pet connection

It was a long, exhausting campaign, but Grace’s Law, which will outlaw gassing to kill pets  in Georgia, passed the state legislature just before the lawmakers adjourned for the year.  All that’s required now is the governor, Sonny Perdue, who happens to be a veterinarian, to sign the bill into law.   Valerie Hayes has watched every step of the process, and looks back on what it all means:

This day has been all about time and what transpires in that time–from the hellish half hour or more an animal struggles to survive in a gas chamber, to the race against the legislative clock, to the length of the delay between passage and effectiveness of a law, to the price of a moment’s hesitation, and to the long hours in committee. Time means everything in matters of life and death, and delays mean more suffering and a greater body count. Time also marches on, and we are headed inexorably towards a No Kill nation. The gas chamber ban is a necessary step towards that.

One of the weirder steps on the campaign trail was a state legislator musing on his own accidental near-death by gas and his fear of needles. YesBiscuit picks up the tail, er, tale.

Boil water alert in Boston critical for pets, too A break in the massive water main that supplies all of metropolitan Boston with its drinking water burst yesterday morning. Thirty communities, including the city of Boston, are under a boil-water order until further notice. The Boston Globe reminds readers this crisis affects pets as well as people. I’m grateful to still have clean water coming out of my tap, as I live just a few miles west of where the break happened.

Ike’s wild week: One of the most riveting stories in Chicago last week was about a commuter. Big deal, you say, tens of thousands of commuters go in and out of the Windy City each day. True enough, but this one had four legs and a tail. On both Wednesday and Thursday last week, a dog was seen darting in and out of traffic, seemingly on his way somewhere, on Chicago’s Eisenhower Expressway. So, when he was picked up, the cops nicknamed the little guy Ike. From the Sun-Times:

“I didn’t say anything,” said Broadview police officer Antonio Santucci, who caught the dog. “I was just hoping he wasn’t going to turn violent and bite on me.”

After hours of running, Ike had no more fight left in him.
“He was very tired and happy somebody finally got to him,” Santucci said. “As soon as he lay down in the back of my car, he fell asleep.”

Don’t you dare steal my joy: Hands down the best piece of pet-related writing I encountered this week was courtesy of FrogDog Blog.  It reminded me how our immense pride in our pets (and ourselves) can harm how we relate to others.   They’re good words to live by.

Pet landmarks around the world: Maybe you’ve been to the top of the Eiffel Tower, stood on the Great Wall of China and motored by the Sydney Opera House (I’ve only done one of those three), but have you ever seen Dick Whittington’s cat in London?  How about Balto in New York’s Central Park?  MSNBC.com tempts you to hop on a plane with an irresistible slide show of some of the world’s best pet monuments in public spaces around the world.  And just when I’ve given up air travel…

PETA’s at it again, sans shame: Just when you thought you’d seen every story illustrating how low PETA can go, they stoop even further (AP report).

Enrichment advice for parrot owners:  Best in Flock was in Ashville, NC for the Phoenix Landing Seminar last week and took great notes in a session with noted author Kris Porter on parrot enrichment.

Kris Porter started off emphasizing that it’s critical to provide choices to our parrots. Enrichment allows our pet birds to make choices. (She even cited a study that showed providing enrichment opportunities and stimulating exercise can reduce stereotypic behavior like feather plucking! That not only makes sense and jives with the common wisdom, but it’s also good to see scientific evidence backing what we’ve been saying for a long time.)

Some birds don’t know how to forage, so you may need to work up to full-blown foraging. If you make it too hard to begin with, your bird won’t know how to start (and if you make them forage for all their food right away, they’ll go hungry!).

Indecency is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, ma’am.  I’ll remember that.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

For Thursday’s news roundup, Gina will be filling in for me. See you a week from today.

Photo credits:  Dick Whittington’s Cat, Paul Segner/MSNBC.

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