Pet Monologues

Many in our industry get regular announcements from the Humane Society (HSUS) and here is one in part from Wayne Pacell, president/CEO of HSUS from his blog…

Into the Breach

The request arrived at the headquarters of the disaster response team at 3:18 p.m. on Monday afternoon.

Within an hour, Dr. Barry Kellogg, veterinarian and acting director of disaster services for The Humane Society of the United States, “pushed the button.” Local authorities in San Diego needed our help. Our professionals answered. They shouldered their packs and began the race westward and southward—trained people bringing trucks, portable clinics, equipment and a devotion to the task. Hundreds more trained disaster responders have been contacted, and they are standing at the ready if a second wave of personnel are needed.

Every second meant greater risk for animals in trouble.

Horses stand in a pen on Oct. 23 as fire threatens
the Bonita neighborhood in San Diego.

Firestorms were advancing uncontrollably across great swaths of Southern California, displacing tens of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands of people and their pets—plus an unknown number of farm and wild animals. Although California is no stranger to the autumn cycle of Santa Ana winds and wildfires, this maelstrom stretching from the Mexico border north beyond Los Angeles was like none in memory. Read the rest of this entry »

Center for Biological Diversity. Save endangered species.

Dear PM,

We’re in the fight of our lives to save the Endangered Species Act from an all-out attack by the Bush administration, and we need your help! Read the rest of this entry »

Hair ye, hair ye.

Something you don’t see often—a fur-free guinea pig.

The “Skinny Pig” was created for lab testing in the 1970s but is now the UK’s must-have pet.


Woolly jumper—the animals need to wrap up in winter

The baldies must wear factor 50 suncream in the summer, a jumper in the winter and need their dry skin moisturized. They also eat three times more than standard guinea pigs to keep warm. Breeders have set up waiting lists to meet demand as desperate pet lovers pay up to £150 ($214US).

What’s the fuzz?

Source: A mermaid! Thanks Fishalicious!

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This post celebrates World Animal Day and Bless the Animals. Follow the links to learn more about PM’s initiative which started on October 4.

The following photos are from Andrew Zuckerman’s new book, Creature.

Cat

African Crested Porcupine

Chimpanzee
Here is the opening paragraph in the epilogue…The images you see in this book are the end product of a journey of discover and learning how to connect with the soul and essence of all creatures. In animals, as in humans, the eye connects the creature to the outside world and centres our focus to see deeper into the heart and very nature of the creature. The goal of these images is to intensify the viewers connection to the animals and inspire new perspectives on the familiar and immediate linkage to creatures we have never seen before. Like all journeys, early life experiences and chance occurances along the way shape the evolution of ones approach to art.

Source: creaturebook.com Andrew Zuckerman. All rights reserved.

This post was placed in response to the World Animal Day 2008 initiative. All images can be seen at Bless Animals.

Animal art has been on our brain for several weeks when we got sidetracked with World Animal Day. Then last week we visited “Watermark” and found, yes “Cats in art” which inspired this post. We will title this “Cats in art” also so it will be easy to find. A good place to start is Egypt.

A wall painting fragment in the tomb of Amenemheb at Thebes in Egypt depicts the deceased nobleman standing in his boat and driving the birds from a papyrus swamp with a stick. Just in front of him his hunting cat has caught two birds in its front and hind claws and is holding the wings of a third bird in its teeth. [c. 1450 B.C., wall painting fragment, Thebes]

The cat was sacred to the Egyptian goddess Bast. Cemeteries containing the bodies of mummified sacred cats have been discovered with bronze statues of cats. We were, and are, simply divine. [c. 600 B.C., bronze, Egypt]

Cats are known to have been a part of Egyptian households by 1600 B.C. although they were not deified until much later. This touching portrayal of a mama cat with her kitten provides a glimpse of domestic life in the good old days when cats were everyday objects of worship. [c. 600 B.C., bronze, Egypt]

Source: netserve.com
Inspiration: Watermark

Scientific Name: Botia macracanthus
Other Scientific Name(s): Cobitis macracanthus, Botia macrocanthus
Common Name: Clown Loach

Clown loaches are very popular aquarium fish; however they are not always easy to keep successfully since they easily succumb to ick and are sensitive to poor water conditions. This article is intended to help new clown loach owners provide a good home for their loaches. Clown loaches are found in Indonesia (Sumatra and Borneo), and almost all clown loaches in aquariums are wild caught and distributed around the world before being sold. This can put considerable stress on the fish, and a vital step in getting a healthy clown loach school in your aquarium is choosing healthy fish. But how to make sure that you get healthy fish?

Image from Dorling Kindersley

- Check the general conditions in the fish store. Are there dead fish in the aquariums? Is the water clean? If some tanks are mistreated there is a good chance that there might be unfavourable conditions in others too. Only buy fish from stores that take good care of their aquariums.

- How do the clown loaches look? Clown loaches can give you an indication of their condition based on their coloration. A healthy clown loach shows clear distinct colours, while a stressed one loses its colours and becomes whiter. Only buy loaches that show their correct colours.

- Are the clown loaches well fed? Those that haven’t been fed correctly are hard to nurse back to health, and it is more than likely you will end up with a dead fish if you buy one. Look at their bodies and see if they look well fed, and ask the shopkeepers how often and what the loaches are fed.

- Are the clown loaches active? Healthy clown loaches are very active and full of energy. A healthy clown loach should be hard to catch. Read the rest of this entry »

This post celebrates World Animal Day and Bless the Animals. Follow the links to learn more about PM’s initiative which started on October 4.

Clever doesn’t begin to describe
the canny soul who, for nearly seventeen
years, walked and wagged among us,
affecting the affect of the duke of all dogdom,
a dachshund, but who, in fact,
worked the world like a room and got mail.

Sly his disguise as this most glorious
of canines; peerless, flawless, albeit
not immune to vanity–that ravishing red coat.

The question remains: Who was Harvey?
Moses back with a bark?
The Babe without a bat?
Gandhi with a growl?
MR. PRESLEY?

Come on, Harvey, speak!
We know you’re up there emailing.

Written by Lucia Blinn