A man and his dog happen upon a wild animal, the wild animal defends itself. This scenario is neither unusual nor inexplicable. But check out the description from this encounter earlier this week:

Rickard said he was walking his blue heeler, Rocky, on Sunday morning when they surprised a sleeping kangaroo in Arthur’s Creek northeast of Melbourne. The dog chased the animal into a pond, when the kangaroo turned and pinned the pet underwater.

When Rickard tried to pull his dog free, the kangaroo turned on him, attacking with its hind legs and tearing a deep gash into his abdomen and across his face.

Rickard said he ended the attack by elbowing the kangaroo in the throat, adding Rocky was “half-drowned” when he pulled him from the water.

Maybe those cartoon kangaroos with boxing-gloves need to be updated with more of an ultimate fighting look.

Never doubt why it’s a good idea to keep your dog on leash when hiking, especially if you’re in the outback.

Change.org, that is. This socially conscious social network just launched a shiny new Animal Welfare blog…and I’m lucky enough to get to write for it.

If you’re not already on Change.org, you should be (and if you are, why aren’t you my friend?). Every day, I’ll be blogging about animal stuff – the latest news, primers on the issues, updates, amazing/tragic/fillintheblank stories, or whatever happens to be on my mind. Got something on your mind that you’d like to see a post about? Let me know!

Check out the new blog, join the cause, and help me spread the word!

Photo credit: meagan

Ever read a national news story and think that some organization really should get the word out for people to write their representatives, or know of a local animal cruelty case where the judge needs to hear from people on why the abuser needs the strongest sentence possible? Now you can do something about it.

Change.org has opened up their online petition tool to everyone. That means that any organization, no matter how small, or any individual (that means you), can start a campaign of their own. Your campaign – on your issue – can get national media attention and change policies.

http://www.change.org/petition

This is ridiculously cool. Seriously, this is what social media and the power of the internet is all about. Modern-day grassroots at its best. You don’t need to be a big national organization to make a difference. And these things work. Just a few weeks ago, there was a blog post on Scholastic’s decision to exclude a book with two mommies from their book fairs. A petition was created, it was recommended and retweeted (all part of the petition tool), and two days later, Scholastic changed its mind and the book was back on the table.

If you’re passionate about something happening in the world, you can find it on Change.org. Check it out, then spread the word to everyone else you know who cares.

For those of you with the occasional twinge of guilt that you spend more money on books than groceries, and for those of you who are free from buyer’s remorse but like to make a difference whenever you can, check out Better World Books. 

When you buy a book from them, you help fund global literacy programs and support programs that provide books to literacy organizations around the world. They’re also environmentally conscious – they rescue used books from a landfill fate and all of their shipping is offset through Carbonfund.org.

If you’re looking for educational or children’s books, you can also check out First Book, which helps overcome the literacy obstacle of access to books by providing new books to kids across the U.S. and Canada.

So, you hereby have permission – almost a duty, really – to go forth and indulge your book addiction for a good cause!

Thanks to my sister never outgrowing her love for crayola, I recently found myself in the coloring aisle at Michael’s, picking up a box of bathtub crayons. I’d thought about getting these for awhile now; some of my best ideas come to me in the shower and I either have to slosh across the house to drip my ideas onto the nearest paper or recite the ingenious thought over and over to keep my mind from wandering before I can dry off.

Problem Solved:

At one point I’d come across a very grown-up, sensible solution online – some special waterproof notepad and pencil. But what fun is that?

They say it’s November…but I say every month should be Adopt a Senior Pet Month. (Wilbur agrees.)

ASPCA’s Top 10 Reasons to Adopt an Older Dog

Olive was my first senior adoption. She was already an older adult when she was rescued from a horrid situation with forty other neglected animals (check out my friend Michelle’s wonderful Ode to Maggie – a fellow quirky dog from the same cruelty case).

Olive was a strange dog. Sometimes she’d stare into space, or leap up from a deep sleep barking for no apparent reason. She had doggy OCD that manifested itself in the habit of curling into a tight ball to suck on her hip. She stamped her feet when she barked, which mostly happened at dinner time as if she was cheering me on as I prepared her food. She was flat-footed due to neglect, so she had a funny, uneven trot as she raced across the yard in the winter to come back inside the second she’d finished her business. She actually liked wearing sweaters in the winter – she’d prance around as soon as you dressed her up. In the summer, she could lay in the sun for hours.

She never quite got the hang of training. One obedience class instructor tried to use Olive to show tricks that would get a difficult dog to lie down. It never worked, no matter how many different types of cheese or hot dog or liver we tried to lure her with; no matter how long the class stared at me sitting on the floor with Olive standing over my legs licking my face instead of lying down to root out the treat I was holding beneath my knees. Right until the end, she would kill a stuffed animal with gusto, but she was never destructive around the house. On walks, Olive would march straight ahead with a sense of purpose, not bothering to sniff the ground like the other dogs. Any unexpected turns (especially a turn-around to go home) would cause her to freeze and the walk would degenerate into a negotiation of coaxing her a few steps at a time…until I gave up and carried her as far as I could.

Olive was one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever known. Everyone of every species was greeted with a wagging tail. She was always gentle, even with packs of children crowded around her to say hello. And, despite everything she’d been through, she was a happy dog. If she heard you talk about her when she was napping, her tail would thump against the couch. This little 40 pound pittie LOVED to be carried. As soon as she was picked up, she’d lay her head on your shoulder and fall asleep with the corners of her mouth turned up in a peaceful smile. If you put her down, she’d blink at you, like she wasn’t sure what she did to deserve it.

By the time I adopted her, she was already a senior dog. I didn’t know how she’d adjust to being in a home after the cruelty case and then two years with a rescue group. I didn’t know if she’d ever get housetrained or bond with the other animals and me. But she did. It was an immediately rewarding adoption, with none of the training frustration that can come from getting a younger dog, or the uncertainty about what sort of dog you really got. Olive already was who she was – in all her weird and wonderful ways.

I only got six years with her – she was estimated somewhere between sixteen and a hundred and sixteen by the time mammary cancer took her. It was a tough loss, definitely not enough time together. When is it ever enough time? That’s the hard part with a senior dog, but it’s worth it.

David Wroblewski, author of “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” was at Nicola’s Books last night. As he was discussing various threads that run through his book about dogs and language, at one point he cited the surveys that ask people which family member they’re closest to and how the dog consistently ranks at, or near, the top. He said our relationship with our dogs is so strong in spite of, or perhaps because of, our inability to use words.

This isn’t news in terms of dog training. Dogs are more fluent in our body language than we are – it’s the verbal commands that they need to learn (and we humans need to learn what our bodies are saying to them) – so the concept of a mute boy working dogs the way Edgar Sawtelle does in the book isn’t a far reach at all. But a writer talking, or writing, about words getting in the way of communication seems a bit ironic.

It’s not. Some of the most effective, powerful books are the ones where the writing seems to “disappear” and you can fully absorb the story. Or think about the mantra “show, don’t tell.” What is “telling” but using words that are nothing more than words, instead of “showing” with image-painting language.

A couple more examples of Words vs. Communication:

1) Politicians. Need I say more?

2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, the Emmy-nominated episode Hush where “The Gentleman” steal everyone’s voices, so they all have to communicate with gestures and expressions. You can’t find this episode online (at least not legally), so if you haven’t seen it, go get your hands on Season 4 now. It’s amazing.

It’s no secret that the boys often snuggle in an innocent, awww-inducing way:

But sometimes they (Mobur? Wilby?) are caught in Gawker-worthy poses:

Before anyone gets too excited, Wilbur is still very much up for adoption (how can you not want these scenes in your very own home?).

And don’t worry about Moby, he falls in love easily and doesn’t mind unrequited snuggling:

Jonathan Safran Foer, acclaimed author of “Everything is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (both books that I highly recommend) just released his latest book called Eating Animals.

It was an issue he’d never really thought about until he became a father and was responsible for someone else’s food choices. His research led him to understand the inhumanity of factory farming, the environmental impacts, and the effects on human health. People from Dr. Andrew Weil to actress Natalie Portman have been profoundly affected by this book and are blogging about how it’s changed their lives and views.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I think it’s powerful for a number of reasons. For starters, Jonathan Safran Foer has a way with words that’s both accessible and awe-inspiring. But even more important is that this book wasn’t written by someone with an agenda. It wasn’t sponsored by an animal rights organization or penned by a life-long activist. Not that there’s anything wrong with books that fall into those categories, but skeptics tend to approach those volumes with, well, skepticism. It takes a lot of bravery and honesty for someone new to an issue to take it on the way Safran Foer did, and I think that appeals to people who are a bit unsure about the subject. It will be interesting to see how, or if, his fiction audience follows him to this new territory.

 In a CNN column, he said, “I’m a novelist and never had it in mind to write nonfiction. Frankly, I doubt I’ll ever do it again. But the subject of animal agriculture, at this moment, is something no one should ignore. As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.”