pet connection

If you’re still toying with the idea of getting someone a puppy for Christmas, and you’ve found yourself looking at the choices in a mall pet-store, or clicking through a wide-ranging selection on a website, please read on. Because while our Dr. Becker previously noted that the old idea that getting a pet at this time of year isn’t the bad-no-no-not-ever-never matter some may tell you it is, buying from a pet store or a click-and-ship website is a horrible idea at any time of year. That’s because what you’re supporting when you do that is more than likely a puppy-mill, like the one that was the source of a  distemper outbreak that ended up with 1,200 dogs having to be killed to prevent the spread of this often-deadly disease.  From the AP:

An estimated 1,200 dogs at a Kansas kennel were euthanized after an outbreak in Wyoming of the highly contagious disease distemper was linked to the large-scale breeding operation.

Kansas Livestock Commissioner Bill Brown said the state started investigating the Beaver Creek Kennels near Oberlin in September after being contacted by Wyoming’s state veterinarian about distemper cases at a pet store in Cheyenne.

Brown said Wednesday that the Kansas Animal Health Department quarantined the kennel twice after investigators confirmed several cases of distemper in puppies that were being sold out of state. When breeder Jeff Fortin couldn’t sell dogs because of the quarantines, he ran out of money to pay staff members and take care of the animals. [...]  Brown said no shelters would take the dogs because of the outbreak, so the decision was made to euthanize them.

Here’s the rest. Wait, you say! Isn’t distemper preventable with an inexpensive vaccine? Why yes, it is.  But Mr. Fortin isn’t exactly the kind of person who seems to care about such details as providing medical care for his “livestock.”After all, as the same article reports:

Nearly three years of USDA inspection reports for Fortin’s kennels show violations for things like failure to keep adequate records, failure to adequately treat animals with health problems and allowing trash, junk and discarded kennel materials near large dog enclosures.

USDA spokesman David Sacks said Fortin was fined $8,795 in February 2006 for facility violations, and was issued a warning letter in March for facility violations and denying access to inspectors.

The State of Kansas has agreed to let him get back in business after six months, by the way.

A better way to spay: Writing for the Whole Dog Journal, Pet Connection favorite Dr. Nancy Kay (we like her so much we let her borrow our Dr. Tony Johnson for her blog when she was in the hospital!) looks at spay surgeries that remove ovaries only, instead of the entire reproductive system (hey, weren’t we talking about this the other day?). From the article:

When some savvy veterinarians took a fresh look at performing spays, a surgery we’ve been doing the exact same way for decades, they came up with a revised technique that accomplishes all of the objectives of the spay surgery with fewer complications.

[...]

What happens when we leave the uterus behind? Isn’t it subject to becoming diseased later in life? Actually, the incidence of uterine disease in dogs whose ovaries have been removed is exceptionally low. Pyometra (pus within the uterus), is the most common uterine disorder in unspayed dogs, and typically necessitates emergency surgery to remove the uterus.Without the influence of progesterone, a hormone produced by the ovaries, pyometra does not naturally occur. The incidence of uterine cancer is extremely low in dogs (0.4 percent of all canine tumors) – hardly a worry, and studies have shown that the frequency of adult onset urinary incontinence (urine leakage) is the same whether or not the uterus is removed during the spay procedure.

If you are not already convinced that the “new spay is the better way,” consider the following complications that can be mitigated or avoided all together when the uterus remains unscathed.

Go on … click over. It’s really cool stuff.

The wisdom of crowds? We have enough people trying to comment on this blog who are obviously being paid by one company or another to boost their benefactor or tear down a competitor to make me suspicious of any site that offers anonymous reviews of anything, from a restaurant to a car mechanic to a veterinarian. And frankly, I would never choose a health-care professional for me or my pets based even on reviews with actual names attached. That’s because too many times what others value does not match up with my thinking on priorities. Cheap and convenient seems to be what a lot of people are looking for in a veterinarian, but competence, cutting-edge knowledge and compassion is what I want. If I needed any more reason to ignore review sites when it comes to healthcare  — which I don’t, really  — I’d have found it on the VIN New Service.  In an article last week, VNS reported on negative reviews turning up on website regarding a veterinarian about the same time that a service offered to help her remove the negative comments — for a fee.  Everyone denies everything, but … well, read it for yourself.

And while we’re on the subject of anonymous commenters who aren’t representing themselves honestly, I’m guessing the sudden uptick in people swearing by so-called “anesthesia-free dental cleanings” has something to do with this, also reported by the VIN News Service.  We always attract a fair number of outraged “customers” who swear by the cosmetic-at-best non-alternative to what veterinarians do, but they usually turn up on one of these posts of Christie’s.

Sociopaths aren’t fixable: Did your head explode over the suggestion by HSUS alpha dog Wayne Pacelle that Michael Vick would probably one day make a fine pet-owner? You wouldn’t be alone. Nor would you be alone in noting that the focus  of one history’s  biggest and likely most expensive PR campaigns ever sees the addition of a dog as the next step in his image overhaul. Not because he, you know, gives a damn about animals. Oh, but he does think his daughters are being short-changed because they can’t have a dog. Mr. Vick, if it were up to me,  you wouldn’t be allowed near your children, either.

For the record, I do agree with Terrierman Patrick Burns’ assertion that shelters kill more pit-bulls than Michael Vick ever could have because efforts to reduce the numbers of pit-bulls to better match number of people who want and/or can care for these dogs have utterly failed. (Although I don’t agree with all his conclusions on how to change that.)

But you know, I gotta tell you: It’s not for lack of trying on Sick Vick’s part. He and his pals killed as many as they could, but he did have to take time out to play football.

Here’s the thing: I can actually think Michael Vick is unrepentent slime AND also think we have failed to protect many more pitbulls than the ones he owned. I’m good at multitasking!

Better care for animals and people in Afghanistan: One of my many veterinarian friends had two wishes growing up. She wanted to serve her county as a soldier, and she wanted to be a veterinarian. So she signed up to have her schooling paid for by the U.S. Army, and then put in a few year of active duty and a quite a few more in the reserves. She spent part of her military career caring for the Army’s K-9 soldiers, but a lot of what she did was public-health outreach in other countries. I thought of her when reading this article by Maj. Loren Adams, DVM, about his work developing rabies-control programs in the Kunar province, working with local veterinarians. If you don’t know about the important role veterinarians play in public health or the important work they do in our military, you ought to give it a read.

A whale of a tale … but it’s true: A hat-tip to regular reader Dorene for passing along a link to a BBC story about a dog who sniffs out whales for a living on the Oregon coast. Wonderful pictures, too.

Honda says it’s not so Elemental: Finally, the sad news that Honda has decided to stop production on the two-time DogCars.com Best In Show DogCar of the Year, the Honda Element. The 2011 model year will be its last. We shutter the DogCars.com website, and Honda ditches the Element. Coinkidink? Hmmmm. Notes Autoweek:

Rather than the Generation Y-ers for whom it was originally intended, the ute mainly appealed to 50-year-olds and animal lovers.

I’ll be 53 in a couple of weeks, and you know how I feel about animals. Guess it’s no surprise I love that vehicle! In fact, if you haven’t picked out a gift yet …

***

David will be back Monday. Send your tips and links to PetConnectionNews@gmail.com.

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Over the weekend last — and for the second weekend in a row — I hopped a Southwest flight a lot south and a little west and once again found myself in not-so-sunny Southern California.  While the previous weekend was staying with one of the puppies I helped to raise, to find out how well he was doing, this weekend just past was a trip to say good-bye to Zenyatta, the massive mare who is the retiring and undisputed queen of racing, and to check out the American Kennel Club’s National Invitational Championship, casually known as Eukanuba after its dog-food sponsor. (Aside: Check out the Daily Racing Form’s Glenye Oakford, a/k/a one of the Full Cry houndbloggers, video of Zenyatta’s arrival in Kentucky.)

My first-pass impressions of the “Meet the Breeds” booth — an idea the AKC borrowed from its U.K. counterparts’ Crufts show — triggered predictable responses. Patrick Burn, a/k/a Terrierman, was first into the fray, muttering about the canine “freaks” and the human “frauds” who show them. (To be fair, I had goaded him more than a little, sending him a picture from the “Parson Russell” booth of a trio of terrierists. “Ask any of them if they own a locator collar,” he snarled back.) Next in, Heather Houlahan of Raised by Wolves, her wrath prompted by the image of a smiling Leonberger. The Leo, like the border collie and others, is a breed that was “recognized” by the AKC over the intense objections of many of its breeders, who (quite rightfully) saw the move as a money-grab by an ailing organization that (quite accurately) has shown itself an institutional supporter of puppy-mills and a lip-service advocate for better canine health.

Thereafter followed “discussion” that mostly consisted of the desire to see the American Kennel Club bombed into tiny fragments, the pieces then bulldozed into a very deep pit  and covered with concrete. Seriously, if you think PETA hates the AKC, you haven’t listened to non-AKC breed advocates. Funny thing is, except for the bombing, bulldozing and cement-covering bits, I agree with these non-AKC breed advocates. The AKC, instead of changing its game to actually be what it pretends to be (‘the dogs’ champion”), is instead doubling down on the same bad bet that has plunged it into a state of financial retreat and increasing irrelevance.

But if you don’t want to toss all the reputable, ethical breed advocates who are more or less forced to work within the confines of the American Kennel Club, how can that organization be changed to do what’s right?

Mind you, I’m also not sure it can be. One need only look at the AKC/Eukanuba link at the top to see what the problem is: The marque event is the beauty pageant. You have to navigate back to the AKC home page to find information on the ugly stepchild championships, agility and obedience, that were also in the convention center (agility in the corner, obedience in the attic). And while I have put show championships on my dogs, it’s sort of because I have to do so  to be considered “reputable,” not least of which is by my county, which will not recognize my boy retriever’s hunting work as an acceptable excuse to allow him to keep his testicles under the breeding ban but happily considers his show championship as sign of his value to the future of his breed.

Believe me, I’m far happier with Woody’s ability to mark where a game bird falls, crash through cover and swim through anything to get there, locate the bird with his nose and bring it back than I ever could be with a few people’s opinion on how he trots around a show ring. Sadly, I’m forced to play the cards I’m dealt here.

As has been pointed out in discussions here many times, the fix is pretty easy for working dogs: No “beauty” titles without proving working ability. Throw in a well-planned outcross program to break genetic bottlenecks that make many breeds (including mine) tragically predisposed to cancer or other health disasters and ban “stud of the month” popularity-contest inbreeding and there you go. A performance requirement, along with a change in the beauty blueprint that is the breed standard, after all, would deny championships to the worst excesses of fashion in breeds that previously were working dogs, eliminating, for example, the shameful low-slung disaster that is the AKC’s show-quality German Shepherd Dog. (I tried to get pictures of these dogs walking on their rear heels instead of their toes at the show, but the light a ringside was just too dim.  And I was retching, which didn’t help.)

Other working breeds haven’t strayed as far afield. Aside from the cancer in flatcoats (and note: that’s one big hairy and completely unacceptable aside) you’ve still got a pretty damn good retriever, a great companion for an active home that can still do not only the work for which is was developed — hunting — but also excel at modern dog sport such as agility. (Above is my friend Teresa Rodney and her dog Sprint, who is my dog McKenzie’s littermate. T-Rod and Sprinty are world-class agility competitors, and at the AKC Invitational they blasted to second place in the most competitive division, a split second away from taking it all. Thanks to our mutual friend Debbie Best for the picture.)

But what do you do with a breed that has been developed for companionship only, like the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel? Or a breed whose purpose has long ago disappeared, like the Bulldog, a breed so utterly and completely destroyed by fashion that last summer at the American Veterinary Medical Association conference, I listened to a presentation where a top specialist said the only way to offer Bulldogs (and Pugs, too) a shot at a life not full of oxygen-deprived, overheated misery is to have their nostrils surgically widened and their soft palates clipped at the time they’re in for a spay or neuter, before the age of one year.  Otherwise, noted the veterinarian, many will have to be euthanized young when the build up of scar tissue from their struggles to breathe finally blocks their ability to do so. If, that is, they haven’t dropped dead from overexertion already from walking around the block on a mildly warm day. Folks, if breeding for an appearance not compatible with breathing or walking isn’t animal cruelty, it’s hard to imagine what would be.

Every time this topic  comes up here people with working dogs advise going to someone who breeds working dogs if you want a puppy from a certain breed or another. But as regular commenter Lis points out, where does that leave people who want a companion breed? Where do they go? And how can we fix breeds who have no working standard?

And more to the point: Is it possible to fix the American Kennel Club to force those fixes?

Sometimes I’m in the “blow ‘em up” crowd. Othertimes I’m not. Today … I don’t know. You?

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Usually it’s our Dr. Becker who’s on the road all the time, but lately it seems as if the travel bug has infected more of the PetConnection blog staff. Over the weekend, I think more of us were gone than were at home.

Not me, though. I traveled more in October than I think I’ve ever traveled in a given month in my life, and was all set to be on the road for a third trip over the past weekend when I came home from Trip No. 2 to find my 14-year-old Sheltie Drew in the hospital with pneumonia. I’m happy to say that he’s feeling good enough a week later to high-tail it when he thinks I’m about to “pill” him.

That’s a lot better than he was 10 days ago, but it’s going to be a while yet before he’s all better, I suspect. Pneumonia’s rough on anyone, but even harder on the elderly.

While I was disappointed to skip the last trip of the month, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have enough work to fill my days. And with David one of the folks on the road, I’m happy to do the newswrap …

Rescues that need rescuing: No news to anyone that people have been struggling the last couple of years, since the collapse of the housing market at the end of the last administration triggered the worst economic melt-down since the Great Depression. That means a lot of animals have ended up in shelters and rescues as their owners have lost their homes. But that also means a lot of these well-meaning groups have taken on more than they can handle.

In a coffeehouse in Columbus, Ohio, a couple weeks ago, I sat with three of my friends, Amy Suggars, Mary Cvetan and Heather Houlahan, all active in pet rescue, and talked about what to do with shelter and rescue groups that seem to careen from one crisis to the next with no plan to correct the situation long-term. And that’s the subject of a very thoughtful post from the blog of the German Wirehaired Pointers rescue group, whose Mary Murray is a regular commenter on this blog. She writes:

A rescue must be willing to provide services that will benefit the animal and make them more adoptable, spay/neuter, medical tests, microchipping, leash training, crate training, obedience work. The rescue must do their very best to provide a healthy pet to their adopters, and disclose any potential problems with solutions and volunteer intervention if needed if a problem does arise.

A rescue must think with their head, and not their heart….as this is difficult at times, many times I have seen the “road to hell was paved with good intentions.”

A rescue must not work within a panic mode, but a logic mode.

There’s more, and it’s well worth reading.

My friend Miz, another regular commenter here, puts her heart and soul into running a German Shepherd rescue in one of the hardest hit areas of the country. I have learned an incredible amount from her about what it takes to do this right.  Good rescuers and rescue groups have value beyond measure. The well-meaning but clueless kind? They just make things worse.

Of course, some pets don’t need rescuing: Among those are the hounds of the Iroquois Hunt, whom I visited last month in Lexington, Kentucky. When I was there, a lovely hound named Baffle was ready to pop some puppies, and she was not very happy about being left behind when the other hounds went out. The Iroquois Hunt  doesn’t breed often — about what it takes to offset the hounds they retire. (Of course, there’s the Hound Welfare Fund for the lifetime care of those hounds.)

The Houndbloggers were on the scene in a snap to see Baffle’s new babies. And also to use the new HD video camera I helped talk them into. Check it all out over at Full Cry.

This and that: If you’re in Missouri, head over to the KC Dog Blog and read about Measure B, an initiative aimed at correcting the evils of puppy mills. Except, well, it won’t. Bad legislation really is worst than no legislation at all. Give a read. And then be sure to read what animal activist Nathan Winograd, an attorney and former prosecutor, has to say on the same subject. … Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly of Fully Vetted explains why dogs and cats — especially cats — cannot and should not be put on a vegan diet. We have said the same here: If you want a vegan pet, get a rabbit.

And finally: Halloween may be over, but the picture parade of the cutest pet costumes ever never ends. Thanks to Peggy’s Pet Place for a handful of the most darling, including this one:

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David will be back with the next newswrap later this week …

Image: Top photo is Cowboy, on of the GWP rescue dogs.

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All my life I’ve seen kenneling as a bad thing, a place where dogs are  physically and mentally abused and neglected (puppy mills), terrified or driven to bizarre behavior (shelters), or just mostly ignored for short, lonely periods away from home (boarding kennels).

As such, my dogs are house dogs, and even when I am away, they are usually cared for in my home, not in a boarding kennel. I had no experience with happy kennel dogs, and no reason to believe such a thing was even possible. Dogs would tolerate life in a well-run kennel, but love it? I couldn’t imagine.

Until this weekend, when I met the Iroquois Hunt’s hound pack. Two days with them — once in the field and once in their kennel — has been enough to change my mind. Or maybe, more honestly, to open my mind. A happier, healthier, more mentally and physically sound group of dogs I have never seen.

Now, before I go on, let me get back to what’s largely normal in kenneling, because I’m well aware that in writing this there’s a chance people will wag it in front of me as a case made for “clean” puppy mills.

It’s not. That’s because it’s not particularly hard nor particularly expensive to design and build a clean, well-functioning kennel facility, even though it doesn’t seem like the puppy-mill industry cares even that much to do so, preferring to re-purpose all manner of crap, from rusty old rabbit hutches to tiny transport cages to grocery carts and then let the dogs live in their own stinking, rotting filth.

But with an eye to solving what is little more than a PR problem for them, the big players in commercial pet breeding have been talking about “model” operations, where the dog’s basic needs are met.

That is still a puppy mill. The dogs will still be treated like production units, and they will still lead miserable, deplorable lives of emotional and physical neglect. Their eyes will still be hauntingly vacant, like the mill rescue dogs Christie wrote about.

And indeed it was the eyes of the Iroquois Hunt hound pack that I noticed most, as each and every dog not only reacted the the presences of people they knew — the Huntsman and two kennel men, and Full Cry blogger Glenye Oakford, a frequent visitor — but they also sought my eyes out with their own, their happy souls as obvious as the long tongues they used to kiss me.

They were not seeking attention because they were desperate for it, either. When no one was standing close enough to smile at or kiss, they played with other hounds or relaxed. Every fiber of their beings spoke of confidence, competence and a knowledge both of their value and their place in the world.

With this pack, the happiness of the hounds is by design. Jerry Miller, the Hunt Master, has taken another path in putting together his pack. Yes, the kennel is scrupulously clean and the dogs perfectly cared for, right down to monthly Frontline (even in tick country here in Kentucky the hounds rarely have ticks) and daily dosing of glucosamine for joint health. Good food and preventive care, plus exercise, lots. These are working hounds, not couch potatoes, and they are out constantly, so as to be fit enough for a hunt that can have them cover more than 20 miles in a day, baying joyously.

But the master believes that the strength of the pack is the happiness of the individuals. He doesn’t believe, as is traditional, in kenneling males and females separately, and he lets the dogs choose their own family within the pack, by watching them to see who likes who and grouping them accordingly. The dogs know their names, and respond instantly to the Hunt Master, or to the Huntsman, Lilla Mason.  When on Sunday we tracked used a radio collar to find a puppy hound who’d gotten lost, she was genuinely happy to see Jerry, the Hunt Master. He is her family, and she is his.

And although she does not know it now, that relationship will remain long after she is too old too run with the pack, when she is a doddering old hound on feeble legs, living in a heated room at night and just as well-cared for as when she had “value,” still greeted, patted and kissed, still worked to her ability and still very much cared for and loved.

That’s because Iroquois has a hound welfare program, guaranteeing a good life for life to all its hounds, with a program where 100 percent of every dollar spend goes to the dogs. When items such as caps or saddle pads are sold as fund-raisers, the merchandise is paid for and provided as a donation, so the full price paid to purchase an item goes to the Fund.

I met the pack on Sunday at a hunt, and saw them again Tuesday morning in their kennels. I was prepared to ask about husbandry, about health-care, about training, and I was expecting to put my hands on the dogs and feel what real working hounds are like. And I did all that, right down to admiring the most astonishingly perfect feet and ample bone of the long-legged hounds, the largest of which are on par with the Rhodesian Ridgeback in size. (The Iroquois Hunt pack looks for coyote, not fox, and the hounds have been bred for their terrain and their quarry.)

But time and time again I was drawn back from looking at the hounds and drawn instead to looking into the hounds, through those wonderful, intelligent and engaged eyes, always looking to make a connection with me.

Can a dog be happy with a life in a kennel? Yes. But the way to accomplish that — with all of a dog’s needs met — is near impossible, although this one hunt, with its dedicated Masters, Huntsman and members have shown what is possible.

For me, what it reminds me, once again, is that you need to walk into everything ready to have your long-held beliefs challenged, and ready, as well, to question what you know and what others are telling you. I’m sure many a dog-lover couldn’t have seen what I saw. Happy working dogs? A kennel life? Not possible.

But I saw it, because I used my eyes, and looked in theirs.

These are joyous, happy dogs.

***

Images from top:

The Iroquois hounds at the hunt, with locator collars on.

One of the retired hounds, saying hello.

Huntsman Lilla Mason.

The hunt truck with Hound Welfare Fund logo on the door.

Kennelman Alan Foy with some of the retired hounds. Michael Edwards, the head Kennelman, later took me in the hound truck during the hunt.

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Terrierman‘s lead paragraph says it all, so he’ll kick off the topic for us:

Apparently Joe the Plumber and the Tea Party support Puppy Mills.

No, I am not making this up. Here’s the link you want, but you will also note that there is no link to the actual legislation in question.

What’s going on? It seems the Tea Party and “Joe the Plumber”  have determined that a ballot measure in Missouri — a state known for being a puppy mill hotspot — is part of a “radical agenda.” Now, over to the Los Angeles Times.

Now, let’s figure this one out. Who doesn’t like animals? The Humane Society, with a decades-long track record of trying to give animals healthy and safe living conditions, or the people who seized on this, either with deliberate, cynical political intent or by a misreading of the law, to cast Prop. B as another effort by traitors and socialists to destroy the American way of life, which way of life also evidently includes the right to destroying animals’ lives and health if that’s what some red-blooded real American wants to do.

But hey, here’s a novel idea: Read the measure and decide for yourself. As for Joe whose name is really Sam and isn’t really a plumber anyway … wasn’t  his 15 minutes up long ago?

Follow up from Oakland: Chip Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle weighs in here on the killing of the arthritic yellow Lab in Oakland.

Veterinary investment bill on its way: The U.S. House of Representatives approved a landmark bill (HR 3519) that would provide grants to relieve the critical shortage of veterinary professionals as well as bolster the veterinary industry infrastructure in critical areas. Among the bipartisan Veterinary Services Investment Act‘s highlights:

• Recruit, place, and retain veterinarians, veterinary technicians, veterinary students, and veterinary technology students.
• Provide financial assistance for expenses other than tuition for veterinary students, veterinary interns and externs, fellows and residents, and veterinary technician students to attend training programs in food safety or food animal medicine.
• Support continuing education and extension programs, including distance-based education, for veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and other health professionals that will strengthen veterinary programs and enhance food safety.
• Recruit and retain faculty at AVMA-accredited veterinary schools and colleges.

Are you my mommy? There’s some good research out there to identify the three Arabian stallions who became the ancient forebears of what we know of as today’s  thoroughbred racehorses. But they had to be bred, right? And who were the mares? The sad truth is it wasn’t important enough for anyone to keep track. Science Magazine‘s Helen Fields addresses the issue (caution: bad word ahead):

But no one kept track of the moms. “Nobody gave a shit about the females,” says Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at Durham University in the United Kingdom who was not involved in the study. In the early days, breeders thought the important parent was the stallion, says Bower; any old mare would do as a mother. Many breeders assumed that the original mothers were native British horses. But in the early part of the 20th century, some breeders came to believe that thoroughbreds’ mothers were also Arabians—probably because this idea seemed more aristocratic. Bower and her colleagues set out to settle the debate with genetics.

[...]

The thoroughbreds’ mitochondrial DNA sequences were closest to those of native Irish and British breeds, like the Connemara. There was a hint of other ancestries—including Arabian—but thoroughbred moms most likely hailed from the British Isles.

The AKC strikes again: I do wonder about the AKC sometimes. OK, often. The poohbahs in charge of New York’s upcoming AKC “Meet the Breeds” event at the Javits Center aren’t interested in having the unwashed masses (read: adoptable dogs from the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals) stage an adoption event in the facility at the same time. Way to continue your march to irrelevance, AKC.   The Bark weighs in.

Parrot trick time:

Ericka Basile and her amazing copy cat. I quote my dear friend Ericka from an e-mail:

My back has been hurting and today it was spasm after spasm. Well, nothing fixes that faster than laying on the floor for an hour or so.

Watch the video to see what my husband noticed when he came home from work:

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I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories.  Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.

Image: The Darley Arabian, one of three founding sires all Thoroughbreds have in their pedigrees.

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