(05-08-2013) Why Do Dogs Hump? [ An1malPet5 ]

Why Do Dogs Hump? Aug 5th 2013, 15:24

Dog humping… You might have experienced this situation, which can be either funny embarrassing! You were chatting with another dog parent, sitting on a bench in the dog park, Fido was frolicking with his fellow canines, and everything was fine. When suddenly, it happened. You see your pooch frenetically humping another dog. Some people might find it funny, after all a dog humping a leg or a pillow can be rather comical, but it can upset some people. For what it's worth, many dogs have a "humping addiction," even – especially – the famous Marley, who was allegedly very fond of French poodles.

"The topic draws giggles and laughs, but it's a very real topic for some people," Dr. David Spiegel, VMD, says. "Some dogs can become very compulsive about the behavior." While, humping is usually sexual in nature for unneutered or unsprayed dogs, in older it can be a sign of anxiety, excitement, or dominance. However, only be alarmed if this behavior is not taken to extremes.

Humping knows no gender and is done by both males and females, even unneutered and unspayed ones, though it is less common.  "It can become enjoyable or a normal part of the dog's day, so it keeps doing it. It's the same as jumping up or barking at the door," says Dr. Gary Landsberg, DVM, a veterinary behaviorist in Ontario, Canada.

Canine behavior specialists suggest tackling the problem as soon as it appears. Don't do the common mistake of letting your puppy do it because it's cute and funny. Distract him with an alternative behavior, like playing with a toy. Neutering your dog will decrease mounting problems but in older dogs, where it has become a chronic behavior, specialists recommend obedience training. Indeed, humping can be relating to heightened excitement levels, so training can take the excitement level down and help you keep your pooch calmer. As mentioned previously, humping can also be a common dominance act for dogs, although the "humper" is not necessarily the dominant. In fact, dogs that are unsure of their place in the pack are more likely to hump to see how many dogs will accept the behavior, a move that can lead to fights with other dogs.

Some types of humping are easier to deal with than others, the experts say. When a dog is humping a person, the person should just get up and walk away, which teaches the dog that this is an unacceptable behavior. When they mount other dogs, owners should separate them, and keep the dogs apart when they can't be supervised. Some people also never managed to get their dog to stop and had to learn to live with it. "Some dogs are just more sexually driven," Dr. Spiegel says.

But it can be a very difficult habit to break when dogs hump objects, such as pillows or toys. In those cases, experts recommend keeping the dogs on a strict schedule, which lessens anxiety, and giving them lots of exercise, so they are too tired to get into trouble.

And if all else fails, let the dog have its favorite pillow or toy once or twice a day, in private, "But in our culture it's not acceptable to let your dog hump other dogs or people. It's rude," says Dr. Spiegel.

 

For the Best that Pet Lifestyle and Animal Welfare has to offer follow Wendy Diamond on Facebook, Twitter, and right here at AnimalFair.com!

The post Why Do Dogs Hump? appeared first on Animal Fair | Wendy Diamond | Pet lifestyle Expert | Animal Rescue Advocate/ Celebrity Pets.

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(05-08-2013) New York! Help A Veteran With PTSD Make It Here – And Anywhere – With A Rescued Service Dog! [ An1malPet5 ]

New York! Help A Veteran With PTSD Make It Here – And Anywhere – With A Rescued Service Dog! Aug 5th 2013, 13:28

K9s for Warriors rescues dogs from shelters prior to being euthanized and trains them to be service dogs for veterans with PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. We hope you can donate $ 10.00, $ 100.00 or what ever amount you can afford – 96% of every dollar will help a Veteran with PTSD in New York receive a service dog from K9s For Warriors.

Every hour, a veteran commits suicide! Service dogs are a natural cure for PTSD! Animal Fair and Wendy Diamond have partnered with  K9s for Warriors and dedicated her book tour to raising enough money for a dog to be rescued from a shelter and trained as CGC-certified service dog for a Veteran with PTSD!

The K9's For Warriors Program/Rescue removes dogs from shelters and transports them back to their facility. After having a complete physical, the dogs are trained to meet CGC (Canine Good Citizen) standards. Upon completion, they are paired with a veteran with PTSD based upon his/her special needs and the special tasks the dog is most capable of performing. It costs approximately $ 10,000 to graduate one veteran/canine team from the time the dog is accepted into training. This includes housing, feeding and training with his veteran for three weeks.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a very real epidemic amongst veterans and affects up to 30 percent of all soldiers; 184 new cases are diagnosed every single day. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, one soldier commits suicide every 65 minutes. This is an alarming statistic, but studies show dogs can be very therapeutic in the treatment of PTSD and other military-related stresses.

Shari Duval (wife of PGA TOUR player Bobby Duval) was inspired to start this program by her own son. She explains, "My son, Brett Simon, returned home from two tours in Iraq as a bomb dog handler. I didn't even know what PTSD was. I only knew that my son came home a different person."  She continues, "Our family noticed that when he was with his canines he was better, more like the 'old Brett.'  Our family had the resources to help Brett, but we knew most do not. I spent two years researching service dog therapy and finally decided to open the K9's For Warrior Program/Rescue."

K9?s For Warrior Program/Rescue's success is a triumph for the organization.  Duval commented, "The warriors arrive here broken on two legs and leave here walking into their recovery on six.  They are able to go and do things that weren't possible before they received their service dog." She added, "These dogs provide more medical improvement for the warriors than all the drugs they have been placed on."

In New York, we will honor Alex, 27, who served in the United States Army for 6 years, and graduated from K9s For Warriors in August 2012, where he was paired with Skip, a Labradoodle. Skip was found wandering the roads in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida and taken to Ponte Vedra Beach Animal Hospital. They tried to find his owner but no one ever claimed Skip, and he was donated to the K9s For Warriors program. At first, Alex wasn't sure Skip was for him. He wasn't sure that he wanted a Labradoodle, but Skip quickly won him over with his lovable personality.  Alex also learned that Skip is a magnet for the ladies – an added bonus!  Alex says Skip is the reason why he was able to eliminate prescription medications and was given the clearance from the VA to stop counseling, as Skip was the only prescription Alex needed to recover and regain his life.

Alex and Skip

Wendy Diamond will host the BARK BREAKFAST 10 City Media Tour, which will feature her hilarious new book, How To Train Your Boss To Roll Over. This brand new instructional manual will promote a positive work environment and explain how to work towards making a societal difference by raising awareness and funds for the K9?s For Warrior Program/Rescue. Our bark breakfast benefit will celebrate our wounded veterans and rally to raise awareness and donations for our American heroes that have sacrificed selflessly for our country. Dogs are welcome to breakfast treats, too! You will also get to meet the veteran and the dog who will benefit from your generous donations!

Thanks to our generous sponsors, the tour will 100% benefit K9s For Warriors. Ellen DeGeneres' pet food company, Halo, Purely for Pets knows that natural nutrition is imperative for service dogs (and all dogs) because it ensures a long, happy life with their parents, and are on board with supporting the K9s For Warriors Bark Breakfast Benefit Tour! American Express Open has partnered with us to empower and support Veteran small business owners. The Loews and Omni pet-friendly hotels are graciously providing the space for the Bark Business Breakfast, so we can gather, raise money, and get the bark out about K9s For Warriors!

Please join us in supporting a veteran with PTSD and a rescued service dog in New York. You can donate as little as $ 10, $ 50, $ 100, $ 2,000, or become the honorary chair in New York for $ 10,000! This program is 100% transparent, and 96 cents of every dollar benefits the veterans! Get involved by barking about it and donating here.

Please watch this video to understand the importance of your donation:)

 The Bark Business Breakfast rushes into New York on Monday September 30, 2013 at the Omni Hotel at Berkshire from 8-10AM.

Please donate to this wonderful event in New York!

For the Best that Pet Lifestyle and Animal Welfare has to offer follow Wendy Diamond on Facebook, Twitter, and right here at AnimalFair.com!

The post New York! Help A Veteran With PTSD Make It Here – And Anywhere – With A Rescued Service Dog! appeared first on Animal Fair | Wendy Diamond | Pet lifestyle Expert | Animal Rescue Advocate/ Celebrity Pets.

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(04-08-2013) Matter: Monogamy’s Boost to Human Evolution [ An1malPet5 ]

Matter: Monogamy's Boost to Human Evolution Aug 4th 2013, 19:25

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Titi monkeys are monogamous–a way of life found in just 9 percent of mammal species.

"Monogamy is a problem," said Dieter Lukas of the University of Cambridge in a telephone news conference this week. As Dr. Lukas explained to reporters, he and other biologists consider monogamy an evolutionary puzzle.

In 9 percent of all mammal species, males and females will share a common territory for more than one breeding season, and in some cases bond for life. This is a problem — a scientific one — because male mammals could theoretically have more offspring by giving up on monogamy and mating with lots of females.

In a new study, Dr. Lukas and his colleague Tim Clutton-Brock suggest that monogamy evolves when females spread out, making it hard for a male to travel around and fend off competing males.

On the same day, Kit Opie of University College London and his colleagues published a similar study on primates, which are especially monogamous — males and females bond in over a quarter of primate species. The London scientists came to a different conclusion: that the threat of infanticide leads males to stick with only one female, protecting her from other males.

Even with the scientific problem far from resolved, research like this inevitably turns us into narcissists. It's all well and good to understand why the gray-handed night monkey became monogamous. But we want to know: What does this say about men and women?

As with all things concerning the human heart, it's complicated.

"The human mating system is extremely flexible," Bernard Chapais of the University of Montreal wrote in a recent review in Evolutionary Anthropology. Only 17 percent of human cultures are strictly monogamous. The vast majority of human societies embrace a mix of marriage types, with some people practicing monogamy and others polygamy. (Most people in these cultures are in monogamous marriages, though.)

There are even some societies where a woman may marry several men. And some men and women have secret relationships that last for years while they're married to other people, a kind of dual monogamy. Same-sex marriages acknowledge commitments that in many cases existed long before they won legal recognition.

Each species faces its own special challenges — the climate where it lives, or the food it depends on, or the predators that stalk it — and certain conditions may favor monogamy despite its drawbacks. One source of clues to the origin of human mating lies in our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. They live in large groups where the females mate with lots of males when they're ovulating. Male chimpanzees will fight with each other for the chance to mate, and they've evolved to produce extra sperm to increase their chances that they get to father a female's young.

Our own ancestors split off from the ancestors of chimpanzees about seven million years ago. Fossils may offer us some clues to how our mating systems evolved after that parting of ways. The hormone levels that course through monogamous primates are different from those of other species, possibly because the males aren't in constant battle for females.

That difference in hormones influences how primates grow in some remarkable ways. For example, the ratio of their finger lengths is different.

In 2011, Emma Nelson of the University of Liverpool and her colleagues looked at the finger bones of ancient hominid fossils. From what they found, they concluded that hominids 4.4 million years ago mated with many females. By about 3.5 million years ago, however, the finger-length ratio indicated that hominids had shifted more toward monogamy.

Our lineage never evolved to be strictly monogamous. But even in polygamous relationships, individual men and women formed long-term bonds — a far cry from the arrangement in chimpanzees.

While the two new studies published last week disagree about the force driving the evolution of monogamy, they do agree on something important. "Once monogamy has evolved, then male care is far more likely," Dr. Opie said.

Once a monogamous primate father starts to stick around, he has the opportunity to raise the odds that his offspring will survive. He can carry them, groom their fur and protect them from attacks.

In our own lineage, however, fathers went further. They had evolved the ability to hunt and scavenge meat, and they were supplying some of that food to their children. "They may have gone beyond what is normal for monogamous primates," said Dr. Opie.

The extra supply of protein and calories that human children started to receive is widely considered a watershed moment in our evolution. It could explain why we have brains far bigger than other mammals.

Brains are hungry organs, demanding 20 times more calories than a similar piece of muscle. Only with a steady supply of energy-rich meat, Dr. Okie suggests, were we able to evolve big brains — and all the mental capacities that come with it.

Because of monogamy, Dr. Opie said, "This could be how humans were able to push through a ceiling in terms of brain size."

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(04-08-2013) A Hankering for Hybrids [ An1malPet5 ]

A Hankering for Hybrids Aug 4th 2013, 18:26

Erich Schlegel for The New York Times

Pandian Athirajan and his Toyota Prius Hybrid sedan in Austin, Tex., earlier this week. He bought the car in May. The car's license plate has been redacted by The New York Times.

DETROIT — When automakers rolled out their new electric cars three years ago, they had big plans. Even President Obama, in his State of the Union address in 2011, predicted there would be as many as a million of them on the nation's roads by the middle of the decade.

Results have, so far, fallen way short of expectations. Only about 36,000 battery-powered vehicles were sold this year through July, according to the auto research site Edmunds.com. And many of those sales were spurred by heavy discounts from car companies desperate to move electric models off the lot.

But for hybrid cars, it has been a different story. Automakers have sold about 298,000 hybrids, which alternately run on gasoline engines and battery power, so far this year.

And while electric vehicles may be considered greener and more glamorous, hybrids have quietly entered the mainstream of the American auto market.

Today, more than 40 conventional hybrid models are available, from mass-market automakers like Toyota and Ford to luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes. Hybrids account for about 3 percent of overall industry sales, with the market-leading Toyota Prius cracking the Top 10 list of best-selling passenger cars.

By contrast, automakers offer only about a dozen all-electric cars or plug-in models — which run on battery power with assistance from a gasoline engine — although more are on the way.

Industry analysts say that hybrid models are now showing up on the shopping lists of a broad range of consumers.

"Conventional hybrids are mainstream now," said John O'Dell, the green-car editor at Edmunds. "You can envision almost anyone buying one."

The reasons are many. Hybrids cost less than most electric models. There are no limitations on driving range based on battery power. And the technology, once seen as exotic and possibly unreliable, has been proved over time in real-world driving conditions.

One of the hybrid converts is Pandian Athirajan, an I.B.M. product manager in Austin, Tex. He had been considering buying a Prius for years before finally taking the plunge in May.

He bought the Prius to save gas and reduce vehicles emissions, but only because its hybrid system had been perfected by Toyota since it was introduced in 2000. "I wanted to buy a third-generation hybrid so that all kinks were ironed out," Mr. Athirajan said.

For many consumers, price is the biggest factor in choosing a hybrid over a vehicle that runs primarily on battery power.

For example, the base price for a regular, gasoline-powered Ford Fusion sedan is $ 21,900. The conventional hybrid version of the car goes for $ 26,200. But the plug-in variation costs $ 38,700. Faced with sluggish demand for electric vehicles, auto companies have increasingly been forced to slash prices to stimulate demand. Ford, for example, recently cut $ 4,000 from the price of its all-electric Focus.

Manufacturers are also fighting an uphill battle to win over consumers worried about the distances they can travel before recharging an a purely electric car.

That was one reason Mr. Athirajan chose a hybrid. Even though his hometown has several public charging stations, including one at his local Walmart, Mr. Athirajan was concerned about making the 300-mile drive to Houston twice a month to visit his daughter.

Mr. Athirajan said he was prepared to look into buying an electric vehicle in three or four years but that he thought the electric technology still needed to mature. He also said that four to six hours to charge the battery was too long.

"Most of the E.V. cars give anywhere between 75 to 125 miles between charge," Mr. Athirajan said. "It will be O.K. for weekday office trips but not O.K. for weekend shopping and other trips, and definitely not suitable for my weekend trips to Houston."

Despite the lukewarm acceptance of electric models, automakers are nevertheless pushing ahead with more of them. One critical consideration is the increasingly stringent fuel-economy rules set by the federal government, which mandate that a car company's total fleet must average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, nearly double what it is today.

The pressure is even more acute in California, which has a zero-emission-vehicle program intended to cut pollution and increase sales of electric cars.

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(04-08-2013) Books: Patricia S. Churchland’s ‘The Self as Brain’ and ‘Brainwashed,’ by Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld [ An1malPet5 ]

Books: Patricia S. Churchland's 'The Self as Brain' and 'Brainwashed,' by Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld Aug 4th 2013, 17:24

A journey into the human brain starts with the usual travel decisions: will you opt for a no-frills sightseeing jaunt, a five-star luxury cruise, or trek a little off the beaten track, skipping the usual tourist attractions?

Now that science's newfound land is suddenly navigable, hordes of eager guides are offering up books that range from the basic to the lavishly appointed to the minutely subspecialized. But those who prefer wandering off trail may opt for two new ones, neither by a neuroscientist.

When the philosopher Patricia S. Churchland explains that her book represents "the story of getting accustomed to my brain," she is speaking as both a brain-owning human being and a career humanist. An emerita professor at the University of California, San Diego, she has spent a career probing the physical brain for the self and its moral center. And unlike many humanists who hate the science for the irritating violence it does to centuries of painstaking intellectual labor, she is entranced by the power of the data, and her delight is utterly contagious.

She loses little time in dispatching the archaic notion of the soul, and suggests that near-death visions of heaven simply represent "neural funny business" in a malfunctioning brain.

Can humans still live a moral and spiritual life even without the ideas of soul and heaven? You bet they can. "We may still say that the sun is setting even when we know full well that earth is turning," Professor Churchland points out, and she is off and running.

Where do values come from? Does a "brainstem-limbic system shaped by reward-based learning and problem solving" suffice? Can moral behavior be genuinely moral if the consciousness is not involved? Does the "me" that is you include the many levels of your unconscious? Do you have any free will at all? Is there such a thing as criminal intent? Does criminal behavior prompted by misaligned circuits, aberrant neurotransmitters or tumors in vital areas imply innocence? Should we empty out the prisons?

It is hard to conceive of a better guide to this difficult terrain than the MacArthur-award-winning Ms. Churchland, who knows the science inside out and writes with surpassing clarity, elegance, humor and modesty, punctuating the hard parts with accessible lessons about the brain she learned during a hardscrabble childhood on a Canadian farm.

She also recalls with some chagrin a more recent encounter with a fellow academic: "My very presence brought her to fury, and she hissed: 'You reductionist! How can you think there is nothing but atoms?' " But surely, Ms. Churchland muses, "if reductionism is essentially about explanation, the lament and the lashing out are missing the point." Her typically understated bottom line: "To rail against reality seems to me unproductive."

If Professor Churchland tours the moral brain in a mood of joyous discovery, Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, traversing much of the same territory, are just plain annoyed. Dr. Satel is a psychiatrist and an occasional contributor to The New York Times, and Dr. Lilienfeld a psychology professor at Emory University; their mission is to debunk the pop neuroscience that keeps making headlines with "facile and overly mechanistic explanations for complicated behaviors."

Their primary target is functional M.R.I. scanning, a technique that has been deployed to localize instinct and emotion to specific brain areas, positing sites for such intangibles as love, hate, fear, political preferences and consumer behavior.

Dr. Satel and Dr. Lilienfeld offer a methodical critique of this oversimplified neuro-nonsense, convincingly arguing that in many ways the M.R.I.'s of today are simply the phrenology heads of yesteryear, laughably primitive attempts to wrangle human character and behavior into tractable form.

Thus launched, they head out to evaluate the contributions of neuroimaging to behaviors more complex and weighty than choosing which S.U.V. to buy, homing in on the age-old questions of blame, responsibility and punishment among criminals, addicts and the criminally insane.

Can brain imaging help sort it all out? Not in their view: when it comes to the legalities of bad behavior, "the capacity of functional brain imaging to mislead currently exceeds its capacity to inform." It doesn't do much better than the old polygraphs for evaluating alibis, they conclude, and utterly fails to explain why some people do unspeakable things.

The "my amygdala made me do it" school of criminal defense was around as early as 1924, they note, when Clarence Darrow undertook to defend Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, the two teenage psychopaths who kidnapped and killed a 14-year-old boy for no reason except to commit a crime. "They killed him because they were made that way," Darrow thundered to the judge, pleading for clemency.

But Dr. Satel and Dr. Lilienfeld are having none of this, arguing that senses of free will, justice, retribution and fair play are all too deeply ingrained in human nature for neuroscience to erase them — at least, as the science now stands. Similarly, Dr. Satel has long argued against calling drug addiction a disease, and she and Dr. Lilienfeld reaffirm that position here, writing that such a conception "threatens to obscure the vast role of personal agency in perpetuating the cycle of use and relapse."

Ah, but what underlies that personal agency? Are there not neural circuits there as well? Dr. Satel and Dr. Lilienfeld's polemic ultimately seems a little abrupt and shortsighted to a reader who has watched a world-class philosopher gaze with eager intensity at the brain and find in it an infinite series of mirrored selves.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 4, 2013

The Books column last Tuesday, about two new books on brain science, misstated the type of trial in which Clarence Darrow defended the psychopathic killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb in 1924, pleading for clemency on the ground that "they were made that way." The trial was before a judge, not a jury.

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(04-08-2013) The Week: A New Shrew and Mice Memory [ An1malPet5 ]

The Week: A New Shrew and Mice Memory Aug 4th 2013, 16:25

Christophe Beaudufe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

New research shows that cheetahs do not overheat when hunting, even when they hit their top speeds.

Scientists discovered a new species of shrew, corrected erroneous beliefs about the body temperature of cheetahs, fed bees polluted pollen with disastrous results and planted a false memory in the mind of a mouse. In the meantime, NASA wants to know why a spacewalking astronaut's helmet suddenly took on water.

Developments

ENVIRONMENT

Poison Pollen

Agricultural chemicals may be killing the honeybees that are essential for a successful harvest. Researchers at the University of Maryland and the Agriculture Department collected pollen from commercial beehives and found them polluted with as many as 35 different pesticides, often from fields other than the ones in which the bees were placed for pollination. Healthy bees that ate pollen polluted with the fungicide chlorothalonil were more than twice as likely to be infected by Nosema ceranae, the parasite implicated in colony collapse disorder. The study does not conclusively link the chemicals with colony collapse disorder, but as the authors write in PLoS One, the results strongly suggest that "a detrimental interaction occurs when honeybees are exposed to both pesticides and Nosema."

WILDLIFE

New Shrew

Scutisorex thori, a small shrew with a backbone so strong it can bear the weight of a grown man, was discovered in 1910. Since then it has been assumed that it was the only member of its species. But now scientists in the Democratic Republic of Congo have found another Scutisorex, an animal with a back reinforced with bones that give it a spine as strong as its cousin's. The scientists established its relationship to S. somereni by DNA analysis and described their find in Biology Letters. They have named it Scutisorex thori.

Very Fast, Very Cool

For at least 30 years, scientists have believed that cheetahs fail to catch their prey more often than other big cats because they overheat at high speeds. But researchers in Namibia who implanted sensors in six cheetahs tell a different story. Even when one of the study animals came close to the maximum chase distance ever reported for a cheetah, his body temperature did not exceed that of his regular 24-hour average. After the hunt, cheetahs' temperatures rose slightly, more when the hunt was successful than when it was not. The researchers attribute this temperature increase to the stress of protecting a kill from other predators.

BRAIN SCIENCE

Flawed Remembrance

Scientists at M.I.T. believe they have successfully planted a false memory in the brains of mice. They let mice get used to a certain environment so that they would remember it, and chemically labeled the neurons where the memory was laid down. A day later, in a different environment, they delivered a shock to the mice while activating the neurons involved in the memory of the first environment. Then they brought the mice back to the original environment, and stimulated those brain cells again. The mice froze in fear — acting on the memory of a shock in that environment that had never happened. After experimenting further, the scientists became convinced that the mice were acting on a false memory. Susumu Tonegawa, the lead researcher, said the work raised the question — so far unanswered — of why mammalian brains are built to allow false memories at all.

Coming Up

SPACEFLIGHT

Wardrobe Malfunction

The Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano had a serious scare on July 16 when globs of water floated into his helmet during a spacewalk, eventually covering his eyes and nose. "I experienced what it's like to be a goldfish in a fish bowl from the point of view of the goldfish," he said in an interview from the International Space Station. Now NASA wants to know why it happened. A five-member board led by Chris Hansen, the station's chief engineer, will convene on Aug. 2 to try to figure it out. Until then, NASA has sent some spacesuit-repair tools up to the space station in an unmanned Russian cargo ship.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 4, 2013

An item in the Week column last Tuesday about the recent discovery of Scutisorex thori, an African shrew with an extremely strong spine, referred incorrectly to its cousin S. somereni. Until now, somereni, discovered in 1910, was thought to be the only member of its genus  — not its species.

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(04-08-2013) Animal Philanthropy – How To Give Back! [ An1malPet5 ]

Animal Philanthropy – How To Give Back! Aug 4th 2013, 16:18

 

 

After rescuing Pasha, my Russian Blue, and Lucky the Maltese from a local NYC shelter, I felt compelled to start Animal Fair Media, the premier lifestyle media company advocating fairness to animals by promoting animal rescue and welfare. My animals provided unconditional love and loyalty, inspiring me to make a lifelong commitment to fight for disenfranchised animals across the globe.

Wendy with her rescues Baby Hope and Pasha.

When I launched my animal rescue mission in 1999, shelters across the country euthanized 12 million dogs and cats annually. Animal Fair Media and other amazing individuals and organizations raised public awareness of animal rescue, and dropped this number to 5 million this year. Animal welfare awareness is here to stay until this number is zero, and there are no more homeless pets!

 

By bringing animal rescue to forefront of public awareness, Animal Fair Media encourages responsibility amongst pet guardians worldwide. We have joined forces with politicians and media personalities such as Justin Bieber, Brad Pitt,  Charlize Theron, Beyonce, and Jersey Shore star Vinny Guadagnino, lending our voices to help silenced and vulnerable homeless pets.

 

Our chief philosophy is: act locally! When passionate individuals get involved in their local shelters and organizations, they become a ripple of change that radiates out to the world at large, producing substantial results.

 

Donating money to local shelters or organizations helps, but so does volunteering time and energy. Find a local organization that suits your lifestyle, and roll up your sleeves! You can do anything from volunteering at a shelter to fostering pets in your home for a short time. The most rewarding way to contribute is by adopting a pet – shelters carry both pedigrees and mutts, and enjoy puppy love!

 

Here are a few of our favorite organizations we have vetted to be wonderful :

 

Pet Partners:

You can train your dog to comfort sick children and the elderly in your community as a therapy dog. One million people a year are positively impacted by the companionship of therapy animals (petpartners.org).

 

The Humane Society of New York:

The Humane Society of New York has cared for NYC’s needy animals for over 100 years. You can volunteer at their shelter or give a rescued animal a forever home (humanesocietyny.org).

 

Green Chimneys:

Green Chimneys promotes "the dignity and worth for all living things" by pairing children in need with abandoned animals (greenchimneys.org).

 

K9′s For Warriors

K9′s For Warriors rescues dogs from shelters, trains them to be service dogs and given to Veterans with PTSD.

For the Best the Pet Lifestyle and animal welfare has to offer follow Wendy Diamond on Facebook, Twitter, and right here at AnimalFair.com!

The post Animal Philanthropy – How To Give Back! appeared first on Animal Fair | Wendy Diamond | Pet lifestyle Expert | Animal Rescue Advocate/ Celebrity Pets.

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