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  • If animals had an election.

    Who would be the next President of the animal kingdom…

    Find some answers here

    Join the forum discussion on this post - (2) Posts

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  • Here Kobe, here.

    Kobe Bryant’s popularity extends even to the animal kingdom. From a database of more than 465,000 pet insured animals including dogs, cats, birds, and exotic domesticated animals, 359 are named “Kobe,” making it the 189th most popular name of 65,536 pet names across the nation. Five pets in the database are named “LeBron,” two are name “Yao Ming,” and there’s a “Boston Garnett” along with a “Dirk Nowitzki.”

    The most unusual sports name in the pet world, however, might belong to a Yorkshire Terrier that answers to “Kobe Shaq Jackson.” via los angeles times

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  • Dress up games.

    For Halloween one needs a creative tool to dress up Fluffy and Buddy. Here it is! Dressup games. My cute pet dressup.

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  • Pets vote.

    “Even our dogs and cats have learned that elections matter.” vice president Al Gore Click on a dog to buy a vote for Bark Obama or McCanine. Check in daily to see who is pulling on the lead…

    visit petsvote

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  • Pets. Dead people. Asked to vote.
    CHICAGO — More than 1,000 phony registrations were submitted, Lake County official says. Dogs, goldfish and dead people were sent voter registration forms by mistake as part of an aggressive registration drive in the northern suburbs, Lake County Clerk Willard Helander said Friday. "This is nothing like we've ever seen before," Helander said in a news conference in Waukegan, where election workers identified more than 1,000 phony registrations submitted over the past few weeks. Helander blamed the problem on a group called the Voters Participation Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that is a project of Women's Voices/Women's Vote based in Washington, D.C. Sarah Johnson, a Women's Voices spokeswoman, said the group uses a commercial data list generated by a national vendor to send out registration forms and that mistakes happen. "Sometimes . . . people think it's funny to get a magazine addressed to their cat or their dog, and when they do that, their cat or dog ends up on the list," Johnson said. "But we're just trying to make it as easy as possible for people to register and vote." Election officials in Oregon, Kentucky and other states have complained that the Women's Voices project has caused confusion. A record 401,935 Lake County residents are registered for the Nov. 4 election. via chicago tribune [1] [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-lake-voter-fraud-both-18-oct18,0,7157423.story
  • Great Lakes wolf killing stopped.
    Court Reverses Bush Decision to Strip Protection From Wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Breaking News! Agreeing with a Center for Biological Diversity legal action, a federal judge today overturned a 2007 Bush administration decision to remove Great Lakes area wolves from the endangered species list. The ruling puts an immediate halt on the killing of hundreds of wolves in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. While the Great Lakes wolf population has increased to 4,000 individuals under the protective cover of the Endangered Species Act, the species is still missing from most of its historic range, including the Northeast, the southern Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, and the West Coast. Rather than developing a national wolf recovery strategy, the Bush administration craftily abandoned wolf recovery in most of the country by delisting wolves in the Great Lakes and the northern Rocky Mountains and declaring that the lack of wolves in other areas relieves the administration of any responsibility to continue recovery actions. In today's ruling, the judge agreed with the Center's amicus argument that stripping protection from local populations while refusing to consider the recovery of wolves throughout the lower 48 appears to violate the central purpose of the Endangered Species Act. The precedent setting ruling will protect hundreds of species from this backdoor strategy of abandoning species recovery. This is the second major victory in two weeks for the Center's wolf recovery fund. On September 16, the government announced it would give up defending against our northern Rockies wolf lawsuit. Thanks for supporting the wolf defense fund and sending thousands of emails and petitions objecting to the slaughter of wolves in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. This victory couldn't have happened without your help. Thanks also to our litigation allies at the Humane Society, Help Our Wolves Live, the Animal Protection Institute, and Friends of Animals and Their Environment.
  • Endangered species act under assault.
    Send Comments to Secretary Kempthorne. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced devastating changes to the Endangered Species Act, signaling the end of protection for thousands of imperiled species. The new regulations would: - Exempt thousands of federal activities from review under the Endangered Species Act; - Eliminate checks and balances of independent oversight; - Limit which effects can be considered harmful; - Prevent consideration of a project’s contribution to global warming; - Set an inadequate 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project in the instances when they are invited to participate – or else the project gets an automatic green light; - Enable large-scale projects to go unreviewed by dividing them into hundreds of small projects. We must stop Kempthorne from fatally crippling our nation’s most successful wildlife law. Take action today. [1] [1] http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/t/5243/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25351
  • Porpoises belly up to low-fat diet.
    TOKYO — Dolphins at a Japanese marine park are going on a low-fat diet after developing potbellies and failing to look sharp in their aquatic performances. Kinosaki Marine World in western Japan said Tuesday that all its 19 dolphins have been on a low-fat diet since late August, when they started failing to hit jumping targets and keep upright while treading water. "We were puzzled by their poor performance. Then we noticed they looked rounder," said park spokesman Haruo Imazu. Keepers weighed them and found all had gotten plumper, some up to 22 pounds heavier just during the summer. All had the same menu—about 31 pounds of mackerel mixed with some white fish — but keepers found the mackerels had gotten fattier, adding too many calories. Keepers immediately put them on a weight-loss program, feeding them more white fish and less fatty mackerel while instituting an exercise regime, Imazu said. Less fat and moderate exercise seem to be working. via chicago tribune [1] [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-dolphins_01oct01,0,4672913.story
  • Man punches shark. Saves dog.

    SLAMORADA, Fla. — A dog is recovering after a Florida Keys carpenter dove in to save his pet from a shark.

    Greg LeNoir said he took his 14-pound rat terrier Jake for a daily swim at a marina Friday.

    The 5-foot shark suddenly surfaced and grabbed nearly the entire dog in its mouth.

    LeNoir said he yelled, then balled up his fists and dove headfirst into the water. He hit the shark in the back and the creature finally let go of the dog.

    Man and dog made it safely back to shore. The dog suffered bite wounds but was not critically injured.

    PM editor’s note: OMG!

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  • Elephant killed by bus.
    MEXICO — A five-ton elephant was killed by a bus after it escaped from a circus in Mexico, and wandered onto a busy highway. Bus driver Tomas Lopez, 49, also died and at least four passengers were taken to hospital after the accident, which happened just before dawn on Tuesday in Ecatepec, north of Mexico City. The elephant had escaped from its cage at the Circo Union circus, according to Mexico State police spokesman Juan Sanchez, who said officers were still investigating the circumstances. It is understood that the 40-year-old animal, named Hilda, broke free as her keeper arrived to feed her. She apparently knocked down a metal door that led to the street and wandering through two neighbourhoods before trying to cross the road. Marcelino Ramos, 22, keeper at the Circo Union circus, told El Universal daily newspaper: "I untied her so she could eat. She never did this before, but suddenly she ran at full speed and broke through the gate." Police said the bus driver stood no chance of avoiding the elephant as it charged onto the road near the famous Teotihuacan pyramids. Last month, a 500lb lion escaped from a private zoo in southern Mexico. The animal killed two dogs and a pig and attacked a woman and child on a donkey before it was sedated and caught. via telegraph.co.uk [1] [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/3069003/Escaped-circus-elephant-killed-by-bus-in-Mexico.html



World Animal Day Share This


Maukie the cat!

More strays linked to once-happy homes.

On average, caring for a cat costs $1500 annually and a dog $2000.

With the U.S. economy currently on very shaky ground the falloff is tighter family budgets or worse, completely new business models for family households. In an effort to help keep households together, including family pets, let’s talk about possibly surrendering your pet to a shelter, how to pinch pennies on pet-care, and, a philosophic POV on saving animals.

Downsizing the family to make ends meet.

If you feel that you really can no longer afford your pet please consider finding another family for your pet first. If you can’t find a foster home then take the animal to a shelter, don’t abandon your animal. Here’s a story that was in the Chicago Tribune several weeks ago…

More strays linked to once-happy homes.
The sad stories have been all over the news. Pet owners who have fallen on hard times are coming into shelters and reluctantly, sometimes tearfully, surrendering their animals.

But the housing and economic downturns have sparked another trend, one that is potentially dangerous. People who can no longer afford their pets are opening their doors and turning them loose.

Charles Craft, the supervising animal-care clerk at Chicago’s Animal Care and Control facility, sees it we every day. More and more seemingly well-cared-for-pets—some wearing collars and name tags, others that are microchipped, a large percentage of purebreds—are being found as strays.

Animal Control tracks down the owners and sends them letters and phones them to let them know their pet has been found.

But the messages increasingly are ignored.

“What that means is the animal has been put on the street and the owner has no intention of redeeming them,” says Anne Kent, executive director of the Animal Care and Control Commission.

“There’s no shortage of them,” Craft says, leafing through a pile of forms listing pet owners who have been notified but who haven’t responded. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many. But (th e owners) are just not coming in.”

Kerry Vinkler, executive director of DuPage County Animal Care and Control, has seen an increase in abandoned pets, too, typically with animals let go in the forest preserve.

“And it’s not just dogs and cats,” she said, “We’re actually finding rabbits and ferrets and reptiles.”

It appears that people are reluctant to take their pets to a facility where they might have to be euthanized, and they believe the dog or cat can fend for itself in the wild.

“What you’re really doing is allowing them to be preyed upon by wild animals,” Vinkler said.

Increasingly, Chicago-area animal control facilities, shelters and rescues are devoting resources to programs aimed at keeping pets and their people together. Low-cost medical care, fostering programs, counseling, even money-saving tips on how to give your pet toys are all available, and the experts are eager to help people and their animals stay a family.

Saving money on pet care.

Here are a tips to help you save money in the long run.
1. Don’t buy expensive collars, beds, etc. Your dog doesn’t really care if he’s wearing designer sweaters and doggie collars. You don’t need a designer bed, why get one if your dog would rather sleep on your old comforter?

2. See your vet annually. Preventative measures are the best way to avoid high vet bills.

3. Feed your pet high quality pet food. Cheaper pet foods contain a lot of fillers that in the long run are not all that good for your pet. Also, feed your pet the right amount for his breed, activity level and age.

4. Consider investing in pet insurance. Pet insurance can help save money if an unexpected emergency should arise.

5. If you decide against pet insurance, save a pet emergency fund set up should something arise.

6. Spay and neuter your pets. Spaying and neutering dramatically reduces the risks of some cancers such as breast, uterine and testicular cancers.

7. Properly train your dog. A well socialized and trained dog has less risk of getting hit by a car or showing aggression toward other animals and humans.

8. Shop around for pet supplies, medications and veterinarians.

9. Learn to groom your pet yourself. Basic grooming is pretty straight-forward and easy to do. Ask your veterinarian about how to properly groom your pet.

10. Regularly brush your pet’s teeth. With dental cleaning creeping up to $200 a visit at your vet, preventative care is the best way to avoid this cost. Keeping your pet’s teeth clean is as easy as a daily cleaning and brushing.

11. Exercise your pet daily to avoid weight problems as well as behavior problems.

12. Don’t be afraid to ask your vet for a discount or samples of medications.

13. Attend garage sales. You can find toys, bowls, clippers, etc. all for less than buying new.

14. Only get the vaccinations your pet really needs. Some vaccinations are required by law, but you can work with your veterinarian to determine which ones your pet really needs and which ones he doesn’t.

15. Make your own pet treats and pet toys.

Saving pets

Also in the news stories about endangered animals, global warming and the effect on animals. Opinions are divided with some going so far to say, why try and save the animals, let nature take its course. We will stick to pets and think about why should be save the pets. Another POV…

n the July 30, 2007 issue of Newsweek, Frederick R. Lynch told the story of how he spent $11,000 (US) in veterinary bills to save his cat, Fritz. Fritz was suffering from cancer and required numerous medical procedures. While Lynch’s story made it into the pages of Newsweek, his choice is not uncommon. Other people, including some close friends, have done the same for their beloved pets.

Of course, some people would see spending that much on a pet to be a waste of money. Those that give the matter some thought might say that the money could do more good if spent on something else rather than to save a pet. For example, the money could be spent to help another human being.

While that view has some merit, the same can be said in regards to most of what people spend money on. People, at least in wealthy countries like the United States, routinely spend money on luxury items. For example, if someone buys herself a new iPod, that money could have done more good if it had been donated to help a starving person.

As another example, think of the extremely expensive parties that stars throw. These parties can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more)-all for one night of enjoyment. As another example, think of all the other ways wealthy people spend money on needless luxuries. This money could do a great deal of good if spent on other things. If such spending were acceptable (which might not be the case), then spending money on a pet would certainly be acceptable. In fact, when compared to such luxury spending, saving a pet is quite laudable

Perhaps the best argument in favor of spending money to save a pet is based on love. In the case of spending money to save a human, such a parent spending large amounts of money to save a sick child, it is also the case that the money could be spent to do more good elsewhere. For example, the money spent on expensive cancer treatments for a child could be used to save many children who have conditions that are less expensive to treat. However, a parent who spent the money to save her child instead of helping strangers would not be regarded as doing something wrong. In fact, she would most likely be praised for her devotion to her child.

In the case of the parent, she is justified in her choice because of her relationship to her child-he is someone she loves. Now, if this applies in the case of human beings, then it should also apply to pets as well. After all, people love their pets very much.

It might be objected that a human is worth more than a pet. Perhaps that is true. But, the same could be said of individual humans. The money the mother spends on her child could have been used to save people who are better than her child. Unless he is the best human in the world, then there would be other people who could be helped who would be better. The important difference is not who is better-but who is loved by the person spending the money.

via PetSupplies4Less.com and Saving pets

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One Response to “More strays linked to once-happy homes.”

  1. Wavatar pet sitter UNITED STATES Says:

    i\’m gonna pass this on to my customers

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