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.

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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
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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