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“Dogs respond
to the behaviors of their owners, so when the owner is under stress, the
dog becomes stressed.”
— RICHARD
POLSKY
certified animal behaviorist |
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Make no mistake: the pressure of being Bill Clinton is getting to
him—Buddy, that is. “Dogs respond to the behaviors of their owners, so
when the owner is under stress, the dog becomes stressed,” said Richard
Polsky, a certified animal behaviorist in Los Angeles. The stress which
Bill can work off with a round of golf or a quiet cigar with an intern,
Polsky said, actually eats away at his dog, causing—and I’m quoting
here—”an inner conflict” and “psychosomatic disorders such as ulcers or
colitis.” Colitis?! Yes, Mr. Clinton, you and your last-minute pardons are
giving your faithful dog a severe case of diarrhea.
We tend to think of dogs as indestructible, that the daily
tribulations and stresses of our dog-eat-dog lives will leave them
blissfully unsullied. We assume that even though we are visibly troubled
by our earthly problems, the dog will always be there for us, energetic
and loving, no matter what wrongs we have committed or furniture we have
pilfered from a White House sitting room.
Yeah, well, we’re wrong. Buddy is hurting (worse, even, than when
Clinton had him neutered). “Dogs are much quicker to pick up on signs of
stress in humans than we are to pick up signs of stress in dogs,” said
Suzanne Johnson, another certified animal behaviorist (full disclosure? I
don’t really know what “certified animal behaviorist” means). Buddy may
not understand what’s going on with the pardons and the Congressional
investigations (hey, do rest of us even get it?). But he IS picking up on
subtle changes in Bill’s normal routine and the stress his owner is
feeling.
“They’re wired just like humans,
so they get anxious and tense, their sleep gets thrown off and their
appetites can diminish,” said Linda Goodloe, yet another certified animal
behaviorist. Goodloe concurred that such stress can lead to colitis
(which, to reiterate, means that Buddy may soon need a pardon of his own
for soiling the Chappaqua carpets).
Basically, Buddy is caught in a Catch-22 of Bill Clinton’s making:
The
former president will remain stressed as long as he stays in isolation,
but he’ll remain in isolation as long as Congressional committees are
investigating the pardons (which they will do as long as it will keep
Clinton in isolation—and stressed). Rep. Dan Burton may be out for Bill
Clinton’s hide, but does he know what he’s doing to this harmless dog?
Johnson said the best thing for
Buddy—forget about the nation for a second!—would be to leave Bill Clinton
alone, give Hugh Rodham his $400,000 pardon payday and let Marc Rich live
happily ever after (tormented only, perhaps, by the knowledge that he was
once married to Denise Rich). “Congress needs to lay off Clinton so that
Clinton can relax and devote himself to taking care of Buddy,” she said
(perhaps answering my question about what a “certified animal behaviorist”
is). “The more Congress investigates, the more they are hurting
Buddy.”
Sounds good to me. I mean, a poor
dog’s intestinal tract is at stake here!
Gersh Kuntzman is also a columnist for The New York Post and the author
of “HAIR! Mankind’s Historic Quest to End Baldness” (Random House, March
2001). His e-mail address is
gershny@yahoo.com.
© 2002 Newsweek,
Inc.
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My Turn: Hey, Doc,
I Still Have A Lot of Living to Do