I wrote about this last Tuesday under the heading of Helping Hands and warned you that today and next Sunday would be picture parades of that event. For those that didn’t get to read that post here is how it opened:
The PetSmart Pet Adoption Event.
Over the days of the 13th to 15th May, in other words roughly a week-and-a-half ago, a number of pet adoption charities in Northern California and Southern Oregon came together courtesy of PetSmart in Medford, Oregon to find new homes for unadopted dogs and cats.
I came to hear about this from an email sent to me by Tammy Moore of the organisation Shelter Friends. Tammy also c.c.’d her email to Tana Mason who is Fundraising Coordinator for the charity. Tammy’s email was an invite for me, and Jean, to attend the event on the Saturday as the author of my book.
So, more pictures from the day (and my apologies for not noting names and details of each picture).
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Do hope you can handle a further selection of these event photographs in a week’s time! My motivation is to give everyone concerned a bit of a special focus for they did so well.
In gratitude to Roger Davis, long-time friend from my UK days, who forwarded me the link to the following. (Caution, the video does contain some coarse language probably unsuitable for those below the age of 16.)
If you had to make a playlist of your life, what would be on it?
That intriguing sub-title comes from a video that Jean and I watched a couple of weeks ago.
But first I want to return to the matter of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) that was written about in a post dated the 24th February Personal Journeys. I wrote, in part,
Sue, and everyone else, we returned from seeing Dr. Lee, the neurologist, a little under two hours ago. Dr. Lee’s prognosis is that Jean is showing the very early signs of Parkinson’s disease, and Jean is comfortable with me mentioning this.
Everyone’s love and affection has meant more than you can imagine. I will write more about this next week once we have given the situation a few ‘coatings of thought’.
Jean sends her love to you all!
In recent weeks Jean has been experiencing increasing feelings of apathy, lack of motivation, lack of energy, all of which she summed up as a feeling of isolation. Plus the tremor in her hand has been slowly worsening.
Last week we decided that rather than waiting until August for the next planned appointment with Dr. Eric Lee, the neurologist, we should appraise Dr. Lee of the decline in Jean’s overall mood. That has now been done and Dr. Lee’s response is that Jean should start a trial course of the drug Sinamet® that a quick web search (see link on trade name) explains is:
SINEMET® (carbidopa-levodopa) is a combination of carbidopa and levodopa for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and syndrome.
As before, Jean is happy for me to share this with you.
So back to the theme of playlists of our lives.
The Australian Broadcast Commission, ABC, have a YouTube channel ABCTVCatalyst that is full of great science programmes. As that website explains:
At Catalyst we know that science is a dynamic force for change. Each week Catalyst brings you stories from Australia and around the world. Our passion to meet scientists at the forefront of discovery is matched by our fascination with science breakthroughs however big or small. Science changes all our lives. For better or worse, we are committed to showing you what our future holds.
That is how Jean and I came across the following incredibly interesting talk about the role of music in our past lives assisting those with fading cognitive skills, as in my case, and including those with PD. It is just twenty-nine minutes long and something we should all watch, irrespective of our present age.
Published on Mar 8, 2016
If you had to make a playlist of your life, what would be on it? And if, toward the end of your life, your mind and memories were fading away, would this soundtrack help bring them back?
My final observation is that as a direct result of watching this programme I blew the dust off my iPod that I hadn’t used in many months. It was remarkable that despite me struggling at times to recall something I did just a few hours ago, I can hum along with tunes that are on my iPod that go back ten or twenty years.
Sully the Saint Bernard still hasn’t outgrown his love for mud.
I was working outside until late afternoon so wanted to find something quickly for today’s post.
Came across this video on YouTube from Rumble Viral – enjoy!
Published on May 19, 2016
At 4 years old Sully the Saint Bernard still hasn’t outgrown his love for mud. Here we find him playing with another dog as they run, jump and lay in a big pool of muddy water. If you’re wondering what pure happiness looks like, this is it!
One hopes these two happy dogs don’t go home and lay on the furniture.
Over the days of the 13th to 15th May, in other words roughly a week-and-a-half ago, a number of pet adoption charities in Northern California and Southern Oregon came together courtesy of PetSmart in Medford, Oregon to find new homes for unadopted dogs and cats.
I came to hear about this from an email sent to me by Tammy Moore of the organisation Shelter Friends. Tammy also c.c.’d her email to Tana Mason who is Fundraising Coordinator for the charity. Tammy’s email was an invite for me, and Jean, to attend the event on the Saturday as the author of my book.
(I would have written about the event before now but many of you will recall that was the weekend when my internet connection was down for a number of days.)
Anyway, that Saturday started off rather damp and grey but all the pet charities had previously been set up for the Friday.
But soon Jean and I had our own stand all ready for the opening time for the event and we were very grateful for being offered a table position just inside the main entrance door.
People soon started arriving and all were very friendly.
I shall continue with the photographs of the day over the next two picture parades.
But let me leave you with the results of all the fine people involved, both volunteers and the great staff at PetSmart.
In the words of Tana in answer to my question of how many animals were found homes:
I have the total for all three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday: 9 puppies, 9 dogs and 14 cats!
I am not sure if this is a complete list of all the shelters that attended but certainly the following wonderful charities did:
Shelter Friends, Grants Pass, OR
Friends of Animals, Brookings, OR
Goliath Mountain Rescue, Yreka, CA
Rescue Ranch, Yreka, CA
Curry County Animal Shelter, Gold Beach, OR
“I believe in preventing cruelty to all living beings in any form.”
This quote from Morarji Desai, the former Prime Minister of India, is a very appropriate introduction to me republishing a post courtesy of Roughseasinthemed. It concerns the cruelty being meted out to some Spanish dogs. Or in her own words:
Thanks for picking up on the ‘dangerous’ dogs aspect. I think it is really important that dogs are not mislabelled, responsible dog owners have enough problems as it is. People are too quick to point fingers, and those of us who rescue dogs know what a difference food, water, a home, love and affection can make to a starving street animal. No dog asks to be thrown out. Or mistreated and abused. I’m currently trying to get some help and advice for a man who lives next to six Spanish hunting dogs that are chained up all day in a shed with a tin roof, where temps can go up to 50 degrees celsius, no food in their dishes and a floor covered in shit. Deplorable. These poor dogs must be traumatised.
Katherine later sent me a link to another blog with the details and some pictures. It is republished below, first in the original Spanish and then with an English translation.
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Perros de caza maltratados en Benissa:
Tenemos un “vecino” aquí en Benissa (Alicante), con 6 perros de caza encadenaros y estaban encerrados en una zona pequeña de 2 x 2m, un agujero tapado de placas de alumnio… las temperaturas en verano pueden subir a más de 50 grados, y los perros sufren terriblemente, lloran y ladran día y noche, viven y mueren en el infierno y sobre su propia “mierda”… Mi esposa y mi suegra están traumatizadas por esta crueldad, mandamos nuestra queja al Ayuntamiento y después de 8 meses respondieron que era lo que esperábamos por vivir en el campo… Tengo fotos tomadas de estos perros y su infames condiciones pero no estoy seguro de qué hacer con ellos porque aquí nadie parece querer saber nada…
We have a ‘neighbour’ here in Benissa, Alicante with six hunting dogs, chained up and imprisoned in a tiny hole of a place (agujero is a hole but it’s not a literal hole, or you could use hellhole, which would be my choice), two by two metres, covered with a tin roof.
The temperatures in summer get towards fifty degrees Celsius (122 deg F.), the dogs suffer terribly, they cry and bark day and night, and they live and die in the hell of their own ‘shit’.
My wife and my mother-in-law are traumatised by this cruelty, we’ve complained to the council and after eight months they’ve replied: ‘what do you expect when you live in the countryside?’
I’ve taken photos of these dogs and their suffering but I’m not sure what to do with them, because here, nobody seems to know what to do.
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In a response to Katherine I wrote that these dogs must be given better lives. She then added:
Fair enough Paul. We do too, so, easy to do. Sadly this man has contacted Seprona, which is the Guardia Civil section in charge of hunting, and they have washed their hands of it. But people are trying to help, coming up with suggestions, and that is the important thing.
When you read this please hold these dogs in your thoughts and hope that their terrible ordeal will soon come to an end. Also go to that blogsite that is carrying the story and leave your messages of support, in whatever language you choose! Every little bit helps, as this comment on that Spanish post illustrates:
Contact DeAnimals, a firm of lawyers in Murcia who work with the police, judges, vets etc on animal abuse cases. Also ACTIN in Murcia. They will tell you what to do.
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”Martin Luther King, Jr
Slowly picking up the pieces from our internet outage.
The fact that I was sitting in front of my PC at 4:30am yesterday morning writing this says a lot about the inconvenience of losing our internet connection last Friday evening. We love living in this rural part of Southern Oregon surrounded by such dramatic scenery but it does have a couple of downsides, one of which is that we are very limited as to internet service providers.
Anyway, on with the show!
One of the posts that I had in mind for earlier this week was this rather poignant piece from Chris Snuggs. Chris and I go back many years to the time when he was Head of Studies at ISUGA; a French college based in Quimper. I was a visiting teacher at ISUGA covering entrepreneurial topics.
Enough of me, here is that story from Chris. It was sent to me on the 10th May.
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My sister’s dog died last night. Margaret woke me at 03.00 in the morning saying she needed my help. I found her at the front door, where Jasper was lying motionless, having crawled there in his last moments.
“I think he’s gone,” she said, sobbing quietly.
I knelt down and felt his side; indeed, there was no sign of breathing, though his body was still warm. Jasper had died. He had been ill for a few days, been down to the vet and got some medicine, but it had been to no avail. Maggie said he had been unusually quiet and motionless that last evening, making strange noises as his lungs failed him. At 12 years old, one cannot say it was a surprise, but until the last few days he had been right as rain, barking senselessly at nothing in particular when let out into the garden, getting under my feet as I did jobs around the house.
But death of any companion – or indeed of any living creature – is moving, shocking. He was not my dog, nor do I see him often or for long, but the one thing about dogs is that once they make friends with you – as Jasper had with me – you are a friend for life.
No matter how depressed you are, no matter how low an opinion you have of yourself, no matter how sheit your day was, whenever you walk through that front door, a dog will greet you with his tail wagging. They have infinite love, devotion and optimism; they take you as you are and love you whatever you are.
And so Jasper will be missed by me, but of course more so by my sister, who had him from a puppy. As anyone who has lost a companion knows, the house seems empty afterwards. There will be no more greetings with the wagging tail, no more forbidden jumping up onto the sofa to be patted, no more barking at the seagulls in the garden.
Death is a part of life, but hard to accept even so.
Chris Snuggs
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Chris also forwarded some photographs of dear Jasper that are offered in memory of the little chap.
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Embracing the reality of death: One of the most important lessons that we learn from our dogs.
It is not the first time that I have written on the theme of the importance of relationships. However, I am inspired by a number of separate and discrete outcomes in the last couple of days that compell me to return to this most important principle of all: We are what we think about most.
The first outcome was a lovely reply left by Hariod Brawn to yesterday’s post. This is what she wrote:
My GSD had hip dysplasia too, Paul – if that’s what you’re alluding to with Pharaoh. He still was able to die a natural death though, as his rear quarters became paralysed with the dysplasia and he felt no pain. There were plenty of other problems resulting from his immobility, but I wouldn’t have traded those difficulties and the incredible communication we shared as a result of them, for anything – his last few weeks were some of the most powerful and precious of my entire life.
Then after my response, Hariod went on to say:
It was a deeply profound time for me, and I honestly wouldn’t have believed anyone had they told me what I experienced, but experience it I did. It was not the product of fanciful imagination, much as it might sound so in words. The communication between the two of us was quite incredible, and which really was empathic in nature, in the deepest sense of the word. We always had great communication and understanding, which all dog lovers do with their charges, of course, but this was another level altogether. Some might call it ‘psychic’, as if that meant something mystical and woo-like, but it just means ‘of the mind’. The question is, does the mind have the psychical power to share in understanding across physical borders? You will doubtless know of J. Allen Boone:
I will return to that mention of J. Allen Boone at the end of the post.
Then later on there was a further reply to the post from Barb of Passionate About Pets :
Thanks for re-publishing Gina’s post here, I found it interesting because Poppy, my little shih-tzu is an old dame now – she will be 17 in two months time. She has developed serious separation anxiety in the last year and if I am working in the garden, she barks for me to get back inside even though my husband is inside with her – she wants us BOTH with her. She is weak in her back legs so her walks are shorter. All these signs of old age make me so sad. Just like you and Pharoah, old age is creeping up on us all.
A special thank you to Hariod for including that video clip of J. Allen Boone’s dog Strongheart and the very special connection they had; he was so wise about Strongheart’s qualities – they never die. It really resonated with me.
Thank you for a wonderful post.
You can see why I entitled today’s post Relationships!
Then earlier on in my day I had a call with Jon Lavin, a friend from my days when I lived in Devon, South-West England. Jon and I still speak on a regular basis and yesterday I was complimenting Jon on a wonderful post he had written on his own business blog The People Workshop.
Jon’s post was about relationships in the workplace, his area of professional experience, and I was struck by how far the messages were relevant to all of us, in all areas of our lives. But just as key it was another reminder of the importance of all of us who express themselves on blogs; both as authors and as commentators. Because those expressions make, build and maintain great relationships.
Jon’s post is republished here with his full permission.
When you look at how much of our lives we spend at work it’s really quite attention-grabbing. I did a very rough calculation based on 40 years and 40 hours a week – and I took out holidays and weekends. It works out approximately at 4900 hours. That’s a lot of hours, especially if you do lots of overtime and weekends. All of that time, you’re probably going to be mixing with people – usually, quite a large number of people.
We are ‘relationship seeking’, says Eric Berne, originator of Transactional Analysis. So for all of that time, we’re moving in and out of relationships with other people. So here, I’m categorising any interaction with another as ‘relationship’.
Then there’s what happens when we go home, another set of relationships, and where we came from – our parents and families.
So how we are in relationship with others is very important and has a major impact on the results we get generally and particularly in the context of this article, at work.
I hear a lot of talk about ’employee engagement’ at the moment. I believe that for employees to be ‘engaged’, so actively involved in what they’re doing, thinking about it, in the ‘here and now’, they’ve got to be in relationship with their manager and probably, the team they’re part of, at least, if the job is being done properly.
I see it as the role of the manager or team leader that they have the skills and ability to develop these relationships with as many team members as possible, any exclusions being the exception. This requires a lot of self-awareness and confidence, plus the ability to build high levels of trust with a wide range of character types. I think it also requires the ability to see the world from the view point of the other person – ‘putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes’, we say. That’s quite difficult to do in my experience. However, we can donate the time to get to know the people in our team and so increase the likelihood of all of us coming from the same angle.
I think this is about the ability to value the uniqueness of others in all the different forms and approaches that manifests in, and finding ways of harnessing those skills and abilities.
These are not easy things and I am aware of the relatively few, good people managers I come across in my work but it is possible to develop these skills. You need to have the intention to want the best from ALL relationships. Also, to be prepared to use the feedback we all get, especially when things don’t go to plan in a relationship, and be continually revisiting and adjusting your approach so that you get more of what works. This way, you automatically get less of what doesn’t work.
Never under estimate the power of intention.
Stormy seas
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I am now going to close today’s post with those words of J. Allen Boone that Hariod had in her second reply:
To echo Jon’s closing message, let us never cease our intention of having wonderful relationships; with our dogs, with others and, not least of all, with ourselves.
I came to hear about this from an email sent to me by Tammy Moore of the organisation Shelter Friends. Tammy also c.c.’d her email to Tana Mason who is Fundraising Coordinator for the charity. Tammy’s email was an invite for me, and Jean, to attend the event on the Saturday as the author of my book.
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Do hope you can handle a further selection of these event photographs in a week’s time! My motivation is to give everyone concerned a bit of a special focus for they did so well.
Learning from Dogs 