tom fox and the oily dog

For the record: I have nothing against animals. I generally find them cute. (And tasty!)
But sometimes animal types go too far.
Take this story. A friend of mine, DMN photographer Tom Fox, took this awesome photo of a poor little dog covered in oil and muck down in St. Bernard Parish. (Tom’s down there doing great stuff on Katrina.) It was a sad photo, obviously, and readers responded. (About 100 times more than they responded to photos of individual humans in distress, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Anyway, two days later, Tom saw the same dog and arranged to have it taken in by some animal rescuers. Thanks to Tom making the call, the dog is fine and waiting to be reunited with its owner (if he/she is still alive) or adopted.
A nice story, eh?
Actually, a bunch of clowns have decided to attack Tom for a variety of crazy reasons.
First: The Fake Dog Theory. Some folks are arguing that the dog Tom actually saved was a surrogate dog, that Tom was deviously involved in a tear-jerk dog-swap. (“I would be disapointed [sic] if the media were misleading everyone,” says one clown.) One person suspects Tom swapped the dog with another oil-covered dog two towns over.
Second: The Rude Photographer Theory. Several folks say Tom’s a war criminal because he didn’t immediately adopt the dog the moment he saw him, smother him with kisses, and rescue him right that minute. One fellow says there should be a law requiring reporters to immediately aid any animal they see in distress.
Are these people on Mars? There are packs of roving dogs all over Katrinaland. Tom is supposed to rescue them all? Even though he, I don’t know, has a job to do? And in any event, haven’t these people been watching TV? There were hundreds of thousands of people — actual human beings — in conditions worse than this dog. Did they get outraged then? Or is it just a puppy that leads to this sort of insanity?
In any event, it turns out that Tom did give the dog water and food, and probably would have done more if it hadn’t bitten one of his colleagues. He did call animal rescue the first time he saw the dog, but they didn’t respond immediately. Which is why the dog was still around a couple days later, when Tom saw him again and took matters into his own hands.
So, to recap: Tom is 100% responsible for getting this poor dog saved — and he’s still taking shit for it. Some people are just crazy.
In case it needs stating: Reporters and photographers working in Louisiana have all seen literally thousands of people who need help. And they’ve probably all seen hundreds of animals who need help. They can’t help them all, and it’s not their responsibility to.

10 thoughts on “tom fox and the oily dog”

  1. interesting you should post this – because I actually thought the same thing when I saw that photo on DMN – “why didn’t that reporter help the poor dog?!” [Also the follow up photo doesn’t look ANYTHING like the original dog, in my humble opinion, so I can see why people flipped out.] Perhaps people respond to animals because they (the animals) can’t understand what is going on. I certainly do.
    Also, I find your stance on reporters odd – wouldn’t it be their duty to help a fellow human if they could make a difference? Or should they just walk by if someone is dying? I’m not interested in attacking you at all – just curious to hear more behind your reasoning. thanks for bringing up a difficult topic!

  2. If I’m a reporter in Iraq, am I supposed to help every Iraqi I see?
    If I’m covering Wilmer-Hutchins, am I supposed to put down my notepad and start tutoring every child I see?
    If I’m in New Orleans two days after the storm, am I supposed to help every person I see? Much less every dog I see?
    If there are literally tens of thousands of dogs roaming around and tens of thousands of people roaming around, we’ve got other things to do. Our job is to report what we see. It’s an important job. And it’s not one we can do if we’re spending 95% of our time playing Red Cross.

  3. I like to think that if a journalist came to a river where a guy was drowning, the kind of “OH MY GOD IF SOMEONE DOESN’T PULL ME OUT IN THREE SECONDS I’LL DIE” kind of thing, the journalist would probably pull the guy out before continuing on his duties.
    That’s an entirely different situation than covering disasters or wars where people and animals probably aren’t in immediate danger of dropping dead on the spot. Yes, they need help, but probably not the kind of help a journalist is equipped to give at that moment.

  4. Call me pathetic, stressed out, whatever, but I’ve just been sitting in my makeshift office in Baton Rouge crying into my dinner over this story. New Orleans is full of lost pets and dead bodies and this little dog’s hopeless expression has just about finished me off. Please feel free to laugh at me.
    Of course it’s not anyone’s responsibility to help anyone, but let’s hope that sometimes people do exactly that. Because humanity means feeling empathy for the suffering of others, be they human or animal. Because without empathy life would be pretty appalling.
    I’m touched that Tom fed and watered the little dog, and that he went back for it, but unless I’m going COMPLETELY nuts (which is entirely possible in Baton Rouge), the two photographs are definitely not the same dog.

  5. Jessica – I think that’s more what I was getting at…honest, gut, HUMAN reactions by reporters. Surely they wouldn’t jut photogaph the guy and let him drown!

  6. See, Karen, but that’s the problem. I see a huge, Grand Canyon-sized gap between a reporter seeing a guy drowning and a reporter seeing a bunch of hungry dogs. The first demands action; the second, not so much.
    I’ll ask it again: A photog in Louisiana has probably literally seen a thousand dogs roaming around, along with who knows how many other animals. Is he supposed to feed them all? Or just the cute ones?

  7. How about *this* angle. Your friend photographs this dog because he finds that it would make a particularly moving piece of journalism. Then, when it *does* move people, you and he get upset about the reactions and start defending his vocation.
    Afterall, he _didn’t_ photograph the thousands of hungry humans you’re referencing- he *chose* to photograph this poor little helpless dog.
    If your career is working to report news to the public, then you should atleast be prepared to answer the questions your material will generate as well. Its not about *dogs*. If he reported that a judge hopeful had an adulterous background with prostitutes, people would expect proof and follow ups as well- people of that particular political party would angrily say the news had been deceitful.
    Therefore, If you report the helpless plight of a dog, people want to know what was done to help that dog, how that dog came to be there, was he owned, was he a stray. That dog became the symbol of all helpless dogs in Katrina.
    Its not about how many helpless dogs there are and what journalists are doing for them, its about the symbol of them that was selected to represent them and what you did for it. People want to know if he remained helpless. The people who were moved by the journalism your friend shared with the world.
    Its irresponsible to share information that you can’t validate.
    End of.
    As far as the “dog switcheroo” I have pictures of my shihtzu where he looks like he weighs 12 pounds, and where he looks like he weighs 22 pounds. If he says they are one in the same I believe him.
    *Infact* my mother and I recently adopted a 10 year old Shihtzu through pet finder and we were astonished that she weighs 15 pounds as she photographed as if she weighed five. When I hold her, shes about the same size as the one in the picture.

  8. Tom has hardly not answered questions about the damned dog. That’s why on that thread I linked to, there are multiple emails from Tom and at least two of his editors.
    As for he “didn’t photograph the thousands of hungry humans you’re referencing”: Do you really think we send photographers to southeast Louisiana, have them snap two shots of a dog, and then lounge around for a week? Tom’s taken hundreds, probably thousands of those photos. We’ve run dozens in the paper.
    “Proof”?! This is an honest question: What kind of proof do you want? DNA samples? A full pedigree back to the derivation of the breed? Lizzie even acknowledges that the two photos could easily be of the same dog. What sort of proof do you want?

  9. Anyone who thinks the little oily dog pictured in Chalmette, LA was one and the same as the dog that was eventually rescued needs their eyes examined. The dog in the first photo was a purebred Shih Tzu with no collar or tags. The “rescued” dog in the 2nd photo is one of indeterminate breed and had a collar and tags. The photographer who took both pictures and claimed to have sent rescuers after the first dog had an article in the Dallas Morning News admitting that it probably was not the same dog. I live in the hurricane zone and I am going to the massive shelter in Gonzales, LA this week where most of the animals are located to do volunteer work. I’m going to check and see if the little oily dog is there.

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