South Bay Pets

There's going to be a spcaLA event in Redondo Beach on Saturday. Here are the details from their Web site:

Bring the kids and spend the afternoon with spcaLA, PAWS to Read, and the Redondo Beach Library.  Join us as we team up with the upcoming movie, "Hotel For Dogs" and Fox 11 newscaster, Mark Thompson, to champion children's literacy. 

Through PAWS to Read, children practice their skills by reading to a therapy dog in 15-minute sessions.  By reading aloud to an attentive and uncritical audience, children gain confidence while strengthening the human-animal bond.  PAWS to Read utilizes certified spcaLA Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) dogs who have been trained and tested for health, saftey, and temperament.  

Fox 11 newscaster Mark Thompson will be on hand to read from the popular children's book, "Hotel For Dogs," written by Erica David.  Free bookmarks, sticker sheets and movie posters will be available while supplies last.  A drawing will be held to win copies of the book, "Hotel For Dogs."   

This guy set up a camera next to his bed and recorded what his cat does while he's asleep.

It turns out that all cats do the same thing. Or at least, this is what my cat does -- namely keep me up all night.

As part of our ongoing series So Cute You'll Barf, we present this: Cute Things Falling Asleep.

As you can guess by the name, the site features videos of little fuzzy things falling asleep. Included are puppies, kittens, bunnies, ducks and the random human.

Enjoy, but stay away from the sugar for an hour or so or you might explode.

This comes to my via my friend Natalie, who wrote to say that I "HAVE to blog this." She didn't say or what, but I figure I better listen. She's from Texas and you know what they say about messing with those people.

Here's one to give you an idea.

Yesterday, I mentioned a series of stories I wrote about a seeing-eye dog that was raised by a Manhattan Beach woman named Pat Whitehead.

Tola was just a tiny puppy when Pat brought her home to begin the process of training her to become a guide dog for the blind. She was something like the 18th dog Pat had raised.

Here's part 1 of the story. It ran in July 31, 2005.

It's big world out there and it's filled with all kinds of fun things to do: There's trash to sniff, bugs to taste and nice people who all seem to want to stop and say hello. Tola positively vibrated with excitement at the endless possibilities.

  She was all bright-eyed and loosey-goosey with paws ready to splay out in play as she and a group of puppies visited an Office Depot in Torrance on a spring day, but this wasn't a pleasure trip. There was work to be done, a destiny to be fulfilled. Tola doesn't know it, but if all goes according to plan, in less than two years, she will become the eyes for someone who can't see.

And it's Pat Whitehead's job to raise Tola from a rambunctious puppy to a dog mature enough to enter a rigorous five-month training program -- college, they call it -- at the San Rafael campus for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

The Manhattan Beach resident will do it without once raising her voice and without once raising her hand. With a soft voice and the manner of the world's most encouraging kindergarten teacher, she'll do it with gentle tugs of a leash, countless hours of practice and an endless supply of praise.

Except for the whites of her eyes, Tola is jet black from her nose to the tip of her tail. A Labrador retriever, she's got floppy ears, rolls of extra skin that cascade down her forehead, paws too big for her body and a face that can switch from mournful to mischievous in a heartbeat. It's almost too much to resist.

"They can be very manipulative," Whitehead said with a knowing smile.

This great Web site called Graph Jam has all sorts of loopy mathematical and statistical computations on it. Go check it out for a few laughs, but some of the items might be for mature audiences.

Here are a couple they did on cats and dogs.

Slate, the online magazine, has this great feature where they answer questions that appear in the news. For instance, a recent column answered what would happen to an American citizen who threw a shoe at the president.

At the end of the year they take a poll of their readers and answer what is probably the strangest question of the year.

This year's question: What is the most disloyal breed of dog.

Yeah, yeah, I know my dog is the most disloyal animal in the world, but he's not a breed. He's just a bad dog.

The answer, according to Slate is, nobody knows.

What a rip off! I want my money back.

But here's what they had to say:

The conventional wisdom among dog fanciers holds that each of the 161 breeds now recognized by the American Kennel Club has a distinctive temperament reflecting its history and original purpose. The terriers, for example, were once bred to hunt vermin; thus they're thought to be hostile to other animals. Working dogs that were originally bred to guard property might be seen as especially loyal.

But recent work suggests that the personalities of modern dogs may have little to do with their breed's history. A researcher at Stockholm University named Kenth Svartberg analyzed the behavioral profiles of more than 15,000 animals and derived several essential canine traits: A dog is more or less playful, curious/fearless, and sociable. Then he studied a few dozen breed types and rated them according to those traits as well as on their level of aggression.

It's pretty interesting stuff. But here's what I can tell you. My dog is playful, curious, fearless and sociable. And he's a horrible monster.

It turns out there are also guide monkeys, goats and ferrets....first it was guide dogs

 for the blind; now it's monkeys for quadriplegia and agoraphobia, guide miniature horses, a goat for muscular dystrophy, a parrot for psychosis and any number of animals for anxiety, including cats, ferrets, pigs, at least one iguana and a duck. They're all showing up in stores and in restaurants, which is perfectly legal because the Americans With Disabilities Act (A.D.A.) requires that service animals be allowed wherever their owners want to go.

This is a press release I got about an emergency hosemanship clinic being sponsored by the Cowboy Boot Camp. The event is being held at 3 p.m. Saturday Jan. 10 at 4 Sunnyfield Drive in Rolling Hills Estates.

For reservations or more info, call Jim Moore at 310-377-8834.

Despite their size and weight, horses are nature's delicate creatures and if you're a horse owner, or someone who's planning for horse ownership, you should be prepared for an equine emergency.

"Unfortunately, bad things sometimes happen when you're on the trail or when you and your horse are at a remote location or at a time when a vet might not be available," explained Jim Moore of Cowboy Boot Camp.  "A horse depends upon his human companion to make him feel better or possibly even save his life."

• How to respond if your horse colics or has other abdominal problems.
• How to care for a laceration, puncture wound and eye trauma.
• How to wrap a leg in case of emergency.
• What important data your vet needs to know prior to arrival.
• Do you know how to take and what a horse's temperature should be?
• What contents should every equine emergency kit include?

These emergency treatment & step-by-step procedure topics and more will be covered and discussed at the upcoming Cowboy Boot Camp horsemanship clinic in Palos Verdes.  Conducted by Los Angeles County-based equine veterinary practitioner, Dr. Sylvia Greenman, D.V.M., participants will get an opportunity for a "hands on" demonstration on how to respond quickly and confidently to equine emergency situations.

"Horse emergencies can be a challenging and emotionally charged situation for owners," said Dr. Greenman. "However, with preparedness clinics such as these, problems can be reduced by educating owners about first aid procedures."

For more information about this clinic as well as other Cowboy Boot Camp horsemanship seminars and events, visit their Web site or contact Dr. Sylvia Greenman. 

I've considered getting my dog drunk. The only reason I haven't is that instead of being a nice drunk (or better yet, a sleepy one), he'd go on a homicidal rampage and kill me and the cat.

I don't know if it's illegal here, but this guy tried it in the U.K. and got his chops busted for it. A man who plied a dog with Stella Artois lager has received the first ever conviction for getting a dog drunk.

Andrew Wilson, 31, of Bristol, gave American bulldog Bronx a can of Stella Artois beer and was accused of forcing him to drink vodka before giving the hound a beating.

By the time he was found he was over the drink drive limit for a human, it has been reported.