Beautiful

Lloyd Hines and the Provincial Election in June 2009 – and what Responsible Dog owners need to know about him

Zeus Cameron – who’s Mom & Dad won his fight against Lloyd Hines to live out his life in Guysborough

I heard that Lloyd Hines is taking part in a debate Monday night, so I put together a little sheet that I'm hoping is going to make it down to his corner of the province so that some of his constituents will learn a couple things about what he thinks about dogs. This is what I said on it - and I also put a photo of Zeus Cameron on the sheet - reminding people about that dog - that was a pit bull, who very peacefully got to die in his own home - no thanks to him.

Lloyd Hines and the Provincial Election in June 2009 –
and what Responsible Dog owners need to know about him

In 1995 Lloyd Hines lobbied for and passed breed specific legislation in the district of the municipality of Guysborough – banning pit bulls, with no grandfather clause built in.

Because the media paid virtually no attention to this issue, most residents of Guysborough were unaware of the new law in 1995 . Apparently without public support or, to the contrary, outrage, the municipality amended the by-law in 2004 to ban Rottweilers (the amendment contained a grandfather section to exempt Rottweilers already living in the Municipality). The ban on Rottweilers was passed after the New Brunswick attack that led to the death of the four year old child. Warden Lloyd Hines was active in pushing for these bills, and he threatened to push a breed specific ban through the Union of Municipalities – which he almost successfully did in 2008 – but because people in other areas of Nova Scotia know what happens when breed bans become law – Lloyd Hines failed in his bid to pass breed restrictions throughout the whole province.

Lloyd Hines is currently running as a Liberal Candidate in the provincial election in the riding of Guysborough Sheet Harbour in the June 2009 Election.

When Lloyd Hines was Warden of the District of the Municipality of Guysborough he made it a priority in his mandate to first ban pit bull dogs, and then add rottweillers to that ban.

When Lloyd Hines was first Vice President, and then President of the Union of the Nova Scotia Municipalities he made it a priority of his mandate to have breed restrictions passed throughout the whole province of Nova Scotia.

If he is elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia – what do you think one of his major priorities will be when he gets there?

This is a quote that Lloyd Hines said in 2004 when he was attempting to have rottweillers banned in his municipality –

"I don't want to be the warden of the Municipality of Guysborough and have to go to the funeral of some kid who was eaten."

When Guysborough dog owners go to the polls in June – hopefully they will go to the voting booths with the knowledge that they are voting not just for themselves – they are voting for every dog owner in Nova Scotia.

Someone's been to the beauty parlour!

Today Bobby went to the beauty parlour and he came out looking very beautiful I think.
And I think he think's he's looking quite beautiful too.
He is looking like a proper toy poodle now.


Buttercup doesn't get to go in until June 16th, so I think she's feeling a bit jealous.
Bobby was being quite the bon-vivant in the backyard this afternoon.
Even Daisy's head was being turned by the spectacle.
Jack was at the beauty parlour yesterday - so he's looking very spectacular his own self - 2 dogs at the beauty parlour = about $140 = 2 nice looking dogs = empty pockets, but it's all worth it
But Daisy showed them all up in the end - she gets to roll around in the dirty and comes out looking the same as when she started - you have to love the double coated breeds!

PETA, seals, other countries & making money + maple syrup

So I got a new action alert from PETA today - all lovers of seals are now being called to boycott Canadian Maple syrup until the heinous Canadian seal hunt is stopped forever. And to advertise it PETA has a travelling show of a person dressed up as a baby seal going from town to town taking a hekapik to a very large cardboard representation of a bottle of Canadian Maple Syrup. Isn't that fun?


The email says that 85% of the world's maple syrup comes from Canada - that's a statistic I can get behind. That's fabulous to hear. Bravo for our Canadian Maple syrup producers! You know what I love? Maple syrup peanut brittle - now THAT is tasty. If you've never tried it, you should. It is yummy.


Getting that email got me to thinking a little bit. I remember getting an email about the Faroe Islands a few months ago. You remember that place? In Denmark? That has the pilot whale slaughter every year? That's considered an important part of the culture and history of the area - done since the 10th century? I know that because I looked it up on Wikipedia. I received the lovely photos in this blog post a few months ago - if you do a google search you'll find more.


I wondered if PETA was hollering from the roof tops about this slaughter the way they do about the bloody massacre Canada’s annual seal hunt - "the largest slaughter of marine mammals on Earth" - so I did a Google search of "Peta seal hunt" and came up with the page - "PETA.Org Help stop the Bloody Seal Massacre" - which has video, links to other PETA pages about the seal hunt, links to pages where you can buy merchandise, and the obligatory links to pages where you can send them money to help stop the seal hunt. It's one of more than 68,000 pages about PETA and the seal hunt.


When I typed in "PETA Faroe Islands" - I came up with a page - "Stop the Bloody Whale Massacre on the Faroe Islands" - and all it is - is an advocacy alert page that sends a letter to the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands. Boy, that's scary - isn't it? That's going to quickly send a very sinister message around the world about the horrible massacre that's going on over there in Denmark.


And when you do the Google search of PETA and Faroe Islands - only about 2 or 3 of the top hits even have anything to do with PETA and the Faroe Islands - it turns out that PETA doesn't even seem to really care about the Faroe Islands. Why is that now? Is it because nobody really cares about a lot of blood? They only care about white coats and really big eyes with beautiful eyelashes? I wonder. hhhmmm..... I wonder.

I also have to say that at this point - and to me, it would seem obvious - as I am an animal lover, and anybody who reads this blog would also be an animal lover - that I love seals, my dogs love seals - I also love whales, and I love cows, and pigs, and chickens - and I love cats, and rats, and mice - I love every kind of animal.

I love harp seals, I love grey seal - but the thing is, the seal industry is an abattoir without walls. It's no different than the cow industry, or the chicken industry - or the dogs as food industry over in Asia.

But because it's done on pristine white ice - and photographers can get in close - and the organizations saying they are trying to shut it down know they can make a lot of money off the advertising of the killing - then you have the organizations of PETA and HSUS we have today. Very rich organizations. Targetted at places like my part of the world - and not at places that make them no money.

I'm not saying that the seal hunt is okay - it's as wrong as the cow killing industry is - it's all bad. Just like killing dogs for food is bad - they are ALL THE SAME. One is no worse than the other. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Organizations like PETA cannot cherry pick their money making ventures because of the cuteness of the meat, and easy access to the abbattoir.

That is the ridiculousness of what this situation shows.

Duelling Cuteness

So tonight I had both Bobby and Buttercup being unbearably cute at the same time
I didn't know where to put the camera, because Buttercup was being cute on the couch and Bobby was being cute on the floor.
Buttercup was doing her schtick where she rolls around with a toy and sticks her arms up in the air and wrestles with me and just goes crazy and acts like a puppy instead of a 13 year old dog









And Bobby was on the floor throwing his toys around, play growling and looking at me, being just so cute





I don't think it's possible to decide who is cuter than who.





Jack spent the time at my side trying to keep either one of them from coming too close





And Charlie is never too fussy about all the hub-bub of dogs being cute - he could take it or leave it





A close up of Jackie keeping his good eye on the cuteness action





2 last shots of Bobby with his favourite at the moment teddy bear










Buttercup telling me that she should be the victor on this night





And Bobby telling me that since he's the new one - it should be him! I think it's going to have to be a tie....

Legal off leash spaces I didn't know about!

It always helps to surf the HRM's website, I guess - I thought I knew where all the legal off leash spaces were in the city - but I have realized that I didn't.

I had an email from a reader of my website asking if I knew of any completely fenced in areas where she could run her dog, and I sent her a couple spots - but I went to the HRM's website to have a look around - which by the way, is becoming very outdated, because everything is from 2007 and 2008 - so hopefully nothing has changed - because nothing's been updated it seems in almost a year - and for some reason I've never clicked on the "Summer Off leash Sports Fields" section.

There's seven of them - and they're quite well spread out around the HRM, and one of them is even hear where I live - so if I wanted I wouldn't even have to break the law on a daily basis! haha!

The most emails I get are people asking me about fenced in places to take their dogs off leash - and Robert Drive Park in Dartmouth is probably becoming the best known and best used park for offleash dogs that I know of - it's completely fenced in, and the users of it have even created their own facebook groupRobert Drive Park

Hammond's Plains also has been given their own off-leash space

with the green space between 2 ball fields on Kingswood Drive

In Clayton Park there is Glenbourne Field on Parkland Drive


Cole Harbour has George Bissett Field


Lower Sackville has the Eddie LebLanc Field on First Lake Drive


The field that's where I live by is on the Crown Field off the North West Arm Drive - I had no idea it was off leash!


And last is Conrose Field right off of Jubilee Road in South end Halifax - another field I had no idea was off leash.

So that has totally added to my retinue of places to go off leash - none of them are sniff and pass type places - but they're all great for finding other dogs to wrestle with or play with balls or to practice obedience or just hang out and have fun off leash. And they're applicable 5am to 10pm from May 1st to November 1st - with the exception of Conrose, which the website says is only available between 5am and 10am, which sucks.

Another thing I wanted to talk about which started up recently is a new message board/online presence for local people - and it's called "Halifax blogger" - and it has a section for dog friendly postings. The dog friendly section is at http://halifaxblogger.com/blog/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=19 - the board is open to suggestions for what's going to be there - but posting of dog friendly events, your experience with dog friendly Halifax - and conversations about creating a dog friendly Halifax are all ideas about what we could talk about there. The main site is at http://halifaxblogger.com/ - so go check it out!

Animal League Defence Fund Thinks We're Okay

Almost a month ago I wrote a post about the Animal League Defence Fund publishing a book about animal protection laws across North America and the fact that they had a report ranking animal laws across Canada and how Nova Scotia had rated pretty high.

This week the Chronicle Herald and the CBC caught up and both did stories about the report, which is interesting.

The Chronicle Herald said that "The report said Nova Scotia ranked high because its laws allow judges to order abusers to reimburse the costs of care for an impounded animal, place restrictions on the abuser’s ability to own animals in the future and imposes increasing fines on repeat offenders."

For the story, the Chronicle Herald interviewed Mary Hill - secretary for the NS SPCA - and she said - "Upon closer reflection you have to bear in mind this is comparative and it says a lot more about the ranking of the other provinces that are lower on the list than it does about our legislation. It just means the other provinces have worse legislation."

I don't know if I quite agree with this - maybe we DO have good legislation in this province - but maybe what we have in Nova Scotia is a really shitty Justice department. Has that occurred to anyone? I know that anytime animal abuse cases have come up - it seems that the crown attorney's office has always come up short - saying that they can't do anything, they can't provide a burden of proof, they can't do this, they can't do that - when there's all this glaring evidence that the person has very obviously abused animals. It makes no sense. I'm no lawyer, but common sense has to come into play somewhere.

Today was the Metro Shelter SPCA's Open House!

So today was the long awaited open house and yard sale for the Metro SPCA shelter - and by all accounts it was a great success - the barbecue that was going on made a good chunk of change, and I'm sure the yard sale did a good job too. Bobby had a good time - he was very well behaved and got along with all the dogs he met which was great. He was just loving the attention, I think. As you can tell - the turnout was great - lots of happy people, and happy animals - hopefully some great applications got put in today as well. But it was super that we all got to see all the great new spaces at the shelter - I am sure that everyone was really impressed with the new rooms and how everything looks - all the small touches are also great - like instead of pieces of paper on the wall as signs - they have great bulletin boards inside beautiful frames - really nice touches like that - that will make a big difference over time when there aren't holes in the wall and tape tears in the paint.

I only went in as far as the entrance way since I had Bobby with me - but I did get a nice look at this litter of very cute kittens playing - they didn't even seem to notice all the hull-a-baloo going on around them!

A long shot of the crowd
After me and Bobby left the open house, we went for a drive and thought we'd check out the Frenchy's on the corner of Tacoma and Hartlen in Dartmouth. Here's a tip for all you dog lovers who like to spend your money in dog friendly stores. DO NOT GO TO GUY'S FRENCHY'S ON THE CORNER OF TACOMA AND HARTLEN!

I was in there for about 45 minutes with no problems, minding my own business, Bobby's feet never touched the ground, probably about 5 people approached me because he was so cute and 2 people came up to me because they thought he was a stuffed animal - one person was at me for about 10 minutes and insisted I take her email address because Bobby was exactly what she was looking for and she wants me to email her if I ever see anything come through rescue that's like him - so it was a good educating time for rescue stuff - and about 45 minutes into my shopping this person comes up to me and says - "you can't be in here - there's no pets allowed" - and I say "why?" - and the woman says - "people in here might have allergies" - and I look at my hypoallergenic toy poodle and say to her "do you allow people in here who wear perfume?" - and the womans says "yes" - and I say to her "then that excuse is not good enough, you're going to have to think of a better one".

That person walks away - and another one comes up and we go through the same routine and I say - "I've been in her for like 45 minutes, what's the problem?" - and the woman says "I just came on the floor now" - so I say "well, I'm almost done shopping anyway", so I keep walking - which is pissing off this girl royally (which isn't bothering me at all and I'm trying to draw out for as long as I can) - and she's staring at me, and I say to her - "are you going to let me buy the things I'm carrying around?" and she says "yes" - so I start ambling over towards the cash register and she follows me there and rings me up and I say to her "you should let people bring their dogs in her with them, you'd get a lot more customers". And I take my ill-gotten gains and leave.

So that was the first and last time I'll be going to Guy's Frenchies on the corner of Tacoma and Hartlen in Dartmouth - I wish I would've noticed the Salvation Army just around the corner - they probably would've been a lot more friendly. I was originally going to go back to the Value Village on Portland but thought it was too far to drive to - but I know better now.

Some of us got together and made a video in appreciation of what the staff and volunteers do everyday at the Dartmouth shelter - we went downtown last weekend and video'd some people saying thank-you for what everyone does, and we went to the shelter and video'd the animals saying thank-you - and this is the video we came up with - I originally uploaded it to You Tube, but You Tube has gone nuts with disabling audio because of the music you put on with the video's - so I'm going to try and see if it works just attaching it to this blog post - hopefully the audio won't be disabled by blogger - we'll see how it goes - enjoy!

Some cute stuff and some gooey stuff

Shall I start with the cute stuff? Bobby is turning out to be a dog who can play by himself and love it.
He loves to grab a toy and then run at top speed around in circles - through the back yard, around the back yard, and then he'll drop the toy and keep running - and up into the house and he'll tear through the house and out the back steps and through the back yard and on through again.
It has got to be just about the cutest thing you've ever seen - until you see Buttercup - and then you'll agree that Buttercup is the cutest thing you've ever seen.
But this little guy is coming in a pretty close second, I've got to say.
I was out mowing the lawn when he was doing this and he wasn't taking any notice of the lawn mower - he wasn't letting that dampen his mood at all. He was determined that he was going to have a good time.
He should be pretty tired out tonight, because he did a lot of running around, that's for sure.
2 year old dogs are a lot different than 13 year old dogs - it's been about 8 years since I last had a 2 year old dog - and back then there were 2 of me, so it was easier then.


So now on to the gooey stuff - last night there seemed to be something "off" about Buttercup's left eye, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Today when I got home from work her left eye was just covered in yellow puss - it was totally gross - something was very wrong, so we went right over to the vet - I was worried that she has torn her cornea like Jack did last summer - and I didn't want that to happen to Buttercup - but Dr. Lindsay at Carnegy's did a stain test on her eye and there's no tear - so hopefully her eye is okay. I never like to screw with dog's eyes when something goes wrong. She's got antibiotic ointment and hopefully it'll just get better - whatever it is that went wrong.

While we were at Carnegy's we met with big black great dane named Ruper - he was a very nice dog, only about a year old - and very large! Although I have yet to meet a small great dane - they always come in size large!

Questionnaires to three provincial political parties

Advocates for Responsible Pet Ownership sent a short questionnaire to the 4 provincial political parties - the PC's, Liberals, NDP and Green Party. The Green Party have yet to answer back, and it seems like they won't because they haven't even acknowledged receiving the emails - but the other 3 parties have - and their answers are posted on the ARPO facebook group - or you can go read them here -

The Liberal answers - the PC answers - the NDP answers

Their answers are pretty interesting. They are especially interesting when you taken into consideration WHO is running in some ridings, and also what happened during the last provincial election in 2006.

First we'll talk about WHO is running in which party here in Nova Scotia - and as a large breed dog lover - I would be very remiss to not note that the inestimable Lloyd Hines is running in the Guysborough Sheet Harbour riding - after having been the warden for the district of the Municipality of Guysborough for like the last kajillion years.

So what about the questionnaire answers from the Liberals was so interesting as it relates to Mr. Hines running as a liberal?

One of the questions that was asked was -

"Will your party push to have all municipalities enacting humane animal laws and require that BSL be rescinded in those municipalities that have enacted such legislation? (Breed specific legislation enacts punitive laws based on breed of dog rather then the actions of negligent owner’s regardless of breed or mix)"

And that question was asked on purpose - BECAUSE there ARE municipalities in this province that DO have BSL - the provincial government, working with the Municipal Government Act - could outlaw BSL on a municipal level if they wanted. They are the law - they can do whatever they want.

The PC Party said that "The Nova Scotia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty opposes the establishment of Municipal by-laws that declare recognized breeds of dogs vicious or dangerous." The questionnaire seems to have been answered by Rodney MacDonald himself, which is very impressive - and he goes on to say - "I think I'd be more supportive of legislation that addresses the causes of aggression rather
than targeting the banning of specific breeds. This position, I believe, supports that of the SPCA’s mission as well" - so they get an A+ for that answer I'd say.

The NDP said that "The NDP will work with the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities to develop model humane by-laws. The NDP does not support breed-specific legislation."

One would think that they'd sort of HAVE to say that somewhere in their questionnaire - seeing as how in 2006 Darrell Dexter sent an answered questionnaire out to a reporter (which was eventually blamed on an aide to Dexter) saying "personally I support breed specific legislation" - you can imagine the brou haha this caused in the dog community. My post from 2006 is - here - if you want to read it. What a hoot that was.

So the NDP is really BEHOOVED to be against BSL this election, I'd say! haha!

So now on to the liberals, what was their answer to this question? Here we go -

Liberals feel that the rights of municipalities to make and enforce their own bylaws should be respected and do not see a role for the provincial government to lobby for changes at the municipal level. The Liberal party believes that it can be most effective protecting animals and safeguarding the rights of animal owners by introducing changes within its jurisdiction. An example of this was the changes to the Animal Protection Act our party put forward last fall.

So, if the Liberals get in - they are going to give full rein to the Municipalities to do whatever they want - like they tried to do with their "housekeeping bill" that tried to push through breed banning province wide last year by changing the Municipal Government Act completely - or like with Wardens like Lloyd Hines (who was also the President of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities who tried to push through that bill change of the Municipal Government Act) - who have enacted complete breed bans in their municipalities based on nothinng more than their own fear and hatred of certain breeds.

(from Lloyd Hines Facebook page - he's "red hot and ready to run")
And that person is now running for office in their own Party - so if he wins - he'll have a say and clout in their party decisions in the future. It is very well known that one of his dreams is to enact breed restrictions throughout the province of Nova Scotia - so what do you think is going to be on his mind if he is successfully elected to the provincial legislative assembly? I think that the topic of breed banning is going to come up at some point.

So the Liberal Party had better start getting their position statements on these issues ready - because the anti-BSL people already have their own position statements all written up - and they're pretty good.

But with answers like these to simple questionnaires - I don't think there's much of a chance for the Liberal party.

Did you all know that Stephen McNeil is the brother of the HRM Police Department's Robin McNeil - the person who wrote the bylaw A300 we're currently living under? Makes sense to me.

Twitter and the new Value Village in Dartmouth

So I am enjoying Twitter - I haven't been posting to it, but I've been accumulating people that I've been following, and I think I've figured out a couple ways to use it. One way that people use it is to advertise their blog posts - and about a gajillion people use it to advertise their online businesses - but when they're dog related - that's interesting to me too.

When you troll through other people's followers list you can find really neat stuff - I've found 2 American dog magazines that I've never heard of before - one is "City Dog Magazine" - who's website is at http://www.citydogmagazine.com/ and the other is "Paw Prints Magazine" - who's website is at http://www.pawprintsthemagazine.com/ - and just to show that Twitter marketing works - when I was at the Pawprints website, I liked their articles so much - I bought a subscription! That's the power of PayPal - I love Paypal, because you don't have to use a credit card with it, you can set it up so that it comes right out of your bank account which I love.

Another neat company that I started to follow was "Karma Charms" - they make charms for dog collars - plus they make collars and leashes for huge dogs - which is rare to find - it looks like a great company - and it was VERY hard not to spend money when I went to their website.

For an information junkie, Twitter seems like a little more than a distraction, because the people and organizations that I've chosen to follow seem to be posting interesting links in their "tweets" - so whenever I go in to have a look at what people have posted - there's always something interesting to read - unlike Facebook these days where it's all "so and so" has gotten 75,000 points in bejeweled blitz - like - who cares about that? Facebook is great for posting photos and organizing events, but for up to the moment on the spot - crack like - I want to be entertained this moment - Twitter is very good for that.

Also - today I went and found the newly moved Value Village in Dartmouth - it's where the old Moir's Chocolate Factory used to be - past the Dartmouth General Hospital on Pleasant Street in Dartmouth. It's HUGE. And a lot more expensive than the Halifax Value Village - prices seemed to hover around the $7.99 - $9.99 range - that's a lot of money for Value Village - but I found a few things to bring home.

I got this very nice bag from Land's End with a boston terrier on the side of it - it's a big bag - good for carrying lots of junk, and maybe a little dog or two.

I also got this hot plate with a great dane on it - eventually my house is going to have everything with a dog on it I think. That will be good.

I got a couple of other things too - but my Dad sometimes reads my blog, so I don't want to give away the store, but it was a good shopping day. I don't think I'll go there too often, because it's pretty far away for me and it's expensive - but for something different - it's a good place to go - it takes a long time to get through, that's for sure.

The little black dog photo porn begins!

So here we have the first series of photos of cute pictures of Bobby with something cute on.
My friend Maureen bought this hat for Buttercup back in 2008 - and Bob was laying on the couch today looking cute and his ear was sticking up in such a way that the hat came into my mind - so I went and got it!
And boy does Bobby look cute! haha!
Buttercup almost seems sad that she didn't get to put the hat on - and before she hated wearing the hat! When you don't have the thing - you always WANT the thing!
A couple of backward shots - I am pretty sure that Bob likes having his photo taken. He's a real ham in front of the lens -
And that is going to work out fine for me - although photographing a black dog is going to be a learning curve for me - it's much easier taking photos of white dogs - black dogs are difficult. I'm willing to learn though, he's worth it.

Silvia Jay comes to meet Bobby!

Today I was lucky enough to have Silvia Jay come over and meet Magic Bob and see the rest of the dogs.
She came to give me some tips because because Bobby is a bossy dog who doesn't seem to have any kind of boundaries put on him before - but at the same time he's really super smart, so he's going to turn into a great dog with the right kind of attention, and I want to make sure that I give him that.
So Silvia came and gave me tons of great ideas like only Silvia can, we are so lucky to have her here.
Daisy though, had to make sure we all knew that she was completely perfect in every way already! haha!
She's the most beautiful dog in the world, isn't she?

After we were done at the house we went down to Point Pleasant Park for a walk with her dogs Davie and Will - so we had a good time down there - I think everyone's gone away for the weekend though, because there weren't very many dogs or people there.
It was my first walk out in public with Bobby and he did super - although it was on leash - I don't think he'll be off leash anywhere for a good long time since he's proved that he likes to run away when he's in the neighbourhood - his whole "you can't catch me!" when he escaped through a hole in my fence really freaked me out. I am too old to chase a dog.
He didn't seem to mind being on-leash though, so that was good - this photo shows the asses of Davie and Will - Silvia's dog Will is famous - he's the subject of the book Silvia wrote called "Dump Dog" - it's an excellent book if you ever want to read a really good dog book.
This is Charlie near the end of the walk - we walked a bit too long for his old-dog body.
This is a front-on shot of the famous-dog Will. It was a great day for the dogs, and for me! I learned a ton of stuff, and I hope that I'll benefit from it and don't waste it.

Buttercup trying to play with Bobby

I got some video of Buttercup trying to get Bobby to play with her - and it is seriously cute. There's nothing like seeing a little white dog wiggling around. Almost cuteness overload. Enjoy!

Harold Porteous on Live at Five

Last night I talked about the fact that tonight Harold Porteous was going to be on Live at Five to be given the Maritimer of the week award - in case you missed it, I put it on You Tube - so see below for the video - enjoy!

Magic Bob's first video!

So I took some video of Magic Bob playing today. He plays with himself very cutely. Tonight I got some video of Buttercup trying to initiate play with him that is amazing (I think so anyway! haha!) that I'll have to upload tomorrow.

But for tonight - please enjoy the below video -

Maritimer of the Week tomorrow night

At the SPCA AGM in April they showed these amazing photos of what the former cat room now looks like at the Dartmouth shelter - to highlight the fabulous renovations that have gone on recently there - and most of it is due to the hard work of staff - and several key volunteers who have really put their time and money where their mouth is.
Tomorrow night on Live at Five they are going to honour Harold Porteous and his son Chris for all the hard work they've done at the shelter with their "Maritimer of the week" award for all the great things they've been doing at the Dartmouth SPCA.

Harold has a renovations and repair company and he and his son generously donated their labour as well as obtained for them a lot of donated supplies and they did a large portion of the recent renovations at the SPCA Metro Shelter in Dartmouth.

Harold built two new cat isolation rooms which enabled them for the first time to have a “real” cat isolation room as well as a cat “transition” room in order to give on-the-mend cats a transition home before entering the adoption floor.
What this has accomplished is it has enabled the shelter to drastically improve their disease control in the building. This change also enabled them to move the cats from the original cat adoption room to a room on the other side away from the dogs, creating a more peaceful environment for the adoption cats; in turn, this move enabled them to free up the old cat adoption room to become an Adoption and Education Centre. For those of you who have not been to the shelter in recent months, I think you would be pleasantly surprised with the changes.

This is a photo I took a couple years ago of the reception area at the front of the shelter - talk about being entirely un-user friendly and non-ergonomic, eh? Yuck!Sometimes people would be lined up out the door, trying to see animals, drop off animals, adopt animals - whatever. The animals would be stressed, the humans would get angry - it was awful.

But now the new reception area is opened up - the crowded little useless foyer is gone - the visitation room flows off the reception area - everything is beautiful.

As well - Candice Stringer was involved with the visitation room renovations - doing the decorating and donating all the furniture to make sure that it all looks as perfect as it does.

To show off the new shelter - there's going to be an Open House on Saturday, May 23rd from 12pm-2pm for a tour! That day they will also be having a barbecue as well as taking part in the Burnside Yard Sale with a big yard sale of their own, both running from 10-2. If you haven't been to the shelter in the last little while - you should definitely go and check out the yard sale - and check out the shelter - you'll be blown away.

Doing this blog post reminded me that I wanted to post about an article that appeared recently in the "Burnside News" about the renovations at the shelter - it said that Harold and Chris came to the shelter every week for a solid month and a half. It also said - Rooms have been painted and furniture and a new flat screen TV were generously donated for our Adoption Centre room by one of the shelter’s loyal volunteers, Candice Stringer. She was also able to supply the shelter with another contractor to finish adding big new windows and French doors to further brighten the front area of the building. As well, another improvement to the building’s infrastructure was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Kerslake.

The article ends by saying - The shelter would like to acknowledge the following people, who without their generosity these changes would have never been possible:

• Harold and Chris Porteous
• Dr. Leslie Steele and the staff at Eastern Passage Village Vet
• Floors Plus in Burnside
• Daniel Everson at Economy Glass located in Burnside
• Candice Stringer
• Susan Kerslake

The article goes into pretty good detail about all the renovations that did happen, so if you'd like to know blow by blow, you can read it at http://www.burnsidenews.com/index.cfm?sid=248760&sc=400

And watch Live at Five tomorrow (Friday) - and meet Harold Porteous and his son receive the kudos they so definitely deserve for their job very well done.

Thanks to Kat Horne for sending out an email letting us all know that it's going to be on!!

Kia Soul Hamster Commercial

There's not too many commercials that I think are just the cutest thing - but I've sen this commercial on television - and I think this is just the cutest thing - hamsters driving a car, listening their mp3's and nodding their heads in beat to the music - they think they're people! It reminds me back to when I had rats - they were this cute too. Enjoy!

Experts Agree Dog Whispering Results in Bites

Yesterday I had a comment left on the post I wrote outlining the talks I attended at the No Kill Conference - one of the speakers, Dr. Linda Wolf - said in her talk that

"Cesar Millans methods should never be used because they cause a shift in the relationship"

And the commenter posted - "What? But he seems to have so many dogs that can get along with each other and people. Many of the dogs he helps are now seemly happier dogs and the people are happier with them.

I want to know more about why not use Cesar Millans methods, as they seem to produce dogs that can live with people better and live with other dogs better. "

Me and a lot - well I should say - ALL - of my dog trainer friends, believe that Cesar Millan actually hurt the dog/human relationship - so it was a wonderful and beautiful gift that I was given today when one of my great friends, Adina MacRae - who owns several dog related companies, put out a press release today called "Experts Agree Dog Whispering Results in Dog Bites".

In part, she writes - "As Dog Bite Prevention week is recognized across the United States, one of the contributing factors to this seeming epidemic may require Americans turn off their TVs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to five million Americans are bitten by dogs annually with approximately 1,000 people requiring emergency medical attention every day. A key factor in aggressive dog behavior is the way they are trained. Experts agree the dominance-based techniques often used on popular programs increase the risk of aggression and dog bites.

Adina MacRae, President of the Clicker Leash Co., inventor of a new positive dog training tool, says this is why she brought her humane training system to market. "I have seen first-hand the results of dominance-based training methods and they can be scary," says MacRae. "The majority of dogs bite out of fear and the techniques you see on most television shows are designed to suppress undesirable behaviors with scare tactics." MacRae, a dog trainer known for using positive reinforcement to help dogs overcome aggression, noticed as the popularity of dominance-based training grew, she was getting more calls about growling, snapping and biting dogs. She points to the disconnect that often results when people try to take on an "alpha" role instead of being a guardian to their companion animals that leads to dogs becoming defensive."

You can read the whole press release at the link I provided above.

I've talked about Adina's great invention - the clicker leash, on this blog before - and it so happens that the clicker leash was chosen as one of the products to be put into a gift basket given to the Obama family when they got their new puppy Bo that they got recently - which was a great honour for the best invention to ever come out of Nova Scotia - since maybe the invention of hockey - or basketball.

Today I found on You Tube a short video of Cesar Millan giving the Obama's some tips on their new puppy, which was pretty interesting - you can see it - here - and when I emailed it to Adina - she emailed me a blog post that she'd already written on her own fabulous blog that you should all mark in your favourites and go and read regularly from now on. It's called "Should Obama Take Cesar's Advice?" and she says things like -

"Hopefully the Obamas will see that it is also a time for change in the world of dog training. Although Cesar’s fan base is huge, there are not many professional trainers that see eye-to-eye with the “dog whisperer.” It is true that most dogs need more exercise than they are provided in today’s busy world, but to put discipline before love often results in a rift between dog guardians and their pooches. Professional trainers are often contacted by people claiming to be experiencing dominance issues with their dogs and much of this stems from Milan’s frequent recommendation to be a “pack leader.”

It is time for the dog whisperer to educate himself with current research instead of relying on out-dated advice from his grandfather. Science has shown us the potential fallout associated with putting discipline first when training our dogs. Dogs become nervous and may stop offering new behaviours for fear of the consequences, resulting in an animal that is difficult to train and may be seen as “stubborn” by the average dog owner. Further, given that approximately 90% of aggression in dogs stems from fear, if we focus on disciplining or correcting nervous or insecure dogs, their behaviour can quickly spiral into fear biting and other forms of aggression."

Adina's whole blog is called "Dog Trainer for Dog Lover's Blog" - and it's a must read!

Cesar would have a field day with my new dog Magic Bob - he'd have him strung up on the kitchen floor in a second - he's perfect in 85 ways and highly imperfect in about 15. He's been following Daisy around growling trying to get her to fight with him - and I don't need to remind you that Daisy is a rottweiller and Magic Bob is a toy poodle. Luckily Daisy realizes that size difference. I suspect Cesar would call this dominance and something that needs to be alpha rolled out of him. I however, beg to differ.

While I was searching around researching for this blog post I found a couple other things - one is a short video from the Cesar Millan show that almost made me throw up. If you can't tell that this dog is suffering and shutting down in order to get Cesar to stop doing what he's doing to him - then you are on a different planet than me. This dog's eyes are popping out of his head, he's terrified, he's shutting down, he is not "relaxing", or "submitting", or "surrendering" or doing anything that is training him to be a better dog in short order. He is doing whatever he's got to do to survive in that moment. This video is not showing dog training - this video is showing a man abusing a dog.



To see a little shot of the other side, we have an article from the trainer Ian Dunbar - who actually does TRAIN dogs to be better. The dog trainer's trainer - While Cesar Millan is dazzling TV audiences, Ian Dunbar has been quietly gaining the respect of dog experts and dog lovers everywhere

And a SUPER article from local dog trainer Silvia Jay entitled - "Don't Whisper"

As well - there was a great, and very controversial - news piece on KOMO tv about Cesar's methods a few months ago - it's available for viewing on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpcNOwbRyOE

NS Homeless Pets Will Be Back Soon!

I had an email from the daughter of the lady who works tirelessly for the homeless and abandoned pets of Nova Scotia - Janet Young - she does the website "NS Homeless Pets" - and her daughter emailed me to say that Janet's computer died today and that Janet is going to be buying a new computer, but until she gets it up and running - Janet is going to be offline.

Janet also has the fabulous blog "Reigning dogs and cats" that is a staple of a lot of our daily surfing - so we'll all be waited with baited breath for her to get her new computer.

This is probably good news for Janet because now she'll have a shiny brand new computer with all kinds of speed and ram and hard drive space to do new wonderful stuff - let's just hope she's able to get all her data off her old computer before it went tits up. That would suck if she lost stuff. Me, I'm paranoid about data so I've got several external drives that I'm always backing up to. They're so cheap these days, the world would be so much poorer if the 54,000 or so photos that I've taken of my dogs were lost forever, wouldn't it?

Today was the NS SPCA's Alley Cat Bowling Tournament

Today was the NS SPCA's Alley Cat Bowl at the Halifax Shopping Centre's Fairlane's Bowling Lanes - and for the first time they held it, the organizers thought they did really well - and everyone there agreed with them!
This is Brosa, who I think has appeared on the blog before - I can't remember if she or he is a boy or girl - we'll call her a girl for now - she came into rescue when she was only a couple days old and if you can't tell has a hair lip and was bottle fed down in Cape Breton by Lee Anne Tibbo and when she was ready came up here to Halifax to be fostered by Lisa Davis - who has recently adopted her. There's a ton of photos and video of her on Facebook - because as you can see - she's very photogenic! You can also see she's being trained with the very user friendly clicker leash!

This photo is the #1 fund raiser Kathy Mercer winning the Alley Cat Bowling trophy for being the highest fund raiser for the event - the day raised $3,400 for the SPCA - which was awesome, and Global Pet Foods was a major sponsor which helped out a lot - Kathy was also the high scorer in bowling for the day. I'd say I was pretty much near the bottom - although they announced at one point that the next 3 people to get a "spare" would get a door prize - and I wanted to go home with a prize - so I focused my Buddhist ass and got myself a spare - and I got a beautiful dog blanket. I am however, too lazy tonight to take a photo of it - so I'll have to take a photo of it later.

This is Lisa and Brosa being perfect with their clicker leash
This is my friend Maureen who was on my team bowling right down the middle to raise her scrore right up to mediocre! HAHA!
This is another memmber of my team, Joan - taking a second to bowl in between trying to control everything that was going on in the bowling alley - she unfortunately failed abysmally at controlling me and Janet though - so she had a very stressful couple of hours today. But she went home to some really lovely and beautiful and loving dogs and I'm sure right now is in the bosom of a lot of love. She also won a prize for bowling a spare - but that's because she's a good bowler.
This was a very cute dog - I believe he was a puggle. They had dogs bowling today which was very cute to see - and I think they had fun - they were all agility and flyball dogs - so they were used to being in very high activity places and didn't appear to be stressed at all - I wish I would've known - I would've have brought Magic Bob - he would have loved to come and try to hump all these dogs.
This is Amy and her dog Gracie - who are very old hands at agility, flyball and all things fun.
A long shot of all the bowlers having fun.
This is Janet trying to make sure the bowling ball goes forward and not backwards towards the spectators.
This is another shot of Gracie - showing that the dogs actually were bowling!

Notes from the No Kill Conference

So here is my first post of my notes from the No Kill Conference - it's from the Talks 1 through 4 that I went to - there were 2 concurrents going on at all times so I didn't get to go to all the talks that were going on. I wish conferences wouldn't do that - I wish that you could go to everything that was being offered so that you don't miss out on stuff - I think that really sucks when there's 2 things going on at the same time that you want to go to - and when it's a conference that you're really interested in - you know that there's going to be 2 things going on at the same time - which is always a killer. So such as it is - here's some of the notes I took for the talks I went to - hopefully you'll find some of it interesting.

Where appropriate I referenced Nathan Winograd's blog posts on his No Kill Blog that talk about the same subjects that his talks are about - because he goes into great detail in his blog posts. And of course - there's other people who went to the conference who are also blogging about it now - and it's interesting to see the different things that they picked up and what they're saying about the same talks that I went and saw. It's all very neat.

"No Kill Conference May 2nd and 3rd, 2009 – Washington DC –

No Kill Advocacy Centre"

Talk #1 – Nathan Winograd and Richard Avanzino



Nathan Winograd has put this talk online in a post that you can read - here -

Killing is never an act of kindness when the animal is not suffering - people in rescue become myopic when they start to believe that there are only 2 options for animals in crisis - that a quick death in a "shelter" is better than a slow death on the street.

Rescue people who see only these 2 options haven't experienced great cities like San Francisco or Tompkins who embrace the public and save every animal - and take animals to the people, have foster programs, have behaviour help lines, have tnr programs, hold for longer periods, have socialization programs, have low cost spay/neuter, free spay/neuter, money making spay/neuter - have advertising campaigns like where they start to actually PAY people to get their animals sterilized - "bucks for balls, or "greenbacks for gonads" - making it easy for the public to do the right thing.

Nathan talks about this topic in great length in his blog post "the fallacy of "fates worse than death"

What the shelters today should be doing is giving a lifesaving guarantee for every healthy animal - the no kill of the 21st century is embarking on a "great experiment in compassion".

At this point Nathan shows photos of animals with problems who were adopted under the no kill philosophy and under their photos was the tag line "adopted" - and also under their photos was what their "problem" was supposed to be - like "only has 3 legs - adopted" - "only has 1 eye, likes to poop inside - adopted".

What we need to be doing is to take away people's objections by using the no-kill model in different jurisdictions around the country - Nevada, New York, Virginia - the areas have been increasing exponentially - some are urban, rural - public, municipally run - proving that all walks of life WANT to stop killing animals.

165 million animals are being saved around North America - but those numbers are not being talked about - shelters are only temporary way stations - what is talked about are the 4 million who DO die every year - and actually 90% of those 4 million are savable - not all of those actually need adoption. Some of them are reclaimed and some are feral.

Evidence of caring is all around people - they put it off as exceptions, even though they continually see those "exceptions".

Evolution of pet ownership from the 19th century until now - from barns to the backyard to our bedrooms

Public has made the difference because the public cares - there has been a paradigm shift from the hypothetical to the real.

Richard Avanzino starts talking -

Saving all of our healthy and treatable dogs and cats by 2015 is not only possible - it's probable - we need to go from killing 4 million down to 750,000 in order to meet the needs of the public.

In 1970 we killed 24 million
In 1996 we killed 6 million - and had 130 million animals in our homes
In 2009 we killed 3.7 million - and had 170 million animals in our homes
In 2015 we will kill 700,000 - and have 190 million animals in our homes - we are going to need a LOT of dogs and cats to meet this expanding market.

That's why we are going to really need our no kill philosophy - and why we are going to get to a no kill world - we are going to need all of the dogs and cats that we can get - because there is going to be such a need for dogs and cats in our animal friendly world in 2015.

We have a higher value to the human animal bond now than ever before - we give way more now than ever before to animal related charities.

The Ad Council in the United States is donating 40 million dollars in free advertising - starting in 2009 to encourage Americans to adopt their animals from shelters - so shelters have got to start preparing themselves for the wave of people who are going to want to get their companion animals from the shelter. The wave is coming - start preparing now.

Legislating No Kill - Nathan Winograd - Talk 2

Regulate shelters through legislation - the beginning of the movement began in
New York City with Henry Bergh.

Animal Control was born to protect
people from animals. Henry Bergh said animals posed very little threat to humans
- and he advocated leaving them on the streets. His reforms reduced deaths from
5825 to 938 in one year - his mission was to protect animals from people - and
he was the person who originally formed the ASPCA.

He believed the "the
ASPCA is a tool to save lives" - he was really worried though what would happen
to the organization after he died - and after he did die - the organization took
the contract to impound dogs - and many ASPCA's around the country took the same
lead.

They had a 3 point plan for animal sheltering of why they believed
the ASPCA's should take over pound contracts -
1. Humane Education - keeping
animals in the home;
2. Adoption - adopting out homeless animals;
3.
"Humane death" - giving animals a humane death rather than letting them suffer a
fate worse than death out on the street or otherwise

This has been the
mainstay of shelters ever since - and was started in the 19th century - so the
shelters of today - in the 21st century - are still following the model started
in the 19th century.

Trying to find answers to the animal problem up
until now have included legislation that includes licensing laws, laws that find
ways to confine dogs with leash laws, pet limit laws, mandatory spay and neuter
laws, and dangerous dog/breed specific legislation laws.

With bad legislation shelters divert more money with could be spent on truly lifesaving programs instead of enforcement of bad laws.

Mandating spay and neuter has never worked, but at the same time - most no kill communities have never worked until a low cost spay and neuter program was put into place.

It was only this year that the ASPCA has finally started to "get it" - the 19th
century model has never worked for them - and it doesn't work now.

We need a recipe for no kill success - which includes -
- A no kill director
- believing in the community
- changing how shelters operate

- they are part of a team
- you want people who like people and people who love animals working in your shelter - who will support the new direction - when your shelter becomes no kill - 1/3 of the staff will quit, 1/3 will support the new direction and 1/3 will be fired in order to move forwards. It's better to fire a staff member or volunteer than to kill an animal.

On the plus side - reward the hard workers - and show them that advancement is possible for them.

Even if the shelter is following through with their no kill equation – we still need to move forward with legislation. – the No kill philosophy needs to be institutionalized – and it needs legal protection.

The old traditional sheltering model is very institutionalized and needs
to be torn down.

Nathan talks about entrenching the no kill philosophy with legislation in his post - "there ought to be a law"

Why do we need enlightened no kill legislation? We have learned from the past – we have learned when mandatory spay neuter laws have passed that animals get seized and shelter killing increased - any animals that are not altered come into shelters and they are automatically killed – that laws can be badly written – lessons of the last 10 years have been learned and we need to close the loopholes. A model law has been written – and it’s the Companion Animal Protection Act

Talk 3 – Teaching Compassion =

Talking about your foster program & Special Promotions

If there’s an empty kennel at your shelter – there’s an animal dying somewhere
else at another shelter

There are all kinds of adoption specials you can
run –
- fat cat adoption
- happy “mew” year
- 2 for 1
- Black
cat special
- Kitten shower – have a “baby” shower for kittens
- Open up
a retail space for adoptions

You need to change outdated policies and
beliefs about your foster programs – and you need to develop a customer service
program for your foster program – you need most of all to do the following –
- Recruit – teach, train, and empathize – and
- Find, organize – support
– train/teach – empathize – and recruit
- You need to develop flyers,
newsletters to stay in contact, media, emails, use existing word of mouth from
fosters – and constantly recruit

Who are the good fosters?
- animal
career personnel
- single women, families, young families,
- all income
levels
- when people bring in strays – try to recruit them as foster parents
for those kittens
- make buttons that say “ask me how to be a foster parent”
- make your foster parent application available online – your applications
will go up exponentially
- have a foster mentor program – and allow your
experienced senior fosters to step up – they will give great advice

TNR – Urban and Rural Felines

Who are concerned about rural and urban felines? Cat people, birders, hunters
and outdoorsmen
We need to bring those groups together and create the most
humane outcome – we need to meet on common ground and never argue – TNR IS the
solution – and we don’t need to tell other people involved in the feral cat
situation what their reality is – and that what they are experiencing is not
true.

Other options than TNR is more expensive – trapping a cat, taking
it to a shelter so that they can hold it for awhile in a cage, feeding it, and
then ultimately killing it is way more expensive than TNR.

We in the TNR
community need to sell the benefits of TNR – not argue, because it is the best
solution.

Louis Pasteur developed the 70% solution. He said that if 70%
of any population was vaccinated against a disease – that would stop the spread
of the disease in that population. And that statistic holds true for anything –
and it holds true for TNR as well – if you can trap, neuter and release 70% of a
feral cat population you can prevent of the propagation once you get to that
level.

If you only reach 30% though – you may actually INCREASE the
population – especially if you took out the dominant male – because then all the
other males would have free rein over the females – so sometimes things become a
tricky situation.

For TNR – mobile is the way to go – you need to get a bus – what you could call a “NEUTER COMMUTER” – the speaker Mike Fry and his crew have got a spay down to five minutes. He said there’s no point in doing leukemia testing – and no external sutures are needed anymore. Their website is at http://www.neutercommuter.com/

Harnessing Community Compassion

A vibrant volunteer program creates workers and ambassadors for your
organization – you need great recruitment and training materials though that
clearly defines policies and job descriptions to define expectations – and you
also need a good orientation program - that is really important – along with a
detailed training program along with a mentor program.

Having time to
thank your volunteers through get togethers is also really important too.

Talk 4 – Rehabbing and Adopting Special Dogs – Temperament Tests

Behavioural development starts in prenatal development – every puppy inside a puppy mill bitch is stressed. Studies show that bitches that are petted have better puppies – bitches need to be handled.

From birth to 14 days – touch and olfactory senses are coming alive – short periods of handling are very important – acceleration of their nervous system and motor development is happening.

2 weeks to 12 weeks – rapid development – play biting starts – also emergence of social behaviour – we need to start engaging our puppies at this time – there is a high fear period up to 8 weeks and we have to be really careful with this time.

8 weeks to 16 months – dogs come into shelters at this time – when play biting starts and they didn’t learn proper social etiquette.

The speakers suggestions about play biting was that you should holler and yelp like a puppy when the play biting is too strong – and they should learn the association that the good thing goes away when they bite too hard.

Without bit inhibition, socialization, and habituation – you’re going to end up with a damaging bite.

Dogs communicate 3 ways –
- olfactory - smelling
- depositing of scents - peeing everywhere
- distinctive body odours – smelling dogs butts

Dog appeasing pheromones work really well – DAP – calms dogs down

Auditory communication – high bark = happy, low bark = aggression

Visual or postural communication – you really need to become adept at this type of communication

Distance reducing behaviours – submission, threat reducing, appeasement
- decrease threat, stop – eye shift – looks away
- ears neutral or back – cropped ears take away a dogs normal ability to signal and has psychological effects – dogs interpret it as aggressive
- tail – where it’s placed and how fast it’s going makes a difference

- Smiling may have a genetic component
- Active submissive play response
- Licking
- Yawning is a high stress response to get them out of the situation
- Paw up is also a submissive gesture

Distance increasing behaviours
- eye contact is direct
- open mouth, lips pulled back vertical and horizontal
- pilo-erection – over the shoulders and down the back
- body pinning – putting their muzzle over the other dogs muzzle

Play behaviour
- bow down, tail wagging
- can also be a conflict behaviour



Fear behaviour flight/flight – some obstacles to signal reading
- docked tails, dark eyes, really hairy dogs, hanging muzzles, hairy eyes, cropped eyes, geriatric dogs, dogs in pain


How do we assess dogs?
- temperament tests
- should not be used for life or death
- behaviour assessment – what it should be called
- if you take a picture you can only take it from the front – you don’t see the side or back
- you need to test all dogs, not just problem dogs
- not everyone wants a perfect dog at many facilities
- failure = unadoptable = death
- breed bias will affect the way some people do tests – they love pit bulls and hate german shepherds
- puppies, behaviourally challenged, old and sick dogs have special needs
- harsh and aversive methods should never be used

Cesar Millans methods should never be used because they cause a shift in the relationship

Negative means you’re taking something away that the dog likes

Positive punishment – giving the dog something that is unpleasant – hitting the dog – never use

Constructive aggressive therapy – negative reinforcement – construct a new behaviour

Someone's feeling beautiful

When I was in Washington I was at a froo froo dog store and I bought Buttercup a new fur coat
But unfortunately it was too small for her
As you can see from these photos it fits Magic Bob quite beautifully - his former foster parents were pretty sure he was gay because of the way he was acting with their male chihuauaua
And I think the way he's modelling this white faux fur coat pretty much confirms it....

No Kill Conference in Washington DC May 2nd and 3rd, 2009

So here's a little bit about what happened at the No Kill Conference that I went to down in Washington DC last weekend - there were a lot of people there - and there were a lot less Canadians than I thought there would be. I learned a ton of stuff and am still putting everything I got there together so that I can make some sense of it - I think I will make a separate post about that - the things that seeped into my pea brain - we'll see how they spew out.
It rained the whole time we were there, pretty much - which was difficult for those of us who are made almost completely of sugar - I was melting the whole weekend, which made things a bit uncomfortable, but not insurmountable. All the talks were in different buildings - so I personally was melting and drying. By the end I was pretty much composted - which was something that was pretty neat, and quite brave of the organizers - all the food served at the event was vegan - this was the first thing I'd gone to where everything was completely vegan and compostible. Another thing was - there was nothing there that I could buy - no tshirts, coffee mugs or other consumer goods - I would have liked to have spent egregious amounts of money on charitable junk from vendors - but no luck. I had to satisfy myself by swiping a big pile of Petfinder.com bumper stickers - so I have got bumper stickers for all my friends, anyway.

I did get in a little shopping - I looked in the phone book to see if there was a Tibetan shop - and sure enough there was - so I made a beeline for that store - well, it actually took me a few hours to get there by taxi. It seems that in Washington they don't feel the need to put street numbers on the front of their buildings, yet the taxi companies will only go to addresses that have physical locations - so the building that I was at at George Washington University had no address on the front of the building - but I had to find it's physical address - which took about 45 minutes, and the address of the store I wanted to go to didn't have it's complete address in the phone book, and the fellow working at the store that I talked to on the telephone didn't speak english - so he was no help at all - so through my savvy use of the browser on my blackberry - I did eventually find the stores physical address - another half hour. And then I called the taxi back - initially when I called the taxi to find out I needed to do all this pre-work - I was on hold for about 25 minutes - only to be hung up on after being told I needed a physical address. I love Americans.

So once I've done all my proper homework and have all the information I need in order to procure the fabled taxi - I get to be on hold for another 25 minutes - and ask "how long will it take for the taxi to arrive?" - and the lady says "the taxi driver will call you when he is on his way". So I wait. And wait. And wait. For an hour. And I am standing in front of the building where we'd had our morning session for the conference and start a conversation with a fellow attendee - and she says "would you like a drive to the store?" and I say "YES, PLEASE" - and so my sorry, wet butt gets in their car and I say to myself that maybe there is a God afterall.

As I am exiting the Tibetan store with my hard won goods - what do I see? The bloody taxi - he had come to the store to look for his fare - in Washington when you cancel a taxi - there is a FIVE DOLLAR charge. So I walked out of the Tibetan Store and into the store next door - and thought to myself - fuck you taxi driver.

This story actually has an ending. Sunday night - the night before I was due to come home to Halifax - I had to get up at 4am to catch my flight - my cell phone rings at 12:30am - it wakes me up - I'm wondering to myself, "who the hell is calling me at 12:30am! So I get up and look at who the number is - guess who it is - it's that goddamm taxi driver! He was calling me at that hour just to wake me up. Some Americans I think are just plain assholes when you owe them five dollars.

I got some lovely stuff at the Tibetan Store though, so the bad karma was worth it.

So on to the talks - they were all fabulous - I of course went to almost all of Nathan's talks - a couple of them are online, and actually most of them were based on blog posts he had previously written which is kind of interesting - his opening speech is available to be read on his blog in a post called "It's a Wonderful World"


I'd imagine it's only for a limited time, but some of the documents they gave out at the conference are available on the "What's New" page at the No Kill Advocacy website - there's just a ton of good stuff there - they are zip files - so there's tons and tons of files. As I've said before - all killer, no filler.

And while we were at the conference - Animal Wise Radio broadcast live from there - I haven't listened to the Podcast yet, but it's available for listening - here - if you want to listen.

So if you're interested, stay tuned for a post about the stuff that I actually learned at the No Kill Conference - hopefully I'll have time in the next few days to make a post about that.

Be Kind to Animals Week Plus Local Stuff

So this week is Be Kind to Animals Week - May 3rd to 9th - put on by the American Humane Association. They want us to speak out for animals, report abuse, appreciate wildlife, adopt a pet from a shelter or rescue and take care of our pets. That all sounds pretty great to me. If you click on the link you can find out more about what the AHA wants you to do, but if you look around you I'm sure you can figure out something locally that will make a difference too.

On that note, I got an email today from a lady who runs a local cat rescue - I'll just copy it here and you can pick from the list of how you'd like to help if you feel moved - this lady has saved a ton of cats and feeds several colony's of feral cats, so she puts her money and time where her mouth is.

Hi there friends and supporters,

It is with great sadness that I must report that for the first time in 3 years and 201 rescued cats, we have a confirmed case of distemper (panleukopenia) in a kitten. Tongo was outwardly healthy for the first 8 days he was here, but on Sunday morning, he suddenly fell quite ill. We treated him and kept him as comfortable as possible, but by Monday afternoon, he was too far gone to hold out any hope for survival, so I helped him make a trip up to Heaven, by humanely euthanizing him at the vet.

Here is what I wrote on Facebook on Monday morning, before he died:
I am very sorry to report that for the first time in our 3 years of rescue, we have a kitten with distemper, also called panleukopenia. He is very sick and I am praying he will survive, but it is not looking good. Tongo was doing fine since he arrived last Saturday, but yesterday he suddenly developed a high fever, is vomiting, has bloody diarrhea and no appetite or energy. We provided Pedialyte and subcutaneous fluids last night, and this morning I took him to my vet. He was tested with a rectal swab SNAP test, and it came back positive, so this is not just a suspected case, but has been confirmed.

Thus we are trying to disinfect EVERYTHING he may have come in contact with, and will have to keep the rescue workshop under QUARANTINE until further notice. Donations of bleach and disinfecting wipes are badly needed. We will have to throw away all our litter boxes, scratching posts and cat beds. We would really appreciate donations of new cat supplies, to re-stock our rescue.
As it is, I don't have any idea how I am going to pay the enormous vet bills! Please volunteer at our Bottle Drive on May 16th Thanks so much,
Sonya Higgins

Since writing that message, I have had a case of bleach donated! So we don’t need any more bleach right now, but I am including a “Wish List” for the things we could use:

I would like the following items for cleaning:
paper towels
boxes of tissues
Disinfecting wipes (Lysol, Mr. Clean, Clorox or any brand)
hand sanitizer
small hand broom sweepers with dust pans

Extra miscellaneous items:
a Dust Buster
a space heater
a large cat scratching post or tower
a digital thermometer

Cat items:
small scratching posts
cat beds
cat blankets
toys: balls, mice, feather wands, etc
cat carriers
litter boxes
litter scoops

Of course, we need money to help cover the vet bills. Donations of cash may be made in person at the Eastern Passage Village Vet hospital to the SCARS account. They also accept debit and credit card. If you want to donate, but cannot make it to the vet in person, you can call in your credit card and they would mail you a receipt. I have also had a few people send me an Interac email money transfer.
Personal Cheques are not accepted at the vet, but may be mailed to me:
143 Briarwood Drive
Eastern Passage, NS
B3G 1B7

Thank you so very much on behalf of the (remaining) kitties,

Since the distemper virus can live for a long time in the environment, as it is airborne, we will NOT be able to take in any new kitty cats for quite some time. At least a few months, possibly for up to a year! This does NOT mean the end of Healing Animal SCARS – we can still help people who are willing to foster the kitties through our program. I can also still help folks who want to TNR an adult cat, as long as they are not looking for financial assistance. People who want to help a feral or stray cat and are willing to pay the reduced veterinary costs, can borrow a trap form me, get help trapping, plenty of advice. I can lend them equipment to keep the cat confined in their own shed or spare room for a few days post surgery. I just cannot have any new cats come into my rescue for a while. So please spread the word! We need foster homes desperately!

Sonya Higgins
Chairman/Director, “Healing Animal SCARS - Sonya’s Cat & Animal Rescue Society”
katsonya@accesswave.ca
http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/NS28.html

*********************


There was an article in this week's Community Herald written by the unparallelled Pat Lee about a lady who knits hats for dogs - and the dogs always look so cute! And my friend Maureen gave Buttercup one of these hats a long time ago - doesn't Buttercup look cute in hers! haha!

Knitter turns hand to perky hand-knitted pet toques Dog lovers from around the world order East Jeddore woman’s cute canine creations

EAST JEDDORE — They might not be making a splash on the runways of Milan, but Debbie Storey’s hand-knitted toques for pooches are sure to turn heads.

Brightly coloured, stylishly designed and just cute as all get out when on the head of a tiny chihuahua or a fuzzy shitzu, the petite hats with appropriately placed holes for the ears are designed and knitted by Storey and sold in select pet stores or over the Internet at http://www.thegreatcanadiandog.ca/.

"I get great feedback from people," the local woman said recently. "They just love them."

In the three years she’s been making the toques — considered Canada’s national hat — she has shipped the colourful creations all around the world, including various parts of the U.S., Australia and Japan.

She said some people order them straight off the Internet, but others send a picture of what they’d like her to knit.

"They’ll e-mail me and say, ‘I want a plain red hat like this one in the picture’ and then we’ll go into detail with the measurements."

Storey runs her Great Canadian Dog Hat Company out of her home in East Jeddore, where she’s kept company during the day by her yellow lab Honey, who ironically is not a great model for her knitted creations.

"If you look at a lab, they don’t have a (pointed) head. It just slides off," she said, laughing, although she does offer a "helmet-style" hat for bigger dogs.

Storey learned to knit and do other needlework, like embroidery, from her grandmother and first put her skills to use in her native New Brunswick where she sold children’s knitwear. She ran the clothing items up on a knitting machine and then added embroidered detailing by hand.

She estimates she sells 300 hats a year, getting busy in late August as the two stores she deals with — one in Toronto and Brenda’s Dog Dudz in Lower Sackville — want to ensure they’re stocked for Christmas. She said she’s been in touch with other local stores that are interested in selling her hats, some which come with matching scarves.

The hats sold directly by her sell from $15 to about $40.

**********************************

And lastly - back to the being kind to animals, but on a different tack - WSPA put out a report on the fact that Animal cruelty still goes unpunished in Canada - this is what they've said -

It's been one year since Parliament amended Canada's animal cruelty laws to increase the jail time and other penalties for animal abuse. Recent headlines show that little has changed.

Offenders and their lawyers continue to exploit flaws and loopholes in the law to get off with a mere slap on the wrist or no penalty at all. The burden of proof that Crown Attorneys, police and SPCA investigators must meet in order to successfully prosecute these crimes is too high since it's virtually impossible to prove that the cruelty was 'wilful' in its intent and 'unnecessary'.


We need modern legislation now - We need the government of Canada to pass modern and enforceable legislation that protects all animals from cruelty and abuse. Animals matter to Canadians - it's time to reflect this in our laws.

What's really neat is that they've released a pdf report of cruelty cases that have had almost no punitive punishments associated with them - and they've included a couple of Nova Scotia cases - it's too bad that they missed a couple cases though - the Chapman case where they shot 175 of their dogs isn't mentioned, and the Celtic Pets case also is not mentioned. That's too bad - because those 2 cases are very blatant cases of the justice system giving the animals no any justice what so ever.

(Jack before he went to Cape Breton)
(Jack after he came back to Halifax - and had 2 baths and had the matts cut away from his eyes so that you could actually see them)
Need I mention once again that my dog Jack went down to Cape Breton with TWO eyes and came back to Halifax with ONE eye? You may be reading on different spots on the internet currently that there are some apologists for the animal abusers the MacIsaacs - and you may be wondering why I am not replying to them - it's because the things they are saying are so ludicrously obvious in their allegiance - and the facts of the case are so obvious that no reply is needed. All one needs to do is look at a dog like Jack to see that serious abuse took place in the home of animal abuser Alice MacIsaac.

And need I remind you that this poor dog was found in the "shelter" on animal abuser Zonda MacIsaac's property? Enough said. So the animal abusers MacIsaac apologists can go pound sand as far as I'm concerned.


The pdf report from WSPA is here

Introducing Magic Bob!

So the conference in Washington was amazing - I still have to process it and will be making a long, and probably multi-post about it - but I have something else to post about - and it's this little dog - who I'm calling Magic Bob!
He's the newest little member to the Dogkisser pack - his name previously was "Magic" - but I'm going to call him Bob, hence the name "Magic Bob"
He's a little black toy poodle - the 3rd little black toy poodle who's come to live with me - I seem to specialize in them.
Introductions went beautifully yesterday - espcially with Daisy - she was so perfect and gentle it was amazing - I'm sure it was also because Magic Bob was good too - these first photos show the beginnings yesterday - all the "I'll sniff your butt, now I'll sniff your butt" and everyone following around each other and marking - Mr. Magic Bob is a very intense marker with lots of kicking up dirt every time he does it - so I'm going to like to see my lawn in the near future - it's probably going to be all gone.


I don't think Jack realized there was a new dog until after we went back up the stairs and we were all on the back deck and he suddenly saw him and he went over and gave him a good nose poke - which drove Magic Bob back down into the back yard for a moment - it was pretty funny - for me anyway! At the point I took this photo in the back yard Jack was saying - "what are we doing here - where's the liver?"
Charlie wasn't too interested in him in the backyard - he's only interested in new dogs inside the house - he's got a very strict protocol on new dogs - they aren't allowed into whatever room we're all in for at least a week. And then when they're allowed into the living room, they still aren't allowed into the bedroom. I'll never forget when Daisy came to live with us and her howling out in the living room because Charlie wouldn't let her into the bedroom and I had to go out and get her because sleeping on the bed was like the most important thing in the world to her at the time - she'd spent her whole life outside - and the bed was so high value she just could not stand it.
This is Buttercup up on the deck yesterday saying to me - "you've done it again, haven't you? Another black little dog!"
This is such a classic photo - this is the LAST time I brought home a little black dog - Teddy - and the look on Buttercup's face says it all - she is so pissed off at me - if anyone says that dogs don't have emotions and that they can't tell us what they're feeling - all they have to do is look at this photo - Buttercup is so clearly saying here what she's thinking with her averted face and lidded eyes - she is so annoyed at me she could just spit. This time around she doesn't seem quite so annoyed - Magic Bob is 1000 times nicer than Teddy was, luckily.

Here's a few photos from this morning - after I took these first couple photos, I cut the hair away from Magic Bob's eyes - so he's looking much cuter now.

I took these closeups so I can compare them to 6 months from now to see if the look in his eyes have changed - he seems very flat right now as far as his look goes - I am looking forward to seeing his personality emerge.
He is supposed to be a very bad resource guarder with other dogs and his past is very murky - I'm his 3rd home in 2 years - bounced around because of behavioural problems - he seems to be a mini-Jackie - so he'll fit in here I'd imagine.
Buttercup taking umbrage to me taking photos of the other dogs

Day 1 here in Washington

(this was the only dog we encountered in a store today - there were ust no dogs around on the sttreets on in the sores, it felt really weird)
So me and Netta Armitage have made it here to Washington - we spent today shopping because the rest of the weekend is going to be just for the conference. Netta didn't spend too much, but I bought a bunch of books - who could have guessed? A new purse, and as a real surprise - a new white fur coat for Buttercup - she's going to look so beautiful.

I do not have the energy to post all the photos here, so I'll just put a couple here and I uploaded the rest to my Picasa photo album and I made a slideshow that you can see below. From a people view point, Washington is quite a bit different than Nova Scotia - so I'm finding that really interesting.






Here's the slideshow -