CULTURE THOROUGHLY VETTED
Irresistible
By Mike Fietz, DVM living@gmail.com
“T
here’s blood on the ceiling,” says my frazzled client as her retriever thumps his massive tail against the wall in joyful appreciation of nothing in particular. The metronomic sound is only slightly muffled by a makeshift bandage cobbled together from a T-shirt and some masking tape. Spots of blood are soaked through the material and I can only imagine what her house looks like right now. I don’t know of any official name for this phenomenon, but veterinarians often call it “happy tail,” a description that is simultaneously accurate and ironic. It can happen after any tail injury. Perhaps a bite wound, or maybe the tail got snagged on some thorns. Dogs—typically of a larger breed with a long, powerful tail—just can’t stop wagging it into things. It would heal if given the chance, but with every enthusiastic thwack, the situation worsens. The tail can become raw, swollen, and infected, and blood gets flung all over. I’m often asked why dogs keep wagging their tail against things when it must hurt, and I honestly don’t know. I assume it’s like our inability to keep a straight face when something is funny. Some emotions are powerful enough to hijack our physical behavior, and dogs are intrinsically happy beings. They aren’t going to stop wagging, so we need to find a way to make it less traumatic. This requires a padded bandage to protect wounds while they heal and to provide
some shock absorption. These bandages can be a challenge to keep in place, and dogs often need to wear a “cone of shame” to keep them from chewing them off again. Depending on the extent of the damage, the bandages may need to be replaced frequently for a few weeks while everything
heals up. For that reason, this approach works best when cases are caught early and can heal faster. In some cases, the injuries are too great to heal properly. Other times, the tail heals well, but the dog keeps developing the condition again. In these instances, the best option may be to surgically remove enough of the tail to eliminate the damaged tissue and minimize the potential for recurrence. This can be an emotionally challenging decision for owners to make, and understandably so. Tails are so expressive and endearing; they can almost seem like a physical manifestation of a dog’s personality. It is only after a great deal of consideration (and perhaps a few weekends
Tails are so expressive and endearing; they can almost seem like a physical manifestation of a dog’s personality. of grisly house cleaning) that many people become comfortable with this outcome. In my experience, these dogs are back to wagging their newly shortened tails as soon as they wake up from the procedure. And that shouldn’t be a surprise. Nothing ever stopped them from wagging before.
A dog who wags his injured tail can damage tissue and create a difficult medical decision for pet owners.
Dr. Mike Fietz is a small animal veterinarian at Georgetown Veterinary Hospital. He received his veterinary degree from Cornell University in 2003 and has lived in Charlottesville since.
Take me home! Visit caspca.org to meet your new best friend @cville_culture
Babe here, and I want to know everyone’s business. I also enjoy long walks, new people, cuddling, and snoozing. I’m smart too: I respond to “sit,” “stay,” and “down.”
Howdy, I’m Ari, and I’m using my time in a foster home to practice self-care, which includes: no loud noises, lots of blankets, sunny spots for lounging, and plenty of treats.
Jenny here. I’m a sweet old gal who loves people and would prefer a quiet house. I also like walks and a good game of fetch, and I did great with cats in my foster home.
I’m Kate, and you should hear me purr—it sounds like a motorboat! I snore sometimes too, but it’s adorable (if I do say so myself). And I really dig catnip toys and wet food.
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do engage in these practices won’t be shamed out of doing so. It is no revelation that there’s money in politics, political strategists lie, and partisanship blinds us to the bigger picture. It’s certainly not Stewart’s fault that American discourse devolved the way it did, and he could not have anticipated releasing the film during a global pandemic and nationwide rebellion. But his decision to return to political satire with Irresistible is disappointing. He’s funnier than this, he’s smarter than this. He’s affected real change, especially with his fierce advocacy for 9/11 first responders. For many years, he was the face of bold political comedy. So why is this project such a dud? Stewart’s previous film, Rosewater, had a sense of purpose that carried it through any problems it might have had. He felt an obligation to the film’s subject—journalist Maziar Bahari, who was arrested and tortured in Iran after appearing on “The Daily Show”—and to the viewers. It appealed to our empathy, raising real questions about unintended consequences of our actions, and keeping hope alive no matter what. It’s hard to imagine why he felt the need to reemerge five years later to tell us what we already know. It’s a bit like the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. You can see the talent and respect the intentions, but why so much pageantry to say so little?
The messy frustration of happy tail
July 8 – 14, 2020 c-ville.com
R, 102 minutes Streaming (Amazon Prime)
Not-so-happy endings
FILE PHOTO
chemistry, but the material gives them little to work with. The funniest moments in Irresistible barely rise to a chuckle, and when they’re over, it’s back to the pointless stuff. The bigger gags are often years too late to be of worth anything, like CNN’s grid of far too many pundits at once, or Fox juxtaposing the Hastings campaign with Al Qaeda training footage. Might as well throw a Bill-Clinton-likes-McDonald’s reference in there while we’re at it. Stewart’s tenure on “The Daily Show” is one of the greatest combinations of the right host with the right platform at the right time. He helped cut through the noise of the Bush years, emboldening those who felt disconnected and hopeless, pinpointing exactly how our institutions were failing usand how our discourse became fractured. He did it by being funny, and by being right. Over time, though Stewart remained as funny and intelligent as ever, a negative trend found its way into more episodes. Too often, he favored individual targets over broad analysis. As the topics became murkier, like the financial crisis, the show became less bully pulpit and more soapbox, less call to action and more preaching to the choir. The post-credits sequence of Irresistible indicates that this film might have sprung from the latter sensibility. Stewart interviews Trevor Potter, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, and the two discuss a key plot point of the film. Potter explains a legal loophole, Stewart explains it back to him, and the two laugh at its absurdity. That’s it. No strategy, no next steps. People watching this movie will either already know what a PAC is or be lost about what they’re supposed to do about it. Folks who
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