AM on July 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
The more pragmatic and curious part of me (which reads articles like this) wonders what Tip lived on for 105 days.
posted by Major Clanger at 8:13 AM on July 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was lucky to meet Layka, a decorated military working dog who, despite gunshot wounds at point blank range, actually took down the guy who shot her, saving her handler and his team:
In May 2012 Layka’s team was assaulting an enemy compound in an Afghan village, receiving direct rifle fire from the compound. Apache helicopters and Hellfires were brought in to help. Layka was sent into search for injured or live combatants and explosives. Once inside, she engaged an enemy combatant while taking four rounds from an AK-47 to the right shoulder area. Her handler removed her from the building and headed to a predetermined point for extraction where the medics started working on her. She was flown to a base where her right leg was removed and she was prepped for transport to Germany. Once in Germany she underwent more surgery to remove and repair her shoulder and triceps. She was moved to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas to fully recover and was medically retired in August of 2012.
After retiring, Layka was adopted by her handler, Staff Sgt. Julian McDonald.
She was on the cover of National Geographic.
A few years ago, she injured her remaining front leg and underwent extensive surgery and rehab to save it.
posted by Seppaku at 8:39 AM on July 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
In May 2012 Layka’s team was assaulting an enemy compound in an Afghan village, receiving direct rifle fire from the compound. Apache helicopters and Hellfires were brought in to help. Layka was sent into search for injured or live combatants and explosives. Once inside, she engaged an enemy combatant while taking four rounds from an AK-47 to the right shoulder area. Her handler removed her from the building and headed to a predetermined point for extraction where the medics started working on her. She was flown to a base where her right leg was removed and she was prepped for transport to Germany. Once in Germany she underwent more surgery to remove and repair her shoulder and triceps. She was moved to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas to fully recover and was medically retired in August of 2012.
After retiring, Layka was adopted by her handler, Staff Sgt. Julian McDonald.
She was on the cover of National Geographic.
A few years ago, she injured her remaining front leg and underwent extensive surgery and rehab to save it.
posted by Seppaku at 8:39 AM on July 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
Wow, that's a pretty good FPP right there, Seppaku. Go for it!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:17 AM on July 16, 2017
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:17 AM on July 16, 2017
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posted by sourcequench at 4:41 PM on July 14, 2017 [7 favorites]