Pet Monologues

Here is a thoughtful and compassionate article by Sarah Hartwell with regard to cats. Dogs, birds, elephants, horses, many animals for that matter, experience these feelings. Knowlege of the grieving process puts us in better touch with feelings, a good thing.

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When a cat dies, owners often notice behavioral changes in their remaining cats. Some of these are due to adapting to a changed hierarchy, but other behavioral changes are due to a sense of loss. Many cats grieve the loss of a close human companion and others show signs of loss when a canine companion ides or goes missing.

It is impossible to say exactly what emotions cats feel, but when a close companion goes missing they are certainly be aware of the absence. It is unlikely that they mourn in the human sense of the word, but there will be some behavioral changes as they adjust to the gap in their lives.

What is grief?

Grief is the result of abrupt or unexpected severing of attachment. Cats are aware that a familiar person or companion cat is absent and may search for that person or cat. The death or absence may change an established hierarchy as well as being the absence of a familiar companion. While this is not the ritualised grief of humans, the sudden absence of something familiar is distressing to many cats. Mother cats whose kittens were taken away and destroyed often looked for their kittens for many days, all the while pacing and crying out. As well as the physical pain of engorged mammary glands, the cats displayed mental pain. Read the rest of this entry »

Ringling Brothers will stand trial for elephant abuse.

WASHINGTON—Today, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the federal district court in Washington D.C. issued a major ruling rejecting the last-ditch attempt of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus to avoid trial over charges that the circus abuses its Asian elephants in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act. Read the rest of this entry »

eBay tells Vick chew on this in same breath cancels abused pet fundraiser.

Is it true that eBay is canceling a charity auction to help abused pets? Read the rest of this entry »

God love Stephon Marbury for being bright and compassionate enough to create a $14 basketball shoe so kids don’t get robbed and beaten up over their $200 Air Jordan’s. Well, he must have had a brain cramp saying dog fighting is a sport, “just like deer hunting.” Now where does the fickle finger of fate point to?

The media just jumped all over Vick and dog fighting. And yesterday before Marbury’s blurb, in the Chicago Tribune, sports writer Rick Morrissey is quick and right to point out what the media did and how misplaced our senses are.

“But the convulsive reaction to the Vick case has made it obvious we’ve lost our sense of proportion. Dogs are defenseless, and we humans are quick to protect the defenseless. It is one of our better qualities. But a woman in the hands of a 230-pound elite athlete is more or less defenseless, too, and I can’t remember any case of domestic abuse, sexual assault or murder involving an NFL player that sparked this kind of public outrage.”

Rick closes with “A little perspective, please—especially the next time a player attacks a woman. Another incident should be happening any day now.”

He’s saying let’s get our priorities straight and how the media impacts issues. When the media goes “hunting” for something, they usually bag it. Deer hunters, unavailable for comment. Marbury, eyes open, ears on.

For Rick’s full story
The Greater Outrage

by Odessa (?)

Hi my Friend,

Oreo, I’m so sad to have to tell you this: Barney, one of our pet apple snails, died this Christmas eve. We were all very sad. Mom even cried. Barney and Mom were very close you know.

After Mom removed Barney from her home aquarium and put her to rest, Mom dried her eyes, pulled up a chair and started to tell us all about Barney’s life.

It was not a sad story Mom told us, Oreo, and it wasn’t not only about Barney’s life. This story of Barney’s life could be the story of millions of other pet apple snail lives all rolled into one story. I decided that I wanted to shareher story with you Oreo as I know you will be as interested init as I and my mates were.

Barney’s life was not at all like our lives. Barney was an amphibious snail. Where as you and I will live all our life on dry land, amphibious snails like Barney live their lives in water but they must come up to the surface of their aquariums, streams or ponds to breathe. They also lay their eggs just above the water’s surface. The rest of the time they spend under water. Read the rest of this entry »

Changes to Law That Saved Many Species May Result in Its Extinction

© Dawn M. Smith

The ESA as it is now proposed would not have saved many species. Minimizing the importance of critical habitat is one of the key issues in the changes being considered.

One of US wildlife preservation’s most important documents is being torn apart by the present administration. The way the Endangered Species Act of 1973 is being rewritten today might have spelled extinction for the California condor, the grey wolf, grizzly bears and the American bald eagles if it were in place when each of these species was being considered for listing.

Three issues are of concern. First, the new ruling, if approved, would only apply to species in areas they currently occupy, not their historic range. Secondly, states, not the federal government, would have the primary right to decide on how species are handled in their area. And finally, the ability to protect critical habitat would be severely reduced. Read the rest of this entry »

Can cats talk? Many cat owners would like to think so and some even claim that their cats speak a number of recognisable words. A Brazilian cat takes claims one step further by apparently being able to sing a number of well known songs while the Fortean Times carried a report of a cat which speaks several words in Turkish and suggested, with tongue firmly in cheek, that the reason many owners cannot understand their cats is because the cats are speaking Turkish. But before cat-owners rush out for phrase books, are these cats really speaking or are their owners just talking turkey?
Photo: Kevin Steele

For humans, the terms ’speech’ and ‘talk’ are not restricted to vocalization, but encompass human body language (which most of us read without realising it), gestural languages (sign language) and tactile languages (of deaf-blind individuals) which are equally expressive among those fluent in their use. Further, human language comprises both verbal and non-verbal components (including the written extension of body language through gestural substitutes such as the , symbols within Internet communication). Read the rest of this entry »

If you have pets, you may have wondered whether they know what you’re thinking. Perhaps your cat hides when you start planning a trip to the vet. Or maybe your dog runs in circles when you think about going out to play. Both of these events can have logical explanations. Your cat might have heard you pull the carrier off the shelf; your dog must have seen you glance at a favorite ball. Read the rest of this entry »

Another pet food recall. COLUMBIA, S.C. - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that at least 76 dogs nationwide are believed to have died as a result of eating contaminated Diamond Pet Foods. [RK] Read the rest of this entry »