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Photo credit: dougwoods

More good animal news: Michigan State Vet School is going to stop using live dogs for surgical training! http://ow.ly/1eT6d #

@colleenlindsay Did you see that HuffPo took pit bulls off the “Dangerous Pets” List? http://ow.ly/1eN3I in reply to colleenlindsay #

RT @changeAnimals: Victory! Huffington Post Removes Pit Bulls From “Dangerous Pets” List http://ow.ly/1eN3I #

@jenimc It happens to be the blog I write for…it’s on all animal issues, but I slip in a lot of pro-rescue, pro-pitbull content in reply to jenimc #

Wii Endless Ocean looks pretty cool, but it made me think that a Whale Wars game would be even cooler. Sea Shepherd should get on that. #

Yesterday was “What if Cats and Dogs had Opposable Thumbs?” Day. If they did, animal welfare would look very different. So would my house. #

@jenimc are you following @changeAnimals yet? Also @KenFosterWrites is a pittie guy in reply to jenimc #

RT @Pitbull1970: RT @HugABull: RT @sfeldstein: RT @change Are Dog Bite Statistics Reliable? http://bit.ly/cFlSNH #

RT @sfeldstein: What does industry do when Russia bans US chicken because of chemicals? Market more to Americans…they’ll eat anything!… #

RT @changeAnimals: Sick of hearing about police shooting dogs? There’s a serious lack of training (on the human side) http://ow.ly/1dS4r #

Pit bulls are “dangerous pets?” Tell Huffington Post to Stop Spreading Misinformation About Pit Bulls @change http://bit.ly/cimuiv #

Why is it that whenever I stay up late, the dogs are all crashed the next morning like they’d been the ones working all night? #

RT @changeAnimals: Are you in danger of losing your dog or cat based on someone’s opinion of your pet care? http://ow.ly/1dyvx #

RT @ecorazzi: Sea Shepherd Music Video Will Catch You Up On This Year’s Greatest Hits http://bt.io/Eb5W ^md #

btw, @changeAnimals is the Change.org blog I write for, so if you’re here for the animal stuff, follow them for even more treats! #

Follow @changeAnimals for the latest news, campaigns, and debates on all things animals http://animals.change.org/ #

RT @SujathaHampton: Even Moby loves my book! http://bit.ly/d9gY8H #

Why are we still testing on great apes? http://bit.ly/dC2SPN #

@petfinder says it’s #TweetAPetTuesday … I still have Wilbur, very cool middle-age pittie up for adoption! http://bit.ly/d9JgOF in reply to petfinder #

What does industry do when Russia bans US chicken cuz of chemicals? Market more to Americans…they’ll eat anything! http://bit.ly/cFXGsJ #

RT @FakeAPStylebook When considering whether to write in dialect, please don’t. #

@lafreya1 Clearing out the old people, eh? in reply to lafreya1 #

Repo Men doesn’t look nearly as fun as Repo! The Genetic Opera #

RT @change My Dolphin is Smarter Than Your Honor Student http://bit.ly/aZYB74 #

RT @change Are Dog Bite Statistics Reliable? http://bit.ly/cFlSNH #

Are veterinarians in Big Pharma’s pocket, too? http://bit.ly/aod4va #

Twitter Roundup 2010-02-28: Is the end near for Class B Dealers? RT @change Pets Still Being Sold to Research http… http://bit.ly/9FfjVU #

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The ceremony is two weeks away, sign the petition against awarding Michael Vick the Ed Block Courage Award http://bit.ly/b130aO #

Dogs Perform Civic Duty as Courtroom Companions http://bit.ly/dtckcg #

RT @colsonwhitehead: Last Nite on #LOST “It’s a lighthouse.” “How is it we’ve never seen it before?” “They make it up as they go along,… #

Prince Charles says wool is “green,”but what about sheep’s impact on the environment & the cruelty of the biz? http://bit.ly/9kZrTN #

Happy Spay Day! If you know any animals who still need to be spayed and neutered, today is the day to get ‘er done! http://bit.ly/aV5aMK #

I know CCF is a front group, I get advocacy, & I’m not anti-HSUS, so if the HSUS defensiveness looks bad to me, how does it look to others? #

HSUS shouldn’t spend so much energy denying CCF. It’s started to have a “thou dost protest too much” feel and I know how sketchy CCF is. #

Sooo…it’s okay to keep factory farming if we take away the ability to feel pain? RT @change Pain-free Farm Animals? http://bit.ly/cNjsZS #

RT @change: The war on whales is about to get a lot uglier: http://bit.ly/bHbd5r #

RT @greenkozi: Great read on “oreo’s”law http://bit.ly/cGIqj1 (damn I hate that name) #

Naps help babies learn and retain new information: http://bit.ly/9ZqHCC – If they want to study the effects of naps on adults, sign me up! #

@sherlonya yes, you are…it’s looking good over at http://sherlonya.net/blog/ in reply to sherlonya #

For the latest animal news and actions: Join the Cause @change: Animals http://bit.ly/8Z4Ry2 #

Twitter Roundup 2010-02-21: Dickens’ Dog Collar In NYC Dog Art Auction http://bit.ly/b7zRL8 #
Is it really about t… http://bit.ly/aD9ICV #

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Why am I doing this? Mostly because when I find random interesting links (okay, not totally random … they’re usually animal-related), they tend to go through Twitter even if they don’t make it to the blog.

I also tweet my favorite Change.org stories, so this roundup will put them all in one place if you’re not already following the Animals blog on Change.org (which you should be!).

Now, for this past week’s Twitter Roundup…

Dickens’ Dog Collar In NYC Dog Art Auction http://bit.ly/b7zRL8 #

Is it really about the dogs? Westminster Show-n-Tell http://bit.ly/9GTOfT #

@sujathahampton ’s debut novel out today! As It Was Written http://bit.ly/bfphZG #

The Newest Addition to Your Reading List: Go buy this book:Sujatha Hampton’s debut novel, As It Was Written, is … http://bit.ly/c5WQkM #

Round one of Ideas for Change ends tomorrow, so cast your vote! RT @change What Would You Change for Animals? http://bit.ly/cMKPeD #

Fur is not okay…but neither are death threats: Olympic Skater and Anti-Fur Advocates on Thin Ice http://bit.ly/9RA9RH #

Vote to Ban Breed Specific Legislation by Feb 25th @change http://tinyurl.change.org/IKbUL #

@SujathaHampton Haven’t found it yet, but I’m bugging all of the Borders. I’ll order it online this wkend if I can’t my hands on it by then! in reply to SujathaHampton #

Macy’s is the last major dept store still selling real fur as “faux.” Tell them to change their mislabeling practices http://bit.ly/cERLYi #

If you need more lolz in your life, check out Pit Bull Rescue Central’s LOLPITS at http://pbrcpitterpatter.blogspot.com/ #

Wolf slaughtering competitions RT @change Cabela’s: Proud Sponsor of Killing Sprees http://bit.ly/9y5SvD #

Pet theft dangers: Holding Dogs for Ransom http://bit.ly/duJUxP #

#FF authors: @sujathahampton ’s book is out! #lafreya1 ’s is in production. @michellehodkin will get there sooner than she thinks. #

#FF animal bloggers: @martinmatheny @dancingdogblog @DrMartyBecker @GinaSpadafori …and everyone should follow:@ItsMeOrTheDog #

Ever been in the taxidermy museum that is a Cabela’s store? Tell the company to stop supporting Wolf-Killing Derbies http://bit.ly/brsNpH #

Foodie on Foie Gras “Ducks and geese don’t have a gag reflex, so it doesn’t bother them at all” http://bit.ly/d7SPvy #

Is PETA out of touch? RT @change PETA’s “Worst Dressed” Misses Fashion Week Failures http://bit.ly/bEjjg4 #

Anyone seen the movie Wendy and Lucy? Plan to watch it tonight. http://www.wendyandlucy.com/ #

Secret talks next month to sanction whale hunts? Take Action @change: Uphold the International Ban on Whaling http://bit.ly/bB2n2z #

dog ran in front of my car today. would’ve taken her to shelter, but found her dumbass owner hanging out, just letting her wander in street. #

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Sujatha Hampton’s debut novel, As It Was Written, is in stores today. Here’s the blurb:
The epic journey of an Indian-American family which unfolds when men and women, Hindus and Catholics, histories and curses, collide.

In McLean, Virginia, Dr. Raman Nair lives a life of abounding satisfaction with his tiny wife, Jaya, and his harem of enormous and beautiful daughters. He has been away from his native Kerala, India for so long that he has happily forgotten the ancient Brahmin curse that follows his family like a black cloud, killing one girl for love in every generation. But his wife hasn’t forgotten, nor has his baby sister, Gita. Suddenly his daughters are up to no good and Dr. Raman Nair doesn’t know which way to turn.

This book is fantastic. Trust me, it’s well worth reading. Go buy it, then let me know what you think.

Here’s why this waste of $29.99 misses the point, whether you’re tweeting for your dog, your writing career, or any other reason:

1) Pre-programmed messages are great … if you want to have a really lame account. Twitter is about interesting soundbytes: sharing bits of who you are, what you’re interested in, and how you see the world. Not only do Mattel’s messages not fit any of those criteria, but 500 options are likely to get old really fast (especially when they’re sure to be scintillating quotes like “OMG, I love squirrels!”)

2) Dogs don’t care about Twitter. They don’t care about sharing their thoughts online. They don’t want to talk about the squirrel, they want you to take them outside so they can chase it. The moral of the story: Don’t forget the real world. As you get caught up in social media, don’t sacrifice your relationship with your dog, or your writing, or the world outside of your office.

3) What’s the point? It can be connecting with friends or fans, or building a character’s online presence, or being an activist, but it has to be more than sharing your own thoughts for your own amusement. No one likes a narcissist, human or canine. The people who do a decent job tweeting as their dog are sharing information and insight into a dog’s world, versus attempting to actually give their dog a voice on Twitter. And, again, what makes all of this interesting is your unique perspective, not the canned response from some gadget.

4) Social networking is about being social and building a network. One-sided, pre-programmed messages don’t do the trick. You (or your dog) need to be available to respond and react to what’s happening in the Twitterverse.

If you can’t dedicate a few seconds to post a tweet, as your dog or yourself, it’s not worth being on Twitter. So be interesting, be unique, be interactive, and save the $29.99. Or, better yet, donate the money to your local animal shelter to help the dogs still looking for a home where they can set up a Twitter account.

Before I saw the film, I wrote about the premise for the documentary over on the Change.org blog. I thought it could tell an important story about the connection between people and their pets, particularly in crisis situations, and the complications of custody battles. It did. But it also told the story of how people are treated when it comes to animal rescue. And it’s not always pretty.

People in rescue don’t have a ton of resources and usually don’t have much information on the animals we’re rescuing. We get in, we help the animal, we get out. Then we move on to trying to find the animal a good home so we can help more because the pool of animals in need is bottomless. As a group, we’re doing the best we can with what we have.

On the whole, we are a very judgmental group. Even those of us who try to keep an open mind tend to read between the lines of an animal’s situation and assume we know the type of people who caused it. We’ve seen enough abuse and abandonment to have good reason to be cynical. Our fellow humans rarely get the benefit of the doubt.

Mine highlights a group of people who suffered from these judgments. Hurricane Katrina was a unique situation in many ways, but the way people were treated was not.

Rescuers made judgments about the entire pet owning population of New Orleans, and many decided that “Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened for these animals.” For some of the abused, that may be true. They got a second chance when their suffering might not have otherwise been discovered. You can find those cases in any city, in any state in this country. But many of the rescued animals had been in homes where they were loved. Why keep those pets from their families only to add them to a shelter system where 6-8 million animals are euthanized every year because there aren’t enough homes?

New Orleans residents who were literally forced to leave their homes without their animals, who were told they would be allowed to return in a day or two, who had to evacuate entire families with little-to-no means of transportation were accused of abandoning their animals by rescuers in other states who have probably never seen a natural disaster stronger than a thunderstorm.

People who lost everything, who were shuffled to emergency shelters, who had no phones, and didn’t know if or when they’d get to go home, were criticized for not being able to track down their animals (who could be anywhere in the country by this point) within the first month or two after the disaster.

People who tried for months, even years, to track down their dogs, while trying to rebuild their lives, were treated as if they didn’t care enough.

One man man finally tracked down the rescue group that had ended up with his dog, who had been adopted out by then, and the rescuer never contacted the adoptive family to inform them that their dog’s previous owner was looking for him. The adopters found out years later when the man secured a pro bono attorney to help find his dog and they were served with a court order.

We rarely get to see ourselves, and our flaws, larger than life on a movie screen. Even more rare is getting into the lives of the people we deal with when trying to help animals. Yet every single animal we help has been a part of someone’s life.

Sometimes the people involved ignored the animal’s suffering, or caused it. Sometimes they are every bit as uncaring and undeserving of an animal’s love as we think they are. But sometimes, it’s not that simple.

The man set down his gun to retrieve some duck decoys a few yards away. That’s when the dog stepped on the shotgun, disengaged the safety, and fired at her companion a la Dick Cheney.

One headline on this story read: Hunting dog triggers shotgun, hits master. I wonder how they think “master” is defined… 

Photo credit: Termin8er

There was a recent interview with Nikki Stafford, author of five unofficial guides to the show, on the role of literature in Lost. The quote the excerpted quote from the GalleyCat post:

“The books are essential. The second season was the first time they came out a head of time actually told viewers that they would flash a book and they should watch for it…in the beginning of season two…Desmond chucks a whole bunch of things into his backpack, one was a copy of the book, ‘The Third Policeman.’ This was a book that came out in the 1960s by an Irish writer [Flann O'Brien]. I interviewed an editor at that publishing house and they sold 20,000 copies of that book in the weeks leading up to the episode.”

My previous post about the show had focused on how it’s written — the character development and use of backstory. But I absolutely should have included the books themselves. As Stafford said, they’re essential. Like everything else in the show, the books are details that add depth to the characters and the scenes.

For books to have such an important role in a show with the “if you were stranded on a deserted island…” premise, is a huge win for writers and bibliophiles everywhere. The network even started a Lost Book Club on their site, featuring titles that make a cameo on the show. Anything that promotes reading gets a virtual fist-bump from me.

And how much sexier was Sawyer for reading all the time in the earlier seasons?

And from the classic world of LOL Cats:

Need more laughs? Here are my three favorite websites o’ hilarity in my Google Reader:

Cake Wrecks

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

and the newest member (thanks to Amy!): Oddly Specific

Have a great weekend!