St. Anthony as a replacement for responsible dog ownership

Know whats easier than making sure your dog wears a collar or is micro-chipped? St. Anthonys Prayer!!

My daughter and her family own three Shar-pei dogs: a mother, its son and a girl. The three dogs had never been past the front door, only in the backyard or in the house.

Last summer, my son-in-law opened the front door, and Sake, the girl, shot out the door and bolted down the cul-de-sac to the open street and was quickly out of sight. My son-in-law ran to get the car to try to catch her, but she was gone.
…
One evening, I had dinner with friends and told them what we were doing. One said, “Don’t you know the St. Anthony prayer? He is the saint for lost items.” I said no, so she led us in the prayer: “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and can’t be found.”
…
A few days passed, and a woman called my son-in-law and said she was a housekeeper on Grand Circle. She said, “There are a lot of workmen over here, and I see a dog that looks like the one in your ad. The workmen have been feeding her.”

My daughter and son-in-law gathered the mother dog and its son and drove with the car windows down. They called for Sake. The mother dog and son had their heads out the window sniffing. When the two dogs became restless, my son-in-law stopped the car and opened the back door. Soon, there was a happy reunion of the three dogs and the family.

As for my daughter and granddaughters, we are strong believers in St. Anthony.

– Maxie Rogers Hawk

… I… am so angry…

1. The dogs were not wearing collars with their rabies tags attached. The dogs are Shar-peis. If the lost pup got spooked at bit someone, the dog would have been quarantined, if not put down immediately, and the recipient of said bite would have had to have gone through the fear of potentially having rabies, and maybe painful preventative shots, for no reason. Furthermore, if that dog had gotten hit by a car, the poor driver would know exactly which vet to call and where to take the pup. Or, if nothing happened, and a nice person grabbed the pup and called the vet on the tags, this traumatic event could have been cut real short. Those tags can save your pups life. Arnie wears his at all times.

2. These dogs are not exercised properly. I quote “The three dogs had never been past the front door, only in the backyard or in the house. Huuuuuuuuur!” Shar-peis are not teeny-tiny dogs that get all the exercise they need dancing around the house. They are BIG dogs. Heaven forbid these idiots get off their fat asses to exercise their poor bored, fat dogs.

3. The dogs arent fixed. Got a mama, a boy and a girl. Way to contribute to pet overpopulation and puppy euthanasia, idiots!

4. Put an ad in the paper for a very distinctive lost dog. Receive a response to said ad. Thank St. Anthony. Not the reasonable ad suggestion of the son-in-law. Not the workers who, out of the kindness of their own hearts, fed the dog for days. Not the housekeeper who took time out of her day to call. According to the story, the ‘owners’ never even thanked the housekeeper or the workmen. Just scooped up their dog and left. And thanked St. Anthony. Nevermind this family that could afford 3 designer dogs couldnt even offer a cash reward to the housekeeper or construction guys… Im just a student, but if this ever happened to Arnie, I would make sure the housekeeper got some cash, and the workmen got some brownies and beer… or something…

Just as sure Maxie is that this story proves there is a GAAAAWD (and St. Anthony), it proves to me that theres not. If a kind loving gawd existed, one of those construction workers would have taken that pup home. He and his family would have loved and appreciated her, just like I took Arnie in from the assholes that had him before me.

Sorry, Shar-pei pup…

H/T– DAM10N

Comments

#1 Doc Bill
September 10, 2009

I’m so proud that my cat, Kink, has a chip.

A simple scan, if he’s lost, and he will be found.

When we moved, our old cat, Sandy, after spending several weeks supervised around the new house, disappeared. Gone. Vamoosed.

We waited and waited for Sandy to return but he didn’t.

Then one night we got a call from a veterinary student who had found a cat sitting at an intersection looking confused and scared,.

It was Sandy and she brought him to our house.

We were lucky that someone would recognize a distressed house cat and check its tags.

Twelve years later Sandy is still with us.

I’m getting my kids chipped. Srsly.
#2 JustaTEch
September 10, 2009

This kind of thing drives me CRAZY! My indoor-only, never, ever, ever goes outside cat always wears her collar and is microchipped (her rabies tags are useless, because the sent us some kind of bizarre tag that doesn’t go on cat collars.)

My boyfriend’s mom didn’t want to keep the collar on their big, generic looking dog (don’t know why). Her explanation was that he was chipped. You can’t see a chip, and he looks enough like a generic stray that many people wouldn’t think to scan him for a microchip. He wears his collar now, but it bugged me for years.

Love your pet? Fix and tag them!
#3 wrpd
September 10, 2009

When trying to find parking in Chicago this prayer always worked: Hail Mary full o’ grace, help me find a parking place.” It worked every time.
#4 CW
September 10, 2009

St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and can’t be found.

Calling Dr. Bombay, calling Dr. Bombay. Emergency! Come right away!
#5 Joshua Zelinsky
September 10, 2009

It is possible that their was more reasonable material in an earlier draft. Editors frequently shorten material. I could easily see an editor removing material about thanking/rewarding the people or removing material about chips and collars. Especially if it makes a nicer religious message. However, given the fact that they were keeping the Shar-peis inside all the time, I’m guessing that that’s not the case. What douchebags.
#6 justawriter
September 10, 2009

I think I just found what every stylish ERV fan will have in their study.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/10/-above-video-of-a.html
#7 Joshua Zelinsky
September 10, 2009

Another thought: What do people do if English isn’t there native language? I mean, obviously the magic ~~magic invocation~~ requires the little rhyme element. Will St. Anthony not help them?
#8 Joshua Zelinsky
September 10, 2009

Er, sorry that was supposed to be to read “~~magic invocation~~ prayer.”
#9 junco
September 10, 2009

My rescued racing greyhound is fixed, chipped, collared, and tagged. We couldn’t stand the tags rattling all the time, but we found this little leather “wallet” that bundles the tags up and keeps them together on the collar. We also tucked her veterinary insurance card in there, in case she gets hurt someone knows where to take her and knows that her care will be paid for. St. anthony? no thanks.
#10 windy
September 10, 2009

Another thought: What do people do if English isn’t there native language?

The Finnish invocation is usually more like this:

‘Oh Perkele, oh Perkele, where the perkele is that perkele’s [insert lost item] again?’

I don’t think Perkele minds if it doesn’t rhyme.
#11 ubik
September 11, 2009

St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around.
Something is lost and can’t be found.
St. Anthony, St. Anthony, quickly delves,
we are to dumb to find it ourselves.

(:
#12 Christophe Thill
September 11, 2009

Another thought: What do people do if English isn’t there native language?

Easy: they have a rhyming ditty in their own language!
For instance in French:
“Saint Antoine de Padoue
Rendez-nous
Ce qui n’est pas à vous”
(St Anthony of Padua, give us back what isn’t yours)

My own encounters with the good saint:

1. For more than 15 years I’ve lived in a quarter of Paris traditionnally placed under his patronage (faubourg Saint-Antoine). It used to be the district of furniture makers. I still saw quite a few when I was a teenager (nowadays their shops have been turned into Gap, Body Shop, Starbuck…)

2. I’ve been in Padua. I’ve not met St Anthony in person, but I’ve seen pieces of him. Yes, his finger is exhibited in a glass globe mounted in gold, and his tongue in another one. It’s all blackened and shriveled, of course, not a pretty sight…

3. During my last holidays (east of France) I’ve visited a church with a statue of St Anthony in a corner. On the wall were ex-votos: marble plates engraved with messages of thanks. Today this is too expensive, so people tend to take felt pens and scribble their messages on the plates or the wall itself. Often it’s sad and funny at the same time: “Please let X become a good girl again” (whatever that means…), “Help me sell my house” (real estate crisis is everywhere… hey, aren’t you supposed to ask St Joseph?), and my favorite: “Please make a miracle so I can repay my debts”.

If I’d had a pen with me, no doubt I’d have written: “Please help people become more rational and less gullible”.
#13 simba
September 11, 2009

Clearly they need my family’s prayer- pray to St Anthony and St Jude, for lost items and hopeless cases (complete idiots being another phrase for it).

Is there a patron saint of irresponsible idiots?
#14 phantomreader42
September 11, 2009

simba:

Is there a patron saint of irresponsible idiots?

I think the more relevant question is, is there a patron saint that isn’t primarily focused on irresponsible idiots?
#15 Divalent
September 11, 2009

I don’t know, seems to me that if you participate in some event (zombie-like) merely because you were directed to do so by a Saint (via that mind-control power they have), you really shouldn’t get credit for it.

I mean, if someone asks me to pass the dinner rolls, and I grab your arm and use it to force the plate over to them, 100% of the gratitude should go to me, not you. (Maybe you get a thanks for merely existing, but that’s nothing special.)
#16 dNorrisM
September 11, 2009

At least all the comments over there (at newsOK) were negative, although a tich too diplomatic for my taste.

The GF and her similarly weird friend invented a saint (Shelia Kramer) to help find parking spaces. It works Personally I use that Buddist chant to get me out of traffic jams. It seems to work.
#17 Sili
September 11, 2009

Wanted to get Dummkatz chipped, but it wasn’t offered. He’s tattooed, though (and he’s in a gang …)

The dogs are Shar-peis. If the lost pup got spooked at bit someone, the dog would have been quarantined, if not put down immediately

Silly Abbie. Don’t you know that only rotties are a menace to society. How naïve.
#18 Prometheus
September 11, 2009

#16 dNorrisM
“The GF and her similarly weird friend invented a saint (Shelia Kramer) to help find parking spaces.”

Parking Places=Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio

Seriously. There is no weirdness you can think up in which the Catholic church has not already outweirded you.

I always liked Saint Barbara of Nicomedia, patron saint of bomb technicians.

Saint Catald of Taranto was always confusing to me, how do you get to be the patron saint of drought relief AND hernias.
#19 Prometheus
September 11, 2009

Sorry for double post but I just remembered…

Wrong saint anyway! St. Anthony is for animals in general. Doggies specifically get St. Hubertus of Liege (sometimes Saint Rocco but that doesn’t really make sense since the dog fed the saint and not the other way round).
#20 Sili
September 11, 2009

St Anthony is for pigs specifically, too. A brand of ‘happy pork’ here is called Antonius (or used to be – fscked if I know if it’s still around).

My parish church was dedicated to StAnt back before the reformation, I believe. The visiting bishop some decades later was dismayed to see that StAnt was still “carrousing merrily with the swine” when he visited.
#21 Azkyroth
September 11, 2009

Wrong saint anyway! St. Anthony is for animals in general. Doggies specifically get St. Hubertus of Liege (sometimes Saint Rocco but that doesn’t really make sense since the dog fed the saint and not the other way round).

…not Saint Bernard? *ducks*
#22 Crudely Wrott
September 11, 2009

If you want to keep a dog you’d better be ready to go. With the dog.
That is precisely what he wants to do. To go, with you.

In other words:

Due to certain evolutionary differences, dogs do not understand human speech. Humans, on the other hand, can understand dog speech. In order to be a worthy keeper of a dog, one must become fluent in their language and not expect a dog to automatically understand plaintive appeals to “stop that” or “come here”. One must learn how a dog says these things.

This is the beginning of (dog) wisdom.Sadly, many people just don’t get it.
#23 Crudely Wrott
September 11, 2009

Oh, and the last cat I kept brought me hummingbirds and small rabbits. Because he knew I would understand.

Louis also knew how to ask for specific things and the rules regarding them. We were that tight because I learned his language. Was a lot of work but worth twice the effort. For instance, he knew that my lap did not belong to him because I had made it plain to him in terms that he could understand. His ace in the hole was that he knew how to ask to get in my lap. And he knew from experience that if I growled or put my hand out in a blocking gesture that I would, pretty soon, ask him, “Kitty like lap?” Up he comes.

*Be the critter, Luke. Become him since he cannot become you. Feel the force as it does.*
#24 truthspeaker
September 12, 2009

Maybe the dogs didn’t have rabies vaccinations because the owners didn’t want them to get doggie autism.
#25 KristinMH
September 12, 2009

Truthspeaker, don’t joke about it. There are anti-dog-vaxxers as well, sadly enough. I found a bunch of them after one of my dogs had an allergic reaction to a vaccine. Like anti-baby-vaxxers, they tend to be either affluent hippies with too much time on their hands (feeding their pets only hand-made organic biodynamic food, not that awful kibble) or anti-government wingnuts (nobody’s gonna tell ME what to do with my dawg!).

Anyway. If you want a pet that you want to either keep confined to your house or allow to roam the neighbourhood freely, then the pet you want is not a dog. It’s a cat. Even then the animal should have a microchip and a collar with ID and vaccination tags.

I don’t understand some people.
#26 Constance Reader
September 12, 2009

From the same prayer book that brought us the prayer for a parking space:

Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini,
Find me a spot for my little machiney.
#27 Theo Bromine
September 14, 2009

re animal anti-vaxxers:

I am, for the most part, a strong and vocal proponent of vaccination for humans and animals. However, I did refrain from getting the feline leukemia vaccine for my indoor only Pixie Bob cat (though he still got all the other shots), since there is documented evidence of the breed having severe negative reactions to this vaccine, including sudden death . The only downside is that I need to be cautious about his contact with other cats – I had to arrange a FeLeuk test before I could bring home the rescue kitten I was adopting last year (which, fortunately, came out negative).
#28 BeamStalk
September 14, 2009

My kitty-cat is chipped. All animals from the shelter are neutered and chipped before you can take them home.
#29 Screechy Monkey
September 15, 2009

“lost items”? What a lousy portfolio. I’d rather be the Patron Saint of Funny Walks.
#30 ChicagoMolly
September 17, 2009

A long time ago I belonged to Mensa (it was for the pizza and beer, really!). I left because I had met too many people who held that because they had a high IQ score, anything they believed must be true. I think Randi has said that Mensans are among the most gullible people he’s met. Anyway, we had a speaker at one of our monthly meetings who claimed to be a psychic and a sensitive (psensitive?), who shared a long string of anecdotes about his paranormal experiences, supported by not a shred of evidence. And he had a dog story.

Seems he was out doing some yard work one day when he saw a forlorn little puppy wandering about the place. “Dr. Robinson” didn’t recognize the critter, who didn’t have a collar or tag, so he called upon his Psychic Psensitivity to save the day. He closed his eyes and visualized the puppy going back to his home. After some unspecified time he stopped visualizing, opened his eyes, looked around, and BEHOLD! The puppy had gone home! “UMMMMM, Doctor, how do you know the puppy had gone home? All you really know is that he wasn’t in your yard anymore.” “O no, I know he went home because I’d visualized it so well.” Obviously the poor man was not a conscious fraud; he was just delusional.

He didn’t have a solid grasp of the language either. After his talk some of us were chatting with him, and one of us asked “Dr. Robinson” what his degree was for. He told us (with a completely open and honest face), “It’s an honorary degree I was awarded by a local church group in recognition of my gratuitous work for the poor.”

Yep. That’s what the man said.

We also had a Cryptozoologist who told us a great Mokolo-Mbembe story. But that can wait.