Category: Dogs

Please sign for the Irish Greyhound

Very grateful to Deborah over at Dog Leader Mysteries for today’s post.

The following appeared over on Dog Leader Mysteries last Monday and is republished with Deborah’s permission. Please share this as far and wide as you can.

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1 minute for Irish Greyhounds

Featured by dogleadermysteries

Please help Irish Greyhounds by signing this Care2 petition

Save greyhound dogs’ lives in less than 1 minute

Bring Irish Greyhound Racing Regulations in line with the United Kingdom

I will not submit my readers to the horrors racing greyhounds endure or lose their lives from. I never thought any thing could be worse than dogs bred in puppy mills. After reading the Care2 petition’s explanation of the conditions and animal cruelty in Ireland’s dog racing world, now I feel sadder but an informed and wiser person.

My friend, Rosee Riggs, sent me this petition. The situation and welfare for dogs on Irish racetracks distresses all animal lovers everywhere. Without boring you with research and background, the essence of this petition effort targets raising Irish greyhound racing rules to match those in Great Britain.

4 great things about greyhound dogs

When living in a home with a family

Greyhounds love to snuggle
Greyhounds enjoy being couch potatoes
Rescued track greyhounds often hate to run
Greyhounds cannot swim. They sink due to extremely low body fat

Myth buster: Not true that former track greyhounds become runaway dogs!

This is Rosee’s dog, Speedy. Read more about him on her site Good Dog Practice.

speedy-kopfportrait — Former Irish greyhound, now safe and happy. **Photo credit: Judith Utner**

From Care2: legal changes needed to better protect Irish track greyhounds

Have a veterinarian present at all race meetings, trials and sales trials who must inspect every greyhound before it runs;
Provide the veterinarian with appropriate facilities;
Provide suitable kennels, diet, hygiene standards, for all greyhounds that are going to run in a race or trial and for the dogs NOT to be muzzled for 23-24 hours a day; Ensure that the greyhounds have access to an outside area for exercise and be supplied with food and water.
Only allow greyhounds that are healthy, micro-chipped, registered and, were required, tattooed, to run in a race or trial.
Keep up to date records of owners, trainers, greyhounds and any injuries/deaths to greyhounds.
Monitor all licensed and private Breeders to reduce excess Dogs thereby reducing the need to euthanize/kill unwanted puppies.
To regulate Ireland’s greyhound breeders, not governed by the same regulations & welfare stipulations as the UK. All aspects of greyhound dog breeding, training and kennelling.
To provide adequate travel facilities, breaks (on long journeys) and water/food as required.

Speedy came as a racetrack rescue from Ireland. Photo credit: Katrin Bargheer — Speedy came as a racetrack rescue from Ireland. **Photo credit: Katrin Bargheer**

Care2 Petition Bring Irish Greyhound Racing Regulations in line with the UK

Please sign and share

Thanks for reading, Deborah Taylor-French

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Delighted to say that at 15:30 PST yesterday, the Care2 Petition site read:

we’ve got 169,061 signatures, help us get to 170,000

and went on to explain the background to the petition:

There are major concerns about animal welfare issues relating to the racing greyhound industry in Ireland. Many puppies and older dogs which don’t perform to racing owner expectations are killed simply because they won’t make money for the owner. They are discovered in mass graves with their tattooed ears hacked off so they can’t be identified – so that their owners can’t be held accountable.

Dogs are generally kennelled, constantly muzzled, for 23-24 hours a day for their entire racing life. There are usually at least two dogs per small kennel, sharing one bed (with straw if they are lucky). The kennels are overcrowded, not properly maintained and badly cramped.

In the UK there are regulations which provide some protection for racing greyhounds. These regulations do not exist in Ireland where most racing greyhounds come from. Changes need to be made to bring the laws in Ireland in line with those in the UK. These rules aren’t perfect but they do offer a lot of improvements to the lives of these beautiful dogs.

Please sign the petition to show the Irish Greyhound Racing Board that the public cares about these dogs, to encourage them to support laws to protect these dogs.

At least 20 greyhounds a day, either puppies, which do not make the track because of lack of “prey drive”, or ‘retired’ dogs, aged between 18 months to 3-4 years, simply ‘disappear’ according to “records”. All dogs should be identifiable by the tattoos & registry records. When they are tattooed the dogs are roughly handled & dragged around by their ears with pincers.

Continue reading “Please sign for the Irish Greyhound” →

How about dogs and boredom?

A guest post on the subject.

A fascinating look at preventing dogs from becoming bored, by guest author Amber Kingsley.

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Dogs and Boredom

by Amber Kingsley.

The daily care and keeping of our canine friends comprises several quotidian tasks. Feeding, walking, fresh water and brushing become just another part of our busy lives, much like our morning shower, dinner preparations, or daily commute. In the hustle and bustle, it’s important to remember that just like us, our dogs, stuck in the mix of the weekly routine, can become bored.

What does a bored dog look like? Often times, a dog that is bored will resort to bad behavior, whether it’s getting into the garbage and strewing it all over the house, or chewing on an expensive pair of dress shoes. Keeping a dog free from boredom requires some simple fixes that boil down to attention and stimulation.

In the first place, it’s necessary that a dog gets enough walking exercise to stave off boredom in addition to bad behavior. A dog that is walked regularly will be better behaved and happier in general. Walking is crucial for your dog’s overall good health both physically and emotionally; dogs experience walking with an owner as quality time that reinforces both trust and bonding.

Dogs are very much pack animals, and they enjoy meeting new people and other dogs. Take your dog to the dog park, and bring him along in the car or to new events. Socializing your dog is a great way to keep your dog interested and well-rounded.

Though walks and trips are as necessary as feeding and grooming, one area that may fall by the wayside is play. Playtime is similar to walking in that it offers stimulation for your pet. Squeaky toys and balls are a good option for playing fetch, while rawhides or rag bones are great for games of tug. Don’t be afraid to mix it up with new tricks or toys.

Dogs are intelligent and sensitive creatures. Dogs often react in ways that we do, and just like us, they get bogged down with depressing boredom and the same old routine. In order to get through our at times hectic schedules, we get stuck in routines and forget to play. With all of the daily tasks we need to complete, we sometimes ignore the excitement of imagination or the benefits of self-examination. We are social creatures too, and getting out is just as important for us as it is for our pets, even if we would rather stay at home with the TV.

Taking care of our dog’s boredom reminds us to invest in our lives. Just as it doesn’t take much to get your furry friend’s eyes sparkling, it does us good to see the value of the simple things. Whether it’s getting out in nature, moving our bodies, or setting aside time to play with our family members and friends, we need some of the same basic maintenance as our dogs do. More than that, owning dogs teaches people how to be more human. At the end of the day, we need to bond with each other and get what we can out of our surroundings.

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“… owning dogs teaches people how to be more human“. Ain’t that the truth!

Thank you, Amber.

By way of background, Amber is a journalist as well as a lifetime pet lover. When she’s not traveling the world, she’s usually spending time at home with her pets, and wants to help others make sure that their pets are as happy as they can be.

Don’t know about you but I would love to read more guest articles from her! Good people, do let me have your feedback!

A humour break!

My son’s last day with us is today.

I was in Bend with him on Friday and got an insight into the amazing world of skiing.

Skiing that was on the slopes of Mt. Bachelor, about 20 miles from Bend.

The timing was perfect as a major snow storm hit the region Thursday night, continuing on Friday, as the following photograph shows.

Friday 27th. View of the Pine Marten Express ski lift from the balcony of the West Village Lodge at 6,300 ft altitude.

I returned on Saturday on roads that made the journey ‘interesting’.

Heading South on OR-97. Picture taken around 9am some 10 miles south of Bend.

But Alex stayed on for a further day to benefit from brilliant weather behind the storm and able to share such scenes as this one!

Breath-taking view. — Breath-taking view from 7,200 feet.

All of which is a preamble to a very funny item that Alex sent to me.

A woman brought a very limp parrot into a veterinary hospital. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest. After a moment or two, the Vet shook his head sadly and said, “I’m so sorry, Polly has passed
away.”

The distressed owner wailed, “Are you sure? I mean, you haven’t done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”

The vet rolled his eyes, shrugged, turned and left the room returning a few moments later with beautiful black Labrador. As the bird’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the dead parrot from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.

The vet led the dog out but returned a few moments later with a cat. The cat jumped up and also sniffed delicately at the ex-bird. The cat sat back, shook its head, meowed and ran out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry; but like I said, your parrot is most definitely, 100% certifiably …dead.”

He then turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill which he handed to the woman. The parrot’s owner, still in shock, took the bill. “$150!” she cried. “$150 just to tell me my bird is dead?!”

The vet shrugged. “If you’d taken my word for it, the bill would only have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, what did you expect?“

Best wishes.

Picture parade eighty-five

Not bad for a dog who will be the human equivalent of aged 96 this coming June.

Pictures of Pharaoh playing in our creek taken last Tuesday.

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What a magnificent animal he is! Thank you, Pharaoh, for being the dog you are!

Happy Birthday, Oliver.

Our latest member of our family is one-year-old today!

(NB: I am presently away with my son enjoying the Wintry delights of Bend, Or and Mount Bachelor.)

Long-term followers of this place (thank you!) will recall a post published last October that included the following two photographs.

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Do you remember when puppy Oliver came to live with us?

Pharaoh, age 88 years in human equivalent, passing on his wisdom to Oliver, age 3 in human terms. — Pharaoh passing on his wisdom to young Oliver.

Another picture of Oliver sitting on the lap of yours truly taken in the last couple of days.

How time passes by! For both of us in the picture!

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Here is a current photograph of the beautiful young man taken earlier this week.

Oliver playing in our creek last Tuesday and showing off his most wonderful eyes.

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And another one taken later that day when I was writing this post in readiness for today.

Eyes that sweep one away to some magical land!

Creativity from the heart.

A guest post.

When I started blogging back in July, 2009, I had not the slightest idea of what to expect. Frankly, if I had had any expectations, I still would have never realised the web of friendships that would result. In fact, it is only the sense, the strong sense, of friendship that flows from followers and friends of Learning from Dogs that keeps me at it. Many of those that follow this place are themselves bloggers and are followed by me in turn.

All of which is an introduction to an email that arrived some six days ago. This is what I read:

Hi Paul,
I posted this on my site, Scribble Darts from the Heart, yesterday. I was wondering if you would consider it as a guest post for your site. I know the actual event between polar bear and dog took place several years ago and you may have already shared something in this regard but I thought I would run it by you and see what you think.
Cheers, Mary 🙂

I dropped in to Mary’s blogsite and thought her idea of a guest post was wonderful. It is a very short guest post but you will love it! (And you will need a handkerchief nearby!)

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Miracle of Play

My Haiku today was inspired by the heartwarming story of a polar bear and sled dog that played together daily for over a week.

Here is that story.

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Trust, openness and friendship.

So much to learn from our beautiful animals.

A very joyful dog!

A lovely way to start a new week. Back on the 7th February, over on the blog Dog Leader Mysteries, Deborah published a post under the title of Returned to Owner: joyful dog + family. It is such a wonderful story that it is republished here, with Deborah’s kind permission.

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Returned to Owner: joyful dog + family

What a story plus a happy ending!

This true story comes from animal lover, dog rescuer and Redwood Writer, Brigid Wasson. I highly recommend you find and friend Brigid on Facebook and visit her Website. I posted Brigid Wasson’s bio sketch and links to her Facebook Pages at the bottom.

Brigid Wasson wrote on Facebook.

Tonight renewed my faith in the “RTO (Return To Owner) Program” that Sue Padgett and I started so long ago. Too little emphasis is placed on owner reclaims of “stray” pets in shelters, something I am working hard to change. A young couple was in a major car accident, leaving the woman disabled and in a wheelchair. Without transportation and unable to work, they fell on hard times after the accident. They had to move in with a relative who later kicked them out, and the person they trusted to care for their dog dropped him off at the County shelter. The dog wasn’t doing well at the shelter, so the director called and asked if I would take him to the humane society. We had no room, so he went to a foster home. A week later, the County shelter director called again and said the real owners had been identified. When they went to get their dog back from the person caring for him, they learned of the deception and felt devastated. Tonight, we delivered the dog to his owner in Ukiah. As soon as I turned into the parking lot of Safeway, he saw him and went crazy, whining and jumping at the window. I opened the door and he leaped into his arms, licking his face and howling “I love you.” The owner burst into tears and hugged him tight, thanking us many times. I had intended to get a photo for Facebook, but in the dark, in the rain, it was a private moment too sacred to capture. Even so, it will be in my mind forever, reaffirming why we do what we do.

Return to Owner story replies on Facebook

Comments: I am so happy with this outcome and glad that you were able to play such a pivotal part in getting this dog reunited with his family! I have every confidence, that as time goes by, I will be reading more stories like this as more shelters get on board with aggressive RTO efforts! Good job, Brigid! So very touching. It’s not always easy to understand why other have to drop their beloved animals at a shelter. At the time we were so quick to condemn. So glad you were able to help. Animals always remember us. Brigid’s reply

We are so quick to judge when most of us are one injury or illness away from disaster, and life can change in a moment. We gave them our numbers and assured them that they can call us if they run into trouble again.

Awesome story! Never enough happy endings! You are good, good people. This is one thing that pulls at my heart strings. Seeing a grown man cry so hard when we open the truck door and his little dog leaped into his arms and started licking him on his teary eyed face. It was a great reunion for all of us. OH WHAT A STORY! I Love it!!! Thank you for being you Brigid. Great story Brigid. Those are priceless rewards we at shelters need to hear. What a wonderful story, reaffirms my faith in The goodness of people We live for these moments! yes, by all means

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Please visit the Website of Brigid Wasson Good Dogs Pet Sitting and her Facebook Page Animal Shelter Success. Brigid Wasson worked for the County of Santa Clara Animal Shelter as their supervisor. She now owns and runs two business, Good Dogs Pet Sitting and The Path Ahead Animal Shelter Consulting. Since it was too dark for photographs or video, here’s another wonderful Return To Owner story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLpXnoI_hJ8

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Here’s my closing thought. Dogs so often bring out the best in us humans!

Nowhere to hide now!

Have a dog or two in the house? Hide your feelings then!

I have previously remarked on how quickly our dogs pick up on key words and phrases spoken by either Jean or me. In my case, long before I met Jean when I was living in Devon with Pharaoh, I quickly learnt that voicing the word ‘walk’ caused an eruption of interest from his nibs. Then I foiled his intelligence by spelling the word out: w-a-l-k. That lasted all of a fortnight (or two weeks in American speak) before Pharaoh knitted the letters into that walk word.

Here in Oregon our living-room/bedroom group of dogs (Pharaoh, Hazel, Cleo, Sweeney and Oliver) pick up on so many human comments, sayings, and behaviours that at times it feels as though Jean and I need to go somewhere private in order to discuss anything that affects our lovely dogs.

All of which is a preamble to a fascinating article recently seen on the Smithsonian Magazine website.

Our furry friends might be able to infer our mood based on our facial expressions – just like human buddies do. (Photo: JLPH/cultura/Corbis)

Dogs Can Tell Whether You’re Making a Happy or Mad Face

For the first time, science shows that a non-human animal can recognize the emotional state of another species

By Rachel Nuwer
smithsonian.com
February 12, 2015

Facial expressions are a key asset in our arsenal of communication methods. Without saying a word, we can alert those around us to our emotional state—ranging from elation to sorrow—simply by flexing a few muscles. Such expressions have evolved to help us connect with one another, avoid danger and work together.

Fellow humans, however, are not the only ones potentially tuning in to the information our expressions convey. According to the results of a study published today in Current Biology, dogs have hacked this silent method of communication, at least enough to distinguish between angry and happy facial expressions.

Dogs and humans share a tight evolutionary bond, which is why veterinarian researchers from the University of Vienna decided to focus on these two species for their study. Dogs are already known to be whizzes at reading us. For instance, they can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar faces even if just part of the face is shown in a photograph. Whether they actually recognize emotions, however, had not been conclusively investigated before.

It would be wrong to republish the full article without permission but I do want to share another photograph from the article and the closing paragraphs.

A canine research subject differentiates between angry and happy eyes. Photo: Anjuli Barber, Messerli Research Institute

Before the authors delve into the greater animal kingdom, though, they plan to further explore their canine findings. Experiments with puppies could lend insight into whether facial expression recognition is something dogs learn over their lives or if it’s something more innate. And trials with wolves could indicate whether human breeders bestowed emotion recognition in their canine companions via artificial selection, or whether that trait was something dogs’ ancient relatives developed on their own simply by living in the vicinity of humans.

While the initial controlled laboratory findings don’t prove that your dog is watching your every facial move for clues about how you are feeling, they do open up the possibility that dogs are even more empathetic best friends than we thought.

Many of you who have dogs in your lives will intuitively know this to be true. But having the scientific underpinning is wonderful confirmation of that truth.

I’m sure I am not alone in having a dog come up to me and lick the tears off my face.

What incredible loving and trusting relationships we have with our dogs.

To underline my last sentence, on a whim I just took the following photograph of Hazel who very rarely isn’t by my side.

Picture taken at 10:35 yesterday morning in my 'home office' when I had finished writing today's post. — Picture taken at 10:35 yesterday morning in my ‘home office’ when I had just finished writing today’s post.

There’s a bit of a smell!

The incredible power of the nose of a dog.

Young Oliver had an upset tummy during the night resulting in the bedroom carpet needing a little ‘sorting out’ after midnight. Thus I was very grateful that a human’s sense of smell is very much inferior to that of the dog!

Oliver sleeping in front of the wood-stove yesterday morning.

I couldn’t escape the irony that today’s post was inspired by an email from friend Dan Gomez. His email included the link to an article on the Brain Links website. It was called How a Dog Actually “Sees” the World Through Smell. Here’s how the article opened:

“The world of scents is at least as rich as the world of sight.”

Even though smell is the most direct of our senses and the 23,040 breaths we take daily drag in a universe of information — from the danger alert of a burning odor to the sweet nostalgia of an emotionally memorable scent — our olfactory powers are not even mediocre compared to a dog’s. The moist, spongy canine nose is merely the gateway into a remarkable master-machine which can detect smells in concentrations one hundred-millionth of what we humans require to smell something, and then transmute them into immensely dimensional and useful information about the world. So magnificent is the dog’s olfactory brawn — including the ability to sniff out skin, breast, bladder, and lung cancers with an astounding degree of accuracy and to literally smell fear — that to our primitive human perception it appears like nothing short of magic.

The article also included this short TED Talk but I have taken the liberty of including the paragraph that preceded the YouTube video.

How that neurobiological magic happens is what cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz — who heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College but has also produced a canon of invaluable insight on how we humans construct our impressions of reality — explains in this short animation from TED-Ed, based on her illuminating book Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know (public library):

Do go across and read the full article.

Mind you, referring back to our overnight doggy incident, I did find one paragraph slightly at odds with my personal views on the subject. It was this one:

We humans tend not to spend a lot of time thinking about smelling. Smells are minor blips in our sensory day compared to the reams of visual information that we take in and obsess over in every moment.

I’m here to tell you that at 1am yesterday morning, my sense of smell was anything other than a minor blip!

OK, before I close, I just want to alert all you dear readers to the fact that from later today until early March my son, Alex, is visiting us. His plans are to find somewhere in Oregon to enjoy some skiing but the very mild Winter so far may put a spanner in those works.

For obvious and natural reasons, writing posts for Learning from Dogs will not be a daily high priority. So if you read a number of posts previously published in earlier times you will understand why. Thank you.

Caring changes lives

Possibly the most important lesson to be learnt from dogs.

As is the way, a number of separate happenings seemed to be ‘singing from the same song sheet’ in bringing about today’s post.

Earlier yesterday morning Jean and I had a meeting with the executive director of an important charity that is helping the many homeless and disadvantaged young persons in this part of Oregon. For example, Jean and I were told that there were 300-500 homeless teenagers in Josephine County alone (Josephine County is where our home is.)

One of the ideas that was floated in the conversation was how kids are so loving to animals and whether our dogs and horses might help.

Then later, when back home, I recalled that over two years ago I published a post called Sticks and stones.

It wasn’t a long post and is republished now.

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Sticks and stones

I make no apologies for today’s post being more emotional and sentimental. The phrase ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me‘ is well known throughout the English-speaking world and surprisingly goes back some way. A quick web search found that in the The Christian Recorder of March 1862, there was this comment:

Remember the old adage, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me’. True courage consists in doing what is right, despite the jeers and sneers of our companions.

So if in 1862 the saying was referred to as an ‘old adage’ then it clearly pre-dated 1862 by some degree. A few days ago, Dusty M., here in Payson, AZ, sent me a short YouTube video called The Power of Words. I’m as vulnerable as the next guy to needing being reminded about what’s important in this funny old world.

Then I started mulling over the tendency for all of us to be sucked into a well of doom and gloom. Take my posts on Learning from Dogs over the last couple of days, as an example. There is no question that the world in which we all live is going through some extremely challenging times but anger and negativity is not going to be the answer. As that old reference spelt out so clearly, “True courage consists in doing what is right, despite the jeers and sneers of our companions.” So first watch the video,

then let me close by reminding us all that courage is yet something else we can learn from dogs.

In 1925, a ravaging case of diphtheria broke out in the isolated Alaskan village of Nome. No plane or ship could get the serum there, so the decision was made for multiple sled dog teams to relay the medicine across the treacherous frozen land. The dog that often gets credit for eventually saving the town is Balto, but he just happened to run the last, 55-mile leg in the race. The sled dog who did the lion’s share of the work was Togo. His journey, fraught with white-out storms, was the longest by 200 miles and included a traverse across perilous Norton Sound — where he saved his team and driver in a courageous swim through ice floes.

More about Togo another day.

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One of the comments left to that post back in November, 2012 was from Virginia Hamilton. Her website, Canine Commandos, is about just that: dogs helping youngsters. This is what Virginia wrote:

Our sermon today was about sticks and stones which is perfect timing because my sixth graders are throwing words at each other and it is hurting. So I looked up the phrase and found you. We were shown the video in a faculty meeting and since you tie into dogs I was hoping to find “the answer.” When you look at the website you’ll see out community project where I have twenty schools training in three shelters. One would think that because these kids are so loving to the animals that they could pass that kindness to each other. Any words of wisdom? Also check this out. Thank you, Virginia.

Now I would be the first to admit that there’s a difference between a homeless young person and a gifted young person. Yet the difference may not be so great. In this one sense: that caring for an animal changes lives and what young people, from all backgrounds and circumstances, need to learn is the power of unconditional love.

Not just caring for dogs, horses and cats, by the way.

1 minute for Irish Greyhounds

Please help Irish Greyhounds by signing this Care2 petition

Save greyhound dogs’ lives in less than 1 minute

4 great things about greyhound dogs

From Care2: legal changes needed to better protect Irish track greyhounds

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Dogs and Boredom

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Miracle of Play

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Returned to Owner: joyful dog + family

Return to Owner story replies on Facebook

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Dogs Can Tell Whether You’re Making a Happy or Mad Face

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“The world of scents is at least as rich as the world of sight.”

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Sticks and stones

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