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Strollerderby
Recently a commenter asserted that raising a child is identical to raising a dog. “Both can be encouraged to good behavior through rewards and discouraged from bad behavior through punishment.” “Both demand enthusiastic praise and consistant (sic) (non-angry) discipline.” “Just like a dog, you must put a plastic cone on a child’s head to keep them from chewing on their butt.” Okay, I made that last one up. Or did I?
Many took umbrage with the commenter’s remarks, but I (always the scientist) decided to put them to the test. Over a weekend I pitted my three-year-old against our 1 ½ year old border collie to once and for all resolve the question: who is smarter, a toddler or a dog? Here are the competitors.
Believe it or not, we’re getting close to the holidays, and that means the gift requests are going to start mounting up from our kiddos. For lots of kids, that gift list includes a new puppy or kitten.
Animal welfare people suggest that the chaos and craziness of the holidays is about the worst time to introduce a new pet into the house, and I have to agree. But when you’ve made that decision to add a new pet to your family, the Humane Society of the United States and the Ad Council are launching a new campaign to get you to consider a shelter pet as your first and best place to get a pet. It’s called the Shelter Pet Project. Here’s just one fact: Every year, of the 8 million dogs and cats that enter animal shelters, 3 million of these healthy and treatable pets are euthanized.
Most shelters Continue reading »
No matter how you feel about dogs (I’m mostly not a dog person), dogfighting is a horrible, horrible thing. As trusting as dogs are, to hear of them being treated so inhumanely is especially awful.
And this is more awful still: Sherriff’s deputies in a suburb of Chicago arrested three people and rescued nine dogs from what appeared to be a dogfighting operation. They found bloodstains on the garage floor and dogfighting paraphernalia at the house, which was operating as a daycare facility.
Let me just repeat that: A dogfighting ring was busted at a daycare home.
I don’t think big, aggressive breeds of dogs, like pit bulls and Rottweilers, should be anywhere near children anyway. Continue reading »
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He’s a favorite of Michelle Obama, and this week, SkippyJon Jones is being launched into, er, “spice.”
The lastest in a line of books featuring a Siamese cat who thinks he’s a Chihuahua, SkippyJon Jones Lost in Spice is littered with Spanish words for your kids to practice and a story that’s been peppered with a liberal dose of silly.
Author Judy Schachner sat down with Babble via the phone from her home in southeastern Pennsylvania to explain why cats need three names and why her cat speaks with a Spanish accent: Continue reading »
Honestly, I think pit bulls and babies don’t mix.
In the latest dog-bites-baby news, a North Carolina mother and her boyfriend have been arrested and charged with felony child abuse after a pit bull chewed off the toes of her 4-month-old baby’s left foot.
The mom, Robie Lynn Jenkins, told authorities that she was on medication and, along with her boyfriend, slept through the baby’s cries. All three were sleeping in the same room. In fact, Jenkins said she didn’t discover the injuries until the next day when she was changing the baby’s diaper. Continue reading »
Babies are cute. Dogs are cute.
Babies talking are cute. Dogs talking are cute.
Neither one is really talking, at least not with words. Both, however, are cute.
So! Let’s put a baby and a dog together, get them “talking”, and put it all on Japanese television! Continue reading »
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Katherine Stone 
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