Albert Tanutama

When I was a puppy, I entertained you with my antics and made you laugh. You called me your child, and despite a number of chewed shoes and a couple of murdered throw pillows, I became your best friend.

Whenever I was “bad,” you’d shake your finger at me and ask “How could you?” — but then you’d relent and roll me over for a bellyrub. My housebreaking took a little longer than expected, because you were terribly busy, but we worked on that together.

I remember those nights of nuzzling you in bed and listening to your confidences and secret dreams, and I believed that life could not be any more perfect. We went for long walks and runs in the park, car rides, stops for ice cream (I only got the cone because “ice cream is bad for dogs” you said), and I took long naps in the sun waiting for you to come home at the end of the day.

Gradually, you began spending more time at work and on your career, and more time searching for a human mate. I waited for you patiently, comforted you through heartbreaks and disappointments, never chided you about bad decisions, and romped with glee at your homecomings, and when you fell in love.

She, now your wife, is not a “dog person” — still I welcomed her into our home, tried to show her affection, and obeyed her. I was happy because you were happy.

Then the human babies came along and I shared your excitement. I was fascinated by their pinkness, how they smelled, and I wanted to mother them, too. Only she and you worried that I might hurt them, and I spent most of my time banished to another room, or to a dog crate. Oh, how I wanted to love them, but I became a “prisoner of love.”

As they began to grow, I became their friend. They clung to my fur and pulled themselves up on wobbly legs, poked fingers in my eyes, investigated my ears, and gave me kisses on my nose. I loved everything about them and their touch — because your touch was now so infrequent — and I would’ve defended them with my life if need be. I would sneak into their beds and listen to their worries and secret dreams, and together we waited for the sound of your car in the driveway.

There had been a time, when others asked you if you had a dog, that you produced a photo of me from your wallet and told them stories about me. These past few years, you just answered “yes” and changed the subject. I had gone from being “your dog” to “just a dog,” and you resented every expenditure on my behalf.

Now, you have a new career opportunity in another city, and you and they will be moving to an apartment that does not allow pets. You’ve made the right decision for your “family,” but there was a time when I was your only family.

I was excited about the car ride until we arrived at the animal shelter. It smelled of dogs and cats, of fear, of hopelessness. You filled out the paperwork and said “I know you will find a good home for her.” They shrugged and gave you a pained look. They understand the realities facing a middle-aged dog, even one with “papers.”

You had to pry your son’s fingers loose from my collar as he screamed “No, Daddy! Please don’t let them take my dog!” And I worried for him, and what lessons you had just taught him about friendship and loyalty, about love and responsibility, and about respect for all life.

You gave me a good-bye pat on the head, avoided my eyes, and politely refused to take my collar and leash with you. You had a deadline to meet and now I have one, too. After you left, the two nice ladies said you probably knew about your upcoming move months ago and made no attempt to find me another good home. They shook their heads and asked “How could you?”

They are as attentive to us here in the shelter as their busy schedules allow. They feed us, of course, but I lost my appetite days ago. At first, whenever anyone passed my pen, I rushed to the front, hoping it was you that you had changed your mind — that this was all a bad dream… or I hoped it would at least be someone who cared, anyone who might save me.

When I realized I could not compete with the frolicking for attention of happy puppies, oblivious to their own fate, I retreated to a far corner and waited. I heard her footsteps as she came for me at the end of the day, and I padded along the aisle after her to a separate room.

A blissfully quiet room. She placed me on the table and rubbed my ears, and told me not to worry. My heart pounded in anticipation of what was to come, but there was also a sense of relief. The prisoner of love had run out of days. As is my nature, I was more concerned about her. The burden which she bears weighs heavily on her, and I know that, the same way I knew your every mood.

She gently placed a tourniquet around my foreleg as a tear ran down her cheek. I licked her hand in the same way I used to comfort you so many years ago. She expertly slid the hypodermic needle into my vein. As I felt the sting and the cool liquid coursing through my body, I lay down sleepily, looked into her kind eyes and murmured “How could you?”

Perhaps because she understood my dog speak, she said “I’m so sorry.” She hugged me, and hurriedly explained it was her job to make sure I went to a better place, where I wouldn’t be ignored or abused or abandoned, or have to fend for myself — a place of love and light so very different from this earthly place.

And with my last bit of energy, I tried to convey to her with a thump of my tail that my “How could you?” was not directed at her. It was directed at you, My Beloved Master, I was thinking of you. I will think of you and wait for you forever. May everyone in your life continue to show you so much loyalty.

A Note from the Author: If “How Could You?” brought tears to your eyes as you read it, as it did to mine as I wrote it, it is because it is the composite story of the millions of formerly “owned” pets who die each year in American & Canadian animal shelters.

Anyone is welcome to distribute the essay for a non-commercial purpose, as long as it is properly attributed with the copyright notice.

Please use it to help educate, on your websites, in newsletters, on animal shelter and vet office bulletin boards. Tell the public that the decision to add a pet to the family is an important one for life, that animals deserve our love and sensible care, that finding another appropriate home for your animal is your responsibility and any local humane society or animal welfare league can offer you good advice, and that all life is precious. Please do your part to stop the killing, and encourage all spay & neuter campaigns in order to prevent unwanted animals.

Jim Willis 2001 – retrieved from jazzyjadey livejournal

Attended Prof. Erik Hollnagel lecture about human error.

Efforts to account for incidents and accidents usually include one or more instances of human actions gone wrong, which in turn are explained as “human error”. An abundance of theories, models and methods have been developed to help clarify what exactly “human errors” are and how they can be reduced. Most of this research has focused on what happens when things go wrong, and has neglected to look at what happens when things go right. This talk argues that we cannot understand the former without understanding the latter, and that we therefore need better theories and models of normal actions. It is proposed that both normal performance and failures should be seen as emergent phenomena, hence that neither can be attributed to nor explained by failures of specific components or parts.

Typically, when error happened, we attempt to seek for explanation, usually fall into: “Act of God”, technical, and human failure. And very often, we attribute it to human failure. It is a safe bet or assumption since all systems will involve human somewhere.

Is it always true that error is caused by human? Hollnagel cited that “error is the result of an alignment occurences, each of which necessary but none alone sufficient to cause the error”. An important metaphor used to understand error is the Domino Theory of Accidents:
- faults of person are created by environment or acquired by inheritance (Social environment, ancestry)
- unsafe actions and conditions are caused by fault of person
- accidents are caused directly by the unsafe act of person exposure to unsafe condition (hazards, leads to accidents)
- industrial injuries results from accidents

Hollnagel highlighted that many of the time we focus too much on error, leading to distorted reality – what about when things go right? Thus he suggested that the study of failure must also be based on the study of success. We would not be able at the beginning to identify which action will lead to failure and which will lead to success. What we have is general action which will result on accident or success due to context variability. Thus he introduced following term to measure succesful performance variability: shortcut, smart move, improvement, and invention (the negative performance variability measure are unsafe, near miss, incident, and accident).

He also introduced the term “ETTO” – efficient, thoroughness trade off, which states that people invariably make performance adjustment, which are seen as effective and intelligent. This trade off will always be there (i.e. because of time factor). In normal situation, people are expected to be efficient (rather than thorough), but when accident happens, the thoroughness become the critical factor.

I’d say that it was pretty interesting lecture – though I have yet seen its practical implementation. Maybe weblog could help to document situation when things go right. But how do we know that it is right unless we know something is wrong? What might be right at present, might not be right in the future, esp. in software design and development process. But yeah, I kinda like his categorization. Maybe if we can tag “shortcut”, “smart-move” etc in our tips and tricks, it would be useful. I’ve seen my friends working on some really interesting methods to simplify their tasks. I guess, it would be really useful if those methods are shared with others as well ^-^

From Wired news,

a change in our house style was necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television

Just want to post something that might be important in the future, like email and not e-mail.

Slashdot interviewed Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. I highlighted this project during Digital Library course, and I think it is a great example of self-regulating community. A number of questions related to this self regulating aspect are highlighted in the article, such as quality control, constant bickering, getting people involved, and spammers etc.

It is interesting to know why some communities are succesful (like Wikipedia) and while others are not. Well, maybe as Wales highlighted, the key maybe “Love” – it’s about doing something for the good of all. When there is this shared understanding, the community is healthy and will be able to grow.