Categories Politics, Rants

I just got shamed into this.

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I try to avoid politics on here other than the occasional link and eye roll.  I was raised that politics and all other attached thoughts and functions are best kept private.  If you wish to discuss them with someone its a private conversation, best kept between you and the other person.  Over the years I’ve added to that my opinion of most major sports, folks just get to worked up over it, and its just not worth it.  Other than the reposting of information about the Memphis Animal Shelter, and gripes about the TSA, I’ve done pretty well at that.

So when I saw the following pieces of news I cringed inside.  Made a note about which companies I was now going to be avoiding as much as I possibly could.  And attempted to go on my way.

Till this morning, when I read a new post by Heather over at Raised by Wolves.  And I sat here with tears running down my face.

So here goes my attempt at it.

Subway has decided that Michael Vick is their Sportsman of the Year.  Nike has signed him on as a spokesperson.  When I mentioned both to my husband (who watches pro football avidly) he, rather frustratedly, exclaimed “but he didn’t even have that good of a year!!” But it doesn’t matter, the companies in question know that the media follows Vick around, because he’s guarenteed a crowd everywhere he goes, a loud and obnoxious crowd, but a crowd, which means they’ll get all kinds of free publicity.

I know alot of folks say “he served his time, let him be” or “he apologized, what more do you want” and “but everyone deserves a 2nd chance!” but really?  He never served a day for animal cruelty.  The authorities decided to work out a plea deal, they dropped all the charges pertaining to animal cruelty, and he served time for rackateering.  They had enough evidence they most likely wouldn’t have had any trouble convincing a jury, and he’s certinally admited since that he was involved.  He’s apologized to his fans for “being involved” but there’s been no apology to the dogs who’s lives he took, or the others who survived but are scarred for life.  I’ve not seen (and neither have others who’ve watched more closely than I) one comment or step that actually seems to show remorse for what he did.  He’s sorry he got caught, but well, you know, that was how he was raised.  That makes it all better, right?

When I found out that Vick had been whining because now his kids wouldn’t get to grow up with a dog all I could think of was “good, now he won’t get to show them how fighting is done, at least at home,” and the comment that a dog might help with his rehabilitation??  Yah, I saw red.  And then one of my co-workers made a happy comment about how the president had called up the Eagles and during the conversation congratulated them for giving Vick a 2nd chance.  They don’t mention his name around me any more.

Back in the aftermath of the president’s call to the Eagles Fugly Horse put up this post.  Go read, and make sure to read the comments, about 1/4 of the way down the page a commenter makes a suggestion involving a rain barrell, and a geeked up meth-head.  I rather liked the idea.

Categories Apollo, Dog

4th of July

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So, since this was Apollo’s first fireworks holiday we decided to becarefull about how we did things.  Normally we go over to my inlaws house cause we can watch the fireworks over the lake from their front yard.  They’re no closer to the lake then we are, but have a better view thanks to a lack of trees.  This time instead we just took Apollo over for the cookout and hangout time, and about 7:45pm or so we drove him home, figuring we were better off in the familer home environment if he freaked out over the fireworks.

Didn’t have much to worry about (didn’t expect to, but wanted to be safe rather than sorry),  When they first started going off he woke from a sound sleep and popped to his feet to warn me about the noise:

Once I told him it was ok, and then took him outside so he could look around, he was fine with the noise and has gone back to his nap.  I think next year we’ll stick around my inlaws to watch the fireworks.

(well, he was ok and sound asleep till I played the video back to make sure it had caught his barking….now he’s all freaked out about the other dog that sounded like him.   Oooops!)

Categories Apollo, Dog, Food

Homemade puppy cookies

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The recipe for the duck cookies mentioned in the previous posts.  You can likely use any meat of your choice, and the recipe I used is gluten free.

1lb meat (I used duck, obviously, I also used raw, but next time I’m going with precooked.  I did include organ meat) ground with 1/4cup water
1cup rice flour (gluten free!)
1cup quick oats
1/3cup cheese powder

preheat oven to 400F
mix all ingredients throughly
using a teaspoon and a fork, take small gobs of the mix, and flatten onto a cookie sheet so that they’re no more than 1/3 inch thick and not much over 1inch wide at the widest point (it took two cookie sheets full for me).
Cook for 20 min, flip cookies over and cook for another 15.  They should be turning golden colored on both sides, and crunchy (not soft, a little soft is ok, but only a little).  Allow to cool.  Freeze any you don’t expect to use up in a week’s time.

Categories Apollo, Dog, Food

Duck #2

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The duck breasts turned out pretty decent considering I’d never done them before, course, Apollo was peaved we didn’t give him any lol.  The puppy cookies turned out ok too, he likes them anyway, which was the important part.

Categories Apollo, Dog, Food

Duck

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I have a nutcase of a puppy.  Though chicken and turkey are yummy he LOVES duck meat.  And of course Duck meat based treats are hard to find.  Then I ran across Canyon Creek Ranch’s duck jerky treats.  Puppy heaven!!  Unfortunetly I missed a piece of fine print on the bottom of the bag, the one that says “Made in China.”  After reading the previously posted warnings on several sites it occured to me that I’d neglected to check where the puppy’s duck jerky came from.  Damn.  Now I gotta find new treats.

I did a bunch of searching, and ran across the Stella and Chewy’s brand of dog food and treats, they have duck! A quick email to them resulted in the following information:

You’ll be happy to hear that all of our ingredients are US sourced and everything is manufactured in the US….USDA inspected doesn’t typically mean hormone/antibiotic free…it simply means that the products are inspected by the USDA and meets their standards for food safety.  Not only do our meats meet that standard, none of our meats contain added hormones/antibiotics.  The farmers don’t use them, and neither do we.

Woohoo!  Cool, course, I can’t get them locally, so I’d have to order, and they’re not inexpensive.  Probly worth it, but not cheap.  
Hmmmm…..a local butcher shop sells whole duckling (frozen) from a farm on Long Island, WTH, I’ve never actually had duck myself, husband’s game, so I went down and bought a whole duck.  Let it thaw, and today I pulled it out and decided how to do this.  I’d originially thought to just roast the whole duck, but I’ve never even done a whole chicken or turkey myself, and besides, I’d already figured out the easyist way to do the puppy treats was to grind up the meat and make “cookies” out of them, and most of those dog cookie recipes tell you to start with raw meat.  Well, there’s lots of instructions online for how to debone a duck, and lots of recipes for deboned duck breast, so hubby and I can have duck breast for supper, and puppy can have his cookies.  Right?
Next time remind me to just roast the whole duck and go from there.  At least I didn’t cut my fingers OFF, just nicked them a little, but anyone looking at the end carcass could have told you I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.  But there are two duck breasts in the fridge waiting till tonight to cook, and puppy’s cookies are baking.  He thinks they smell YUMMY so I don’t expect to have a problem feeding them to him!
Once everything is done I’ll let you know how they turned out.
Categories Dog

A food warning for dog owners.

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I shoulda posted this a couple weeks ago, but I kept hoping we’d get more news.

Seems up in Canada there was a sudden rash of small dogs suffering from Falconi syndrome.  Though this CAN be a genetic disease thats rare, and its much more likely to be caused by a toxin in the animal’s food.  In these cases the only thing these dogs had in common was chicken jerky treats fed regularly.  The chicken jerky varied in brand, but in all cases was the meat was from China.  The specific toxin that is causing the problem this time (most folks will remember the massive recalls a few years ago cause of melemine) has not been identified. 

As of the last information I can find no larger dogs have fallen sick, but if it really is the chicken jerky then likely its only a matter of time before a larger dog ingests a large enough amount of the toxin, and since the US shares a large number of products with Canada the problem will likely cross borders shortly if it hasn’t already.  If you feed your dog jerky treats (of any kind of meat) and it does NOT say Made AND Sourced in the US it is more than likely that the meat comes from overseas, and though meat from some countries is ok, meat from China is, frankly, suspect.  I highly recommend finding a different treat for your dog. 

Categories Food

Coffee

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A while back Tam posted about how she does her coffee, and apparently today a nother blogger commented there about how he was giving a Chemex a try. (I was decried as an infidel in the comments for my flavored coffee, poor folks have never had the good stuff :p.) I’ve thought about trying a Chemex several times, but first thing in the morning I’m just not that functional. As much as I’d prefer to grind my coffee on a daily basis I don’t even do that every morning. Instead I grind a weeks worth at a time, and I brew it in my Mr Coffee (though I’ve a stovetop perculator for when the power goes out) cause I can do that without requiring thought.

We’re currently ordering from Berres Brothers, and we usually get a selection, including Highlander Grog, and their Breakfast blend (look, a non-flavored coffee!!). They ship quick, and have wonderfull coffee. I used to exclusively buy Millstone’s Chocolate Velvet coffee (it smelled and tasted like a fresh baked chocolate mocha cake) but when Smuckers bought them out they stopped selling the whole bean in 5lb bags which I found annoying as heck, so I decided that if I was going to be reduced to ordering in small bags I was going to find someplace I was willing to buy a selection from.

So thats my coffee story!

Categories Dog, Politics

Where’s Kapone?

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So, you have two dogs, and they’re your babies.  The older of the two you’ve had since you were a teen, and is now 11 years old.  Oh yes, they happen to both be pitbulls.

They got through the fence on Friday.  It does happen, even to the best of pet owners, but a neighbor says all is not lost, they saw an Animal Control Officer picking up two dogs that match the description of your two.  So first thing Saturday you rush down to the Memphis Animal Shelter to pay the fine and look for your dogs. 

There’s Jersey, in the back row of cages.  There’s a mention on her kennel card of the 2nd dog picked up with her…..but he’s no where to be found.  MAS authorities review the camera take, they say that the 2nd dog picked up at the same time as Jersey isn’t Kapone, but they can’t ID which dog it was.  That dog’s apparently missing too. Oh, and you’re not allowed to watch the video footage.

Last year (2010) MAS “lost” 155 animalss.  Thats not a euphanism, they literally have no explanation for where those animals went after an ACO supposedly brought them in.  In January 2011, they “lost” 40 animals.  Then, for some reason, they stopped reporting how many animals went missing, for all the months after that.  The rest of the numbers are there, but not how many went missing.

This is a picture of Kapone.  The Shoup family is offering a $1000 reward for the return of their dog, no questions asked.  If you know someone in the area please ask them to keep an eye out for this dog.

News article 1
News article 2
News article 3

From YesBiscuit