WW welcomes letters to the editor via mail, e-mail or fax. Letters must be signed by the author and include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Preference will be given to letters of 250 words or less. DOUBLE LETTER SCORE Thank you, thank you for the hint as to where I can find replacement Scrabble tiles (Sellwood Peddler Antiques: "Best Place to Buy a Vowel," Best of Portland, July 19, 2000)! Those Back Fencers at the Boregonian wouldn't even print my letter asking Portlanders where I could find them. Jenny Collins Southwest Multnomah Boulevard HAPPY PETS MAKE A HUMANE SOCIETY I feel I must comment on Chris Lydgate's article "Going to the Dogs" (WW, July 4, 2000). The article criticizes the amount of money that is being spent on our canine companions a nd concludes that pets are "taking over" simply because many people feel that their pets are worth spending their money on. Apparently Ms. Lydgate feels that when faced with a costly solution to a pet's problem, the pet's guardian should just put the pet to sleep because it is, after all, just an animal and doesn't deserve anything more. I find her attitude offensive. Ms. Lydgate suggests that the idea of offering compassionate care for dogs in the form of health food, homeopathy, dermatology, and surgery is the realm of science fiction. Why does this seem so bizarre to her? If health food is good for us, why wouldn't a pet benefit from eating properly as well? If homeopathy (my personal specialty) can provide a gentle, powerful and often more cost-effective alternative to many conventional medical procedures for people, why wouldn't a pet benefit from the same? And if a pet is scratching all night from allergies, isn't it a good idea to go to a professional who is trained to treat skin diseases, or should the guardians of this pet just put up with the scratching because in Ms. Lydgate's opinion spending money on a professional is unwarranted because a pet is involved? And surgery on animals is hardly a new wave. Yes, many of these surgical procedures are by their nature expensive, but veterinarians have been providing these services for animals for nearly as long as human surgeons have provided them for people, and at a far lower cost for the exact same procedures. Ms. Lydgate points out that 16 Oregon counties have no MRI available for people and seems to suggest that it is somehow wrong to provide this service for pets until all humans are first provided with this service. I might point out that the number of MRI machines available for people throughout the state far outweighs the number now available for pets (one), but like any high-cost/low-volume service, these machines are going to be located where the population is. If one chooses to live in a county with a population too low to support an MRI machine at the local hospital, that doesn't mean that MRI is unavailable, just inconvenient. There are advantages and disadvantages to living in Harney County; one of the disadvantages is that for many services, including MRI, you have to do a bit of driving. People like to complain about how much money is spent on the military, or the space program, or on welfare, when in their opinion the money would be better spent on whatever they believe is important. Well, at least in those cases it's the taxpayers' money that is being spent. In the cases Ms. Lydgate talks about, the money being spent on the pets is the guardians' own money--don't they have a right to spend their own money as they see fit? Shall we appoint Ms. Lydgate as our guardian of spending? We can all show her our checkbook registers and she can tell us what is right and what is wrong to spend our money on. In spending money on our pets, at least we are spending it compassionately on beings who feel pain the same as we do. It seems to me that this is a good way to spend our money, not a bad way. But even if it's a way that doesn't meet Ms. Lydgate's approval, it's still our choice. Ghandi once said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progresses can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Buddha is attributed as saying, "When a man has pity on all living creatures, then only is he noble." Personally, I am proud to be living in a society where pets are valued and people will spend thousands of their hard-earned dollars on good, compassionate care for their pets. Dr. Bob Ulbrich Whole Pet Veterinary Clinic Southeast 23rd Avenue Chris Lydgate responds: While I've been savaged in the WW letters column many times, I can't recall ever undergoing an involuntary sex change before. Luckily, thanks to the miracle of Neuticles, I look and feel exactly the same.