Pet Monologues

CHICAGO — More than 1,000 phony registrations were submitted, Lake County official says. Read the rest of this entry »

havakuk levison / Reuters 2002

Altering genetics brings killer karma into play

by John Kass, Chicago Tribune

Before I explain how the Chicken Kama Sutra got me fired from my dad’s butcher shop when I was a 6th grader—I foolishly posed the cold fryers in X-rated combos on the butcher blocks—you need to know how this memory was hatched:

With a horrifying news photo of a live, smooth-skinned rooster without feathers, part of a genetic experiment to develop chickens that will stay cool in their hot coops. Now, I can’t grill a chicken without retching.

“For Dinner: Genetically Altered ‘Superchicken’ ” said the headline of the wire story.

“We hope to provide a rigorous, risk-based regulatory path for [genetic] developers to follow, to help the public health and the health of animals,” said a pin-head bureaucrat from the Food and Drug Administration, thinking he could save the world from a “12 Monkeys” scenario if a superchicken escapes from the lab, along with the spider-goats and the salmon-pigs. Read the rest of this entry »

1) Lacerations/bite wounds: By are the most common wounds—about three times the incidence of any other injury - come mostly from cats and dogs mixing it up with other cats and dogs or wild animals.

Lacerations also occur when pet are involved in car crashes. So drive carefully.

2) Torn nail: It’s all about romping and stomping and fun until little Spanky snags a nail. The the howling and bleeding begin.

3) Insect bites/stings: The bites can be virtually harmless - you don’t even know your pet is bitten - or they can be extremely serious because of an animal’s hypersensitivity.

“Most of the time dogs are nosing around someplace, they’ll get bit and they’ll look like a Shar-pei,” said veterinarian Tony Kremer, from Hinsdale Animal Hospital.

4) Abrasions: The dog version of a skinned knee, said Kathleen Heneghan, past president of the Chicago Veterinary Medical Association and a veterinarian practicing in River Grove. Read the rest of this entry »

Pets suffer from Midwest flooding too.

No-kill shelters form vast networks to save dogs and cats for adoption.

Lesley Irwin scrolls through 200 pitiable e-mails a day to pick out the lucky dogs and cats she can keep in her Huntley pet shelter, then anguishes over the many she has to turn away. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Is Rover coughing? It could be dog flu.

Experts urge pet owners to be on the alert now that the disease has been confirmed in Illinois. Read the rest of this entry »

In Chicago there is a visible, successful, inspiring organization, Streetwise.

Who We Are and What We Do
StreetWise is a social enterprise designed to help severely impoverished men and women out of poverty. We publish weekly a general interest newspaper with a gritty “from the streets perspective” to give insite to its readers on what is really going on in Chicago. By using vendors as the distribution mechanism, we are able to personalize the face of poverty and create income for the vendor.

In April, 2008, there was an article about a vendor who was no longer selling Streetwise. He was a vendor for two years and during that time was able to pull it together, save some money to go to school. He is currently paying his rent, buying his food, and going to school. Bravo!

PM supports this organization, the vendors, whenever the opportunity presents itself. If you are in Chicago, please do the same when you see a Streetwise vendor. Also visit the Streetwise site. If your city does not have a similar program think about introducing the business model to your city.

To put a face to the name of the person you are blogging with, here is my screenshot of a post I am developing about, yep you guessed it, piggies.

These piggie images are 800px wide, about the average “source” image size. They will be displayed at 400px. If this blog was a two-column layout, the images might have been displayed at 600px. To put the screenshot in perspective I am using a 24 inch Cinema Display and all those icons along the right side are SOME of the applications I use. One dreads upgrades.

I have several analytical helpers to tell me who visits PM. Info includes, pages visited, referrers, search key words, country, computer software, size of screen, incoming links, outgoing links, with many many options I don’t use yet. You get the idea.

It comes as a surprise, from my traffic at least, the Internet Explorer browser is used less than 10% with Firefox in the 80% range. If you are developing ( coding ) sites, that is good news if you know what I mean. 1/2 of my visitors are unique. 60% from the USA, I am in Chicago. 15% from direct links, 45% from other sites, 40% from searches. Stumbleupon visitors are my biggest repeat referrers.

Oh, and if you have anything on piggies, please let PM know.

Well, that’s enough about me. Put a face to your name and let’s hear a little more about you. To do that here are easy to follow instructions to contact the same folks plus new friends. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a week since Earth Hour 2008. So we looked around to see what happened then, and if anything since…

A student told me Google went black! Good for them. This is how my mind envisioned a black Google.

The normal Chicago skyline at bottom.

This taken from the Chicagoist…

Earth Hour officials indicate last year there were 2.2 million who participated in a one-hour effort to bring awareness to energy conservation. Yesterday, they estimated that number was around 10 million. In Chicago, the Sears Tower, the John Hancock, the Wrigley Building, and the Tribune Tower dimmed decorative lights, while 500 McDonald’s throughout Chicagoland turned off their golden arches. In the theatre district, marquees went dark, and Elphaba, the witch from “Wicked” turned out the lights with a dramatic “spell”. Navy Pier’s iconic ferris wheel went dark and nearly every store on the Magnificent Mile turned out their lights. Read the rest of this entry »

Earth Hour 2007 was a Sydney, Australia event to fight global warming by saving energy and raising awareness. On March 29, 2008, Earth Hour
goes global.

Just a few days left before Earth Hour—March 29, 2008. 8-9pm. Between now and then send a reminder to your blogosphere connections to participate. You can continue to remind people about conserving energy for the rest of the year too! Here’s how…

1. Forward this information or create an original. (The image in this post is a photo taken from one of the many posters/signs/billboards in Chicago.)
2. Place your Earth Hour post on your blog along with these instructions…
3. Send a minimum of 5 bloggers—or your entire blogroll—to do the same. Notify them of the tag.
4. ADD your site to the list and place your blog’s name and url in a comment here to let me know you successfully forwarded this info. PM will acknowledge your success with a comment in your post. Email webmaster [at] petmonologues.com if you have questions. Read the rest of this entry »