Podcasting?

It's Friday and I'm having troubles focusing on work today ... wonder why? So, I've been popping around looking at different things on the Internet. This is pretty off topic for my blog, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway. It's something I've been looking into recently and I thought I'd share about it a bit.

There are a bunch of free podcasts out there that you can download or listen live

Asshat Rant - Hoarding

I'm not going to get into too many details about why hoarding is bad - I'm sure you all already know why it's not good. I did want to comment a bit about it though. These hoarders don't start out planning to be Asshats, it's a step by step growing process they develop into.

It's not like most people get a new house and think "Great! Now I can pack it full of so many animals that I won't be able

News Reel - Puppy Mill Dogs Available

Sorry to put up so many News Reels so close together, but I wanted to post this article. It's a bit of good news and sometimes it is really nice to pass on some happy stuff.

In December a puppy miller in Meaford, ON was charged with animal cruelty, the dogs seized and the mill shut down. There were a total of 100 dogs - all were in poor condition, some pregnant, and some with young pups. The

Featured Rescue - Apollo the Dalmation

Dalmations saw a lot of publicity when Disney put out their movie 101 Dalmations featuring real dogs. Everybody wanted one. Unfortunately, this resulted in a lot of dumped dalmations in rescues and shelters the following year. This happens anytime an animal is featured in movies or TV shows. At this point, the Dalmation "rage" seems to have subsided.

Dalmations are high energy dogs and are

What do you think? Euthanasia or Surgery?

Ok, so I have a question for everyone and I'm looking for your opinions. What do you think of the ads posted by people who own a dog that requires major surgery and they're asking for money to cover it?

Personally, I would never give money to them. I wouldn't donate because you don't really know if they are telling the truth or if they'll take your money and run with it. (Yes, I realize that

News Reel - Shelters Fear Flood

Well ... better late than never I suppose. Here's an article from a Toronto, ON newspaper that talks about shelters being flooded with unwanted pets.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/589078

Don't know why they are so late to figure out that people losing their jobs will mean that they can't afford to keep their pets ...

Anyway, thought I'd share

Featured Rescue - Buddy the Bichon Frise

Good Grief it's been a while since I posted a Featured Rescue - sorry about that. Guess I got carried away with all my ranting. I thought I'd post a small dog today since I've been focusing on the big guys lately.

Here is a 3 year old male Bichon Frise. He's almost housetrained and good with kids, dogs and cats. He's located in Mount Giliad, OHThis rescue is called Thirdtyme Rescue. They look

Training Rant - Dominance

You know how I love the controversial topics! It's been a while since I posted a Training Rant so I thought I may as well put one of these up here. This one may get a few feathers ruffled.



Please feel free to post your opinion whether you agree with me or not - it's good to hear different sides of topics. I'm going to post my opinion on this topic. There will probably be many that don't agree

News Reel - Peanut Dog

Here's an interesting spinoff from sniffer dogs. This dog has been trained to sniff out Peanuts! Very awesome. Check out the article below. I had to copy and paste because the page it was on is really poorly set up and difficult to read. Here's the original page link if you are interested- it's the Denver Post.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dog has a

Rescue Numbers - Update

On December 17, 2008 I posted some numbers from petfinder listing the amount of certain breeds available for adoption. We saw an overall count of 1325 less dogs in rescue at the beginning of December in comparison to two months earlier - in October.

Again, I'll re-iterate that I'm not posting this to depress anyone, but I believe that people should all be aware of the sheer numbers we face out

Asshat Rants and Advertising Etiquette

Lets talk today a little bit about advertising etiquette. All the time, I see ads for dogs by people who seem ... well, like asshats. They may not be, but thanks to their poor advertising etiquette, they create an image of themselves to be true and utter asshats. This ad was posted to CL and I would like to use it as my example to prove this theory.
Problem Statement: Owners advertising their

Featured Rescue Followups - January

For my Featured Rescue Followups of December, both Kobe Swims and Tahne were still waiting for their forever homes. Let's follow up with them and see if they've found their special someone yet. If any of you can open your home to a rescue dog, as always, I urge you to do so.


Kobe Swims the Kelpie listed as a GSD mix
Status: Still available ... NOT adopted
Featured on December 5, 2008
Follow

Good News and Happy Valentines Day

First off, Happy Valentines Day (Or Feast of Vali - or whichever you celebrate!).

Secondly, I thought I'd let you know that the GSD I had last week went to his new home. He actually left earlier this week, but I just haven't had a chance to post it. His new family was so excited to hear that I picked them ... they were almost vibrating. It was great to see and somewhat entertaining :)

Now ...

Breed Specific Legislation - BSL

Please note that this is not a crazy rant. I want to touch on both sides of the coin here, so please take the time to read this entire post before commenting.

BSL stands for Breed Specific Legislation. BSL has become big news here in Ontario over the last few years. Ontario implemented BSL in August, 2005. See this link here to read about Ontario's DOLA (Dog Owners' Liability Act). The BSL in

Iams Links

Wanted to post these links to add to the Good The Bad and The Ugly post from a few days ago. One of the people who commented on the posting was someone who works for Iams. She kindly supplied some links for us to check out, so when you have some time, I encourage you to navigate to them and read away!



A link that shows you some Iams animal testing is done in consumers' homes

http://

Featured Rescue - Ginger the American Staffordshire Terrier

The American Staffordshire Terrier is a breed that seems to be constantly under scrutiny. This breed seems to always have bad press about them - it seems to just cling to them like a bad smell. In fact, in Ontario (among many other states and cities), there is Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) that restricts and prohibits Am.Staff owners. (I will get into BSL another day - this is a featured

RAW Foods? What's your opinion?

Yesterday's topic was fun! I'll try to find more juicy controversial topics like that soon. I was pleased to see such varied responses. I hope no-one took offense to anyone else's opinion ... remember - everyone is intitled to their opinion regardless of whether or not it coincides with your own.

It also sparked some thoughts in my head about RAW foods after I read the comments in that thread.

The Good The Bad and The Ugly - Iams

Today I'm going to blog about something different. It's been a long time since I've posted a Good, Bad and Ugly (the last was about breeders I believe) and I thought I'd put this one out there.

One of my very strong beliefs (VSBs) is that everyone is entitled to an opinion - however, everyone should be given all the information they can to be able to formulate that opinion accurately.

Please

News Reel - Remember the US Soldier and Dog?

Here's a bit of good news for a Saturday morning!

Remember the story that circulated in the news about how a US Soldier befriended a dog while serving her tour of duty in Iraq? (See original news article here) The military did not want her to bring the dog back. It created waves of protests from people, online petitions, news headlines, etc.

Well, this story has a happy ending. Check out the

Featured Rescue - Sly the Boxer ... Adopting Seniors

I read a blog posting on Lucy the White Boxer Dog's blog that inspired me to put up a short note about adopting seniors. Please check out her post here about adopting senior Boxers.

If you are thinking about getting another dog, but just don't have the time for full-blown training regime, why not consider adopting an older or senior dog?
There are many older dogs out there looking for a nice

Asshat Rant - The 12 pups of Christmas

I know I said I wouldn't post any religious things on here (and Christmas "is" technically religious - if not also commercial), but I couldn't resist. If you have issues with this, please omit the word "Christmas" and replace it with the appropriate label (example - Hannukah, Solstice, Ramadan, etc)

It's the beginning of February. You all know what that means ... Christmas Puppy Rejects! Yep -

Asshat Rant - Potential Adopters

Ok, so I'm going to go off on a limb here and tell you my current frustrations. I'm about ready to explode and I know that if I get this out, I will feel better (and if I get it out here, it won't come out to the wrong people). So if you don't want to read this rant, you don't have to, but I MUST get it out!!

Before I get started - please remember that I don't want to discourage anyone from

Featured Rescue - Zoey the Beagle

There are currently 7206 Beagles looking for homes on Petfinder. This breed sometimes has the tendency to run if they are understimulated or not fenced, which may partly explain why their numbers are so high.

Today's Featured Rescue is Zoey the Beagle. Zoey is listed as 5 yr old and from the sounds of it, will get along well in just about any situation. She's located in Toronto, Ontario.http://

News Reel - Police Dogs

This is an interesting story about police dogs. This is sort of building off the idea of different breeds getting into doing jobs (or agility) that aren't the stereotypical breeds for these activities.


http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6625698

I particularly like this quote:

A pit bull named Elliot Ness is anything but untouchable. Loving and friendly, these traits keep

Fun Loving Human Female Pet for Adoption

Sorry - this was too good so I thought I'd post it for a bit of light hearted humour today. It is cross-posted from a mailing list I'm on - I did NOT write it, but thought you'd enjoy.

Fun Loving Human Female Pet for Adoption:

Our beloved human pet seems to need more attention than we as a couple of bachelor dogs can handle at this time and we think is in need of a good home. We need our pad

Asshat Rant - Pure "Bread"?

Here's something you see VERY often in dog ads and it kills me each and every time! Have you ever seen an ad that says the dog is Pure Bread? I just want to say ... Hello! It's PURE BRED asshat! Bread is a type of FOOD - you know, like multigrain? Or whole wheat? *headdesk*

Here are a few ads and they just drive me crazy.

Here's a "pure bread" chocolate lab. She's 2, not spayed and according to

News Reel - Agility and Babies

I'm a bit down today - went looking for a good story in the news about dogs and all I could find were bad things. I won't get into detail. So, I have settled for two different articles for the News Reel today. One is new and the other is not. Thought I'd brighten up the place a smidgen


The article that is new (click for article) is about the American Kennel Club Agility Invitational (click for

Featured Rescue - Dora and Zoey the Siberian Huskies

I should post a rescue Siberian Husky today since I posted about the Kijiji BYBer. I'll post two - one a puppy since that's what the BYBer was offering, and the other an adult because they're harder to place.

Please note that Siberian Huskies are NOT easy keepers. They are difficult to kennel, hard to crate train and have to have a certain amount of exercise to keep them happy since they have so

Asshat Rant - Kijiji ... BYBers Paradise?

It seems as though they are trying to prevent CraigsList from being the place where all BYBers post. That's a good thing IMHO. There are a bunch that slip through - as there always will be.


There's a new gig in town though and for those who don't know, Kijiji is becoming a BYBers Paradise *cue music*. It's unfortunate, but true.


Today's asshat is breeding Siberian Huskies with Labs - and

Featured Rescue - Boo the Jack Russell Terrier

Today I've chosen a Jack Russell Terrier (JRT) to be featured for the rescue spotlight. JRTs are often found in rescue - I'd say it's likely because of the high energy requirements of the breed, though I'm not really sure. I know that most we see come through rescue are in dire need for obedience training but that doesn't really offer much insight.

Why is it that so many people with small dogs

Memo - Google Ads

I received an email from one of my readers about this, so I thought I would reiterate my position on this.

Just wanted to remind everyone that the ads on the page are not endorsed by me, nor do they reflect my opinion in any way. They are posted by Google based on tags and words on this blog. Any money generated by clicking on these ads will be donated to a dog related charity.

Feel free to

Black Dog Syndrome - BDS

Yesterday I posted a letter written by a shelter manager that mentioned black dogs (it was not the main topic, but they were mentioned). I said in my post I'd discuss BDS. I wonder how many of you picked that up? I wonder how many googled it?


Anyway, BDS stands for Black Dog Syndrome. It is proven fact that black dogs in shelters are overlooked more often than any other colour. Black dogs are

Article from CraigsList - Letter

I'm having computer problems today so I thought I'd just quickly post this letter. I couldn't have written it better myself. I feel the same way some days. I hope you all take a few minutes and read it. This is real and this is life. Get used to it. You know those "nasty things" I have said about BYBers and people who must breed their "Kyoot" dogs? (I've probably ticked a few people off, but too

News Reel - animal shelter to reimburse pet owners

Found this one on the news site today. This is why people don't want to adopt from shelters!! It makes me quite incensed.

Horry County Animal Shelter to Reimburse Pet Owners

Basically there was a dog that was tested positive for distemper on November 24. The shelter manager was aware of the situation, but did not tell the board of directors. The distemper spread until it became an "outbreak",

Featured Rescue - Bella the Catahoula Leopard Dog

The Catahoula Leopard Dog is one of my favourites. There are currently 1196 available for adoption through Petfinder. There were a LOT of them available after the flooding caused by Katrina, but the numbers have decreased since then.

This is Bella. She's 5 years old and apparantly an escape artist. It is reported that if she gets bored in confinement, she starts looking for ways to get out.
If

Question - What do you expect?

On the 11th of January, I posted this question - What is a dog? - and I asked you all to answer it. I got varied answers including:

- Domesticated subspecies of wolf
- Child in a fur coat
- Humans' eyes into the natural world
- Canine, opportunistic, animal, dog

Taking these above answers, I want you to think about them and consider which ones are actually in answer to the following questions -

Asshat Rant - Dog Fighting or "Activism"?

Found this little gem on Detnews.com (Detroit News). The article is called:

Police Bust Dog Fighting Ring on Detroit's East Side

The report was written first thing this morning. It is unfortunate that we see this so often in the news. You'd think that as a race, humans could grow above such things ... I started this posting as a News Reel, but it is making me think of a Rant ... please bear

Featured Rescue Followup - December

Here's the Featured Rescue Followups for the dogs in December (and one from November I missed on my last update). There is some good news and some not so good news ...


Noah the Labrador RetrieverStatus: ADOPTEDFeatured on November 29, 2008Follow link here to see blog entry.Kobe Swims the Kelpie listed as a GSD mixStatus: Still available ... NOT adoptedFeatured on December 5, 2008
Follow link

News Reel ... Flooding in Washington -- Crosspost

This was originally posted on a blog I read called Fugly Horse of the Day, but I thought I'd help spread the word by crossposting the topic. For those of you who may not know, Washington State has experienced some serious flooding this month. This has resulted in a LOT of animals without food as their owners may have lost a lot of resources (food, bedding, buildings, etc) during this time.

The

Asshat Rant - "Rescue"

I really hate to see this sort of posting that I found on CL. It makes me angry that this sort of thing happens. When I started reading this posting, I was disappointed with the new owner, but after finishing the first paragraph, I started to realize that the issues on this one is the "Rescue" in question.

This owner is trying to get rid of a 6 mo puppy who has gotten too large for the small

Training Rant - Excitement

How many of you out there have a friend that comes over and plays rough with your dogs? The friend that comes, sits on the floor and plays with toys, heavy pats, picks up your dogs, spins them on the floor, etc. Perhaps he/she comes over and begins a game of tug with your dog which may or may not be a game you allow your dogs to play? Perhaps it is a child? Or an adult who won't listen to your

Featured Rescue - Rafe and Redman the Rhodesian Ridgebacks

I find that this breed is quite difficult to rehab if under-socialized when younger (as we so often see in rescue). The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a breed that was developed for hunting Lions in a country in Africa called ... get ready ... Rhodesia.

While Rhodedian Ridgebacks (RRs) tend to be wary of strangers and a bundle of energy when they are younger, they are often quite laid back dogs as they

Question - What is a dog?

I have a question for everyone who is reading this. I hope you all respond with your opinion. I want you all to think about this question and let me know what you think your answer is. Think about it carefully ...

What is a dog?

When you've answered that, I have another question for you ... I'll post it another day :)

Campaign - Chaining Dogs

I was flipping through the CraigsList postings today and found the following campaign website:

Dogs Deserve Better

It sounded so familiar to my blog that I thought I'd put it up here. Basically it is a group that is against chaining dogs up and is working to get laws passed that prevent this.

Sounds like a good campaign. Me, I have other campaigns that I work on, but I thought I'd pass this

Training Rant - Children and Dogs

I thought I'd follow this topic up. Training children and dogs ... why do people so often forget that both need to be trained to properly deal with the other? Your dog can't truly live in freedom until they are able to be confident and safe in the scenarios you place them. Here's what I mean.

Children need to know and understand how to properly approach dogs and interact with them. They don't

Featured Rescue - Lainey the Australian Cattle Dog / Blue Heeler

When I was younger *enter cheesy music*, we had an Australian Blue Heeler/Border Collie Mix. We got her when I was 4. If you look up the breeds, both suggest not to have with children. They're probably right, but we never had an issue with her herding kids ... if anything, she mothered us. To this day, she was the smartest dog I have owned. Not to mention ... the only dog I have ever trusted

News Reel - Dog Left In Truck

Well, since my post yesterday suggested keeping a dog in a crate in a vehicle, I thought this would be an interesting post.

Here's a link to an article related to a dog that was left in a pickup truck.


What is your opinion? Do you think it is ok or not to leave a dog in a car/truck/van?


My opinion - each scenario is different. Here are some guidelines:
1 - If it is not too hot or too cold,

Asshat Rant - Senior Dogs ... Again

I'd love to send this one in an email to this guy ...

Ok so I've said it once, I'll say it again. If you have a dog that's reached it's senior years, you should keep it for the last few it'll be around!! It's selfish of you to try to get rid of her at this point and it's even worse on her - you'll likely break her heart if not her spirit. Here's an ad from a person who has an 11 year old JRT who

Ads - Quick Note

Just thought I'd post a quick note about the Google ads to the right of the page. These ads are automatically published by Google and don't necessarily reflect my opinions, thoughts or beliefs. Some are good, some are not. Take them with a grain of salt.

Training Rant - Doggie Door Etiquette

Some friends came over to visit us during the holidays and I found I was rather disappointed with their dogs' door etiquette. In fact, it was more than disappointment - it was downright frustrating. We had a 2 year old over who was frightened of dogs - I'm sure you can imagine the screams and tears. We have spent a week working with this little guy and dogs and how they are NOT scary.

Their dogs

Featured Rescue - Duke the Yorkshire Terrier

Today's featured rescue is Duke. There are currently 857 Yorkie's listed as adoptable on petfinder.com. This particular one is listed by "Safe Haven Rescue". They are listed as a 501-3(c) non-profit charity and they are located in Ohio. Here is the Safe Haven Rescue website from Middleton, OH ... for some reason, it is not linked from their Petfinder page.

Duke is a cute 2 year old Yorkie that

Training Rant ... PVC Collar?

Per a comment on the last blog entry, Rocky and Lacy found this blog and was concerned about a collar that was used on a dog (no, the blog owner did not use it, just posted about it). See picture to the left.

Yes, it's made of piping. It is approximately 36" long and the circle is about 4.5" in diameter.

This collar was found on a dog about the size of a lab. The dog was found on a highway

News Reel: Top Ten Animal Finds of 2008

Thought you may be curious ... Here's National Geographic's Top Ten Animal Finds: Most Read of 2008. You can find the full story on this link here.

10. Wildlife Park Official Arrested in Gorilla Killings
9. Colossal Squid Thawing; Hints at Even Bigger Beasts (1,091 lbs squid found)
8. PHOTO IN THE NEWS: "Extinct" Primate Found in Indonesia
7. Colossal Squid Has Glowing "Cloaking Device," Huge

New Year ... Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone. Welcome to 2009. Does anyone have any New Years Resolutions you'd like to share?

The Holiday season was good for me. Horribly busy, but good. Although I may have gained an extra 5 lbs through the last few weeks, I'm pleased to report that not one of my dogs gained that much! They of course had all sorts of treats, but they seem to have burned it off with us home.

My