A Last Chance for Hoover

The other day, when I wasn’t looking, Hoover reached up and stole a small piece of chicken off my plate. I turned just in time to see him slink under a table, drop the meat between his paws and look up at me with an expression that blended defiance and guilt.

He seemed to be saying that even though he had committed a serious domestic crime, that of a dog stealing from his master, he had as much right to the meat as I, since we are both carnivores seeking sustenance through the carcass of another dead animal.

Given that argument, I let him have the chicken, because my only other alternative was to eat Hoover, which I was not inclined to do. Like the rest of us mammals on Earth, he was only scrambling to survive.

Which leads me to animal activist Bill Dyer. He reminds me of Hoover, in that they are both amiable, middle-aged, warm-blooded creatures, and both are willing to take the meat off my plate. The expressions on their faces are even similar, although Dyer’s has lost any trace of guilt.

He would be happy if there was no meat on anyone’s plate, because he is passionately opposed to killing animals for any reason whatsoever, even for something as important as poitrine de poulet. To be a dedicated animal activist, one must be a vegetarian or open himself to cries of hypocrisy by those who chow down on meat and potatoes.

I met with Dyer because a source in the Animal Underground said this would be the Year of the Animal Activist. Dyer is the only activist I know who can discuss this sort of thing without salivating or biting a waitress.

He makes his real living writing and producing, but it’s with Last Chance for Animals where he surfaces whenever one of God’s creatures is abused.

I called after seeing a TV news segment in which he was dragged from the L.A. Auto Show screaming “General Murderers!” He was protesting GM’s alleged use of animals in the safety testing of their cars. After he was thrown out, he complimented the bouncers on their manners.

“I can get crazy,” he admitted the other day at the Rose Cafe, where we met for a meatless breakfast. I considered ordering sausages but I wasn’t up to a harangue on how Piglet had been killed in order to feed my murdering face.

“The extent of the abuse gets to you after awhile. I lose it. I act weird. If someone says something stupid I scream (bleep) and tell him what I think.” His face had lost its amiable expression. He began to gesture. Patrons at other tables glanced over as his voice rose.

“You can never go too far in the defense of animals!” he said, jabbing his right index finger at me as a way of emphasizing his point. “I would die for this cause!” He leaned forward: “To die for something is the best way to die.”

I thought about mentioning that meat animals die for something too, but I don’t think he had in mind the nobility of a cow’s death for the glory of a Big Mac.

He mentioned as an example of his passion an incident at the 1990 March for Animals in which 75,000 activists gathered in Washington, D.C. to announce their love for All Living Creatures.

One of the speakers was actor Christopher Reeve, who plays Superman in the movies. “He made a comment about how some animal research was OK, and I lost it,” Dyer said. “I screamed at him to get out of here, he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.” Dyer shook his head. “I almost came to blows with Superman.”

A recovering alcoholic, Dyer became a true believer just about the time he gave up booze. He’s not sure if there’s a connection, although he admits to an obsessive personality.

Eight years ago a friend asked him to a demonstration at an animal shelter. There he saw an activist being lowered from a building by his ankles by police and became instantly politicized, the way John the Baptist committed himself when he saw Jesus defying the Romans. Now he takes his cause with him wherever he goes.

Will this be the Year of the Animal Activist? Dyer isn’t sure. They’ll be taking on the fur people this weekend and there’ll be continuing protests after that against animal abuse wherever it occurs. Being high on the food chain, he warned, isn’t a license to kill everything in sight.

Animal activism is flourishing because human cruelty seems so out of control. Save a cat today, and who knows how far we might go in saving humanity tomorrow?

I don’t know. But I do know that if Hoover doesn’t keep his damned nose out of my poitrine de poulet, his last chance may have already come and gone. Even respect has its limits.