Category Archives: God’s creation

The ultimate de-stresser video

Posted on April 9, 2021 by | 3 comments

~E

3 Comments

Posted in God's creation

Tagged

What to do with a backyard bunny rabbit nest

Posted on April 9, 2021 by | 4 comments

Yesterday I saw a post on my local city animal welfare Facebook page advising us to check for bunny nests before we start mowing. Bunny nests look like dead grass piles (see above) yet are the perfect home for their babies!

Rabbits build their baby nests with dead grass and their fur. Read more about these nests here. Or watch this video:

We have LOTS of cottontails in Oklahoma yet I’ve never come across a bunny nest while we’ve lived here. I hope to find one some day!

Now that spring is upon us, it’s a good reminder to check for bunnies before you mow!

DCG

4 Comments

Posted in God's creation

Tagged

Owner takes elderly dog to boardwalk one more time via her mobile bed

Posted on April 6, 2021 by | 7 comments

This is Cocoa, a Chesapeake Bay retriever who recently passed away at the ripe age of 16 years. She’s at the boardwalk with her owner, Tom.

A Facebook account by the name of Carri Copenhaver wrote about this story of Cocoa, who belonged to Lauren and Tom.

“Here is Cocoa, our Chesapeake Bay Retriever, looking out on Rudee’s Inlet at the end of the Virginia Beach Boardwalk. She peacefully went to sleep last Friday. We spent over 16 sweet years together and the last 6 months without her ability to stand brought us even closer. She has left a large void in our heart and our home. She wasn’t able to greet people or dogs anymore on her own, but she loved it when people came up to her. Thank you for stopping to greet her and for sharing her with your friends on Facebook.
Cocoa had not walked since last August, but she still was living a meaningful, quality life with us. She brought us such joy and hopefully we did the same for her. We miss her and will treasure our memories of her forever. She will always be with us in our hearts.”
See the video where Tom spoke of how they came up with the mobile bed for their precious Cocoa here.
Obviously Cocoa was well-loved and had a great life with Lauren and Tom.
RIP Cocoa.

DCG

7 Comments

Posted in dogs, God's creation

Lioness completely trusts man with her babies

Posted on April 5, 2021 by | 2 comments

Watch how this lioness totally loves the man, and trusts him completely with her newborn cubs.

The man is Kevin Richardson, aka the Lion Whisperer, a wildlife conservationist and self-taught owner of the Kevin Richardson Wildlife Sanctuary in the Welgedacht Private Game Reserve near Pretoria, South Africa.

Richardson had known the lioness, Ischa, since she was a baby.

Sadly, Ischa passed away in November 2018 from cancer.

Richardson’s webpage is here; his Facebook page is here.

~E

2 Comments

Posted in God's creation

Tagged , ,

Sunday Funny!

Posted on April 4, 2021 by | 4 comments

A beleaguered mommy black bear has great difficulty getting her four unruly babies cross a road. LOL

~E

4 Comments

Posted in Funnies, God's creation

Dog stops car for help for owner who had a seizure

Posted on April 3, 2021 by | 3 comments

Colton Praill report for CTV News that on March 16, 2021, Haley Moore was walking her 1½-year-old dog, Clover, a Maremma sheepdog mix, in their Stittsville neighborhood in Ottawa, Canada, when she collapsed to the ground in a seizure.

Moore said, “All I remember is waking up in the ambulance and being really confused; just like what is going on.”

But a neighbor’s security camera captured what happened.

The video shows Clover springing into action.

First, Clover checked on her human to determine that Haley was in a medical emergency.

Then, Clover watched as a car passed by.

Moments later, a second vehicle approached –a truck. This time, Clover freed her leash from Haley’s grasp, then risked her own safety by standing in front of the truck, forcing the driver to stop.

The driver, 21-year-old Dryden Oatway, quickly got out of his truck to help the fallen Haley, watched closely by Clover.

Dryden said: “It was really impressive, the dog actually blocked my way. She kind of backed into the road to block my truck. The whole time she was backing down the street she had eyes on Hailey; didn’t look away from her. She kept her distance from me but made sure her owner was okay and that was amazing.”

Dryden tried to get help from a nearby neighbor before returning to tend to Moore.

Clover then caught the attention of another driver, Danielle Pilon, who stopped to help.

Pilon said, “Immediately I just stopped and I jumped out of the Jeep and I asked Dryden if everything was okay and he was like, ‘I don’t know, she fell.'”

It was then that Clover ran back home to get more help.

Pilon said: “You could tell she [Clover] didn’t want to leave her [Haley] even when we were with her but I think it just came to her that she was like ‘I need to go home to let them know she needs help.'”

By the time Clover and her family returned to the scene, Haley was in an ambulance being treated by paramedics.

Haley’s father, Randall Moore, said: “When I got a knock on the door from the neighbors, they were frantic and our dog Clover was barking like crazy. To see my daughter, face full of mud, and she was incoherent, wasn’t sure where she was, it was just terrifying, it really was.”

Thankfully, Haley was okay. The family isn’t sure what caused the sudden seizure, but Haley says she’s comforted by the fact that she’ll have her dog there to protect her: “If this ends up happening again, I feel 10 times safer and I know she will be there for me. You know how good animals are and she’s a really amazing dog and I love her to death.”

Clover got a big steak as a reward. 🙂

Randall Moore said: “[My wife] Diane comes home with a couple of big steaks and I thought ‘Wow, this is great, I’m getting a big steak’ and she said, ‘No, it’s for Clover for doing such a great job.'”

~E

3 Comments

Posted in dogs, God's creation

Tagged , , , ,

The cat who comforts the dying

Posted on April 2, 2021 by | 5 comments

The Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, believes in the therapeutic benefits of animal companionship and is home to a variety of animals, including a number of cats, parakeets, a floppy-eared bunny and several regular canine visitors.

But Oscar the cat is unique.

Oscar came to Steere House 11 years ago as a kitten. The staff decided to adopt him, and he immediately took on a very vital role for the nursing home. Oscar has the uncanny ability to sense when patients are dying and stays with them in their time of need. Oscar’s presence notifies the nurses that help is needed and enables the family members to prepare for the end.

Oscar made headlines in 2007 when he was featured in an article by David Dosa, M.D., in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the article, Dr. Dosa described how Oscar has demonstrated an ability to detect a patient’s impending death and how in doing so, he is able to provide a touch of comfort to the dying, elderly residents of Steere House’s Safe Haven Advanced Care unit and their families who are dealing with the latter stages of Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of end-stage dementia.

I found these interesting comments by viewers of the video on YouTube:

“I’ve worked at a nursing home. We had a cat that curled up next to passing residents. Not every time, but often. It’s not uncommon.”

“Fascinating! Oscar is the split image of my cat Pip, they look exactly the same and both have shown an uncanny insight re the health and well-being of people to whom they are closely associated with. I live alone with my pet cat, Pip and at night she always sleeps at the foot of my bed. One evening last year after I had gone to bed, Pip came in and jumped up close to my head and immediately began to rummage her nose through my beard and under my chin, mainly on one side of my neck. This was very strange and unusual behaviour for my cat. I fell asleep soon after about 15 minutes of this treatment. In the morning Pip had gone out and I thought no more about what had happened but in the afternoon I I felt a little pain in my throat. This pain then continued daily and every time I was resting Pip would repeat what had happened that night. I began to sense that there was something seriously wrong with my throat and thought that Pip was trying to tell me this. Over the following weeks I saw 3 GPs and not one of them diagnosed my problem. Eventually I managed to get an appointment with a consultant at a hospital quite a long way from where I live and with a special instrument he was able to look far enough down my throat to see that I had a growth on my `voice-box` The biopsy showed that I had cancer. I underwent radiotherapy (6 sessions over 3 weeks) The cancer pain disappeared after 3 sessions and on the day that the pain went, Pip resumed sleeping at the foot of my bed I feel now that the cancer has gone, and Pip seems to think so.”

“Its true cats are amazing creatures. My elderly dad suffered a fall in the middle of the night on his way to the bathroom and hit his head and wasn’t able to get up. He was 98 years old. Our cat was outside at the time and he ran to my mom’s bedroom window and meowed until she woke up to let him in (around 3am) where she found my dad on the dining room floor in a pool of blood and called 911 to get him help. If it weren’t for our cat, my mom wouldn’t have found him until the morning.”

“I hope I have a cat lay next to me if I should have to live out my last days alone in a nursing home.”

See also “Peyo, the horse who comforts the sick and dying“.

~E

5 Comments

Posted in cats, God's creation, Health

Tagged , ,

Thursday funnies!

Posted on April 1, 2021 by | 4 comments

DCG

4 Comments

Posted in dogs, Funnies

Stray doggie befriends a unicorn

Posted on March 30, 2021 by | 5 comments

Happy ending: “Sisu” (the stray dog) finds a forever home and gets to keep the unicorn!

DCG

5 Comments

Posted in dogs, God's creation

Horses can recognize their reflection in mirror

Posted on March 29, 2021 by | 9 comments

The ability of visual self-recognition, as in recognizing oneself in a reflection in mirror is a measurement of self-awareness — the experience of one’s own personality or individuality.

However, animals can be self-aware in ways not measured by the mirror test, such as distinguishing between their own and others’ songs and scents.

Phoebe Southworth reports for the UK Telegraph, March 27, 2021, that many primates, as well as elephants, bottlenose dolphins, magpies and a small fish called a cleaner wrasse have previously been found capable of recognizing their mirror reflection.

But a recent study led by Dr. Paolo Baragli of the University of Pisa in Italy, published in the journal Animal Cognition, found that horses, too, can recognize their reflection in a mirror and even preen themselves.

Methodology:

  • A large standing mirror was placed in an indoor arena, into which a horse would be let loose one at a time.
  • At first, the horses all behaved as if their reflection was another horse. Some tried to play with their mirror image, others showed fear or aggression towards it.
  • However, the majority eventually began to investigate this “other horse” they could see in the glass. 11 of the 14 horses moved their heads around and saw their reflection move in tandem. They also walked around the back of the mirror, as if they were checking whether the image they saw was three dimensional. Some even stuck their tongues out at the glass to be absolutely sure the mystery horse was them. The horses appeared to finally understand they were not looking at a fellow equine.
  • Scientists then used medical ultrasound gel to paint a colored X on the 11 horses’ cheeks. Their reactions, filmed in a total of 22 hours of footage, were then analyzed.
  • All the horses stood in front of the mirror and appeared to recognize that they had a mark on their face, as they were seen rubbing their marked cheek against their leg then checking their reflection again to see if the X had gone. 

Dr. Baragli said: “They’re either trying to explore the mark on their face or trying to get it off. It’s hard to imagine there’s any other reason for this behavior.”

But some experts are skeptical of the findings and argue that the horses would never have investigated their reflection in the mirror if they hadn’t been prompted to do so. Gordon Gallup, a psychologist at the University at Albany in New York, said: “None of the horses spontaneously used the mirror to investigate parts of their bodies that could not be seen without a mirror.”

Dr. Baragli remains convinced the horses’ behavior shows they understand they are looking at themselves in the mirror, and that they can use the mirror to make modifications to their appearance. He believes this is an important first step in establishing whether all equines comprehend the concept of individuality and are conscious of how they look.

Telegraph readers, like the comment below, noted that horses must have seen and recognized their reflection in water when they bend down to drink:

Of course horses know their own reflection, they have been looking at themselves when drinking for aeons. The same goes for zebras, and countless other animals. They would startle if they saw the face of a lion behind the head of the horse in the water.

Other readers point out that research like this, hopefully, will make us humans be less cruel toward animals:

We have been underestimating the abilities and sensitivities of animals for ever. That is how we are able to enslave and mistreat them. Sooner or later, research like this is going to make us see that.

~E

9 Comments

Posted in God's creation

Tagged , , , ,