Don’t Cook Your Dog. Pet Piddles. Pet’s Good Health Begins in Their Gut. Veterinary Nutritionists. Coyote’s Monogamy. Train Your Dog To Have Soft Mouth. Bat Trivia. Paris, 2062+ Years Old.

 

For “Mammal Monday”:

Overheating Can Cause Your Dog’s Agonizing Death Within Minutes – Yet It’s Entirely Avoidable

“Estimates are that hundreds of dogs will suffer a slow, excruciating and entirely preventable death from heatstroke this summer.

One of the primary causes of heatstroke in pets is being left unattended in a parked vehicle on a hot day. Don’t leave your own pet in a hot car, and if you see any animal unattended in a parked vehicle, you should immediately notify a store employee, mall security, animal control or the police.

Symptoms of overheating in dogs include panting, excessive thirst, bright or dark red tongue and gums, elevated body temperature, staggering, and collapse. Some dogs are at greater risk of heatstroke than others, including brachycephalic breeds, seniors, puppies, and dogs with chronic health conditions.

If your dog's body temperature gets to 109ºF or higher, heatstroke sets in. Within a matter of minutes the cells of the body start to die. The brain swells, ulcers develop in the GI tract, and irreversible kidney damage occurs.

Tips to prevent overheating in your dog include providing fresh, clean drinking water at all times, getting long haired dogs a short summer cut, keeping pets indoors once the temperature reaches 90ºF, and exercising your dog during the coolest part of the day.”   Complete article at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/06/24/overheating.aspx

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What’s that Smell? Cleaning Up After Pet Accidents

“According to Suite101.com:  “Urine smell from pets can ruin the most beautiful of homes. What makes dealing with that urine smell especially difficult is that after just a few weeks, the unsuspecting pet owner can become completely desensitized to the smell, not realizing how offensive it really is to visiting family and friends.   Urine smell from pets goes beyond home owner embarrassment. If you are considering putting your home on the market; that offensive odor will directly affect the sale price.”

Stop the Problem Before It Starts

The very best way to prevent puppy piddles from ruining the look, smell, comfort and even the value of your home is to do a top-notch job housebreaking your canine companion.

For a thorough and hopefully enlightening discussion on how to prevent potty problems, crate training, and other helpful tips to get your pooch squared away in the toileting department, view my video series on how to housebreak a dog of any age.

You’ll meet Meredith, an older stray I rescued by the side of the road on the way to work one morning, and follow along as I take her from her squat-wherever-she-happened-to-be routine to a near-perfect example of a well house trained pet.

Most cats are very easy to manage because they instinctively look for surfaces that allow them to bury their waste. A litter box filled with a few inches of clean litter is all the encouragement most kitties need to eliminate in the right spot.

You can learn all about litter, litter boxes, and how to select the right supplies for your own kitty here.   

Go here to learn what to look for if your cat's elimination habits suddenly change.

Make No Mistake -- Accidents Will Happen

Even after your pup is thoroughly housebroken or your kitty is a veteran at using the litter box, if you’re a pet parent, you WILL have the occasional mess to clean up.

Your dog may get a temporary bout of diarrhea or drink too much water and wait too long to be walked. Your cat may develop a urinary tract problem and eliminate outside her box, or she may throw up a hairball.

Aging pets, just like elderly people, occasionally have a bathroom accident.  It’s a fact of life with pets, just as it is with children that messes will happen.

Once you’ve done all you can do to set your pet up for success, the only thing left is to anticipate the occasional accident and arm yourself with the supplies you’ll need to do a thorough cleanup.”    More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2010/10/14/cleaning-pet-urine-odor-stains-and-other-messes.aspx

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Just like humans,

Your Pet’s Good Health Begins in Their Gut

Carnivores, omnivores and herbivores.

Video at: http://www.viddler.com/v/62d3d460

“Chances are, the pets you care for fall into one of these three categories. And each type of pet has distinct nutritional needs.

It’s important to remember that no matter what your personal beliefs about food, you can’t change the DNA of your pets. They were designed by nature to consume certain types of food.

The Logic of Nature

Rabbits and horses are herbivores, or vegetarians.

They have very large front teeth (called incisors) to grasp vegetation. Their jaws shift from side to side to grind grasses and fibrous plant material on their large, flat molars.

The long gastrointestinal (GI) tracts of herbivores are designed to ferment these foodstuffs into usable nutrition.

Omnivores, such as bearded dragons, for example, are designed to chew and process both meat protein (insects) and plant material.

Dogs, cats and snakes are carnivores, with sharp, interlocking teeth designed to grasp prey.

Cats and snakes are obligate carnivores, which means they must consume a meat diet to maintain health, whereas dogs are scavenging carnivores, who, in addition to a meat based diet, can consume other types of foods without dire consequences.

By nature’s design, rabbits and horses were never intended to consume meat. Dogs and cats were not designed to eat or digest grains. So, as you would expect, when you feed your dog and cat companions foods they were not designed to eat, you’re asking for trouble.

But before we get to exactly what happens when your companions consume biologically inappropriate foods, you must understand two key points to overall health for people and animals alike:

The gastrointestinal system must be healthy to avoid disease.   The GI tract is the body’s number one barrier to disease and disease processes.

How Your Pet’s Digestive System Works

……If your pet is suffering from any of the above symptoms and you have not tried a probiotic, please do it now. You might quite literally save the life of your four-legged companion.”

Complete article at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2009/05/11/your-pet-s-good-health-begins-in-their-gut.aspx

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Most Pet Food is Biologically Inappropriate for Dogs and Cats

“The Feeding Mistake Linked to the Cause of Most Disease - Are You Making It?

High-carbohydrate, low-moisture commercial pet foods have created significant metabolic and physiologic stress in our pets and have become the root cause of most of the inflammatory processes and degenerative disease we see in veterinary medicine today.

“What’s very important for pet owners to know is that “pet food” is a relatively new concept. So, “dog food” and “cat food” you buy from the supermarket has only been around a little over a hundred years.

However, animals have hunted prey or, in the case of dogs, scavenged -- for millions of years. And although recent research suggests domesticated carnivores were able to adapt to some degree to starch in the diet as humans became planters and farmers of grains, dogs and cats have most definitely not evolved into vegetarians over time.

Over the last hundred years, major pet food companies have produced most of their products using a base of corn, wheat, rice, or potato. However, our carnivorous pets have not evolved to be able to process those foreign foods.

The good news is dogs and cats are adaptable and resilient unlike other species, for example, snakes. If we suddenly forced snakes to eat grains or consume vegetation, they would simply die, demonstrating rather visibly and quickly that they were not provided the correct food source.

Dogs and cats are among the most resilient animals on the planet. They are able to withstand really significant nutritional abuse, in my opinion, without dying. Degeneration does occur as the result of an inappropriate diet, but sudden death does not.

So one of the reasons we’ve been able to deceive ourselves into believing convenience pet foods are good for dogs and cats is because they don’t die immediately of acute starvation. For a hundred years our pets have been fed inappropriate diets that have kept them alive, but far from thriving like their wild relatives. Instead, we’ve created dozens of generations of nutritionally weakened animals that suffer from degenerative diseases linked to nutritional deficiencies – a link the traditional veterinary community has not acknowledged.

The Pottenger cat study is one example of how our current system of nourishing pets creates chronic disease.

The truth is that our pet population provides a place for recycling waste from the human food industry. Grains that fail inspection, uninspected pieces and parts of waste from the seafood industry, leftover restaurant grease, deceased livestock, and even roadkill is collected and disposed of through rendering -- a process that converts all sorts of human food industry waste into raw materials for the pet food industry.

These raw materials are purchased by huge pet food manufacturers – makers of the big name brands your parents and friends have probably used for the last 50 years. These manufacturers blend the rendered fat and meat with a large amount of starch fillers. They add bulk vitamin and mineral supplements, and then they extrude the mix at high temperatures, creating all sorts of toxic reactions including advanced glycation end products and heterocyclic amines. They call this “pet food” and sell it to customers at an unbelievable profit.

Is the entire system flawed? Yes. But pet food industry giants are realizing that pet owners are becoming more educated about their flawed system, and they are trying to clean up their image. We are beginning to see words like “natural” and “no byproducts” on labels. We’re beginning to see “grain-free” and “naturally preserved” on labels as well. Manufacturers are hearing the grumbles of educated pet owners and are changing their marketing to try to regain lost customers.”      More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/04/01/raw-food-diet-part-1.aspx

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Veterinary Nutritionists Have Financial Ties to Major Pet Food Manufacturers

“Veterinary nutritionists receive a diploma from the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (ACVN). They are DVMs who go on to become board certified in veterinary nutrition. The additional training they receive runs at least two years and they must pass a written exam at the end of their coursework in order to obtain board certification.

ACVN is the smallest of the veterinary colleges and there are fewer than 100 veterinary nutritionists in the world. They work in veterinary schools, government agencies, pet drug companies, private animal hospitals, for themselves, and very frequently, for pet food companies. Major pet food manufacturers also frequently pay the tuition for DVMs studying to become veterinary nutritionists.

So when you hear or read that a veterinary nutritionist recommends X or Y or Z pet food - or discourages the feeding of raw or homemade diets, for example -- keep in mind that many practicing veterinary nutritionists are obligated in some way to a pet food manufacturer. This association creates a rather obvious conflict of interest when it comes to the advice they offer, not to mention the training they have received.

Fortunately, the AHVM Foundation wants to assist in the development of integrative veterinary nutrition departments which can further study and delineate the applicability of species-appropriate diets. That will provide the veterinary community with unbiased pet nutrition experts with no ties to the pet food industry.

It's important to keep this in mind when you hear or read the recommendations of one of these experts. Their association with the pet food industry is, in our opinion, a clear conflict of interest when they begin dispensing nutritional advice to pet owners, veterinarians, and others interested in animal nutrition.”   More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/10/31/veterinary-practice.aspx

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Train Your Dog to Have A Soft Mouth

“Teach your dog to take treats gently and have a very soft mouth every time it comes in contact with a person's skin. It is very important to teach your dog or puppy to have a soft mouth and not bite.

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Urban Coyotes Never Stray: New Study Finds 100 Percent Monogamy

“Coyotes living in cities don't ever stray from their mates, and stay with each other till death do them part, according to a new study.

The finding sheds light on why the North American cousin of the dog and wolf, which is originally native to deserts and plains, is thriving today in urban areas.

Scientists with Ohio State University who genetically sampled 236 coyotes in the Chicago area over a six-year period found no evidence of polygamy -- of the animals having more than one mate -- nor of one mate ever leaving another while the other was still alive.

This was even though the coyotes exist in high population densities and have plenty of food to eat, which are conditions that often lead other dog family members, such as some fox species, to stray from their normal monogamy.”  More at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120925142549.htm

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Our winged friends the bats are mammals, too

Bat Trivia

“Bats, mammals of the order Chiroptera, are incredibly versatile creatures that are of tremendous value to the earth’s ecosystems. Did you know female bats practice natural forms of birth control? And have you ever wondered if vampire bats really exist?”

Bat can fly at speeds reaching 60 mph.

Bats can find their food in total darkness. They locate insects by emitting inaudible high-pitched sounds, 10-20 beeps per second and listening to echoes.

There are 1,100 species of bats worldwide – making up one-quarter of the world’s mammal population. There are forty different species of bats live in the United States.

There are only three species of "vampire bats" – bats that live off the blood of animals. None of those species lives in the United States.

Bats can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour, and often consume their body weight in insects every night.

More than half of the bat species in the United States are in severe decline or listed as endangered.

Bats can live to be more than 30 years old.

Some bats migrate south for the winter, while others hibernate through the cold winter months. During hibernation, bats can survive in freezing temperatures, even after being encased in ice.

Most bats have only one pup a year, making them extremely vulnerable to extinction.

Bat mothers can find their babies among thousands or millions of other bats by their unique voices and scents.

Austin is a seasonal home to North America’s largest urban population of Mexican free-tailed bats, which live beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge. Approximately 1.5 million bats reside there!

Bat droppings, called guano, are one of the richest fertilizers. Bat guano was once a big business. Guano was Texas largest mineral export before oil!

The world’s largest bat is the "flying fox" that lives on islands in the South Pacific. It has a wingspan of up six feet.

The world’s smallest bat is the bumble bee bat of Thailand, which is smaller than a thumbnail and weighs less than a penny.”    From: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/arizona/top-10-bat-facts.xml

“However, vampire bats don't actually suck blood. They use their very sharp teeth to make a small cut in the skin of a sleeping animal and then drink the blood the cut produces. Bat saliva anesthetizes the skin, so the animal rarely feels the cut. And vampire bats only need about two tablespoons of blood a day, so it's rare that any harm comes to the target animal.”

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On This Day:

Paris celebrates 2,000th birthday, Jul 8, 1951:

“On this day in 1951, Paris, the capital city of France, celebrated turning 2,000 years old. In fact, a few more candles would've technically been required on the birthday cake, as the City of Lights was most likely founded around 250 B.C.

The history of Paris can be traced back to a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii, who sometime around 250 B.C. settled an island (known today as Ile de la Cite) in the Seine River, which runs through present-day Paris. By 52 B.C., Julius Caesar and the Romans had taken over the area, which eventually became Christianized and known as Lutetia, Latin for "midwater dwelling." The settlement later spread to both the left and right banks of the Seine and the name Lutetia was replaced with "Paris." In 987 A.D., Paris became the capital of France. As the city grew, the Left Bank earned a reputation as the intellectual district while the Right Bank became known for business.

During the French Renaissance period, from the late 15th century to the early 17th century, Paris became a center of art, architecture and science. In the mid-1800s, Napoleon III hired civic planner Georges-Eugene Hausmann to modernize Paris. Hausmann's designs gave the city wide, tree-lined boulevards, large public parks, a new sewer system and other public works projects. The city continued to develop as an important hub for the arts and culture. In the 1860s, an artistic movement known as French Impression emerged, featuring the work of a group of Paris-based artists that included Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Today, Paris is home to some 2 million residents, with an additional 10 million people living in the surrounding metropolitan area. The city retains its reputation as a center for food, fashion, commerce and culture. Paris also continues to be one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, renowned for such sights as the Eiffel Tower (built in 1889 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution), the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees, Notre Dame Cathedral (built in 1163), Luxembourg Gardens and the Louvre Museum, home to Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa."”

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Yesterday:

I had more to add to ‘On This Day"’, but my computer is acting up.  Getting ready to buy a new window, for when I chuck this computer through it!    Oh, maybe I’d better buy another puter instead of a new double-paned window!

Misty and I didn’t go down to get Jay, as he wasn’t in any shape to be around here.   I had hoped that we could remove all the excess lumber out of the driveway in between the two houses, and just keep what would be needed for the contractor.

Ray offered to come over to help me do that, so we moved the lattice which hadn’t been made into fences yet, and all the other fence boards that weren’t installed.  There were a lot of other boards that needed to be put up, too.  That’s when I knew that my back is still out! 

We went through my lumber piles to see what was on the contractor’s list for the front porch extension.  I have everything except two 2x8x14, but I am hoping that the contractor can bring them in his truck. That will be a lot safer than trying to haul them up the freeway with the back hatch open in my van.  I didn’t want to have to buy a tire and tags for my utility trailer for two boards.

Then Ray and I sat down and did the books.  It had been several months since we had had time to sit down together and figure out how much of his work-time came off his rent.

Midnight and her kittens were picked up by their foster parents upon their return from visiting their daughter in Dallas.  The cats will be here again later in the week when the foster parents go back to Dallas to see their daughter graduate.  That must be great to have parents to share in one’s life.  Not having had any parents around, I didn’t know what I was missing.

The contractor had said that he should be finished with his previous job by now, but I haven’t heard from him today.