Great Pet Net

The Arte Laguna organization has the pleasure to announce the 30 finalist artists of the Third International Art Prize Arte Laguna

• Baldini Manuel - Italy
Title: Senza Titolo

• Barazzutti Alberto - Italy
Title: EVOLUZIONISMO

• Bidoli Luca - Italy
Title: Straziami ma di baci saziami (n.6)

• Bettega Marta - Italy
Title: La messa della domenica

• Bolcato Stefano - Italy
Title: Un posto sicuro

• Chambers Cholla - United States
Title: The Big Red Buck…

Chambers Cholla is a horse!

via Renee Chambers at the Artist is a Horse website

The Old Man and the Dog
by Catherine Moore

“Watch out! You nearly broad sided that car!” My father yelled at me.

“Can’t you do anything right?”
Those words hurt worse than blows. I turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I wasn’t prepared for another battle.

“I saw the car, Dad. Please don’t yell at me when I’m driving.” My voice was measured and steady, sounding far calmer than I really felt.

Dad glared at me, then turned away and settled back. At home I left Dad in front of the television and went outside to collect my thoughts. Dark, heavy clouds hung in the air with a promise of rain. The rumble of distant thunder seemed to echo my inner turmoil.

What could I do about him?

Dad had been a lumberjack in Washington and Oregon . He had enjoyed being outdoors and had reveled in pitting his strength against the forces of nature. He had entered grueling lumberjack competitions, and had placed often. The shelves in his house were filled with trophies that attested to
his prowess.

The years marched on relentlessly. The first time he couldn’t lift a heavy log, he joked about it; but later that same day I saw him outside alone, straining to lift it. He became irritable whenever anyone teased him about his advancing age, or when he couldn’t do something he had done as a younger man.

Four days after his sixty-seventh birthday, he had a heart attack. An ambulance sped him to the hospital while a paramedic administered CPR to keep blood and oxygen flowing. At the hospital, Dad was rushed into an operating room. He was lucky; he survived.
(more…)

Ted Schneck describes his mission:

It was 11:00 A.M. on a Tuesday, in March 2007, when I got the phone call that changed my life. It was the vet, calling to tell me that the bump we’d noticed in my dog Marty’s mouth was, indeed, the late stages of full blown cancer.

And so began my journey into the world of Canine Cancer care.

Because as much as the vets tried to convince me that Marty had only 3 - 6 months to live, max - I was lucky to have some friends who knew better. They taught me natural treatments that helped me care for Marty and keep him strong and healthy for almost 18 months - amazing “bonus time” that I got to spend with my friend and companion of 8-1/2 years. And with Marty’s success I began my journey as a dog cancer author and mentor. I wrote the book Curing Canine Cancer as my “one stop” guide to teach other dog owners what we’d learned, and help them care for their dogs in need.

Until then I was just your average “Corporate Lawyer… turned Massage Therapist… turned Internet Marketer” (you know us, a dime a dozen - from Michigan Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and one of the top law firms in the country… to giving massages at day spas and typing away on my laptop computer at Starbucks coffee houses in my hometown of Portland Oregon - Trust me, my mother wasn’t exactly thrilled…).

Now I was Working for a Higher Cause

But now I was working for a higher cause. Helping, as best I can, dog owners face their own times of need and despair. And loving that I could help, and the grateful messages I receive in the process. (Last Thanksgiving, one of my clients actually wrote to tell me that “this Thanksgiving we’re giving thanks FOR YOU - and all that you’ve done to help us with our dog… ” Now that’s cool!)

But as many people as I can help, the same problem keeps coming up over and over again - Clients who desperately want to help their dogs - to give them the same chances that I gave Marty - but who simply can’t afford to pay for their dog’s care.

So, while I’d do my best to console them, donate a copy of my book “Curing Canine Cancer” to their dog’s care, and point them to the few, underfunded charities that they could petition for assistance - I finally decided that I needed to do something about it…

I Finally Decided That I Needed to
Do Something About It

And that’s why I’m riding this summer across America - 4,281 miles in 82 days - Pacific to Atlantic - to raise money to help these dogs - these sweet innocent victims of this terrible disease - get the care they deserve.

I’ve posted some touching stories about events at the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary over the years. This piece profiles the founders, Alayne Marker and Steve Smith, and provides some insight into their lives and their hearts. Click here and take a few minutes to get to know a little bit about their world.

Slide show courtesy of AARP Bulletin Today.
Photo of Ellie May the blind and deaf cocker spaniel courtesy of Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary.

Molly is a gray speckled pony who was abandoned by her owners when Katrina hit southern Louisiana, USA . She spent weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken to a farm where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a pit bull terrier, and almost died. Her gnawed right front leg became infected and her vet went to LSU for help. But LSU was overwhelmed, and this pony was a welfare case. You know how that goes.

But after surgeon Rustin Moore met Molly, he changed his mind. He saw how the pony was careful to lie down on different sides so she didn’t seem to get sores, and how she allowed people to handle her. She protected her injured leg. She constantly shifted her weight, and didn’t overload her good leg. She was a smart pony with a serious survival ethic.

Moore agreed to remove her leg below the knee and a temporary artificial limb was built. Molly walked out of the clinic and her story really begins there. (more…)

From The Daily Puppy:

Buster was saved from a puppy mill and had a very difficulty life. He now lives on five acres in Oregon, Ohio and loves to run and play.

Oddee describes Tillamook Cheddar, a Jack Russell Terrier from Brooklyn, New York. Widely regarded as the world’s preeminent canine artist, she has already had seventeen solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe.

Her first official biography, Portrait of the Dog as a Young Artist by F. Bowman Hastie III, is published by Sasquatch Books (2006).

The artist’s primary process is a dynamic color transfer technique. In preparation for each of Tillie’s works, her assistants assemble a touch-sensitive recording device by affixing pigment-coated vellum to a sheet of lithograph paper backed by mat board. Working on the outside surface, she applies pressure with teeth and claws in a methodic ritual marked by dramatic shifts in tempo and intensity. The resultant sharp and sweeping intersecting lines complement the artist’s delicate paw prints and subtle tongue impressions, composing an expressionistic image that is revealed on the paper beneath when she is finished.

A story in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution describes how feral cats are helping police stations stay free of rodents.

The Working Cats program of Voice for the Animals, a Los Angeles-based animal advocacy and rescue group, has placed feral cats in a handful of police stations with rodent problems, just as the group placed cats in the rat-plagued downtown flower district several years ago — to great effect.

Six feral cats recently were installed as ratters in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Southeast Division, and another group will be housed at the Central Division early this year.

Their reputation as furtive and successful exterminators grew after feral cats were introduced to the parking lot of the Wilshire Division nearly six years ago. Rats had been burrowing into the equipment bags that bicycle officers stored in outside cages; inside the facility, mice sometimes scurried across people’s desks.

“Once we got the cats, problem solved,” said Cmdr. Kirk Albanese, a captain at the Wilshire station at the time. “I was almost an immediate believer.”

After Albanese moved to the Foothill Division in the northern San Fernando Valley, he introduced feral cats to the building’s mice-infested basement in 2004.

“I think it’s a very humane way to deal with a very stubborn problem,” said Albanese, now assistant to the director in the office of operations at downtown’s Parker Center, which has its own rat problem.

From True Stories of Hero Pets | Pet Life | Reader’s Digest

Cashew, my 14-year-old yellow Lab, is blind and deaf. Her best friend is Libby, 7, her seeing-eye cat. Libby steers Cashew away from obstacles and leads her to her food. Every night she sleeps next to her. The only time they’re apart is when we take Cashew out for a walk. Without this cat, we know Cashew would be lost and very, very lonely indeed. It’s amazing but true: This is one animal who knows what needs to be done and does it day in and day out for her friend.
– Submitted to Reader’s Digest by Terry B., Middleburg, Pennsylvania

David St. Lawrence describes some unusual behavior by two pairs of cats that didn’t know each other until recently. The social behavior of cats can be very interesting.

Gretchen and I were trimming our female cat’s claws. This is not major surgery, nor is it painful, but Buffy is well-skilled at playing the victim card. After the first few seconds, she gave out an outraged squall that sounded like the sound track of a horror movie. I was holding Buffy and splaying her paws while Gretchen was doing the actual clipping. I might add here that Gretchen was only clipping the very extremities of the claws, where they were curling back on themselves from lack of wear.

Continue reading at this link: Our cats are exhibiting “tribal” behaviour