Category: Musings

A Eulogy for Hazel.

This dear, precious dog!

Back in March, 2014 when I was writing a series of posts about our dogs, I published a Meet the dogs – Hazel post. This eulogy consist mainly of what I wrote then, with a few minor changes to bring it up to date, and a closing thought.

Hazel

I first met Jean in Mexico; namely, in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico to be precise. Just a few days before Christmas, 2007. At that time, Jean had 16 dogs, all of them rescues off the streets in and around San Carlos. Jean was well-known for rescuing Mexican feral dogs.

In September, 2008 I travelled out to Mexico, via London-Los Angeles, with my Pharaoh. Jean and I have been together ever since. In February, 2010, because we wanted to be married and to be married in the USA, we moved from San Carlos to Payson, in Arizona; some 80 miles North-East of Phoenix.

One morning, just a few days before we were due permanently to leave San Carlos and move our animals and belongings the 513 miles (827 km) to Payson, AZ, Jean went outside the front of the San Carlos house to find a very lost and disorientated black dog alone on the dusty street. The dog was a female who in the last few weeks had given birth to puppies that had been weaned. Obvious to Jean because the dog’s teats were still somewhat extended.

The dog had been abandoned outside in the street. A not uncommon happening because many of the local Mexicans knew of Jean’s rescues over many years and when they wanted to abandon a dog it was done outside Jean’s house. The poor people of San Carlos sometimes resorted to selling the puppies for a few Pesos and casting the mother dog adrift.

Of course the dog was taken in and we named her Hazel. Right from Day One Hazel was the most delightful, loving dog and quickly attached herself to me.

The truest of love between a man and a dog!

Of all the dogs that we have here at home, and, trust me, many are extremely loving, my relationship with Hazel was precious beyond description. She was in Pharaoh’s ‘group’ (Pharaoh, Cleo, Sweeny, Pedy and Brandy) so slept in our bedroom at night. Most nights Hazel was tucked up against me.

Plus frequently during the day Hazel would take an interest in what I was doing, as the next photograph illustrates.

Hazel taking an interest in my potterings. — Hazel taking an interest in my potterings; March 2014.

If ever one wanted an example of the unconditional love that a dog can offer a human, then Hazel was that example. Precious creature.

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Just stay with me for a little longer.

Recently there was a documentary on the BBC about Koko the gorilla and how many hand signs Koko had learnt. As Wikipedia explains (in part):

Hanabiko “Koko” (born July 4, 1971) is a female western lowland gorilla who is known for having learned a large number of hand signs from a modified version of American Sign Language (ASL).

Her caregiver, Francine “Penny” Patterson, reports that Koko is able to understand more than 1,000 signs of what Patterson calls “Gorilla Sign Language” (GSL). In contrast to other experiments attempting to teach sign language to non-human primates, Patterson simultaneously exposed Koko to spoken English from an early age. Reports state that Koko understands approximately 2,000 words of spoken English, in addition to the signs.

The reason why I mention this is at the end of the programme it is stated that Koko’s ability to communicate shows very clearly that she is capable of feelings and emotions. Indeed, the way that Koko hugs Penny is very moving.

The presenter of the BBC programme concludes how things have changed over all the years from the birth of Koko some 45 years ago to today. As in back in the ’70s’ the idea that animals had emotions was just not accepted whereas nowadays there is mounting evidence that many warm-blooded animals have emotions; are capable of emotional feelings.

Why do I mention this?

For there isn’t one shred of doubt in the minds of Jean and me that Hazel was full of feelings of love and affection towards her human friends.

That is the epitaph with which Hazel will be remembered! This is her legacy.

Picture of Hazel taken in the last twenty-four hours. — Picture of Hazel taken in March, 2014.

Treasures Within and Without.

We must never let go of admiring beauty.

It’s Sunday lunchtime and I have come in from outside to check my emails and to put together the post for today. For reasons I can’t exactly put my finger on I’m feeling a little distracted. I sense a yearning for being transported away from the ‘outside world’ and turning inwards: Even giving blogging a rest for a couple of weeks (but I won’t).

So thank goodness for the blogging contacts we make all around the world. Just last Saturday Sue, of Sue Dreamwalker’s blog, published an exquisitely beautiful poem. Sue very promptly gave me permission to republish it in full. Sue’s poem speaks to me just now; speaks to me in this rather introspective place. I hope her wonderful words speak to you as well.

Here it is.

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Mother Gaia ~ The Blue Dot.

11 Jun 2016 by Sue Dreamwalker.

How many times have you gazed at the stars?

To ask the question of whom we are

This Blue Dot in the vastness of space

Have you questioned the existence of the Human Race?

Did we really evolve from Neanderthal Man?

From Ape to Human imagine if you can

Woolly Mammoths along with Sabre Tooth Tigers

Ice Ages and Floods, Volcanoes and Fires

Mountains crashing, rising from ocean floors

Fossils created into stony forms

Petrified wood in glaciers saved

While Crystals grow beneath deep dark cave

How many times have you asked ‘Who am I?’

As you gaze longingly at the starlit sky

So many treasures now upon this Blue Dot

So sad that we’ve evolved, but we also forgot

That we Humans just like the Dinosaur race

Could soon disappear without a trace

As our superior brains seemed to have lost the plot

Of our coexistence within this amazing Blue Dot

As we pollute our Mother who brings such life

While we rage in greed creating more strife

We poison our land modifying crops

Caring less and less until the last Bee drops

Long after we’re gone as the planets realign

A new dawn will break over the memory of mankind

His legacy I’m sure one day will be discovered

As some future traveller his fossils will uncover.

But it’s never too late to alter our future

When we live in harmony and learn to nurture

Holding onto LOVE and Letting go of Hate

We can all help our Blue Planet Regenerate.

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(Please view the full slide show here.)

Sue then completes her beautiful post; as follows:

There is so much more that lays hidden beneath our Earth Mother, as well as within ourselves.

If only we dig deep enough to find the Treasures Within.

Love and Blessings

~Sue~

I am still digging Deep How about You?

Life is an endless dig to find treasures within.

Beautiful, Sue!

Into the Future.

These are deeply interesting times.

Among the many impressive qualities of the dog is one that we humans must envy so much at times.

I’m not speaking of a dog’s ability to seek out food or, at the other end of things, the dog’s way of keeping it’s backside clean! 😉 No, I’m referring to the way a dog lives in the present. Presumably unworried as to what the future might mean.

We humans, however, as hard as we try to be rooted in the ‘here and now’ also depend on assessing the future and determining the best way to respond to that uncertainty. I’m sure that assessing and managing risk is one of the ways that have made us such a successful species.

In terms of voicing these uncertain times I really was drawn to a comment from ‘John D’ over on Richard Murphy’s Tax Research UK blogsite. I’m going to republish that comment in full before moving on to the central theme of today’s post: Into the Future.

John D says:
June 10 2016 at 4:58 pm
Paul, I share your apprehension. I believe ‘the world’ has entered a cycle of almost unprecedented uncertainty. So many issues. So few solutions being articulated in the mainstream. However, shift happens and Richard is right to say that there is always opportunity for change. Gramsci, an underrated theorist, summed it up in his ‘Prison Notebooks'(1929-35) writing: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

The stranglehold Neo-liberalism has exercised on orthodox economics for the past 40 years is difficult to understand but, given that its major protoganists have held all the aces, it’s not really surprising. Under Reagan there was a major ‘re-education’ programme in the Universities where any heterodox economic teaching was eliminated from the ‘Economics 101’ curriculum. Acording to Richard Wolff an entire generation of students graduated from the major universities without ever having studied Marx in any context.

(For anyone interested here’s a succinct history of Neo-liberalism – http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_short_history_of_neoliberalism_and_how_we_can_fix_it).

The good news is nothing lasts forever. The seeds of change have already been sown and will eventually blossom, possibly in unexpected locations. Sadly, as Ivan says, there has been irretrievable damage to lives and livelihoods in the US, UK and many EU countries. Michael Hudson recently spelled out its negative effects – http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/07/the-wages-of-neoliberalism-poverty-exile-and-early-death.

Like many, I don’t think radical change will come about until enough people are hurting enough. Maybe a real property crash will be a wake-up call. However, in or out of the EU isn’t going to trigger a change in the economic agenda any time soon. Personally I believe that a vote for Brexit (ominously a possibilty) will set-back any fundamental reforms, especially in the UK. But I don’t want to open up that can of worms again here!

The perennial question is ‘what to do?’. And the answer is always the same: ‘do something, anything, to nurture the seeds into saplings’. Every little helps! It’s going to be a rough ride, not without some collateral damage in terms of still more unnecessary deaths. Usually I’m not as optimistic as Richard but because it’s Friday afternoon and the sun is shining I feel the beginning of the end is within our grasp. I so hope so. Back to Gramsci – the immediate worry is what will fill the intervening vacuum. Happy weekend!

The seeds of change have already been sown and will eventually blossom, possibly in unexpected locations.

The perfect introduction to an email that Dan Gomez sent me on Thursday.

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Below is a summary by Udo Gollub of the findings at a recent futurist conference in Germany. This’s – they predict – is how the world will operate in 10 to 20 years time.

For those of us who are about to amble into the sunset on our Zimmer frames, this is simply interesting. We inhabited a world where people used cosy concepts like pension, nest egg, job security, promotion in the work place and other reassuring socio economic terms.

For those who are in mid career or are only entering the world of (non) work now, this makes for scary/exciting reading – depending on how ready you are to change in mid air — if it is at all possible.

And for the generation still in their nappies … well, it is a matter of how parents prepare them for an unimaginable world when they enter the world of ‘work’ in 20 years time.

GERT CLAASSEN
Hermanus
Into the future
By Udo Gollub at Messe Berlin, Germany

I just went to the Singularity University summit. Here are the key points I gathered.

Rise and Fall. In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they were bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became superior and mainstream in only a few short years. This will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, self-driving and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age. Software and operating platforms will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool. They don’t own any cars, but they are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice, (so far for more or less basic stuff), within seconds. With 90% accuracy, compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you are studying law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer generalist lawyers in the future; only specialists will be needed. ‘Watson’ already helps nurses diagnose cancer, four times more accurately than doctors. Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will have become ‘more intelligent’ than humans.

Cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will be offered to the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car on your phone; it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive whilst driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s licence and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for our future needs. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. At present,1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 kms. With autonomous driving, that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Electric cars will become mainstream around and after 2020. Cities will be cleaner and much less noisy because all cars will run on electricity, which will become much cheaper.

Most traditional car companies may become bankrupt by tacking the evolutionary approach and just building better cars; while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi. They are terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble, because without accidents, the insurance will become 100 times cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate values based on proximities to work-places, schools, etc. will change, because if you can work effectively from anywhere or be productive while you commute, people will move out of cities to live in a more rural surroundings.

Solar energy production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but only now is having a big impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that almost all coal mining companies will be out of business by 2025.

Water for all: With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don’t have scarce water in most places; we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if everyone can have as much clean water as they want, for virtually no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year – a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any diseases. It will be cheap, so in a few years, everyone on this planet will have access to world class, low cost, medicine.
3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from 18,000$ to 400$ within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started printing 3D shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D-printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to need in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they have already 3D-printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D-printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to enter, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” And if the answer is yes, then work on how you can make that happen sooner. If it doesn’t work via your phone, forget the idea. And any idea that was designed for success in the 20th century is probably doomed to fail in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear that there will be enough new jobs in such a short time.

Agriculture: There will be a 100$ agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their fields instead of working in them all day. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first veal produced in a petri dish is now available. It will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for rearing cattle. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several start-ups which will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

Apps: There is already an app called “moodies” which can tell the mood you are in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where we know whether the participants are telling the truth and when not!

Currencies: Many currencies will be abandoned. Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the future default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span was 79 years, now it is 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than a one-year increase per year. So we all might live for a long, long time, probably way beyond 100.

Education: The cheapest smartphones already sell at 10$ in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means everyone will have much the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan Academy for everything he needs to learn at schools in First World countries. Further afield, the software has been launched in Indonesia and will be released in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer. The English app will be offered free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half-a-year.

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Interesting times, indeed!

You all have a very good weekend!

Reaching out to the wilderness.

This is where our solace is.

Jean and I are members of the Oregon Wild organisation. As their home page states:

Oregon Wild supporters help us protect and restore our wildlands, wildlife, and waters as an enduring legacy for future generations.

In their last Newsletter (Volume 43, Number 2) there was a heart-breaking item about the killing of a wild wolf. I asked them if I might have permission to republish that and it was promptly granted.

Then early yesterday morning, around 7am, the early morning sunlight picked up two deer, a young stag and a doe, who had come to feed on the molasses cob that we put out twice a day.

I grabbed my camera and went quietly out to where they were feeding. Although both creatures were familiar to Jean and me, and they are not too uncomfortable with us out there putting cob down, this time my different behaviour and especially the cold, dark ‘eye’ of the camera lens made the two deer pretty twitchy.

So I’m putting off the sad eulogy of the shot wolf until tomorrow and offering up the magic of being trusted by these beautiful creatures.

P1160172 — The young stag in the foreground and the doe feeding on the cob both without being freaked out by my presence.

P1160173 — But two further steps towards them by yours truly had them instantly watching me very closely.

P1160175 — Now I’m on the verge of getting too close.

P1160176 — One last photograph grabbed before they disappear into the forest. But what a magnificent, beautiful animal is that young stag!

See you tomorrow and the sad story of wolf OR-4

Doggy people

Only way to follow the weekend’s ‘doggy’ pictures.

I selected the following not only because it applies to me and so many others, I don’t doubt, but also because I was working outside until late afternoon and frankly neither had the time nor the energy to be very creative on my own account.

But before moving on this recent Care2 article, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to you all for all the ‘Likes’ and Comments this last weekend – Pharaoh’s weekend.

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How I Did a 180 and Became a Dog Person

By: Vetstreet.com May 27, 2016

About Vetstreet.com Follow Vetstreet.com at @vetstreet

It may be difficult for a dog lover to understand how anyone can dislike dogs. Those ears! Those kisses! But plenty of people don’t like dogs and even fear them.

However, for some people, all it takes is one pup to change their mind. And often, those who once held a deep dislike for dogs are the people who become the biggest doggie devotees!

The Things We Do for Love

Halli Webb, who owns an advertising firm in Columbus, Ohio, was wary around dogs from a young age. “I grew up in an uber-spotless house where no pets were allowed,” she says. “I had no idea how to be around dogs, how to take care of them and was generally afraid of them. I hated when I walked into a house and could smell a dog.”

As an adult, Webb says dogs just weren’t “on her radar” for many years. That is, until she had her daughter. “Emma worked on me from the time she could speak,” Webb recalls with a laugh. “She loved every dog that walked by; even if it was horrible looking, it was a cute doggie to her.”

Webb’s daughter was relentless and finally, Webb and her husband gave in. That’s when Shirley, a Cockapoo, entered their lives. The family fell in love with the little dog and now can’t imagine life without her.

Webb’s friends laugh about her newfound love for dogs. One friend in particular had been trying to convince Webb for years to get a dog. “Now, she can’t stop teasing me about not being a dog person. Especially when she sees Shirley on my lap, in my coat, in her little car seat or dressed with all her bling!”

Webb doesn’t mind. The teasing is well worth the joy that Shirley brings to their family.

A Great Package Deal

“From early childhood until adulthood, I would literally cross a street or walk down alternate blocks to avoid a dog,” says Barbara Warner, an author in New York City. “I got in the habit of saying I was allergic to them, just to avoid having to be near one. I was that afraid,” she explains.

But one day, a man she was dating brought his new dog over to her house and asked if Warner could watch him. “He handed me what looked like a Happy Meal box. I opened it, and a little head popped out, yawned and put his head on my shoulder. Maternal instinct took over. That was my Fritzky.”

Warner ended up marrying the man she was dating and, of course Fritzky was part of the package and in her life to stay. Although, Warner jokes, Fritzky outlasted the marriage, living until he was 13.

After Fritzky passed away, Warner thought her love for dogs might have died with him. But then she met Vinny, a friend’s 150-pound Rottweiler, during a photo shoot for her new book. At first, Warner froze up when she saw Vinny, wondering if her old fear had resurfaced. “He sniffed me from my feet to the top of my head… then he turned around and sat on my foot!” Warner was smitten.

“Fritz was like my child. He opened my eyes and helped me overcome an irrational fear, and Vinny just confirmed that big or little, fluffy or sleek, my love and admiration of these creatures is definitely in my soul.”

I Took a Chance on Love

Allergies and asthma kept Crystal Brown-Tatum from having a dog as a child, and so she avoided dogs as much as possible. “When I went over to friends’ homes with dogs, I would either ask them to put the dog away or never interact with the dog,” she remembers.

Brown-Tatum, who owns a PR firm in Dallas, was content to keep dogs at a distance until she met a 10-week-old Bichon Frise puppy named Cotton. A woman in her building needed to rehome the dog, and something told Brown-Tatum to give the dog a chance.

Cotton helped bring Brown-Tatum and her teenage daughter closer together and stayed by Brown-Tatum’s side during her battle with breast cancer. After Cotton died, Brown-Tatum continued to adopt Bichons.

Today, Brown-Tatum is well known for her love of dogs. She volunteers at her local shelter and has even worked for a pet food company. “I can’t imagine my life without a dog and it’s all because Cotton showed me unconditional love.”

My Family Thinks I’m Crazy

Kayla Pickrell, a stationery designer in Lexington, Ky. was also scared of dogs. Her fear stemmed from being bitten by a neighborhood dog when she was young. “My entire life, I was terrified of dogs. It didn’t matter the size, age, breed, etc., I was just terrified.”

But when Pickrell was 20, her boyfriend introduced her to his Great Dane puppy. While she was still scared, she discovered that as the puppy grew, he followed her lead; he knew her habits and her rules. “But, (he) still wanted to be friends with me. I grew to love the dog and got my own puppy one year later.”

Pickrell’s dog Odin cemented her love for dogs. “Not only do I love him, but every dog,” she says. “I’m that weird person at the dog park who will literally play and cuddle with every dog.” Pickrell says her family is still shocked at the change in her behavior and finds it hard to believe she has a dog of her own now.

But, Pickrell now knows the love between a dog and a person is indescribable. “Truly, it is hard to put into words the love that I have for both my dog and others,” she says.

While bad experiences with dogs, or even a lack of experience with dogs, can make someone wary or disinterested in the canine kind, dog lovers know that all it takes is one special dog to change one’s life forever.

By Caroline Golon | Vetstreet.com

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I can’t underestimate how in my case that one special dog, Pharaoh, changed my life and was one of the magical ingredients that led me to meeting Jean and now having a life with ten special dogs and one very, very special lady.

The magic of touch!

At all levels and in so many ways it is life-giving.

Animals must see touch as a natural way of living. We humans are less natural about touch especially with people that we don’t know so well. Not everyone, of course, but as a general statement it is probably not wrong.

The topic of touch has come to me today as a result of a recent item read over on The Conversation blogsite; specifically about the importance of touch between a doctor and his or her patient. Here it is republished within the terms of The Conversation:

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Touch creates a healing bond in health care

May 23, 2016 8.23pm EDT

Touch is a powerful tool in medicine. Hands via www.shutterstock.com — Touch is a powerful tool in medicine. Hands via http://www.shutterstock.com

In contemporary health care, touch – contact between a doctor’s hand and a patient – appears to be on its way out. The expanding role of CT and MRI imaging is decreasing reliance on touch as a way of making diagnoses. Pressures to move patients through the system more quickly leave health professionals with fewer opportunities to make contact. Our experience suggests that when doctors spend fewer minutes with patients, less time is available for touch.

Yet despite the rise of scanners, robots and other new medical technologies, the physician’s hand remains one of medicine’s most valuable diagnostic tools. Touch creates a human bond that is particularly needed in this increasingly hands-off, impersonal age. Medical practice is replete with situations where touch does more than any words to comfort and reassure.

The USC psychologist Leo Buscaglia, whose habit of hugging those he met soon earned him the sobriquet “Doctor Love,” bemoaned our neglect of touch in his book, “Love,” in these terms:

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

For thousands of years, touch has been recognized as an essential part of the healing arts. Native American healers relied on touch to draw out sickness, and kings and queens were long believed to possess the “Royal Touch,” through which the mere laying on of hands could heal. The Bible contains numerous stories of the healing power of touch.

Touch is an essential part of our well-being

An indication of our need for touch can be found among our primate relatives. Psychologists have observed that many such species spend upwards of five hours of each day touching one another, partly through grooming. For many human beings, however, the daily dose of touching would be measured not in hours but minutes, perhaps even seconds.

Lack of touch can be hazardous to health. In experiments with primates some 60 years ago,

A young mother participates in a ‘Kangaroo Mother’ program at the National Maternity Hospital in El Salvador. Luis Galdamez/Reuters

researcher Harry Harlow demonstrated that young monkeys deprived of touch did not grow and develop normally. Mere food, water and shelter are not sufficient – to thrive, such creatures need to touch and be touched.

The same can be said for human beings. During the 20th century, wars landed many babies in orphanages, where their caretakers observed that no matter how well the infants were fed, they would fail to thrive unless they were held and cuddled on a frequent basis. Touch offers no vitamins or calories, yet it plays a vital role in sustaining life.

More recent studies have corroborated these findings. “Kangaroo care,” using papoose-like garments to keep babies close to their mothers, decreases the rate at which they develop blood infections. Touching also improves weight gain and decreases the amount of time that newborns need to remain in the hospital.

Touch creates a bond between doctor and patient

Novelist and physician Abraham Verghese has argued that touching is one of the most important features of the patient-physician interaction. When he examines a patient, he is not merely collecting information with which to formulate a diagnosis, but also establishing a bond that provides comfort and reassurance.

The notion that touch can reassure and comfort has a scientific basis. Ten years ago researchers used MRI scans to look at the brains of women undergoing painful stimuli. When subjects experience pain, certain areas of the brain tend to “light up.” The researchers studied subjects when they were alone, when they were holding a stranger’s hand, and when they were holding their husband’s hand.

They found the highest levels of pain activation when the women were alone. When they were holding a stranger’s hand, the pain response was decreased. And levels of activation were lowest of all when they were holding their husband’s hand. Interesting, the higher the quality of subjects’ marriages, the more pain responses were blunted.

Touch from parents helps kids in intensive care

We have been studying this phenomenon in our own institution, looking at the effect of touch not only on patients but on the parents of patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit.

The project, called ROSE (Reach Out, Soothe, and Embrace), sought to determine whether increasing opportunities to touch patients could promote parent well-being without compromising patient safety.

Instead of merely determining whether patients could be taken off the ventilator or fed, we also identified patients who could be safely touched and even held in their parents’ arms. When a patient was deemed safe to hold, a magnet bearing the image of a red rose embraced by two hands was placed on the door to the patient’s room.

While we are still analyzing the results and further study is needed to fully delineate the health benefits of touch, several findings are already clear.

First, increasing opportunities for touch does not compromise patient safety. Second, the subjective well-being of family members is enhanced when touching is encouraged. Third, promoting touch empowers family members to become more involved in their child’s care.

To be sure, inappropriate and unsafe touching can be harmful. But when touch is encouraged in the right ways and for the right reasons, it is good for patients, family, friends and health professionals alike. Touch is one of the most fundamental and effective ways to create a sense of connection and community among human beings.

In the words of the 20th-century theologian Henri Nouwen, who wrote in his book, “Out of Solitude”:

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

So next time you find yourself confronted by a person in distress, remember the power of touch. Medicines and words both have healing power, but so does touch, and it is perhaps the most widely available, financially responsible and safest tool in the healing arts. When we touch, we connect, and when we connect, we create a healing bond for which there is simply no substitute.

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“When we touch, we connect, and when we connect, we create a healing bond for which there is simply no substitute.”

P1140965 — Jean with my mother back in July, 2014.

The healing touch!

Or to repeat the elegant words of Leo Buscaglia:

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Who have you given a hug today?

Picture parade one hundred and forty-eight.

More Spring is Sprung.

(Continuing the thanks to Dordie for sending these to me.)

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If you missed the first set then they may be viewed here.

Picture parade one hundred and forty-seven.

Spring is sprung!

(With many thanks to Dordie from next door who forwarded these photographs to me.)

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The second selection of these wonderful Spring pictures in a weeks time.

Hazel’s probable disease.

And the last thing we wanted to hear.

Dear people, again I must say this:
CAUTION: The following is offered by way of information reaching out to other loving dog owners. Please do not assume I have any specialist veterinarian knowledge and please do not take the following as a replacement for seeing your own vet.

Back on the 4th May I posted the results of Hazel being scanned ultrasonically in a post Hazel’s Sonogram. Here’s a tiny extract:

Dr. Parker, who is a board-certified veterinarian doctor, came to the conclusion that the most likely cause of Hazel’s illness was the fungal lung infection, as Dr. Codd and the radiologist supposed.

But still Hazel showed too many signs that there was no improvement. Her eating was pitiful and the application of the Fluconazole (anti-fungal) medicine was not helping, bearing in mind that she was first seen by Dr. Codd over a month ago.

Dr. Codd’s advice was that we seek specialist help and yesterday morning Hazel was seen by Dr. Kimberly Winters, DVM, of Southern Oregon Veterinary Specialty Center (SOVSC) who, in addition, has a further qualification (Diplomate AVCIM) in Internal Medicine.

Based in Medford, about a 40-minute drive South from home.

oooo

Jean and I were impressed by the way we were received and noted that the clinic, Southern Oregon Veterinary Specialty Center, offered a 24-hour emergency service. Here’s a piece from their home page:

At Southern Oregon Veterinary Specialty Center, we understand the special bond between a pet and their human family. Our team of highly trained doctors, certified technicians and support staff partner with your family veterinarian to provide specialized diagnostics, surgery and emergency care for your pet upon a referral or emergency basis. Our clinic is staffed 24 hours-a-day, 7 days a week, to receive emergency cases and to monitor our critical care patients. The clinic’s board-certified veterinary specialists and staff are committed to providing exceptional compassionate care utilizing state-of-the-art technology and treatments.

Then we were called in and first seen by one of the technicians to record all the details.

Then a short while later in came Dr. Winters.

Dr. Winters listening to Hazel's rather laboured breathing. — Dr. Winters listening to Hazel’s rather laboured breathing.

Dr. Winters recommended a further xray of Hazel’s lungs and some blood work.

An hour later we had her analysis.

Dr. Winters said that while the condition of Hazel’s lungs could be an indication of a fungal infection she had her doubts. Or, in the words of her subsequent report:

There are several things that are not consistent with fungal infection – no high globulin level, no elevation in white blood cell count, no fever, negative titers, progression despite fluconazole treatment.

But the most important indicator of it being something other than a fungal infection was that the xray showed Hazel’s lungs to be worse.

My photograph of the clinic's screen display. — My photograph of the clinic’s screen display.

This can be more readily seen if I publish the xray image of yesterday and the image taken on the 15th April; see below.

Xray image as of the morning of May 12th, 2016.

One of the radiographs taken of Hazel. — One of the radiographs taken of Hazel 15th April, 2016.

Despite not truly understanding these images both Jean and I quickly thought the top one, taken yesterday, showed a decline in Hazel’s lungs compared to the lower one, taken on the 15th April.

It was then time to seek Dr. Winters’ opinion.

Essentially, she said that she doubted the diagnosis of it being a fungal infection especially as lung fungal infections were very rare in Oregon. When I queried the fact that it might have been dormant for some time Dr. Winters thought that doubtful because the lungs, even a month ago, were displaying advanced disease.

Dr. Winters couldn’t be sure without a physical examination of the lung tissue but on the balance of probability she believed Hazel was at an advanced stage of cancer with the tumor somewhere in the body and that her lungs were showing that the cancer had metastasized!

A later discussion with Dr. Russ Codd and Jim Goodbrod confirmed this analysis with Russ thinking that the primary tumor might be in Hazel’s arteries. To a very great extent, it has become academic as Russ believes that Hazel will not have that much longer to go and that our main focus should be on keeping her quality of life as high as we can, for as long as we can.

Jean and I are devastated as you can imagine and later on when writing this post my thoughts were on some of the words added to the post Embracing Those Senior Years just last Wednesday. These words:

First from Barb of the blog Passionate about Pets:

Hariod, your comments to Paul about your GSD really touched me because I myself am in that same space now with my almost 17 year old shih-tzu. We have always had a special connection but in the last year, as her age has progressed with it’s usual complications, our relationship has moved to another level – becoming even deeper than anything I have ever experienced; so powerfully in tune with each other, it’s incredible.
As I write this, every day she is with us is a precious bonus.

Then followed by these words from Petspeopleandlife:

Our aging pets can be very troubling. I ‘ve been there and done that many times in about 60 years and even in my years before I left the farm to attend school. It doesn’t get easy and I always hate watching my pets age. It is devastating to lose them.

Then my words:

There are no favorites in our ten dogs but there are some that are more open in expressing and returning affection. It seems those dogs in particular tear us apart when they die.

For Hazel is one of those dogs.

Relationships.

Everything comes down to our relationships.

It is not the first time that I have written on the theme of the importance of relationships. However, I am inspired by a number of separate and discrete outcomes in the last couple of days that compell me to return to this most important principle of all: We are what we think about most.

The first outcome was a lovely reply left by Hariod Brawn to yesterday’s post. This is what she wrote:

My GSD had hip dysplasia too, Paul – if that’s what you’re alluding to with Pharaoh. He still was able to die a natural death though, as his rear quarters became paralysed with the dysplasia and he felt no pain. There were plenty of other problems resulting from his immobility, but I wouldn’t have traded those difficulties and the incredible communication we shared as a result of them, for anything – his last few weeks were some of the most powerful and precious of my entire life.

Then after my response, Hariod went on to say:

It was a deeply profound time for me, and I honestly wouldn’t have believed anyone had they told me what I experienced, but experience it I did. It was not the product of fanciful imagination, much as it might sound so in words. The communication between the two of us was quite incredible, and which really was empathic in nature, in the deepest sense of the word. We always had great communication and understanding, which all dog lovers do with their charges, of course, but this was another level altogether. Some might call it ‘psychic’, as if that meant something mystical and woo-like, but it just means ‘of the mind’. The question is, does the mind have the psychical power to share in understanding across physical borders? You will doubtless know of J. Allen Boone:

I will return to that mention of J. Allen Boone at the end of the post.

Then later on there was a further reply to the post from Barb of Passionate About Pets :

Thanks for re-publishing Gina’s post here, I found it interesting because Poppy, my little shih-tzu is an old dame now – she will be 17 in two months time. She has developed serious separation anxiety in the last year and if I am working in the garden, she barks for me to get back inside even though my husband is inside with her – she wants us BOTH with her. She is weak in her back legs so her walks are shorter. All these signs of old age make me so sad. Just like you and Pharoah, old age is creeping up on us all.
A special thank you to Hariod for including that video clip of J. Allen Boone’s dog Strongheart and the very special connection they had; he was so wise about Strongheart’s qualities – they never die. It really resonated with me.
Thank you for a wonderful post.

You can see why I entitled today’s post Relationships!

Then earlier on in my day I had a call with Jon Lavin, a friend from my days when I lived in Devon, South-West England. Jon and I still speak on a regular basis and yesterday I was complimenting Jon on a wonderful post he had written on his own business blog The People Workshop.

Jon’s post was about relationships in the workplace, his area of professional experience, and I was struck by how far the messages were relevant to all of us, in all areas of our lives. But just as key it was another reminder of the importance of all of us who express themselves on blogs; both as authors and as commentators. Because those expressions make, build and maintain great relationships.

Jon’s post is republished here with his full permission.

ooOOoo

Relationships in the workplace

Posted on 10 May 2016

When you look at how much of our lives we spend at work it’s really quite attention-grabbing. I did a very rough calculation based on 40 years and 40 hours a week – and I took out holidays and weekends. It works out approximately at 4900 hours. That’s a lot of hours, especially if you do lots of overtime and weekends. All of that time, you’re probably going to be mixing with people – usually, quite a large number of people.

We are ‘relationship seeking’, says Eric Berne, originator of Transactional Analysis. So for all of that time, we’re moving in and out of relationships with other people. So here, I’m categorising any interaction with another as ‘relationship’.

Then there’s what happens when we go home, another set of relationships, and where we came from – our parents and families.

So how we are in relationship with others is very important and has a major impact on the results we get generally and particularly in the context of this article, at work.

I hear a lot of talk about ’employee engagement’ at the moment. I believe that for employees to be ‘engaged’, so actively involved in what they’re doing, thinking about it, in the ‘here and now’, they’ve got to be in relationship with their manager and probably, the team they’re part of, at least, if the job is being done properly.

I see it as the role of the manager or team leader that they have the skills and ability to develop these relationships with as many team members as possible, any exclusions being the exception. This requires a lot of self-awareness and confidence, plus the ability to build high levels of trust with a wide range of character types. I think it also requires the ability to see the world from the view point of the other person – ‘putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes’, we say. That’s quite difficult to do in my experience. However, we can donate the time to get to know the people in our team and so increase the likelihood of all of us coming from the same angle.

I think this is about the ability to value the uniqueness of others in all the different forms and approaches that manifests in, and finding ways of harnessing those skills and abilities.

These are not easy things and I am aware of the relatively few, good people managers I come across in my work but it is possible to develop these skills. You need to have the intention to want the best from ALL relationships. Also, to be prepared to use the feedback we all get, especially when things don’t go to plan in a relationship, and be continually revisiting and adjusting your approach so that you get more of what works. This way, you automatically get less of what doesn’t work.

Never under estimate the power of intention.

ooOOoo

I am now going to close today’s post with those words of J. Allen Boone that Hariod had in her second reply:

To echo Jon’s closing message, let us never cease our intention of having wonderful relationships; with our dogs, with others and, not least of all, with ourselves.

Hazel

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