Animals Blogs (472)

Imagine this crawling in your hair.

If you were to be converted to an animal, which one would you prefare to be? Both Domestic or Wild.

FREE PUPPIES
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8 years old, hateful little bastard.Bites.

FREE PUPPIES.
Mother is a Kennel Club registered German Shepherd.
Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY
Must sell washer and dryer £100.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE .
Worn once by mistake.
Call Stephanie.

FOR SALE BY OWNER.
Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes. Excellent condition, £200 or best offer. No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.

I have been a horse lover all my life. I feel an affinity and closeness with horses. Whenever I’m around them, I feel a sense of peace and calm, like I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I don’t have a horse myself, sad to say, but I love being around them.

Growing up, from age 10 to 18, I went to horse riding camp every year. The bunk house was built right off the barn! It was glorious! After everybody was asleep, I’d go in the barn and visit with the horses. This was a working farm, and we as campers, were the farm hands. We handled 50lb bags of horse feed, 65lb square bales of hay and we mucked out the stalls every day.

The horses of course, got fed before we did. There were horseback riding lessons as well. We mostly learned western, but were also taught bareback and how to guide with leg pressure. We also did some barrel racing. We did very little English Dressage and fence jumping. I wish we could have spent more time on that. I really enjoyed it. From sun up to sun down, we were working. It was exhausting, but the best time of my life. At the end of the week my clothes would be hanging off me as I would usually lose between 15 to 20lbs.

We were taught to respect a horse and get him to work with us, not use brute force to command him. We were taught to guide the horses with our legs. We were also taught that a horse’s mouth is sensitive and to exercise restraint in using the reins. Anyone seen unnecessarily pulling or jerking on the reins was severely reprimanded. We never used a whip or riding crop as our instructors didn’t believe in negative reinforcement.

Since I was usually the more skilled rider they gave me the “problem” horse. One year I got Goliath. He was huge and thought he could go wherever he pleased. I stopped that nonsense right away. The next year I got Widow Maker. He was a handful! When I was 18, and at my last year at camp, I got my favorite horse, her name was Lady. And she was anything but a lady. She was a beautiful black Quarter Horse. And I loved her at first sight when I saw her rearing up in the stall. She was a beauty. She had a bad habit of rearing up and bucking until the rider was on the ground. After a few demonstrations of her skill, nobody wanted to ride her.

One of the instructors turned to me and said, “She’s your horse for the week.” I was so excited I nearly screamed. I knew she was just misunderstood. She had developed bad habits because of inexperienced riders. I knew I could work with her and turn her around. As I walked her out to the practice ring, she tried to rear up, but I had a hold of the halter, pulled firmly, soothed her with my voice and patted her neck. I figured we had an understanding.

As I tried to mount up, I realized I was wrong. She began bucking and twisting trying to throw me off. I’m halfway on, but still hanging on. I finally get seated and she starts rearing up. My feet were seated heavy in the stirrups and I leaned forward toward her neck. She didn’t unseat me. She then tried to buck me off. I leaned back as far as I could without hitting her hindquarters. I remained seated. This display continues for about five minutes until she calmed. Her sides were heaving and she was a bit winded. I patted her neck and told her everything was alright now.

I thought, great, all that nonsense is behind me. I thought wrong. If I let my guard down or got lazy with my signals, Lady would try something. If I relaxed the reins too much, she’d unseat the bit by pushing it forward with her tongue. Then she had complete control of her head and would take off at a gallop. I’d lean forward to remain seated. I had to take a rein in each had and firmly pull down to properly seat the bit and gain control of her head. Then we would go back to our practice lessons.

So, who do you side with? Are you are cat person or a dog person? Are you Team Cat? Are you Team Dog? This debate got pretty heated on the video.

Posted some pics on a blog to calm things down, but suddenly the blog is vanished.

Okay, repeat posting for those who missed the pics.

While I was typing there I heard one of my cats yowling at something that was also making a noise we don't have a word for, birdlike, but not a nice sound at all. WTF is that? So I finished my response, typos and all, grabbed a camera and went to go look.

As I neared the door the yowling changed to just a growl and some hisses, and their had been no cat screams, so I knew a pistol probably wasn't needed so I left it in the holster bolted to the inside door.

Through the outer door glass, this is what I saw.



This is what the cat was now staring at. I figure one of them must have been much closer when I first heard the yowling and what turned out to be the noise a Tom makes when he is feeling hostile.



My opening the outer door for a better camera focus made noise of course and the hen scurried away while the Tom played a rear guard and slowly retreated. I have at least two flocks roaming around here and this is the smaller Tom. The other (older I think) is about 1/3 again as large. I note the two Toms do not seem to be antagonistic to each other as there have been days when I see both flocks happily co-mingling in one of my meadows clucking away and pecking at stuff on the ground. Usually one Tom stands guard on one side and the other watches the other side. I know most of their noises, but today was the first time I had ever heard an incipient attack warning noise (analogous to the cat's warning yowl I suspect) from a Tom turkey. An interesting noise and I suspect quite beyond human throat capability.

Tom (suicidally, once he is in season) playing rear guard and slowly retreating from me.



The cat calmed down and came inside and I returned to life on CS.

My oldest surviving cat, Moe, is missing tonight.

He started acting strange a week or two ago. Changed his sleeping spot of more than a decade in the master bedroom to a treadmill downstairs in the basement. He used to love being held but now not for more than a few moments. He has started running at full speed when going anywhere in the house. As if he is racing something or being chased. For the past decade(s) when outside he would rarely be more than 30 yards from the door, often in plain sight and always when I called him he would come quickly. Usually he would go out for only a few hours, then come back in. Never, ever, did he miss a 6:30 dinner call. Let out after dinner he would usually be back within 40 minutes. Until a few weeks ago he had the most affectionate look on his face when laying on me or at my feet. He has lost over 10 pounds in the past decade, but the vet says that isn't unusual. He is pushing 20 years old and has shared all of the events in this household of that period. It isn't unfair to say he is a part of who I am. Some may remember a video I posted this year of him making sure my blood sugar is acceptable or how he probably saved my life by biting my nose to awaken me the night my blood sugar suddenly dropped to 33 while I slept. Sudden changes.

In the past week or so he has begun acting sometimes when I come in the room like, who are you?; No immediate recognition and it takes him a few seconds to calm down. He has suddenly in the past week begun drinking a lot of water. At the sink he will put his head under the faucet and drink until I wonder where he is putting it. He no longer likes the bedroom and if carried into it, runs away as soon as he can to the basement and hides. He has suddenly stopped coming into the bed to check on me. That was of course the most noticeable thing as until last week he would lay on my chest for hours. Let out, he vanishes into the woods and takes hours to come back. Yesterday he was out from 8AM to 5PM and not a trace of him did I find when I wandered around calling his name. Then at 5 he showed up like nothing was unusual, ate his dinner and went out as normal afterwards and came back 2 hours later. Unusual, but not a calamity.

Today at 3PM he wanted to go out and I let him and the other cat out. At 6:15 PM the other cat was waiting at the door for his dinner but no Moe. I fed the one and went out looking for Moe and calling his name. No trace of him. He has never before missed dinner. After sundown I began wandering my woods with a flashlight calling him and looking along the game trails. Not only is his fur snow white (stands out pretty good, even in the woods, but he has a reflective collar on and I expected the flashlight to at least pick up on that. Nothing.

It is pushing 1AM now and I am very worried for him. There was a light rain at 9PM and I certainly expected him to show up at that as he hates rain. I don't know what to think. Did he have a heart attack? Did a coyote or fox get him? Are the changes in behavior I have noted in the past two weeks the result of a stroke or alzheimers (yes cats get it too, in cats it is called feline cognitive disorder (FCD)? If I am not finding him with the flashlight and he isn't responding I know he went at least several hundred yards away, if not more. I am hoping that he didn't get lost. I am reading tonight on FCD and getting lost in familiar places is one of the symptoms. So is forgetting who a human owner is. Also their hearing goes. I haven't really seen a sign of hearing loss, but I am now worried. Not coming when called is a total departure from two decades of prior behavior.

A late morning, on our National Day,Oct 1th. It looked going to rain again,( we had been a strong wind and heavy rain last night.) I rode back from my Dad's hospital, in our living area, a small cat, just running forward before me, oh, it's not a running, it's the jump like a rabbit!

I got off my bike and followed him, called him, hoping he could stop. but he still kept jumping ahead untill a little tired and slowly down... I took him to my home downstairs, put him in a basket, he busy licked his fur without even looked around, hmm, a clean-loving cat,I thought. Then I took him upstairs to my room, put him in a small box he still busy licked... He refused food but some little water, then falled asleep nearly all day long, he might be very exhausted during last bad night...

This is the first formal time I have a cat with me, at first I worried about something like his toilet? his night sleep? But all these things are nature solved by his smart. Now we are in harmony. One funny thing is he always followed wherever I went at home and sat down beside my feet when I was cooking,so I kicked him several times, now I learned to move my feet slowly...

This one has a good character with gentle Miaow always,every night when I turned off the light, he knew should stop playing, ate and then went to his own place and kept in silence, but I knew he won't sleep yet, he watched my slipper, if I got up at night, he was out of his place also...He watches me all the time likes a detective.

It has 11 days he is at my home, Here 's some of his life pics. But I have no idea about how old of him? Hope he is happy in my home.


The first day, exhausted .

I am boxed in by cats, I can't move

There appears to be some sort of life force or psychic energy in every living entity.
When that entity dies, what happens to that force or energy?
Some argue that that energy is annihilated into nothingness or destroyed.

The Law of Conservation of Energy, however, states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; therefore that energy will continue to exist even after the death of the living entity. It may exist in a different form or even in a different dimension but it will not vanish into nothingness. From a human perspective, this energy is normally referred to as “soul” or “spirit”.

But what about non-human living entities like animals, for example, dogs and cats. By a similar argument, they also possess some life force or energy when they are alive, and by extension, that energy will continue to exist after they die. The term “soul” or “spirit” is usually reserved for human beings. Can we also use it for animals and speak of a dog's or cat's “soul”, especially in regard to our pets? After all, some of our pet dogs and cats can be quite human-like in their behaviour, providing comfort, caring and faithfulness to us, maybe even more so than some of our human family and friends.

What happens to these animals' “souls” after death? I have a poet friend on CS Poetry Corner who is a genuine cat lover. In some of his poems, he has written of “Kitty Heaven” where he expects to be re-united with his deceased feline friends in the future.

I am aware of the teachings of some religions,with regard to human beings, of a permanent residence for the soul in either heaven or hell after death. Others speak of the soul being reborn or recycled in another life. If you are a person who accepts the teachings of such religions, then that is fine. I am not attacking anyone's religion.

However, the life force or “soul” energy that enables a human being or an animal is basically some form of energy that continues to exist after the human being or animal dies. By extension, this should also apply to “all living entities”, including other animals, fish, birds, insects, etc..
In my opinion, to restrict the idea of “soul” or “spirit” to human beings only, is a very anthropocentric perspective, for which, to me, there is absolutely no justification.

Perhaps there exists a huge “life energy pool” from which life energy is drawn to enable new living entities. When these living entities die, their life energy is returned to that “life energy pool” which, in turn, continues to enable other “new living entities”.

Do animals have souls? What do you think?