A BEAUTIFUL POEM I WROTE

Last night Mom went to a poetry reading, and the three people who read their poems were women that Mom used to work with at Hallmark.  One of them read a poem about her cat, but none of the poems were about dogs, which I think was a terrible oversight.  So I decided to make up for this by writing a poem in my blog today.  The poem that I wrote is very heartfelt and deep, and I hope you will not get too sad when you read it.

MY DREAM

In the autumn morning, the sun
comes up
in a puny sort of way and I
get out of bed
and stretch,
like dogs always do when
they first wake up.

Then I eat breakfast
from my little
black
dish and after that I go
out into the yard
to commune with squirrels

or maybe I mean
to hunt squirrels because
I am a descendant of
mighty hunters from the Congo
and hunting is what I do.

But alas, I have
never
caught a squirrel, those pesky
squirrels who run
up trees and do
things like that, and it's
totally unfair that I can't
catch one because

I really have this beautiful
dream
that someday I will.
O, how sad my dream is,
always so far
out of reach!  I howl my
protest
to the god of canine hunters,

who I hope really exists,
and who will maybe
hear my plaintive howl
and answer it, so I
can catch one squirrel, just
one before I am

too old to hunt them.
Yes, that is my dream, my
humble basenji dream,
and is it really
too much to ask?

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SOME GREAT DOGS AND CATS TO ADOPT!

Well, it's about time I introduced you to more of the poor homeless kitties and doggies at the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City.  If you could adopt one of these guys, it would be a super nice thing for you to do.  Or if you know somebody else who could adopt one, that would be good, too.

PEACHES is the sweetest little old dog ever, and she has very funny ears!  All she needs is a warm lap to sit on for a few more years. She is about 12 years old, weighs 7 pounds, and is probably a dachshund--rat terrier mix.  Peaches is house trained, but you do have to make sure she gets out on a regular schedule.  She would like a quiet home, and she is fine with other dogs and with cats.  Her adoption fee is only $50 because of her being a senior dog.

BELLA is a 9-year-old Maine Coon Cat.  When she was younger, she was adopted from the shelter by a couple who now have a baby.  It turns out that Bella doesn't like kids, so the people brought her back.  Bella can be a little shy until she gets to know you, but then she's a very nice girl.  And she gets along well with other cats.

JOE JOE is an Australian Shepherd mix who is 6 months old, and he will probably weigh about 50 pounds when he is full grown.  Joe Joe is black and tan, and he has a very soft, pretty coat.  He is a friendly, happy puppy, and he likes to play with other dogs.  Sadly, Joe Joe got hit by a car before he came to the Humane Society, and one of his back legs had to be amputated.  But he gets around just fine on 3 legs, so don't let his missing leg keep you from adopting him!

PINKY is a cute little tabby kitten.  She is about 7 months old, and she is very playful.  There are lots of kittens about the same age as Pinky at the shelter, so if you want one in a different color or gender, you can probably find it.

DUCHESS is an 8-month-old Doberman mix, and she will probably weigh about 50 pounds when she is an adult.  Like Joe Joe, Duchess got hit by a car, but her leg could be saved.  She has a little limp in her right back leg, but you might not even notice it, if you aren't paying attention.  Duchess likes to run and play, and she gets along nicely with other dogs.

TOODLE BUG is a friendly, playful kitty who is one year old.  She had a littermate who was a tabby, and the littermate already got adopted.  But it's harder for black cats and dogs to get adopted, so Toodle Bug is still waiting for her forever home.  It's almost Halloween, so wouldn't this be a good time to add a lucky black cat to your family?

NUTTER had parvo, but he's all better now.  He weighs about 40 pounds, but he is still a little thin after being sick.  Nutter is a shepherd--beagle mix, and he is one year old.  He is very sweet and he loves to play.  He is treat-motivated, so it would be easy to train him to do all sorts of fun things.

STELLA is another Maine Coon Cat.  She is 2 years old, and she only weighs 8 pounds, even though she looks bigger because of all her hair.  Stella gets along fine with other cats, and she would very much like to have a home of her very own.



So anyway, these are just a few of the wonderful pets available for adoption at the Humane Society.  You can go to the website, if you would like to see more pictures and read about a whole bunch more cats and dogs that you could adopt.

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DOGGY TONGUES

Most dogs have tongues, which is a good thing because tongues are extremely useful!  Here are some of the things that tongues can help a dog do:

1.  Cool off
2.  Lap water
3.  Eat food
4.  Taste food
5.  Clean one's butt
6.  Clean another dog's butt
7.  Kiss a human

First of all, let's talk about panting, since that is what you most often see dogs doing with their tongues.  Why do dogs pant?  Well, it's because dogs don't have lots of sweat glands like people and horses do.  Dogs only have sweat glands in their feet and in their ears.  So the way that dogs get cool is they open their mouths and let their tongues hang out.

Tongues are usually all wet with saliva, so when the tongue is out in the air, this thing called "evaporative cooling" happens, and the hot, wet saliva gets evaporated, which cools the tongue off.  And inside the tongue, there are a bunch of blood vessels, and so the blood gets cooled off and then it goes back to other parts of the body to cool them off, too.  But the part of the dog that especially gets cooled off is the brain, and this is important because if your brain gets too hot, you can die.

Okay, so that's one thing a tongue does, and another thing it does is laps water.  A lot of people used to think that when a dog lapped water, the tongue curled up like a little spoon to bring the water to the mouth. But then someone filmed a dog lapping in slow motion, and found out that the tongue curls under instead of up.  I could have told them this, if they had just asked me, but they didn't.  If you don't believe me and want to watch a little video of this, you can go here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Ch2pNkZwU

Dogs have taste buds on their tongues, just like people do, but a dog only has one-sixth as many taste buds as a human does.  Of course, this is no big deal, since we dogs are so much better in other ways, such as having superior senses of smell and hearing.  Anyway, we can definitely taste stuff that's bitter, sweet, salty and sour, which is enough to make eating a very fun thing to do.

Licking is another important use for tongues.  A mama dog will lick her puppies to get them started breathing and to make them pee and poop.  Then when they get older, they lick her mouth to ask her to puke up a little soft food for them.  Licking is also a way that one dog can show it is being submissive to another dog.

Some dogs like to lick their humans because they like the salty taste of their skin, or just to show their love.  Licking is something that makes a dog feel happy and less stressed.  But of course if a dog licks himself too much, that can cause a lick granuloma, which is something I already told you about before.

Chow Chow dogs have black tongues, but nobody knows why.  Chinese Shar-Peis also have black tongues, and so do some other types of animals such as giraffes, polar bears, and several breeds of cattle.  Some people think that if a dog has black spots on its tongue, that dog is part Chow, but this is not true.  Lots of dogs of other breeds sometimes have black spots on their tongues, and these just happen because of some extra pigment, the same as freckles or birthmarks happen.

Another thing some people believe is that dogs have fewer germs in their mouths than people do, but this isn't true either.  If you get bit by a dog or by a human, either one, you still have a good chance of getting an infection, so you should go to the doctor and get some antibiotics right away.  At least that's my advice!

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HEY! I'M AVAILABLE! by Jacen the Kitten

You will never guess what!  I am totally famous now because I am on PETFINDER!  And here's where you can see me:  http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/21139326  I am just sure that lots of people will look at my adorable pictures there, and then they will want to adopt me instantly.

The way I got to be on Petfinder was that a woman emailed Mom on Friday and asked how old I am and if I am a boy or a girl.  Well, of course I'm a BOY!  How could anybody not know that?  Mom thinks it is just because my name is spelled funny.  She says it should really be spelled "Jason," which is the regular way to spell my name.  But Mom did not name me, and she does not know who did or why they decided to spell my name in that special way, unless it's because I'm a very special kitten, which I am!

Mom told me that since I am a Jason, I need some Argonauts so we can go in search of the Golden Mouse.  I have no idea what she is talking about, except that I think it would be fun to go hunting for a mouse.  Mom also calls me Racin' Chasin' Jacen, and I think that's a good name for me because I am very fast.  When I run up and down the stairs, Mom says it sounds like a herd of antelopes.  She thinks this is funny, but I don't know why it would be funny to have a herd of antelopes in your house.

Anyway, now that I have my picture on Petfinder, I can find my Forever Home, which is something every dog and cat needs to have. Of course, I would be happy to stay right here in my foster home because I like this place.  The big cats don't growl and hiss at me very much anymore, and sometimes they even play with me.  Charlie is lots of fun to play with, but Chloe can't really be bothered with me.  She says I am an impudent upstart, whatever that is!  I like to pounce on Chloe, and I pounce on Charlie, too.  Charlie and I growl and wrestle, like lions, which is loads of fun.  And sometimes Charlie lets me snuggle with him and we take naps together.

At night I sleep in bed with Mom.  Mostly, I sleep on top of her legs, but sometimes Chloe gets this spot first, and then I have to sleep right next to Mom's thigh.  Chloe and Charlie sleep under the covers when it's cold.  Mom says I should learn to do this, too, because it is a proper cat thing to do, but so far, I haven't learned to do it.

In the evenings, Mom turns on the TV, and I like to sit on top of my crate and watch it.  I like TV because there are all sorts of interesting things moving around.  I don't try to catch the things.  I just watch them.  Last night we watched "Antiques Roadshow."

After I get tired of watching TV, I go to sleep on the sofa with Piper.  She doesn't seem to mind if I do this, except that last night I was giving myself a little bath, so I started licking Piper's ear, and she didn't like that, and she snarked at me.  I don't know why she didn't want her ears licked, but after she told me she didn't, I just went back to licking my own cute little white paws.

Well, I guess that's all I can think of to tell you right now.  Oh, except the reason I can't live here forever is that Mom says she has too many pets already, and I should go live someplace where the people really, really need a kitten just like me.  And also, if I'm not here, then Mom can foster another little homeless kitten.  So I hope I get my Forever Home very, very soon, because I think it's going to be a totally awesome place to live!

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PULI DOGS

The puli is a herding dog that comes from Hungary.  It has what is called a corded coat, and that makes it look like a mop, but really it is a dog.  At least that's what Wikipedia and some other sources say.  I have never met a puli in person, and neither has Mom, so we cannot be totally sure that there is a dog in there under that funny-looking hair, but we think there probably is.

In Hungarian, the plural of puli is pulik, but those of us who speak English usually just say "pulis."  These dogs are most often black in color, but they can also be white, gray, or cream.  There is one variety of the cream-colored pulis that have black masks.  Many white pulis have blue eyes, and they are called Roxies.  I don't know why they are called that.  I am just telling you what I learned from my in-depth research.

The puli is a medium-sized dog, with males being about 17 inches tall and females 16.5 inches.  The females weigh between 23 and 25 pounds, and the males weigh a little more than that.  When a puli is about 6 months old, it starts to get a corded coat, and this happens because the woolly undercoat gets matted with the tougher hairs of the outer coat.  Puli owners separate the mats by hand so that each cord is about the width of a pencil.

Besides the coat separation, the only other grooming that a puli needs is bathing.  It's easy to bathe a puli, but drying it takes a long time.  If you use a dryer, it will take several hours to dry your puli, and if you just let it dry naturally, it will take about two days to be completely dry.  So in this way, pulis really are kind of like mops, because mops also take a long time to dry.  Some puli owners trim their dogs' hair so that they can be cooler in hot weather.  Of course, if you are showing a puli you cannot cut its coat off because you would be laughed out of the show ring.

Pulis are very smart and easy to train.  They can run fast and make sharp turns, and these are very useful skills for herding sheep.  People who don't have sheep for their pulis to herd can teach the dogs to do agility, flyball, tracking, rally obedience, or obedience.  The main thing is that pulis need plenty of exercise, and they like having a job to do.  When it comes to being a family dog, a puli is loyal and playful and makes a good guard dog.  Pulis usually live to be 12 years old or even older.

In Asia, there were pulis 2,000 years ago, and there might have even been some puli-like dogs as early as 6,000 years ago.  It's possible that the puli was the ancestor of the modern poodle, but this is not proven for sure.  The way that pulis got to Hungary is that they came with the Magyars, who are the ethnic people who settled in the area we now call Hungary.  The Magyars used pulis to herd their sheep, and they used the bigger komondor breed to guard the flocks.  The komondor also has a corded coat, but it is usually white.

The puli breed was recognized by the AKC in 1936, but during World War II, the breed almost died out completely.  Now there are breeders who are trying to increase the numbers of these dogs, but they are still not as popular as they were at one time.  Which is kind of sad because it seems like more people should want to live with these cute moplike dogs.

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OPERATION BAGHDAD PUPS

A lot of times, the American soldiers who are in Iraq end up taking in stray dogs or cats and keeping them in their barracks, even though maybe they are not supposed to.  But the fact is that these animals help make the soldiers feel happier and less homesick, which is an important thing that dogs and cats are good at doing.  The sad part is that when the soldiers go back home, they are not allowed to take their pet dogs or cats with them because it's against the military's rules to do that.

But now there is an organization called Operation Baghdad Pups, and it is helping solve this problem.  The way this group got started was that in September of 2007, a soldier named Sergeant Edward Watson wrote an email to the SPCA International, and in this email he told them all about a dog named Charlie.  The men in Sgt. Watson's regiment found Charlie when he was just a tiny puppy who was thin and had lots of fleas.

One of the men picked Charlie up and hid him in a blanket and brought him back to the outpost where they lived.  Then the soldiers took turns caring for Charlie in secret because they weren't supposed to have a dog there, and they all started loving him.

Sgt. Watson wrote in his email that "When all the guys got to playing with Charlie, we'd forget where we were, at least temporarily.  During those moments you could almost imagine being home."  The men promised Charlie that they would not abandon him because they knew that if he had to live in a place that was so dangerous and full of war, Charlie would die at a young age.

The SPCAI wanted to help the soldiers keep their promise to Charlie, but it turned out to be really hard to get a dog out of Iraq and to the U.S.  Finally, they worked out a way for it to be done by sending one of their staff people to Iraq to pick Charlie up.  A woman named Terri Crisp did this, and when she got to Washington D.C., a whole bunch of TV stations and other press were there to report on the story.

Now Charlie lives in Arizona with Sergeant Watson, and Operation Baghdad Pups was formed to help other military people bring their dogs or cats home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another dog that got rescued from Iraq is named Hammer.  This dog was found by Captain Scott Eberlein and his unit in the Diyala Province.  When he got found, Hammer was a little puppy who was dirty and very hungry.  He got his name because that was the nickname of the men's company.  Hammer went to see an army veterinarian and all the guys in the unit took good care of him, and soon he was growing big and strong.  He was kept at the barracks as what is called a force protection canine.  This is a dog who stays outside at night and barks a whole bunch if any bad guys come sneaking around.

While he was on duty one time, Hammer got injured in his right front leg.  A veterinarian set the leg, but it did not heal the way it was supposed to because there was too much nerve damage.  So Hammer went to a combat army surgical hospital, and a team of 12 medical professionals amputated his leg.  Captain Eberlein was there to comfort Hammer.

After Hammer became a 3-legged dog, his unit knew they could not leave him behind when they got sent to another area, so they worked with Operation Baghdad Pups to have him sent to the U.S.  Now Hammer lives in Alaska with Captain Eberlein's family.

One Eye and his kitten littermates were born on an isolated military base, but they were abandoned by their mother when they were very young.  Some Marines found the kittens and decided to try to save them, which they did, but it wasn't easy because they did not have a Petco nearby or even a milk cow.

Anyway, after a while, they noticed that one of the kittens mostly kept his right eye closed and only used his left eye, so they started calling him One Eye.  A medic took a close look at the kitten's eye and saw that the eyelashes were growing on the inside of the eyelid.  The Marines were afraid that the kitten would go blind in that eye, so they started trying to figure out how to get him to the States.  One Marine did a search on the internet, and he found Operation Baghdad Pups, and the group agreed to bring One Eye to the U.S. and pay for his care.

After One Eye arrived here, he got surgery done by a veterinary opthamologist.  It turned out that One Eye had a condition called Feline Coloboma Syndrome.  This happens to kitties before they are even born, and it makes them have deformed eyelids.  Which causes the eyelashes to rub against their eyes, and that hurts a lot.

One Eye actually had this condition in both eyes, but luckily, he was able to have the problem fixed by surgery, and now he can see just fine out of both eyes.  These days he lives in Colorado with the Marine who figured out a way to get him out of Iraq so that his eyesight could be saved.

There are lots more stories like this with happy endings on the Operation Baghdad Pups website, so if you want to read them, you can go there.  Also you can learn more about the organization or make a donation.  I think it's great that dogs and cats can help with the morale of the soldiers, and also that the soldiers can help give the animals a healthy life.

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SLEEP IS GOOD!

At our house, we all like to sleep.  Even Mom likes to sleep.  Every night we sleep all night long, unless there is a thunderstorm that wakes some of us up because we are scared.  Mom mostly stays awake all day, which we dogs and cats know is a silly thing to do because she could be sleeping, like we are.  But some days Mom takes a nap, and she asks us if we want to help her do this, which we always do.  Well, except for Jacen, who sometimes wants to play instead of sleep.

It turns out that a lot of different animals like to sleep either more time or less time than dogs and cats do.  I found this really interesting list of how many hours of sleep various animals need every day, and I hope you will like reading it.

Brown Bat -- 19.9 hours

Giant Armadillo -- 18.1 hours

Python -- 18 hours

Possum -- 18 hours

Owl Monkey -- 17 hours

Human Infant -- 16 hours

Tiger --15.8 hours

Tree Shrew -- 15.8 hours

 

Squirrel -- 14.9 hours

Western Toad -- 14.6

Ferret -- 14.5 hours

Three-toed Sloth -- 14.4 hours

Golden Hamster -- 14.3 hours

Lion -- 13.5 hours

Gerbil -- 13.1 hours

Rat -- 12.6 hours

Cat -- 12.1 hours

Cheetah -- 12.1 hours

Mouse -- 12.1 hours

Rabbit -- 11.4 hours

Jaguar -- 10.8 hours

Duck -- 10.8 hours

Dog -- 10.6 hours

 

Bottle-nosed Dolphin -- 10.4 hours

Baboon -- 10.3 hours

Chimpanzee -- 9.7 hours

Guinea Pig -- 9.4 hours

Adult Human -- 8 hours

Pig -- 7.8 hours

Guppy Fish -- 7 hours

Gray Seal -- 6.2 hours

Elderly Human -- 5.5 hours

Goat -- 5.3 hours

 

Cow -- 3.9 hours

Asiatic Elephant -- 3.9 hours

Sheep -- 3.8 hours

 

African Elephant -- 3.3 hours

Donkey -- 3.1 hours

Horse -- 2.9 hours

Giraffe -- 1.9 hours

Personally, I think that giraffes don't sleep much because they probably get a crick in their necks when they do.  At least I don't think that I would want to sleep in such a weird position!

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