Here's to wishing all of you, human and pet, a very happy and healthy new year. I'll see you soon, thanks for stopping by.
The good news is they keep coming back, one way or another. From the Evening Star (UK):
TO lose one parrot and get it back may be considered lucky - but to do it twice is truly amazing.But lucky Lucy the parrot is back home safe and well today after a frosty night out on the tiles - four months after her mate escaped and enjoyed ten days of freedom.
The African grey went missing from her Felixstowe home on Christmas Day.
Owners Linda and David Whitaker cannot make out if their pets are egging each other on in their bid to see the outside world or not, but they know they are incredibly lucky to have lost two and got them both back.
Lady Bracknell: ...Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?
Jack: I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell: Both? ... That seems like carelessness...
Unfortunately, animal cruelty never takes a holiday. From the Chicago Sun:
EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Two Wal-Mart employees have been charged with felony animal cruelty after they followed a manager's orders to shoot and kill a stray cat, police said.The men, both assistant managers at the store, told police the manager ordered them to get rid of the animal that was living in a storage trailer behind their store.
Christopher Anderson, 29, and Jeffrey Hardin, 21, repeatedly shot the cat with a pellet gun, a sheriff's report said. Wal-Mart conducted an investigation and fired three employees involved in the cat killing. The company did not name the employees who were fired.
''We were sickened by this cruelty,'' said Kevin D. Miller, regional vice president for the Arkansas-based retailer. The company plans to donate $10,000 to split between the Vanderburgh County and Warrick County Humane Societies in Indiana.
A bloodhound went digging in a backyard and discovered buried evidence of child molestation. From the Sun-Sentinel (FL):
A man was charged with molesting a 3-year-old girl after a dog dug up decade-old photos and videotapes of the alleged crime in a back yard near Oxnard, Calif., police said Wednesday.
Jack Sobonya, 54, is to be arraigned next week on five counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child. He is being held on $1 million bail at the Ventura County Jail. Sobonya had been convicted in a separate case of child molestation and had been paroled to Atascadero State Hospital in March after serving 10 years of a 17-year prison sentence.The current case against Sobonya emerged in early September, when a bloodhound digging behind a home in the Silver Strand neighborhood near Oxnard found Polaroid photos and two videotapes, said Ventura County Sheriff's Detective Billy Hester.
Morgan is dog and cat blogging with a web cam.
When you're giving out Christmas or holiday "tips" remember the kind folks who care for your loved ones (that's your pets) while you are on vacation. Nothing earth-shaking about the following story accept that even though they charge money for it, the folks at the animal-boarding business in this article really do provide an extra-level of care. From the Herald and News (Klamath Falls, Oregon):
A clean bed, food, a walk in the sun, maybe a scratch under the chin - what more could a dog or cat ask on Christmas?How about a Christmas dinner of dog biscuits, treats and dried vegetables that contained flavors of smoked turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, vegetable medley, dinner rolls and pumpkin pie?
That was the $4.25 special Saturday at Double-C, 4141 Washburn Way, where nine employees were working on Christmas to care for 228 pets boarded there on the holiday.This is a busy time of year for animal caregivers because this is a time when humans are on the road and need lodging for their pets.
"We'll split up the day, and nine employees will work just half a day," said Joe Meyer, morning crew manager, as he passed by row upon row of portable cages set up for small dogs in the warmer training area.
The Christmas chorus his passage set off was a cacaphony of barks and yips, but it would have been music to the ears of pet owners and lovers.
[...]
Meyer carried a kit of supplies as he visited larger accommodations for "families of dogs." Desi, Charger and Tyke, two golden retrievers and a border terrier, greeted him with wild enthusiasm as he arrived to wash their faces and brush them.In a "quiet room," for older or more sensitive animals, one dog and cat from the same home got special "together time, because they're such buddies at home," Meyer said.
This 20,000-square-foot "inn" was full, but by 10 a.m., "everybody's room's been scrubbed and cleaned. and everybody has gone out for a potty break. That's a lot of trips," said co-owner Jo Anne Carson.
You would tip someone who cared for your children. Tip the folks who are taking care of your pets, too.
Here's a great story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a mobile cat adoption center:
All day Tuesday, Henry DelleChiae had been keeping a secret from his girlfriend.And he'd been telling lies.
He had asked Laurie Conklin to meet him for lunch in Fremont, after a meeting there. There was no meeting, but there was a pug-nosed yellow school bus parked on 36th Street, which Conklin cluelessly walked by twice after DelleChiae guided her there.What she didn't know was that they'd come to the bus for a very special Christmas present: a cat.
The little bus could have been named the Meow Mobile or the Cat Car, but the Northwest's first mobile adoption center is called Whiskers on Wheels (WOW). Run by the non-profit, all-volunteer folks at Whisker City, an overspill shelter for cats, WOW has been causing spontaneous eruptions of smiles and good cheer wherever it goes.
The bus, which has room for 22 kitties, is outfitted with three-story cages lined with cushy fleece rugs, litterboxes, food, water and ample toys. Its narrow aisle makes it difficult for two people to pass at once. Purchased for $1,000, the former Yelm school district bus gets six miles to the gallon. It costs about $5,200 to run it for a month.
WOW's goal is to raise $10,000 and find good homes for 30 cats in its first campaign, Dec. 4 through January 2. So far, about $3,000 has come into the coffers and 20 cats have traded their mobile home for a terrestrial one.
"We've had nothing but positive response," says April Brown, founder of WOW and Whisker City. "And the cats love the bus. They just love it."
WOW parks in front of welcoming businesses, such as pet stores and veterinary clinics.
Library cats are the stuff of legends, originally for controlling the rat population but more recently, well, just because every library should have one. Mine does. Here's a nice story from the Macon Telegraph:
At Wesleyan College's Willet Memorial Library, a bewhiskered, black-and-white furry form provides a special sort of security, stalking sidewalks to keep students safe from chipmunks and the occasional squirrel.Mostly, however, Squeakers the library cat provides animal-loving collegians the knowledge that, even though they can't have a cat in the dorms, they have one on campus.
"It's like our family pet," said Danielle Wickes-Smith, a first-year communications student from Hawaii. "She's really friendly, and she's there for you when you need someone to hang out with and no one else is around."
Not much of an academic, Squeakers nevertheless has spent more time near the stacks than just about any student. Though the 19-year-old shorthair has spent all her years at Wesleyan, Squeakers has been part of a historical tradition of library cats since coming nearly seven years ago to her current post outside the library entrance.
Even in the cold of winter or the hubbub of this holiday season, when students have abandoned books for family and friends, Squeakers is fed twice daily. Whether by library director Catherine Lee, a clerk or even campus police, she always gets her Fancy Feast.
"She really should have earned a degree by now," Wesleyan spokeswoman Ruth Sykes joked.
My cat Sammy (and Rainbow when she was alive) always plops herself down next to me while I read. There is something just so supremely comforting about that. And yes, I have read-aloud to my cats!
Now and then I've mentioned a couple "stars" that were not nice to pets. It's a real pleasure to now report on one that is. From the Houston Chronicle:
NEW YORK — Actress Isabella Rossellini is taking on a new role that has become more than just a pet project.For the past 10 months, Rossellini has been training a future guide dog for the blind, taking him on the subway, into restaurants, onto movie sets, even to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
"I walk the dog myself," Rossellini said of her daily outings in Central Park with the puppy, a Labrador-poodle mix named Terry. "I cannot imagine myself living without pets," and raising a future guide dog "allows me to combine my love of dogs with work for my community."
The Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind has been around for almost 60 years. The Long Island-based training program screens prospective volunteers who raise the puppies until they are about a year old. The dogs then go back to the foundation to be placed.
I know that posting has been light around here, what with the holidays and such. But I did want to check-in and wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Here's a photo I *ahem* "borrowed" without permission from a great web site and business, Santa.it and yes, that is a real domain. Anyway, I hope they don't mind that a VERY non-profit pet lover like me glommed a snap from their site:
I wish all of you, and yours, and your families, and your wonderful pets a very Merry Christmas. May you all find everything you desire under your tree. I'll be back next week.
Here's the story of some nice folks who started a ranch in Montana to care for disabled cats and dogs and now...blind horses. From the Missoulian:
Can a blind horse have a good life?Lots of people say no. But at the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary east of Ovando, the answer is an emphatic yes.
That's not to say the sanctuary's owners could have said that four years ago when they began their nonprofit venture as a home for disabled and elderly animals. They were thinking "dogs and cats." Then their first animal, by acts of fate, was a blind horse.
Lena, a quarter horse, was the victim of a training regimen that would force her to fall over backwards if she reared up. The blows to her head damaged her optic nerves until she went blind.Steve Smith and Alayne Marker, alone on 160 acres on Kleinschmidt Flat pursuing their dream, knew "absolutely zero" about blind horses, Smith says today. Even Marker, who grew up with horses, had no experience with them.
The simple fact is that most blind horses are put down.
"I think there's a lot of myths, a lot of misunderstandings, a lot of misconceptions and a lot of ignorance about what it means to care for a blind horse," Marker said. "I was really ignorant about them until we started getting them."
Then Smith and Marker, married 10 years, got another going-blind horse. Shasta, a 20-year-old Appaloosa, had spent his life being leased to dude ranches and outfitters as "seasonal stock" and was being sold for being too old. Then another blind horse came to them. And more. They came from around the country, saved by chance by people who couldn't keep them but had heard about the Rolling Dog's work.
Today, 17 horses with disabilities are at home at the Rolling Dog Ranch. Eleven are blind. And Smith and Marker find themselves, by accident, in the position of national "expert," even though their experience is brief.
Well, not a BIG star but... From E! Online:
Apparently, Natasha Lyonne is no dog lover.The American Pie thesp was arrested Friday night at her Manhattan home after she allegedly made menacing remarks to a neighbor's pet, according to the New York Daily News.
Sources claimed that Lyonne burst into her neighbor's third-floor apartment around 11 p.m. and grabbed and threatened the dog.
The unlucky canine was not injured in the bizarre attack, but other tenants in the building called the police, who showed up to arrest Lyonne.
During her alleged rage fest, the indie-film regular also reportedly ripped a mirror off the wall of the apartment and screamed threats at her neighbor.
It was not clear what sparked Lyonne's attack. As of Tuesday night, the thesp had made no comment on her arrest.
A kitty badly injured during the Florida Hurricans has found a loving home. From the Ledger (FL):
Tipsy the cat, whose hind leg was mangled beyond repair by falling debris during Hurricane Charley, was one of the lucky animal refugees from Polk County's three destructive 2004 storms.In August, in the aftermath of the first of the three storms, the gray tabby was found injured in woods south of Bartow -- a small, scrawny kitten.
"Tipsy was very fragile," said Dr. Jerry Rayburn, the Winter Haven veterinarian who amputated Tipsy's leg, took her home for nursing and kept her. "You know," Rayburn said, "once you bring them in your home . . ."
Despite a hitch in her getalong, Tipsy is fast on her three feet. She angles around remarkably well, bounding up and down the stairs in a beautiful lakefront home full of affection for her, two dogs and four other cats. All of them are former strays.
While some pets separated from their human families by hurricanes met happy endings, plenty of other pet casualties from the hurricanes did not fare as well as Tipsy. Lost pets seemed to fare better during Hurricane Charley than the subsequent two storms, according to rescue workers.
For Charley, the county set up an emergency animal shelter for wayward pets on U.S. 17, next to the county's makeshift emergency operations center. The shelter took in 322 animals -- mostly dogs -- but also cats, ducks, rabbits, chickens, pigs, lizards and turtles.
After several months' work, all but 30 of the dogs orphaned during Charley have found homes, said Donna Seiler, a Polk County Sheriff's Office animal services investigator.
Tipsy and Dr. Rayburn
I typically take weekends off and so I'll see you all sometime Monday. Again, I offer up a prayer to God that my friend Hokule'a and Makoa are together again within hours, or better yet, minutes.
In the meantime, I wish you all wellness and I thank you for stopping by.
What are the odds that after two years, a man and his dog would be brought back together by a search engine? From KCRA TV in California:
An Orangevale man who thought he had lost a loved one forever made a happy discovery on the Internet.
Two years ago, Matt Strong's ex-wife gave their dog, Mikey, to the Placer County Animal Shelter when neither could keep him.Strong said he couldn't get over his guilt of letting Mikey go. So, he decided to use technology to go in search of his friend.
"I went to (search engine) Google, and they have an image search. And I plugged in Mikey and Tahoe, with Mikey being in Tahoe the last place I had seen him. I figured I'd search for him," Strong said.
Strong said that a picture of Mikey appeared during his search. He was still at the animal shelter.
"I thought Mikey was long gone, and there he was looking at me like, 'Are you going to pick me up?'"
Strong said that he fetched Mikey immediately, and that after two years, shelter volunteers were sad to see him go.
"I look down every night, and I say, 'Oh my God. I can't believe he's physically here.' I still can't believe he's back," Strong said.
My friend Hokule'a at My Wide Blue Seas has a cat gone missing. There's no perma-link but you can visit there and then maybe offer a prayer that her cat Makoa finds his way safe and sound back home. I will offer my own tonight and every night until they are reunited.
Jeff at Athenamama is reminiscing about some wonderful past friends on this fine Friday evening.
They do get up in them and then need to be rescued. Once in a while I need to print these stories. Here's one from the Benton Courier (AK):
The cat is out of the tree and is fine in her new home.That's the report today from Marie Goshien, who lives off Hilldale Road, where a cat was reported to be trapped high in a tall tree.
In Tuesday's edition of the Benton Courier, a story noted that the frightened feline had been trapped high in the tree for several days.
Goshien said the cat was rescued late Tuesday afternoon, thanks to an employee of Sawyer Tree Service.
"Jim got here about 4:30 and the cat was down a little after 5 o'clock," Goshien said. "He was wonderful. He knew just how to do it. He talked gently to the cat, and she went right to him."
Immediately after the cat was down, she was taken into Goshien's home and given water and food, Goshien said.
Scientists are beginning to find clues as to how or why there are so many varieties of dogs and the mechanisms that allow that. From the Dallas News:
Dozens of new dog breeds have taught Dallas scientists one of evolution's very old tricks. The researchers have uncovered a previously unappreciated genetic mechanism that, over millions of years, may have helped sculpt the many different shapes of the world's animals.The findings – based on a gene that helps give dog breeds their distinctive head shapes – may also explain how massive St. Bernards, tiny Chihuahuas and everything in between descended from the wolf in just a few thousand years.
Understanding this genetic process could also give scientists new clues to the development of the human form and brain, as well as the rampant growth of cancers.
"We're just beginning to scratch the surface of all the gadgets and tools that nature has come up with," said John "Trey" Fondon, one of the biologists from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas who performed the new research. "This is just one of them. But what it says is that we don't know nearly what we think we know about how evolution works."
The report describing the research, released Monday, appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I didn't know there was such a thing but yes indeed! And they have meetings, too. From the Macomb Daily:
When Chris Kloski's dogs join their canine friends for a meeting of Troop 104 of the Dog Scouts of America, no one says raise your right paw and repeat after me. But the dogs are so willing and well trained you almost expect them to do it.The Kloski family's dogs are Trixie, a 4-year-old Australian shepherd; Happy, a female Jack Russell terrier who is 8 years old; and Maverick, a year-old papillon.
Troop 104 also includes mixed breeds, Chihuahuas, a Rottweiler, a Lhasa apso, a Shetland sheepdog and a St. Bernard, about a dozen dogs in all, and their owners, who get together for fun and service.
They earn DSA merit badges. The latest effort is learning to accept money from people and dropping it in Salvation Army kettles.
Shoppers at the Macomb Mall entrance north of the Sears store Dec. 17 can donate to the Salvation Army of Warren through the efforts of the Dog Scouts. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., dogs dress for the occasion in Santa caps, top hats and reindeer antlers. The command to the dogs: "Show me the money."
Dogs must obey the Dog Scout Laws to be accepted into the group. They have to be OK with friendly strangers, be safe around other dogs and be well mannered.
Anyone with a socialized dog can apply to join. Dogs do not have to know all the obedience routines to join. Badges are displayed on the DSA uniform, a cape-type garment that buckles under the dog's stomach.
A dog must heel on a leash, sit and lie down on command, and come when called. When told, it must stay sitting or lying when the owner walks away.
"You have to pass the test," said Kloski of Fraser. "You have to show you're the smart end of the leash."
The Dog Scout motto is "Let us learn all that we can, so that we may become more helpful."
Dog Scouts have raised money for humane societies, participated in CROP walks to feed hungry humans and helped with community cleanups. Many scouts make therapy visits at hospitals.
The article fails to mention it but thanks to a quick google search, I found the home of the Dog Scouts of America. Check it out and join in!
Here's a story from London where a woman discovers that the headstone marking her beloved cat's grave was worth a lot of money. From the Rocky Mountain News:
LONDON - A 1,000-year-old stone carving that spent years marking the grave of a couple's pet cat was sold at auction Friday for more than $380,000.The limestone carving of St. Peter was sold by Ruth Beeston, whose stonemason husband found it in a quarry.
Not realizing its value, the couple set it in their backyard in southwestern England to mark the resting place of their cat, Winkle. It was spotted by a local amateur historian, who guessed its age. Ruth Beeston decided to sell the piece after her husband died last year.
Alexander Cader, sculpture expert at auction house Sotheby's, said the carving - from the ninth or early 10th century - was "a rare survivor of English stone carving at its best." The stone slab drew lively bidding, finally selling to a private collector for $383,000, including buyer's premium.
Cader said Beeston would be delighted by the result of the sale.
I suppose I have mixed emotions about this story. If the widow was needing cash, then I guess this was a good event. But if she didn't, she should not have disturbed or moved or sold the marker for her pet's grave. Call me sentimental.
From the Ninn.org Newscenter comes this story:
Matthews [KY] firefighters made quick work of an apartment fire Wednesday morning.A woman and her daughter discovered the fire in their bathroom at the Jamestown Apartments at about 10 a.m., WLKY NewsChannel 32 reported.
Firefighters knocked out the fire and were able to get all the family's pets to safety, including five parakeets, two fish and a hamster.
No injuries were reported.
Special thanks to my friends, The Pryhills, for pointing out a News 14 Charlotte story about a group raising funds to equip fire stations with oxygen masks for pets:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A local organization wants to help firefighters save more pets.The “Best Friends” group, which is based in Charlotte, is raising money to purchase pet oxygen masks. It wants to put the masks at every fire station in the city.
So far, the Charlotte Fire Department has received eight masks and the Pineville Fire Department has received two.
Fire officials said they appreciate the donations.
So far, the Charlotte Fire Department has received eight oxygen masks and the Pineville Fire Department has received two.
So far, the Charlotte Fire Department has received eight oxygen masks and the Pineville Fire Department has received two.
"For us to be able to take something that will help treat that important part of their life, that's part of what our mission is all about,” said Capt. Jim Dedmon of the Charlotte Fire Department. "And instead of using a makeshift device, we’ll actually have something designed that will work.”
I'm always fascinated by stories of dogs and cats that manage to find their way home from distant places. Here's a story a bit short on details but still remarkable from Yahoo:
Cat treks across Siberia:A cat named Kuzya made a 1,300-mile journey across Siberia to be reunited with his owners.
The Efremov family thought Kuzya was dead after he vanished while with them on holiday in eastern Russia during the summer.
A family member said: "There were bite marks on the cat's tail, and his claws had been worn away to nothing. It's unbelievable he made it across Siberian woods and hills and crossed rivers and lakes to get home."
I've mentioned several stories about the chip implants that help identify lost dogs. Here's another one:
FLOWER MOUND, Texas - Snowbirds from the frigid North are a common sight in Texas, but Carla is a different breed altogether. A trucker found the 11-year-old mixed breed dog in Amarillo a week ago and brought her to a Denton veterinary hospital — 1,600 miles away from her Castle Rock, Wash. home.Gail Scott was shocked when the North Texas animal hospital called to say they'd found her dog, who was identified through an implanted microchip.
"How did my dog get to Texas?" she recalls asking.
That really is anyone's guess, though Scott says she believes Carla escaped from her yard the day before Thanksgiving and was picked up by a trucker at a nearby truck stop.
"You know how truckers are," she said. "They see a stray and feel bad for them, and they pick them up."
Scott, who adopted Carla in 1998 from a Washington pound, has asked the animal hospital to put the dog up for adoption.
She said it would be too hard to get Carla back to Washington because it's too cold for her to fly in the cargo area of a plane and too expensive to hire someone to drive her home.
The Flower Mound Human Society is now caring for Carla and looking for a family to adopt her. At least one person has expressed interest.
One thing disturbs me though, the fact that the owner apparently doesn't want the dog back. This makes me wonder if the dog wasn't actually abandoned rather than simply "lost"... Hopefully someone a little more caring will adopt the dog this time.
From the "You can't make this stuff up" department comes a story from MN via the AP
MINNEAPOLIS - A naked man was bit in the genitals by a police dog while being arrested for running nude and entering homes in a Minneapolis neighborhood. The man was taken to the hospital for treatment of his injuries.According to police reports, a police canine unit found the nude suspect shortly after noon Tuesday in a house on the 5400 block of Park Avenue South.
While the officer was ordering the suspect out of the house, the suspect began hitting him, police said.
The dog, which was still leashed, bit the suspect to protect the officer.
Here's some Very Good News for dogs with hind-leg paralysis from the AP:
Dogs with paralyzed hind legs regained the ability to walk after getting a shot of a chemical cousin of antifreeze that helped repair nerve cells in their damaged spinal cords, scientists reported.Purdue University researchers who led the project hope the approach can soon be tried in people, but caution that there are significant differences between human and canine spinal cords.
The treatment only worked on dogs given the injections within about three days of their injury. Some dogs not given the injections eventually walked again, but those getting the new treatment had a dramatically higher recovery rate.
[...]
In the study, 19 paraplegic dogs were injected with polyethylene glycol, or PEG - a nontoxic liquid polymer composed of long strings of the same type of molecules found in antifreeze.
Within eight weeks, 13 of the 19 canines, about 68 percent, regained the use of their hind legs and were able to walk, some almost as well as before their injury.
The dogs were injected twice with PEG, first soon after their owners brought them to the researchers' labs and then after standard surgery and steroids to reduce inflammation.
Only in the blogosphere can you find normally strange but nice but also gun loving nuts like me posting pictures of my cats each Friday...
So here's Sammy lounging about tonight.
Crispy is always ready to mug for the camera...
I'll see you sometime next week and until then, thanks so much for stopping by!
Stupid pun. Sorry... From the AP:
WACO, Texas - It took the Jaws of Life and a veterinarian, but Cinnamon the Boston terrier is no longer stuck in a tire. On Tuesday, Wayne Hyde saw his 10-month-old dog's rear quarters sticking in the air, her head plugged into the center rim of a full-size tire.Trudy Dillinger, Hyde's girlfriend, tried using Vaseline to release the 17-pound dog's head, which seemed bigger than the 4-inch-diameter ring around her neck.
Dillinger called the Bellmead Fire Department. Firefighters tried to cut the tire rim with a handheld metal saw, but they stopped to avoid accidentally hurting the dog.
Then they used their most serious extraction device, a rescue tool called the Jaws of Life, which uses hydraulic power to pry apart or slice open cars when accident victims are stuck.
The firefighters cut the center of the rim out of the tire, then took Cinnamon and her heavy metal collar to the La Vega Veterinary Clinic in nearby Waco.
"These are things you don't learn about in fire academy at all," Fire Marshall Scott Curry told the Waco Tribune-Herald for a Thursday story.
The vets used an anesthetic to relax Cinnamon's muscles and coated her neck and ears in a lubricant.
"The rim looked like it weighed more than the dog," veterinarian Tamra Walthall said. "It looked like a steel Elizabethan collar on her neck."
The dog's head eventually popped out of the ring. She was no worse for the wear, other than a little bruising and swelling around the neck, Walthall said.
From the Arizona Republic we get a story of firefighters saving a cat:
No one was home yesterday when a house in the 7500 block of East Windsor Avenue caught fire.Nobody but the family cat.
"No one was at home at time except him," Rural/Metro Fire Department spokeswoman Sandy Nygaard said. "And we did save him!"
Rural/Metro firefighters managed to revive the trapped feline using oxygen tanks shortly after arriving on the scene at 2:55 p.m. Monday. The cat was also treated for burns to his paws and mouth.
The following is the type of story I hate reading. Someone had a dog they didn't want or couldn't care for. They thought they were doing the right thing by leaving the dog at the steps of a closed animal shelter but in fact they condemned that poor animal to death. It was 27 degrees outside and the dog probably froze-to-death. From the Arizona Daily-Star:
A dog left in a cardboard box outside the Humane Society likely froze to death Tuesday morning, after authorities issued warnings about the first freezing night of the year.
"The fact that we found this animal outside in this kind of weather was amazing to me, that either these warnings missed the owner or they just didn't care," said Marsh Myers, education director for the Humane Society of Southern Arizona.
The low temperature Tuesday morning was 27 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The over-night low was expected to be 30 degrees this morning.
Humane Society staffers aren't sure what happened to the 3-year-old Welsh corgi before they found her in the box about 7:45 a.m., more than an hour before the facility opened.
Efforts to save the dog's life failed, Myers said.
Please don't just leave them outside the door of an animal shelter somewhere and hope for the best. It's not fair to the shelter workers and it is cruel to the poor animal.
Don't expect everything to work out the way it did in "the Manger". You must care somewhat or you wouldn't have left the puppy anywhere, but you must take some responsibility for that sweet young being more than just beyond dumping it on someone else's doorstep and running away.
It is a fact that many folks keep snakes as pets. I might not understand it but since I try to be fair here at Tarazet, I thought I'd include some links that those of you considering such an option might want to check out for information, care, etc...
Animal Care Associates has good information on why snakes have some special requirements that you might not have considered, including light and environment, and so forth.
Ask Dr. Petra wisely counsels on how to determine if the snake you are thinking of buying is healthy, and YES, really, take your new pet snake to a Vet shortly after adopting him.
Pet Reptiles also has a lot of information on the care of pet snakes. I found this site informative.
Okay, if any of you readers have other ideas or sites worth checking out, do add them in the comments. Actually, maybe those of you who do have pet snakes might enlighten me in the comments about why you do or why you enjoy them. I don't have a fear of them, I just don't find them cuddly, but I'm always open to learning and I think other readers would enjoy reading about it too.
I've done my duty...
