Animal Insting

There seems to be nothing but news about Osama Bin Laden's death on the internet. Here are the best photo mash-ups that take a more light-hearted look at the subject.

Seabiscuit

Maybe you have gone to see a movie, and in the movie it looked like an animal got hurt or even killed.  And maybe you were upset about this, but then at the end of the film, guess what!  It says "No animals were harmed® in the making of this film."  And then you feel lots better.

But did you ever wonder how a filmmaker protects the animals in the movie and gets to use that special registered trademark phrase saying that none of them were harmed?  Well, it's all because of the American Humane Association, which is the same group I mentioned yesterday that is celebrating Be Kind to Animals Week.  The AHA spends a lot of time worrying about animal abuse and also about child abuse, and they try to make everything better for both animals and for kids.

Hachi: A Dog's Tale

One very important thing that the AHA does is they can supervise the making of a movie and make sure no animals get hurt during the filming.  The AHA has lots of people who are trained to work on movie sets, and they consult with the director and actors and everybody to figure out how to get certain effects without anybody getting injured.  The AHA is the film industry's only official group for doing this kind of thing, so if filmmakers care about their animal actors, they will use this group.  Otherwise, they might get in trouble with animal-rights activists and the public.

101 Dalmations

In 1972, the American Humane Association first started putting out a newsletter called the National Humane Review, and in it they told people how animals had been treated in recent films.  At first, they just had two ratings:  Acceptable and Unacceptable.  Later on, they put out a set of guidelines for filmmakers to use and they also monitored filming, if they were asked to.  Before 1980, there were 107 films rated Unacceptable.  Then between 1980 and 1988, after the guidelines came out, 31 films were Unacceptable.  After 1988, only 16 films got that bad rating.

True Grit

Every year the AHA Film and TV Unit monitors about 1,000 filmed productions, both in the U.S. and in other countries.  Now a film can get an even better rating than Acceptable, and this rating is Monitored:  Outstanding.  Also the film gets the "no animals harmed" end credit.  Sadly, sometimes an accident happens that causes an animal to get hurt or even killed during the making of a film.  In this case, the AHA does an investigation, and if they decide the guidelines were followed, they rate the film Monitored:  Special Circumstances.

Water for Elephants

One movie that just came out has a whole bunch of animals in it, and this movie is Water for Elephants.  Mom read the book, and she wants to see the movie very soon.  I'd like to see the movie, too, because it has a Jack Russell terrier in it.  But dogs can't go into movie theaters, so I will have to wait and see the movie on DVD or HBO.  Anyway, if you want to see how the AHA helped keep all the animals safe while this movie was getting made, you can go here:  http://www.americanhumanefilmtv.org/water-for-elephants/   They explain how the elephant who plays the part of Rosie, and whose real name is Tai, got trained by positive reinforcement methods.  And also there is a little video about the making of the film.

So I just want to end this by saying that if I am ever in a movie, I hope the AHA is there to make sure I don't get hurt, and that I am allowed to take plenty of naps while I'm on the set.  But first I will have to find an agent to get me some auditions for nice, juicy roles!

Yesterday was the first day of Be Kind to Animals Week, which is a very important event that happens every single year.  The American Humane Association started Be Kind to Animals Week way back in 1915, and it is a time for humans to think about how much animals mean to them.  Also it is a good time to teach children to be nice to animals.  Of course, it's perfectly okay to be kind to animals any other week of the year, but sometimes it helps to have a special time for thinking about stuff like this.

Anyway, the American Humane Association says there are some very good ways that people can be kind to animals, and here is their list:

1.  Speak out for animals.  This might mean trying to get laws passed that are friendly to animals, or protesting puppymills or something like that.

2.  Report animal abuse.  Usually there is somebody like an animal control officer or a humane society that you can tell if you see an animal being mistreated or neglected.


3.  Appreciate wildlife.  Personally, I appreciate the squirrels and rabbits that we have in our yard because we can chase and maybe catch them, but Mom says that is not exactly the right kind of appreciation for Be Kind to Animals Week.


4.  Adopt a pet from a shelter or rescue.  Of course, I am always telling you to do this because I know how important it is for homeless dogs and cats to get adopted.  And what better time could there be for taking home a new pet than during Be Kind to Animals Week?


5.  Take care of your pet.  This means you should give your pet lots of healthy food and a nice, warm place to sleep.  Also you should get vaccinations and other medical care for your pet.

On Friday, Mom mowed the back yard, and while she was mowing, she started thinking about dandelions, and she told me that dandelions might be a good subject for a blog entry.  But before she told me that, and while she was still mowing, a bunch of dirt and stuff blew in her eye, even though she was wearing some of those funny-looking safety glasses.  And when Mom was trying to get the dirt out of her eye, she rubbed too hard and ended up with something called a corneal abrasion.  Which means that her eyeball got scratched and it hurt a lot.  So Mom had to go to Urgent Care and have the doctor look at her eye and give her a prescription for some eye drops, and now her eye is feeling lots better.


But anyway, I'm telling you all this because even though I am not terribly interested in the subject of dandelions, I feel sorry for Mom, so I said I would go ahead and write about these pesky plants.  And the first thing I will tell you is that most people think dandelions are annoying weeds that shouldn't grow in their lawns.  And then I will tell you that dandelions are part of the aster family, which makes sense if you think about the fact that aster flowers look kind of like a dandelion flowers.

The fancy scientific name for the common dandelion is Taraxacum officinale, but most people just call them dandelions.  In French, the phrase dent de lion means "lion's tooth," and that is where our word dandelion comes from.  If you look at a dandelion leaf, you will see that it has edges that are shaped like teeth, but these teeth don't really bite.  In fact, dandelions are plants that you can eat every part of without getting sick, and dandelions can even be used for medicine.  Dogs don't usually eat dandelions, but people do, and so do caterpillars.

During all the many years that dandelions have been around, there have been lots of different English common names for the plant.  Some of these names are:  blowball, lion's-tooth, cankerwort, milk-witch, yellow-gowan, Irish daisy, monks-head, priest's-crown, puff-ball, faceclock, and swine's snout.

Dandelions grow pretty much everywhere in the world, and that's because they can grow in all kinds of soil and also they make bunches and bunches of seeds.   One dandelion head has between 54 and 172 seeds on it, and one dandelion plant can make more than 5,000 seeds in one year.  The seeds get blown by the wind, and they can go several hundred yards before they land.  Also they can hang around for a few years before they even sprout.  So if you are wondering why it's so hard to get rid of the dandelions in your yard, this is the reason.

You can eat dandelion leaves raw, like maybe in a salad.  Or you can cook them and make dandelion greens.  The leaves have lots of vitamin A, vitamin C, and more iron and calcium than spinach has.  Dandelion flowers can be made into wine.  Also, in Belgium, the flowers are used to make an ale called Pissenlit, which means "wet the bed" in French.  Oh, and you can also make jam or a type of syrup out of dandelion flowers.  Plus the roots can be ground up and roasted to make a substitute for coffee.

In Canada, dandelion root is a registered drug, and it is sold as a diuretic, which is something that makes you pee a lot.  The leaves can be made into a sort of drink that helps treat anemia, jaundice and nervousness.  You can use the white sap of the plant as a mosquito repellent or as a folk remedy for warts.  Also you can get a yellow or green dye from dandelion flowers.  A brand-new use for dandelion root sap that scientists are studying is to make rubber out of it.  This rubber would be just as good as the rubber made from trees, but it would be cheaper to make.

So anyway, dandelions are really pretty nice plants, even though nobody likes them.  And now I wrote a whole blog entry about them, which should make Mom happy.  It's always a good idea to make Mom happy because otherwise she might forget to feed us!