Category Archives: environment
Dog Guides Blind Runner
This Golden Retriever Smile is one reason these dogs are so adorable. Their ability and willingness to work as aides to the blind and disabled is another.
Running a cross country race is a daunting task for anyone. But think of trying to run that type of grueling race course if you are blind. Being a blind runner would be very difficult.
Ohio teen Sami Stoner doesn’t let a little lack of vision stop her from doing the running she loves. But she can’t take all the credit for putting herself in the races, her Guide dog named Chloe gets credit for Sami being in the running too. In fact, without Chloe this blind runner would have little chance of competing.
From MSNBC;
“I don’t run for time or place or anything, I just run because I love it, and I’m glad I can share my love of running with Chloe now,” says Sami, a junior at Lexington High School who’s on the junior varsity cross country team. “I love having Chloe. She’s helped me so much.”
Now in her fourth year running cross country, Sami won a waiver from the state high school athletic association that allows her to compete with a dog. The golden retriever puppy, who guides Sami through the crowded hallways at school, also takes her safely through the running trails of Ohio.
“She watches out for roots and she tries to pick the clearest path for me,” Sami says cheerfully. “The ways she moves, I can feel it in her harness, so she has little ways to signal which way to go and what to do.”
We all need to remember that none of us us are perfect. Some of us have things that are quite evidently wrong and can be seen just by looking at us. Others have things that are wrong too, but they are not where you can see them so are not so evident.
Whether it is your body or your spirit that is less than whole, the thing we must all remember is we need to just find a way to work through and around our disabilities. Help will come to us when we least expect it and in ways we never imagined.
Chloe is a working dog and does her work extremely well. Watch for dogs like Chloe and give them and their people room to get past. Remember not to try to engage the dog or pet them unless you clear it with the person the dog is guiding or aiding. When these dogs are working, their focus is entirely on the job at hand and they don’t need outside interference from people wanting to pet them, give them treats or divert their attention in any other way.
A Sleeping Dormouse Snores
Photo from Wikimedia Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Remember reading about the dormouse at Alice’s un-birthday party in Wonderland? Or did you happen to see the dormouse at that party popping out of a teapot in the film? Last question, did you ever wonder what the heck a dormouse was?
From Wikipedia;
Dormice are small for rodents, with a body length of between 6 and 19 cm (2.4 and 7.5 in), and weighing between 15 and 200 g (0.53 and 7.1 oz). They are generally mouse-like in appearance, but with furred, rather than scaly tails. They are largely but not exclusively arboreal animals, and are agile and well adapted to climbing. Most species are nocturnal. Dormice have an excellent sense of hearing, and signal each other with a variety of vocalisations.
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One of the most notable characteristics of those dormice that live in temperate zones is hibernation. Dormice can hibernate six months out of the year, or even longer if the weather remains sufficiently cool, sometimes waking for brief periods to eat food they had previously stored nearby. During the summer, they accumulate fat in their bodies, to nourish them through the hibernation period.
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Dormice breed once or maybe twice a year, producing litters with an average of four young after a gestation period of 21-32 days. They can live for as long as five years. The young are born hairless, and helpless, and their eyes do not open until about eighteen days after birth. They typically become sexually mature after the end of their first hibernation. Dormice live in small family groups, with home ranges that vary widely between species, and depending on the availability of food
If the Dormouse comes out of hibernation and finds there is a lack of food for his neighborhood or the weather is cold and wet, he will curl up into a ball and go to sleep. This is called torpor which is like a shorter hibernation.
Altogether the Dormouse spends most of its life sleeping in either hibernation in winter or torpor in summer. They make nests under vegetation where they live and sleep the winter away then rouse in the nicer weather to have a family before back to sleep for them.
The Hazel Dormouse which is pictured above this post is the only Dormouse that is native to The British Isles and is the animal referred to most frequently when the British use the term Dormouse. The Hazel Dormouse is a European Protected Species protected in the UK by The Wildlife and Countryside Act.
Now to see a Dormouse do what it does best…sleep. Plus it turns out this particular Dormouse snores very loudly. He is resting in the hand of the zookeeper who found him and he doesn’t appear to have a care in the world.
I can’t speak for anybody else, but that is about the cutest little Dormouse I have ever seen. Of course, in truth I have to say I haven’t seen that many. That doesn’t matter. he is still the cutest.
Squeeeel!, Baby Leopards
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. From Wikimedia Commons Photo by Nancy Vandermey of EFBC"s Feline Conservation Center, Rosamond CA http://www.wildcatzoo.org
Big cats have very possibly the cutest babies of all in the animal kingdom. However, baby wolves, polar bears, all other bears, all other canines….Well, you get it. They are really all cute.
I don’t know, it is just something with the big cats that intrigues me and makes me squeeeel. The little guys in the video below aren’t doing anything but sleeping. They still turn me to mush. These baby leopards are completely huggable and kissable. They are almost too cute for humans to see.
Man, I know these are not pets and shouldn’t be, but I would really love to be around them anyway. Then again, wouldn’t everybody?
Here is the description from the video;
2-month-old clouded leopard cubs Taji and Sumalee take a nap after their morning feed. These cubs were born June 14, 2011 at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, WA.
Here’s the video.
Now tell me you didn’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling watching these guys. The other great thing is they are increasing the number of this endangered species, so its a twofer.
Cat Survives Gas Chamber Twice
I'm not supposed to scratch or bite my boo-boo, but it really, really ITCHES!
Sometimes I feel sorry for myself. Just now I was sad for me because my family is down with a terrible flu. We have been sick since my birthday which was New Years Day.
To make a long story short, I thought I deserved to feel sorry for myself……that is, until I read about a plucky little cat who refused to die when people tried to execute her in a gas chamber.
From MSNBC;
Officials at West Valley City’s animal shelter in Utah say the cat named Andrea hadn’t been adopted for 30 days when shelter officials tried to put her to death in October. She survived, so they gassed her again.
Shelter officials detected no vital signs and presumed she was dead after the second try, so they put her in a plastic bag in a cooler. But when they checked the bag, they saw she had vomited on herself and had hypothermia but was alive.
The shelter then decided to stop trying to kill her.
“It was just one of those things where they thought this cat obviously really wants to live,” West Valley City spokesman Aaron Crim told the Salt Lake Tribune (http://bit.ly/ylvSDw ). “Let’s give it a chance to find a permanent home.”
The newspaper reports the cat has since been adopted and shelter officials are investigating why the gassing failed.
I absolutely hate the idea that animals must go through so much just to prove they have a right to live. In my opinion, this cat should not have been put in the gas chamber the first time, let alone the second go round. We simply must get to the place where no-kill shelters the rule rather than the exception in this country.
I know sometimes an animal is too sick or too hurt to save and I understand that. What I can’t understand is murdering cats, dogs and other animals just because we humans decide there are too many of them or some politician gets a bug up their big butt and decides to thin out the pet population.
Wouldn’t the money spent on murdering these innocent animals be better spent on an intelligent spay/neuter campaign and laws? If we significantly reduce the number of “unwanted” puppies, kittens and other pets, it will be a whole lot easier to find forever homes for the ones that are here. Then maybe we can junk the gas chamber thing altogether and have only no kill shelters for the few animals that get lost or have other bad luck which puts them on the street.
I am smart enough to know that most people won’t be listening to what I have to say about this subject. That doesn’t mean I am going to shut up about it. It is the right thing to do and until my last breath I will be speaking out in favor of no kill animal shelters and rescues. I will speak for those who do not speak human.
Wild Mountain Gorilla Encounter
What would you give to meet Wild Mountain Gorillas up close? I know I would be thrilled and probably very afraid if these incredible animals were actually grooming me. A Mountain Gorilla is a strong animal and if the Mountain Gorilla decides I am a threat, that is pretty much all she wrote.
Just imagine being so close to them that you could smell them and feel their fingers pull through your hair. Watch this video and ask yourself would I or could I be as calm as this gentleman was?
Wow, just wow. I think he was thinking don’t touch back and definitely do NOT make eye contact because they will think it is a challenge.
No matter what you or I or the gentleman in the video would or did think, this would be the experience of a lifetime. It could even be life altering. What a great gift from these primates to this man. All the rest of us can only imagine the thrill he felt at this encounter.