Awards for Everyone

My best friend’s daughter, who lives in England, has just taken up horse riding. She is only eight years old and my friend feels that it is a good idea to get her used to being on a horse at a young age. Personally I have never been on a horse, as I find them quite frightening.
So, now when I speak to Lizzie on the Skype phone with video she is parading in her breeches, her boots, her helmet (which apparently she wears when walking about the house) and her talk is about horses, ponies and rosettes. I think she dreams of being a prize winning jockey in the Grand National. I have never seen her so enthusiastic, and it is great to see her so happy.

Popularity: 5%

I have three cats and a dog.  The eldest two cats came with me when I left England, the dog and the youngest cat I have acquired since we came to live here.  One of my cats is an epileptic and gets seen by the vet about every four months or so, to have blood levels of her medication checked. The dog has to have a special collar from April to October, because of the risk of Leishmaniasis in this country.

Apart from that they all need to be wormed and having flea treatments applied every month, since one of the cats does go out and the dog does as well. This can be expensive, as the best flea treatment available here is only on prescription from the vet.

I wish we had pet supplies places here, where you could buy the same treatments at a reduced cost, but though I have tried several pet supermarkets and looked on-line, it seems the only way to get the treatments here is to visit the vet and pay full price. This is particularly annoying since fleas really like me, and though my animals are flea free, unfortunately I do visit patients who have animals that have not been treated, and consequently I walk around with itchy feet all summer!

Popularity: 12%

This story distressed me deeply. I got a phone call from a friend of mine that a mutual friend of ours had accidentally killer her own cat. She was in a hurry, needing to go to England for a few days. She thought she would just quickly apply deflea-ing treatment to her animals before she left, as her mother is elderly and not able to do it.

The lady in question owns three dogs and several cats. She uses a treatment that can be bought at the veterinary surgery for the treatment of all her animals. The process is simple, you open the capsule and squeeze the contents of the capsule between the shoulder blades of the animal being treated. I myself use the same formula for all my animals.

On the fateful day, our friend accidentally administered a dog dose to one of her cats. Within minutes it was obvious that the cat was in severe distress, and he could hardly breathe. She rushed him to the vet. At that moment she was unaware of what had happened. The vet examined the cat and as he was examining him, the cat died.

It was only when she got home and started tidying up the capsules, that she realised she had accidentally administered one dog dose too many.

My heart goes out to her. I cannot imagine how she must feel as I look at my three cats lying happily in the sun on the balcony. I do wonder what I am putting on my animals now, and whether I can find an alternative flea treatment that has none of the harmful side-effects of the current treatment. I also looked at the treatments we have in our cupboard and have now separated the dog treatments from the cat ones. I just wish the company producing the capsules could maybe change the colour of one set of capsules, so that we know for example that the red capsules are for dogs and the blue ones for cats. That should not be too difficult and may prevent a further tragedy from happening.

Anyone who knows a truly effective treatment against fleas that does not involve killing chemicals, please let me know

Popularity: 17%

I have always been a cat person. That does not mean I do not love dogs, in fact, I have almost always had a dog as well as several cats. I love dogs for their company and their willingness to be obedient, I love cats for their bloody-mindedness, and their independence. You can ask a cat to do something and he/she will look at you knowingly, then frown, as if to say ‘well I may, or then again, I may not’, then have a stretch and completely ignore you. I always have the feeling with my cats that if I ever were to suddenly die, they would survive, not maybe in the luxury to which they are accustomed, but  they would manage. Whereas I felt that my dogs would probably just give up the ghost when no-one fed them anymore, and would join me wherever I have gone.

Therefore, it was really nice to read an article about a dog called Sophie Tucker (named after the American vaudeville star of the same name). Sophie is an Australian Cattle Dog.

I am not sure why her owners called her Sophie Tucker, I guess they may have been fans of Sophie.  In November of 2008 the family went sailing off the coast of Queensland, Australia.  The seas were very choppy and Sophie fell overboard. Anyone who has been sailing knows it is hard to pick up a human being that is co-operative when they are in the water, and unfortunately the family were unable to pick up the dog. They cut short their sailing trip and went home, feeling devastated that their beloved Sophie was lost forever.

Four months after Sophie drowned, the family got a phone call asking them to meet some people who had caught a dog on a nearly deserted island off the coast of Queensland, the dog answered the description of Sophie. The island was 5 nautical miles from the place where Sophie went overboard. The family of course responded to the phone call, with very little hope that this dog would be theirs, but when they called the dog’s name she started whimpering and whining like a mad thing and when the people who caught her let her out of the cage, she ran into the arms of her family. It really was Sophie Tucker.

Apparently the dog had swum for something like 5 miles to get to a semi-deserted island, mainly inhabited by goats. It appears that she lived on little baby-goats until a boat happened to anchor at the island. The sailors on the boat spotted the dog and realised she should not have been there. They managed to capture her and put a report on the radio that they had caught an Australian Cattle Dog.

Because the family had put in a lost dog report, they were reunited with their beloved Sophie. Needless to say, a lot of tears were shed at this reunion.

I cannot imagine how they must have felt. Four months of thinking their dog was dead, four months of feeling guilty for having taken her sailing in the first place, and then suddenly the relief to find she was still alive. Apparently Sophie settled back into the comforts of home life very easily and has not tried to catch her own food again since then.

I really loved this story and has given me renewed respect for my own dog. Though I hope I will never lose him in the way Sophie was lost, it has made me realise that my dog too has an innate survival instinct that will kick in when necessary.

The original Sophie Tucker was one of the most famous singers and comediennes of the first two thirds of the 20th Century.  She was referred to as the ‘Last of the Red Hot Mamas’ . She made famous such songs as ‘Some of these Days’ and ‘My Yiddishe Momme’. She was a large woman and was initially made to wear ‘black face’ make-up because her managers felt she would too fat and ugly to be accepted as she was. When she stopped wearing the black-face make-up one day, because she had forgotten to pack it, she became even more popular, and never wore the make-up again. She died in 1966.

Popularity: 30%

I was very privileged to be involved in the setting up of a very special cat rescue centre, called Woodland Cat Rescue in Norwich, UK, in 1995. The Rescue is run by a fantastic woman called Moya Kingston, who dedicates her entire life the care and rescue of cats.

Originally Woodland was just like most other cat rescue groups. Taking in stray and abandoned cats, and pregnant queens. There are a lot of stories about these cats, and I am hoping that one day Moya will sit down and write some of those down, because I believe it will make a really good book, and may also provide some much needed funds for the cat food and veterinary fund.

After several years of running the cat rescue in the traditional way, Moya and her helpers realised that in fact there was a need for somewhere where elderly, sick and disabled cats could go. Finding a home for a relatively young healthy cat or kitten is not usually that difficult, but many elderly and sick cats were taken to the vet to be put down, either because the owner had died and the family did not want to take the cat or because the care and costs involved in having an elderly cat were too great a burden for the family. It was therefore decided that Woodland Cat Rescue would look after the elderly and disabled and sick cats and that they would not be rehomed from Woodland, but would have a permanent home there.

Originally it was envisaged that the new residents would live in a very large pen at the bottom of the garden, but as soon as it became colder Moya moved the cats indoors and that is where they now all live. No cats live in the garden anymore, they are all in her lovely centrally heated home. During the day they go out, at night they are all in.

Moya’s cat rescue has a lovely website which you can visit by clicking the link at the top of the page. She would really appreciate a visit and you can also visit the cat rescue if you are in the neighbourhood. Donations of money, cat food, blankets or toys for the cats are also much appreciated.

I think you need to visit this website, and see what is being done in one little corner of the world for the elderly, disabled and sick. Hope you enjoy your visit

Popularity: 15%

A friend of mine sent me a lovely article from a British Newspaper about a greyhound called Jasmine, who lives at an Animal Rescue Centre and adopts young animals of all varieties when they arrive at the Centre.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Whilst I lived in England, I used to help run a cat rescue shelter, and as a consequence I got involved with a lot of people who ran animal shelters or groups of one sort or another.  One of the groups was the Greyhound Rescue in the county in which I lived. I therefore met a lot of greyhounds and even more happy greyhound owners.  The greyhound is by nature gentle and loving. It is only because the poor dogs are deliberately underfed and trained to chase moving objects that they will chase the hare on the greyhound track. That is not to say that there are no nasty greyhounds, but there are nasty Yorkshire Terriers as well, in fact there are nasty dogs of any race.

This is happening in a country of supposed animal lovers.  And it could have happened to Jasmine, the foster mother of 50 other animals.

It is time that we stopped using animals for the amusement of ourselves, and then discard them when their usefulness has gone. The way we look at animals and care for them says a lot about us. Most greyhounds are gentle dogs, that will forgive humans, even when they have suffered at their hands.

I am glad that the dog called Jasmine has been an ambassador for the greyhound race, and hope that many readers of the newspaper will now maybe visit their local greyhound rescue group and may themselves be blessed with such a loving companion.

Popularity: 100%