Silent Servants...

Silent Servants...

... of the Used, Abused, and Utterly Screwed Up.

A Secular Franciscan looks at the world...
with a more jaundiced eye than ever...
and lots of ellipses for you to fill in the missing text...
(with thanks to Thomas S. Klise for the title)



Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts

Sunday, September 01, 2013

I remember something similar



From Cairo to London: 25 life-size painted donkeys arrive at St Paul's from Egypt

A fundraiser in my city did this a few years ago with pigs instead of donkeys. Copycats.



Friday, June 14, 2013

For cat lovers everywhere...



Island of Lucky Cats

And there's a video of a kitten who doesn't want to leave a nice warm bath, too. Honest. Not Photoshop edited. Who would have thought...?




Friday, July 06, 2012

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

This article

is really about religion news and the correct (and incorrect) reporting of it (coming from GetReligion.org as it does).

Why dunk the baby elephants?

For me? I can't help but think how much fun that baby elephant seems to be having, and then I start to think of how so many are endangered now due to our greed and self-interest...


Tuesday, June 05, 2012

I believe


in a lot of things, but I also believe that your and my prayers for our cat, Melbourne, have been successful.

It was not without a very expensive journey to the vet's a few days stay in the vet's hospital, but he's home, he's eating, drinking, pooping and peeing, and acting as a peer nap support member for his pinkie (not all at the same time), so I'd say that the worst is over and he's on the mend, if not mended completely. So thanks for the thoughts and prayers.

I didn't mention in the last post that the big risk of an illness like this is that cats, once they stop eating and drinking, are notoriously difficult to get started doing so again. We've discussed this with the vet and have been told that once they stop it's almost like a switch is turned off, and they just don't want food or water again. So starting them consuming food and water again is a must. If they don't they quickly enter into kidney failure, then it's all over for them. They even have appetite stimulators that they use with them to try and get them back to normal behaviour. We've lost one cat to this issue, and have managed to coax another back to eating after having lost the...what? Desire? Ability? Skill? Memory? I don't know.

Anyway, it looks like Mel has had his switch turned on again. Thanks again!


Friday, June 01, 2012

Please say a prayer,



if you're of that ilk, for one of our dear family cats, Melbourne.

Mel started showing signs of being unwell yesterday, and has continued, and gotten worse, since then. He's not eating or drinking and he makes little squeeking pain noises when he's picked up (if you know cats or dogs, you're familiar with the sounds they make when they have internal pain and they're picked up).

Mel has had a bit of a harder life for a home-kept cat. Before we became his staff he lived a bit rough as a tiny kitten, and then when he took us on he injured a rear leg somehow and has suffered on-going pain issues with it. It's been years with that now, and we've always wished we could do something about that for him.

Anyway, we're hoping and praying that it isn't his time to shuffle off into another one of his nine lives, so please say a prayer to the Creator of cats (and everything else around us including us) that the trouble will be easily cured...

(And say a quick prayer, too, for the dog who came into the vets while we were there who had had one of his rear paws run over by a car. It looked awful, but he was being far more stoic and dignified than I would be in the same situation. He was a beautiful dog, silently suffering from a really ugly looking injury...)


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Believe it or not



today is, apparently,

National Hug Your Cat Day!

Seeing as cats don't read greeting cards and really don't give a meow about presents (unless it's food) it seems that the health side surrounding it might be the most logical source of the celebration (and not business interests as is usual).

Hug your cat(s)! You know you want to!

(Besides your cat, hugging your dog is supposed to be just as good. Not to take anything away from cats, but there's probably even more 'pet' animals that could be included. Why don't they have as effective a lobby as cats (other than dogs - there are a lot of dog related holidays)? Just hug your pets, period. Other than porcupines, I guess. But you shouldn't be keeping them as pets anyway - they're wild animals. Still, hugging any pet will probably do just as much good.)



Thursday, May 10, 2012

It's a terrible thing we do


And we're at it again...

Turtle doves: RSPB launches rescue mission

We're not very good stewards of creation. I certainly wouldn't trust human beings to look after anything more valuable than a used wad of chewing gum. Stories of our profligate ways and our destruction of other animals leaves me so sad. Actually angry first, then sad.


Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Yesterday it was dogs...





10 Ways You Know Your Cat Rules You


As SWMBO said about this, there's a "certain amount of truth in this article".

She wouldn't be wrong...



Monday, February 27, 2012

Wow!



I know it can be a problem, but don't you think that those DNA testing facilities can be put to better use?

Doggie DNA used in poop crackdown

Perhaps finding some other means of holding the people to the items in their 'Pet Addendum'? You'd think that observing and photographing them might be cheaper. I thought the whole reason the police struggle with the use of DNA testing is two-fold, the cost and the time it takes. I guess this is important enough to tie up the testing facilities time. After all, what's more important, catching a guilty dog poo-er or a serial killer? I mean really! What are those law enforcement agencies thinking?


Saturday, January 28, 2012

These are perfect!



The cats and I have never discussed these things, but I think that it can be inferred, simply from their behaviour...

How I See Things vs. How My Cat Sees Things





Friday, November 25, 2011

Our animal family members


are most likely more devoted, generous, protecting and loving than a lot of our human family members.

Heartbroken Dog Refuses to Leave Owner’s Grave

We're the ones who attach the label 'heartbroken' to the dog, but what we do know is that he's so attached to his owner, so devoted to the one person who has shown him love and attention, that he won't leave the spot where the human part of his companion rests. It really is touching...




Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Stories of success

10 Successful Island Eradication Projects

But I somehow feel sorry for the creatures that were eradicated. They were only doing what they do to live. It's too bad it had to be in places that had no natural protection against them...


Saturday, October 29, 2011

Another example

of how we are not fit to be responsible for this earth...

Last rare rhinoceros in Vietnam killed by poacher, group says

I'm really wondering why God is taking it away from us.


Monday, September 26, 2011

All those pretty pictures


of brightly coloured frogs? These are the kind of animal they're taken of...

Poison Dart Frogs: Pretty to look at, but don’t put them in your mouth

Ah-hem. My poem...

'Lovely to look at
Lovely to hold.
But if you put it in your mouth,
Consider yourself dead.
(Or very, very sick.)'

Thank you.


Saturday, September 24, 2011

It's really important


Bee Aware

It's not that we think only of our lifetime, it's that we only think of today, maybe tomorrow, and some of us think of next week. The next generation or the one after that? Well, I don't know. We can't think that far ahead.

We can tell this by watching drivers. So many will stay in a lane right up to a barricade before they realize the road lane is closed and they have to change lanes. They don't look two feet in front of their car...

The governments don't care. They only care about business and getting re-elected. We're doomed...


Friday, September 23, 2011

This is BRILLIANT!



Cat Tardis WIN


 Some day I may be skilled enough to do something like this without losing a finger or two to the saw...



Saturday, August 06, 2011

An accurate depiction



of what your cat does with his/her business day...

Cheezburger Confidential – A Day in the Life of Business Cat

Business cat?