Coffee and Provocation

The Dog's Name is Carlos Danger:

An ad for Motor Master floor cleaner in Mexico features a full-frontal upward view of a dog's penis with the kicker: "What is on your floor is not always on your mind."  Link with picture goodness.  The dog, of course is a Mexican Hairless.

 

Let's Make Putin a Word:

In Russia folks now openly laugh about Vladimir Putin's famously faked "manly" exploits -- including his trophy pike which clearly does not weigh nearly as much as he claims.  How inadequate does a man need to feel to "Putin" by taking off his shirt and sending selfies of himself to the world? Can we make "Putin" a new word to describe what Geraldo and Weiner and other inadequate-feeling males are doing with the new "social media"?

 

A Hippie’s Defense of GMOs:

The article on Slate starts off:  "Let me get a few things out of the way. I'm a crazy hippie. I go to Burning Man every year. I teach yoga. I live in a co-op. For the past two years, I've been delivering organic vegetables for a local delivery service. I've been eating vegetarian for years, and vegan for the past four months. I'm also fascinated by genetics. I read every book that comes my way on evolutionary theory, population genetics, and mapping the genome. I took several classes on the subject at the University of Pennsylvania. All told, I have a pretty solid understanding of how genes work. And ultimately, I'm just not that scared of GMOs."  Read the whole thing.

 

Dog Eating Gator is Now Museum-bound:

A 12-foot North Carolina alligator that ate an 80 lb. dog was shot, and is now museum-bound as an exhibit about respecting American wildlife.

 

Rabid Raccoon Bites Hipster:

Yes, they have rabies among the raccoon population of Central Park in New York City.  Yes, it's a perfectly acceptable way to thin out the hipsters.  America is a tough country and Darwin always bats last. 

Raccoon Was Source of Transplant Organ Rabies

Back in March, health officials announced that a Maryland man had died of rabies contracted through exposure to an infected transplanted kidney.  Now it turns out the organ donor got rabies from an unreported raccoon bite.

The Plague Squirrels of Los Angeles:
The discovery of bubonic plague in the squirrel population of Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County, California has resulted in the temporary closing of all camp grounds there. Bubonic plague got to the U.S. with Chinese immigrants arriving in San Francisco around the turn of the 20th Century.  Black rats later rode out of San Francisco carrying the plague with them  to the Prairie Dog towns of the west, and Bubonic Plague has remained endemic there ever since.

A Dog Food Story in The New York Times:

Here's an interesting story about dog food from The New York Times circa 1885.  It might not be the kind of story you expect.

 

The Thor Hero Shrew:
A new type of Hero Shrew has been discovered in the Congo.  The Thor Hero Shrew is an amazing animal which, like the common Hero Shrew, has a spine so strong it is reported to be able to withstand the weight of a full-grown man on its back -- a weight equivalent to a human supporting the weight of the space shuttle.

Putting the Cat Back in the Bag:

Geonni Banner has a new blog, and she fearless and sensibly tackles the issue of what to do about feral cats.  Check it out!  Main blog link here.

Next Urban Car May Be Ultimate Hybrid

Elf may be the ultimate hybrid -- solar cells meet muscle power.
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Profiles and Precautions

Cries of "prejudice" and "profiling" tend to fall on deaf ears at a certain point, which is what has happened with airlines as brachycephalic breeds have predictably expired from respiratory distress, and as certain large game-bred and fighting breeds have destroyed plastic pet kennels and broken loose at airports.

With dogs dying and biting, some airlines have moved to ban certain breeds entirely, while others are fencing up to ban certain breeds from flying in hot weather, or to require special reinforced kennel boxes.

United Airlines, for  example, initially banned 9 breeds of dogs from flying, but now allows their transportation provided they are placed in large specially reinforced carriers.

The breeds that had previously been banned from United Airlines transportation, but which can now fly in the new reinforced carriers are: Pit Bulls Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier (aka AKC registered American Pit Bull Terrier), Ca de Bou, Cane Corso, Dogo Argentino, Fila Brasileiro, Perro de Presa Canario, Presa Canario, and Tosa (or Tosa Ken).

All but the last dog -- the Tosa -- is a butcher's dog directly descended from, or related to, dogs bred to grab pigs and cattle by the face so they can be altered. The Tosa is a pure fighting dog, though it should be said that Pit Bulls and several of the other named breeds here are often used to fight as well.

So are bans, limits and carrier restrictions  profiling and prejudice?  Or are these common sense steps reflecting the fact that not all dogs are the the same and that different dogs come with different internal codes as well as different health issues?  Should someone's theory and philosophy trump the actual experience of companies that transport dogs?  And if those companies are having those actual experiences with specific breeds of dogs, what does that actually mean?
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Retro Cool on a Motorized Bicycle

With Vets, Price and Quality Are Not Related

 

In the past, I have detailed the massive price differentials between vets in the Washington, D.C. area.  Now Consumer Checkbook has looked at prices in San Francisco area, another high-dollar area, and they write: 

How much you spend on your pet's health care will vary greatly depending on the veterinarian you choose, but you don't have to pay more to get top-quality care, according to a report in Bay Area Consumers' Checkbook magazine and at Checkbook.org.

Checkbook evaluated 192 veterinary practices for quality and price. In collecting price quotes from each practice for typical services, Checkbook's shopper-researchers found dramatic differences. For example: -- To neuter a 6-month-old, 30-pound dog, prices ranged from $84 to $862, with an average price of $317. -- To spay a 6-month-old cat, prices ranged from $70 to $648, with an average price of $285. -- To clean the teeth of a 5-year-old, 65-pound dog, prices ranged from $189 to $755, with an average price of $420. Checkbook got more than 5,000 Bay Area pet owners to complete surveys about their experience with veterinary practices they had used. They rated their vets on how well they do on 10 aspects of care, including listening/communicating, arranging to see the pet quickly when needed, being easy to reach by phone, giving prevention/self-help advice, maintaining a pleasant office and staff, and overall care and advice.

Some vets received "superior" ratings on most aspects of care from at least 95 percent of their surveyed customers, while others received such favorable ratings from fewer than 65 percent.

Checkbook found no relationship between price and quality. In fact, the lowest-priced vets were more likely than other vets to get top ratings for quality.

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Weekend reading

During the week, Dawn, a very generous reader, sent me a copy of a New Zealand magazine called Good. 



The undeniable fact that I have the most obliging and interested readers hit home for me again this week. The petition we all signed about SPC Ardmona struggling to keep Australian grown, tinned fruit and tomatoes on our supermarket shelves has gained almost 1400 signatures. I sent the

Critter Carts of Every Kind

If you can put a harness on it, you can at least pose for a picture with it "pulling" a cart. With the exception of the alligator, however, I think all of these would work, though how much cart control you would have with a hippo or a team of elk would be interesting to know.  Thanks to Melissa T. for the elk, lion team, and hippo pics!

For those interested in dog carts, see my earlier post on Dog Carts and the Extinction of Memory.
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