kingsnake

aha - the thieves show themselves!

I have been struggling with the garden all year and finally it's starting to bear fruit, er, eh, vegetables.

This week I pulled about a dozen pieces of squash and 4 tomatos.  I ate one of the tomatos and boy was it good. I left 2 in the fresh vegetable bowl and had 1 left on the vine. I left the house to run some errands.

When I got home and went to fix dinner I looked for the tomatos and they were GONE. I said to myself "that is strange, I wonder if the housekeeper grabbed them when she left when I was gone". ( I have a very liberal "open garden" policy around my house)  I thought surely if there were 2 she would have left me 1. I scratched my head and thought nothing of it.

Yesterday I pulled the 4th tomato and set it into the vegtable bowl along with a monster cucumber and some lesser ones, then once again left to run some errands. Sure enough when I got home the tomato was once again gone. This time there was no housekeeper, no contractors, no one obvious to point the finger at. Further investigation found several cucumbers missing as well. Hunting around the house revealed the mostly intact remains of the missing cucs. Aha!

Shasha, my Rhodesian Ridgeback spent the rest of the evening burping. Mystery solved. Who would have thought dogs liked fresh tomatos? Now - will my dogs start raiding the garden? I will let you know.

But JUST IN CASE this pair of red headed miscreant tomato theives decide to visit your tomato patch, here is their crimestoppers mug shot. Gus even looks guilty doesn't he?

Silly California Pet Laws

I am beginning to think they need to allow more oxygen into the state of California because you would have to be fairly light headed to have introduced some of the quirky pet legislation currently under review.

One of the laws (AB 2862) would require that pet stores take your name, address, and phone number so that they in turn can hand it over to the government, every time you buy a pet. If you buy a hamster or just about any other live animal, for some reason the state of California needs to know who you are and where you live, and they want to put you on a list with all the other pet owners. Why do they need this list? They certainly won't just compile it for fun.

The government has a nasty habit of collecting information such as this and using it it as they see fit. Reminds me of a post I saw on the kingsnake forums the other day about a man whose girlfriend took their child to the doctor, and almost in passing mentioned that they owned some ball pythons. The doctor curiously began asking more questions about the snakes. Turns out the doctor contacted their states equivalent of child protective services who have now opened an investigation of the couple because they own pet snakes.

In-Freakin-Sane.

So now California will have a nice big database of pet owners and the pets they own . What will they want to do with it when they have it? Start a new tax program for pet owners to pay for the law? Turn it over to other governmental agencies to search for code or law violations? Worst case, use it to take your children away from you?  Who knows. What I do know is that once the information is collected, someone will find a way to use it. Most likely NOT to the advantage of anyone on the list.

The other law (AB 2110) is so poorly written it would allow the state to charge farmers and pet owners with a FELONY if their dogs chase down rabbits!  Under California law rabbits are currently a "designated pest species" and you can currently legally take them out with just about anything including explosives  if you have the proper permits. Under California's strict 3-time offender laws, if you got multiple convictions
for this you could potentially serve a LIFE SENTENCE for being a habitual offender.  Come on now. that's
just asinine.

Both of these are poorly written proposals submitted on behalf of powerful animal rights lobbyists and are horribly crafted laws to begin with, but frightening in that they may actually be considered.

While PetHobbyist's April Fools joke does inject some humor into the issue, there isn't much to laugh about in reality.

Why pet rescue is so important.

Look at this big sad face. This is Gus, and behind him his "sister" Sasha. They are my rescue dogs.
They were unwanted by their owners or abandoned and ended up in the shelter and rescue system before coming to live with me. If it wasn't for volunteer rescue organizations, like the breed resuces I worked with,  many pets like my Gus and Sasha here would face a cruel fate. The APPMA (American Pet Product Manufacturers Association) just released data showing that there are now 360 million pets in the U.S., 60 million more pets than people. What this number doesn't include is the number of UNWANTED pets in the U.S. or the numbers put to sleep.

If you are looking for a pet PLEASE try to adopt as your first option. Whether your looking for a specific breed like my ridgebacks, are happy with a "pound puppy" or are even wanting something as exotic as a snake or parrot, please try rescues first before buying. If you buy instead please make sure that you purchase from a responsible, ethical, and reputable breeder and to spay or neuter your pet.

For a list of rescue organizations that the PetHobbyist community recommends, please go to
our rescue site at http://rescuenetwork.org/