The face of law and order!
(Sent to me by Dan Gomez.)
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Another set of these delightful photos in a week’s time!
Year: 2016
Cesar Dog Food Recall
Please share!
This was issued yesterday.
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Cesar Dog Food Recall of October 2016
October 7, 2016 — Mars Petcare has announced it has initiated a voluntary recall of a limited number of Cesar Filet Mignon Flavor wet dog food due to a potential choking risk from small pieces of plastic which entered the food during the production process.
What’s Recalled?
Cesar Classics Filet Mignon can be purchased individually as well as in flavor variety multipacks.
The affected dog food can be identified by checking the Best Before and Lot Code on the product lid.
Each product will have a lot code printed on the side of the tray that begins with 631FKKC or 631GKKC and best before date that falls between 08/04/18 and 08/05/18.
The Cesar Classics Filet Mignon Flavor can also be found in variety packs with the following lot codes:
- 632D14JC
- 633B24JC
- 634A14JC
- 634A24JC
- 634B14JC
- 634B24JC
- 634E14JC
- 635A24JC
- 635B14JC
- 636D24JC
- 636E14JC
Lot Code is indicated by the red box below:
The Lot Codes listed above are the only affected products. All other Cesar products can be safely consumed.
Why the Recall?
Select packages of this product may contain small pieces of plastic, which entered the food during the production process.
What to Do?
Mars Petcare encourages consumers who have purchased affected product to discard the food or return it to the retailer for a full refund or exchange.
While a small number of consumers have reported finding the plastic pieces, we have not received any reports of injury or illness associated with the affected product.
At Mars Petcare, we take our responsibility to pets and their owners seriously and are working with all of our distributors and retail customers to ensure the recalled products are no longer sold and are removed from inventory.
Consumers can reach the company at 800-421-6456.
U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area.
Or go to http://www.fda.gov/petfoodcomplaints.
Canadians can report any health or safety incidents related to the use of this product by filling out the Consumer Product Incident Report Form.
Get Dog Food Recall Alerts by Email
Get free dog food recall alerts sent to you by email. Subscribe to The Dog Food Advisor’s recall notification list.
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Hope no dog that you know is affected by this potential problem. Come to that, hope no dog anywhere is affected!
Let’s hear if for these kittens.
What an amazing rescue!
As many of you know, I subscribe to the Mother Nature Network service and frequently share items from MNN here.
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Newborn kittens rescued from dry-cleaning machine in London
Animal rescuers dismantled the dryer to find the crying kittens.
Jenn Savedge
October 4, 2016
The owner of a dry-cleaning shop got a surprise recently when he heard crying and mewing from the back of one of his machines. Fortunately, this on-the-ball dry-cleaner called an animal rescue squad who rescued the four small kittens and reunited them with their mother.
According to the BBC , the dry cleaning shop where the kittens were found is located in Forest Gate, a residential suburb of London. The shop owner called animal rescuers from the Celia Hammond Animal Trust, a local animal rescue center, to help identify the source of the sounds.
Rescuers dismantled the tumble dryer where the noises were coming from and found four small ginger kittens inside. They also located the kittens’ mother when they noticed a distressed cat pacing outside the shop.
The shop owner told rescuers that a nearby resident had moved and left the pregnant cat behind. That poor distressed mama clearly needed a warm, dry place to give birth and she found it inside the dry-cleaning tumble machine.
One of the animal rescuers noted on their Facebook page that the kittens were in bad shape when they were found, “[w]hen we picked them up they were filthy, covered in grease and dirt and had been breathing carbon tetrachloride fumes since they were born in the back of the machine.”
Thankfully, the kittens and their mother are now being well cared for in a foster home.
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One might ponder about the kittens having a clean start to their young lives! (Sorry!)
One is never alone with a dog!
Breaking the spell of loneliness!
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
Those words above are attributed to Mother Teresa and I have no reason to doubt that.
I selected them because they seemed to capture the mood that flowed out at me from a recent essay by George Monbiot.
Many will know George for he is a British writer very well-known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books.
Way back in the early days of this blog I was moved to republish some of GM’s essays and sought his permission to do just that. He responded promptly giving me blanket permission to republish any of his essays.
Now it’s a long time since I have availed myself of that permission for the simple reason that so very often George writes about matters that are tough to read and I choose not to share with you because there’s no shortage of tough commentaries about today’s world. That’s no criticism, actual or implied, into George Monbiot’s integrity as a reporter and writer.
But his essay that was published on the 4th October is one that does need to be shared with you.
Read it!
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Social Harmony
Is music an answer to the epidemic of loneliness?
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 3rd October 2016
Two years ago, I wrote a column for the Guardian in which I argued that what distinguishes our age from those preceding it is an epidemic of loneliness. Throughout human history, we have been hyper-social animals, dependent on each other for both physical and psychic survival. Thomas Hobbes’s claim – that our natural state is a war of “every man against every man” – is a myth proposed by someone whose understanding of human evolution was confined to the book of Genesis. But the myth is now being realised through the religion of our time: a celebration of extreme individualism and universal competition. The resulting loneliness, I argued, is a deadly condition, which kills as many people as smoking or obesity.
To my astonishment, the article exploded, and the ripples can still be felt today. A documentary it inspired, called the Age of Loneliness, aired recently on BBC1. Several publishers asked me to write books on the topic, but I could think of nothing more depressing than spending three years sitting on my backside, documenting social isolation. There was plenty I wanted to say on the topic. But how?
A few weeks later, I dashed out to buy some screws from a hardware shop. Ahead of me in the queue was an elderly woman. She lent on the counter, dithering about what she wanted and trying to engage the sales assistants in a riveting conversation about her state of health. Stuck behind her, I quietly fumed: it seemed as if she would never leave.
But as I cycled home, and my frustration ebbed away, I saw what should have been obvious: here was a person who seemed desperately lonely. “Where’s your empathy?”, I asked myself. “Isn’t that what you were writing about?”. What if that conversation was the only one she would have all day? I felt guilty about my feelings in the shop.
When I returned to my desk, I began dashing out a rough poem about a woman living with little to keep her company but memories, who goes to the shops in the hope that she might talk to someone, but discovers that the tills have been replaced with automatic checkouts. As I wrote, it seemed to me that it was trying to become something else: a ballad. Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do with the topic: I wanted to write an album.
There were just a couple of minor hitches. I can’t read music, I don’t play an instrument and my singing is banned under international law. But I knew who to ask.
I first heard Ewan McLennan while listening to Late Junction on Radio 3, in 2011. I was transfixed by his voice, his playing and what seemed to be an almost supernatural ability to find the heart of a song. He was just 25. I bought his first album, Rags and Robes, and listened to it over and again. Three years later, I heard him interviewed by Mary Ann Kennedy, whose programmes I’ve followed since she began broadcasting on Radio Scotland. He spoke with the same ease of expression I had heard in his music. He was relaxed and funny, politically engaged and plainly fascinated by the roots and text of songs and poems. He came across as a cracking bloke.
I did something I have seldom done: I sent him a fan letter. I invited him to a talk I was giving in his home city, Bristol. He came, and over dinner afterwards we clicked. So, a few months later, with some trepidation, it was to him that I sent my idea of collaborating on a themed album.
To my delight, he agreed. I would start by thinking up a story and writing a rough sketch, which might incorporate some potential hooks, rhymes and choruses. I would send it to him on the understanding that he could do whatever he liked with it. I did not try to write to his style, as I knew he would take from each sketch what he wanted and make the song his own.
I wasn’t wrong. A couple of weeks after I emailed the first sketch to him, I found an audio file in my inbox, and opened it with the excitement of a child at Christmas. It was wonderful – he had turned my base metal into gold. The songs he sent back to me were riveting and heart-wrenching, capturing sensations I have long struggled to express.
The album is a mixture of dark shades and light: sad ballads and stirring anthems. We want to use it as a means of not only talking about loneliness, but, in a small way, addressing it. With advice from charities working on the issue, we are designing our gigs to try to bring people together. I will talk about the themes and Ewan will perform the songs. We will encourage people in the audience to talk to each other; then it will end up with a party in the nearest willing pub. Music naturally makes connections; we want to take it a step further.
In one respect, the album is already succeeding, as the collaboration has relieved the usual solitude in which we both work, making our lives less lonely. I hope it has the same effect on other people.
Breaking the Spell of Loneliness, by Ewan McLennan and George Monbiot, is released on October 14 by Fellside Records.
Here’s a short video about the project, featuring some of the music:
The autumn tour dates are listed at http://www.monbiot.com/music/
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Ewan McLennan has his own website and, unsurprisingly, there are the details of the Autumn tour.
Autumn Tour
12 October Durham Book Festival
18 October St Georges, Bristol
20 October Liverpool Philharmonic
21 October Live At All Hallows, Leeds
22 October Sheffield Firth Hall
23 October Ludlow Assembly Rooms
4 November Bridport Arts Centre
5 November Berry Theatre, Southampton
3 December Kings Place, LondonThis remarkable collaboration between author George Monbiot and musician Ewan McLennan seeks to address the curse of our age: a crowded planet stricken by loneliness. Using music and the written word, it seeks to make connections in a splintered world.
Now, dear reader, you would be disappointed if I didn’t close today’s post without reference to the value of a dog or two in one’s life, and I have no intention of delivering such disappointment!
From the dozens of pictures that have been presented here over the years I chose this one.
Because I have this notion that one can never be truly alone if there is a dog in one’s life.
Revisiting the story of Ben and Ranger.
The power of forgiveness displayed by our animals.
Last Sunday’s Picture Parade was mainly photographs of Jean out with our ex-rescue horses Ben and Ranger. Let me share the one of Ben as it is relevant to what follows.
A regular reader, Susan Leighton, the author of the blog Woman on the Ledge, commented (in part):
Ben and Ranger are handsome! They are known as roans, correct? I have always loved horses.
I didn’t know but said that I would ask Jeannie (and they are Chestnuts, not Roans!). It then struck me that republishing the post that was first presented back in March, 2014 might be of interest to others beyond Susan.
First, understand, for it is not specifically spelled out in this post, that Ben was removed by the Sheriff because he was being starved, being beaten and having air-gun bullets fired into his chest (the scars are still visible)!
Here’s that post from 2014:
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Welcome Ranger – and Ben!
Our new boys- the story of two horses!
Regular readers of Learning from Dogs will remember a post just over a month ago The lone Ranger. Essentially, that explained that we had visited Strawberry Mountain Mustangs in Roseburg, Oregon and, subject to their approval, had decided to adopt Ranger, a 15-year-old gelding.
Thus it proceeded to the point where two-days ago Darla, of Strawberry Mountain, ably assisted by Cody, brought Ranger and Ben to us here in Merlin. It’s been a wonderful twenty-four hours (at the time of writing this). Why Ben? Please read on.
Darla and Cody making a safe and timely arrival a little before 10am last Tuesday.
Why did we take the two? Last October, Ben had been found starved and showing the signs of a great lack of confidence. He was ‘rescued’ on orders of Darla’s local sheriff because of Ben’s condition despite being in private ownership. Darla was certain that Ben had been physically beaten in recent times, hence him being very wary of strangers. Thus his relationship with Ranger was part of his journey of returning to a healthy, confident horse. Darla offered us the opportunity of fostering Ben because Ranger had become a good companion for him. Darla explained that Ben was a very wary horse, especially of sudden movements from men.
Another 100 yards and the start of a new life for these two gorgeous animals.
In the those first few minutes after Jean and Darla led the horses to the grass paddock, Ben seemed to have an expression on his face that suggested it was all too difficult to believe! Ranger just got stuck into munching! But not to the extent of not enjoying a back-rub!
In the afternoon, it was time to bring Ben and Ranger for an overnight in the top area where the stables, food and water were. Ben was very nervous at coming through the open gate and for a while there seemed to be a complication in that Ranger kept thrusting at Ben as if to keep him away from the fence line separating the horses from Allegra and Dancer, our miniature horses.
But in the morning, yesterday, things seemed much more relaxed. To the point that when Ben and Ranger went back out to the grass, Ben was much more relaxed towards Jean and me, as the following pictures reveal.
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OK, want to turn back to Darla.
To give an insight into the awe-inspiring work of Darla and her team (and many others across the Nation) and to recognise the need of the authorities to have such outlets as Strawberry Mountain, here are two photographs of Ben shortly after he was removed from the people who had stopped loving and caring for him.
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Strikes me as only one way to end this post is with the following as seen on Darla’s Facebook page.
Thus this post is offered in dedication to the good people all over the world who know the value of the unconditional love we receive from animals and do not hesitate to return the same.
How about giving the nearest animal, or human, a big hug telling them at the same time how much you love them!
Mouthing it canine fashion.
Another fascinating insight into the behaviours of dogs.
Every dog owner knows how dogs appear to have their mouths directly linked to their emotions. From licking to growling, from dribbling to holding stuff, we humans don’t really have a clue as to the role of the canine mouth over and above eating food.
Which is why this recent item over on the Care2 site caught my eye (not my mouth!) and I wanted to share it with you.
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Why Does My Dog Grab Something in His Mouth When He’s Excited?
By Vetstreet.com September 26, 2016
About Vetstreet.com Follow Vetstreet.com at @vetstreet
Some dogs seem to love to entertain. When guests come to the door, these dogs become delighted hosts, racing to greet their visitors with something — anything — they find to put in their mouths.
What’s behind this amusing behavior?
Vetstreet checked in with Dr. Wailani Sung, a veterinary animal behaviorist, to find out.
There are several different reasons your dog might be doing this, she says. Among them: They’re offering a gift, they’re looking for attention or they want to show us they’re happy.
“I think some dogs are so excited to see a visitor because it may represent a new person who will play with him/her, so the dog grabs a toy to try to entice the person to play, whether it is tug or throwing the object,” Dr. Sung explains.
A Welcome Distraction?
For other dogs, it may be a behavior that the owners taught them or encouraged to give them something more appropriate to do in place of jumping on people or barking.
“Other owners have recognized that their dogs may appear anxious or worried, but if they get the dog engaged with their toys, they appear less concerned about new visitors in the house,” she says. “Some dogs may naturally grab a toy on their own, whether to solicit play or to have something to do.”
The dog may also be reacting to your own excitement and responding in kind.
Dr. Sung has seen the behavior mainly in Retrievers but said it’s something any breed might exhibit.
Avoiding an Embarrassing Moment
In some cases, owners report some rather embarrassing situations — like when the first thing their pooch spotted to grab was dirty laundry or other “unmentionables.”
Dr. Sung says it’s best to be sure those things are out of the dog’s reach. But if the arrival is a surprise and the dog does get something he shouldn’t have, the owner should try to keep calm and get the dog to exchange the contraband for another toy or treat.
“They should distract the dog, redirect to a more appropriate behavior, such as come and sit, and then ask the dog to drop it,” Dr. Sung said. “Sometimes people forget and raise their voices or go chasing after their dog and it becomes a game to the dog. Then the next time visitors arrive, the dog remembers how much fun he had last time people arrived and grabbed an item.”
It can be flattering to be the source of a canine host’s excitement — unless he’s so thrilled, he’s jumping or running into people. In those cases, Dr. Sung recommends putting him in another room or in his kennel or bed while guests arrive to try to avoid the excitement.
By Amy Sinatra Ayres | Vetstreet.com
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Anyone got any wonderful stories about what their dog has put in their mouth? (That you would like to share!!)
Thank you Channel 15!
Delighted to share this with you all.
Back in July we were contacted by John Letz asking if he could come and film a news item for KDRV of Jean and me and our dogs.
Of course we said ‘yes’ and the following is the result.
Learning from Dogs for CH 15 news from John Letz on Vimeo.
Trust you will forgive this small waving of the Handover banner!
(Plus, if you want to buy the book please drop into Amazon and choose which format you would like.)
The utterly incomprehensible
A journey of the mind and the soul.
NB: Regular readers will find that today’s post is rather different to my usual run of things. But I do hope that you end up sharing my feelings of mystery; sharing what seems to me utterly incomprehensible. I am speaking of The Infinite.
Let me start with this quotation:
The infinite has always stirred the emotions of mankind more deeply than any other question.
The infinite has stimulated and fertilised reason as few other ideas have. But also the infinite, more than another other notion, is in need of clarification.
Let me now take you back many years, back to the Autumn of 1969 when I left Gibraltar bound for The Azores on my yacht Songbird of Kent. I was sailing solo.
Despite me being very familiar with my boat, and with sailing in general, there was nonetheless a deep sense of trepidation as I headed out into a vast unfamiliar ocean.
On the third or fourth night, I forget which, when some four hundred miles into the Atlantic and therefore far from the light pollution from the land, I came on deck and was emotionally moved in a way that has never ever been surpassed.
For way up in the heavens above me was the Andromeda galaxy, clearly visible with the naked eye.
That photograph above and the following are from the EarthSky site.
Although a couple of dozen minor galaxies lie closer to our Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy is the closest major galaxy to ours. Excluding the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which can’t be seen from northerly latitudes, the Andromeda galaxy – also known as M31 – is the brightest galaxy in all the heavens. It’s the most distant thing you can see with your unaided eye, at 2.3 million light-years. To the eye, it appears as a smudge of light larger than a full moon.
Not only could I not take my mind off seeing the Andromeda galaxy, I couldn’t easily comprehend seeing the stars come all the way down to the horizon; all 360 degrees about me. Right down to the edge of my ocean horizon; a swirling blackness out to where it kissed that glorious night sky.
That image of that dome of stars would be forever burnt into my memory. An image that both made no sense, yet made every sense
Fast forward forty-seven years to now!
Recently we have had some beautiful clear nights here in Southern Oregon. Just the other night, before the moon had risen, there up in the night sky just a short distance from the constellation Cassiopeia was Andromeda. Immediately, my memory of that dark night sky out in the Atlantic came rushing back at me
The Andromeda galaxy is 2.3 million light-years away. But how can one possibly comprehend the distance? The fact that light travels at 186,000 miles per second or 671 million miles per hour (the exact value is 299,792,458 metres per second (approximately 3.00×108 m/s) has no meaning whatsoever. Think about it! Light is traveling at the equivalent speed of going around our planet 7.46 times every second!
But if you can’t fathom the distance to the Andromeda galaxy try this!
Back in March, 2016 a new galaxy that has been named GN-z11 was spotted by the Hubble space telescope 13.4 billion light years away. That’s approximately 5,830 times more distant than the Andromeda galaxy!
Now it is starting to become very difficult to comprehend.
Over the last couple of weeks BBC Radio 4 has been airing 10 talks given by Professor Adrian Moore under the heading of A History of the Infinite. They are freely available to be listened to and I so strongly recommend them.
But it was episode eight that made me lose my mind. Just like that night so many years ago on Songbird of Kent.
For that episode was called The Cosmos. You can listen to it here. Please, please do so! This is how that episode is presented:
Does space go on for ever? Are there infinitely many stars? These are some of the questions Adrian Moore explores in the eighth episode in his series about philosophical thought concerning the infinite.
With the help of the theories of the Ancient Greeks through to those of modern cosmologists, Adrian examines the central question of whether our universe is finite or infinite.
For most of us, looking up at the stars gives us a sense of infinity but, as Adrian discovers, there is a strong body of opinion which suggests that space is finite, albeit unbounded. This is a difficult idea to grasp, but by inviting us to think of ourselves as ants, astrophysics professor Jo Dunkley attempts to explain it.
Adrian also tackles the idea of the expanding universe and the logic that leads cosmologists to argue that it all started with a big bang, and may all end with a big crunch.
Finally, we discover from cosmologist John Barrow how the appearance of an infinity in scientists’ calculations sends them straight back to the drawing board. The infinite, which the Ancient Greeks found so troubling, has lost none of its power to disturb.
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
If you find that episode compelling beyond belief then all the episodes are available on the BBC iPlayer and may be found here.
I started with a quotation that is the opening of the final episode. It is a quotation from the German mathematician David Hilbert. As Wikipedia explains, in part:
David Hilbert (German: [ˈdaːvɪt ˈhɪlbɐt]; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
I will return to that first sentence in Hilbert’s quotation:
The infinite has always stirred the emotions of mankind more deeply than any other question.
For me that sight of the Andromeda galaxy and the stars back in 1969 was in every meaning of the word a sight of the infinite and it has forever stirred my emotions very deeply indeed!
Learning from Dogs 