It’s time again for 28 29 Things I Love in February

It is a great project that will give you a real attitude adjustment. Whether you formally participate or not, I recommend you spending a few weeks looking for the good things in your day. You’ll be surprised at what just a slight change in your focus can accomplish.

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1. Know Your Opponent…

Please, people, at the very least get ID tags for your pets. Even better, get them microchipped, as well. Any vet will scan for a chip if you ask them (if you’ve found a stray for instance) and all animal welfare organizations, like the Arizona Humane Society, will scan any strays they take in.

The best price I found for chipping locally is at AZ Spay & Neuter Clinic, well worth $30 to make sure you get your friend back.

It originally started because the new kitten has odor ‘issues’. I know part of that was just her age (kittens have notoriously smelly poop LOL) and part, I assume, was her early feral life. Hoping that a bit of extra fiber would help her digest, I started adding a spoonful to her food every morning.

It soon became obvious that she viewed it as a treat, as do all the other critters. Our ritual now involves me pulling the can out of the fridge, which gets her excitedly purring and squeaking at my feet as I mix it into her dry food. She then sits up like a Meerkat to lick the spoon. As I carry the bowl to her crate, she runs ahead and climbs on top (the only place she can go that the other cats can’t, the little monkey) so she can have first dibs. Bubblegum settles into the crate below to wait his turn – when she has had her fill, I put the bowl down there for him to snarf on. When he gets done, he leaves and Lizzy jumps up to finish it off.

In the mean time, I give each of the dogs a bit from the spoon. Just for a bit of variety, I made them some frozen treats with yogurt, pumpkin & peanut butter – those are a huge hit with both boys.

I have also heard that, in aiding digestion, pumpkin helps reduce hair balls. That would be a huge hit with me.

So far, the effect on Gypsy has been a much less offensive litter box and less stench in general. I don’t know yet whether it has had any effect on the older cats & their hair balls. I have no ‘solid’ evidence of what it may or may not be doing for the dogs – but I assume a little healthy fiber could only be a good thing. And all of them think I’m spoiling them.

Who’d have guessed a can of orange mush could make so many of us happy

* 100% pure pumpkin only; not pie filling, no sugar or spices added

(Sorry for the odd post, but several folks had asked about it, so figured I would share here)

I’m glad we did it that way – though every now and then I feel bad when, for instance, one of the cats will come in my office and one of the dogs will stand in the doorway looking at me, then looking at the cat, then looking at me…. It almost seems like they are saying, “Hey, Mom, that’s not fair. How come he gets to go in there with you? Huh?”

This good looking dog reminds me a lot of him, too excited to pay attention to the details LOL

Might need a bit higher trajectory – and something to keep him from getting right in front of the launcher…

* Maybe I should make that Self Contained Repetitive Amusement Module, so the acronym is SCRAM instead of SCAM

(While I was watching this video, the parakeet I am sitting heard the birds in the background and got quite excited )

While much is being made of the fact that he lived only 4 years, you must remember how his life began. He was rejected by his mother, a sad event that was attributed to her lack of parenting skills or nurturing or…some failing in her. However, in the wild, mothers often abandon (or kill) offspring that are “not fit”. There are clues that animals recognize that we humans don’t*. Perhaps Knut’s mother, knowing he was destined for a short life, was doing what nature commanded her to do.

That isn’t to say I think the zoo was wrong to save him (unlike so many ‘caring’ animal rights folks who proclaimed loudly that he should be left to die or put down, rather than being hand fed & nurtured by humans) I believe the zookeepers, too, did the right thing – giving him 4 good years of life, giving polar bears an adorable “spokesperson”.

Knut’s mother probably did what her nature demanded, which would be to put him out of his misery if they were living in the wild, fighting for resources, and keeping him out of the gene pool. The Berlin Zoo did what their nature demanded, working to save a beautiful animal in distress.

RIP, Knut. Condolences to all the staff and visitors who have come to care for him over the years.

* My sweet girl, who was born deaf & blind, had excessively white fur around her neck, something I am told denotes defects in that breed – and leads to a doggy mom pushing such a puppy out of her pack, starving it. Obviously, in the wild, being deaf & blind would be a major handicap. In my house, however, it didn’t even slow her down.

15 Cute Animals That Will Cause You Horrible Harm

2. Poison Dart Frogs

Everyone knows about the poison dart frog, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting. Tiny, critically endangered, and brightly colored, the poison dart frog is the stuff of a thousand’s Boy’s Adventures and pulpy action stories. The concept of these animals so poisonous, that you could use their blood to make deadly darts to hunt is such an engaging concept, you can see why it grabbed so much of the world’s attention. It turns out the frogs are actually a family of over 175 different species, of wildly divergent potency. Only three of these species were actually used in the way their name suggests, and since their poison comes from their diet, ones raised in captivity are often completely harmless. Still, it stirs the imagination, doesn’t it?

They also list snails & fish & many cute cuddly things you may not want to get too close to….

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner:
Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, the one I feed the most.
~ George Bernard Shaw

Which dog are you feeding?

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Which lead me to Dog, wherein Allie tries to determine if her pooch is mentally….challenged.

“Good dog, you found it”