Pets in Peril Bring Out Our Animal Instincts

Tabitha, Taro, “Coke.”

And now . . . Smokey. These are the 1994 inductees into the American Animal Hall of Fame, an exclusive first-names-only club that celebrates the lost, the exploited and the deeply misunderstood.

In the past year, we have wept in relief as Taro, the Akita who nipped its owner’s niece, won a reprieve from Doggie Death Row when the governor of New Jersey pardoned him on the condition he be banished from the state. Probably didn’t hurt that Brigitte Bardot had sent a telegram on the dog’s behalf.

We bit our nails to the nub when Tabitha the cat was lost in an airplane en route from New York to Los Angeles for 12 excruciating days. While the plane was not exactly torn apart rivet by rivet (airlines are sympathetic to cats, but only up to a point), it was searched each time it touched down until the errant fuzz ball was found.

We shuddered for poor “Coke,” the English sheep dog so nicknamed by the veterinarian who surgically removed a bellyful of top-grade cocaine from the pooch this month after it arrived in New York from Colombia, giving rise to the riddle: When is a dog a mule?

And last week, rounding out a year that would have made the producers of the defunct TV show “That’s Incredible!” salivate (remember the water-skiing squirrel?), we watched as another doggie found itself in a stare-down with the criminal justice system.

Guess who blinked?

Smokey, a 5-year-old Labrador retriever from Danville, Va., was found guilty of chasing (but not biting) three mail carriers in his Danville neighborhood, thus becoming the first dog to face sentencing under Danville’s tough “three mail carriers and you’re out” ordinance. Smokey was sentenced to die by lethal injection.

But the case turned political when 40 members of the Italian Senate signed a petition on Smokey’s behalf, and that world-class humanitarian and retriever owner Henry Kissinger urged the judge to “Restore the dog to the owner and tell the mailman to take a different route.”

(These pleas raise some sticky diplomatic issues, such as: Did Kissinger consider the health and welfare of Cambodian dogs when he authorized the secret bombings in 1970? And: Why are the Italians butting in? Are their political scandals simply not keeping them busy? Would their time not be better spent making Italy safe for anti-Mafia judges instead of trying to make America safe for sociopathic Labrador retrievers? And what’s with the Italian obsession with animals? Last week, the politician trying to oust Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi called his critics “lice and pigs.” How disgusting.)

But I digress.

The rumor mill worked overtime on Smokey’s case.

Newly reelected Virginia Sen. Charles Robb supposedly urged Smokey to say that he had only been chasing the mail carriers in order to massage, not maul them. Robb’s opponent, Oliver North, reportedly advised Smokey to say he committed the crimes, but only out of loyalty to his master, who had secretly authorized Smokey to chase the postal workers in a misguided attempt to get the mail delivered faster. North was said to have coached Smokey on putting a tremor in his bark.

It was also rumored that Newt Gingrich suggested a defense strategy for Smokey as a victim of misguided liberal ideology: If Smokey had been made to work in exchange for food and shelter (bring in the newspaper, save small children from fires), he might not have felt so hostile and worthless.

Apparently, the pressure brought to bear on Danville City Judge T. Ryland Dodson was too much. He found a technicality in the law--the city penalties for keeping vicious dogs were inconsistent with state laws--and reversed his ruling.

Despite the reprieve, all is not rosy for the Smokester.

Last week, vets discovered the old boy has heart worms, a condition that will be fatal without the proper treatment. Smokey’s owner has intimated he won’t cough up the $350 to save the dog.

He shouldn’t worry.

Might be tough for a child to raise that kind of dough, but for an Animal Hall of Famer, piece of cake.

* Robin Abcarian’s column is published Wednesdays and Sundays.

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