Tag: animals
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Sniffing for hamster piss
When we first got hamsters I wasn’t expecting to spend my evenings and weekends sniffing hamster bedding for hamster piss but this is what we do now. For a while Bella was peeing in a sand bath which was great as I didn’t need to go searching for her toilet but she’s stopped doing that […]
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Fantastic Mr Fox
We were all very excited to see a fox in our backyard today. We sometimes see foxes in the neighbourhood but this is the first time we’ve seen one in our yard. He was eating the peanuts from a bird feeder that had fallen to the ground. At first I thought it was a dog […]
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Allotment produce in January and Veganuary
I got four leeks and lots of kale at my allotment today. There’s still a number of leeks left; definitely enough to last us until spring. My pond is filled with leaves and I had this idea that I’d pull them out until I actually tried. They’re frozen in! I took this video of it. […]
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Hamster house video tour
Are the hamster blog posts getting a bit boring? I’m sorry. I’ve just given Bella’s house an extension and I want to give you a tour. Her house now has a third storey with a gym for exercise. Hopefully, this will help her slim down a bit.
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Hamster pics
Victoria thinks the hamsters are getting too much attention. “What about me?” I took this video of Bella taking a walnut into her house. Bella is a bit on the chubby side. I’m hoping that with a bigger cage she’ll get more exercise and slim down bit.
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Bella’s home
Bella has a new environment. It’s quite a unique-looking hamster habitat by Omlet. Omlet has put a lot of thought into the design and the bottom level is a deep drawer that you can fill with bedding. Hamsters like to dig burrows and most cages you buy at pet stores have a tiny tray at […]
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New furry friends
A friend gave us their old hamster cage on the weekend so we decided to adopt a hamster. We found one looking for a new home and when we went to meet her we ended up leaving with two hamsters so we are now the proud adoptive parents – or Daniel and Elizabeth are – […]
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Escaping Afghanistan with 200 dogs and cats
I have been more than a little moved over the past 24 – 48 hours by the plight of Pen Farthing and the Nowzad animal rescue team in Afghanistan. They appeared in the news several weeks ago with Pen Farthing, a former British marine who served in Afghanistan, saying he would not leave the country […]
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Levelling-up the animals
Growing up in Australia has given me a healthy respect for dangerous wildlife. Sometimes it feels like every animal is trying to eat or poison you which is unsurprising given the country has more animals with deadly venom than anywhere else. I find it funny how the same animal in Scotland is relatively harmless. It’s […]
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Meet Victoria
We got a kitten. Her name is Victoria and she’s 11 weeks old. She came from a village in Aberdeenshire after her mother had an affair with the neighbourhood tom. We had planned to get an adult cat from a shelter but this is quite difficult it turns out. We put in five applications including […]
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The future of meat
Eating animals poses a major global health risk and the costs are enormous and they’re not borne only by the meat-eaters themselves nor by the animals but by everybody on the planet whether they eat meat or not. I say this because we’ve seen this over and over again that epidemics and pandemics have come […]
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Lola
This is Lola, a Goldendoodle (Golden Retriever crossed with a Poodle). She’s a BorrowMyDoggy dog and her owner works every day so we give her exercise and company three days per week. We love having her. She’s such a delightful dog; so clever and so calm and gentle. I’d trust her with a newborn. The […]
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Willows Animal Sanctuary
It has been a while since we went out into the country for a Sunday outing because our weekends have been full of gardening, allotmenting, and kid activities. Today we had a free day and I decided to skip the allotment this weekend. I have had a helper sharing my plot and although she’s done […]
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Be kind to living things
I’ve haven’t written much lately because I’ve been busy. Everyone is busy, I know. All the snow has melted here but it hung around for a long time. Usually when we get snow it’s all gone within a couple of days. The chances of a white Christmas now are very remote. It looks like we’ll […]
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The mighty huntress
I have just finished this rather wonderful crochet head of a stag. All he needs now is a name. I got the pattern from a fantastic book called Animal Heads by Vanessa Mooncie. All the patterns look terrific and I fully intend to make more of them. I have never understood why people kill animals […]
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This Beautiful Creature Must die
We’re all addicted to the new 80s-themed Peta computer game to which The Smiths have lent their 1980s song, Meat is Murder. It’s quite retro with 8-bit audio and pixelated graphics and it’s also very addictive. The song grates on your nerves after a while though. Daniel is the reigning champion with a score of […]
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Absurd hypocrisy on the dinner table
Earlier this week hosts of a Danish radio station killed a bunny rabbit on air and then later cooked and ate it. It generated a huge backlash for the station including calls for a boycott. I wonder how many of those who complained eat other animals? Why is it acceptable to kill, cook, and eat a young […]
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Hunter or bully?
I saw this photo of Donald Trump’s son this week and want to write about it: There’s nothing more attractive in a man, in my view anyway, than kindness and cleverness. Any man with these traits will send women weak at the knees. Ok, so if men want something more than weak knees they may also need […]
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The world needs all kinds of minds
Temple Grandin is an American autistic woman who, through her work as a consultant for the meat industry, has made significant improvements to conditions for animals at abattoirs. According to PETA,”Dr. Grandin’s improvements to animal-handling systems found in slaughterhouses have decreased the amount of fear and pain that animals experience in their final hours, and […]
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Weekday vegetarianism
I saw this TED talk today about being a weekday vegetarian and thought it was quite good. I know that many people are put off by vegan/vegetarianism because it seems like an impossible task. But it needn’t be done militantly and as Graham Hill makes clear in this video, eating less meat is still beneficial […]
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