Dear Visitors,
I am happy to announce that as of 23rd December 2008, GrASS was officially registered as a Society.
It's a great start to 2009 and the ball is rolling.
Wishing all of you a Happy & Prosperous Chinese New Year~!
-J.Scott-
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
View: Educate dog owners
THERE are so many dogs being abandoned. One can see them in markets, near shops, around schools, even along highways.
Many of them seem confused and disoriented, wondering around for food and water and not finding anything to eat.
The worst happens when stray female dogs get pregnant and produce an average of seven to nine puppies in one birth.
Both mother and puppies will go hungry, not to mention there is no proper shelter for them. The few lucky ones get adopted.
The sad story never ends, when female puppies reach the age of six months, they produce puppies again.
Some people feel the SPCA can solve their problems by sending unwanted dogs there but SPCA has limited funds, space and manpower.
A large number of dogs, easily up to 90%, sent there are not adopted and have to be put to sleep.
Abandoning these animals is despicable especially for some of the dogs, which have once provided companionship, loyalty and even free house watch services.
In order to cultivate better pet culture in this country, we as individuals can help to spread the following messages to educate pet keepers.
They must spay or neuter their dogs, vaccinate them and not chain or caged them 24 hours everyday. The owner must learn to spend time with them and not abandon them.
TRACY HO,
Kuala Lumpur.
This article was taken from: The Star Online: News: Focus 16 March 2008
Kuala Lumpur.
Article: What the animals tell us
WHEEL POWER
By ANTHONY THANASAYAN
OCCASSIONALLY, I get the opportunity to give talks on disability to members of the public. Last week was one such time.
The audience members were all doctors practising rehabilitation medicine or healthcare experts involved in one way or another in the particular scientific field.
More than a dozen of them came to hear my lunchtime talk at a government hospital in Kuala Lumpur. The meeting was arranged by a rehabilitation physician of the hospital.
I was to speak on animal-assisted therapy (AAT) and its health benefits to human beings, particularly those with disabilities and the elderly.
My mission that afternoon was to sensitise the healthcare workers present about how my own interaction with my pets had brought about significant changes in my life as a person born with a disability.
Although I have been disabled for nearly half a century, it is the last 10 years or so of my life that have been the most fulfilling and rewarding. That was when my wonderful dogs came into my life.
I was given only 30 minutes to make a lasting impression on the healthcare experts.
I showed the good doctors two original videos that were produced locally.
One was on how Petpositive’s aquarium therapy for a quadriplegic young lady had made a difference in her life despite some healthcare workers having given up on the individual.
The second was how my service dogs regularly help me overcome daily challenges at home.
My dogs are fully trained to open and shut doors, push my wheelchair and run upstairs and downstairs on errands for me. They can even retrieve essential objects for me, such as my urinal.
Despite these amazing feats, I pointed out that it is my canines’ ability to help me keep depression at bay which is what I appreciate most from their companionship.
I related an incident last year when one of my dogs zeroed in on a nasty pressure sore that was surreptitiously forming on one of my paralysed feet.
The discovery landed me in hospital in time for surgery to be done to save my infected limb, rather than have it amputated.
However, during my nine days of hospitalisation and total bed rest, the medical doctors who investigated my condition did not seem the least bit concerned or interested in how my dogs had played a pivotal role in my healthcare – or having got me to them in time in the first place.
I also regret that the government hospital in which I was warded did not have a room reserved for AAT when there were scores of other rooms for all types of treatment.
Even though I consider myself to be a positive thinking person, the nine days of being confined in bed started to depress me little by little as the days progressed.
And none of the smiling doctors and nurses in front of me had a clue as to what was going on inside of me. My dog, on the other hand, would have detected it almost instantaneously.
Let’s face it, it’s much more fun anytime to grab a kiss or to hug a warm and lovable pet than a stiff thermometer or cold stethoscope offered by a healthcare worker dressed in white, was my concluding remark at the talk.
Article: Testing tastes
LONDON LOG
By CHOI TUCK WO
WHILE a dog’s life may be miserable for some, it certainly doesn’t seem so for Simon Allison.
What’s more, he savours every moment of it; he “eats” animal food almost every other day.
But if you’re expecting him to fight like cats and dogs over leftovers or rummage for table scraps, you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree.
Suffice to say, Allison’s gut-wrenching diet may prove to be too hard to stomach for most people.
Yet, none of Marks & Spencer’s animal products would end up in pet feeding bowls in British homes without having passed through his taste buds.
So, whether it’s chunky pooch snacks or steamed feline meaty slices, Allison finds them palatable all the same.
He had, in fact, trained his palate to detect the delicacies preferred by dogs and cats; his rationale was that the people would find it comfortable serving pet food that tasted like their own.
For all the love of his job – he’s the retail giant’s senior food technologist - he may have bitten off more than he can chew.
But one thing is certain; he doesn’t have to worry too much about being retrenched or finding himself queuing up for that job.
Be that as it may, most Britons still regard it as utter madness for any pet food manufacturer or retailer to actually have a human taster for its products.
With the increasing clamour for posh pet food, it’s no wonder the industry is focusing on nutritious meals for animals. Indeed, the pet food market is big business in Britain, raking in over £1.6bil (RM11.2bil) in 2006 alone.
The debate, however, is not so much over whether pet food is fit for human consumption but whether canines have the same nutritional requirements as humans.
As pointed out by animal nutritionist John Thurley, the public needs good nutritional advice to combat pet obesity rather than what he called “clever marketing”.
As far as he is concerned, humans don’t have the correct qualifications for an animal taster’s job. Thus, Allison doesn’t exactly fit the bill.
It’s not that pets will complain, anyway, even though their tastes, desires and needs may be completely different from ours.
“Humans have more than 9,000 taste buds compared with a dog’s 1,706 and a cat’s mere 473. Making any comparisons about taste is irrelevant,” he was quoted as saying in Britain’s Daily Mail.
Well, Thurley may have a point. And he probably knows what he is saying.
Running his own animal nutritional business and employing an English setter as his food taster, he is probably more qualified than most people to talk about pet food. There is also the question of whether the human digestive system is capable of digesting pet food.
In any case, the issue of whether humans can be better tasters of pet food than the animals themselves gives much food for thought.
This article was taken from: The Star Online: Lifestyle: Lifefocus 20 March 2008Article: Pampered lot
Over a Cuppa by HOO BAN KHEE
It’s no longer a dog’s life as society becomes increasingly affluent.
I HAVE a little secret to confess. Whenever I am “abandoned” by my wife at the shopping mall, I have the tendency to stray to the nearest pet shop. Not that I feel lost and need a pet to hang on to but pet shops have become an incredibly interesting place to browse around in. Having been to several, I have made some observations and come to a few conclusions, as well.
Pet shops are not like what they were before when they only had budgies, parrots, rabbits and some sad-looking cats and tick-infested dogs, all kept in smelly cages.
Affluence has changed all that. Walking into one is like walking into wonderland in springtime. Birds chirp and sing, freshly-groomed cats play ball, while others nap in the comfort of their clean cages in an air-conditioned environment. And the dogs in their gleaming cages look into your eyes with confidence as you walk by. They don’t stink and they are not preoccupied with scratching themselves.
When you buy one, you not only get a receipt that reminds you how costly it is, you are also assured that it are pedigree and comes from good family lines.
It would have been de-wormed, had its necessary injections and all you need to do is to take it home and enjoy its company.
And lest you forget, the shop assistant will remind you of the things you need to get for your little doggie before you leave the shop, one of which would probably be an expensive cage as a simple cardboard box just won’t do anymore.
Then there's a nice mattress-lined basket for it to sleep in, some toys to keep it amused when you are too busy to play with it, bones and shoes made of leather for it to exercise its jaws so it would spare your RM500 leather shoes.
By now you are probably thinking, “Am I adopting a baby or buying an animal?”
Yes, a dog’s life now carries a different meaning and some pet dogs are so pampered that it absolutely irritates us no end.
Big-time pet business has spilled over into Malaysia and judging by what I see, it surely is a multibillion-ringgit business worldwide.
Coming back to the business of keeping your dog healthy and happy, there is quite a bit of shopping to do. You have to get them food. Not scraps from your dinner but canned meat in different flavours and sauces, and vitamin-filled biscuits, which are almost good enough for human consumption.
And how about getting them some clothes? Haven’t you seen those cute little doggies that are all dressed up – he in jacket and cap, she in blouses and skirts and ribbons? How they turn heads when they are paraded in the streets by their proud owners!
Having bought one expensive pet, you need to do lots in terms of upkeeping. You would need shampoo, fur brushes and a hair dryer (if you don’t want to share yours with it), and a nail clipper and file.
To save you all the hassle, you may want to send it over to the grooming shop which will do the work for you. They are smart centres where you can drop off your little darling for a nice shower and rubdown; have its fur trimmed, as we human beings have our hair trimmed and coiffed.
I am of course talking about pet dogs. They are cute, lovable and intelligent. No doubt they are also good company for people who find it easier to express their love to them than to some fellow human beings.
Dogs earn our affection by being loyal, obedient and brave. There are endless stories about dogs trekking hundred of miles to return home, dogs guarding the graves of their owners for years, and dogs sniffing out drugs, criminals and surviving victims buried under debris. Dogs also pull sledges and lead blind people. They are our best friends not for no reason.
Unfortunately eating dog meat is very much part of a culture shared by the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese. It is believed that dog meat warms the body and thus, it is a specialty during wintertime.
I have noted that how a society treats animals is a reflection of how affluent and civilised it is.
Way back in the 1980s when South Korea’s economy was taking off, I saw in Seoul many boutique-like grooming centres for dogs. Downtown, young ladies were seen taking their four-legged companions for a walk.
China is another dog-eating country but as the society becomes more affluent, one can see more and more dog owners taking their pets for an evening walk on tree-lined walkways and in public parks. Obviously, a booming economy has put more money into the pockets of the Chinese people who can now afford to keep pets instead of putting them into cooking pots.
Article: Get off my yard
Not Today
By SUJESH PAVITHRAN
Beneath the facade of cuteness, domestic felines harbour a single-minded devotion to disrupting the neighbourhood peace.
A NOTE of caution to readers before I take off on this week’s rant – the contents below will offend cat lovers.
I strongly believe in animal rights. Zoos depress me because wild animals should be roaming the jungles, not put on show for us.
As for snakes, monkeys, monitor lizards, squirrels and other unfortunate creatures fighting a losing cause against urban encroachment of their habitats, the road-kill on various expressways is testimony to the raw deal they’re getting. I can’t even begin to describe my rage when protected wildlife is slaughtered for some monster’s profit, amusement or “health”.
And dogs are my favourite kind of domestic animals.
However, I have to draw the line at cats ... not the big jungle cats, but those crafty domestic ones that seem intent on disrupting my peace when they starting courting in my back lane after midnight. But that’s not all.
Let’s start with the expressions on their faces. Cats always and inevitably look smug, scornful or suspicious, or various combinations of these expressions. Somewhat like Simon Cowell, actually, without the wit and T-shirt.
Cats are condescending opportunists ... they’ll come to you when they need something, but when they’re perched out-of-reach on a wall or tree after having done something unpleasant, they’ll sneer at you patronisingly until you reach out for a slipper to sling at them ... oh, please, don’t tell me you haven’t thought of doing this.
Each generation of cats in the neighbourhood learns new tricks, and grows smarter and smugger, devising more cunning means to entrench its members around your homes and streets. The aim is ostensibly to make life for non-cat owning persons difficult or at least, inconvenient.
When I shifted to where I live now six years ago, I was taken aback with the cat population, stray and domesticated, in the area.
People complain about stray dogs and the crow menace, and the local council hires shooters to decimate the creatures. But with cats ... ever heard of anyone complaining to the local council about cats? Further prove that these feline subverts are gradually dominating the planet.
These ruffians – the cats, I mean, not the shooters – treat every yard or porch like their litter box, and think nothing of inviting friends and family members. At first, they stay on the ground – a generation later, the younger ones have found their way to your awnings and porch roof, sneaking around roof gutters for ways to enter your house since they know your front door is impenetrable. And they will mark your door as if to challenge you.
They slink around corners and walls, and some have a tendency to get under your car’s bonnet until you start the engine and scare them off ... I have heard of cats using up all their nine lives when they tried to get the better of running engines or fan belts. Look, I feel bad about such things but you don’t catch dogs doing something so stupid. Only cats ?you’d think they’d be smarter.
I once found half a dozen loutish-looking cats lazing around under my car in my porch ... they didn’t even have the decency to scoot off when I appeared and shooed them. A garden hose is handy for such situations, preferably with water running through it at some speed.
For weeks on end, they’ll keep messing up your yard, and then they’ll disappear, leaving you hoping the menace has ended. Then, the next generation shows up and takes over. You can’t convince me these little terrors are not trying to subjugate humans.
As if cats invading my turf weren’t enough, there’s now a bat taking shelter in my backyard ...
Article: Animals, birds and fish perish in pet shop fire
MUAR: Dogs, cats, rabbits, ornamental fish and birds, including exotic parrot species perished when fire razed a pet shop here.
The blaze at the Huah Pets shop, located along Jalan Khalidi, started at about 1.55am, probably caused by a short circuit.
Shop owner Tan Bing Huat said he could not determine the number of animals, birds and fish inside the shop but believed they totalled about 6,000.
He said most of the birds killed in the fire were doves of the merbuk and tekukur species but there were also three exotic parrots which cost RM2,000 each, adding that, he had yet to determine the total loss.
He said the fire spread very fast and within 10 minutes had engulfed the whole shop, which began operation about seven years ago.
A team of firemen from the Muar Fire Services and Rescue Department managed to put the fire under control in about 20 minutes.
This article was taken from: The Star Online: Nation 28 April 2008
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