Tag Archives: pets

Bless the Beasts and the Children

We have a sick dog…

A middle aged, Rescue Dog with a history of abuse that has come so far thanks to Loving Pet Inn Adoptions, his Foster Mom, his trainer and us….

He now has an injured paw that requires a “collar” to keep him from chewing on it…

With a Rescue Dog, this is a big challenge….

I’m so grateful to our supportive friends and excellent vet that have guided us through this little mini-trauma…

But I also can’t help but think of Cecil the Lion and that whole horrible story…..

Animals really are a gift to us all.  If there is a god or goddess, they are their way of bringing us down to earth and the basics of existence.

And the basics of love…

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Owner Sends ‘Gay’ Dog To Be Euthanized

Too bad the dog couldn’t send his owner to be euthanized for stupidity….

Good news is the dog was saved…

Bad news is there is nothing to stop someone this ignorant, cruel and heartless from getting another one…

Let’s just hope he never has a Gay child…

Excerpt from the Huffington Post with link to full story:

A Tennessee dog owner sent his pet to be euthanized because he suspected the dog was “gay.” Fortunately, the pup was later adopted.

A Jackson, Tenn., resident surrendered his “gay” dog for euthanization to the Jackson Rabies Control Animal Shelter on Jan. 29 because he saw his male pitbull/American bulldog mix “humping” another male dog, the Examiner reports.

The Huffington Post confirmed with Jackson Rabies Control, a high-kill shelter, that the dog had been surrendered because his owner believed he was “gay.”

Although animals can be gay, dogs mount each other to express dominance, for play or because of nervousness/excitement, Psychology Today notes.

A Facebook campaign was set up to try and save the “gay” dog, according to the Atlantic. A Facebook post detailing the troubling situation called for immediate action.

via Owner Sends ‘Gay’ Dog To Be Euthanized (PHOTO).

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Cat Ladies Beware!

A parasite carried by cats could increase the suicide risk in women…

Slightly….

As a staunch kitty advocate, I just find this interesting and somewhat amusing….

And too good not to post….

But stand by your cats!

From NPR:

There’s fresh evidence that cats can be a threat to your mental health.

To be fair, it’s not kitties themselves that are the problem, but a parasite they carry called Toxoplasma gondii.

A study of more than 45,000 Danish women found that those infected with this feline parasite were 1.5 times more likely to attempt suicide than women who weren’t infected.

That’s not a huge increase, but it’s probably too big to have been caused by chance, says Teodor Postolache, a University of Maryland psychiatrist and senior author of the paper, which was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Still, the absolute risk of suicide remains very small. Fewer than 1,000 of the women attempted any sort of self-directed violence during the 30-year study span. And just seven committed suicide.

But this isn’t the first time T. gondii infection, or toxoplasmosis, has been associated with behavioral changes in people, Postolache says. Previous studies have shown links to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and even the chance that a person will get in an automobile accident.

The T. gondii parasite lives in the intestines of cats. Cat owners can become infected when they change a litter box, Postolache says. But he says people are more likely to be infected when they eat vegetables or meat that are raw or undercooked.

“People should not give their cats away” because of this study, Postolache says.

Scientists still aren’t sure how the parasite affects a person’s brain, he says. But in rodents, it causes cysts to form in areas of the brain involved in behavior.

More:   A Parasite Carried By Cats Could Increase Suicide Risk : Shots – Health Blog : NPR.

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Mitt Romney’s Dog: His Story

It seems Mitt Romney’s dog has recorded his own music video….

This story says so much about Romney’s character- or lack there of–I’m really glad it won’t go away….

I’m also glad Seamus finally gets to put forth his point of view of the infamous episode….

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Did Mitt Romney’s Dog Seek Asylum In Canada?

I really don’t blame Romney for trying to lie his way out of this horrible story…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  How people treat their pets is the biggest indicator of their true character….

And Romney strapping his poor dog on the roof of the car in a pet carrier was, at best thoughtless, at worst cruel.  I think both…

This is a very serious character flaw..

He just doesn’t care about other living creatures unless they are rich Republicans like himself…

This man shouldn’t be dogcatcher, much less President….

From Politicker:

 

Mitt Romney may not have told the whole truth about the scandalous tale of his Irish Setter, Seamus, being strapped to the roof of his car during a 12-hour family road trip to Canada. According to a trusted Politicker tipster, two of Mr. Romney’s sons had an off-record conversation with reporters where they revealed the dog ran away when they reached their destination on that infamous journey in 1983.

Mr. Romney’s wife, Ann, has previously said Seamus survived the trip and went on to live to a “ripe old age.” As of this writing, Mr. Romney’s campaign has not responded to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Seamus’ story first came to light in a 2007 Boston Globe profile of Mr. Romney that told the story of the voyage to his father’s cottage in the gated Beach O’ Pines community on Ontario’s Lake Huron:

“The white Chevy station wagon with the wood paneling was overstuffed with suitcases, supplies, and sons when Mitt Romney climbed behind the wheel to begin the annual 12-hour family trek from Boston to Ontario. … Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack. He’d built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.

According to the Globe, Mr. Romney told his family he would “be making predetermined stops for gas, and that was it,” but one of his sons, Tagg, eventually noticed something was amiss:

As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

Mr. Romney responded to his dog’s defecation by “coolly” stopping at a gas station where he “borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway” with Seamus strapped back on the roof.

The Globe initially presented the story as an example of Mr. Romney’s “emotion-free crisis management,” but the incident has enraged many animal lovers and caused many issues on the campaign trail. Seamus inspired an attack ad from Mr. Romney’s Republican rival Newt Gingrich, a “Google bomb” coining “Romney” as a verb meaning “to defecate in terror,” a mocking Tweet from President Barack Obama’s advisor, David Axelrod, and, of course, an angry statement from PETA.

via Did Mitt Romney’s Dog Seek Asylum In Canada? | Politicker.

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How Romney Treats His Dog Shows His True Character

I think how one treats one’s pets says more about their character than just about anything else….

And Mitt Romney showed a careless disregard for the comfort, feelings and safety of his pet when he put him in a crate on the top of the car and drove for 12 hours on vacation…

I don’t see how we can expect him to treat people any less callously…

Even most Conservative Republicans treat their dogs better than Romney did…

He’s really in a league of his own here and to me it shows a total lack of compassion, poor judgement, objectification of animals and pretty poor  critical thinking skills…

Here’s an excerpt from  great column from Susan Estrich in the Courier Post about Romney and how he treated his dog…

Apparently she agrees with me…..

Presidential elections are, in a very fundamental way, tests of character. You can’t predict all the issues or crises that will face the person you elect president, which means that character, ultimately, counts for more than position papers and platforms.

And in my book, as a dog lover, nothing tells you as much about a person’s character as how they treat their dog.

So what are we to make of that infamous family vacation during which Romney put the dog in a crate on top of the car — for 12 hours? Or the more recent revelations that the dog and the crate had to be hosed down a few hours into the trip when his bowels gave way?

 

via SUSAN ESTRICH: Romney’s care of dog may attest to his character | Courier-Post | courierpostonline.com.

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Abandoned for Two Weeks, Starving Dogs Eat Owner

Serves him right….

You certainly can’t blame the poor, starving dogs….

From YahooNews:

 

Seven dogs starved of food and water for two weeks are suspected of eating their Indonesian owner after he returned to his hometown in Manado from a holiday, local media reported on Tuesday.A neighborhood guard was curious when he saw luggage lined up at the front of Andre Lumbogas house, days after the 50-year old arrived back home. He approached the house, smelled something foul and called the police, according to a report.”His skull was found in the kitchen, and his body was found in the front of his house,” Eriyana, a local police chief in Batam, an island off Sumatra, told VIVAnews website.Lumboga arrived home last Wednesday, but his body was just discovered on Monday.”We suspect that the dogs were hungry, so they attacked Andre, because they had not been fed for 14 days,” he said.

via Abandoned for two weeks, starving dogs eat owner – Yahoo! News.

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Are Cats Bad for the Environment?

As a cat lover, I had to read this article….

It’s extremely interesting and thought provoking.  It’s  about the effects of feral cats on the ecological system- not house pets.

This makes it even more clear:  Everyone must spay and neuter your cats and dogs!  It’s just irresponsible not to do so….

Here’s an excerpt from the article., by Kiera Butler, in “Mother Jones” with a link to the full version:

 

A little black cat lives in the crawl space under my house. Some weeks I see him every day, darting back into his burrow as I pull into the driveway. Then he’ll disappear for weeks at a time, and just when I’m sure that he’s found cushier digs, he comes back, like the cat in the old children’s song. He’s not much of a charmer—skinny, mangy, limping, and so feral that he bolts at the mere sight of people. But I can’t help feeling sorry for him, so a few months ago I began leaving out cat food. I congratulated myself on this great solution: He’d get a square meal and maybe keep the mice away, too. But when I told an ecologist I know, she was horrified. “Basically,” she said, “you’re subsidizing a killer.”

via Are Cats Bad for the Environment? | Mother Jones.

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Little Sheba Came Back: Dog Crawls Home on Two Broken Legs After Tornado

I love this story about this dog.

He managed to crawl home on broken legs two weeks after the tornado sucked him out of his house’s garage.

So much love, dedication and determination….

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Big Ag Wants To Make It a Crime to Expose Animal Abuse at Factory Farms | | AlterNet

This is almost unbelievable…

But not much is really unbelievable when Big Business controls the government…

And one thing politicians and corporate executives both fear is being exposed on the internet by regular people with cell phone cameras, etc…

Their best defense is to operate in secrecy.  They’ll do anything they can to keep out of the limelight-except when the Corporate owned politicians are  running their their talking points in front of patriotic backgrounds trying to get re-elected.

Reagan proved “image is everything” and they are still trying to get by with style- and media control- over substance and a free press.

The last thing they want is an empowered electorate or average people having the tools to blow their image….

In Florida, the Humane Society of the United States and other groups pushed for the adoption of the first statewide law in the country to restrict the extreme confinement of animals on factory farms. In 2002, voters there passed Amendment 10, to phase out the caging of breeding sows in gestation crates. In Iowa, HSUS and other animal welfare groups have conducted a series of undercover investigations (see the video) to expose cruelty in the nation’s biggest factory farming state.

Now, these two states have something else in common. They are trying to make it a crime to photograph or videotape farm animals. They don’t want to criminalize animal cruelty, but they do want to make criminals of people trying to document abuse and to put an end to the cruelty. Lawmakers have introduced bills in both states to establish criminal penalties for going undercover at agricultural facilities and simply taking pictures.

Mind you, if this legislation is enacted, it won’t just be a setback for animal welfare. Shabby, squalid, overcrowded conditions for animals on factory farms are also a food-safety threat for Americans, with millions of Americans sickened every year by contaminated food. It was, of course, an Iowa egg factory farm that was forced to recall half a billion eggs last year because of a Salmonella outbreak, creating one of the biggest food product recalls in American history.

With a potentially dramatic pare-back of funding for federal inspections of animal-agriculture operations looming, at production and slaughter facilities, these new proposed policies to bar the exposure of unhealthy and unsafe practices could not come at a more inopportune time. The industry has long argued for self-regulation, and with government inspection programs stretched so thin, they now want no meddling animal advocacy groups looking either.

via Big Ag Wants To Make It a Crime to Expose Animal Abuse at Factory Farms | | AlterNet.

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