Dogs and Elephants and Penn State

Jessica Schwickrath, the owner of , a Hellertown business that offers daycare for dogs, told me this story on my last visit. One of the regulars at Furry Tail was a dog who was found to have terminal cancer. The vet gave the dog 30 days to live. The dog’s owners decided to send the dog to Furry Tail for the day to keep the dog’s life as normal as possible before the dog died.

At Furry Tail, the dogs romp together in a large outside play area. There is a good deal of barking, running around and chasing each other but almost never is there hostility between the dogs. Jessica is careful to choose her customers well. Usually, there is little sign of emotion between the dogs other than tail wagging. The day the cancer-stricken dog came to Furry Tail, something remarkable happened.

Many of the usually playful dogs, including , came up to the dying dog and licked it. Somehow they knew what was happening to that dog and they showed empathy for it. Jessica was practically in tears when she told me the story.

Last Sunday morning, on the Osgood File, CBS-TV showed a story about an elephant whose best friend over many years was a dog. They both lived in a 2,000-acre elephant sanctuary in Tennessee. Wherever the elephant went, the dog was sure to go, or perhaps it was vice versa. Once, when the dog needed hospital care for three weeks, the elephant barely moved away from the hospital building. When she was released, they both showed great excitement to be together again.

Recently the dog’s body was found on a trail. From wounds on the animal the vets deduced that the dog had been killed by coyotes. There were no signs of any struggle at the site where the body was found. There were, however, signs of blood on the elephant’s trunk. It was obvious to the keepers that the elephant had found the dead or dying dog, picked it up, and tried to bring it to the same hospital in which it had been previously treated. In an eerie parallel to the Fuzzy Tail incident, the elephant that lost her friend was constantly offered food by her fellow elephants. This too was an obvious show of empathy.

Empathy is thought to be the most human of characteristics, although dogs and elephants have it. Nevertheless, I have been blasted by almost all of the 40 odd comments on showing empathy for Joe Paterno, Assistant Coach Mike McQueary and, yes, Jerry Sandusky, the man accused of sexually assaulting at least eight young boys.

As to Sandusky, I merely said it must be terrible to live with the kind of compulsion that would allow one to do such crimes. My assumption, simply from what seemed like the volume of evidence cited by the grand jury, was that Sandusky is in fact guilty as charged by the grand jury. I said his were terrible crimes and they are. There was no suggestion in my column that he should not be punished if found guilty, nor, as it happens, do I agree with the judge’s decision to grant him bail. I did not say, as one of my commentators claims I did, to “give him a break.”

As to McQueary--the graduate assistant who is alleged to have witnessed a sexual assault on a boy by Sandusky--I again felt a particular empathy. I pointed out that he was, at the time of his discovery, a young man hoping for a career as a coach. While --as it so far appears--there was no suggestion that he might not have done more. It makes me wonder how many of my critics would stand up as a witness if it meant destroying their own careers.

As to , I said that, based on what had appeared at the time I wrote the column, he should be permitted to resign because, essentially, of all the good works he had done for the students at the university. Not, I said specifically, for football, but rather his emphasis on academic achievement.

Any commentator, including me, is limited by the information available at the time of the comments. In preparing that column--'how did he know?' one of my critics asked--I had printed out the grand jury report and five or six other pieces pertaining to the matter. Now the information about the whole situation has expanded. Not only may there have been greater culpability on the part of the university than I thought at time, but Paterno MAY have heard more about Sandusky than he thus far has revealed. What is also very clear at the moment is that law enforcement authorities had known of Sandusky’s proclivity long before the recent revelations. Nevertheless, law enforcement authorities had not charged Sandusky with any crime. Perhaps this was in deference to the university and its football establishment or perhaps, as is currently said, they did not prosecute Sandusky because they doubted they could obtain a conviction. I don’t know and I suspect that no one else knows at the moment.

Finally, one of my critics asked what I would do if I or, perhaps, my son had been abused by a pedophile. While that never happened to me or, as far as I know, to my son, I would have been outraged, as I am today at the abuse of children. That, I hope, doesn’t mean that I would have lost my sense of empathy as expressed here. Nothing is less flattering to the human race than the demand for revenge. Justice, yes. Justice protects society from criminals. Revenge merely serves a personal purpose.

Many years ago I wrote a screenplay based on Michael Sharra’s brilliant novel about the battle of Gettysburg called “The Killer Angels.” The title refers to the fact that humans are the only species that kills each other.

No wonder dogs are man’s best friends. They (and elephants) exhibit more empathy than most of us do.

Note: This column was written before word came that Joe Paterno reportedly has lung cancer. This does not change my opinion, as stated in the above column, nor should it of those who disagree with me.