I receive a fair number of video links, but living in the a dead zone with a dial-up connection prevents me from opening most of them. Either I can’t open a clip at all, or my connection crashes half-way through the download process. Because what others may consider a short clip can take me several hours to download, this is all very discouraging.

But evidently the universe wanted me to see this one, because it survived its early morning download ordeal intact. The Poop Detective’s CSI spin made me laugh for 2 reasons. One is because I’ve felt the urge to tackle a few lazy dog-owners and rub their noses in it myself. The second is because my son used to live in a complex that initiated a system of DNA testing several years ago. Samples from renters’ dogs were collected and then used to identify the source of any unscooped piles. Failure to clean up was considered a violation of the lease and miscreant owner and dog could find themselves looking for some other place to foul. 

On a more serious note and another good reason to become a religious scooper: the increased interstate transport of dogs combined with climate changes are resulting in the presence of various disease-causing microorganisms in areas where they never were before. Some of these can be spread in fecal matter and threaten the health of other animals and humans. While we may think our dogs’ waste is as pure as the driven snow, our failure to clean up after our own animals gives the go-ahead to the no-minds whose dogs are loaded with parasites and God-only-knows what else to do the same thing. Not a good thing to do!

Consider it a(nother) sign of advancing years that I can remember how we kids used to share secretive sly looks when the minister or Sunday School teacher talked about some Biblical hero girding his loins for battle. We had no idea what it meant, but felt convinced that anything dealing with loins had to be something our parents wouldn’t want us to know. When we later learned that it referred to hitching up one’s robes with a belt so one didn’t trip over them, all the fun went out of those stories. Sad to say, our awareness of any Greater Lesson they conveyed probably went with it.

Read more here and please feel free to share this commentary with your friends on FB, Twitter, and all of those other forms of social media my dial-up dooms me to lust after only in my heart.

To me, the ground squirrel’s behavior seemed like a perfect variation on the crested rat theme. Or maybe it was the other way around…

What lingers is the awareness of what a huge difference a relatively small shift in the storm’s track made. Not that far to the west, the flooding and destruction in Vermont is heart-breaking. Ironically last week I was kidding one of my clients who lives in a hard-hit area about all the flocks of geese that were flying over my house from Vermont. I jokingly wondered if they knew something we didn’t. Evidently they did.

Sunday morning, the track was forecasted to go pretty much right over me. Ditto the town where my plumber lives which I discovered when we compared notes Tuesday. (He stopped in to put together a do-list for some repairs that need to be done, not to actually do them.)  The Sunday of the storm, he and I had both secured our places as much as we could, although he then held a pre-hurricane breakfast for the guys he does guy-things with, completely with bloody Marys. But then the winds picked up and everyone left his party and went home. While he did that, I did some grocery shopping then drank coffee and read the Sunday paper.

He also experienced the same strange combination of expectation and malaise that I and others felt. That waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling you get when the shoe-dropper has more power that you can begin to fathom. He took a nap; I watched an old movie (Fiddler on the Roof) while I rolled newspapers to use to start fires if it got really cold and the power was out for a while.

And then…nothing happened. Some wind, a fair amount of rain, then a gazillion stars gleaming overhead. Followed by that sense of survivor’s guilt because, if it missed us, someone else really got pounded. And the final assault, that the worst flooding and damage was done after the storm had passed and the weather was gorgeous.

As I was clearing my little tree with very big thorns—a black locust—I couldn’t help thinking about how the storm also had washed away all the inane political drivel that’s been cluttering up the media with the rest of the detritus. Maybe nature was as sick of it as the rest of us.

While I visited my son in Colorado last month, I began reading a book by neurophysiologist Dale Purves entitled Brains: How they seem to work. I did this because the studies of brain function are now so numerous and diversified that I knew I needed to upgrade my knowledge. Luckily for me, Purves is one of those rare and wonderful scientists whose background includes a solid grounding in some other discipline that enables them to think outside the scientific box and view problems with a fresh perspective. By the time I realized that Purves was interested in how the brain processes perception, naturally I was hooked because perception plays such an important role in animal behavior as well as human responses to it.

Read more here.

                               Denver Botanic Gardens

[link to http://www.amazon.com/Brains-How-They-Seem-Work/dp/0137055099]

Taking Animals Personally

Taking animals personally. That sounds like a really good thing, doesn’t it? It raises all kinds of images of us really paying attention to animals and what they do and what it means to them as well as us. Sad to say, that’s not the kind of personally that sometimes shows up when our animals develop problems. That kind of personally is quite different and can throw a humongous monkey wrench into the works as we seek to resolve these issues.

Read more here…

Back in the seventies, anyone who cared anything about animals and enjoyed reading was reading a series of books written by British veterinarian James Herriot, a.k.a. Alf Wight. Later, the BBC made the books into a television series that introduced even more people to the life of a trio of veterinarians plying their trade in the 1930s and 40s in the Yorkshire Dales. For a period of several weeks during this past long winter of record-breakers, I’d recover from shoveling snow, chipping ice, hauling wood and other chores by making myself a cup of herbal tea and watching episodes from the first BBC series, All Creatures Great and Small. Inevitably the dogs would join me on the couch, I swear in hopes that Siegfried Farnon would head out for a farm call with his pack of barking dogs so they could bark along with them.

Because so many years have passed since the time in which the stories are set and since I’d read and watched them, I was curious to see what I’d think of them now. What surprised me could be summed up in the old saw, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

A case in point…

Read more.

After some research, Google’s search engine fulfilled my needs the best. The only drawback is that it comes with ads, something I’ve tried to avoid for multiple reasons since I started the site. Aside from noting that their presence in no way signals my endorsement of any product or service so advertised, please  know that if you have any thoughts on this subject one way or another I’d like to hear them.

Out-of-Context Behavior and the Human-Animal Bond

Several people have asked me what I mean when I refer to behavior that is out of context for the animal. Often, but not always, this is in response to my observation that any time an animal accepts a reward for displaying such a behavior, that reward may be a punishment for the animal.

“How can accepting a reward be punishment?” they ask.

This is a legitimate question for those trained in behaviorism which maintains that animals learn in response to reward or punishment.

Read more…

In all the year I’ve been writing commentaries, I’ve never received as many emails as I did for the July commentary on the service animal dilemma. These were sufficiently numerous and thought-provoking that I pondered them while enjoying the sites in Colorado and mastering a new computer and its software.

I’m back in New Hampshire and stuck with my dial-up connection, but pleased to report that a Toshiba Satellite with an external modem and Windows 7 so far works very well. Whew!

But getting back to those responses. These came response came from those who use service animals and/or those who train them. And, not surprisingly, they fell into two categories: those who disagreed with my remarks and those who agreed.

Want to know more about what they said? Click here.

Also, two additions since I wrote the commentary. One is a response from another reader who rightly pointed out that the 24/7 responsibilities of those dogs trained to provide hearing service may exceed those of animals trained to provide service for the blind. This occurs because these animals must always be on high-alert even when the special needs person with whom they live is sleeping.

The second addendum takes the form of the following book  announcement I received from the International Society of Anthrozoology:

Every Living Being: Representations of Nonhuman Animals in the Exploration of Human Well-Being

By Marie-France Boissonneault

Synopsis

Every Living Being analyses the historical integration of the role of animals in care-giving positions, and their depiction in popular Western culture. It establishes the degree to which nonhuman animals, domesticated and wild, have contributed to the emotional lives and care of humans in contemporary Western culture. In examining the historical depiction of animals in literature and art, as well as their interpretations in contemporary mass media, the aim of my book
is to provide an in-depth analysis of the cultural interpretation of animals as they interconnect with a diverse array of human-constructed realities principally in the area of ‘wellness and
suffering.’ It seeks to explore the dichotomy between those species which have been utilized primarily as products for human consumption and those species of animals that have become regarded as human companions which can enhance or ameliorate the lives of human beings suffering from illnesses or disabilities on an emotional and/or physical basis.

From the back cover

"Animals are ‘in.’ We find nonhuman animal beings in all sorts of places – in print, on canvas, on the screen, in captivity, in the wild, in our own backyards, and on our plates and covering our
skin. Much research shows that when we take care of and respect animals we also are taking care of ourselves. Every Living Being carefully analyzes how animals have been incorporated into
contemporary Western Culture – some as companions and care-takers and others for consumption without any respect at all. It is the first book to analyze how animals have been portrayed as healers in literature and art and as such is a novel and extremely important contribution to the burgeoning literature on the nature of human-animal relationships — anthrozoology. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the diverse, intriguing,
fascinating, challenging, frustrating, paradoxical, and evolving relationships that exist between human and nonhuman animals." 

MARC BEKOFF, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals, Animals Matter, and The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons For Expanding Our Compassion Footprint

****

"In India we refer to the Earth Family as Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam. The  Earth Family includes human and non human animals, plants and all life on earth. The dominant culture of today excludes other species as well as most humans from consideration. In the process humans are
loosing their humanity. ‘Every Living Being’ celebrates our humanity through non human animals. And in doing so it  helps reclaim our humanity."

VANDANA SHIVA , author of Monocultures of the Mind, Recipient of the Alternative Nobel Peace  Prize (the Right Livelihood Award), and Founding Director of Bija Vidyapeeth in Dehra Dun, India.

****

"Every Living Being is a vital book, for it is ‘of or about life (vita)’ in three senses. It is about other-than-human lives as these are found within, near and far away from our communities. It is equally about human lives and how other living beings so richly impact, even heal us. Just as interestingly, this mind-opening book reveals how our images, symbols and ethics can take on a life of their own, too, either helping us place ourselves in the larger community of life or walling
us off in a prison of human-centeredness. Because this book is vital in all three of these senses, it offers readers the chance to step out of that prison and into the larger world of all life."

PAUL WALDAU, Barker Lecturer on Animal Law at Harvard Law School, former Director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University’s School of Veterinary Medicine, and author of Oxford
University Press’s Animal Rights and The Specter of Speciesism.

****

"Boissonneault is among a growing cadre of scholars who recognize the need for a dramatically new way of relating to animals. Hers is an erudite contribution to the emerging idea that our superiority complex towards other sentient creatures is a dead end, and that to regard them as things rather than beings is neither ethical nor sustainable."

JONATHAN BALCOMBE, PhD. Biologist and author of Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals

****

"In Every Living Being, Boissonneault provides a fascinating and timely analysis of the ways in which our representations of nonhuman animals in literature and popular culture affect our beliefs about and treatment of other species. She inspires and compels us to confront our anthropocentric history so we may forge more compassionate interspecies relationships based on respect and wonder for the intrinsic beauty and difference of all creatures. I will definitely be recommending  this book in my classes on Human-Animal Studies."

ANNIE POTTS, Co-Director and Associate Professor, New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies, University of Canterbury

This title is available through the below online retailers.

www.amazon.com

www.bn.com 

www.powells.com

For reasons known only to them, a flock of young turkeys has decided to troop through my front yard to reach the woods above the house instead of gaining access to the woods from one of the many places further away. It could be because that the snow in that area melted sooner than the rest of the slope and the dead leaves offered more camouflage.

Want to know where the dogs fit in? Click here to read more.

The facts are pretty straight-forward. Dan moved into a townhouse several months ago and put up the artificial tree with built-in lights that he decorates every year. In his new place, the tree is beside a sliding glass door overlooking a small deck and the rest of the housing complex. The tree is not slanted, but for some reason I was when I took this picture. To the left of the tree you can see the drapes on the door.

This year the tree is missing two components that it’s enjoyed in the past. One is the decorative skirt that covered the base of the tree. The first part of the mystery is why Newman the cat decided to sleep under it for the first time in his life, inspiring Lumpy to drag him out of there. This did not bode well for either the tree or the gifts beneath it, so the skirt went.  Here’s  a picture of Newman and Lumpy during the family celebration:

Now if you look at the tree carefully, you can see evidence of the second mystery: the lack of lights and ornaments in its lower left corner. What happened to the lights is unknown. However the ornaments, and only those ornaments, were removed. Dan would find them piled up beside the sleeping dog in the morning.  None were damaged even though some were quite delicate. When it first happened, Dan replaced the ornaments. But after it became clear that they were not going to survive the night on the tree, he removed them.

So there’s the mystery. Did the ornaments interfere when Lumpy was trying to look through the curtains of the sliding glass door?  Was the light from the door such that it created reflections in those ornaments that bothered him for some reason? Or did the reflections or something else about those ornaments carry a positive emotional charge for him, and he removed them to keep them safe? Or maybe the Lumpy theories are all wrong and the cat removed the ornaments and put them next to the sleeping dog in hopes of getting him into trouble.

As of this writing, any or none of these explanations could be the right one. Lumpy is not what anyone would call the Einstein of goldens and for sure his world view is unique. But if he did remove those ornaments, I’m sure he had a very good reason for doing it. And if the cat did, I’m sure he had a good reason, too.

Here’s a final picture of Lumpy to remind us that, no matter how many storms the new year may bring, there’s always time to play in the snow.

Up until I got the hotel years ago, all the systems I’d read about were homemade ones and that’s what I started with. My first makeshift plastic container version wasn’t nearly as grand as that of a former student whose construction skills far exceeded mine.  It took her a while to get the right garbage-to-paper ratio so the system worked, but once she did, it was not only efficient but also convenient because she kept it under the kitchen table. After dinner, she’d just have one of her kids crawl under there and dump the garbage in.

Unless they had guests. In that case, they’d wait until after the guests were gone. Unless, of course, they didn’t want the guests to come back.

You don’t get those kinds of social benefits from a garbage disposal.

To say that both made my day is putting it mildly.

http://www.mmilani.com/spay-neuter-references.html

For those who don’t have access to some of these publications, you may be able to find at least abstracts of the articles by doing a search for the author’s name plus key words from the article’s title in Google Scholar  (http://scholar.google.com/) or other more academic search engines. Your local librarian or a college librarian should also be able to get copies for you.