Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Giving the Ban on Puppy Imports Some Teeth

"Happiness is a warm puppy." — Charles M. Schulz, creator of Peanuts comic strip

American dog breeders are regulated by the laws in the Animal Welfare Act, which was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. It is the only federal law that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport and by dealers.

After a growing concern about the increased number of very young and unhealthy puppies entering the country through airplane cargo holds, notorious for being bad environments for animals, Congress passed an amendment in 2008 that bans the importation of dogs under the age of six months for resale purposes.

However, "three years on, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) still hasn’t instituted regulations that would enable it to effectively enforce the puppy import ban," according to the ASPCA. But this month, the agency proposed enforcement regulations and guidelines "to ensure the law has teeth."[1]

There is a small window of time during which the USDA is accepting comments from the public on this issue. Hopefully, Americans who care about animal welfare will take this opportunity to stand up and demand that the puppy import ban is enforced to help protect these helpless young dogs.

ACTION ALERTS

• Tell the USDA: Enforce the 2008 Puppy Import Ban (ASPCA)
• Tell Ireland that dog racing is inhumane and the last thing they should be doing is spending public money to prop up a cruel and despicable industry (Grey 2K USA)
• Urge Congress to reduce spending while protecting animals (HSUS)
• Sign a petition to stop hog-dog fighting (ForceChange)
• Save a dog's life and adopt your new best friend (AdoptAPet.com)
• Celebrate your adopted dog or cat and help spread the message to adopt instead of buying a pet by Tweeting a pic and/or story to @PETA with the hashtag #AdoptDontBuy (PETA)
• Tell Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Redd of Hyderabad, India: Stop the senseless death and cruelty at dog pounds maintained by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMHC) (Change.org)
• More than 39,000 signatures and counting: Sign the ASPCA pledge to say NO to animal cruelty (ASPCA)
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PART OF THE PROBLEM

• The US National Toxicology Program remains stuck on extravagant and unnecessary animal testing that often yields unusable results, torturing, maiming and killing animals and costing American taxpayers $500 million every year (HSUS)
• About 1,000 chimpanzees — 80-90% of whom aren't even used in research, as they've proved poor models for human illness — are warehoused in expensive lab cages, costing American taxpayers $300 million every year (HSUS)

SOME GOOD STUFF

• The September issue of National Geographic magazine features a wonderful article on the work of Daphne Sheldrick, who runs a renowned elephant orphanage in Kenya (In Defense of Animals)
• On September 27, the Richmond, California City Council voted to end live bird sales at its farmers’ market, effective November 1 (In Defense of Animals)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• September (multiples dates/locations): Save Lolita the Orca Rally
• September 30: Hug a Vegetarian Day
• October 2: World Farm Animals Day
• October 6: PCRM leads a physician-led demonstration at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle urging the end of the use of live animals in endotracheal intubation training
• October 14: International Bird Rescue celebrates 40-anniversary in Los Angeles
• October 15-16: Millions Against Monsanto World Food Day Events
• October 27-29: National Conference to End Factory Farming: For Health, Environment and Farm Animals
• November: Asteroid very close to Earth
  
• November 25: Solar Eclipse (4th of 4 partial solar eclipses in 2011)
• December 2: National Mutt Day
• December 10: Lunar Eclipse (2nd of 2 total lunar eclipses in 2011)

RICH DOG, POOR DOG

• Rich Dog, Poor Dog (and Poor Hog) | Hog-Dog Fighting
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Chaser, Go Fetch One of Your 1,022 Toys!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Argos, Odysseus' Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity...All the Virtues of Man without His Vices
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Arnolfini's Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Working Dogs for Conservation
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Pets, Part of the Solution
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Raina, Dogfighting Bait Survivor
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Mickey Rourke on Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bobbie, the Wonder Dog of Oregon
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | By the Dogs of Egypt!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Hounds of the Unicorn Tapestries
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Goldens Rule
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Sniffing Out Lung Cancer
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Vision of St. Eustace
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Tom Ford's Lessons Learned From Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Hyderabad, Hell on Earth
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bart, the Navy SEALS Hero Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Ancient Dogs of Asclepius
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Welsh Corgi: The Queen's Fairy Dog

PAST SERIES

• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religions (August 2011)
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars (July 2011)
  
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking (June 2011)
  
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms (May 2011)
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within (April 2011)
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives (March 2011)
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent (February 2011)
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future (January 2011)
• Victory Month: Looking at the victories of 2010, made possible by you (December 2010)
• Tree Month: Climbing the perennial woody plants that appeared 375 million years ago (November 2010)
• Food Month: Considering what we put in our mouths (October 2010)

[Last month, the series "Physicists & Priests" investigated the complex relationship between science and religion. Now 13.7 Billion Years turns to another deeply complex relationship — that of humans and dogs. From royal pooches to homeless scavengers to everything in between, dogs have co-existed with humans at all levels of society across all cultures since it became the world's first domesticated animal, bred from the grey wolf in East Africa sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. For the month of September, the series "Rich Dog, Poor Dog" takes a look at man's best friend living at the extremes. Bred for hunting, herding, companionship, pest control, transportation and even human consumption, dogs have been critical to the development of human civilization. At turns revered and feared, regularly mistreated and maligned, there is no other species as loyal to Homo sapiens than Canis lupus familiaris.]

NOTES
[1] http://www.aspca.org/USDA

image: ASPCA

Rich Dog, Poor Dog (and Poor Hog) | Hog-Dog Fighting

"Is there any hope for human enlightenment? We are the scourge of this planet...We had so much potential. Stories like this make me feel defeated, but anger me enough to keep pushing." -- Rebecca T., Care2 comment[1]

The brutal torture event known as hog-dog fighting is prevalent in the American south, predominant in, but not limited to, the following ten states: Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida and Oklahoma.

At these events, also known as hog dogging, hawg dawgin', hog baiting or hog dog rodeos, dogs and hogs are forced to fight each other for the entertainment of human viewers. The hogs cannot defend themselves, as their tusks have been viciously removed by bolt cutters prior to the fight.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), describes the event:

Before you can count to three-one-thousand, the dog tackles the hog in a cloud of dust. Her jaws tear into the hog’s flesh, maybe ripping his snout, tail, or an ear. The hog expresses his pain and fear through loud squeals that echo off the pen's tin walls. The crowd is pleased; the dog pins the hog to the ground in a mere seven seconds. As with a wrestling pin, the mandatory three seconds elapse, and the operator declares the dog victorious. Adults and children cheer for the fast, powerful dog...After the proud owner leads his dog away, the handler may pour apple vinegar into the hog’s wounds. The vinegar supposedly helps the wounds develop scabs so that the hog can be mauled again in a few days.

If enough children attend the hog dog fight, the operator will encourage a game of "catch the pig." In this "kiddie-friendly" game, the handler tapes the hog’s snout closed and encourages children to chase the terrified animal around the pen. At one event, secretly videotaped by Alabama’s NBC-15 station, the announcer remarked that the hog suffered a broken leg, something that failed to dissuade the children from trying to tackle the pathetic, hobbled animal.[1]

As William Ralph Inge (1860-1954), a professor of divinity at Cambridge University, astutely observed, "We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form."

ACTION ALERTS

• Sign a petition to stop hog-dog fighting (ForceChange)
• Submit a public comment in support of Wilderness Protection for ANWR's coastal plain. The coastal plain of ANWR is a one-of-a-kind, beautifully diverse ecosystem. It supports nearly 200 wildlife species including caribou, seals, polar bears, wolves and migratory birds such as tundra swans and snowy owls. Oil development in the coastal plain would permanently scar this sensitive habitat and the species that live there and this is a first step in making sure that risky drilling does not happen. FWS has completed a draft Comprehensive Conservation Plan for public input and they need to hear from you. The oil and gas industry's friends are working every angle to keep this from happening. We need to show support for protecting the crown jewel of America's National Wildlife Refuge System. (Endangered Species Coalition)
• Save a dog's life and adopt your new best friend (AdoptAPet.com)
• Celebrate your adopted dog or cat and help spread the message to adopt instead of buying a pet by Tweeting a pic and/or story to @PETA with the hashtag #AdoptDontBuy (PETA)
• Tell Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Redd of Hyderabad, India: Stop the senseless death and cruelty at dog pounds maintained by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMHC) (Change.org)
• More than 39,000 signatures and counting: Sign the ASPCA pledge to say NO to animal cruelty (ASPCA)
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PART OF THE PROBLEM

• Japan officials failed to hand out radiation pills in quake's aftermath (Wall Street Journal)
• Vandana Shiva: The biggest threat is Monsanto (Organic Consumers Association)
• An independent, scientific report concludes that an agricultural industry study seeking to derail the EPA's Chesapeake Bay pollution "diet" is of "poor scientific merit" and full of errors (Chesapeake Bay Foundation)

SOME GOOD STUFF

• Japan finally starts taking action against its corrupt whaling industry (Greenpeace)
• More rescued sea otter pups from Monterey Bay Aquarium's surrogate program (Monterey Bay Aquarium)
• Vegan actor Alexandra Paul shares what inspires her to live compassionately and gives tips for helping animals (PETA)
• 7 Tips to Help Migrating Birds (Nature Canada)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• September (multiples dates/locations): Save Lolita the Orca Rally
• September 30: Hug a Vegetarian Day
• October 2: World Farm Animals Day
• October 6: PCRM leads a physician-led demonstration at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle urging the end of the use of live animals in endotracheal intubation training
• October 14: International Bird Rescue celebrates 40-anniversary in Los Angeles
• October 15-16: Millions Against Monsanto World Food Day Events
• October 27-29: National Conference to End Factory Farming: For Health, Environment and Farm Animals
• November: Asteroid very close to Earth
  
• November 25: Solar Eclipse (4th of 4 partial solar eclipses in 2011)
• December 2: National Mutt Day
• December 10: Lunar Eclipse (2nd of 2 total lunar eclipses in 2011)

RICH DOG, POOR DOG

• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Chaser, Go Fetch One of Your 1,022 Toys!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Argos, Odysseus' Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity...All the Virtues of Man without His Vices
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Arnolfini's Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Working Dogs for Conservation
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Pets, Part of the Solution
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Raina, Dogfighting Bait Survivor
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Mickey Rourke on Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bobbie, the Wonder Dog of Oregon
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | By the Dogs of Egypt!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Hounds of the Unicorn Tapestries
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Goldens Rule
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Sniffing Out Lung Cancer
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Vision of St. Eustace
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Tom Ford's Lessons Learned From Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Hyderabad, Hell on Earth
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bart, the Navy SEALS Hero Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Ancient Dogs of Asclepius
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Welsh Corgi: The Queen's Fairy Dog

PAST SERIES

• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religions (August 2011)
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars (July 2011)
  
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking (June 2011)
  
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms (May 2011)
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within (April 2011)
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives (March 2011)
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent (February 2011)
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future (January 2011)
• Victory Month: Looking at the victories of 2010, made possible by you (December 2010)
• Tree Month: Climbing the perennial woody plants that appeared 375 million years ago (November 2010)
• Food Month: Considering what we put in our mouths (October 2010)

[Last month, the series "Physicists & Priests" investigated the complex relationship between science and religion. Now 13.7 Billion Years turns to another deeply complex relationship — that of humans and dogs. From royal pooches to homeless scavengers to everything in between, dogs have co-existed with humans at all levels of society across all cultures since it became the world's first domesticated animal, bred from the grey wolf in East Africa sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. For the month of September, the series "Rich Dog, Poor Dog" takes a look at man's best friend living at the extremes. Bred for hunting, herding, companionship, pest control, transportation and even human consumption, dogs have been critical to the development of human civilization. At turns revered and feared, regularly mistreated and maligned, there is no other species as loyal to Homo sapiens than Canis lupus familiaris.]

NOTES
[1] http://www.care2.com/news/member/525884267/2961787

[2] http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/hogdog_fighting/facts/hog-dog_bloodsport.html

image: ForceChange.com

Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Chaser, Go Fetch One of Your 1,022 Toys!

800 cloth animals. 116 balls. 26 Frisbees. 80 plastic toys. 1,022 words. 1 dog.

Chaser has a lot of toys, 1,022 of them to be exact. And she knows what each one of them is called. Outside the fact that that's a lot of toys for anyone to have, the number by itself wouldn't be so interesting if Chaser were a three-year-old human. But Chaser is a dog. She's the dog with the biggest vocabulary in the world.

She may not be able to repeat the words, but Chaser, a border collie, understands what each one means — thanks to three years of home-schooling by her guardian/teacher, retired psychologist John W. Pilley, who taught at Wofford College in Spartansburg, South Carolina, where he and Chaser live.

According to Dr. Pilley's study, which was published online in the journal Behavioural Processes, four different experiments found that Chaser learned and retained the proper-noun names of 1,022 objects and understood their separate meanings. She even understands common nouns that represent categories of her toys, correctly being able to "fetch a ball" or "fetch a Frisbee," for example, from among all her various balls and Frisbees.




It is a singular achievement that required intensive tutelage. After Dr. Pilley got Chaser as a puppy from a local breeder, he started teaching her the names of her toys, spending between 4 to 5 hours a day with one or two toys, showing her the toy, saying the name of the toy, hiding the toy, telling her to find it, the whole time repeating the word. They also spent time on words she already knew in order to reinforce past learning.

Chaser's vocabulary far outstrips that of Rico, another border collie who became famous for knowing 200 words and who was the focus of the study that actually inspired Dr. Pilley's own.[2]

[Click here for a video of Chaser and Dr. Pilley]

Why 1,022? Well, Chaser is eager to learn more words. But her teacher tired of working on nouns. "She still demands four to five hours a day,” Dr. Pilley said. “I’m 82, and I have to go to bed." They've moved on to grammar.[3]

"We’re trying to teach some elementary grammar to our dog," he said. "How far we’ll be able to go we don’t know, but we think we are on the frontier."

Chaser is unique in that she learned 1,022 words. But it's unlikely that it is a unique ability for dogs in general, especially the highly intelligent breeds proven to be good learners, such as border collies and police, military and search-and-rescue (SAR) breeds, like the German shepherd, doberman, Belgian Malinois and golden and Labrador retriever.

Together, Dr. Pilley and Chaser have not only revealed an uncharted territory in canine intelligence, but that even in a relationship as close as the one between humans and dogs — one that has been developing for the past 15,000 years — there is still much more potential to achieve a deeper and more meaningful relationship.

ACTION ALERTS

• Rescue a border collie (Border Collie Rescue of America)
• Save a dog's life and adopt your new best friend (AdoptAPet.com)
• Celebrate your adopted dog or cat and help spread the message to adopt instead of buying a pet by Tweeting a pic and/or story to @PETA with the hashtag #AdoptDontBuy (PETA)
• Tell Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Redd of Hyderabad, India: Stop the senseless death and cruelty at dog pounds maintained by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMHC) (Change.org)
• More than 39,000 signatures and counting: Sign the ASPCA pledge to say NO to animal cruelty (ASPCA)
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PART OF THE PROBLEM

• Sri Lanka: Two baby elephants killed by express train (Sri Lanka Daily Mirror)
• Cornell Global Labor Institute study finds Keystone XL Pipeline will not only create few jobs, but may kill more jobs than it creates (Cornell Global Labor Institute)

PART OF THE SOLUTION

• Google has invested nearly $850 milliojn in clean tech, latest $75 million investment supports up to 3,000 homeowners in financing the installation of PV modules on rooftops (PV Tech)
• Newkirk Nuggets: Words of wisdom from Ingrid Newkirk (PETA)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• September (multiples dates/locations): Save Lolita the Orca Rally
• September 26-28: First annual International Equine Conference, Alexandria, VA (Equine Welfare Alliance)
• September 30: Hug a Vegetarian Day
• October 2: World Farm Animals Day
• October 6: PCRM leads a physician-led demonstration at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle urging the end of the use of live animals in endotracheal intubation training
• October 14: International Bird Rescue celebrates 40-anniversary in Los Angeles
• October 27-29: National Conference to End Factory Farming: For Health, Environment and Farm Animals
• November: Asteroid very close to Earth
  
• November 25: Solar Eclipse (4th of 4 partial solar eclipses in 2011)
• December 2: National Mutt Day
• December 10: Lunar Eclipse (2nd of 2 total lunar eclipses in 2011)

RICH DOG, POOR DOG

• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Argos, Odysseus' Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity...All the Virtues of Man without His Vices
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Arnolfini's Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Working Dogs for Conservation
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Pets, Part of the Solution
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Raina, Dogfighting Bait Survivor
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Mickey Rourke on Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bobbie, the Wonder Dog of Oregon
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | By the Dogs of Egypt!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Hounds of the Unicorn Tapestries
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Goldens Rule
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Sniffing Out Lung Cancer
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Vision of St. Eustace
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Tom Ford's Lessons Learned From Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Hyderabad, Hell on Earth
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bart, the Navy SEALS Hero Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Ancient Dogs of Asclepius
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Welsh Corgi: The Queen's Fairy Dog

PAST SERIES

• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religions (August 2011)
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars (July 2011)
  
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking (June 2011)
  
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms (May 2011)
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within (April 2011)
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives (March 2011)
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent (February 2011)
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future (January 2011)
• Victory Month: Looking at the victories of 2010, made possible by you (December 2010)
• Tree Month: Climbing the perennial woody plants that appeared 375 million years ago (November 2010)
• Food Month: Considering what we put in our mouths (October 2010)

[Last month, the series "Physicists & Priests" investigated the complex relationship between science and religion. Now 13.7 Billion Years turns to another deeply complex relationship — that of humans and dogs. From royal pooches to homeless scavengers to everything in between, dogs have co-existed with humans at all levels of society across all cultures since it became the world's first domesticated animal, bred from the grey wolf in East Africa sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. For the month of September, the series "Rich Dog, Poor Dog" takes a look at man's best friend living at the extremes. Bred for hunting, herding, companionship, pest control, transportation and even human consumption, dogs have been critical to the development of human civilization. At turns revered and feared, regularly mistreated and maligned, there is no other species as loyal to Homo sapiens than Canis lupus familiaris.]

Notes
[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635710002925
[2] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/304/5677/1682.abstract

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html

images: Cass Sapir/Nova Science Now; John W. Pilley/ScienceDirect)

Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Argos, Odysseus' Faithful Dog

Odysseus' dog Argos recognizes his master after two decades, in a bittersweet reunion

Argos, the faithful dog of the ancient Greek hero Odysseus, was one of the first dogs ever named in Western literature. After twenty years — a decade fighting in the Trojan War and a decade struggling to journey home after the fall of Troy — Odysseus finally arrives at his home in Ithaca, only to find his home taken over by suitors who want to marry his wife Penelope.

Planning a surprise attack on the interlopers, Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar so that he can surreptitiously enter his house. As he approaches, he spots his dog Argos. But instead of the young, strong and fast tracking dog that he left behind, Argos is now old, tired, neglected, infested with lice and lying in a pile of cow manure.

Argos recognizes Odysseus instantly, but has no strength to get up and can only drop his ears and wag his tail. Odysseus, not wanting to give up his true identity, passes by his loyal dog, shedding a tear. As Odysseus enters his house, Argos dies. Refusing to let go until he saw his master one last time, Argos remains a symbol of a dog's undying fidelity.

Here is the excerpt from Book 17 of Homer's The Odyssey:

As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said:

"Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?"

"This dog," answered Eumaeus, "belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him."

So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had seen his master once more after twenty years.

ACTION ALERTS

• Save a dog's life and adopt your new best friend (AdoptAPet.com)
• Celebrate your adopted dog or cat and help spread the message to adopt instead of buying a pet by Tweeting a pic and/or story to @PETA with the hashtag #AdoptDontBuy (PETA)
• Tell Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Redd of Hyderabad, India: Stop the senseless death and cruelty at dog pounds maintained by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMHC) (Change.org)
• Say NO to HR 2681/2250 which would let cement plants and incinerators pollute (NRDC)
• More than 39,000 signatures and counting: Sign the ASPCA pledge to say NO to animal cruelty (ASPCA)
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PART OF THE PROBLEM

• The deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field is causing wildfires across western North Dakota (New York Times)
• Plastic natural gas pipe failure data kept secret (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Across the Amazon all-time record gold prices, which are the result of investors seeking a safe haven from the US and European economic slump, are reportedly adding fuel to a chaotic jungle gold rush, bringing violence, disease and conflict to the mineral-rich rainforests of Brazil, Guyana, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela (Guardian)

SOME GOOD STUFF

• San Francisco Bay Area rallies for solutions to the climate crisis (California Progress Report)
• Caterpillars released in their thousands to save rare UK moth (Wildlife Extra)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• September (multiples dates/locations): Save Lolita the Orca Rally
• September 26-28: First annual International Equine Conference, Alexandria, VA (Equine Welfare Alliance)
• September 30: Hug a Vegetarian Day
• October 2: World Farm Animals Day
• October 6: PCRM leads a physician-led demonstration at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle urging the end of the use of live animals in endotracheal intubation training
• November: Asteroid very close to Earth
  
• November 25: Solar Eclipse (4th of 4 partial solar eclipses in 2011)
• December 2: National Mutt Day
• December 10: Lunar Eclipse (2nd of 2 total lunar eclipses in 2011)

RICH DOG, POOR DOG

• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity...All the Virtues of Man without His Vices
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Arnolfini's Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Working Dogs for Conservation
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Pets, Part of the Solution
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Raina, Dogfighting Bait Survivor
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Mickey Rourke on Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bobbie, the Wonder Dog of Oregon
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | By the Dogs of Egypt!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Hounds of the Unicorn Tapestries
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Goldens Rule
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Sniffing Out Lung Cancer
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Vision of St. Eustace
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Tom Ford's Lessons Learned From Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Hyderabad, Hell on Earth
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bart, the Navy SEALS Hero Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Ancient Dogs of Asclepius
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Welsh Corgi: The Queen's Fairy Dog

PAST SERIES

• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religions (August 2011)
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars (July 2011)
  
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking (June 2011)
  
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms (May 2011)
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within (April 2011)
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives (March 2011)
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent (February 2011)
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future (January 2011)
• Victory Month: Looking at the victories of 2010, made possible by you (December 2010)
• Tree Month: Climbing the perennial woody plants that appeared 375 million years ago (November 2010)
• Food Month: Considering what we put in our mouths (October 2010)

[Last month, the series "Physicists & Priests" investigated the complex relationship between science and religion. Now 13.7 Billion Years turns to another deeply complex relationship — that of humans and dogs. From royal pooches to homeless scavengers to everything in between, dogs have co-existed with humans at all levels of society across all cultures since it became the world's first domesticated animal, bred from the grey wolf in East Africa sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. For the month of September, the series "Rich Dog, Poor Dog" takes a look at man's best friend living at the extremes. Bred for hunting, herding, companionship, pest control, transportation and even human consumption, dogs have been critical to the development of human civilization. At turns revered and feared, regularly mistreated and maligned, there is no other species as loyal to Homo sapiens than Canis lupus familiaris.]

image: "Argos Recognises Odysseus," 17th-century etching by Theodor van Thulden (1606 - 1669) (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)

Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity...All the Virtues of Man without His Vices

In memory of Boatswain, Lord Byron's beloved Newfoundland

The British poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) was one of the main figures of the Romantic period. While he gained notoriety for his scandalous behavior (Lady Caroline Lamb famously described him as "mad, bad and dangerous to know"), he was also known for his love of animals. He kept many animals around him, but he was most fond of Boatswain (pronounced "BOH-zun"), his first Newfoundland dog, which he got when he was 15 years old.

Boatswain, named after the title of a ship's crew member in charge of sails and rigging — an apt name for these water-rescue dogs — died only five years later in 1808 from rabies. Byron famously nursed his beloved dog through the illness, without fear of being bitten. (Rabies is fatal in humans without treatment.)

Boatswain was buried under a majestic monument at Newstead Abbey, Byron's ancestral home in Nottinghamshire, with a space for Byron himself, though the poet was ultimately buried at the family vault at the nearby St. Mary Magdalene Church.

In Byron's elegiac poem about Boatswain, the first 12 lines were later found to have been written by his friend John Hobhouse.

Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog
by George Gordon, Lord Byron

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of a
"Boatswain," a Dog
Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe
And storied urns record who rest below:
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been:
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour’d falls, unnoticed all his worth—
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:
While Man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive Heaven.
Oh Man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on—it honours none you wish to mourn:
To mark a Friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one,—and here he lies.

ACTION ALERTS

• Adopt a Newfoundland (Newfoundland Club of America)
• Help give these greyhounds, who suffered abuse at greyhound racetracks, a second chance (Grey2K USA)
• Adopt a pet (AdoptAPet.com)
• Celebrate your adopted dog or cat and help spread the message to adopt instead of buying a pet by Tweeting a pic and/or story to @PETA with the hashtag #AdoptDontBuy (PETA)
• Tell Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Redd of Hyderabad, India: Stop the senseless death and cruelty at dog pounds maintained by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMHC) (Change.org)
• More than 39,000 signatures and counting: Sign the ASPCA pledge to say NO to animal cruelty (ASPCA)
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PART OF THE PROBLEM

• ‘Brave’ Maltese hunters slaughtering Bee-eaters and other protected birds (Wildlife Extra)
• Tucson Greyhound Park CEO Tom Taylor caught lying (Care2)

SOME GOOD STUFF

• New 460 acre 'Jubilee' forest to be created in UK's East Midlands (Wildlife Extra)
• Woman's dying wish to hold the dog she saved from Puerto Rico (Care2)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• September (multiples dates/locations): Save Lolita the Orca Rally
• September 26-28: First annual International Equine Conference, Alexandria, VA (Equine Welfare Alliance)
• September 30: Hug a Vegetarian Day
• October 2: World Farm Animals Day
• October 6: PCRM leads a physician-led demonstration at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle urging the end of the use of live animals in endotracheal intubation training
• November: Asteroid very close to Earth
  
• November 25: Solar Eclipse (4th of 4 partial solar eclipses in 2011)
• December 2: National Mutt Day
• December 10: Lunar Eclipse (2nd of 2 total lunar eclipses in 2011)

RICH DOG, POOR DOG

• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Arnolfini's Faithful Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Working Dogs for Conservation
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Pets, Part of the Solution
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Raina, Dogfighting Bait Survivor
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Mickey Rourke on Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bobbie, the Wonder Dog of Oregon
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | By the Dogs of Egypt!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Hounds of the Unicorn Tapestries
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Goldens Rule
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Sniffing Out Lung Cancer
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Vision of St. Eustace
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Tom Ford's Lessons Learned From Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Hyderabad, Hell on Earth
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bart, the Navy SEALS Hero Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Ancient Dogs of Asclepius
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Welsh Corgi: The Queen's Fairy Dog

PAST SERIES

• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religions (August 2011)
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars (July 2011)
  
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking (June 2011)
  
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms (May 2011)
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within (April 2011)
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives (March 2011)
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent (February 2011)
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future (January 2011)
• Victory Month: Looking at the victories of 2010, made possible by you (December 2010)
• Tree Month: Climbing the perennial woody plants that appeared 375 million years ago (November 2010)
• Food Month: Considering what we put in our mouths (October 2010)

[Last month, the series "Physicists & Priests" investigated the complex relationship between science and religion. Now 13.7 Billion Years turns to another deeply complex relationship — that of humans and dogs. From royal pooches to homeless scavengers to everything in between, dogs have co-existed with humans at all levels of society across all cultures since it became the world's first domesticated animal, bred from the grey wolf in East Africa sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. For the month of September, the series "Rich Dog, Poor Dog" takes a look at man's best friend living at the extremes. Bred for hunting, herding, companionship, pest control, transportation and even human consumption, dogs have been critical to the development of human civilization. At turns revered and feared, regularly mistreated and maligned, there is no other species as loyal to Homo sapiens than Canis lupus familiaris.]

image: "Saved," a painting of a Landseer Newfoundland dog, the breed of Byron's dog, after saving a child from drowning, by Edwin Henry Landseer, 1802–1873 (Wikimedia Commons)

Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Arnolfini's Faithful Dog

"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." — Woodrow Wilson

In 1434, Flemish painter Jan van Eyck created what is considered to be one of the most original, most complex and most widely celebrated paintings in the history of Western art. It is an untitled oil painting on oak panel commonly known as The Arnolfini Portrait, The Arnolfini Marriage or the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, believed to be a portrait of an Italian merchant named Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife at their home in Bruges, a city in the Flemish region of present-day Belgium.

According to the National Gallery of London, where the painting is located, the work is "not intended as a record of their wedding. His wife is not pregnant, as is often thought, but holding up her full-skirted dress in the contemporary fashion...The ornate Latin signature translates as 'Jan van Eyck was here 1434'. The similarity to modern graffiti is not accidental. Van Eyck often inscribed his pictures in a witty way. The mirror reflects two figures in the doorway. One may be the painter himself. Arnolfini raises his right hand as he faces them, perhaps as a greeting. Van Eyck was intensely interested in the effects of light: oil paint allowed him to depict it with great subtlety in this picture, notably on the gleaming brass chandelier."

Almost everything in the painting symbolizes something. The whisk broom hanging on the bedpost finial symbolizes domesticity. The oranges by the window symbolize fertility. The single burning candle in the chandelier symbolizes the all-seeing eye of God, as does the mirror. And of course, the little dog in the foreground is a symbol of fidelity. Indeed, Fido, a common name for a dog, came from the Latin fido, meaning "I trust."

ACTION ALERTS

• Due 10/31: Tell US Interior Department to classify captive chimpanzees as endangered. Classifying captive chimpanzees as merely "threatened" allows them to be misused and abused as pets, in entertainment, and in laboratories. Seeing them in ads and commercials, allowed because of their "threatened" status, misleads people into thinking they really do not need protection. A 2011 Lincoln Park Zoo/University of Chicago study showed that important conservation efforts may be hampered by these portrayals. Their use in research as human models has proven a waste. After infecting many chimpanzees with HIV, not one developed AIDS, and the entire expensive effort failed. Since plans are underway by some to continue nonscientific efforts, classifying chimpanzees as "endangered" would outlaw such immoral activity, thereby enriching the lives of our genetic cousins, saving taxpayers' money, and freeing researchers to utilize appropriate methods. A 2003 study by Wayne State University scientists provided new genetic evidence that humans and chimpanzees diverged so recently that chimpanzees should be classified as Homo troglodytes, thereby making them full-fledged members of our genus, Homo, i.e., persons. We should give captive chimpanzees the benefit of the doubt, and offer them protection by classifying them as "endangered." (Regulations.gov)
• Tell EPA: Ban atrazine, a pesticide that causes reproductive damage and cancers in humans and wildlife (Center for Biological Diversity)
• Become a Citizen Co-Sponsor: National Endowment for the Oceans (Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI))
• Tell World Association for Zoos and Aquariums: Stop aiding dolphin killing (Save Japan Dolphins)
• Adopt a pet (AdoptAPet.com)
• Celebrate your adopted dog or cat and help spread the message to adopt instead of buying a pet by Tweeting a pic and/or story to @PETA with the hashtag #AdoptDontBuy (PETA)
• Tell Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Redd of Hyderabad, India: Stop the senseless death and cruelty at dog pounds maintained by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMHC) (Change.org)
• More than 35,000 signatures and counting: Sign the ASPCA pledge to say NO to animal cruelty (ASPCA)
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PART OF THE PROBLEM

• Emails reveal Obama administration bias re: Keystone XL (Friends of the Earth)
• Nitrogen pollution disrupts Pacific Ocean (Nature)
• Animals are starving in India and Pakistan (IFAW)
• A U.S. House committee was forced to postpone a hearing on the findings of a federal investigation into the causes of the BP oil spill because the Obama administration suddenly refused to let investigators testify, the committee chairman said (The Times-Picayune)

PART OF THE SOLUTION

• 500 dogs now safe, fed, loved. Many others are still suffering and still need help (Humane Society International)
• West Hollywood, California, votes to go fur-free (In Defense of Animals)
• The US Department of Defense has tripled its spending on clean energy in recent years, and that investment is projected to grow as the military weans itself from reliance on costly fossil fuels (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
• FDA bans chlorofluorocarbons in metered-dose asthma inhalers to prevent the use of products that harm the environment (Chicago Tribune)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• September (multiples dates/locations): Save Lolita the Orca Rally
• September 24-25: Mother Earth News Sustainable Fair, Seven Springs, PA
• September 26-28: First annual International Equine Conference, Alexandria, VA (Equine Welfare Alliance)
• September 30: Hug a Vegetarian Day
• October 2: World Farm Animals Day
• November: Asteroid very close to Earth
  
• November 25: Solar Eclipse (4th of 4 partial solar eclipses in 2011)
• December 2: National Mutt Day
• December 10: Lunar Eclipse (2nd of 2 total lunar eclipses in 2011)

RICH DOG, POOR DOG

• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Working Dogs for Conservation
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Pets, Part of the Solution
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Raina, Dogfighting Bait Survivor
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Mickey Rourke on Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bobbie, the Wonder Dog of Oregon
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | By the Dogs of Egypt!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Hounds of the Unicorn Tapestries
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Goldens Rule
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Sniffing Out Lung Cancer
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Vision of St. Eustace
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Tom Ford's Lessons Learned From Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Hyderabad, Hell on Earth
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bart, the Navy SEALS Hero Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Ancient Dogs of Asclepius
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Welsh Corgi: The Queen's Fairy Dog

CHECK OUT PAST SERIES

• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religions (August 2011)
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars (July 2011)
  
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking (June 2011)
  
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms (May 2011)
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within (April 2011)
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives (March 2011)
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent (February 2011)
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future (January 2011)
• Victory Month: Looking at the victories of 2010, made possible by you (December 2010)
• Tree Month: Climbing the perennial woody plants that appeared 375 million years ago (November 2010)
• Food Month: Considering what we put in our mouths (October 2010)

[Last month, the series "Physicists & Priests" investigated the complex relationship between science and religion. Now 13.7 Billion Years turns to another deeply complex relationship — that of humans and dogs. From royal pooches to homeless scavengers to everything in between, dogs have co-existed with humans at all levels of society across all cultures since it became the world's first domesticated animal, bred from the grey wolf in East Africa sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. For the month of September, the series "Rich Dog, Poor Dog" takes a look at man's best friend living at the extremes. Bred for hunting, herding, companionship, pest control, transportation and even human consumption, dogs have been critical to the development of human civilization. At turns revered and feared, regularly mistreated and maligned, there is no other species as loyal to Homo sapiens than Canis lupus familiaris.]

image: Untitled, known in English as The Arnolfini Portrait, The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, The Arnolfini Double Portrait, or Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, 1434, by Jan van Eyck (ca. 1390-1441), Oil on panel, 82 × 59.5 cm (32.3 × 23.4 in), National Gallery, London (Wikimedia Commons)

Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Working Dogs for Conservation

"There is no faith which has never yet been broken, except that of a truly faithful dog." — Konrad Lorenz, Austrian ethologist

The Working Dogs for Conservation Foundation (WDCF) brings together shelter dogs and field biologists, who work together to conduct scientific investigations in the fields of conservation and wildlife science.

The foundation identifies shelter dogs who have an aptitude to become "detection dogs," and gives them specialized scent-recognition training to hone their incredible innate sense of smell. Thanks to their intelligence, obedience and easy-going personalities, these working dogs are help the Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust (WLT), a non-profit which protects wildlife by preserving natural habitats and permanent sanctuaries, to study keystone species on sanctuaries.

This summer, for example, the WDCF dogs worked with WLT to study grizzly bears, wolverines and wolves at the Demetriades Wildlife Sanctuary, a 240-acre area of protected land in Centennial Valley, Montana. "Their timesaving contributions to science and conservation highlight something we also deem worthy of celebrating — the infinite potential of the bond between humans and dogs," according to WLT.[1]

"Over the past decade, our dogs have been trained to detect a variety of wildlife scat (ranging from grizzly, black and moon bear, wolf, cougar, kit fox, blunt-nosed leopard lizard to moose, wolverine and fisher), live wildlife (wolf snails, black-footed ferrets, brown tree snakes and desert tortoises)," according to the WDCF.

"Our dogs have also been trained to rare and invasive plants (Kincaid’s lupine, spotted knapweed, Chinese bush clover and dyer’s woad) and have been part of a number of plant conservation and weed eradication programs....Our dog/handler teams are able to cover large areas without disturbing wildlife, livestock or domestic animals and without luring animals or changing their behavior, which can influence study results."[2]

"Generally speaking, the dog's power of smell is about 100 times that of a human," according to North American K-9 Services, which sources and trains dogs for the police and military. "The dog has the ability to distinguish between individual odors and can follow a track of this odor ignoring all other smells present. Their powers of smell are such that the courts in Canada and most in the United States will accept 'expert evidence' of the dog's performance on a track."[3]

ACTION ALERTS

• Tell the US State Department: Do not allow the construction of the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline, which will cross sensitive habitats including rivers, marshes and streams and put multiple threatened or endangered species at risk (Endangered Species Coalition)
• Be an effective animal advocate by following these important tips (Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust)
• Adopt a pet (AdoptAPet.com)
• Celebrate your adopted dog or cat and help spread the message to adopt instead of buying a pet by Tweeting a pic and/or story to @PETA with the hashtag #AdoptDontBuy (PETA)
• Support an emergency lion rescue in Ethiopia (Born Free Foundation)
• Support Oceana's efforts to protect seals and baby belugas by fighting destructive oil drilling in the Arctic (Oceana)
• Tell Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Redd of Hyderabad, India: Stop the senseless death and cruelty at dog pounds maintained by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GMHC) (Change.org)
• More than 35,000 signatures and counting: Sign the ASPCA pledge to say NO to animal cruelty (ASPCA)
• Sign the Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare
• Follow 13.7 Billion Years on Twitter

PART OF THE PROBLEM

• Chinese primary schools sponsored by tobacco firms (London Daily Telegraph)
• Republican bill would roll back basic air-pollution rules (McClatchy)
• Farm chemical diuron found in Great Barrier Reef (Courier Mail)

PART OF THE SOLUTION

• This month, in the Sabine River Basin of Texas, a new wildlife sanctuary became a reality. With 564 acres now permanently protected, wildlife from bobcats to beavers and from songbirds to hawks will find safe haven in the forests and wetlands of the Daisy Wildlife Sanctuary, the newest addition to the Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust. (The Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust)
• UGC, the regulatory body for higher education in India, recommends end to animal dissection in universities (PETA India)
• Tonight, look up: Find out what's in the sky tonight (Sky & Telescope)

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• September (multiples dates/locations): Save Lolita the Orca Rally
• September 25-25: Mother Earth News Sustainable Fair, Seven Springs, PA
• September 26-28: First annual International Equine Conference, Alexandria, VA (Equine Welfare Alliance)
• September 30: Hug a Vegetarian Day
• October 2: World Farm Animals Day
• November: Asteroid very close to Earth
  
• November 25: Solar Eclipse (4th of 4 partial solar eclipses in 2011)
• December 2: National Mutt Day
• December 10: Lunar Eclipse (2nd of 2 total lunar eclipses in 2011)

RICH DOG, POOR DOG

• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Pets, Part of the Solution
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Raina, Dogfighting Bait Survivor
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Mickey Rourke on Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bobbie, the Wonder Dog of Oregon
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | By the Dogs of Egypt!
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Hounds of the Unicorn Tapestries
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Goldens Rule
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Sniffing Out Lung Cancer
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Vision of St. Eustace
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Tom Ford's Lessons Learned From Dogs
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Hyderabad, Hell on Earth
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Bart, the Navy SEALS Hero Dog
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | The Ancient Dogs of Asclepius
• Rich Dog, Poor Dog | Welsh Corgi: The Queen's Fairy Dog

CHECK OUT PAST SERIES

• Physicists & Priests: Looking at the relationship of science and religions (August 2011)
• Deep Space: Staring at the stars (July 2011)
  
• Gray Matters: Thinking about thinking (June 2011)
  
• Flower Power: Stopping to smell the angiosperms (May 2011)
• Animal Cruelty: Looking at the devil within (April 2011)
• Chemical Month: Exploring the vast laboratory of our daily lives (March 2011)
• Africa Month: Visiting the world's second-largest continent (February 2011)
• Reports from 2050: Imagining the future (January 2011)
• Victory Month: Looking at the victories of 2010, made possible by you (December 2010)
• Tree Month: Climbing the perennial woody plants that appeared 375 million years ago (November 2010)
• Food Month: Considering what we put in our mouths (October 2010)

[Last month, the series "Physicists & Priests" investigated the complex relationship between science and religion. Now 13.7 Billion Years turns to another deeply complex relationship — that of humans and dogs. From royal pooches to homeless scavengers to everything in between, dogs have co-existed with humans at all levels of society across all cultures since it became the world's first domesticated animal, bred from the grey wolf in East Africa sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. For the month of September, the series "Rich Dog, Poor Dog" takes a look at man's best friend living at the extremes. Bred for hunting, herding, companionship, pest control, transportation and even human consumption, dogs have been critical to the development of human civilization. At turns revered and feared, regularly mistreated and maligned, there is no other species as loyal to Homo sapiens than Canis lupus familiaris.]

Notes

[1] http://www.wlt.org/wlt_collaborations_working_dogs.asp

[2] http://www.workingdogsforconservation.org/our-story/

[3] http://www.police-dog.net/pages/policeservicedogs.php

image: WDCF crew members Maggie and Seamus working on Mt. Sentinel, Montana (credit: Chad Harder, Working Dogs for Conservation)