Tag: animals
-
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 –…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Barracking for the underdog
[Note: in Australian English, barracking means to shout support for] Everyone wants the underdog to win. At least I do but I think I take this further by also favouring the weak, helpless and those that cannot fight for themselves especially animals and children. They are at our mercy. We are the bullies. Climate change…
-
Taking life
A little while ago I promised to write about taking life as a follow on from my post about eating plants. It’s Christmas Day today, the kids are playing happily with gifts, and so now is a good time to tackle it. When is it wrong to take the life of a living being? In…
-
My plan for our planet
There are expected to be 9 billion people on this planet by the year 2050. I may be one of them. Without sounding too much like a brainless beauty-pageant entrant, I hope that one day, we might see an end to world poverty. But is this view inconsistent with the part of me that also…
-
Donate to SAFE!
It’s the SAFE (Save Animals From Exploitation) annual appeal today and tomorrow and Freud and I volunteered to collect for two hours this morning. I put my hand up a couple of months ago for this and figured that since it was going to be on the 21st December, 2012, that the world would be over and…
rachel.blog 