best friends

a month ago, as I was walking Roux, a man on a bike kept circling back to us and complimenting Roux. eventually he asked "isn't he the best boy?" "yeah, he's pretty good" I replied. he did not seem to like this answer. he asked "isn't he your best friend?" "no" "why not?" "cause he's a dog."

my dog isn't my best friend partly because he doesn't conversate back. I don't know what he's thinking most of the time. in fact, my relationship with Roux is pretty one-sided. I provide him everything he needs, plus extra but he doesn't doesn't give me much of anything in return. he snuggles me sometimes, but I don't generally want or need that. I haven't had anything really bad happen in the last two years so I haven't needed his comfort, even if he were to offer it. (which apparently dogs are good for)

mostly tho, he's not my best friend because I have people for that. people who care for me more than for what I give them. people who may not always be happy to see me, but then, neither does Roux seem to be.

some people say their pets are their best friends because of the unconditional love. well, I don't need that either. I have human friends and parents who provide me close to unconditional love. and should they withdraw it, I should really take a good look at myself to see what I'm doing wrong. I don't need (nor want) a constant cheerleader telling me how much they love me or how well I'm doing. I would prefer someone to keep me accountable, someone who will keep me honest and good. less than that.

I may have written about this before, but I really do wonder how ethical it is to keep pets. they're mostly for our entertainment. they're little different from the animals at the zoo except that the cages are our own homes. they are expected to be obedient to us and sleep, pee, eat, play when we want them to. zoo animals can at least pee and poop when they want. as much as some would like to think that we're on semi equal ground, because we have to take them on walks, pick up their poo, provide separate meals and medications for them, we're not equal at all. at any moment you decide not to keep your pet, yet they have no such freedom. it's a little like slavery if you think about it. and how can you be best friends with someone who is so beholden to you? 

may 2020 donation

this month I donated $30 to a friend's pet food bag terracycle box campaign! so many of the things we put into our recycling bin can't be recycled, but terracycle is a company that specializes in recycling difficult to recycle products. in this case, jojo bought 3 boxes to be placed in different locations. boxes cost about $130 and cover shipping costs both ways, plus some extra.

more towels!

new count!
26 bed sheets, 7 pillow cases, 10 pillows, 11 blankets
15 small towels, 24 medium towels, 35 big towels
a dog toy, and a big bed, bath rug
3 cans cat food, hair brush, half bottle stain and odor remover 

this is all from tiffany's family!!! spring cleaning is no joke!

big thanks to ting who asked coworkers, and to tiffany who's family is doing some major spring cleaning. the two of them have collected the majority of the donations. :)

towels round up

big thank you to everyone who donated towels and more to keep our canine friends warm this winter!

together we collected: 7 bed sheets, 4 pillow cases, 4 pillows, 10 blankets, 10 small towels, 10 medium towels, 21 big towels, a toy, and a big bed!

since my coworker volunteers for the kennel club this collection drive will be ongoing, so if you ever have any items like these, please let me know :)

towels for doggos

WANTED: clean towels / blankets!
my coworker gwen is part of the Santa Ana Valley Kennel Club which collects and donates old towels / blankets to local shelters and Hemopet, an organization that does blood transfusions for dogs (surgeries, k9 units, etc)! they do greyhound rescue and adoption too! so your old towels and blankets will keep doggos and puppers warm and comfy. :) I'll be collecting thru the end of the year so please let me know if you have any to donate. thank ya!

let them eat meat

have been thinking about vegetarianism a lot lately. ab is mostly one, al is sometimes one. and both do it for ethical reasons. at cmg back in may, ashley said she became one after many years of knowing about the issues and caring about them, but not quite caring enough. one day tho, it just clicked.

when i was much younger i used to want to become a vegetarian. a fruitarian even, after a flight where the woman next to me got a special fruit only meal. back then i wanted to because it seemed cool somehow. and also because it seemed like an interesting exercise in discipline. i didn't do either tho because i didn't really care to commit and i ate at home where my mom made at least one meat dish every meal, and still later i realized that i LOVE meat. ha.

but starting maybe 10 years ago, i started becoming aware of all the environmental issues concerning eating meat. i always knew about animal rights, but they didn't really bother me much because i felt that 1. humans had evolved to eat meat and 2. nearly all the animals we eat only exist because we domesticated them for food.

recently tho, it's really starting to bother me. even the animals rights stuff. we treat our livestock terribly. really really terribly. and eating large-scale commercially sourced meat is bad for the environment. really really bad.

my parents leave on a month-long vacation later this year. i think i'll try out vegetarianism then. i probably won't be too strict on it, but i'll try much harder than i am right now. currently i'll do non-meat when i remember to, and when i feel like it. to be fair, i usually feel like it, but i very often forget. that's the problem when your convictions aren't too strong, i guess. anyway, why not now? because most of my main meals are prepared for me by my mom or even j. ...i know, i know... but let's save that ethical dilemma for another post, yeah?

ps, while vegetarian, should i come across a restaurant serving roadkill tho i'll probably stuff myself silly. it sounds gross, but here's why.

cecil the lion

cecil the lion
(yes, wikipedia, cause i'm blogging about this like a week after it happened so i can't be bothered to find an article about it from then rather than from now)

i'm not particularly against hunting; i do eat meat, after all. but lean towards the thought that hunting should be to serve another purpose than for fun or sport. good reasons include hunting for food, keeping animal populations in check, killing off animals that are obviously sick or have hurt humans previously.

anyway, regarding the actual american dentist who killed the lion. if it's true, that he didn't know that it was illegal, i don't think he should be prosecuted. it's not fair. he hired a company that promised him whatever. it's not crazy for him to assume that they would do it legally. the professionals that he hired, on the other hand, should be prosecuted. they should have known what they were doing was illegal, and if they didn't, then they're still shady as fuck because they're running a company so they should be prosecuted anyway!

pig facts

couple things i learned from matt whyman's - oink: my life with mini-pigs

a female pig is called a gilt

farmer and man talking about raising pigs. farmer tells man he that they live for six months before slaughter. man is surprised. farmer explains that "Pigs grow quickly. You don't want them getting much bigger. With boys, the taste is rich and succulent around now. But if you leave it until they hit puberty the meat can get a bit whiffy. At least that's what women say. It's called boar taint. Something to do with the hormones, but apparently men aren't so troubled by it. Can you imagine that? Sitting down for Sunday dinner with your other half, only she's gagging as you carve and you can't see what the fuss is about?" (p30)

animal tibits

all quotations take from the book by stacey o'brien - wesley the owl: the remarkable love story of an owl and his girl

"Owls are very sensitive and easily stressed... Tragic behavior wasn't unusual for owls, who are emotionally delicate, even in the wild. For example, owls mate for life, and when an owl's mate dies, he doesn't necessarily go out and find another partner. Instead, he might turn his head to face the tree on which he's sitting and stare fixedly in a deep depression until he dies. Such profound grief is indicative of how passionately owls feel and how devoted they are to their mates." (p3)

"When describing both the act of defecating and the substance of fecal matter itself, biologists prefer to use the scientific term “poop.” It’s both a noun and a verb. A popular field of biology called scatology is the study of scat, which is not to be confused with mere poop. Although technically they’re the same, we call it “scat” if we are studying it to learn something about the health and diet of an animal. When the animal has pooped on us or has ruined something with his pooping, we tend to use the term “shit,” as in, “Oh, man, he just shit down the back of my neck.” So if it’s on the ground, it’s poop. If it’s under your microscope, it’s scat. If it’s running down your neck, it’s shit." (p22-23)

"The evidence that all species of animals with a brain have emotions is overwhelming. I've observed that all intelligent animals have emotions, including reptiles, brains are less complex than those of mammals. People who work with reptiles are well aware of the risk of depression in captive snakes and lizards of all kinds. Turtles and tortoises are especially prone to it. If a snake gets depressed, his life is immediately in danger, as he will stop eating. I once rescued a snake that had to be tube fed for a year before he began to eat on his own again, after having an owner that did not provide proper stimulation for him. Snakes will also stop eating if they have a traumatic event with a mouse. Reptiles are cold blooded, meaning that they cannot control their own body temperature and are dependent upon their environment to provide a heat source. If they can't raise their temperature, their metabolism becomes so sluggish that they cannot defend themselves against even a mouse. Careless snake owners have been known to toss a mouse in with the snake and not supervise. If the snake is cold, the mouse can eat the snake alive and the snake can't respond. If the snake survives such an episode, it will have such a fear of mice that it will no longer eat. It can take up to a year of tube feeding before the snake gains the courage to face another mouse. If an animal of such low intelligence is this emotional, how much more does a highly intelligent animal feel? Even a reptile needs an “enriched” environment — and it's vital for more intelligent creatures. Animal keepers try to enrich the captive animal's life — make it more interesting — to prevent disorders like obsession/compulsion (incessant pacing in a cage is a good example) and depression." (p47-48)

"Some people feed their cats a vegetarian diet, but then let the cat outdoors (which they shouldn't, since cats are a leading cause of the decline in songbirds, after habitat loss and the continual poisoning of the environment), so that the cat hunts... to compensate for its dietary deficiency. If the "vegetarian" cat is kept indoors, he first goes blind, then dies of complications due to malnutrition." (p85)

"Most people get their appendix out before going into remote areas... What would happen if you were six weeks away from help and you got appendicitis? You'd die. It's not worth the risk, so most people just have it out." (p125)

"The most impressive experience, to me, was one involving an African gray parrot who had a large vocabulary and chattered to himself constantly. The owner was set up in a completely separate building, far from the parrot, and given a series of cards that neither she nor the parrot had ever seen. There were two cameras -- one on the parrot and one on the owner, with a timer running. Then the owner picked up a card and looked at the picture on it. It was a blue flower. The parrot, at that same time, began to talk to himself about blue flowers, pretty flowers. Then the owner picked up a picture of a boy looking out a car window and the parrot's chatter changed to “Do you want to go for a ride in the car? Watch out. The window is down. Look out the window. I am paraphrasing, but the conclusion of the experiments was that animals and humans were using telepathy." (p202)

oink!

the following reminds me of the lab-grown meat from earlier this year. julian baggini - the pig that wants to be eaten

after 40 years of vegetarianism, max berger was about to sit down to feast on pork sausages, crispy bacon and pan-fried chicken breast. max has always missed the taste of meat, but his principles were stronger than his culinary cravings. but now he was able to eat meat with a clear conscience.
the sausages and bacon and come from a pig called priscilla he had met the week before. the pig had been genetically engineered to be able to speak and, more importantly, to want to be eaten. ending up on a human's table was priscilla's lifetime ambition and she woke up on the day of her slaugher with a keen sense of anitcipation. she had told all this to max just before rushing off to the comfortable and humane slaughterhouse. having herd her story, max thought it would be disrepsectful not to eat her.
the chicken had come from a genetically modified bird which had been 'decerebrated.' in other words, it lived the life of a vegetable, with no awareness of self, environment, pain or pleasure. killing it was therefore nomore barbarous than uprooting a carrot.
yet as the plate was placed before him, max felt a twinge of nausea. was this just a reflex reaction, caused by a lifetime of vegetarianism? or was it the physical sign of a justifiable psychic distress? collecting himself, he picked up his knife and fork...

as much as i love meat, i have some problems with eating it. most of the meat we eat comes from industries which are really not good for the environment and treat the animals very cruelly. but would i give up meat for these reasons? no. and honestly, it's just cause i like the taste too much. i do think that humans should eat meat as our bodies are made to do so, but i'd much prefer that that meat come to us in nicer ways.

i don't have a problem with lab grown meat. it's a little weird. but i can get over it. what i cannot get over is a talking pig. even if i could somehow convince myself that it's no smarter or more developed than regular meat pigs, i wouldn't really believe it when it tells me it wants to be eaten. ...well, no. i'd believe it. but i'd think it was, like, brainwashed into thinking it. it's bred to want to be eaten. which is weird and unethical somehow. like taking away someone's freedom of choice. no one wants to be killed and eaten unless something is wrong with you. ...right?

mentally vegetated chicken? i'm somehow fine with eating that. probably because it doesn't think. which is weird cause all current animals do think and somehow i'm okay with eating them. ...so long as they're not talking. ...i am full of contradictions...

animal testing

fedex and ups commit to not ship research animals

yes, maybe "most invasive chimpanzee research was scientifically unnecessary" but is most non-invasive animal research unnecessary as well? i'm against testing on animals for things like cosmetics. but what's the alternative for testing on them for serious things like medicines? testing on people. and i'd much rather scientists test on animals than on people! i get that animals can't give consent, and that people can, but i also feel like most human research volunteers aren't doing it just to further scientific or medical progress or whatever. most likely, they need the money. and i don't think exploiting the poor is an acceptable alternative to testing on animals.

owls

stacey o'brien - wesley the owl: the remarkable love story of an owl and his girl

"...owls mate for life, and when an owl's mate dies, he doesn't necessarily go out and find another partner. Instead, he might turn his head to face the tree on which he's sitting and stare fixedly in a deep depression until he dies. Such profound grief is indicative of how passionately owls can feel and how devoted they are to their mates." (3)

"The evidence that all species of animals with a brain have emotions is overwhelming... People who work with reptiles are well aware of the risk of depression in captive snakes and lizards of all kinds. Turtles and tortoises re especially prone to it. If a snake gets depressed, his life is immediately in danger, as he will stop eating. I once rescued a snake that had to be tube fed for a year before he began to eat on his own again, after having an owner who did not provide proper stimulation for him. Snakes will also stop eating if they have a traumatic event with a mouse. Reptiles are cold blooded, meaning that they cannot control their own body temperature and are dependent upon their environment to provide a hear source. If they cannot raise their temperature, their metabolism becomes so sluggish that they cannot defend themselves against even a mouse. Careless snake owners have been known to toss a mouse in with the snake and not supervise. If the snake is cold, the mouse can eat the snake alive and the snake can't respond. If the snake survives such an episode, it will have such a fear of mice that it will no longer eat. It can take up to a year of tube feeding before the snake against the courage to face another mouse...

"Lack of stimulation affects brain growth... The difference between a rat with a wide variety of toys and one with no toys can be seen with the naked eye during an animal autopsy (a necropsy). The rat with the toys will have a brain just packed with ridges and wrinkles, which indicated more neural connections, while the rat with no toys will have a relatively smooth cortex because he lacked the stimulation needed to devlop neuronal (nerve cell) connections in the brain..." (47-48)

fur ban

source

west hollywood in california recently passed a law banning the sale of new clothing containing animal fur. i wonder what this will lead to. (warning: slippery slope fallacy ahead!) if we ban fur in clothing, i'm sure eventually it will lead to banning fur in other stuff: furniture, decor, bedding, jewelry, shoes... the activists are arguing that we should ban fur because it's cruel to animals. so what about stuff using leather? or feathers? there are synthetic furs and leathers, but i don't think we have fake feathers yet. and while birds do lose the occasional feather that maybe reusable, but about down feathers that go into insulating cold weather gear? there is synthetic down (which is usually just fabric filler), but i don't know that they've come up with a better insulator in jackets and sleeping bags than down feathers. (tho i know barely anything about this kind of gear so i could definitely be wrong.)

source

and other than using animal products for "non-essential" stuff like fashion or decorating, what about eating meat? you can't argue that eating meat is less cruel to animals than using their fur or skin for stuff! i doubt a whole town will ban meat tho. that would be crazy!

dismemberment

animal cookies: 1890s, england

source

originally, the "british animal crackers came in only a handful of shapes, the american menagerie boasted a circus of seventeen different creatures (though the cookie came in eighteen distinct shapes): bison, camel, cougar, elephant, giraffe, gorilla, hippopotamus, hyena, kangaroo, lion, monkey, rhinoceros, seal, sheep, tiger, zebra, and sitting bear. the eighteenth shape was a walking bear.

"although a box of animal crackers contained twenty-two cookies, no child... was guaranteed a full representation of a zoo... the randomness added an element of expectancy to a gift box of animal crackers, a plus the company had not foreseen. and soon parents were writing to nabisco and revealing another unanticipated phenomenon (either trivial or of deep psychological import): children across american nibbled away at the animals in a definite order of dismemberment: back legs, forelegs, head, and lastly the body."

i totally ate my cookies the same way. creepy!

from charles panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things

cow chip bingo!

this past weekend my high school band, kennedy shamrock regiment, had the most amazing fundraiser: cow chip bingo!! they tried to sell three thousand $5 land parcels, and released three cows. if a cow pooped on your land (first three plops anyway), you got money! hilarious!!

we bought six tickets total (2 split between the 6, one for chang, one for her office mate, one for me, one for rip), but we didn't win. :( chang flew down, g drove up, and ting and i went and stayed for less than an hour (cause really, watching cows shit isn't all that much fun), but we had fun naming the cows: frisky (she kept kicking!), brownie (cause she's brown, duh), and little one (she was littlier, again, duh!).

and the weekend before that ting, rip and i went to "old world" in huntington beach (like alpine village) to watch wiener dog races! it was only a dollar and about an hour long (perfect length really). it was silly, fun, and kind of... i dunno. kitschy and cute, i guess. :)

doggies!

the westminister dog show was last week. here are pictures of 102 of the 179 total breeds. when you go thru, make sure you read the dog names!!

ziggy the puli

btw, i never knew it before, but mop dogs are actually called pulis. cute!

finger puppets!

melanie of sweet melly jane makes the cutest finger puppets. well, she makes other stuff too, but i especially love her puppets!!

etsy store: sweet melly jane
prices vary

animal testing

last month i read jeffrey moussaieff masson and susan mccarthy book "when elephants weep: the emotional lives of animals." and i got to thinking... certainly lots of animal activists are vegetarians, and many of them also don't use animal by-products like leather or elephant ivory. many of them also boycott products made by companies who do animal testing. but are there people who refuse medical treatment because of animal testing? i mean, obviously some people would refuse a porcine heart valve transplant since a pig very clearly had to die for you to get your heart valve. but what about testing for diseases and stuff?

i assume that in order to find out whether or not radiation was effective for treating cancer, scientists probably first gave animals cancer, then tested to see if radiation worked, and then tested more animals to see how much radiation was too much. i'm sure tons of animals died for this. so do some cancer patients today refuse radiation treatment?


although i have practically no medical knowledge whatsoever, i feel like probably many, if not most, medical treatments at sometime or another involved animal testing. so to be on the safe side, do some people forgo all modern medical treatment?

pig in boots

this little piggie was afraid of the mud.

(thanks to chang for the link)

capybara

the cutest things ever!!

(btw, capybara? haha! sounds kind of like crappy-bear-a)

Tags: capybara