Blue Buffalo Homestyle Recipe Healthy Weight, Chicken Dinner with Garden Vegetables
12.5 ounce can
UPC: 8-40243-10017-0
Codes: Best By 08/03/2019
The “Best By” date is on the bottom of the can.
No other Blue Buffalo products are involved. The company has not received any reports of illness or injury as a result of the problems giving rise to this recall.
What to Do?
Customers are invited to return the impacted product to your local retailer for a full refund. For additional information, call 866-800-2917.
U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area.
Last December 21st I underwent an outpatient operation for the removal of growth around my prostate. A fairly normal operation for a gent of my age (72).
l was told that it would take about 8 weeks for everything to heal.
Anyway, this morning I noticed a significant amount of blood in my urine and Jean and I went to our local Three Rivers hospital in Grants Pass. I was admitted to ER.
I was sorted out and nothing serious immediately found although the cause of the bleeding was not identified. However a blood test did not find any infection or anything scary. I was recommended to go home.
The blood in urine is called Hematuria and the doctor inserted a Foley catheter to drain the blood & urine from my bladder.
The catheter and the drainage bag will remain attached to me until I have an appointment with the Urologist early next week. I have to keep pretty still until then plus sitting on a normal chair is painful at the moment. I’m laying back on the bed using my tablet to write this.
Sorry, dear people, but that’s how it is just now.
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Update as at 10:30 PST Sunday, 12th
Around 10:30PM last night I awoke with quite a severe pain in my bladder. My body was telling me to hot-foot it back to the Emergency Ward at Three Rivers in Grants Pass. This was where we had gone earlier in the day.
Jean doesn’t drive at night but it was a straightforward journey and I was seen very quickly by the ER staff (Micha, Ann and Trevor: you were all brilliant!) I was told that my decision to drive into ER was spot on. (Trevor at a later point said that listening to our body is so important and that they saw far too many individuals who had let whatever the problem was run on far too long before seeking medical help.)
Micha quickly determined that a blood clot had blocked the catheter hence my inability to pass urine/blood and the rapid build up of pain. Gently syringing the catheter with a saline solution released a huge number of clots; to my obvious relief.
Apparently, the urologist on call was telephoned and he recommended the removal of the existing catheter to then be replaced with a larger catheter (ouch!) that would handle blood clots more efficiently.
Then for approximately an hour I was irrigated so as to completely flush out the remaining clots.
It was 50:50 as to whether I was to be admitted to a ward but again the advice of the on-call urologist was that so long as my body continued to drain blood/urine into the catheter drainage bag then it was OK for me to return home.
I arrived home at 4:30am!
So here we are approximately six hours later and I am still bleeding but, touch wood, no sign of clots and the draining into the bag is still running.
P.S. I have offered these details just in case someone else finds them helpful!
UPDATE 14:15 Tuesday, 14th.
On the afternoon of the 11th I took an afternoon nap having had practically no sleep the previous night.
Around 2pm I awoke with a pain that told me I probably had another blood clot and again said to Jean that I was going to take myself back into the ER department.
Once admitted to ER they made the decision that my bleeding was such that I should be admitted to the General Ward in the hospital. I ended up on Floor E, room 361.
I was then hooked up to a saline drip and stayed that way until 4am this morning, Tuesday 14th! For it took that long for the blood clots to finally stop surfacing and my urine to start looking a normal yellow colour.
From 4am I was then just draining via the Foley catheter and, thank goodness, I continued draining reliably, with no further bleeding or clotting, right through to 11:30 when Dr. Newcomb, the duty doctor, announced that I was fit to return home!
I will write more as soon as I catch up with stuff.
One can never have too many examples of love in a life!
These are interesting times. If we took even a small percentage of what we read about or see in the news media to heart we would think that life is hardly worth living for. So stuff the bad news out of sight!
Over 80 percent of the students who attend Los Amigos Elementary School in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., are from socioeconomically disadvantaged families, but that didn’t stop them from doing everything they could to raise money to save an animal in need.
It began in early December, when a school employee found an injured black Lab mix hiding in bushes near the parking lot.
“There’s this really hurt dog,” Vice Principal Sharon Linville heard over a walkie-talkie, according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. “I’m sure this dog is going to die, he’s in so much pain.” She and other employees brought the dog blankets and water, and contacted the Rancho Cucamonga Animal Care and Adoption Center.
The center’s staff veterinarian, Cynthia Servantez, visited the school a few days later to give the students a not-so-good update on the dog they’d named “Black Bart.” He’d been hit by a car and would probably survive, but he needed surgery that would cost about $3,000.
An X-ray had revealed that both of Bart’s hips were dislocated. As Dr. Servantez told the students, Bart’s “puzzle pieces had come undone.”
The schoolchildren immediately took action to help put those pieces back together. The school launched a “Pennies for Paws” campaign to collect spare change for Bart’s surgery.
Every single student made a donation. “They looked through sofa cushions, they gave up their allowance, some of them gave us IOUs,” Linville told KABC. “We have a bunch of Chuck E. Cheese coins that we got.”
One week later, the school gave the animal care center a check in the amount of $471.37.
Servantez told the Daily Bulletin it was the first time ever that anyone had offered to pay for the medical care of an injured stray dog.
The Los Amigos students continued their Pennies for Paws campaign and the momentum continued to build. Yvonne and Art Alvarez, owners of Doggie Couture in Rancho Cucamonga, were so impressed by the students’ efforts that they matched the funds that had been raised.
“We wanted them to know if they do something nice, it can make other people do it and then it becomes something big,” Yvonne Alvarez told the Daily Bulletin.
Several weeks after he’d been discovered at the school, “Who Let the Dogs Out” played over the speakers as Bart returned for a special guest appearance at a Jan. 23 rally in his honor.
Linville announced that the Los Amigos students had surpassed their $3,000 goal – by over $4,200. The extra money would be donated to the animal shelter to help other pets in need.
Veterinarian Victoria Impett, who accompanied Bart, told the schoolchildren to give themselves a pat on the back. Most of them complied. “It might not have seemed like big deal to go home and dig in the couch for a few pennies, but each and every one of you made a huge difference in someone’s life,” she told them.
Bart had no ID tag or microchip, and no one has come forward to claim him. He still needs surgery on his right hip. Once he recovers, he’ll be ready for adoption. “He’s starting to kind of blossom into a fabulous dog,” Impett said.
As Linville told the students, “This has been an incredible journey, and it’s really cool to be kind.”
(And please note my ‘excuse-me’ at the end of this post!)
The first:
PetSmart Grreat Choice Dog Food Recall of February 2017
February 8, 2017 — PetSmart has issued a voluntary recall of one production lot of Grreat Choice Adult Dog Food with Chicken and Rice Classic Ground due to possible metal contamination.1
What’s Recalled?
The recalled product includes:
Grreat Choice Adult Dog Food with Chicken and Rice Classic Ground
Size: 13.2 ounce cans
UPC: 7-3725726116-7
Best By Date: 8/5/19
Lot Code: 1759338
The Best By date is found on the bottom of the can.
What to Do?
The company writes:
Please stop feeding this product to your pet and bring any remaining cans affected by this recall to your nearest PetSmart for a full refund. We recommend the other varieties of Grreat Choice canned dog foods as alternate options until this product is once again available.
For more information, please contact PetSmart Customer Service at 1-888-839-9638.
U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area.
The most incredibly relationship we humans have ever had with an animal.
Tomorrow, I am going to repeat a post that first appeared on Learning from Dogs seven years ago. A beautiful documentary explaining in clear, scientific ways how important has been the relationship between the dog and humans.
But for today, as a ‘warm up’ to tomorrow’s post, I wanted to share an essay that appeared on The Conversation blogsite a little over a week ago and is republished within the terms of The Conversation site.
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How man’s best friend is helping cancer treatment
By Nicole Ehrhart Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Colorado State University
February 2, 2017The author, center, and Dr. Anna Conti, left, and student Kelsey Parrish with Conti’s Basset hound, Picasso, who had surgery for cancer. Via Colorado State University. William Cotton/CSU Photography, Author provided
“A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart… Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.”
Isn’t it true? We learn so much from our dogs. But beyond what man’s best friend can teach us about enjoying life, they share something else with us. Cancer diagnoses in dogs are on the rise, as are cancer diagnoses in people. In fact, canine cancer is the leading cause of death in pets over the age of 10 years.
This confluence, it turns out, can be beneficial to cancer research. A field of study known as “comparative oncology” has recently emerged as a promising means to help cure cancer. Comparative oncology researchers study the similarities between naturally occurring cancers in pets and cancers in people in order to provide clues to treat cancer more effectively.
In fact, phase 1 and 2 clinical trials in comparative oncology are underway at 22 sites across the country, including Colorado State University, where I conduct research and am a surgical oncologist for animals.
Research in this field, involving veterinarians, physicians, cancer specialists and basic scientists, is leading to improved human health and more rapid access to effective cancer treatment than has been previously possible through traditional cancer research approaches.
As a species, dogs have strong physiologic and genetic similarities to people, much more so than mice, who do not typically live long enough for us to know whether they naturally get cancer. We do know that some rodent species, such as pet rats, can get cancer, but predators typically end a field mouse’s life while it is still young. The laboratory mice typically used by scientists are injected with cancer rather than it occurring naturally in their bodies.
Just as scientists officially mapped the human genome, or the complete set of genetic instructions, in 2003, scientists decoded the canine genome. They discovered that dogs have greater than 80 percent genetic similarity to humans, versus only 67 percent for mice.
In addition, cancers such as bone cancer, lymphoma and bladder cancer that spontaneously arise in pet dogs are microscopically and molecularly identical to cancers in people. Many of the genetic mutations that drive cells to become cancerous in people are the same mutations that cause cancer in dogs. In fact, when viewed under a microscope, it is impossible to distinguish between a tumor from a human and a dog.
In addition, dogs provide a large and varied population to study, important in the study of medicine. Individual dogs who develop cancer are as different from one another as are humans. Whereas laboratory mice are essentially identical twins to each other and live in a highly regulated environment, the variation among different dog breeds, home environments, diet and overall lifestyle translate into a population diversity very similar to that in humans.
Today, most pet dogs receive high-quality health care into old age and dog owners are highly motivated to seek out improved options for the management of cancer in their companions, and are also motivated to minimize side effects.
Similarities in response to treatment, too
Picasso at the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital, Colorado State University. Author provided., Author provided.
This genetic diversity and sharing of similar DNA, physiology, microscopic structure and molecular features between dogs and humans has presented cancer researchers with a key opportunity. Dogs not only develop similar types of cancers as humans, but their cancer responds to treatments in similar ways.
This means that new cancer treatments first shown to be effective in canine cancers can frequently be predicted to have a similar benefit in human cancer patients. As a result, researchers now recognize that new drug trials in dogs with cancer will result in therapeutic discoveries that are highly “translatable”; that is, more likely to predict “real-life” medical responses in human cancer patients.
By studying how cancer responds in dogs, scientists are gaining a better understanding of how new cancer drugs not only treat the cancer but also influence the patient’s overall quality of life during treatment. This benefits dog owners, by providing access to promising new cancer treatments for their pets with cancer, and benefits human cancer patients by providing a rapid way to collect crucial data needed for FDA approval.
Dogs with cancer are helping kids
For example, a bone cancer known as osteosarcoma is so similar between dogs and people that
The author performing surgery on a dog. Author provided. Colorado State University., Author provided.
intensive research in canine osteosarcoma has led to several breakthroughs in treating osteosarcoma in children. Limb-saving surgical techniques for safe and effective reconstruction following bone tumor surgery in dogs are now the standard of care in children following bone tumor surgery.
More recently, a form of immunotherapy was shown to drastically improve survival in dogs with bone cancer by delaying or altogether preventing spread of the cancer to the lungs. As a result of the success in dogs, the FDA granted fast-track status to the same treatment for use in humans last April.
Fast-tracking was developed by the FDA to support accelerated approval for promising treatments, especially for serious and life-threatening conditions. A clinical trial in children with osteosarcoma is scheduled to begin this year at multiple pediatric cancer centers throughout the United States.
These types of discoveries demonstrate that our furry companions have a crucial role in teaching us new ways to help all victims in the war against cancer – with two legs or four.
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As I said in my introduction, more on this theme tomorrow.
She grew and filled our lives with joy. We loved her Boxer curl and the way that she would sit on the couch with us and just lean against our sides. Then around her 7th year, we noticed that she lost her appetite. Concerned like any parents, we took her to the vet. We received the worst news possible.
She had cancer that had metastasized in her liver. Her last few months with us were precious.
This came in late yesterday afternoon, Pacific Time.
This was the email that was sent out.
Evanger’s Dog and Cat Food Company of Wheeling, Illinois, has announced it is voluntarily recalling specific lots of its pet food due to its potential to be contaminated with pentobarbital.
To learn which products are affected, please visit the following link:
If one goes to that Evanger’s Recall Link then this is what you will read. It is republished in full.
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Evanger’s Dog Food Recall of February 2017
February 3, 2017 — Evanger’s Dog and Cat Food Company, Inc. of Wheeling, Illinois, is voluntarily recalling specific lots of its Hunk of Beef product due to potential contamination with the deadly drug, pentobarbital.
Pentobarbital can affect animals that ingest it, and possibly cause side effects such as drowsiness, dizziness, excitement, loss of balance or nausea — or in extreme cases, death.
What’s Being Recalled?
Although pentobarbital was detected in a single lot, the company is recalling all related Hunk of Beef products manufactured the week of June 6 through June 13, 2016.
The affected lots numbers that start with 1816E03HB, 1816E04HB, 1816E06HB, 1816E07HB, and 1816E13HB, and have an expiration date of June 2020.
The second half of the barcode reads 20109, which can be found on the back of the product label.
Where Was the Product Sold?
The affected products were sold both online and also distributed to retail locations only in the following states:
California
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Washington
Wisconsin
About the Recall
The recall affects 5 lots of food that were produced from its supplier’s lot of beef, which is specifically used for the Hunk of Beef product and no other products.
To date, five dogs reportedly became ill. And one of the five dogs died after consuming the product with lot number 1816E06HB13. [Ed: My emphasis]
Evanger’s is proactively issuing a recall so as not to risk potential exposure to pentobarbital in the product.
According to Evanger’s, all suppliers of meat products are USDA approved.
The insists the beef supplier provides the company with beef chunks from cows that are slaughtered in a USDA facility.
Evanger’s continues to investigate how the contaminant entered its raw material supply.
Because it sources its meat products from suppliers that are USDA approved and since no other products have reported any problems, the company is not extending the recall to other supplier lots.
According to Evanger’s, this is the first recall event for the company in its 82 years of manufacturing.
What to Do?
Although it has been verified that little or no product remains on store shelves, consumers are asked to return recalled product to the place of purchase for a full refund.
Consumers with questions may contact the company at 847-537-0102 between 10 AM and 5 PM Central Time, Monday through Friday.
U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area.
I will, of course, continue to publish every dog food alert that comes into my in-box. But don’t let that stop you from signing up for recall alerts on your own account.
Finally, if any of you are users of Evanger’s Hunk of Beef dog food and want to share your experiences then I shall be very happy to publish them here for the wider benefit of every single person who loves dogs!
Or, more specifically, what Diego meant for Laura Bruzzese. (This will be the second in the series We Shall Not Forget Them.)
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Dog Love In August
August is the start of the dying season. Garden things begin their slow shrink into the earth, the days grow shorter and cooler, lazy ocean- or mint-scented summer days snap into rigid schedules of work and school.
August is also the month that I lost Diego, my first dog. You can get acquainted with Diego here, a post I wrote a few days before he died. But I would like to share a little more now, on the second anniversary of his departure.
Diego was a poser, in a very literal sense of the word. He loved having his picture taken; in fact, he insisted on it whenever he saw me holding the camera. This picture, for example: it was taken the day I brought my daughter home from the hospital, the day after 21 hours of hard labor produced an eight-and-a-half-pound baby who actually stopped halfway out of my body, looked around, and scowled before resuming her reluctant journey onto the planet. (She was 12, twelve days overdue, FYI all you mothers out there who can surely feel my pain.)
There is something screaming in the bed. Please make it stop before it explodes.
I laid baby Isabella down, stepped back with the camera, looked up, and there he was: Diego, staring. Fifty-eight pounds of solid, unmoving dog. Insisting that I photograph him, too, with this creature that he wasn’t sure if he should guard against or lick. This child who personified the singular emotion of furious for the first nine weeks of her life (if she was not sleeping or eating, she was screaming).
Oh, hi Aunt Rosie. I know you’ve passed on, but I’ll bet you can still hear that screaming baby wherever you are.
When my doula told me that the colic or distemper or petite innards or whatever it was making Isabella so unhappy would resolve itself in about nine weeks, I said oh, that’s nice. But I won’t be alive for nine weeks of this. I’ll be in an asylum acquainting myself with a selection of opiates, or at the bottom of the mighty Rio Grande; so behold, an orphan.
But somehow, I survived. And Diego was part of it.
You see, from the very beginning, it was just us — the two of us, the three of us. I was abandoned by my husband before Isabella was born, a painful time that I don’t often write about.
Within a matter of weeks, the married-and-expecting life I’d known was gone, and I was left to fumble around with the pieces, a wreckage sitting on a pile of broken glass in the dark. The small hours of it were the worst, waking up alone and panicked in the middle of the night wondering how (or if) I would live through the next weeks and years. And Diego was always there, a silent and comforting presence curled at the foot of the bed or coming up to lick my tears if I was crying, which was basically all the time. He was always there.
I have a teenager now and those days seem ancient. While I rebuilt my life, Isabella grew up and Diego grew old. And finally, in his sixteenth year, he began to deteriorate to the point of pain. I knew he wouldn’t be with me much longer and I had already called the vet to ask her how it worked — when do you know it’s time? Do I take him to the office, or do you come to the house? Will he feel anything? I planned to schedule an appointment soon; I hadn’t had to make this decision before and it was a very painful.
On the morning of August 9 before I left for work, I told Diego that we would have to say good-bye soon because his body wasn’t working right anymore. I told him that I loved him and it was okay for him to go. Over and over I told him I loved him.
Less than two hours later, he drowned in the pond.
I think it was his way of avoiding the vet (he hated the clinic), and maybe sparing me that particular pain. I’m not going to say that I wasn’t devastated. But rather than remembering the urgent phone call at work from Isabella, or the vision of him when I got home, or my step-father struggling to carry the terrible weight of him away, I like to imagine Diego simply being received by the fish and toads. Delivered from his pain by warm water, wrapped in a blanket of lilies.
Anyone who has cared for pets perhaps knows that there is one, a special one, who will always occupy the largest piece of real estate in your heart, though others may follow. That was Diego for me.
But now we’re lucky enough to share our lives with another dog, the rascally, neurotic, road trip-loving Velma. I’ll end this post with a short video of her that reminds me of exactly what I love about dogs: their absolute and abundant connection with life, free of judgement, agenda, or desire to be anything other than what they are. That’s what I think of every time I see Velma in her Writhe of Exquisite Happiness. Perfect contentment of being.
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Laura wrote and published this back in August, 2012. But her words, emotions and feelings are those that never age. Indeed, I would add her courageous words.
I have a marvellous blogging friend in New Mexico who has Rufina, a chicken who was shot in the head, sealed in a plastic bag, placed in a freezer for 24hrs, and lived! (albeit now blind).
I have a framed poster of Rufina up in my living room, and even one her feathers perched in one of my many, many, many St. Francis’s
Then in response to me wanting to republish that story replied: “Contact her, she’s wonderful, and her pottery is to die for.”
So I did and, with Laura’s permission here is that story of this most remarkable chicken.
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The Undead Chicken
by Laura Bruzzese, June 24th, 2013
This is Rufina. She’s new to our household.
She’s quiet and doesn’t take up much space, mostly sits on her perch or in her ceramic nest all day. She moves around slowly. If you are really gentle, she lets you pick her up.
We sit by the pond together in the morning, before everyone else gets up.
Last Thursday, I answered a friend’s call on Facebook for someone to take this chicken. Isabella and I drove to my friend’s house in the South Valley, put her in a bin, and brought her home. I didn’t think she’d actually still be alive today.
My friend had posted this story Thursday morning:
The neighbor gave us fresh chickens last night for cooking up. He shot them in the head with gun and handed them over the fence. We bagged them and put in freezer for today. Evan gets home, opens freezer and one bird is perched fully alive, very cold, and pissed off.
Chase ensues… !! We now have a blind undead chicken in our yard.
Anybody want it?
I’m not sure why anyone would shoot chickens in the head.
But when I read the story, I couldn’t help but admire this chicken’s tenacity. She is courageous. She made her way out of a plastic bag inside a freezer and survived for thirty-six hours. After being shot in the head. I figured any animal that fought that hard to live deserved a little help, if only for a day or two.
The chicken hasn’t made any effort to eat like a normal chicken. Because, of course, she can’t see where to peck. (There isn’t much point in force-feeding a blind chicken.) But she does drink, so I’ve started blending up borrowed chicken food and water and giving her that. She seems content, grooming herself sometimes, showing no signs of pain or anxiety. And still, she will die.
But until then, we will enjoy each of her borrowed mornings by the pond, the sound of birds and running water, the sun on her feathers, expecting nothing.
I’m not sure why I have a blind, undead chicken in my studio. But here is one of my favorite poems, by Laura Gilpin.
The Two-Headed Calf
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.
Now if you think that was remarkable then let me share what Laura posted a few weeks later, linked to via her Epilogue above.
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The Miracle of Re-Birth
by Laura Bruzzese, July 11th, 2013
Good news: it’s been three weeks since the attempted murder of Rufina, and she continues to dwell among the living!
After loads of eye care, foot washing, antibiotics, food and vitamins, she has gained weight and is learning to find food and water by herself. Her remaining eye looks normal again but is still blind (I was hoping for a miracle), and the place of its former pair seems to have reached its majority in terms of healing–no eye, but no skin, either. Just a weird, green spot surrounded by red skin that looks not unlike a tiny sun-dried tomato.
But that does not prevent her daily forays into the garden where she walks around with her head craned forward to “feel” where she’s going, and from exhibiting other persisting chicken qualities that seem to evidence a contented life.
I’m still surprised, and slightly in awe of this traumatized chicken who is satisfied to reside indefinitely on my studio porch. Shiny, happy chicken.
And so far, Velma the Rascally Whippet has not been the nuisance I was afraid she might be, but instead, a proud example of a bird-dog in defiance of her own natural instincts (save for one minor incident involving a tail feather. That was still attached to Rufina.). Perhaps Velma knows they are kindred spirits, she herself having survived a scary encounter with the Great Beyond earlier this year.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed free chicken advice, food, ER and vet consults, and even a couple of adorable, surprise chicks* (!) to keep Rufina company.
*Chicks will unfortunately be dispatched to some other venue because they are exploiting their sighted advantage: stealing food out of Rufina’s mouth, crowding the water dish, and mocking her by constantly blinking and sticking their tongues out. Also, they are filthy little creatures that walk in their own poop and then jump on me.
And finally, what’s in a name? When it became clear that chicken might live, I thought I should name her, and Rufina was the first thing that popped into my head. A few days later, I googled it to see what came up. This is what I found on Wiki:
Saints Justa and Rufina (Ruffina) (Spanish: Santa Justa y Santa Rufina) are venerated as martyrs. They are said to have been martyred at Hispalis (Seville) during the 3rd century.
Their legend states that they were sisters and natives of Seville who made fine earthenware pottery for a living, with which they supported themselves and many of the city’s poor. Justa was born in 268 AD, Rufina in 270 AD, of a poor but pious Christian family. During a pagan festival, they refused to sell their wares for use in these celebrations. In anger, locals broke all of their dishes and pots. Justina and Rufina retaliated by smashing an image of Venus.
The city’s prefect, Diogenianus, ordered them to be imprisoned. Failing to convince them to renounce their faith, he had them tortured on the rack and with iron hooks. This method also having failed, they were imprisoned, where they suffered from hunger and thirst.
They were then asked to walk barefoot to the Sierra Morena; when this did not break their resolve, they were imprisoned without water or food. Justa died first. Her body, thrown into a well, was later recovered by the bishop Sabinus. Diogenianus believed that the death of Justa would break the resolve of Rufina. However, Rufina refused to renounce her faith and was thus thrown to the lions. The lion in the amphitheatre, however, refused to attack Rufina, remaining as docile as a house cat. Infuriated, Diogenianus had Rufina strangled or beheaded and her body burned. Her body was also recovered by Sabinus and buried alongside her sister in 287 AD.
Saint Rufina, by Velázquez. See the likeness?? She’s even carrying a giant feather!
Just another name? Perhaps. Or: a dark-haired Spaniard and a Italian-New Mexican, two Christian potters separated by centuries, a saint, a chicken, and an ordinary human united in an extraordinary coincidence of the undead.
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Follow that!
Well I can’t but John Zande can.
For he was the first to leave a comment to Laura’s Rebirth post:
Here, i feel this song is in order. Listen carefully to the words, and who is singing them.
We have a rather run-down ‘home’ for our chickens close to the house. It was run-down before the snow fell and almost brought down the surrounding wire fence.
But, hopefully, this coming Thursday sees a new walk-in run being constructed for our birds so they are better protected.
It’s time we started paying attention to chickens, one of the most misunderstood and ignored species on Earth.
There was a time when chickens were viewed as exotic, fascinating birds. Descendants of exotic Asian jungle fowl, they were revered for their ferocity and intelligence, and domesticated around 8,000 years ago, more for cockfighting than eating. But then, we humans began eating them in ever-larger quantities, until we reached the point where we are now, with 20 billion (mostly white) chickens living in dirty, crowded barns, awaiting slaughter.
Chickens have been a part of human lives for millennia, and yet they are one of the most misunderstood, if not ignored, species on Earth. Lori Marino, an American neuroscientist and animal intelligence researcher, wants to change this. She is intrigued by the fact that chickens are so rarely recognized for their cognitive abilities and frustrated that studies about birds almost always focus on other, less-domesticated species, like crows and parrots.
“Arguably even the scientific community has been influenced by public perceptions of chickens as cognitively simple… This asymmetry in the literature is likely a reflection of, as well as a contributor to, the disconnect scientists and the public have between chickens as commodities and who they actually are as individuals.”
Chickens deserve more attention, and here are some quirky, interesting facts to get you thinking about chickens less as food and more as fascinating co-inhabitants of our world. These come via Marino’s recent paper, “Thinking Chickens,” published online in Animal Cognition in January 2017.
1. Chickens are a sub-species of the red jungle fowl that hails from southeast Asia.
The red jungle fowl (galls gallus) inhabit the edges of fields, scrubland, and groves. Domestication was well established 8,000 years ago, but some records suggest it could have started as much as 58,000 years ago.
2. Domestic chickens are similar to their wild counterparts.
Despite the intense breeding and genetic manipulation of recent years, chickens have not been cognitively or behaviorally affected by domestication. This stands in contrast to dogs and wolves, for example, which have diverged significantly due to domestication. Nor have chickens become less aggressive toward predators through domestication, which is a common outcome; in fact, some chickens are more aggressive even than red jungle fowl.
3. A chicken’s beak is highly sensitive to touch.
The beak, with numerous nerve endings, is used to explore, detect, drink, preen, and defend. This also means that when a bird is de-beaked, as often happens in industrial farming, it experiences great pain, sometimes for months, which changes its behavior. Marino writes, “At the end of the beak is a specialized cluster of highly sensitive mechanoreceptors, called the bill tip organ, which allows chickens to make fine tactile discriminations.”
4. Chickens have finely tuned senses.
They can see long distance and close-up at the same time in different parts of their vision. They can see a broader range of colors than humans. They can hear at low and high frequencies at a variety of pressure levels. They possess well-developed senses of taste and smell. They can orient to magnetic fields, like many other birds.
5. Chickens are surprisingly good at math.
Three-day-old chicks are able to perform basic arithmetic and discriminate quantities, always opting to explore a set of balls with the greater number, even when an object was visibly transferred from one set to another. Five-day-old chicks have been found to track up to five objects.
“When they were presented with two sets of objects of different quantities disappearing behind two screens, they were able to successfully track which screen hid the larger number by apparently performing simple addition and subtraction.”
6. Chickens can exercise self-control.
In an experimental setting, chickens have been given the choice between 2-second delay with 6 seconds of access to food, versus a 6-second delay with 22-seconds of access to food. The hens waited for the longer reward, “demonstrating rational discrimination between different future outcomes while employing self-control to optimize those outcomes.” Self-control usually doesn’t appear in humans until four years of age.
These are just a few of the remarkable discoveries described in Marino’s study, a highly readable, entertaining paper. It’s an important reminder that chickens, arguably the most ubiquitous animals in our world, deserve far more respect than they currently receive. Hopefully this will lead to more people questioning the horrific conditions in which most of them are kept.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of looking for a humourous way to close today’s post. But a more responsible approach would be to repeat the words from the start of the article to serve as a reminder of trying, wherever possible, to think about the food we eat, especially when animals and birds have to be slaughtered to provide us with that food.
…. we reached the point where we are now, with 20 billion (mostly white) chickens living in dirty, crowded barns, awaiting slaughter.
But please don’t leave this page until you have watched the following video.
Published on Dec 3, 2014
After 22 years of raising chickens for Perdue, one brave factory farmer Craig Watts was at his breaking point and did something no one has done before. He invited us, as farm animal welfare advocates, to his farm to film and tell his story. Ask your supermarket for Better Chicken at http://better-chicken.org.
What’s Recalled?
Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful Boxer named Sophie. My husband fell in love with her at first sight. He had to talk me into taking her home. It didn’t take long for me to see the light. The next thing I know I was carrying her in my arms.
The vet had her on steroids and there for a time she returned to her happy-go-lucky Boxer self. We were fortunate to give her one last Christmas.
Learning from Dogs 