DSM Fish Gal

The Kitties' New Cat House

Hello Internet people!  Long time, no blog.  :)  Today I'd like to share photos of the most adorable cat house constructed by my friend.  He custom-built it with used lumber, carpeted with a nice remnant.  My Kritten adores it and Bob likes to sit on top to look out the window. 

Here's a top view:

He used framing scraps along the top, which gives it a pretty, decorative look.  What a nice gift! 

My Beloved Pet

Got some bad news guys...my favorite pet rat, Grizzle, has come down very sick and looks to be in his final days.  He's been such an incredible source of joy these last couple of years and it's been a blessing having him around.  Those goddamn big chain pet stores (Petco, Petsmart, Petland) sell a good many sick animals, and that's what went wrong here: the third rat I brought home (Jimmy Bo), come to find out, had a respiratory problem that's easily spread to any other rats he came into contact with.  Didn't know at the time how common it is for big chain pet stores to get their animals from highly-questionable distributors or how common it is that they medicate the rodents with antibiotics just long enough to get them looking healthy so they can be returned to the show-floor and sold to us consumers.  Found all of this out firsthand while working part-time at one of the local pet stores last year, but by then it was too late: the rats had already been introduced.  Jimmy Bo had to be taken to the vet and put to sleep a few months back due to the progression of his incurable respiratory problems and now my Grizzle, my favorite little boy, is deathly sick with the same illness.  It's a sad shame.  I have to call the vet on Monday.

So I'm a bit heart-broken at the moment.  It's tough watching a beloved pet suffer and feeling helpless to make it better.  Rats have very short lifespans to begin with, usually 3-4 years, and I've had this little boy since he was a baby, brought home in the fall of 2007.  He's truly been a good pet (aside from me turning out to be mildly allergic), but once he's gone and my one remaining rat (Keefer) has lived out his life, that's it me for me...no more rats.  Not for many years anyway and not unless they come from reputable breeders or a rat rescue organization. 

I bitterly detest these big chain pet stores and their profit-driven carelessness and avidly boycott their stores ever since learning the truth and quitting.  To intentionally create the illusion that you're purchasing a healthy animal who instead comes home to infect your others is completely unacceptable and unethical.  What was true for rodents was also true for the freshwater and saltwater fish they sold and also the birds.  If the public only knew how many were rotated out of that backroom where they're medicated just long enough to appear healthy.  It is a crime, against the public and particularly against the pets they acquire and sell.

So...my wish is for others to learn these truths and quit purchasing supplies and pets from these big chain suppliers.  'Course no one ever does.  People only care about saving a few bucks, nevermind the consequences.  Or they prefer willful ignorance, thinking these things don't matter.  But they do matter, especially when you're the one attached to these pets and have to watch them decline prematurely.  It truly is a pitiful shame what we humans are willing to do for that all-mighty dollar.

If these were dogs and cats suffering and improperly medicated (as is the case with Petland stores), people are more likely to get riled up.  But when it's rodents, birds, and fish, people seem to think it doesn't really matter.  But it does matter. 

This household won't be the same without that little guy. 

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: