Pets In Cars. Cats. Raw Salmon. 10 Animals. Blue Whales. Dogs Sense Emotions. Squirrel Purrs! Don't Shop, Adopt. Jedediah Smith.

 

For "Mammal Monday":

"If I want to hear the pitter patter of little feet I'll put shoes on my dog." 

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Do Your Pets Ride Loose in Your Car? Why This Vet Changed His Ways — and You Should Too

"Yes, it’s a lot easier to just let your dog hop in the back, or front, seat for a joyride than it is to secure him properly. But you know, I would never allow my precious granddaughter to ride without her car seat belt, and it has been a very long time since any of my pets have ridden in the car without being safely secured, either, for a lot of the same reasons.  Let’s change this, together.

And yet, even though we wouldn't think of letting our kids or our friends ride around unsecured, we're still letting our pets roam free in our cars — even though it’s so easy to keep them secured. Crates, originally developed for air travel, have long been used for safety in cars, and they’re still one of the best options for your pets.

Position your pet's crate as close to the center of the car as possible, and secure the crate with the seat belt through the handle to keep it from becoming a pet-loaded projectile during an accident. Make sure there is a cushion or thick towel in the crate.  This gives your pet a cozy and safe place to ride when you hit the road. 

Another option is a safety harness; these have become very popular in recent years, I like the kind that works as an extension of the car’s own safety-belt system, using the vehicle’s own design to help protect pets. Look for safety-belt materials when choosing these products, as well as a padded harness designed to protect pets in an accident." More at: http://www.vetstreet.com/dr-marty-becker/do-your-pets-ride-loose-in-your-car-why-this-vet-changed-his-ways-and-you-should-too

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How To Get Your Unwilling Cat in the Carrier

"For cats: I enlist gravity’s help by turning the carrier on its end, with the opening at the top, and propping it up in the corner of the bathroom. (Because the bathroom is small and doesn’t contain anywhere for kitty to hide.) I’ve found it’s much easier to gently lower my cat into a carrier than it is to slide her in sideways. She repositions the cushion when the carrier is horizontal again."

Or:  Blind Superman Technique - An Easy Way to Get Your Cat in the Carrier

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How Your Cat Says “I Love You”

"The next time your cat  seems to butt you in the face with the top of his head, don't get irritated, realize the loving compliment your kitty just paid you."

"Do cats love the same way humans do? “Absolutely”, says Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist. “A friend of mine says it best: cats are the masters of detached love, meaning they can seem aloof and unfeeling. They express love in ways that baffle us”.

Here, Galaxy decodes seven of your cat’s signals of love:  http://www.bideawee.org/S1-TCC-Features-cat_says_i_love_you-2363

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Salmon: The Fresh, Raw Food to Never Feed to Your Pet

"If you happen to live in the Pacific Northwest and take your dog fishing with you, or if you’re in the habit of offering raw fish to your pet, it’s important to know that your dog could be at risk for salmon poisoning disease. This is a potentially fatal condition most often caused by raw fish taken from bodies of water located from San Francisco all the way up to the coast of Alaska.

Salmon poisoning disease is caused by a parasite found in salmon and other types of fish that swim upstream to spawn. The parasites make their way into the bloodstream of a dog that has eaten infected fish, and cause damage to the liver, lungs, brain, and lymphoid tissues.

Symptoms of salmon poisoning develop in 6 to 10 days and can include loss of appetite, depression, high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, discharge from the nose or eyes, and weight loss.

Diagnosis is through either fecal analysis to detect parasite eggs, or through a sample from a swollen lymph node to check for bacteria. Standard treatment involves an antibiotic and a dewormer. Left untreated, the condition can be fatal within two weeks.

To prevent salmon poisoning disease in your pet, make sure he is supervised around bodies of water so that he can’t gobble up a piece of raw fish when no one’s looking. Also deep-freeze salmon and all types of anadromous fish for at least 7 days if you plan to feed it raw, or cook it before feeding it to your pet."  Complete article at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/10/07/salmon-poisoning.aspx

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10 Animals Approaching Extinction

"The Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep, one of three sheep subspecies, is currently on the endangered list. In the early 1900s, up to 2 million Bighorn sheep populated California and other areas of the U.S. Today, fewer than 70,000 exist."  More at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/09/27/10-endangered-animals.aspx

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Great and Mighty Things

An Amazing Fact: "The blue whale is a giant sea creature that eats tons of food a day but has no teeth, lives in the ocean all its life but breathes air, and is the largest of Earth’s animals but is endangered. It’s also smaller than the head of a pin when it’s conceived, but 11 months later it will weigh more than two tons and be 24 feet long!

For the first eight months, the mother provides its only food. Her milk is so rich that the baby blue whale can gain up to nine pounds in one hour. After that, the blue whale will grow longer than a greyhound bus. Blue whales eat mostly a shrimp-like creature called krill. An adult whale will eat one to two tons a day.

The blue whale makes a unique four-note call to signal other whales of danger. At more than 150 decibels, this call is the loudest sound made by any living creature and can be heard hundreds of miles away.

Job was a man who called on God in his despair. When his friends tried to give him advice, he said, “But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you.… And the fish of the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know That the hand of the Lord has done this, In whose hand is the life of every living thing. And the breath of all mankind?” (Job 12:7–10).
When Job felt like giving up (with no help from his friends), he wrote, “Then call, and I will answer; Or let me speak, then You respond to me” (v. 22). There is a call we can make to God in prayer. It doesn’t need to be the loudest for the Lord to respond."

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Dogs adept at reading people's minds

"To anyone who is familiar with the eerily human-like qualities of man's best friend, the news that dogs can read your mind shouldn't come as any surprise.

Dogs can interpret both human body language and general behavior, and use it to their advantage.

The latest research adds to growing evidence that dogs can interpret both human body language and general behavior, and use it to their advantage.

"Dogs and (human-raised) wolves are capable of distinguishing between a person looking at them, someone who's paying attention and someone who's not," said Monique A.R. Udell, lead author of a study published recently in the journal Learning & Behavior. "They're more likely to beg (for food) from someone paying attention to them."

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/pets/dogs/story/2011/07/Dogs-adept-at-reading-peoples-minds/49607122/1

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How Dogs Sense Emotions

"Have you ever felt that dogs can read people’s minds? Does your dog get clingy when you’re depressed or feeling sick? When you and your partner argue, does your dog go and hide?

Our dogs aren’t clairvoyant, but they do have an uncanny ability to sense our emotions. How do they do it?

At some point in history, early dogs learned to decode human nonverbal language. The better they anticipated our thoughts and feelings, the more they were rewarded with food, shelter and affection."  More at: http://www.doghealth.com/how-and-why/how-dogs-sense-emotions

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Squirrel Adopted by Mother Cat Thinks It’s a Kitten

"Emmy the cat, with a litter of kittens to care for, graciously takes on an extra mouth to feed – a baby squirrel. Now Rocky the squirrel suffers from an adorable case of species confusion!"

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Cat Adopts Baby Squirrels

"Take some orphaned squirrels, add a motherly cat, and you've got one unusual family."

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A Dozen Great Reasons to Adopt Your Next Pet

"According to a survey, 60 percent of pet owners hope to adopt their next dog or cat from a rescue organization or animal shelter.

Survey respondents ranked the qualities of a good pet in order of importance as follows:

• Personality (65 percent)
• Loyalty (20 percent)
• Obedience (11 percent)
• Other quality (2 percent)
• Purity of breed (1 percent)

According to Veterinary Practice News:

The report also revealed that nearly half (47 percent) of the respondents said their pet is like a child to them. Forty-two percent said they would compare their pet to a good friend."

A Dozen Great Reasons at: http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2011/06/02/a-dozen-great-reasons-to-adopt-your-next-pet.aspx

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On This Day:

Mountain man Jedediah Smith is born, Jan 6, 1798:

"Jedediah Strong Smith, one of America's greatest trapper-explorers, is born in Bainbridge, New York.

Smith explored a stunningly large area of the Far West during his short life. He began his western voyages in 1822, when he joined the pioneering fur trader William Ashley on a trip up the Missouri River. Unlike earlier fur traders, who depended on Native Americans to actually trap or hunt the furs, Ashley eliminated the Indians as middlemen and instead sent out independent Anglo trappers like Smith to do the job.

During his long forced halt at Dubois, Smith learned from friendly Crow Indians of an easy pass through the Rocky Mountains. The following spring, Smith and his men followed the route outlined by the Crow and discovered that they could cross the mighty Rockies almost effortlessly. Later named the "South Pass," Smith's new route was a high plain that gradually rose like a shallow ramp to provide an easy crossing of the Continental Divide. Smith's discovery of South Pass was actually a "rediscovery," since employees of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company crossed the pass in 1812 when returning to St. Louis from the Pacific. The Astorian discovery, though, remained unknown, so Smith is credited for alerting the nation to the existence of this easy route across the Rockies.

Smith's discovery of South Pass was monumentally important. Not only did his fellow fur trappers prefer South Pass to the far more difficult and dangerous Missouri River route blazed by Lewis and Clark in 1804, but the South Pass became an early 19th century "super-highway" for settlers bound for Oregon and California. Ideally suited for heavy wagon traffic, South Pass greatly facilitated the mass emigration of Americans to the Far West.

The blazing of the South Pass route alone would have secured Smith's claim as one of the great explorers of the American West, but during the following decade, Smith also explored the Great Salt Lake, the Colorado Plateau, and led the first expedition to cross the Southwest to California—all before he was 30 years old. Having lived through dozens of narrow escapes on his intrepid journeys, Smith decided to retire from his dangerous trade in 1830 and enter the mercantile business. Ironically, being a trader proved more deadly than exploring: while leading a trading caravan along the Santa Fe Trail in 1831, Smith was killed by Commanche Indians near the Cimarron River. He was 32 years old."

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Yesterday:

Yesterday was mostly a 'catch-up' day.  It was so cold that I didn't even want to brave going in to my attached garage to do laundry. So I caught up on paperwork and deleting duplicate pictures.  Also I bought some items for neighbors online, and listed some for them on eBay, too.

This morning, the power started blinking in the middle of the night, and it kept on for several hours.  It is very difficult to get this posted between the blinks which were every five minutes from 5.45.am on.  As time progressed, and the temperature warmed, the blinks became longer between outages.  At one time they even went 20 minutes, and then it blinked off again.  It is still 20 deg., and our power grids aren't used to that.

The power company said that they would have it fixed by 10.30.  It was inconvenient having to restart the TV and computer every few minutes. Even now I am having trouble getting this written, and have to 'save' every minute, as the power keeps going out.  But we are grateful that at least the lights and heat are on, as it is such a cold day.