First, an apology for presenting something that isn’t from my own pen, so to speak. But for much of yesterday I was immersed in other writings and when I turned to ‘today’s’ Post for Learning from Dogs, around 5pm my time, my creative juices had well and truly dried up! So a very big ‘thank you’ to Diane M., from here in Payson, for recently sending me this wonderful dog story! It’s been widely circulated, not that I had seen it before, but I’m told that not necessarily with the full story, as this version includes.
ALittle Something Just For You!
Meet George the Great Dane
The first time we saw George, our beloved Great Dane, he was no more than a tiny, cowering ball of fuzzy fur. As my wife Christie opened the door of the crate he’d travelled in, he teetered to a standing position and looked out at us, moving his head slowly from side to side, taking in the wonder of it all. Finally, as if weighing us up and deciding we were acceptable, he tentatively pushed his little nose forward and gave Christie her first lick.
Puppy love: A young George with Dave's wife Christie. Even as a pup he had comically large paws.
He came into our lives in January 2006, just a few months after we had married and set up home in Arizona . We both had busy jobs, Christie selling medical equipment while I was a property developer, but she had always planned that, once she had a house of her own, she would also have a dog.
She wanted a Great Dane as they make great family pets, so we tracked down a litter of 13, born 1,000 miles away in Oregon. Their owner emailed us a photo showing a chaotic jumble of paws, snouts and tails.Twelve were entangled with one another, but our eyes were drawn to one pup standing apart from the rest. He was clearly the runt, endearing him to Christie immediately.
Though it didn’t really register, George’s paws were comically large even then. But all we saw was this cute puppy. We certainly never dreamed he would one day become the biggest dog in the world, standing nearly 4ft high at the shoulder, 7ft long and weighing nearly 250 pounds. Right now, he just looked bewildered.
George made the long journey from Oregon to Phoenix by plane and we picked him up from the freight area, tired but unshaken. As soon as George settled into our home, we discovered our plans to be fair but firm parents were wishful thinking. All the things that make Great Danes wonderful pets — their lack of aggression and their attachment to humans — make them more emotionally sensitive than other dogs.They need to be with their ‘pack’ at all times and at night the cute pup with intensely blue eyes turned into a caterwauling banshee whenever we tried to leave him alone in the kitchen.
No matter how much we reminded ourselves that he had every home comfort (warm dog bed, warm blanket, warm kitchen, squeaky bone), each whimper created a picture in our heads of a tragic, abandoned pup, desperate for his mother. Eventually, we gave in and shunted George’s dog bed into our bedroom.
George measures more than 7 ft from nose to tail and weighs 250 pounds and is the world's biggest dog, but he's terrified of Chihuahuas...
In the coming months, Christie really threw herself into being a mum to George. As well as a photo album, he had a growth chart — we were soon reading it in awe.At five months he still acted like a puppy, chasing his tail and playing games of fetch and tug-of-war with his favorite bit of rope. But he was already the size of a fully-grown Labrador .He was putting on more than a pound a day and he bounded around like Bambi, skittering on our wooden floors and hurling himself at everything he fancied, including us humans. His displays of affection could leave you pinned temporarily against a wall or a piece of furniture.
His size did not go unnoticed in the outside world. Our local park had a section for puppies but we were bullied out of it by other owners, who were scared George would hurt their pups — but the opposite was true.
The smaller dogs ran around and under him, and he’d be constantly sidestepping them, obviously anxious and jittery. Slowly we realized that our enormous puppy was a big softie. Besides his terror of being left alone, he had a fear of water. He’d growl anxiously at the side of our swimming pool, alarmed that his ‘pack’ members would so willingly place themselves in danger of drowning.
If the pool was his most-hated place, his favorite was our bedroom. Eventually he outgrew the single mattress we placed there for him and preferred instead the comfort of our king-sized bed — sprawling between us like some over-indulged prince while we spent half the night clinging onto the edges.
Paws for thought: George's giant feet dwarf Dave's hand.
In the summer of 2006, we solved this problem by buying him his own queen-sized mattress, which he still sleeps on today at the bottom of our bed. But soon we encountered another challenge as George reached doggie puberty. Once he had grabbed life by the lapels, now he was grabbing onto legs — table legs, chair legs, human legs, he wasn’t picky — and doing what all male dogs do with the vigor of a canine giant.
He calmed down in the furniture department after we had him neutered, but then he took up a new hobby, eating as if it were an Olympic sport.A sausage on the barbecue was like a siren to a passing sailor. You couldn’t turn your back for a minute. And he was so tall that he actually had to bend down to pinch food off kitchen counters.
He could reach the high shelves as well, so we had to hide everything away in cupboards. Soon, he was getting through around 100lb of dry dog food every month.
As he approached his first birthday in November 2006, weighing about 196 pounds, it was getting physically impossible to make him go anywhere he didn’t want to — including the vet’s surgery. He had not forgotten the time he went there in possession of his manhood — and came out less than whole. As soon as he recognized the entrance, he refused to move. So I had to take him around to the less familiar back door instead.
For all these troubles, George gave us plenty in return, not least the following year when Christie lost the baby she was carrying. Evidently tuned in to her grief, George was a constant presence at her side. When she sat, he sat too. When she stood, he stood and padded alongside her to wherever she was going.
His personality grew more delightful the bigger he got. A male Great Dane typically weighs from nine to 11 stone, but by Christmas 2007 George weighed 210 pounds — bigger than most men. At this point, he loved being chauffeured around in my golf cart and would sit in it, his haunches on the seat and front legs on the floor. By Christmas 2008, our canine colossus weighed 252 pounds. A friend suggested he might be a contender for the Guinness Book of Records, but we had other things to think about: Christie had discovered that she was pregnant again.
With size comes problems: George the giant barely fits in the back of his owner's SUV
The trouble was, when our daughter Annabel arrived that September George made it clear he wanted nothing to do with this interloper. He was used to spending nights in delightful oblivion at the foot of our bed. Annabel’s high-decibel presence simply wasn’t on. When she cried, he’d wake, harrumph and then turn over in annoyance. Once it was clear the racket was going to continue, he’d exhale heavily again, till one of us finished that mysterious feeding thing we did with the noisy intruder.
But while he might not have cared much for Annabel, George loved her dolls, especially a stuffed green one that played a nursery rhyme when squeezed. Whenever he could, he placed it between his paws and pressed it so he could hear the tune. It was like a security blanket. It was a period of such big adjustment for him that if it made him happy, then it was fine by us and our patience was rewarded.
Slowly, George understood that Annabel was our pack’s youngest member and in need of his affection and protection. And on Christmas morning, he ended his three-month sulk, acknowledging her presence with a lick of her hand. It was the best present we could have had — although the beginning of 2010 brought more good news.
A doggone miracle: George the Great Dane with the Nasser's daughter Annabel at home in Arizona.
Over the previous weeks, while Annabel slept, Christie had applied to the Guinness World Records people on George’s behalf. That February, one of their adjudicators came to watch George being measured in the presence of a vet. He was officially declared not just the world’s tallest living dog (43 inches from paw to shoulder) but the tallest dog ever.
The following week we flew to Chicago to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show and were put up in one of the city’s most luxurious hotels. We had a huge sitting room, dining area and even a bar — but there was just one problem. There was nowhere for George to sleep.
As we enjoyed a gourmet meal and a bottle of red wine that night, he struggled to settle on two roll-out divans provided for him. Infuriatingly, they wouldn’t stay together. So he had his head on one and back end on the other, but his stomach was sagging onto the carpet.
‘You know what we need to do,’ I joked. ‘Give George our bed to sleep on and have the divans in this room ourselves.’
Christie looked at me with a telltale gleam in her eye and I knew immediately my joke had been a fatal error. An hour later, our boy was sprawled in splendor in our huge, fluffy king-size bed.
‘Well,’ whispered Christie, ‘George is the star here, after all.’ She was right, of course, and since his appearance on TV, Giant George has built a following around the world, with his own fan club, website and 70,000 fans on Facebook.
None of this, of course, means anything to George. He still spends his days doing what he has always liked best: eating, playing and sleeping. Our cherished pet may have become a global celebrity — but really, he’s just one of the family.
Man's biggest friend: Devoted owner Dave Nasser with George.
Two days ago, I wrote a piece about how the evolution of the domestic dog has been reliably re-calibrated back to around 33,000 years ago. I quoted from an article in the Arizona Republic, here are the opening paragraphs of that article.
Tamed dogs may go back 33,000 years
by Anne Ryman – Jan. 24, 2012 11:33 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Dogs have been “man’s best friend” longer than any other animal. And, as it turns out, longer than previously thought.
A pair of research papers published in the past few years, one most recently by a team that includes the University of Arizona, significantly pushes back the timeline for domestication of dogs from about 14,000 years ago to more than 30,000 years ago.
Researchers at UA and universities in England and the Netherlands used radiocarbon dating to determine that the skull of a Siberian dog was about 33,000 years old. Slightly older dog remains were identified in Belgium a few years ago by a separate research team.
So moving on, and apologies for a bit of a personal muse.
Last night (the night of the 30th/31st Jan.) a single, gentle yelp from Pharaoh had me instantly awake. Initially hadn’t a clue about the time but instinctively knew it was an un-Godly hour! Jean and I had been late to bed and I was pretty tired when the lights went out – off to sleep in an instant. Ergo, waking up at 2am as it turned out to be, the classic deep-sleep time of the night, was challenging! It is also relevant to mention that Pharaoh is reliably a very good sleeper at night.
Yet, in literally an instant of time, I had transitioned from being totally asleep to being mentally alert wondering what had caused him to cry out. Pharaoh came to the side of the bed and let me rub his head, then went back to near the door and uttered another soft yelp. I knew without any doubt at all that he was in pain and lay on my back anticipating what would be coming – putting a dressing-gown on and leading his nibs out into a very cold and dark night!
Then a clawed paw on the door told me to get moving, and within moments of Pharaoh being outside, it was clear that he had a badly upset tummy.
The whole episode was repeated around 4.45 am.
It was later in the morning that I was reflecting with Jean about the evolution of the dog-human relationship that a) gave the dog the instinctive confidence to call out to his ‘master’ in a different ‘I need help‘ tone, and b) that the call was so rapidly interpreted by a human as a call for help from another species.
But dogs sleeping near or around their human companions for more than 30,000 years allows plenty of time for species bonding to develop in ways that are both beautiful and mysterious. Long may that bonding remain beautiful and mysterious.
Fabulous animals!
Pharaoh. June 2008, 3 months before we both left for Mexico!
Some recent published research shows just how far back goes man’s relationship with the domesticated dog!
First, a big thank you to Merci O. who originally sent me the link to the item that I will refer to later on. But first, a recap as to the origins of this Blog Learning from Dogs.
Dr David Hawkins of Veritas Publishing, Sedona, Arizona.
Way back in 2007 I was working with a good friend of mine who lives in SW England who, professionally, makes good use of the philosophies of Dr. David Hawkins. David Hawkins has written a number of books including Truth vs Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference which I read a few years ago and found very convincing. Here’s how Amazon describes the book,
The exploration into the truth of man’s activities is unique, intriguing, and provocative. From a new perspective, one quickly grasps the levels of truth expressed by the media, the arts, writers, painters, architecture, movies, TV, politics, and war, as well as academia and the greatest thinkers and philosophies through the ages and up to present-day science and advanced theories of the nature of the universe. Most importantly, the ego and its structure are revealed to facilitate the understanding of religious and spiritual truths expressed by the mystics and enlightened sages over the centuries. It becomes apparent why the human mind, unaided, has been intrinsically incapable of discerning truth from falsehood. A simple test is described that, in seconds, can solve riddles that have been irresolvable by mankind for centuries. This book delivers far more than it promises.
Reveals a breakthrough in documenting a new era of human knowledge. Only in the last decade has a science of Truth emerged that, for the first time in human history, enables the discernment of truth from falsehood. Presented are discoveries of an enormous amount of crucial and significant information of great importance to mankind, along with calibrations of historical events, cultures, spiritual leaders, media, and more.
A science of consciousness developed which revealed that degrees of truth reflect concordant calibratable levels of consciousness on a scale of 1 to 1,000. When this verifiable test of truth was applied to multiple aspects of society (movies, art, politics, music, sociology, religion, scientific theories, spirituality, philosophy, everyday Americana, and all the countries of the world), the results were startling.
Trust me, I am (slowly) getting to the point!
Dr. Hawkins created a ‘map’ of those calibrated levels of consciousness, see details of that map here. Also, it wasn’t too difficult to find a plain B&W version on the Web, reproduced below.
As you can see when you study the map, the boundary between ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’ is the calibrated level of 200, the blue line in the above described as ‘The beginning of integrity’.
Anyway, back to my psychotherapy friend, Jon, in SW England. When I used to visit him, I always had Pharaoh with me and he would settle down behind my chair and let the human talk just flow over him, happy at some dog level to be included.
One day Jon was talking about the different levels on consciousness and looked over at Pharaoh asleep on the floor and said, “Do you that dogs are integrous!” I responded that I didn’t know that, please tell me more.
Jon continued, “Yes, dogs have been calibrated as having a level of consciousness in the zone of 205 to 210.”
Wow! What a revelation, that in a way didn’t strike me as foolish. After 4 years of having Pharaoh as my companion, qualities such as unconditional love towards me, trust, courage, integrity and forgiveness were an obvious part of his character. See where those levels and emotions appear on the map above.
Later back home, I was idly browsing domain names and saw that ‘learningfromdogs’ was available! Little did I realise then that in September 2008, Pharaoh and I would move out to live with Jeannie and her 12 other dogs in San Carlos, Mexico and subsequently in February, 2010, all of us move to Payson, Arizona. I started writing the Blog Learning from Dogs on July 15th, 2009 when still down in Mexico.
Still awake out there? 🙂
As part of my research into the domesticated dog in the early days of putting the Blog together, I explored the science behind the separation, or perhaps better described as the evolution, of the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) from the wolf (Canis lupus). That the domesticated dog was originally a form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora.
It was clear that scientists were divided on when this happened. Some argue it occurred 100,000 years ago, others that it was a far more recent development, closer to 15,000 years ago. I wrote here under the heading of Dogs and Integrity,
Dogs are part of the Canidae, a family including wolves, coyotes and foxes, thought to have evolved 60 million years ago. There is no hard evidence about when dogs and man came together but dogs were certainly around when man developed speech and set out from Africa, about 50,000 years ago. See an interesting article by Dr. George Johnson.
On the Home Page, I say,
Yet they have been part of man’s world for an unimaginable time, at least 30,000 years. That makes the domesticated dog the longest animal companion to man, by far!
As man’s companion, protector and helper, history suggests that dogs were critically important in man achieving success as a hunter-gatherer. Dogs ‘teaching’ man to be so successful a hunter enabled evolution, some 20,000 years later, to farming, thence the long journey to modern man.
Those words were more of an instinctive assessment than based on hard science. Now we have the science!
by Anne Ryman – Jan. 24, 2012 11:33 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
Dogs have been “man’s best friend” longer than any other animal. And, as it turns out, longer than previously thought.
A pair of research papers published in the past few years, one most recently by a team that includes the University of Arizona, significantly pushes back the timeline for domestication of dogs from about 14,000 years ago to more than 30,000 years ago.
Researchers at UA and universities in England and the Netherlands used radiocarbon dating to determine that the skull of a Siberian dog was about 33,000 years old. Slightly older dog remains were identified in Belgium a few years ago by a separate research team.
The two findings indicate the process of domestication was occurring in separate regions at a time when early humans, including Neanderthals, in Europe and Siberia were small-group hunter-gatherers. About 14,000 years ago, Neanderthals were gone and humans were more mobile, living and hunting in larger groups.
The latest study’s co-author, UA professor Gregory Hodgins, said the finding broadens the timeline of humans interacting with the natural world. While humans have depended on animals since the dawn of the human species, domestication of animals indicates a symbiotic relationship between the two.
“It suggests living in close quarters and some sort of emotional bond,” he said.
Then just a couple of paragraphs later, came confirmation of my speculative position,
Before the most recent discoveries in Siberia and Belgium, the first signs of dog domestication appeared about 14,000 years ago. At some point, humans began relying on dogs for things like protection, hunting and companionship.
Dogs allowed humans to become a different, more effective predator, said Michael Barton, an Arizona State University anthropology professor who was not a co-author of either recent study. A dog’s keen sense of smell allowed humans to track animals better.
“They give us an edge,” he said.
The article closes,
The UA research on dogs was published recently in Public Library of Science One, a peer-reviewed journal. The team included scientists in Russia, Canada, England and the Netherlands. Research on the Belgian dog was published in 2008 in the Journal of Archeological Science.
It really is worth reading in full and a brilliant find by Merci. It may be entirely the case that without dogs man could not have evolved beyond hunter-gatherers to farmers.
Yesterday, around 10am something got into my main desktop computer and practically brought it to a halt. Of course, it had been months since I had done a backup and there were dozens and dozens of documents at risk, including a fair chunk of a novel that I have under-way! An hour later, I had managed to backup my documents yet the PC was still pretty crippled. Felt like an utter waste of a day!
Luckily the old laptop that we use to watch movies was fine, and that is what I am using to prepare this Post.
So, by way of making me and hopefully many of you as well, feel so grateful for the way that dogs just let it all flow by, here are a few wonderful dog pictures, sent to me courtesy of Rich and Katie S.
Holding a rose for all humanity!
and what about this this fine dog!
The epitome of loyalty and unconditional love!
Try avoiding this pair of eyes!
Not many would disagree with W.W.
Don’t know about you, but I’m already feeling better!
Some of man's best listeners!
The unavoidable truth!
Oh, how so true!
OK, plenty more where these came from, to be held in reserve for other challenging days! Thank you Rich and Katie.
But aren’t we so lucky to have these animals in our lives! God bless them!
A peek at a very interesting article in the February issue of National Geographic magazine.
Big thanks to Bob T. here in Payson for sending me a recent email that contained the one line, “There is a lengthy article entitled “Mix, Match, Morph” in the February issue of National Geographic. I strongly suspect you will find it of interest.” Understatement big time! The article is wonderful. It is also available online! 🙂
The premise behind the article is, as the opening words reveal,
Three breeds, Copyright National Geographic, photo by Robert Clark
How to Build a Dog
Scientists have found the secret recipe behind the spectacular
variety of dog shapes and sizes, and it could help unravel the
complexity of human genetic disease.
As is made clear early on in Evan Ratcliff’s text, the huge variety in the breeds of dogs is a very recent occurence,
For reasons both practical and whimsical, man’s best friend has been artificially evolved into the most diverse animal on the planet—a staggering achievement, given that most of the 350 to 400 dog breeds in existence have been around for only a couple hundred years.
And later Ratcliff writes,
The breeders gave no thought, of course, to the fact that while coaxing such weird new dogs into existence, they were also tinkering with the genes that determine canine anatomy in the first place. Scientists since have assumed that underneath the morphological diversity of dogs lay an equivalent amount of genetic diversity. A recent explosion in canine genomic research, however, has led to a surprising, and opposite, conclusion: The vast mosaic of dog shapes, colors, and sizes is decided largely by changes in a mere handful of gene regions.
What is critically being discovered is,
Already, more than a hundred dog diseases have been mapped to mutations in particular genes, many of them with human counterparts. Those diseases may have a whole array of mutations leading to a risk of disease in dogs, as they do in us.
It would be wrong, without permission to reproduce the article, to include more but you can quickly go here and read it yourself. Except I can’t resist closing with the last sentence from the article,
After all, he points out, there are millions of dog lovers out there willing and eager to help with the fieldwork.
Ain’t that the truth!
And don’t miss the fabulous photographs of dogs taken by Robert Clark which you can see here, another example of which is below. Robert Clark’s website is here.
Chesapeake Bay retriever, 48, Photograph by Robert Clark
Except to thank Tom M. for sending me the details, which I reproduce as Tom sent them.
Every once in a while an opportunity comes by to do a “really good thing for little effort or cost. What I call “click for critters” is one of those rare opportunities you should take advantage of.
For the effort involved to perform “two mouse clicks on your computer”, you can be responsible for providing critters in shelters 6/10 of a bowl of food daily. That is over 200 bowls of food to critters in need per year! And get this … the sponsors will even send you an automatic reminder e-mail every day with a link to click. Couldn’t be any easier and you’ll feel so good helping those in need.
Once you click that button, you will be taken to a sponsor’s page. (That is, click the button on the Animal Rescue website, not on this Blog page!) The sponsor’s on that next page will donate 6/10 of a bowl of food just because you clicked your mouse! Actually visit a sponsor page and more will be given!
But there’s still more you can do for our animals in need!
Simply click on “Free Ways to Help” located on the left hand side of the page!
Have a wonderful 2012, enjoy feeling good with click for critters, spread the word and please remember the wise words of Mahatma Gandhi – “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
That’s Life was a very long-running programme on BBC TV in the UK. As Wikipedia writes, “That’s Life! was a magazine-style television series on BBC1 between 26 May 1973 and 19 June 1994, presented by Esther Rantzen throughout the entire run, with various changes of co-presenters.”
I had just about forgotten this silly item presented on That’s Life back in 1986 but thanks to fellow Brit, Dusty M. living here in Payson, it has re-surfaced.
Still fun to watch some 25 years later. (Can’t explain why this YouTube video has Dutch subtitling!)
And for those that enjoy sentimental recollections, the video below is the last few minutes from the very last programme on the 19th June, 1994.
This is Hazel. She is one of three dogs that ‘belong’ to Pharaoh.
Last Tuesday, we took Pharaoh and his mini-pack of 3 dogs out for our usual afternoon walk at the very end of Granite Dells Rd, out where the forest road ends and soon becomes the relative wilderness of the Tonto National Forest.
Pharaoh, and Hazel, Dhalia and little Sweeny.
However, on this occasion Hazel decided to leave us and link up with a stranger who was hiking the forest. That was the last we saw of Hazel for many hours. Miracle of miracles, the stranger, Joanie, was a dog-lover so when Hazel had followed Joanie and her dog all the way to Joanie’s car, the next stop for her, Hazel that is, was our local Payson Humane Center. Hazel’s tag very quickly linked her to Jean (a great reminder of the importance of tagging your dogs!) who is well-known as a volunteer assistant at the Humane Society Thrift store and the scare was over.
But during the hours of tramping those miles along challenging forest tracks, calling out Hazel’s name, both Jeannie and I had plenty of time to hurt. Here’s a small insight, that millions of pet owners will resonate with, that demonstrates the way that dogs offer us so much love which, in turn, opens our human hearts to the purity of unconditional love. (And I know it’s not just dogs but many animals in our lives that offer us such love!)
Pharaoh and his ‘team’ sleep in our bedroom. During the Winter months Hazel will often lay stretched out on the bed-cover alongside the back of my legs. If I need a trip to the bathroom during the night, not unknown at my age, I can almost guarantee that Hazel will shift her cuddly body up to the warm sheets just below my pillow.
Thus it was this last Tuesday morning when I returned from my bathroom run about 3am; Hazel asleep with her head on my pillow! I didn’t have the heart to push her off the bed, so just slipped in beside her and moments later back asleep, my head nestled against Hazel’s warm head. Sleeping so close to a dog is more than just nice, it seems to stir very ancient memories deep in the subconscious, perhaps back all those thousands of years to when domesticated dogs were an integral part of early man’s security.
So you can imagine the anguish that, in our own separate minds, Jeannie and I were experiencing. I just couldn’t go to the place where never again would I feel the warmth of Hazel’s body against mine. Jean was desperately hoping this wasn’t a tragic repeat of losing Poppy. Thus when I went round to the Humane Center just as they were closing up and Hazel came out to me, I dissolved in sobs of relief.
That’s the heart-felt closeness of dogs and humans.
Join the One In A Million Movement to End Puppy Mills!
Take another quick look at the emotions that dogs bring out in so many of us. I’m referring to the piece I posted last Sunday under the title of The logic of dogs. However, there’s a darker side to owning a dog, or more accurately, a puppy.
A quick search for ‘puppy mills’ on Google or YouTube will come up with more anguish than I suspect you can handle. Here’s just one website that offers some facts about the commercial breeding of puppies.
Here’s a 2-minute video to underline the importance of this cause.
But thanks to an email sent to me from Diane M, here in Payson, there’s something that can be done.
Here’s the email that was sent.
Dear Friends and Family,
I’m sending this to you because of your concern for pets. Dan Morrison, my friend and ex-husband, has been an advocate for years for animals. I received the information below regarding another way to protect those animals who cannot speak for themselves.
Please take a minute and read the important message below. Please know that Dan Morrison along with Marlene Walsh are the co-founders of Pet Connections. Dan is also the President of the Board. Check out the website!
In addition, do you have friends who love animals and are understanding and empathize with the message below? If so, please take a couple minutes and forward this message to them. Dan, Marlene and I will greatly appreciate your effort.
Happy New Year, Everyone!
Diane
And now what follows is the information that Diane received and then circulated,
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 6:14 AM Subject: Join the One In A Million Movement to End Puppy Mills!
There is a new movement underway to permanently put an end to the puppy mill industry by ending all demand for these puppies. And Pet Connections, Inc. believes in the power of people to do this, one person at a time.
Just this week, the Pet Connections’ website (www.pet-connections.org) went live with its new “One In A Million” campaign, where the public is being asked to sign a pledge stating that they will not purchase or supportthe purchase of puppies, dogs, cats or kittens that come from “puppy mills” or indiscriminate breeders.
A puppy mill or kitten mill, sometimes known as a farm, is a commercial breeding facility that is operated with an emphasis upon profits above animal welfare and often hundreds of animals are kept in substandard conditions with little regard to the well-being of animals under their control.
Instead, the pledge asks the public to patronize animal shelters, humane societies, or “humane” pet stores who offer only shelter/rescue puppies, dogs, cats or kittens. Pet Connections’ goal is to collect one million names to present to the governors and legislators of states who harbor puppy or kitten mills because of lax or unenforced laws and to our congressmen and senators telling them that the people have spoken! This cruel and inhumane industry must end.
Pet Connections will work with any pet store who believes that their only source of animals are mills or farms and “convert” them to using animal shelters, humane societies or rescue groups as a source for their animals.
I am hoping that you will go to our pledge page (www.pet-connections.org/pledge/pledge.php) and sign the pledge, and then share it with your family, friends, colleagues, other organizations, newsletters – everything you can think of to help us get the word out and make a big enough impact to make a difference.
Pet Connections believes people can make a difference . . . one person at a time. I know that with your help we will make a difference.
So it’s just a moment to go here and sign the pledge – PLEASE! Why? Well, I can’t put it better than as conveyed in the thank-you email response you will receive,
Change will happen because you took the Pledge. Thank you for becoming ONE IN A MILLION and supporting the efforts of Pet Connections, Inc. We are dedicated to ending the practice of selling puppies bred in puppy mills and sold in pet shops. This is an intolerable practice and must end. By Pledging, you join a cause whereby numbers create the power for change.
Would you like to help Pet Connections, Inc., reach our goal of ONE IN A MILLION? Share the message by any means you can. Tell your friends, family and neighbors about the importance of Pledging. Convince your Facebook and Twitter friends to Pledge to become ONE IN A MILLION athttp://www.pet-connections.org/pledge/pledge.php. Watch the tote board change with each Pledge you influence.
Pet Connections, Inc., is grateful for contributions to help in our goal of ONE IN A MILLION. It is up to each and every one of us to take responsibility to end the practice of breeding and selling puppy mill puppies. It is the humane thing to do.
Now let me close with this video that shows the power that can flow from love as opposed to greed.
NEVER BUY A PUPPY FROM A PET STORE!!!
All three parts combined into one! Created in 2002, “I’m Alive For The Very First Time” tells the story of how two puppy mill rescue dogs forever changed the lives of their adoptive parents, Kathleen and Scottie.
Learning from Dogs 