We’ll talk more seriously about the choice to go raw and how to do so without sacrificing optimum nutrition later, as well as about the home-cooked alternative, but for now I’d like to share some of the wacky adventures I’ve had while seeking out the right meats, bones, and organs to feed to Augustin. If you’re a fellow raw feeder, you probably have similar stories of your own. If you’re considering raw, here’s what you’ve got to look forward to! If you’re neither a raw feeder nor likely to switch, go ahead and roll your eyes and chuckle. It’s okay– we rawbies are used to a few laughs about the lengths to which we’ll go to get a meal for our dogs.
When a kitten is born, it is hard to believe that one of these helpless little pink things will become a graceful and powerful hunter. However, within a year, that tiny kitten will be a mature cat.
Since kittens are born blind and are completely dependent on their mothers, it is no surprise that their first stage involves little more than eating and growing. However, once your kitten’s eyes open, he will begin to explore the world around him. By the time he is four weeks old, he will be romping shakily about with his siblings. He can begin to learn to use the litter box and should start to become socialized. In the wild, a kitten’s mother will start to supplement his diet with dead mice or other small prey. You may prefer to give him some soft kitten food or some dry food softened in water.
By the time your kitten is six to eight weeks old, he is ready to begin exploring a bit further from home. If he is indoors, he will venture into other rooms, while a feral kitten will begin to follow his mother when she goes to hang out with the rest of the local cat colony. While the kitten’s mother may still bring him mice, they are no longer already dead. The kitten begins to develop his hunting abilities. Eight week old kittens are usually completely weaned and ready to go to a new home.
I receive many emails every day requesting reciprocal linking .. but when I received an email request from Ladyhawke Catherine … I thought I could do little more. There are many volunteers trying hard to get the word out about the situation in Peru for the animals affected by the recent earthquake last month .. to get more aide and support to the agencies working there. Please watch the video below and check out the links at the end of this post.
On August 16, 2007 a magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit the coast of Peru, killing hundreds and leaving thousands homeless. Countless animals have been affected by this disaster and foreign aid has been slow to arrive. A small group of trained American animal rescuers are coordinating relief efforts with the Peruvian animal rescue groups. More help is desperately needed. Visit our blog for details: www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/467590 …
If you would like to support the agencies working to help the animals and keep the government ordering mass killing or the pets and strays roaming the streets in the earthquake affected areas .. check out these site:
I have been with pets since I was a toddler. It started with my love for a stray ginger bread with a dab of cream colour scheme dog, whom I had named Tikki. He would visit our home daily to seek any piece of bread that we could spare for him. I must say, he was as punctual as a soldier. At that time we lived in a house too small to be able to make room for a pet.
As I started attending school, our meetings gradually got limited to weekends. Each afternoon the minute I would step back home, the first thing I did was to ask if Tikki was present for his daily bread. Months passed in the same routine,when suddenly Tikki stopped appearing. The second day of his absence, mom and me went looking for him in our neighbourhood, hoping to find him busy playing somewhere, praying in our hearts for him to be fine. We asked a few of our neighbours about my famous friend, when to our horror, we learnt that, he had been caught by the Municipality people who were evacuating our local area off stray animals. We approached the Municipality, but since he had been kept with other stray dogs, who were suspects of being sufferers of Rabies, a potential threat to the community, we could not get my dear friend back home with us.
Well, what is there about them you can say that is positive? How can anybody trust a creature that is born without arms or legs and smells with its tongue? Obviously, you can see I dislike snakes! For me, they just don’t seem a part of the natural order of things without the usual appendages. A friend of mine suggested that I write down some of my encounters with snakes I experienced when I was exploring the Amazon basin and the western slopes of the Andes looking for gold and I guess my first brush with mortality from serpents came about as Eddie and I were walking into Puerto Napo from camp one day. The trail bordered the Napo River on the south side and we were making pretty good time on the twelve-mile walk. The ground was slippery as it always was from the continual wetness of the vegetation and we were always in danger of losing our footing. Walking, as it were, consisted of articulating a series of slips and slides and occasional falls. Well, Eddie was in front of me when all of a sudden he fell backwards.
Thinking he tripped, I caught him under his shoulders and helped him to regain his footing, but he instantly fell backwards again and there right in front of him in the middle of the trail was a snake, half coiled and half erect and ready to strike! I had almost pushed Eddie into the snakes’ fangs! Close! Eddie shot the snake from a safe distance. We had other encounters with snakes on the eastern slopes, but most of them were on the west side of the Andes. The first occurred when I stooped over to enter a family dwelling in the village of La Concordia on the Cayapas River. We had been canoeing upriver all day and it was time to set up camp for the night. Our guide made arrangements for our accommodations to spend the night for a few cans of Tuna Fish and a pound of coffee. Barter was the preferred method of payment once you were out of civilization. We walked into the house made of Bamboo and a hardwood called “Chonta Duro”. I have never been able to translate it into English except for the “Duro” part, which means “Hard”. A log of this wood has a very fibrous core that can be burned out to form a pipe of sorts. We were to use it to bring fresh water into our camp for washing and cooking. It can further be split lengthwise to form a very durable flooring. It cannot be cut easily with a machete or axe and resists the saw on crosswise cuts. The blade of an ax will simply skip off of the wood, but I digress.
Loving and caring for a pet brings out the best in those that love their animal. Too often the love and care they give to their pets is focused just on their animal with the exclusion of human beings. If you were dating a pet owner and were allergic to their pet, the pet owner would often give you up rather than their pet. Filet mignon and choice cuts of meat is often reserved for a pet dog or cat, while others in the family have to settle for hamburgers or no meat at all. A beloved pet with the first sign of a medical problem is quickly taken to a many times unaffordable veterinarian.
Long term payment plans are always available to worried pet owners and are often used. It is seldom that a high price would keep a pet owner from giving their pet top medical care. The pet care industry is a billion dollar business, and the money spent on pet care annually in the united states is more than the GNP of most third world countries You can’t blame the many people that say:” it’s a dog’s world”, and in most cases they are right. What kind of values does a person have that thinks the well being of an animal is more important then that of a human?
The storybooks abound with tales of heroic pets, and the amazing deeds they performed to save their masters from danger, or protect innocent children from harm. The classic TV series Lassie featured the classic “heroic” family dog, seemingly saving disaster-prone Timmy from a new and horrific fate in each episode. But few of us have personally been saved by a pet, or know a close friend who has. You almost have to wonder if such hero pets are just a topic for fiction writers, or if such animals really do save lives on a daily basis around the world.
As it happens, not only do hero pets really exist, but a number of organizations even collect their stories and recognize the outstanding cases for their deeds. Readers Digest magazine has a long standing “Hero Pets” feature, including stories of dogs and cats who have roused their families in time to escape from house fires, saved children from being attacked by animals, and many other admirable feats. Purina maintains their Animal Hall of Fame for Canadian hero pets, cataloging the most admirable stories submitted each year. Their immortalized heros include a dog who alerted his owner to her undiagnosed cancer in time to successfully treat it.
REST IN PEACE: Kirby The Papillon Dog - February 12, 2007
We were watching the 2007 Westminster Kennel Dog Show on TSN tonight (instead of American Idol) which is a rebroadcast of the events of February 12-13, 2007, when they mentioned that Kirby, the Papillon died that day February 12, 2007, at the age of 16 years. You know, I recall listening to that news as a Tidbit over conversation over on the car radio that day but, it never really sunk in until the show tonight - when added and reminders of Kirby and pictures were shown.
Both my wife and myself are still feeling a little sad. Kirby was a great inspiration for us!
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