Cameron's News Day

Hi, this is Cameron bringing you today's post. The other Funny Farmers thought today's news needs one who looks serious and intelligent.  And of course, well-dressed (tuxedo) and handsome.  Oh, sorry.  Buddy said I'm getting carried away.  That I just need to look like I know what I'm talking about.  How am I doing so far?

For those of you who live in California, we're asking you to read this short article on the need  to change the rabies law to allow sick pets to be exempt from the rabies vaccination under a vet's care and approval . They neglected to include this when they passed the latest law and don't want to change it. Some pets contract an auto immune disease from the shot and to be re-vaccinated is a death sentence.  Please read and sign the petition. 


We have learned something new.  We spent so much time setting up Google Reader that we have stuck with it.  It needs to be updated with a list of new blogs but GR doesn't have a limit.  We did try out Google Follow once but it wouldn't clear the link after we visited and we could just envision a  congestive mass of a blog jam there (and you all know how easily Jan is confused) so we never tried again.  However, that doesn't mean we aren't "following" your blog.  We most likely have you bookmarked and either in our GR or waiting to be added to our GR.

But in case you are using Google Follow, you might be about to learn the same new information we did.  There is a limit - you can only like 300 blogs using Follow.  If you use GF and are interested, you can read about it here.

Our neighbors in Pike County, Georgia have no animal control and no shelter. Friends of Pike County Animals (FPCA) is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization (currently seeking 501 (c) 3 status) We hope you can spare a minute - daily until January 31 - to vote for FPCA for the Pepsi $50,000 grant.

You can vote for them at Create an animal adoption & education center in rural Pike County, GA.

And please pass this on and ask your friends to vote. We all know how important it is that any community's animals have an advocate. They are not a well-known organization with lots of followers so they will need your help to win.

Rabies, Blogger and Oliver

This is a grim reminder of why we all need to keep our pet vaccinations up to date. It doesn't have to be your pet that bites another animal or a human. A bite by another animal, in this case a coyote, can mean the difference between life and death for your pet because if you can't afford the expensive quarantine, your pet will have to be euthanized. So keep the date marked on your calendar. That way, if the reminder from your vet's office is lost in the mail, you will still know he or she is due for a booster.

We just had a similar case locally but we don't know what choice the pet owner made. You can read the news  story here.


For those of you who use Blogger, we thought we would post this from The Real Blogger Status blog, in case any of you get an urge to change your blog name or email address and your Google account no longer recognizes you.


We would like to refer you to Life With Dogs' post today on Oliver Alert.  It is traumatic to lose a pet and never know what happened to it.  Oliver is still missing, but his disappearance is helping many other lost and found pets to be reunited with their family.

We hope you haven't forgotten what we look like.  Jan is still hogging the computer and we only get crumbs.  But we have some posts coming up whenever we can sneak some extra time to blog. 

JoJo and Lyme Disease

Coweta County, GA - The Georgia Humane Society  (GHS) learned about Old Yeller on Sunday morning, they made the decision to pull the dog from the Coweta County Animal Control and take him into their organization as one of their sanctuary pets - in other words, offer the dog, whom they were told was 15 yrs-old, a permanent, safe and loving place to live.


This is one of those stories that make you shake your head in disbelief. How could any "shelter" allow an animal to suffer so much and have their "facts" so screwed up, not to mention they couldn't tell the difference between a dead and a living dog. And it happened here in Georgia! Please click on the title of the story below and do something in memory of JoJo -- called Old Yeller by the Coweta County AC and renamed JoJo by the Georgia Humane Society when they rescued him and took him to a vet.  As the writer requests, Please take a moment and write to the state officials in Georgia and let them know that you have had enough of this backwards mentality.  The information to do so is included.

You can read the rest of the story and comments - Gross failure at Georgia animal control leaves dog suffering needlessly.  Unfortunately, Coweta County is not the only Georgia shelter - or US shelter with a who-cares-it's-only-an-animal uncompassionate mentality. 


We are posting this video by Mercola Healthy Pets on lyme disease after receiving an email on the subject, including a comment about a personal experience with having a dog vaccinated. 

Some of you seem to be getting the wrong idea on the purpose of posting this video. It is not intended to send you running to the vet to get your dog vaccinated for lymes disease.  This vaccine is usually not necessary and can cause a serious, even life-threatening reaction. We are not giving medical advice. This is provided for your information only, to help you make an informed decision. And perhaps to spur you to further research.



If the video doesn't play, click here.

Have a purring and tail wagging day.

Teeth and Fleas

Yes, we do realize this is a strange title. Teeth and fleas don't have anything in common, do they? Well, actually they often do. Your vet.

This is not to knock your vet. There are many good vets who care about their patients and will work with your humans to do everything possible to help you to get well or to stay well.

But since we don't have a voice or a vote at the vet's, it is each human's responsibility to make a wise and informed final decision on what is done for us. There's a lot they won't understand and they just have to rely on a vet's expertise, but in non-emergency/non-lifethreatening visits, decisions will arise such as which vaccinations we should receive.

Some of you are already aware of the current controversy over some vaccines and their repeated use in relation to cancer. If your human isn't already aware, this is only one of many sites on the pet vaccination controversy.

Yesterday Jan's friend Mark sent her a link to one she'd never heard of. Dog dental vaccine. (From what we can find, there is not yet one for cats, since the bacteria in a cat's mouth is different from a dog's.) It has evidently been around for a year or so and is now being heavily promoted.

We have been reading a number of kitty and woofie blogs recently where they were visiting the vet for dental cleaning or tooth removal. We can only imagine the shock of one poor kitty mom who had no notification the vet intended to take out 7 of her kitty's teeth. Aside from the horror of her furbaby losing 7 teeth, from some of the prices other cat owners are saying they were charged, the increase to the bill was likely several hundred dollars. (Jan would faint!)

So we got to thinking, since pet tooth removal is happening more often, how willing would humans be to pay for a vaccine to save them green papers and save their furbaby's teeth? So we checked the link to the vaccine company. Although we don't believe we want to try the vaccine, the information looks innocuous.

But wait, Jan's friend emailed her back telling her to check the MSD info. We hijacked her email and scrolled down the site page. At the bottom is the Material Safety Data Sheet link. If you can't open this link, just use the link to the vaccine company and scroll down.

What? Formaldehyde! Who injects dogs - or any living being - with formaldehyde? It's a potential cancer hazard!

Mark further emailed: My major was chemistry. Formaldehyde is a semi cyclic (unattached cycle) hydrocarbon because it's missing a connective molecule like a halo benzoic or halogen ion. That crap is interactive degenerative with LIFE.

Okay, we admit we have no idea what that means. Except for the degenerative with life part. (Degenerative: Of illness; marked by gradual deterioration of organs and cells along with loss of function.) Jan says she would never allow us to be injected with formaldehyde, but, unfortunately, if a vet ever suggested we should have the vaccine, the word "formaldehyde" would never be mentioned by the vet.

And now for the fleas. There has been an email circulating on the dangers of the new flea product Promeris which is available only from your vet. If you check snopes.com or other rumor sites, the validity of this is still unresolved. But on About.com there is a link in the comments below the email to a statement confirming the incident from Fort Dodge, manufacturer of the medication. There are other Promeris complaints on the internet. Some vets will not carry the product. Others are waiting to see how the new product does over time.

Jan had a problem last year with a couple of us and Advantage. She doesn't intend to try Promeris on any of us, so we aren't pro or con from personal experience. But we hope any human planning to use it - or any other potentially toxic product - on their furbaby will do some research and make an informed decision.