Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Posted by Animals at 5:34 PM Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Need The Info?

Posted: 29 Jun 2010 10:19 AM PDT

Dr.Larry-mountains I added up the number of posts I've done on Scratchings and Sniffings over the last three and a half years and it comes to a little over five hundred. That's a fair amount of information archived right here on these pages. That's not even counting the posts by Yvonne and Tom, either.  

Some of that information might also be useful and I want to make sure that any interested pet lovers know how to dig it up.

Some blogs list all the posts by title somewhere on the blog and that's what I asked Tom and Yvonne to do, at one point. They thought that would be a bit cumbersome and suggested a search function instead. After initially balking at that idea, I've come to appreciate it. With some posts you can't tell the content by the title, anyway.
 
You'll notice the search window on the top left column of the home page. All you have to do is type in some key words and you'll get a list of posts on that subject matter. For instance, if you type in "training," you'll get several pages of posts on that topic. You may have noticed that training is one of my favorite subjects.
 
Type in the word "puppies" or "kittens" and you'll get a bunch of useful information on getting little ones off to a good start.A-lifetime-of-care
 
We've covered hundreds of diseases, too. Just type in the name and in most cases you'll get a post on that subject. Type in arthritis or obesity or even feline odontoclastic resorptive lesions (FORL for short) and you'll get several posts.
 
I like to write about socialization, too. Type that in and you'll get posts on getting puppies off to a good start on the behavior front. If you are cat lover, I've done several posts on the subject of feline environmental enrichment. I find that stuff really interesting and if you have an indoor cat it's a topic you don't want to miss.
Miles-Dr.Larry-chatting-it-up
Then there's Miles, of course. He's my real life example of the fun and foibles of dog love. Type in "Miles" and you'll get several pages of bragging interspersed with useful information and some attempts at  humor.
 
I'm way into wildlife, too. I've written lots about wild cats and wild dogs. I love Jaguars and Wolves and there's lots of stuff about these wild cousins of our dogs and cats. There's even a post on the Coati Mundi.
 
So, please use that search function and don't let all those old posts go to waste. Can you type macracanthorhychus hirudinaceus? 
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Recycle mobile phones for cash

Posted by Animals at 12:48 PM
While I was visiting a client last week I was shocked to see a bundle of mobile phones in a drawer when he opened it to pass me a business card. I asked him why he didn’t recycle some of them. To which he replied “I should really!” I offered to do a little exercise and noted down the models of the phones and went on to sellmymobile.com I use them for getting the best price for my own used mobile phones. If the client had recycled all these old mobile phones I calculated he would have netted his company around £400.00 and been able to make better use of his drawer space!

If you are a business owner the chances are you provide some of your staff with a mobile phone too, especially if you have a team of sales personnel out and about during the day. The mobile phone has become an essential part of a sales kit as it allows the business owner and customers to contact a member of staff 24/7. However if your company has downsized and made redundancies, you may have been left with a number of phones you no longer need. Why not recycle them and bring in some much needed extra cash?

Many organisations are now turning to sites like www.sellmymobile.com which promote recycling and offer cash rewards for it. Perhaps when you receive your payment you could use the money to support a charity or use the payment towards something useful for your business. With technology changing from week to week it makes sense to sell your old phones before they become out of date.

sellmymobile.com is an independent and impartial recycle mobile phones for cash comparison site you can trust, and is now the UK’s #1

When you enter the make and model of the mobile phone you want to recycle the information is put in to a database that gets you the best price available. It’s by far the easiest site I have used and its software is updated daily.
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Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Posted by Animals at 5:25 PM Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Do Pets Dream?

Posted: 29 Jun 2010 10:07 AM PDT

MyCarmie I can tell you that my pets dream. Carmie definitely chased rabbits or squirrels in her dreams. And, Wabby, well, she probably chases the ferret. Or, spends her dreaming time wondering when her next meal is. Or, maybe she's thinking about being FURminated! She loves her FURMinator!

I came across a great article in Bloomberg Businessweek titled, "Where Do Pets Go When They Dream?" and I couldn't resist sharing. The conclusion of the article is, "Pets do dream while sleeping." Which isn't news to any pet parents, of course. But, the way this was uncovered is interesting.

It turns out that our pets, dogs and cats, go through stages of sleep, also. Seems that science has discovered that we have similar hippocampuses... which is a specific part of the brain. This is responsible, I think - from what I'm reading - for the REM sleep we all experience. It's in this REM sleep that we dream in full. The article notes, "In dogs, research shows the fequency and length of dreams is linked to their physical size." Bigger dogs dream longer and more extensively than their little counterparts. This fromStanley Coren, Ph.D. who wrote, How Dogs Think. How-Dogs-Think-Stanley-Coren

One then begins to wonder, do horses dream? Horses hardly even sleep! Since they stand most of the time, and have to be alert to danger (we're talking wild horses but really, even domesticated horses rarely lie down), they can't really fall into a deep sleep. But, when they do sleep, do they dream?

And, if so... does this prove consciousness? Can we now say that they "think"? Ah, I feel a long discussion beginning. Thinking begats intelligence. Intelligence begats knowledge. Knowledge begats sharing. Sharing begats thinking. And so on.

Another article, at the Sleep Foundation, discusses sleep cycles and other animals - horses, birds, dolphins (which, it says, never sleeps completely - and can surface and take a breath while sleeping). I find it fascinating. We pet parents know our dogs and cats dream as they sleep. We watch them chase squirrels or mice, or bark at imaginary intruders. We know they are reliving some experience from yesterday, or last week. We hope they are enjoying it...and that they don't have nightmares.

But, one must wonder - if they dream, do they then have nightmares, too? And what would a nightmare look like to a dog or a cat? Hmm....
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Band of Cats

Posted by Animals at 5:26 AM

Band of Cats

Funny Cats: A Cavalcade of Funny Cats Pictures

Posted: 28 Jun 2010 11:09 AM PDT

We’ve created a cavalcade of some very funny cats that are determined to tickle your funny bone. See our previous procession of funny cats, Funny Cats on Parade if you haven’t already. These cats are crazy funny this time with all sorts...

To see and read the rest of this and many other posts then be sure to visit us at www.bandofcats.com
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Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Posted by Animals at 6:10 PM Monday, June 28, 2010

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

A Shocking Experience for Miles

Posted: 27 Jun 2010 08:05 AM PDT

Dr. Larry-headshot Poor Miles. He rarely gets a harsh word around our house. He's so handsome and intelligent, he's hard to criticize. As such, he's not used to punishment. Well, that ended last week with snake training.Hey-mom-where-ya-going

As you all know I'm a big fan of rewards based training where you reward for the right behavior until it becomes habit. Try as I might, I can't think of a way to teach a dog to avoid something they would be naturally curious about. Like a snake.
 
Aversion training relies on a certain degree of pain. According to our trainer, you want the dog to associate a rattlesnake with a really bad experience. In this case, a shock collar.
 
The shock collar is fitted with two metal prongs that deliver a jolt via a hand held controller. The trainer holds the controls and it is his job to time the shock precisely. The second Miles becomes aware of the snake is when he is supposed to get it. And Miles got it.
 
Miles-at-snake-aversion-class We did the training outside, on a hiking trail. The idea is to simulate the exact conditions where you might encounter a snake. In this case the snake being used is rendered harmless by having his fangs surgically removed. Our snake was quite menacing, despite being fangless.
 
It was my job to walk Miles down the trail on his leash until he saw the snake. Everything went as planned and as we approached the snake rose up and started to buzz. It really is more of a buzz than a rattle, for those of you that haven't seen one.
Black-tailed_rattlesnake
When the snake buzzed, Miles went on point and stared right at the source of the noise. That's when he got his shock. The force of the shock knocked Miles backwards and he ran right into a Cholla cactus; another unpleasant experience I can assure you.
 
He also let out a big yelp. I was not too happy about the whole process, quite frankly, but if this will keep him away from snakes, it will be worth it. We spend a lot of time in the mountains and desert hiking, fishing and backpacking and all that is prime snake habitat for much of the year, here in New Mexico. 
 
We'll be on a long backpacking trip in a couple of weeks and we have a really good chance of seeing a snake or two. We'll be in the same area where I saw four Blacktailed Rattlers just last month. We'll be at least two days from any trail head in the middle of the Gila Wilderness. If anyone gets bit, a quick trip to the emergency room is out of the question.
 
After the training is completed, the trainer asks you to walk your dog back to the snake to see how effective the training was. All the dogs avoided the snake on retest, including Miles. I also noticed something interesting just last night as Miles and I were watering the tomatoes. He was really scared by a section of hose that was lying along a wall looking snakelike. He looked at it and backed away cautiously.
 
Hopefully, that will be his reaction when we run into a real live one in the wild.   
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All the Creatures

Posted by Animals at 5:11 PM

All the Creatures

Unicorn - the other white meat - WTF?

Posted: 27 Jun 2010 09:19 PM PDT


Apparently a web store called ThinkGeek ran an April’s Fool joke ad poking fun at spam. Calling the product, canned Unicorn meat, “the NEW white meat.” Well it got the attention of the pork marketing people and they wrote a 12 page cease and desist letter. Didn’t they know that Unicorns don’t exist? I know [...]
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Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Posted by Animals at 5:45 AM Saturday, June 26, 2010

Scratchings-and-Sniffings

The Grumpy Old Lady Climbs the Stairs

Posted: 25 Jun 2010 09:38 AM PDT

I-am-working-here Just to make it clear - I don't do the stair thing very often. Over on Romeo the Cat's blog I shared my so effective wake-up tactic which involves getting my Mom and Tom to come down the stairs to me! (and I look just like this picture when they finally appear)

However, as you'll see when you visit Romeo's blog, I had to get creative yesterday - with his female staff member, who was visiting my Mom and Tom for some business meeting. BlogPaws stuff, they said. For three days it was, "BlogPaws this," and, "BlogPaws that," and, "Are we bringing Wabby to BlogPaws West?" (I said no but I'm not sure they were listening...I'm only going if Romeo goes.)

Meanwhile, I want to know how loud a cat has to be to get attention around here?

Do visit Romeo's blog and tell us how loud you have to be to get your staff up in the morning. Meow!
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PayDay One

Posted by Animals at 5:39 AM
You need extra money to cover rent, mortgage payment, car note or to take care of unexpected expenses? I would like to obtain funds in as little time as possible without any hassles? Sure. We all do. Like most consumers, have always been a fan of online transactions that generate immediate results quickly, you need extra money to cover rent, mortgage payment, car note or to take care of unexpected expenses? I would like to obtain funds in as little time as possible without any hassles? Sure. This argument was made online without any credit checks, no paper payday loans increasingly popular over recent years, Internet is a gift of convenience and speed when it comes to getting a cash advance personal loan, the advantage obvious to deal with a line of credit without verification, paperless PayDay One lender is that they can provide a fast loan payday. You earn your money in as little as an hour or even days, without any doubt is the most fast, easy and safe way to get your loan, and his operation is completed with discretion and There is no credit check for there are no inquiries against your credit report, solve their financial problems with security.
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Band of Cats

Posted by Animals at 5:14 AM Friday, June 25, 2010

Band of Cats

14 Funny Cat Videos You’ll Watch Again and Again

Posted: 24 Jun 2010 10:47 PM PDT

Here is a great collection of Funny Cat Videos that are very popular on YouTube with a few millions views. If you love cats and the funny things they do, you'll enjoy these funny cat videos of all types of cat antics from talking cat videos to...

To see and read the rest of this and many other posts then be sure to visit us at www.bandofcats.com

1 Cat Tree and 3 Cat Litter boxes: Unique Storage Solutions for Your Cat

Posted: 24 Jun 2010 01:46 PM PDT

Cats are typically low maintenance house pets but sometimes things like cat litter boxes and cat trees can take up space in your home or apartment cutting down on your usable space. Here are some creative ideas to consider if your space is limited...

To see and read the rest of this and many other posts then be sure to visit us at www.bandofcats.com
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Band of Cats

Posted by Animals at 5:39 AM Thursday, June 24, 2010

Band of Cats

Amazing Pencil Art: The Cat Drawings of Paul Lung

Posted: 23 Jun 2010 05:32 AM PDT

These photo-realistic Cat Drawings are the work of a 38 year old graphic artist Paul Lung from Hong Kong. Paul's pencil art takes up to 60 hours to create each pet portrait using a 0.5 technical pencil drawing on A2 paper with no eraser. In order to...

To see and read the rest of this and many other posts then be sure to visit us at www.bandofcats.com
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