Eideard

At a Colombian National Police base in the outskirts of Bogota, the nation’s capital, a new recruit is being trained.

This new recruit is unlike any other. It stands on four legs, has white hair all over its body and weighs slightly less than a pound. Its name is Rattus Norvegicus — but it’s more commonly known as a lab rat.

During a recent training session, trainers set the white rat on a patch of grass where they had hidden an explosive device underground. It took the rat less than a minute to find it. The rodent was showered with praise. Its trainers also gave it its favorite reward, a treat.

Though safer than a decade ago, Colombia is a country where landmines and car bombs are still a threat. Earlier this month, six people were killed by a car bomb targeting a police station in the town of Villa Rica in the southern province of El Cauca. The day before the February 2 bombing, nine people were killed and 70 were injured by another explosion in the neighboring province of Narino…

In the past, Colombian police used bomb-sniffing dogs; but the dogs’ weight would often trigger the explosives. That’s not a problem for lab rats that weigh slightly less than a pound.

And according to the trainers, their sense of smell is just as good as a dog’s…

Ramirez says that the only disadvantage he can think of about using rats is their short life span.

“These animals live only three to four years, which is a relatively short period of time from a human perspective. On the other hand, they’re very prolific. They reproduce themselves exponentially in a very short time,” Ramirez said.

So far, the rats have been trained to detect seven different kinds of explosives including ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, gunpowder and TNT…

Mendez also says the rats are much more cost-effective than their canine counterparts. “With the money it takes to feed a dog per day, you can feed seven rats for seven days,” Mendez said.

The money-savings alone is enough roll this project along. Nothing makes a bean-counter bureaucrat happier than saving a whole lot of 9′s. Having obedient rats instead of lovable dogs would be a plus, as well.

Wait till he tries for the gate and cut him off!

Dog walkers who take their pets on countryside strolls have been warned that they face a growing menace from temperamental continental cows.

Hard-pressed farmers have been gradually replacing more docile native breeds in favour of the larger and more profitable – but potentially more aggressive – Limousin and Charolais.

Over the past two decades, with supermarket customers demanding ever cheaper meat, the rather more docile Hereford, Aberdeen Angus and British Friesian have started to be phased out. It means that, while walkers out with their dogs would be wise to be wary of any breed, the character of the animals they are likely to come across in farmers’ fields may be very different from what they had experienced in the past.

Bryan Jones, a former vice president of the Farmers’ Union of Wales, said the Limousin and Charolais tended to be “more temperamental, more highly strung”…

His warning came after retired school secretary Marilyn Duffy, 61, was trampled to death by a herd of cows as she walked through a field just yards from her home in Radyr, near Cardiff.

The animals involved were believed to be Friesians and Mr Jones said that in general all breeds of cattle “don’t like dogs”.

Dog owners whose pets are attacked by cows are advised to let the dog go as when let off the leash it should be able to outrun its pursuer.

Consideration of this problem is nothing new for folks like me who lives places where the law defining fences – for example – is that you are fencing something out not something in. That’s because until recently the county where I live in New Mexico was classified as open range. You don’t want cows in your front garden? It’s your responsibility to keep them out.

As for breeds like Limousin? Coming upon just a few of these critters while out on a stroll – with or without Fido – is like casually waltzing back into the days when wooly rhinos dotted the mesa tops. They are huge! I would be afraid of one stepping on me just by accident.

 
Har.

Term “service animal” mostly can refer only to dogs, now

The landmark Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 stated very clearly that people with disabilities had a right to take their service animals along with them wherever they went…

The law termed it “any animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability”….

Plenty of people have claimed to have service cats and rats and parrots and ferrets and llamas and iguanas and at least one snake…

This March … the government issued a new definition:

“Service animal means any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for the purposes of this definition.” (The new rules make an exception for only miniature horses — and then only under certain conditions.)

Just in case you wanted to know. And to ask if the new definition will create its own new challenges.

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Related Link: Capuchin monkeys as helpers

Firemen helped 17,000 animals over the period…

In total more than 2,400 cats, 2,180 dogs and 1,700 horses have had to be rescued by firemen. Crews saved 2,090 birds, including 1,244 seagulls, 159 pigeons, 57 swans and 12 parrots.

Twenty-six foxes, 19 squirrels, seven ferrets, seven badgers, ten hamsters, 15 snakes, 11 fish and seven dolphins were also rescued.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance questioned the used of resources, but the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) insisted distressed animals could pose a danger… Distressed people trying to rescue those critters pose a danger to themselves and others.

Anton Phillips, animal rescue specialist at Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “If we don’t rescue that animal somebody else will or will try to. I’ve seen people have their arms trapped in drains trying to rescue ducklings and we’ve actually had to dig the road up to get the person out.”

Some rescues were complex, especially those involving large animals, such as horses, stuck in ditches.

Others were more trivial; Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service removed a snail stuck halfway up a wall after being called out by a distressed elderly lady.

Jim Green, an animal rescue specialist, told the BBC: “The cost attributed to sending a couple of blokes down the road to help the lady and to reassure her, that was merited, and the actual problem, the snail, might seem ridiculous but it was that lady they were going to help.”

You got it, Jim. Actually, when I was a kid, I remember my father going next door with a stepladder to rescue a pair of snails on the ceiling that escaped from Mrs. Trecartin’s terrarium. She probably would have called the fire department next – if he wasn’t at hand.

The Kroger Co. is recalling select pet food packages from stores in 19 states fearing some of these products may contain aflatoxin, a toxic chemical byproduct that could be harmful to animals.

The recall involves certain bags of Pet Pride Cat Food, Pet Pride Kitten Food, Old Yeller Chunk Dog Food, Kroger Value Cat Food and Kroger Value Chunk Food, the company said Saturday.

The Kroger Co. urged customers to immediately consult with their veterinarian if their animals show any signs of sluggishness or lethargy combined with a reluctance to eat. A yellowish tint to the eyes or gums, severe blood or diarrhea are also warning signs, the company said.

Most of recalled products have an expiration date of October 23 and 24, 2011.

States with Kroger-operated stores included in the recall are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

If your grandpa is trying to live off social security, better tell him, too.

Most of these are reasonable suggestions. Mostly, they make sense and you will read them and say to yourself, “yes, that’s something that makes me happy”. And you should follow on by doing whichever will help your day – or forget about it and do whatever you really feel like doing.

Here are a couple I can agree with:

Aren’t you ready, yet?

1. Play that song you love so much. Repeat. As any preschooler can tell you, repetition nurtures pleasure. When you experience something more than once, you notice more details about it each time, thereby increasing your enjoyment. That’s why you love revisiting that jazz standard, favorite roast chicken recipe, and beloved old Woody Allen movie.

6. Look outside. Our species has spent almost all of its existence on the African savanna, surrounded by trees, water, and sky. The world in which most of us spend our time nowadays is unnatural and can corrode the spirit. Even a small dose of nature elevates our mood. But accept no substitutes..!

7. Pet a dog (any dog). You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating: Physical contact with animals works wonders. It increases the brain chemicals associated with pleasure and decreases those associated with stress. Even people without pets can get some of the effect by hanging out for a few minutes at a dog run.

Start your Monday in tolerable fashion.

I’m going for a walk with my dog.

Do you make your pets dress like you?

This week is National Vegetarian Week in the UK, the annual celebration of all things vegetarian. Taking the veggie option has never been easier for people, but what about vegetarian pets?

Jonathan Safran Foer’s recent polemic Eating Animals makes much of the contrast between our love for our pets and our complacency at the horrors of the factory farm and the abattoir. That contradiction is no more keenly felt than by the vegetarian dog or cat owner, supporting the meat industry they abhor every time they stock up on pet food.

Of course, I should say the vegetarian owner of a cat or dog. Even my preternaturally clever Border collie, Charlie – a dog perfectly capable of expressing disdain – doesn’t have the intelligence to base his culinary choices on a critique of the industrialised system of meat production. So is it ethical to impose a vegetarian diet on your pet? And for a start, is it healthy?

The health issue is simpler for dogs than cats, as dogs in the wild are omnivores whereas cats are obligate ‘true’ carnivores, getting all of their nutrition from meat…

No doubt this talk of a vegetarian dog will have many people apoplectic with righteous indignation that it’s “not natural”. They’d do well to consider whether there was anything “natural” about conventional pet food.

We’re not vegetarians nor do we endorse or comply with philosophical calls for that particular lifestyle. So, our dogs needn’t worry about either their dog food or the people food they frequently sample being altered from the course of evolution to date. That being the operative portion of my own attitude towards diet.

I consider nutrition to be best when [a] it reflects what we ate as we evolved as a species – and [b] whatever modern science informs us is useful and healthy. We advanced as a species as omnivores, eating just about anything we could catch, find, kill or uncover beneath a rock – as long as it didn’t kill us and provided sufficient energy to make it through a cold night in a cave.

Maybe it was the sound of the wind cutting through the wire. Perhaps he caught a small vibration with his keen eyes. Or it could have been a slight difference in the air’s smell.
Whatever it was, when Sarge noticed that his Marine Corps handler, Fred Dorr, was creeping down the wrong path in the Vietnam jungle, the German shepherd did something he’d never done out in the field: He looked at Dorr and barked, before taking a seat.

“When he sat down, I knew there was a trip wire. I was one step away from it,” remembered Dorr, who with his dog in 1969 was “walking point,” leading the way for a dozen soldiers. Had the hidden explosive device been tripped, “It would have gotten half of us.”

More than 40 years later, the gratitude and love Dorr, 59, feels for the dog he served with is as strong as ever. And it’s for this reason that Dorr, president of the Vietnam Dog Handler Association, drove from his Yoakum, Texas, home to be in Southern California this week.

About 200 Vietnam War dog handlers, who were trained to read and communicate with their canine partners, have gathered for a reunion. And on Saturday they’ll join an expected several thousand others for the 10th anniversary rededication of the War Dog Memorial at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside…

Washington also took notice. In November 2000, President Clinton signed into law legislation that established a military working dog adoption program. Now the dogs working in Iraq and Afghanistan will have a chance to find comfortable homes when they return from war.

For Dorr, of the Vietnam Dog Handler Association, this has been a blessing. He said leaving his partner Sarge behind, all those decades ago, haunted him…

But he now has Bluma, the war dog he adopted from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. The German shepherd, who has hip problems, looks uncannily like Sarge, he said, and having him around is a source of comfort.

“I’m taking care of an old vet,” Dorr said, “and he’s taking care of me.”

RTFA. A tale worth telling and retelling. A reminder that the bond of companionship between human and dog can be a strong as any other. Maybe more worthy.

Meet Bailey. She’s a registered therapy dog, but you won’t find her in hospitals or nursing homes. Instead, Bailey makes weekly visits to libraries and schools. She sits quietly or snuggles up to kids as they read her a book. And no, she’s not napping, and the kids don’t have treats in their pockets. She’s actually helping these children learn to read…

The philosophy is simple. Children who are just learning to read often feel judged or intimidated by classmates and adults. But reading to a dog isn’t so scary. It won’t judge, it won’t get impatient, it won’t laugh or correct if the child makes a mistake. In a nutshell, dogs are simply excellent listeners. And for shy kids or slow readers, that can make all the difference.

Kathy Klotz is executive director of Intermountain Therapy Animals, which runs a nationwide program called R.E.A.D. — Reading Education Assistance Dogs. She says there’s another benefit of reading to the dogs that she didn’t anticipate: confidence.
“A factor that we never planned for, that turned out to be really important, is that the child feels like they’re letting the dog understand the story,” she says. “They get to be the teacher, the storyteller, the one who knows more than the dog for a change. …They just blossom when they get to be the one who knows more than the dog.”

The children know they’re not actually teaching the dog, of course, but the for the kids, the idea that they know more than the dog and can share their knowledge is a powerful one. And now that volunteers are aware of that aspect, Klotz says they actively foster the idea of the child as the teacher.

RTFA. Interesting, educational details and processes at work here.

We’ve a similar program here in Santa Fe for several years. Works well and – so far – none of the local bureaucrats or nutballs have gotten in the way. All it does is keep on producing results helping kids to read.