Pet Monologues

Responsible Pet Owners Alliance: SAN ANTONIO. We need your help to get objectionable provisions of the San Antonio Chapter 5 Animal Ordinance Revision removed. Read the rest of this entry »

Caw to art! is an effort to showcase pets and animals in an ARTFUL manner. A photograph, fine art, a scribble, sculpture. A poem, a monologue, a short story, motion.

Submissions
Resonant Enigma submits Meh-heh-heh
Tom Varisco Designs submits “Berlin”
Herbert Murrie submits “Birds of Paradise”
Pet Monologues submits Red Wolf: Dog named Balto
Studio@OneZeroCharlie submits Rural Records
vat19.comslashblog submits Curiously Awesome Cat Man (art of cat training)
Movie Cat submits Dan in Real Life
Pet Monologues finds Frootbat Friday at Dragonheartsdomain
Pet Monologues submits WaMu WoOf!
Keir Royale submits Pet don’t always win prizes
Resonant Enigma submits Warm Belly

Berlin

Birds of Paradise

Dragonheart

Still steeping…

…in the meantime. Questions? Comments? Editor’s note: please look at Comment 1 below for more C2a! details…

and while you are curating your submissions don’t forget Friday Ark roster for this weekend. And Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday next hosted by Pet’s Garden Blog this 11/18.

Center for Biological Diversity. Support fossil creek wild and scenic designation!

Thanks to your support, Fossil Creek in central Arizona is one step closer to becoming a congressionally designated Wild and Scenic River! Read the rest of this entry »

Invertebrate is an English word that describes any animal without a spinal column. The group includes 97% of all animal species—all animals except those in the Chordate subphylum Vertebrata (fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals).

Carolus Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae divided these animals into only two groups, the Insecta and the Vermes.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who was appointed to the position of “Curator of Insecta and Vermes” at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in 1793, both coined the term “invertebrate” to describe such and divided the original two groups into ten. They are now classified into over 30 phyla, from simple organisms such as sponges and flatworms to complex animals such as arthropods and molluscs. (thank you Wikipedia!)

Do you want to see words and pictures of spiders, sponges, snails, sea mats, squids, leeches, jellyfish, crabs, and of course graptolites?

Go no further. Visit The Other 95% who hosts Circus of the Spineless #26. We will let the author explain the 2% difference.

This event happens monthly. Have fun!

Don’t forget to check out Friday Ark hosted by Modulator for a chance to catch the entire 100%. Here is a peek at last Friday’s Friday Ark #162

Ellen Degenres brought “rescue” and “shelter” to the media. A good thing because when people talk, issues are better understood. It’s been a week. Let’s review.

Public reaction
The public response was swift, polarized, and far reaching. There were few surprise reactions with the exception of Craig’s List pet forum. PM was somewhat surprised by how the pet forum responded. Because this pet forum is an experienced, emotional, pro-adoption group, we expected the forum to attack the shelter for taking dogs away from a home, from children. On the contrary, CL sentiment was that Ellen should have read the contract, called the shelter, and not take this public on her show. The shelter got death threats.

The skinny
The inevitable inaccuracies are identified. We learn that her new dog was at a dog trainer for most of the days under Ellen’s care. That the shelter, Mom’s & Mutts, didn’t go to the media first. That the dog was finally, and confidentially, placed. That taking this to the airwaves is not going Ellen’s way a week later. That the shelter has not budged telling Ellen “If Ellen wants to place dogs and decide what’s a good home, then she should start her own rescue group. But I’m the one doing this and I know what I’m doing.” We learn that Ellen has given away a pooch(es) before.

Rearview mirror
It could be concluded that this was a fight between a star and an animal rescue group. Both sides trying to do what they thought was best for the dog. That there are two sides to whether the animal should be returned to the shelter: The American Humane Association “recommends” a more open adoption process that does not require the animal be returned to the shelter. Mom’s & Mutts, among other shelters, are standing fast: return the dog to the shelter. Most everyone stresses that the shelter or adoption agency should be kept in the loop and made aware of the pet’s whereabouts. Read the rest of this entry »

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

This event appears to have started on 24 September 2004! Cats, Dogs, Spiders and ? every Friday? Nah, does not add up. But! The author will post links to sites that have Friday photos of their chosen animals as he/she sees them(no photoshops and no humans).

Image from Dorling Kindersley

The bloggers gather on the banks Of the Chattahoochee. Yes, the Friday Ark sets sail once again, this time on its 160th voyage. Go check it out at the Modulator.

Older than us?

George Mackenzie Dunnet was a well-known Scottish ornithologist who passed away in 1995, aged 67. The photograph that accompanies his obituary shows a timeworn face, mostly bald head and grey locks clinging to temples. However, his sense of fun survives—literally.

Throughout his life George studied fulmars on Eynhallow in the Orkney Islands.He had his picture taken in 1951 holding a ringed fulmar when he was a young man and, by great coincidence, had it taken again 30 years later with the same bird. Personal vanity was brushed aside in his admiration for the fulmar’s unchanged looks.

Meanwhile, the bird lives on. It is a sobering thought that, when ringed, it was already a mature breeding adult making its true age a mystery.

Unlike humans, birds do not go grey or develop wrinkles. If their outward appearance does not change, how can we tell their age? In most cases ringing provides data on lifespan and longevity. Natural clues to the precise age of a bird are few and only serve to chart survival into adulthood—not beyond. Small birds replace distinctive juvenile plumage with that of an adult within months of being born. After this, their looks do not alter. Larger birds take several years to reach maturity during which time they grow progressively more adult-like feathers. Brown juvenile gannets acquire white plumage resembling their parents’ through a series of moults over a five-year period. Read the rest of this entry »

Eco-friendly pet toys and accessories…

Get green! Make a statement! For you and your pet!

“I think people should be more aware and not just assume everything is safe,” says Chicago veterinarian Julie Mayer. “They should be skeptical and critics of products out there.

“We need to read the labels. We have to educate ourselves, because no one is going to help us out, unfortunately.”

Here, then, are a few ways you and your dog and cat can live greener lives, and some problems to watch out for.

Wipe and paws

Wash their feet after they come in. What the dogs pick up from outside—animal and human waste, traces of pollution and car exhaust, etc.—can find its way into their systems as they groom themselves. Anything you can do to keep them clean is beneficial. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists amazed at fish tag journey.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)—In 2005, a 2.9-inch steelhead left a Washington state hatchery in 2005 with a tiny implanted electronic tag. Read the rest of this entry »