Members of the animal kingdom have long been know to be man's best friends. Think about it. Before the industrial revolution man depended on beasts to help plow the fields, to uproot trees, pull the milk wagons, transport supplies, carry heavy loads, even carry people from place to place, the warriors rode their steeds into battle, the Pony Express carried the mail, what would the world have been without the beast's of burdon? Beasts still carry a heavy load in today's world even though we have become mechanized. Cows, my favorites, provide our milk, cheese, butter and other bi-products, cattle provide meat, chickens give us eggs, and cacciatore, turkeys and other fowls do their share. We depend on animals for thousands of things, footballs, gloves, feather pillows, down coats and the list goes on.
Having said all that, I want to make note of the role that dogs play in society. Is it any wonder that domesticated animals became so prominent in society? They are good companions that are naturally loyal, non-judgemental, faithful ,loving and protective. When we traveled through England, Scotland and Ireland and visited many cathedrals it was a surprise to me to see how many of the crypts that were in the cathedrals had life size stone figures of the dogs placed at the foot of their masters burial place.
When we visited Pompii we saw the dogs of Pompii, they live on the premises and follow the tourists and guides around all day every day. If a guide was distracted and had to stop for one reason or another the dog would move on to the next site and sit and wait for the guide to catch up. They belong to no one, people feed them scraps and they live their life time there and when their time comes they just lie down and die.
Today we have working dogs too. The K-nine corp has trained dogs to track down criminals, and help make arrests. It the airport in Rome ,Italy the polizia patrol the concourse with Uzzi in hand and a polizia dog at their side. We saw one dog take a man down moments after we arrived there. Scary.
We have Bloodhounds to track lost people or criminals or whatever. There are cadaver dogs, trained to find dead bodies, bomb dogs to sniff out explosives, and drug dogs to find drugs. On the Today show today they had a segment about a new dog job!
I've discussed before how prevalent allergies are . The peanut allergy has become the plague of
our time. We assume that all babies are born with the possibillity of a peanut allergy. Therefore babies are not allowed to have peanut butter or peanut products until the age of three. In the school lunch room we have separate tables for the Peanut butter crowd and the non-peanutbutter crowd. We have had to restrict 'bake sales' at school to store bought bakery supplies that have the listed ingredients on the labels so that no peanut or by product can be lurking in the cookie or cupcake that is being sold. Well maybe that can change!
According to the person on the Today Show they now have started training dogs to detect peanuts and peanut by products. They are Peanut sniffing dogs. They said one child already has one and it is allowed to go to school with him. If it sniffs a whiff of peanuts it will immediately sit down and refuse to move until the contraband is removed and he has been given a treat!
Should the kids that do not have the allergy have to stop bringing the traditional PB&J sandwich to lunch? Wouldn't that trigger the dogs olfactory sense and he would have to be given a treat? What if more than one kid has the allergy and he wants to bring his sniffing dog to school? Who takes the dog out to potty? Is that an added duty for the teacher? Will they have to add a critter sitter to the staff to take care of the sniffing dogs?
We had an art teacher one year that had a working dog that she brought to school with her every day. She had some medical problem that the dog could sniff outand warn her before she had a seizure. The kids loved the dog and he was quite friendly and seemed harmless BUT a few of the students were allergic to dogs and the parents were quite concerned about sending their child into this unsafe envirment. Problem: Art teacher goes or child withdraws from art class? Trials and tribulations abound. Fortunately we had no bomb threats that year so no bomb sniffers had to come. Ciao
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