I had the pleasure — my therapist says the misfortune — of growing up in a doggy dynasty. My grandpa showed dogs at Westminster, my father’s a dog breeder, my mom owned the Miami area’s biggest puppy shop — the list of dog industry relatives goes on and on. My heritage didn’t traumatize me because of the way my parents cared for animals (my mom loves dogs so much that she keeps all her dead pets’ ashes in marble urns; until recently, she kept my grandpa’s ashes in a cardboard box), but because extremists targeted us. PETA protested my mom’s puppy store on the weekends. When I was a teenager, Animal Liberation Front member Camille Marino, who later served prison time for tying herself to a medical researcher’s door, threatened to kill my mother and chanted that I was a “blood baby.” Last year, I called Marino to ask what a blood baby was; she didn’t remember, but she maintained my mother should die.
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