For "Mammal Monday":
If Your Pet is Overweight, Please Stay Away from These "Fixes"
Story at-a-glance: "Pet food manufactrers continue to try convince consumers their too-heavy dogs and cats can lose weight by being stuffed full of grains and fiber-filled pet food. The goal of many pet weight management formulas is to create a temporary feeling of fullness in dogs and cats so they won't beg for food. This takes the heat off owners who don't want to say no to a begging pet.
One company has even gone so far as to invent a bizarre ingredient that when added to pet food impedes digestion so the animal feels full longer. And the gimmicks being employed! There's a 'meal replacement' drink for cats that contains not a scrap of animal protein. And then there's the 'weight management' dog food loaded with seven different kinds of grains and a special 'fat-burning' ingredient. Parents of overweight pets would be wise to steer clear of the ever-evolving gimmicky 'weight loss' products appearing on store shelves. Almost without exception, these formulas contain as much if not more of exactly the type of food that is making pets fat in the first place."
By Dr. Becker: "As pets keep getting fatter, pet food companies get ever more creative developing 'weight management' formulas to peddle to uninformed consumers. It's a discouraging trend, since most of these special formulas consist of the same inappropriate, low quality ingredients that contribute to pet obesity in the first place. And in fact, these foods actually contain more of exactly the wrong type of nutrition for overweight pets ... or any pet.
The Goal: Fool Pets into Thinking They're Full
According to PetfoodIndustry.com, one of the goals of pet food companies is to develop formulas for overweight dogs and cats that create a feeling of fullness or satisfaction. Per the article, inducing satiety is important because, "... as long as the pet doesn't act hungry we will be less likely to give in and overindulge begging behavior." And according to one pet food manufacturer, studies show overweight dogs fed 'fiber-enhanced' foods consume fewer calories and appear less hungry.
So if I understand this correctly, the goal is to stuff carnivorous dogs and cats full of species-inappropriate fiber rich food so they won't act hungry, and in turn, their owners won't overindulge them. This thinking is so wrong on so many levels I'm not sure where to begin.
Let's just say I'm adamantly opposed to intentionally feeding companion animals biologically inappropriate nutrition, so their owners don't have to deal with begging behavior or the temptation to overfeed their pets.
Certainly if we have an overweight pet we can find the energy and ambition to feed our dog or cat the nutrition she was designed to eat, in reasonable portions? And certainly we can muster the patience to ignore begging behavior (which is typically temporary when ignored) for the sake of our pet's health?
Read more at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/03/02/ridiculous-pet-weight-loss-products.aspx
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Sumatra's Last Tigers
"A National Geographic production broadcast on ABC Nightline looked at a spate of tiger attacks on humans in 2009, and asked why such attacks might be happening. According to conservationists like Joe Walston, WCS Executive Director for Asia Programs, hungry tigers will occasionally turn to people out of desperation, as their forest homes and prey dwindle. The pressures on Sumatran tigers have become so severe, only 400 of these top predators remain in the wild."View Here: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/sumatras-tigers-15813981
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Jail Time for Thailand's Tiger Poachers
The sentencing of two tiger poachers marks a major turning point in Asia’s war against wildlife crime. WCS helped apprehend the pair last summer after authorities discovered a cell phone with images of a dead tiger.
"The evidence for their crime was grim: Two poachers posed proudly over the corpse of a tiger, shotguns in hand. Thai park guards found the photos on one of the poachers' cell phones last summer. After examining the images more closely, WCS conservationists confirmed the cat was one they had been tracking in the Western Forest Complex.
Authorities arrested the poachers, using the photos to help prove their guilt. Now, Thailand is hoping to send a new warning to the criminal gangs that continue to pursue the world's last wild tigers. The two men will serve up to five years in prison, the most severe sentences for poaching ever handed down in that country."
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Kaaiyana and Her Cubs
"Kaaiyana," a female jaguar, and her two cubs plod through Kaa Iya National Park, Bolivia, just a short distance from the Isoso Station of the Santa Cruz-Puerto Suarez Gas Pipeline. Kaaiyana has lived in the area for at least 6 years, according to WCS conservationists who work in the region. At more than 13,200 square miles, Kaa Iya is the largest protected area in Bolivia and safeguards the most expansive dry forest in the world. Park guards work with Gas TransBoliviano personnel to ensure the protection of wildlife, including jaguar prey, in the area. 
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Wildlife Conservation Society
"WCS is starting 2012 off on the right paw; a team of our conservationists was delighted to take this recent image from a craggy peak in Afghanistan’s Sarkund Valley. Although this is first image of a mother and cub taken in the region, WCS has been conserving wildlife and improving local livelihoods in Afghanistan since 2006 with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)."
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Possum eating strawberries: http://youtu.be/VWwNkIRGnRk
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Goats Grazing Fire Breaks.
"California's Lake Siskiyou Campground hosts more than RVers. Hundreds of goats are browsing to maintain a 40-acre fire fuel break. The 450 caprines are efficient, inexpensive and environmentally friendly. It helps they have big appetites, too."
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Goats have proven to a great tool in preventing forest fires: http://www.lslm.org/fire_mitigation.html
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Caught in the Crossroads, Trying to save a Gaur Stuck In Mud.
"Hear about the life-and-death struggles that took place one morning this spring in Northern Cambodia, where a group of shy forest denizens have found their world changed by a single, muddy road.
"The northern plains of Cambodia are home to rare wild cattle, deer, wild pigs, and elephants. These shy forest denizens travel from pond to pond and between mineral deposits, foraging as they go. With the development of new roads and settlements throughout the region, this unique landscape, often called the "Serengeti of Southeast Asia," has become increasingly fragmented. As a result, its wildlife residents face increasing risks to survival as they search for resources. And sometimes, as this photo essay shows, a single road can change everything." http://youtu.be/V9AGeff43RU More at: http://www.wcs.org/safepassages
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On This Day:
The first presidential inauguration, Apr 30, 1789:
"In New York City, George Washington, the great military leader of the American Revolution, is inaugurated as the first president of the United States.
In February 1789, all 69 presidential electors unanimously chose Washington to be the first U.S. president. In March, the new U.S. constitution officially took effect, and in April Congress formally sent word to Washington that he had won the presidency. He borrowed money to pay off his debts in Virginia and traveled to New York. On April 30, he came across the Hudson River in a specially built and decorated barge. The inaugural ceremony was performed on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street, and a large crowd cheered after he took the oath of office. The president then retired indoors to read Congress his inaugural address, a quiet speech in which he spoke of "the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." The evening celebration was opened and closed by 13 skyrockets and 13 cannons.
As president, Washington sought to unite the nation and protect the interests of the new republic at home and abroad. Of his presidency, he said, "I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn in precedent." He successfully implemented executive authority, made good use of brilliant politicians such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in his cabinet, and quieted fears of presidential tyranny. In 1792, he was unanimously re-elected but four years later refused a third term. In 1797, he finally began a long-awaited retirement at his estate in Virginia. He died two years later. His friend Henry Lee provided a famous eulogy for the father of the United States: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
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Louisiana Purchase concluded, Apr 30, 1803:
"On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the exceptions of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and other pockets of land already controlled by the United States. A formal treaty for the Louisiana Purchase, antedated to April 30, was signed two days later."
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The first federal prison for women opens, Apr 30, 1927:
"The Federal Industrial Institution for Women, the first women's federal prison, opens in Alderson, West Virginia. All women serving federal sentences of more than a year were to be brought here.
Run by Dr. Mary B. Harris, the prison's buildings, each named after social reformers, sat atop 500 acres. One judge described the prison as a "fashionable boarding school." In some respects the judge was correct: The overriding purpose of the prison was to reform the inmates, not punish them. The prisoners farmed the land and performed office work in order to learn how to type and file. They also cooked and canned vegetables and fruits.
Other women's prisons had similar ideals. At Bedford Hills in New York, there were no fences, and the inmates lived in cottages equipped with their own kitchen and garden. The prisoners were even given singing lessons.
Reform efforts had a good chance for success since the women sent to these prisons were far from hardened criminals. At the Federal Industrial Institution, the vast majority of the women were imprisoned for drug and alcohol charges imposed during the Prohibition era."
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Yesterday:
Jay and I sorted out the grooming room. A lot of boxes had got bunged in there on the way to my attic. The attic steps are in my grooming room. Mindi's dogs were supposed to arrive for boarding for a few days. But that was postponed until today.
Then Jay and I went to a benefit for my ex daughter-in-law, Becky. She has been through chemo, but now they found more cancer, so she is having a double masectomy, and is going to need help paying her insurance premiums while she was on sick leave. I didn't know that the benefit was being held in an Ice House, and Jay felt very uncomfortable there, as he would love to have stayed there and got sloshed. I bought a plate of the delicious BBQ, to bring home.
On the way home, we happened to see a sign for another branch of our church, Church of God, and went back to check it out. It is a lovely looking building, but "beauty is, as beauty does", and we will check it out next Saturday. Their services are in the afternoon, which will be better for me on Adoption Days.
Later on in the afternoon, I went back there, without Jay, and made another donation to the fund. But I couldn't stay, the band was playing so loud that you couldn't hear yourself think. I don't think I would want to go to another Ice House, the big doors are open, so there was no air conditioning on. Not my kind of enjoyment at all.
I didn't buy a drink, as I was driving, and I don't like to be around a bunch of drunks. It just reminds me of the loss of my other granddaughter to a drunk driver. So I didn't stay long.
But I did see Michelle, Becky's daughter, my granddaughter, so that made my day.
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