pets
gregladen | August 25, 2017You know of Pat Shipman at the very least because of her recent and, dare I say, highly controversial and excellent book The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction. If you've not read it, do so. But, in the mean time, another book she wrote in the same area, The Animal Connection: A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human, is now available on Kindle for two bucks.
Why do humans all over the world take in and nurture other animals? This behavior might seem maladaptive—after all, every mouthful given to another species is one that you cannot eat—but in this…
sastyk | October 5, 2012
(Athena takes her ease)
A couple of readers have asked me to describe all the people and critters on our farm - they are newer readers or old ones who know things have changed a bit but not how, so I thought I'd do a series of short posts introducing you the residents. For some reason, I thought we'd start with the cats.
The cats are the only true pets on our farm. That doesn't mean they don't have a purpose - they do, of course, the obvious pet control, but ultimately we'd have them (although probably not quite so many) even if we had no use for them. We're just kinda cat people. I…
sastyk | April 25, 2011Kurt Cobb has a very funny essay that argues that plants and animals have joined with the climate denialists to bring about the better for them "World Without Us":
The reversal of strategy began when domestic cats and dogs watched the Life After People series on The History Channel along with their putative owners. The cats and dogs then described scenes from the show to their wild counterparts. From there word swept through the animal kingdom and was overheard by many plants as well.
Life After People seemed like a utopian fantasy until some enterprising house plants realized that they might…
tsmith | March 24, 2011Over at the Worms and Germs blog, Scott Weese has a great post on MRSA testing. He notes the he's frequently asked by human MRSA patients whether their pet should be tested as well, since several studies have documented transmission of MRSA between humans and their companion animals. His first response is always, "why?"
One big question I ask is 'why do you want to know and what would you do with the results?' Sometimes people want to know their pet's status to see if the pet was the source of their infection. However, MRSA in pets is typically human-associated, and if a pet is carrying…
grrlscientist | July 5, 2010tags: The Tiger Next Door, documentary, film, ethics, social commentary, exotic pets, wild animals, large cats, Dennis Hill, streaming video
This interesting video is a trailer for a documentary, "The Tiger Next Door," the story of a man named Dennis Hill who has been breeding and selling tigers from his backyard for over 15 years. Hill's dream is to breed a stripeless white tiger -- but at what cost to the animals, and at what risk to the community?
As the film begins, Hill has 24 tigers, 3 bears, 6 leopards and one cougar. But after a surprise government inspection, he loses the license…
grrlscientist | July 2, 2010tags: AT-AT Day Afternoon, movies, Star Wars, humor, funny, satire, cute, silly, pets, streaming video
This NYC-dog-walker-on-hiatus-and-star-wars-fan loves this video! If this video doesn't make you pee your pants by the end, well, you've clearly not had enough to drink!
AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.
Music by Blithe Field Bible School.
jgoldman | June 24, 2010You can have a pet domesticated fox of your very own - from the Russian fox farm I've previously written about - for the low low price of just $5,950.
Figure 1: Isn't he cute? Click to embiggen.
Check it out.
According to the website,
Housing:
Foxes can live outside or inside.They need shade from excessive heat and rain. A bed or blanket is nice, but optional.
If the fox lives outside, the cage should have a bottom or the walls of the cage should be dug in deep enough so that the fox cannot dig a hole and escape.
Inside your house, they will snuggle on a bed like a cat.
During the…
grrlscientist | June 2, 2010tags: Pocket Piglet, pets, animals, miniature pigs, silly, cute, funny, streaming video
This video shows a "pocket piglet" .. a miniature pig as a baby. I think keeping pigs as pets ultimately ends up becoming a sad situation for both the pigs and the people, but after seeing this video, I can certainly understand the attraction that people have for keeping them in their homes -- as this pig demonstrates, they're a helluva lot cuter and smarter than either puppies or kittens!
jgoldman | May 31, 2010Zen recently wrote mentioned this study on his blog, so I thought it was time to dredge it out of the archives. Also, I've just returned from APS (see my daily recaps here here and here), and I am TIRED.
Domestic animals and their wild counterparts can be different in big ways; there can be differences in morphology (physical characteristics), physiology, and behavior. These changes may depend on spontaneous adaptations to captivity or to artificial selection pressures arising from the motivation for domesticating the animal in the first place.
One change that is often observed as a result of…
grrlscientist | May 29, 2010tags: Former NYC Mayor Giuliani, Ferrets, and Freedom, politics, NYC, NYC Life, social observation, pets, ferrets, humor, funny, satire, offbeat, streaming video
Here's another set of videos for today's Silly Saturday. These videos take a closer look at the battle between former NYC Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and the ferrets (and ferret owners) of NYC after he banned them as pets. Shortly before 911, Giuliani was awarded the dubious title of "most hated Mayor in the United States," although I am not sure it was due to his position on ferrets as pets.
In 1999, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani hosted a…
grrlscientist | May 26, 2010tags: animal adoption, pets, birds, parrots, Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, San Francisco
Image: orphaned (like the birds).
In response to an email I received on Sunday morning, I wrote a short plea for help finding homes for some of San Francisco's famous Telegraph Hill parrots. But the situation these birds face was far from clear, so I did some investigating to learn more about these birds' plight.
For those who might not be familiar with them, these parrots were made famous by the 2005 documentary, "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill," [regular people's DVD and collector's DVD] based…
grrlscientist | May 23, 2010tags: animal adoption, pets, birds, parrots, Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
Image: orphaned (like the birds).
For the last five years or more, the San Francisco peninsula parrot rescue organization, Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue, has been taking in injured or sick members of the wild Telegraph Hill parrot flock and finding homes for them. At this time, Mickaboo is overwhelmed with wild parrots. Jennifer Erlichman, the wild parrot rescue coordinator for Mickaboo is seeking homes for these birds -- I believe, but don't know for sure, that she wants these birds to go to homes that are…
grrlscientist | May 15, 2010tags: Housecat eats with Fork and Chopsticks, tablemanners, silly, humor, funny, offbeat, weird, pets, cats, animals, streaming video
Continuing this silly Saturday's housecat theme, this cat was raised by a woman who is batshiat crazy, teaching her to eats with a fork and chopsticks.
grrlscientist | May 14, 2010tags: Cat Disappointed by Own Failure, Cat Fail, silly, humor, funny, pets, cats, animals, streaming video
Just in time for silly Saturday, even housecats are getting into the act. This amusing video is a contribution from one cat and her least favorite bird friend. The caption for this video reads: " It's all been downhill since he dropped out of cat high school."
grrlscientist | May 13, 2010tags: Mouse Agility Course, animal training, clicker training, target stick, behavior, behavioral modification, streaming video
Training animals (and people) to do what you wish them to do is a vanishing art. However, there is a training method that is gaining popularity for teaching animals, ranging from rodents to whales, to perform certain behaviors on command. This training method is clicker training. Here is one example of clicker training with a common ordinary pet mouse, where it has been trained to follow an obstacle course that is truly epic in its size.
How the heck did this mouse…
grrlscientist | May 5, 2010tags: The World's Smallest Horse, miniature horses, animals, pets, selective breeding, artificial selection, streaming video
The world's smallest horse, a colt named Einstein, was born 22 April 2010 on a farm in Barnstead, New Hampshire. Just 14 inches tall and weighing only 6 pounds at birth, Einstein appears to have beaten the previous "world's tiniest horse" record holder by three pounds. This raises the question: how small can humans force horses to evolve through selective breeding? Apparently, pretty damned small, according to equine geneticist Samantha Brooks of Cornell University, who…
grrlscientist | April 27, 2010tags: The Truth About HSUS, pets, animals, animal rights, wingnuts, cults, Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society of the United States, HSUS, streaming video
The real agenda of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is to remove money from your wallet and put it into their CEOs' retirement funds, to ignore animal shelters, and to forever destroy your ability to live with animals.
grrlscientist | April 23, 2010tags: Things You CAN'T Do When You're NOT a Dog, behavior, silly, humor, fucking hilarious, streaming video
To kick off this week's Silly Saturday, here's a ridiculous look at what dogs can get away with but humans can't. (I've watched this several times and am surprised I haven't used it yet on the blog, so here it is now).
grrlscientist | April 21, 2010tags: The Truth About HSUS, pets, animals, animal rights, wingnuts, cults, Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society of the United States, HSUS, streaming video
The real agenda of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is to remove money from your wallet and put it into their CEOs' retirement funds, to ignore animal shelters, and to forever destroy your ability to live with animals.
grrlscientist | April 20, 2010tags: Eyjafjallajökull, volcanic particulate material, ash clouds, airborne-particle deposition, respiratory physiology, respiratory toxicology, medicine, veterinary medicine, birds, avian health, bioassay, anatomy, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, journal club
Figure 1: The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, photographed by a farmer in Iceland. This eruption sent massive billowing clouds of volcanic ash several miles into the atmosphere.
Image: Ãlafur Eggertsson (Newscom/Zuma) [larger view]
April is the peak month of spring migration for millions of birds, so the ongoing…