Tag Archives: dog

Synchronicity, walking, dogs, and diet

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I was lucky enough to see synchronicity in action this morning! It is so nice to see it in action, although it always amazes me when I see it. Perhaps it is a form of pass it forward, or maybe it is just coincidence, but I am grateful to see it all the same. I went out for my morning walk and what did I see? I saw a group of people out with trash bags picking up trash along the walking path!

What a sight, there was a group of about eight people out with their bags and some sticks with nails on the end to spear the trash on the ground. They were out there with their bags half full, or half empty, depending on your personal take. As I walked along the walking path I made it a point to thank each of them. I want them to know I appreciate their time and effort making the park cleaner.

They appeared to be enjoying themselves, which is a normal feeling from knowing you are doing something of value for others even if they do not see you doing it. I hope this group whoever they are, out there cleaning up the walking path decide this is something they can do on a regular basis, and not just a one time spring clean up effort. It would be good to see more people involved in keeping their walking areas clean.

Which brings me to another sore spot of walking paths besides the trash people drop all over the place. People walk their dogs along the paths too, and do not bother to clean up after them. My guess is they don’t think about it, because for many of them they make a quick walk through and they are gone. But what their dog’s leave is not something that is cleaned up by the fairies that come out of their homes after everyone leaves, and turn dog crap into gold dust. Here in the desert where we get twelve inches of rain a year on average that dog waste is there for a long while. I suppose my point is if you have a dog and you take it for walks, it is likely a public area, and kids and other adults use that area too, so please clean up after your dog.

I have rediscovered and enjoyable way to get outside and enjoy the day now that spring weather is here. I found a book on diet and health that explains eating, health and exercise better than any book I have ever read. One of the ideas the book promotes is strolling after meals. Strolling is a slow meandering walk. You are moving, but not trying to walk for exercise. I have been wanting to actually lose weight rather than starve for about five months now, and this book came along. Synchronicity in action?

This book promotes strolling for twenty minutes after each meal. Not less than twenty minutes and not a whole lot more than twenty minutes as it tends to make your stomach stop the digestive process which is not the intent. I have been strolling after meals for a week now, and I find I am really enjoying this slow walk. Walking at a slower pace lets me observe more, and pay more attention to what I see. For example the Crocus’ are starting to bloom and walking slower gives me a chance to enjoy them.

During my work week, strolling feels like a nice a extra break after my meal, and a chance to walk away from the job for twenty minutes. In the past I would eat and cruise the internet for those twenty minutes. That twenty minute walk away from work is a nice relaxing break. I have noticed the afternoons now seem to go more quickly, probably because I have broken what was a boring pattern of lunch, net, work.

So, I really do not know if the people collecting trash was because one of them saw me out more than once collecting trash myself, or it is something they are doing because they wanted to do something for their neighborhood, but I would like to think it is sychronicity in action.

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Grateful for life and death lessons from pets in my life

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My first day off of my work week today and it sure feels good to sleep in. It would feel better if my cat did not have to come and wake me up to see if I am really supposed to be getting up or not, but we sometimes have to accept the good with the bad. It provides balance in our lives. I am grateful for all the pets I have had over the years. They help me prepare for everything in my life.

I had turtles when I was very young. I only remember because I did not know how to take care of them when it was time for them to hibernate, they started to stink instead of sleep like I was told they would do. While I never learned how to create a place for turtles to hibernate, I did have a quick lesson in death.

Next it was Guppies I had in a glass one gallon aquarium. I was given some weeds to put in so the guppies had some place to hide. They hid so well, when my Mom decided to clean the aquarium we counted over ninety guppies in various stages of growth. Deciding there was too much weed, the population was quickly reduced by guppy cannibalism. I learned about predatory behavior from Guppies.

We also had dogs over the years. One was a Spaniel/Labrador mix who had been hit by a car as a pup. His stomach muscles were hurt, and his belly was very low to the ground. One of the neighbors accused him of jumping a six foot fence and breeding with their Chihuahua. I was too young to understand about sex, but I did learn that sometimes people tried to pass off stories that were not completely true. That poor dog could barely climb stairs without dragging his belly let alone jump.

A few years later another dog who had made into his late twenties was dying in a painful way. My Mom and Dad talked it over, and decided the best thing to do was put him down. Put him down meant a bullet in the head in those days. My Mom took out the vacuum cleaner, and furiously started vacuuming an already clean floor as my father went outside with the dog, and did what had to be done. He was gone a while, but when he came in my Mom and I knew the dog was asleep, never to waken again. I learned about sorrow, and loss from that dog.

Next was a horse my folks had bought me. He was a Tennessee Walker colt. I could not ride him as he was too young, so he roamed the pasture with my sisters horse. One week we had some friends horses in our pasture, along with our own, and they were close to fighting. It was cold outside, so I dressed in a jacket with a hood and went out into the pasture among the horses. My horse picked me up by the hood of my coat and shook me all the way to the fence, and then threw me over the fence. I did not know it at the time, but I was given a harsh lesson in love by animals for their human family members. I do remember crying for about thirty minutes though….

Some years later the Spaniel/Labrador was at the end of his life. He was arthritic, and moving even slightly was very painful for him He could no longer walk, and did not care to eat or drink water. A family discussion was held, and it was decided that I would be the one to put him down. I had to carry him from the basement to the appointed place. I remember how hard it was to see where I was walking, stumbling at times. I said what I could manage to get out, and pulled the trigger. As much as it hurt, I knew what I did had to be done for his benefit. I learned about life, and love that day – and the pain of loss.

Many more animals came and left over the years, all of them leaving me with those special lessons that only a pet can give. I am grateful for all of them, and hope there are many more pets waiting for their turn in my life.

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Millions of pounds of potential pet food composted?

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I was at a pet store buying yet another weeks worth of cat food at $.60 cents a can, or $.30 cents per day for each cat when I had a thought. I was watching television a few weeks ago and something came on about the number of deer killed on Illinois highways was about ten thousand deer a year! According to the show, the state of Illinois composts the dead deer as it the cheapest way to safely dispose of the dead deer.

And I am in a pet store paying $.60 cents a can for cat food made from venison because it is cheap compared to other flavors, and the cat’s like it! I did a Google search on the words, ‘dead deer landfill’, and the probable national numbers of government disposed dead deer are mind boggling by any stretch of the imagination. Of course as things go I could not find anything worthwhile on that search for Illinois, but I found some numbers for the states of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. The rest of the country’s daily deer kill can be imagined from those numbers.

One insurance company referenced, estimates about 101,000 deer are killed each year in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York! There is a problem with wasting disease in some states around the United States, so cutting the numbers I found in half, that still is over 50,000 dead deer that could be used for cat and dog food.

I started wondering why those animals are not turned into pet food? Why is there canned cat and dog food in pet stores all starting at $.50 or higher a can, and a titanic number of pounds of deer meat that could be made into pet food just wasted? Some areas and states are paying high fees to have deer carcasses disposed of because there are too many dead deer to go into landfills.

Guessing that the usable meat on average from even those 50K dead deer is 50 pounds an animal, that works out to 2,500,000 pounds of possible high protein pet food thrown away in those three mentioned states alone! I ran it across my little calculator twice, because that is such an amazing number, an estimated two million five hundred thousand pounds of deer meat wasted each year in just three states. Wow!

The can size I buy for $.60 is six ounces, but for the sake of simple math, let’s pretend it is five ounces. That comes out to roughly 833,000 cans of cat food. 833,000 cans of cat food at sixty cents a can comes out to just short of a cool half million dollars! There has to be some sort of profit in there somehow? That is just from three states! Once that figure goes across the major deer road kill states in the United States…well you get the idea.

The same idea can be applied to the more distasteful animal killings in the world. If we are legally killing a species of animal just for its fur, or some other part of it, why can’t they be transformed into pet food? At least they would not go to waste completely. I am not advocating the killing of any animals only for their fur, but it happens, and we should make the most of it we can.

Here in the Southwest, there are companies that buy used cows (dead cattle) from stockyards and holding pens. They manage to make a profit and they are paying for a cow carcass that is no longer useful for human consumption. I sure am not an expert on business, and I am not sure my math is all that good either, but the concept is there, and I am sure someone could figure out how to make a profit at it?

It sure does seem like there is some money in road kill deer pet food for someone where a pet food cannery exists? Or maybe I don’t have a clue, let me know?

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