All the Creatures

Sunday, February 28, 2010

All the Creatures


Bogus horseback therapy places

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 09:54 AM PST


Damn, now I have seen first hand 2 handicapped riding places that should not be in business. The first one I found out about was almost 10 years ago. I think because of the economy it might have gone out of business, since I cannot find out anything about it since 2006. The recent one [...]

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Relaunch

Posted: 27 Feb 2010 01:54 PM PST

Watch for our relaunch coming soon!

All the Creatures

Saturday, February 27, 2010

All the Creatures


Animals seized from an animal shelter

Posted: 27 Feb 2010 09:09 AM PST


The video news story below makes you wonder how these people can proclaim themselves to be helping animals when the local authorities have to step in and take animals away from them - for the animals welfare. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always give your pet a hug, kind word or praise. After all they are around because you wanted them [...]

Border Wars: A Border Collie Blog

Border Wars: A Border Collie Blog


Multiple Orcasms

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 03:01 PM PST

Disclaimer: This post is not for the faint of heart, the prude, or those who have but a small reservoir of hope left for humanity. Rated NC-17 for discussion of perverse sexual behavior.

I could have gone with “Serial Killer Whale,” but the death of a trainer isn’t the worst take-away from the latest Orca incident: the depth of human perversion is.  Others analysts have funneled the splashy news event into discussions of how these animals are trained or the conditions of their captivity, often suggesting or battling the idea of abuse.  Are Orca’s really the premier example of a positive-only training approach?  Is it even ethical to keep them in captivity? Will this just make them more popular?

But what caught my attention is that this is the third time Tilikum has been implicated in the death of a human: two trainers and a midnight trespasser. Well that last one intrigued me: what sort of weirdo [pictured at left] would be literally caught dead with an Orca in the middle of the night?  After a little research it gets worse, the stiff was found naked, on top of the whale.  Now there’s really no innocent way to write this story given the multiple levels of intentional illegal and inane decisions “victim” #2 had to make to remove himself from the breeding pool.  One doesn’t just walk into Mordor, nor does one find himself sans-clothing in a Killer Whale tank after-hours in an amusement park.

That level of determination requires a very powerful desire, and among the candidate emotions {curiosity, reverence, empathy, lust} only perverse sexual desire is strong enough to find you dead in a tank in the dark in your birthday suit.  All the other options could be expressed in public, in the light of day, in socially acceptable ways, with no risk and the benefit of clothing.

I wish my analysis were wrong so I’d never have to write this post and my investigation into Victim #2 could have ended with hapless accident. But no, not only wasn’t this some innocent mishap, Victim #2’s family decided to sue Sea World for marketing Killer Wales as sexual objects.

09-21-1999
Killer Lawsuit Filed

ORLANDO , Fla. – The parents of a man found naked and dead on the back of a killer whale at SeaWorld Orlando are suing the marine park, alleging the dangerous orca was portrayed as a huggable stuffed toy, a lawyer for the family said Monday.

Patricia and Michael Dukes of Columbia, S.C., filed suit Sept. 10 in Orange County Circuit Court seeking several million dollars for pain and suffering at the loss of their only son, Daniel, 27, a drifter who drowned in July in a whale tank at the Florida theme park.

Attorney Patricia Sigman said SeaWorld is legally liable because it portrayed the killer whale as human loving.

SeaWorld general manager Vic Abbey said the park would vigorously fight the lawsuit.

Twenty-seven year old men don’t play with huggable stuffed toys alone in the dark without clothing.  Those toys are generally silicone and require lubrication.  If Daniel Dukes had only consulted the internet before he decided to rape an Orca in the blow hole as his final act, he would have found a ready supply of like-minded zoophiliacs willing to supply him with silicon Orca genitalia [pictured at left].  Not to miss the opportunity to make a buck off of a “tragedy,” those same wackjobs have put said sex toys on sale today to take advantage of the growing interest in Orcas that is most certainly going to follow in the wake of this non-tragedy.

Although the Dukes were represented by an attorney who now proclaims herself among the “elite” of Florida ambulance chasers, the lovely couple who gave the world Daniel finally realized that they were not, in fact, entitled to millions of dollars because Sea World failed to post signage saying “DO NOT RAPE THE ORCAS, Please. Thanks.”

Killer Whale Lawsuit Dropped
Reprinted from the Houston Chronicle

Tuesday, October 5, 1999
Orlando, Florida

The parents of a man found naked and dead on the back of a killer whale at Sea World Orlando have dropped a lawsuit alleging Sea World caused their son’s death by portraying the dangerous orca whale as safe and huggable.

“They voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit,” Sea World executive vice president and general manager Vic Abbey said. “This was a very tragic accident that occurred, but as we’ve said all along we felt the lawsuit had no merit.”

Patricia and Michael Dukes of Columbia, South Carolina, had filed suit on September 10 seeking several million dollars for pain and suffering at the loss of their only son, Daniel, 27, a drifter who was found drowned to death in July in the whale tank. Heavy intoxication apparently contributed to this untimely event.

What, you say? Such a handsome young fellow couldn’t have wanted to rape the male Orca. Surely he was just drunk and mistook the tank for a hot tub.  Well, anyone who’s been to college can tell you that 99% of sexual encounters start with alcohol and that “tub hopping” never involves breaking and entering into a guarded amusement park to get access to freezing tanks where giant animals defecate.  Sure, some of the faculty hot tubs are pretty nasty, but a little jock itch fungus is about the most lethal thing you’ll find at the end of your junk after an ill advised dip.

You see, this wasn’t the first time Daniel Dukes broke into a well secured property, removed his clothing and got into bed with an unreceptive millionaire alpha male who could kill him.

The killer whale that apparently killed a trainer today in front of a horrified SeaWorld audience was also connected to the death in 1999 of a drifter so obsessed with Ultima Online that he once wandered into Richard Garriott’s [author of the game] home.

Daniel Dukes, 27, the son of Columbia, S.C., real estate brokers, drifted into Austin, Texas in the late 90s, compiling an impressive arrest record.

The Austin America-Statesman reported at the time that the crimes included “stealing a Barbie doll, briefcase and women’s camisole from a Target store; clocking a fellow patron in the head at Joe’s Generic Blues Bar; and breaking into a home where he was discovered resting in a downstairs bedroom.”

But the crime that finally pushed him out of the city and towards his eventual death in Florida, was the strangest of all.

During an interview years ago, Garriott, creator of popular computer role-playing game Ultima, told me that it was Dukes who broke into his castle-like home in Austin in the late 90s. It’s a story he tells with the ease of someone one who’s told and retold the tale countless times.

Garriott says that the man, who he described as an obsessed Ultima fan, slipped into his fenced property, smashed out a glass door with a rock and headed to the stairs to his bedroom. Frightened, Garriott says he pulled out a gun and told the man to stop. When Dukes didn’t, he fired off a warning shot leaving a bullet hole in the wall.

Ignoring the shot, the man walked up to Garriott’s bedroom, stripped and got into bed. That’s where police found him when they responded to Garriott’s 911 call.

Their claim of SeaWorld’s implied invitation to rape an Orca wasn’t the most preposterous thing about the Dukes’ claim… the notion that they were suffering from Daniel’s loss was.  This young adult was strange, estranged, and had a record of troubling behavior that his family should have realized would lead to his death and possibly the death of others. Orcagate was just the last in a long line of embarrassments  that these parents unleashed on the world, and yet they truly felt that SeaWorld owed THEM money. Amazing.

In digging for the truth in this story, not only did I find that the most sensational and troubling aspect of this story–that Tilikum was likely sexually assaulted–had been hushed up, but that emotional and sexual objectification of animals like Tilikum is alive and well on the internet. Daniel Dukes might have missed out on the Orca dildo, but instructions on how to seduce and rape your Cetacean of choice have been proudly published on the internet for more than ten years by a “Liberated Christian” website called the Sexwork Cyber Resource Center whose goal is to “support sexwork as a legitimate profession.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

Now, it’s probably not a huge shock that if you combine a random verb with a random noun, there’s probably someone out there with a sexual fetish combining the two. The internet term for this phenomenon is called “Rule 34” which states: “pornography or sexually related material exists for any conceivable subject.”  Apparently getting eaten alive by an Orca is one example of this fetish and there are plenty of artists out there willing to provide content. If you want to be horrified, google “Orca Vore.” For those like me who had never heard of “vore” before, it’s defined:

“Vorarephilia (shortened to vore) is a sexual fetish and paraphilia where arousal occurs from the idea of being eaten or watching someone or something eating someone or something else. The fantasy may involve the person being swallowed alive, and may or may not include digestion.”

And sadly, this is only a small part of the sexualization of animals, in specific Cetaceans, that permeates our popular culture.  It isn’t just confined to fringe underground groups with unresolved issues from their childhoods, the treatment of whales and dolphins as sexual objects is rather mainstream. And no, not just in the double entendre of “Free Willy.”

We have reports of suicidal dolphins who attempt to rape divers in England.

We have articles and documentaries which detail young male dolphin gangs kidnapping and raping hapless dolphin females.

We have numerous videos of Dolphins being trained to mock-rape humans for laughs:

**
**
**

An episode of King of the Hill features Hank being sexually assaulted by a dolphin:

“Return to La Grunta”
February 23, 1999
Luanne convinces Hank to swim with a dolphin in a local country club pool, but his pride takes a plunge when the mammal tries to seduce him.

Yesterday as I used Google Fast Flip to view the most popular articles of the day, the top story was a repost of a three year old story asking if Orcas can be gay!

Even when Cetacean advocates are trying to document the institutionalized abuse of these animals from their capture at sea through to their dubious repatriations, there exists questionable sexual undertones to their choice of titles:

From “Lolita, Slave to Entertainment”

**

If you were shocked at SeaWorld’s press conference advertisement today where their director said that absolutely nothing was going to change at their facility in response to this latest incident, I’ll give you one hint at the reason: Orca sexuality.  That’s right. Besides being a rather small part of the “Dine with Shamu” shows at Sea World–a bit part (splashing the audience with his tail) that could easily be filled by one of the smaller less aggressive females–Tilikum makes big bucks by being “milked” by his trainers. With less than 50 Orcas in captivity and a huge market for baby Shamus, Tilikum’s seed is the reason he’ll likely never be returned to the wild or put down.

We can dance around this issue all we want, claim that it’s animal husbandry and not sexual, that Daniel Dukes has nothing in common with the trainer in the picture who has been “training Tilikum for artificial insemination” since 1999, that it’s conservation not exploitation, or we can wake up and ask if what we are doing to these animals in the light of day is as questionable as what has been done to them under the cover of darkness.

P.S. Whoever spent $165.00 for 12-inch replica Orca wang most certainly did not get an authentic experience.

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Friday, February 26, 2010

Scratchings-and-Sniffings


Vets Without Borders

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 07:57 AM PST

Hey-are-we-ever-going-to-get-moving You've probably heard of Doctors Without Borders. This organization travels the globe providing much needed medical assistance in war or natural disaster ravaged countries. They were on the scene in Haiti within days of that disaster.

Turns out we have a similar group of Veterinarians, Animal Health Technicians and Veterinary Students. World Vets is an international animal aid group that currently has projects in 12 countries on five continents.
 
While they are sending a team to Haiti, their model is a little different than Doctors Without Borders. World Vets focuses on sustainable relationships with partner nations. They work with local authorities, health officials and community leaders to establish ongoing veterinary aid programs in mostly developing nations. 
 
They also provide donations of much needed veterinary medications, vaccines, equipment and other supplies. They focus on communities and developing cross cultural ties between volunteers and local participants. Another big initiative is education and a focus on public health.
 
Many developing countries have problems with zoonotic diseases. These diseases can be transmitted back and forth between people and animals and World Vets helps establish programs aimed at eradicating zoonotic disease. World-vets-serving-the-entire-world
 
If you want to get a feel for what they do visit their blog. Written by CEO Dr. Kathy King, the blog is full of photos. The most recent post details the work they are doing in Loreto Mexico. It looks like they have a genuinely good time doing their good work.
 
World Vets is a volunteer organization and is funded by members and donations. The Vets, Techs and students pay their own travel expenses when they head out into the field. I think it's pretty admirable to volunteer your time and professional expertise, but to pay for the privilege goes above and beyond the call of duty. 
 
For the most part animals in developing nations don't get the level of care our pets receive. Groups like World Vets serve a critical animal health and humanitarian function. If you have a few extra bucks you can make a donation on their web site. The critters will be most appreciative. 

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Scratchings-and-Sniffings


That's One Big Dog

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 02:39 PM PST

Miles-Dr.Larry-chatting-it-up Have you heard about George the really Great Dane? He's been all over the news the last couple of days after being named world's tallest dog by the Guinness Book of World Records.

It's a pretty interesting story. Apparently, a Guinness official had to go to George's home in Tucson for an official measuring attended by George's Veterinarian among others. The title was in dispute as another Dane from California was also in the running.

George measured a whopping 43 inches at the shoulder, beating out the California Dane by a mere 3/4 inch. According to the AKC, a male Dane must be at least 30 inches at the shoulder to meet the breed standard. George beats that by one Beagle.
 
I went to George's web site and it's full of great pictures. He "sits" in a chair much like his people. There is a series of puppy pictures that I really liked. In one of them he's chewing on a raw hide and his feet look huge. I wish I knew how old he was in these photos. If I had to guess I'd say about six months.
 
In another photo they show him eating from bowls that are elevated off the ground on a little table. I found this interesting. Danes, like many other large, deep chested breeds are susceptible to Gastric Dilatation and Volvulus, or Bloat, as it is sometimes called. In fact GDV is a very serious problem for Danes in particular. The reason the photo caught my eye has to do with GDV.
 
George-tallest-dog-2
In the past, it was recommended that GDV susceptible dogs be fed on elevated platforms like the one in the photo. There is conflicting research on whether this is beneficial or not. Apparently George's vet thinks it is. For more on GDV, check out this post we did a while back.
 
There is a bag of Purina ONE Dog Food in another picture. I would imagine that is exciting for the folks back in St Louis on the Purina ONE team. George goes through about 100 pounds of food a month. My guess is that it's the Large Breed Adult Formula.
 
As we've discussed before, large and giant breed dogs need special nutrition. They need puppy diets that help control their rate of growth. That can help with developmental bone and joint abnormalities like hip dysplasia. As adults they need lower caloric density foods to help keep them at ideal weight.
 
Glucosamine can also help maintain healthy joints.
 
Giant dogs are an acquired taste, in my opinion. You have to make concessions for them. I remember thinking that every time we visited Cedar, Mike and Ellie. They even had a special van to haul Cedar around. Neither Cedar nor George would fit in the back of our Subaru.Dr.Larry-takes-Miles-to-school
 
I prefer larger dogs, myself. I like to get down on the ground and wrestle with Miles and he seems to enjoy that, too. Hugging a big dog is like hugging another person. Hugging a dog is much lower risk than hugging another human, though. We live in a real hugggy environment here in Nuevo Mexico. It seems de riguer to hug even casual friends if you haven't seen them in the last 24 hours.
 
I'm not wild about that. It seems kind of forced at times. Not so with a dog. I hug Miles several times a day.
 
I'm not sure if I'd like to have a dog as big as George. He seems like quite the celebrity these days. He even went on Oprah. His owners sure seem to be into it in a "big "way. Maybe next time we're over in Tucson I can arrange an interview with George and his people. I wonder if I'll have to go through his PR agency?

Doggie Prozac

Posted: 22 Feb 2010 08:31 AM PST

Yvonne-trans Ok, so is this a good thing, or a bad thing? According to the DailyMail out of the UK, "A dog version of the anti-depressant Prozac has been approved for sale to British pet owners."

Prozac, for dogs. Interestingly, I used to say Carmie needed some doggie Prozac, when she would not allow her lick granuloma to heal. Then, we put a sock on it and I stopped talking about doggie Prozac. When my daughter was having trouble with Twiggy, her Greyhound, dealing with separation anxiety, I started thinking about doggie prozac again...knowing, of course, that there wasn't any such thing.

I know there were and are medications you can give your pet, for separation anxiety, but most of us would choose behavior modification, wouldn't we? Or, would we (should we?) resort to the help of drugs?

According to the UK story, "Trials [of the drug] involving more than 660 mentally-disturbed pets in Europe and the US produced improvements in behaviour within eight weeks." Eili Lilly, maker of the drug, cites research showing "that as many as 8 per cent of dogs suffer from canine compulsive disorder." 

I guess that descriptive phrase: Canine Compulsive Disorder, is as good as any in identifying the issues pet owners deal with when their dogs (especially dogs, I think) suffer from separation anxiety. They note in the article that this involves dogs that chew destructively and urinate or defecate inappropriately around the house, when you're gone. Some might also vomit, pace, drool, or worse. (I don't know what the 'worse' is...they didn't go into detail.)CarmelPinkSock-web

So, I ask again - is Doggie Prozac a good thing or not? Would you consider this for your dog? I admit that, in the early days of Carmie's lick granuloma, I would have considered it. Not so much now. Now, I'd get to the root of the problem (we were home with her all the time, so it wasn't separation anxiety - I'm now wondering if it didn't start as an allergy and just blossom into the problem it became; after we put the sock on it, she never bothered it again)...

I'm in favor of behavior modification, and bringing in experts that can help with that, which the article does say should be part of a pet parent's approach. But, in reality, as the article notes, "Cats and dogs can be very susceptible to their owner's feeling and if they sense that they are unhappy they can become agitated or depressed." I guess, I believe that, and in believing it, would give the idea of doggie Prozac some thought - but only for a limited amount of time.

What are your thoughts? I wonder what Andrea Arden, BlogPaws Saturday morning keynote, thinks of this. Hmm....

Border Wars: A Border Collie Blog

Border Wars: A Border Collie Blog


The Mara Mystery

Posted: 22 Feb 2010 11:53 PM PST

What color is Mara? Having had the pleasure of studding out both Mercury and Dublin to Mara, the 8 resulting puppies have created more questions than have been answered.

Mara’s breeder concluded that she was a Cryptic Merle Lilac Tricolor. This is a fair assessment given that she had one chocolate-ish spot, but was otherwise much lighter, much like two of the puppies in her current litter.  I suspect that you can also add Sable. Here are some early photos of Mara which show how her coat has progressed from blonde to lilac at birth, 2 weeks and 6 weeks old:

That 6 weeks photo is pretty standard for Lilac, and you’ll notice that Mara’s nose is not black, not chocolate, but a purple color.  I believe this suggests that the Chocolate to Lilac dilution gene is present.

Also notice how Mara’s tri brown markings are blended on her face instead of solid with more clear borders. This effect appears in both her father and her father’s mother, and I believe this suggests that her tri markings are actually Sable.

Mara’s sire is “Chip” and her dam is “Flynn.” Flynn is a smooth coat chocolate dog with white piebald markings on her back and ear. You’ll notice that the white completely obliterates both the chocolate and brown tri color around her mouth:

Given the extensive knock-0ut effect of Flynn’s white piebald markings, it’s hard to judge if her tri color brown has sable elements or not.

Mara’s sire, Chip, is a blue merle tricolor, although I contend that there’s evidence of sable blending in his cheeks and on his legs:

Chip’s sire appears to be an unremarkable black and white dog, but his mother, Roxie, has quite the palette of tan points, variegated red and chocolate and stray white spots. Although this picture isn’t the best, I think you can see the same blending in the tan markings in the cheeks:

Although I’m unsure if the cheek blending is a definitive indication of sable being present, Mara’s coat is very similar to the following unrelated dog that has been identified as a sable merle; if we replace the dominant Black with Brown and add the Dilution to Lilac, I’d say the patterning is strikingly similar:

The accompanying description of the coloring fits our situation well:

In some breeds, such as Shetland Sheepdogs and Rough Collies, a slightly different version of sable exists. This type consists of brownish hairs on the back and head (even though these dogs have black pigment), and is often called “shaded sable”. On this type of sable coat, merling can be quite visible (if there is a lot of dark brown shading) or very hard to see (if the shading is lighter and not so extensive). However, the merling is usually visible at birth, so breeders will generally know if their dogs are sable merles or just sables. A sable merle will have some faint, darker brown/tan patches on a lighter base, and the merling will usually be confined to the back and head. It is often most visible on the ears, where the fur is shorter.

As expected, Mara has the darkest hairs on her ears, head, and shoulder blades; the hairs along her trunk do show the sable effect with darker tips and lighter shafts, and her puppy photos show the darker brown/tan patches on a lighter base.

All in all, the original classification appears correct if we add in sable: Cryptic Sable Merle Lilac with tan points. Genetically this is Chocolate + Dilute + Sable + Merle.