No More Air Swimming For Pepper

Here's a story that caught my eye recently. Apparently it caught the eye of a lot of people in Tennessee because I keep getting Google Alerts about it in my inbox whenever it reappears in the news.

Tennessee lawmaker defends holding dog out window of moving car

By ERIK SCHELZIG, Associated Press

Published June 19th, 2012 2:32 pm

Rep. Julia Hurley

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A state lawmaker is hitting back at critics of a YouTube video she posted of her dog being held out of the window of a moving car.

Freshman Rep. Julia Hurley said in a Tuesday interview in her legislative office in Nashville that her Chinese crested named Pepper enjoys being held out into the wind.

The Lenoir City Republican said people who complained about the video should explain why they don't have a similar reaction about other unrestrained dogs in the beds of pickup trucks or leaning out windows.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Hurley's brief video titled "Pepper Air Swims" was pulled from YouTube after two days. Hurley said Tuesday she removed the video because she "didn't want to deal with" criticism she calls politically motivated.

Now, as a long-time pet owner and as someone who writes about pet care for a living, I can tell you that you  should not hold a dog out the window of a moving car. Your dog can get a painful eye injury from grit or debris; you could drop him; he could be hit by something outside the window, and so on. It's just not a good idea.

Letting your dog stick his head out the window of a moving vehicle is only slightly better. It has the same risks, though at least the dog is standing and can pull back. Letting your dog ride unrestrained in the bed of a pickup truck also has dangers. If you are driving or riding with your dog in the back of a truck, it's best to have your dog on a leash so he can't fall out.

With all that said, I think people have really beaten up on Representative Hurley too much. She posted a video of her dog doing something that she obviously feels the dog enjoys. She wouldn't put a video on YouTube unless she thought her dog was having a good time. She had no idea that people would react badly to the video.

To be honest, people do things with their pets all the time that are questionable or that other people might not like. I'm not saying you should hold your dog out the window of a moving car, but I am saying that I see people doing things with their dogs that I, as someone who has been breeding and raising dogs for 25 years, wouldn't do. When I'm in the grocery store I see people buying dog food and I could go up to them and say, "Hey, you don't want to buy that food." Or they might be using a flea and tick product that I know won't work. I hear people discussing products for their dogs and I don't butt in and tell them they're going to dry out their dog's skin and ruin his coat. I write my articles online and in magazines. Information is available for pet owners who want it. But plenty of pet owners do things all the time that are not really good for their dogs. Many of the people criticizing Rep. Hurley might be doing things with their own dogs that aren't really that wise.

So, maybe people should lay off Rep. Hurley because she was doing something fun with Pepper. It was an honest mistake. Anyone who owns a dog makes lots of mistakes through the years. I personally turned a dog blue and green once when I used Mrs. Stewart's Old Fashioned Blueing on him after a bath to try to make him look whiter. He looked like a pastel Easter egg for a couple of weeks. But there was no harm done and the colors eventually washed out. I never tried that again.

At the very least, it's nice to know we have legislators who are dog lovers.