Booba's New Shoes - The Translation

God I love this video, I could watch it over and over - and I have....

My first stop motion video

On Saturday I was taking some pictures of little figurines that I'm selling on Etsy, and at the time it didn't occur to me that it would make a cute little stop motion video - but last night when I was processing the pictures - it started to look like it might make a nice little video - so I've put the pictures together, and lo and behold - it's kind of cute - so here it is - 1 minutes and 38 seconds of little porcelain figurines turning around in a circle, that sometimes has my man-hands in the shots - I think I might make more of these....

A little present - Desiderata for Dogs

I've made a new video - Desiderata for dogs - and a lot of you will recognize some of the dogs in here - I thought that I'd spend some time distracting myself - and this is what I came up with - enjoy -

(here's a tip - you can make that annoying ad disappear from the you tube video by just "x'ing" out the upper right hand corner of the ad like you do any web page - and the ad will disappear for the rest of the video so that you can see the whole screen)

Reuniting Lost Dogs could be a paradigm shift in the Humane Movement

In January of 2010 I wrote a post called "Think Lost, not Stray" and the "Missing Pet Partnership" - and it was about changing people's mindframe's about the idea of stray dogs - that most of them aren't "stray" - that they are just "lost" - that if they could be reunited with their owners - we'd save the shelter system a lot of time and money.

In the post I said that 75% of the dogs that had come through the SPCA were stray dogs - so if we could have reunited even 40% of those dogs with their owners - that would be a huge difference in the amount of animals that the shelter system would have to deal with.

Since I've written that post - there has been a new organization formed here in Nova Scotia - the Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network - and they are showing just how many pets are getting lost - and not just that - they are showing how many OWNERS are looking for those lost pets.

Until now there's never been a real way for owners of lost pets to congregate and find a voice to look for their lost pets - and the Nova Scotia Lost Pets Network has given them that voice - and I think that's awesome. The group is giving pet owners the tools to actually go out and find their pets - and families are being reunited - and I'd bet it's happening like never before.

Mistakes happen - gates get left open - pets bolt - but Nova Scotian pet owners now have been given a great network to get pets back home with the Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network. They are on Facebook - and they also have a website.

What would be really great is if every town's animal control department developed a relationship or link with the group so that if they picked up an animal - they could check with the group to see if an animal had been reported to them. Most town bylaws have a 48 to 72 hour limit before they're allowed to either kill or otherwise dispose of an animal in Nova Scotia, which isn't very long - it'd be so much easier if there was a central spot like the Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network as a reporting function for lost animals that AC Departments could check when an animal was impounded. But a person can dream, can't they.

I am currently suffering from a serious case of existential ANGST, so until I am cured from this malady - my blogging deportment, as one of my detractors likes to call my typing style - will not be publishing.

Thanks.

Lost Dog in the Robie Street area of Halifax - Crudo

I received an email from the owner of a dog named "Crudo" - that went missing yesterday - he's gone missing from the Robie Street area of Halifax and the man is worried that his dog is stolen - so he's desperate to find him.

If you see this dog - please email Mike at pawcamptraining@gmail.com - or contact the police - that would be fabulous - I'm sure Crudo's owner is climbing the walls and doing everything he can right now to find him. You can also contact him through his kijji ad.



Below is a video of his dog - and he's offering a reward for his return

Today's walk for the Whistler 100 in Halifax

So today was the walk in memory for the 100 dogs in Whistler who were killed last year - and almost 100 people and their dogs showed up - a fabulous turn out I'd say on a weekend when there was a kennel club show and the Canada Games going on at the same time!

We all converged on the Halifax Commons at 1pm today and let the dogs hang out for a little while and took some pictures - it was a perfect day - and all the dogs got along great.

CBC did a little write up - which is at the bottom of this post -

Every breed of dog was there, along with every breed of human (!) - so it was all good - and everybody was dressed appropriately - although at least one person - yes, it was Janet! Thought that the walk was too long for her bad back! But she prevailed and soldiered on for the sake of the sled dogs - yay Janet!

There is a paper petition that has been started to change the criminal code of Canada in regards to animal cruelty laws - because that was part of the reason why we walked today - the criminal code of Canada has not changed for animals since 1892 - and that needs to change - so everyone there today signed the petition - and if you too want to sign the petition - you can go to Bark & Fitz on Doyle Street in Halifax - and sign the petition there.

If you feel moved enough to print out your own copy of the petition to have signatures filled out and pass it in - you can print a copy out at http://markholland.liberal.ca/files/2010/07/petition_AnimalCruelty_2011.pdf - and follow the directions there.

Here's a couple photos of the walkers coming up Cogswell towards the triangle.

Everybody was looking very powerful at this point I'd say - this was at the end of the walk - so they were all feeling like they were representing the dogs pretty well.

This is Cara and Aspen respresenting

Someone is feeling very beautiful

This is Sirius - a few of you may remember a black toy poodle who was lost near Quinpool last year - who was the pet of the groomer at Bark & Fitz who was eventually found in someone's back yard a few days after he'd gone missing? This is him. What a lucky boy he is, eh? A tribute to the power of not giving up.

A beautiful great dane who was saying hello to my camera

A very stoic - what I hope is a brindle boston terrier - and very cute

This guy's name was Bronson - he loved the camera - and loved it when you said his name, too!

And last, but very not least - is Scotia!!

The CBC news article -

Halifax dog owners walk against cruelty

About 100 dog owners gathered on the Halifax Common on Sunday to show their support for the 100 dogs that were ordered killed by a Whistler, B.C., business operator almost a year ago.

The dog owners circled the Common, a very public spot, with hundreds of people attending events at the Canada Games speedskating oval.

Last year in Whistler, a sled-dog company destroyed 100 dogs after demand for its dog-sledding business dropped when the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games ended.

"It's in memory of the dogs but more importantly to raise awareness against animal cruelty and to hopefully get the laws changed so that something like that won't happen again," said Kim Stoodley, one of the walk's organizers.

Walks were being held in other parts of the country as well, and more are scheduled for next week.

Christine Greening, who helped organize the Halifax walk, was impressed with how quickly people gave their support to the cause.

"Animals are individuals too, they're just not human," Greening said. "So when they don't have the voice and education that we have to make this change, we have to do it for them. That's just the bottom line."

All of the dogs in the walk wore red ribbons in memory of the slain huskies.

Visit to today's Halifax Kennel Club Show and the Eukanuba Awards Dinner

Saturday was a very busy day - I went to the Halifax Kennel Club show to see what was going on - and there was lots going on - with some interesting vendors - and lots of good looking dogs - I always try to get to every kennel club show that I can

I bought something from this very neat vendor "Davis' Faberge Eggs" - their email address is davissfabergeeggs@ns.sympatico.ca - they make and sell really neat things made from goose, finch, ostrich - all kinds of eggs that they intricately clean out and turn into really beautiful objects - and they also make the above painted things - which is what I bought -

But I was really impressed with these hand painted and made eggs - they don't have a website - but they said they come to the craft shows at Christmas time here in Halifax - so you should definitely check them out - aren't these neat? They are from Sydney.

This display was on my friend Maureen Tate's table - you'll be hearing a lot more about this in the coming months - it's all about a huge expo that's going to be happening here in Dartmouth in October about integrative pet health that we're putting on that's going to be a ton of fun and we're all going to learn a lot about how to keep our animals healthy - the "Nova Scotia Integrative Health Pet Expo"

This beautiful collie's name was Corey

And this beautiful doberman's mom is a groomer who used to groom Jackie

I think that she's a pretty pampered dog

This dog's name is Gidget from New Brunswick

She didn't win in her group - but I think she should have - I thought she was the best dog there - she was definitely the most photogenic!

Then last night me and my friend Maureen had tickets to go to the Eukanuba First Annual Awards of Excellance out at Exhibition Park - and we had an excellent time - the food was fabulous, there was lots of nibblies, and there was lots going on.

Even the drinks were free - and we also got a "swag bag" from Eukanuba that had a couple neat things in it - by the end of the evening I almost wanted to become a CKC breeder.

Especially when I saw the awards that were given out - and that they not only got an award - but they also got a metal gear case - AND a fancy chair! They are so lucky. It is wonderful for Eukanuba to recognize responsible breeders, handlers, and dog fanciers - it would be great if an organization would do something like that for the rescue community.

Walt Norris won in the category of "dog person of the year" category - I had been interested to see who would win this award because I was wondering who the purebred community would consider to be "the" dog person in Atlantic Canada - it made me think back to when the CKC would say that "they" were the voice of the Canadian dog owner - and that made me think to myself that they certainly didn't represent me.

From what I read - they made a good choice Walt Norris has been in the dog community forever - he's been in Halifax Kennel Club for a long time - he's served on the SPCA board - he's taken pictures at the Kennel Club shows - he's been everywhere, done everything - so he really deserves the "dog person of the year" - so it's fabulous when a person gets the recognition that they're due.

So I think that Saturday was a good day for the Halifax Kennel Club and Eukanuba. And Charlie and Daisy got their bellies full of pork and chicken at the end of the day too - so a good day was had by all! haha!

This commercial deserves to go viral!

Cool Scarves in honour of Halifax Canada Games

There are some high school students locally who have made some neat scarves as part of a junior achievement organization that they've launched - and they were here where I work this week selling the scarves - this young fellow named Will was selling them when I dropped by to pick up one of the scarves - isn't he the cutest?

I've been wanting to spend some money on Canada Games stuff - the nearest I can tell the only place you can buy junk is down at Barrington Place - and I think the last time I was down there was when I was working there in the early 1990's - so the chances that I'm going to go there are slim to none - so I was happy to buy one of these cute scarves for the bargain price of $20.

I am happy to support the Canada Games here in Halifax - especially since their mascots are Nova Scotia duck tolling retreivers!

Yay!

The Canada Games open today here in Halifax - so for the next 2 weeks Halifax is going to come alive with hoopla and falderal. I can't wait. I'm going to be hiding out under my bed in Spryfield. I'll see you after the beginning of March.

Dog walk this Sunday for 100 sled dogs + letter to editor in today's paper

A lady by the name of Kim Stoodley has organized a dog walk this coming Sunday at the Halifax Commons - one of many walks being held across the country - for the 100 sled dogs that were inhumanely killed out in British Columbia.

If you are around on Sunday and you have an hour during the afternoon to spend some quality time with your dog and some other people at the Halifax Commons - you should come out and show that animals are not disposable and deserve a humane death - no matter what you've used them for during their lifetime.

The event starts at 1pm at the Halifax Commons - you can find out more at Kim's blog - and also at the Facebook page where you can rsvp for the event.Hopefully we will see you on Sunday!

In other news I had a letter to editor published today on the same subject - I haven't written a letter to the editor in a long time - nothing has moved me enough to send anything in - but this story has gotten me jazzed up enough to write an email to the Chronicle Herald - which they put in today's paper. I have been really lucky for some reason that they seem to always publish every letter I write them.

If you don't feel like clicking on the photo at left to read the letter, this is what it says -

"It is amazing and wonderful that the 100 sled dogs tragic and inhumane
death in BC is getting the amount of news coverage and public
revulsion that it should - but it is not an isolated incident in a
world where animals are treated as completely disposable - especially
here in Canada where our criminal code gives them almost no
protection.

Right here in our own backyard in 2008 a puppy mill in New Brunswick -
Chapman Kennels - shot 175 of their breeding dogs in the head when
they shut down their business - and it didn't even make the news - no
one cared - in the business of making money - whether it's agriculture
or puppy mills, or "outdoor adventures" - the bottom line rarely
involves the comfort and safety of animals.

The President of the Nova Scotia SPCA this week said that the Criminal
Code of Canada for animals has not changed since 1892. That might be
a good place to start.

Joan Sinden"

Animals and the law public lecture February 17th at Dalhousie

If you're up for it - there's going to be a lecture at the Weldon Law Building on February 17th from 6 to 7:30pm about "Animals and the Law" - it's free to the public from the "The Schulich School of Law" - I have no idea what the spin will be from the lawyers speaking, so it should be pretty interesting to see how they treat the audience, and what is talked about.

I guess it's part of a series of lectures - you can see the below poster for more of the free talks if you're interested!

Michael Vick is confronted by a man who adopted one of his dogs

There's a you tube video of a man in Dallas who adopted one of the Vick dogs - Mel - and he went to a ceremony where Michael Vick was presented with a key to the city - and he confronted Vick - asking if he wanted to see a photo of his dog Mel and maybe talk about how Mel was doing - and it's a must see video.

Everyone is talking about how unrepentant Vick seems - but to me, Vick looks almost scared - it's weird - like he's being pushed away by his people - I really hate to say it, but at the end of the video for one split second I almost feel bad for Vick - for one split second - and then I am back to normal.

Because of course - nothing happened - and nothing has happened since.

Except that the actual Mayor of Dallas has asked to have the key of Dallas returned back to him - because it was the acting Mayor who gave the key to Vick - and he wasn't actually authorized to do it. SNAP!! haha!

The article saying that is below the video.



Has Dallas Mayor Insulted Michael Vick?

This weekend, a top Dallas official gave the Philadelphia Eagles' Michael Vick the key to his city. On Monday, the city's mayor demanded the key back from Vick.

The center of the controversy involves Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, who awarded Vick the city's highest honor at a dinner on Saturday night. Caraway is effectively the vice mayor of the city that hosted the Super Bowl.

On Monday, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert said Caraway didn't have the power to honor Vick.

"The action taken was not sanctioned by my office and was not an official ceremonial honor on behalf of the City of Dallas," he said in a statement. "Official Keys to the City are presented by the Mayor, or an elected official designated by the Mayor, and reserved, on a limited basis, for an elected official of international status. Clearly, this was not the case in this situation and done without my knowledge or approval."

A local radio reporter, who adopted one of Vick's dogs, filmed the event and posted the video on You Tube.

Leppert said he wants to make sure an incident like that doesn't happen again.


"Given these circumstances I have requested the City Manager propose guidelines to prevent this situation in the future."

But Caraway then issued his own statement, saying Vick deserved the honor and he had the power to award the key.

"Since making some bad choices, Michael Vick has devoted time to speaking to children about staying in school, staying away from drugs, making positive choices about picking friends, and the importance of education. That was the focus of the event," he said.
Caraway also said he is a pet owner.

Will the 100 sled dog slaughter bring positive changes?

I have been having such deja vu the last few days with the public's reaction to the sled dog's being killed in British Columbia - it has so many echoes of the Celtic Pets scandal here in Nova Scotia in 2008 - public outrage - people from away and locally demanding "how could this have happened, and we have to not let this happen again" - government officials like the premier of the province -

At that time it was then Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald who said -

"this is a situation which is unacceptable. Be it in a shelter, be it on a farm, bet it in a household - they deserve to be respected, they deserve to ensured that their safety, their health is looked after and maintained - and as province - we'll make sure that happens."

Now it is British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell who's struck a task force to investigate the killings and he's saying -

"No creature should ever have to suffer in the manner that has been reported, and we want to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again in our province".

Well the Celtic Pets scandal happened in February of 2008 - and how has the animal cruelty landscape transformed in Nova Scotia since then?

Well - just this past month Gail Benoit had charges against her dropped for animal cruelty due to lack of evidence in the case of her selling numerous puppies in the summer of 2009 to unsuspecting customers and they all died a horrible and painful death - and those puppies were all bought from Chapman kennels - a place that shortly thereafter shut down, and to celebrate the closing of their "kennel" - they shot 175 of their breeding stock in the head.

So I have to say - not much has improved - except that livestock animal cruelty cases are now investigated by the Department of Agriculture instead of the Nova Scotia SPCA, and the NS SPCA has to submit a report to the Minister of Agriculture once a year - and the Nova Scotia SPCA has a very tarnished reputation that they are still trying and working very hard at getting back. But it has NOT been easy.

So to tell you the truth - I don't hold out much hope for thing improving because of the death of those poor dogs in BC - especially since the BC SPCA purportedly had been approached previously to try and rehome them and had refused - saying that the dogs were unadoptable because they were working sled dogs - which to me is SUCH bullshit - anyone who has done any rescue work with any kind of dogs knows that 99% of all dogs are able to be rehabilitated unless they are horribly people aggressive - so the SPCA saying they were unadoptable does make them partially culpable for those dogs' deaths.

Another level of culpability lies with the vet who refused to humanely euthanize the dogs. In Canada - dogs are property - and if I want to dispose of my property - I am the veterinarian's customer - and if I want to pay you to end my dog's life - that's my perogative - that is my property, and that's legal. So that vet should be censured. He/she was not doing their job as far as I'm concerned - everyone has some part of their job that they don't like to do.

Maybe if anything comes out of this - it might be a wake up call to the CVMA - that they have to look at their policies of not forcing vets to euthanize healthy animals against the wishes of owners.

Another issue that this tragedy has brought out is the "sled dog" industry, lifestyle - and husky dog owner - tethered dogs - and the idea that husky's like and prefer to be outside - and the preposterous idea that "working dogs" cannot be rehomed at the end of their working life.


I had the horror of living next door and watching a husky die over 4 long years at the end of a chain because the asshole living next door to me subsribed to the idea that "his dog didn't want to be indoors" - the "dog hated it indoors" - and wanted to be out in the backyard. Such utter bullshit. Whenever I was in the back yard with my dogs he'd cry and run around - he so much wanted to take part in whatever we were doing - I called him my silent 5th dog.


It was such a sad thing when he did finally die. So unnecessary - because he was such a nice dog. And so typical - he got off his chain one day and got hit by a car - the unfortunate thing was it took him 2 weeks to die - because he made it back home and got put back on his chain - to sit there and slowly wither away - with a huge gash on his forehead. Rest in peace, Zeus. If that's not cruelty, I don't know what is.

So now we have 50,000 people joining a facebook page, and a tweet-up meetup, and walks going on out on the west coast - will any of that make a difference for the companion animal in Canada?

The President of the Nova Scotia SPCA tweeted this week that the Criminal Code of Canada hasn't changed for animals since 1892 - and in a really good opinion piece on the CBC website - some guy said that if Michael Vick would have gone to court in Canada - he wouldn't have been convicted of anything - and probably - I don't think he would have even been charged with anything, really - so what is it that we, as responsible pet owners can do?

There are so many things going on that are really horrible and violent - wars, starvation, natural disasters, diseases are killing the weakest in every part of the world - sometimes it makes me feel guilty and foolish to even think that we should be wasting out time on a thing like making the world a safer place for companion animals when there are so many humans suffering - but the way I look at is that there are a lot of other people who spend their time on the suffering humans - and everyone is called to something different - some people are called to spend their life playing the ukulele.

So for those of you who feel like change is needed in Canada for companion animals - now is the perfect time to step forward - there's a lot of work that needs to be done - people need to start speaking with their wallets, and lobbying government, and getting organized - and saying that they aren't going away. Because I don't think that the people at PETA are going to win - and companion animals are here to stay - and animal cruelty is going to continue to happen - and protection of animals needs to improve.

Because it certainaly can't get any worse.

A quote I found in my daytimer this afternoon...