Originally posted March 4th, 2012
By Michael Konik
After reading Adam Gopnik’s masterful examination of the American prison system in a recent issue of the New Yorker, in which he examines our fetishistic compulsion to warehouse millions of errant citizens in prisons, it’s easy to conclude that our conception of “cruel and unusual punishment” needs reconsideration. Gopnik burrows through the rotten veneer of propriety that allows us to convince ourselves that for-profit “correctional facilities” are a good idea. He argues persuasively that incarcerating drug offenders is a horrible idea. And he explains why our obsession with procedural correctness is often antithetical to our goal of universal justice.
He also makes us understand what it must be like to be confined to a cage. Not nice.
Compared to solitary confinement and the torturous sensory deprivations that usually accompany a term in the brig, the death penalty seems vastly preferable, if not altogether . . . → Read More: Cages
Originally posted October 11th, 2008
By Michael Konik
The remains of my dear friend Ella the dog arrived from the crematorium in a nice fabric-covered box. The ashes themselves were in a plastic freezer bag, which was probably a good thing, since in addition to a fine grey powder there were many pinky-nail-size bone fragments and flakes from the few teeth Ella retained at age 109. (I hypothesized that her acute arthritis might have had something to do with the surfeit of calcite clusters.) How strange and puzzling to be confronted with a couple of double-handfuls of carbon dust and realize it is a version of your great pal, reduced to her essentials. Or inessentials.
We spread Ella’s ashes in Runyon Canyon, the nature preserve and dog park where I found Ella as a 3-month old, and where she spent many happy hours bounding and hiking and sniffing interesting aromas. I don’t know if she’ll . . . → Read More: Brooding on Death
Originally posted September 9th, 2008
By Michael Konik
Ella Guinevere Konik died peacefully last night at home in her bed, surrounded by family. She was close to 15 1/2.
Frank Sinatra once told an interviewer, “They say you only live once. But if you have a life like mine, once is enough.” Ella’s time on Earth was like that. A white-lab and greyhound mutt, she was adopted at 3 months and spent much of her adult years spreading joy. Ella was a licensed therapy dog and the subject of my book “Ella in Europe” and the Animal Planet TV show “Ella & Me.”
She was friends with everyone, a beautiful soul encased in white fur.
Originally posted April 27th, 2008
By Michael Konik
Ella Guinevere Konik, the lab-greyhound mutt who inspired the best-selling book “Ella in Europe” and the subsequent Animal Planet TV show “Ella & Me” is getting old. Not just “older,” but old. Depending on which set of medical records you believe, she’s either 14 or 15. Iin human years that’s around 100. She’s dealing with many of the normal maladies associated with geriatrics: Ella is losing her sight and hearing, and she’s got an acute case of arthritis. Despite the food supplements and drugs she’s given (hidden in peantut butter, as “cookie” treats), she needs help negotiating stairs and, in her worst moments, rising from her bed.
She’s on a steep decline.
Although Ella is cancer free and still eats like a wolf that’s just taken down a caribou, she’s losing muscle tone and sometimes her balance. Her radiant spirit, the joyful canine energy that has touched . . . → Read More: The Ella Update
Originally posted August 26th, 2007
By Michael Konik
My sweet old mutt, Ella, is napping in her corner bed, dreaming, I reckon, of squirrels that are slower than she and big plates of rare prime rib (bone in) that someone mistakenly, providentially, left on the floor for her to bolt. When she was much younger, thinking she was providing essential security for her pack, Ella sometimes growled at other dogs whom got too close to her dad. When the incursion got serious, she even curled he upper lip and flashed an incisor. She was ready to defend — or at least pretend she was.
I don’t know really what Ella’s envisioning as she sleeps. But even her most outlandish dreams, Ella probably can’t imagine that human beings, the people who feed her and give her love, would encourage two of her kind to actually do more than growl at each other.
She couldn’t imagine that her protectors and . . . → Read More: Dog Fighting
Originally posted March 11th, 2007
By Michael Konik
Being a dog owner, I understand completely the impulse to anthropomorphize our pets, imbuing them with human traits that canines and felines — and goldfish and hamsters and salamanders — don’t really have. Our furry (or scaly) friends seem so much more than mere animals. They’re companions and confessors, students and teachers, and they magically take us out of our egocentric obsession with self, allowing us to focus love, care, and attention on someone — something — that may or may not understand such abstract concepts.
No matter our profound affection, though, they are animals, not sentient human beings.
Recently, a horse named Barbaro, who won the Kentucky Derby and, according to experts, had a legitimate chance to win the Triple Crown, died from complications suffered after he broke a leg shortly after leaving the starting gate. His odds of recovering were slim from the start, but he showed tremendous . . . → Read More: Anthropomorphism
Originally posted June 28th, 2006
By Michael Konik
No matter how much poison we put in the soil, the milky juice meant to eradicate interloping insects burrowing into vulnerable roots searching for mineral nutrition in the dirt below our sylvan lawns…
The leaves turn yellow, and they fall.
No matter how much medicine we apply to our scalp, the unproven elixir meant to stimulate fuzz on otherwise barren pates shining in the summer sun…
The head goes bald, and it yearns for cover.
No matter how much strenuous brushing and combing and tearing we do to the dog, who naturally wishes to be as hirsute as a Jewish chest, he donates his fur to our rugs and sofas, leaving follicular souvenirs that remind us he was present and alive, constantly growing a protective coat and loaning bits of himself to everybody he meets, whether or not they long for hair.
My great friend Ella, the subject of my latest book and the star of an upcoming TV series, is having surgery today. She has a lump on her back, a cyst-like nodule common in older dogs, which her veterinarian suspects is cancerous. She’s all-white, and melanomas, apparently, occur frequently on light-colored dogs. So the cyst (and a few centimeters of tissue around it) is coming out.
The procedure requires that she undergo general anesthesia, because even as good as Ella is, she can’t stay still enough under local anesthesia to allow the doctor to excise the lump safely. I’m scared she won’t wake up.
Like a wage slave who hates his job and looks forward to nothing as much as leaving, I’ll be waiting for 5PM to come. That’s when the vet is supposed to call me to come fetch Ella and take her home. In the endless hours until . . . → Read More: A Prayer for Ella Konik
Originally posted January 26th, 2006
By Michael Konik
Some people in the Philippines eat dogs. (A recent documentary about the country, made by a native, was entitled “Dog Eaters.” Some expatriate Pinoys didn’t appreciate the label, but the verity of canine consumption wasn’t ever in question.) Occasionally, pet-owners here suffer the heartbreak of having their furry friend kidnapped — dognapped? — and transformed from a companion into a meal. Some people raise dogs expressly to slaughter them for meat, like cows or rabbits. Others hunt strays.
American dog owners, particularly those who love their hound like family and write sentimental books about traveling through Europe with them, initially recoil in horror at the prospect of dining on Fido. But it’s easy to stand in judgment when you’re belly is full. As a Chinese friend explained to me, when you live in a nation where millions of people have starved to death — and still do — you learn . . . → Read More: Philippines Notes, Part Two: Using Dogs
Originally posted December 29th, 2005
By Michael Konik
A reader of this space wrote to say that she was in the middle of “Ella in Europe,” my book about traveling abroad with my American dog. She was afraid to ask — but she wanted to know if Ella was still with us. She also suggested that I post an update every now and then for devoted readers and dog-lovers.
So here goes: Ella is still with us. She’s 11 now — she’ll be 12 in April. She sleeps more than ever, and she gets up slowly (unless there’s human food involved). She has some arthritis and a couple of small benign cysts on her back. Despite the usual indignities of being an old(er) dog, she seems quite healthy and happy. She’s still white as snow, still preternaturally expressive with her ears and tails and eyebrows, like Gromit, only with a mouth.
Ella enjoys harassing the squirrels in our . . . → Read More: The Ella Update
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