DSM Fish Gal

Kitty Photo Update

Snapped a few new photos of Bob and Kritten recently to share on here and my DSM Pets site.

Bob's the tabby and Kritten has gray and white hair.  Hard to believe there's only a 6-7 month age difference between the two since she's so tiny and agile by comparison.  He turned 2 years old in May and her birthday's coming up in (or near - unsure since she was adopted from the Animal Rescue League) November.  So cute together!    They feud and rough-house but also can be very sweet and loving toward one another.

Bob sitting pretty by himself. 

The camera focus was off and most didn't turn out, so I'll leave off with posting just two. 

Big Business and the Environment

Hi everyone!  Sorry it's been so long since I've posted on here.  Been busy tending to pets and working on other writing projects elsewhere on the Internet. 

Today I'd like to paste a section from Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed(2005) where he discusses forestry and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).  This is relevant information for anyone buying lumber from Home Depot or Lowe's or elsewhere who wishes to make environmentally-sound purchases.  I read this section over lunch today and feel it's worthwhile to share with others.

Beginning on pg. 473, here are a few excerpts:

More than half of the world's original forests have been cut down or heavily damaged in the last 8,000 years.  Yet our consumption of forest products is accelerating, with the result that more than half of those losses have occurred within the last 50 years--for instance, because of forest clearance for agriculture, and because world consumption of paper has increased five-fold since 1950.  Logging is just the first step in a chain reaction: after loggers build access roads into a forested area, poachers follow those roads to hunt animals, and squatters follow them to settle.  Only 12% of the world's forests lie within protected areas.  In a worst-case scenario, all of the world's readily accessible remaining forests outside those protected areas would be destroyed by unsustainable harvesting within the next several decades, although in a best-case scenario the world could meet its timber needs sustainably from a small area (20% or less) of those forests if they were managed well.

Those concerns about the long-term future of their own industry impelled some timber industry representatives and foresters in the early 1990s to launch discussions with environmental and social organizations and associations of indigenous peoples.  In 1993 those discussions resulted in the formation of an international non-profit organization called the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which is headquartered in Germany and funded by several businesses, governments, foundations, and environmental organizations.  The council is run by an elected board, and ultimately by the FSC's membership, which includes representatives of the timber industry and of environmental and social interests.  The FSC's original tasks were three-fold: to draw up a list of criteria of sound forest management; then, to set up a mechanism for certifying whether any particular forest satisfied those criteria; and, finally, to set up another mechanism for tracing products from such a certified forest through the complex supplier chain all the way to the consumers, so that a consumer could know whether the paper, chair, or board that he or she was buying in a store, and that carried the FSC logo, actually came from a soundly managed forest.

To learn more about the Forest Stewardship Council of the United States, please visit their website: http://www.fscus.org

Returning to the book, now on pg. 476:

Coping With Coprophagia

A pet-parent with two young puppies has been experiencing issues with her pups eating their own poo, coined "coprophagia."  Not pleasant to discuss, but how do you correct this sort of behavior? 

Tonight I decided to go in search of answers and found this article from the Pet Behavior Centre. It suggests sprinkling tobasco sauce or chili powder on feces to deter determined pups or to enrich the diet to ward against any possible nutrient deficiencies that may be responsible, notably by offering pups chunks of pineapple to aid digestion.  Here is an excerpt:

Various ways of overcoming the problem by altering what a dog eats have been advocated. These include changing the diet to one of the premium dried foods. These are processed more easily by the dog’s body before being passed and the resultant faeces are less appealing. Various additions to the diet are thought to be helpful, such as pineapple chunks, because of the presence of an enzyme that aids digestion. In many cases adding sterilized bonemeal to the diet reduces the attraction of a dog’s faeces because they are drier and less palatable. Adding 10% fiber to the diet has also been advocated as a method of controlling the problem - this can be achieved by using a bulkier dry diet or by adding fibrous material such as bran or boiled green vegetables to the normal diet. If your dog has a coprophagic habit you should discuss dietary aspects of this antisocial behavior with your veterinarian in more detail. They will also be able to exclude physical causes for the behavior, an important step if the onset is sudden, and can prescribe some additives for the diet that will make the dog’s own faeces less palatable.

Whatever the cause of the behavior it is often developed into a worse problem by the owner's response. For example their understandable dislike of their dog’s habit may cause them to rush out into their yard with spade in hand to clear up before their dog can eat what it has passed. From the dog's point of view this may look like competition and some become so determined to beat their owners to it they will eat what they have done as soon as they have done it.

If nothing else works, hopefully it's just a phase they'll outgrow.

Kitty Loves Broccoli

This clip is too cute:

http://www.wimp.com/kittybroccoli/

lol  Had to share.