Bibliophile. Ombrophile. Cinephile. Lost girl trying to get by.
" Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been. I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell."
-Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This is a petition to bring to justice the people who recently stuck a firecracker in a dog’s mouth and then taped his mouth shut. If you haven’t seen the images already, I will warn you that it is extremely graphic and you should prepare yourself as you click on this link.
I’m shaking right now. I want to pass this on to anyone else who can sign the petition. Please do the same if you can. I want to reiterate that the video footage and images of Vucko are extremely graphic and upsetting.
(via vivalaliberacionanimal)
![thedailywhat:
Adopt This Dog of the Day:Hachi the Akita/Chow mix has been through hell — and he has the Terminator-like scars to prove it.
According to Petfinder, Hachi was severely burned in a house fire near El Segundo, CA, and is now looking for that special someone “who can overlook what many may find unsightly on the outside to see what a jewel he is on the inside.”
Are you that someone? Find out more on adopting Hachi here.
[geekologie.]
Oh, but he’s beautiful! So surreal looking. I hope he adopts a wonderful person.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhuwej1Xfc1qzpwi0o1_1280.jpg)
Well, this is pretty much the most terrible thing ever. A soccer player kicked an owl during a soccer match in Colombia, and the whole ugly incident was caught by TV cameras.
The owl, which was the good luck charm for home team Junior Barranquilla, was hit by a soccer ball after it landed on the field. As referees waited for the animal’s handlers to come scoop the bird up, a member of the opposing side, Pereira, came over and promptly kicked the cute little owl in the face. He was immediately and appropriately met with a chorus of boos from the home crowd, and chants of “Murderer! Murderer!”
The player who kicked the bird, Luis Moreno, gave the worst apology ever following the incident:
“I apologize to the fans, it wasn’t my intention, I did it to see if the owl could fly,” said Moreno after the game, which he left amid a heavy police guard.
Meanwhile, the owl is currently recovering in a veterinary clinic in Colombia.
Veterinarians treating the bird said it died of respiratory arrest early Tuesday, most likely brought on by the stress of being handled excessively following the incident.
Animal mascots are a terrible idea in the first place. She shouldn’t have been exposed to flying balls and idiotic players! I hope Moreno gets what he deserves. Ugh. The video is really terrible so I’m not posting it here but It can be found on youtube.
(Source: sportsgrid.com)
The Saskatoon SPCA is providing shelter for two dogs shot in the head in two separate incidents.
Last week a puppy was brought to the shelter suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. The dog was found in a ditch near Clavet on Feb. 17 and seized by an animal protection officer.
The puppy was initially taken to the small animal clinic at the University of Saskatchewan. Vets thought the dog had been attacked by another animal but after further examination realized a bullet had gone through the puppy’s head, grazing the sinus cavity and causing a hairline fracture in her jaw along with internal trauma to one of her eyes.
The SPCA believes the puppy was shot by a handgun.
The puppy appears to be about four months old and of mixed breed, said Tiffiny Koback of the Saskatoon SPCA.
The SPCA would like more information about where the dog may have come from. “If anyone knows we would appreciate a call,” said Koback.
A second dog suffering from gunshot wounds came to the shelter Feb. 10.
“Blue” came from the northern community of Pelican Narrows. He was shot during a cull of feral dogs in the community and showed up injured at his owner’s home two days after the cull.
RCMP in the community were asked to put the animal down, but officers didn’t know what to do and didn’t feel the dog deserved to be destroyed. They raised $600 for his medical care and brought him to the shelter in Saskatoon.
Blue was taken to the U of S vet college for care, where he had the lower portion of his jaw removed. His mouth was reconstructed after the shotgun blast, and he is now eating and drinking on his own. The dog is a family pet and of mixed breed.
The dog’s original owners have surrendered him to the SPCA, which is now looking for homes for both injured animals.
(Source: leaderpost.com)
![scipsy:
[Biology: An Inquiry into the Nature of Life (via Reanimation Library - Catalog)]
Love is a wondrous state, deep, tender, and rewarding. Because of its intimate and personal nature it is regarded by some as an improper topic for experimental research. But, whatever our personal feelings may be, our assigned mission as psychologists is to analyze all facets of human and animal behavior into their component variables. So far as love or affection is concerned, psychologists have failed in this mission. The little we know about love does not transcend simple observation, and the little we write about it has been written better by poets and novelists. But of greater concern is the fact that psychologists tend to give progressively less attention to a motive which pervades our entire lives. Psychologists, at least psychologists who write textbooks, not only show no interest in the origin and development of love or affection, but they seem to be unaware of its very existence.
These are the first lines of the classic paper by Harry F. Harlow: The Nature of Love (1958)
In that paper Harlow describe one of the most fundamental experiment of the history of psychology.
In Harlow’s classic experiment, two groups of baby rhesus monkeys were removed from their mothers. In the first group, a terrycloth mother provided no food, while a wire mother did, in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, a terrycloth mother provided food; the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether or not it provided them with food, and that the young monkeys chose the wire surrogate only when it provided food.
Whenever a frightening stimulus was brought into the cage, the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for protection and comfort, no matter which mother provided them with food. This response decreased as the monkeys grew older.
When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their cloth surrogate, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they occasionally returned to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They froze in fear and cried, crouched down, or sucked their thumbs. Some even ran from object to object, apparently searching for the cloth mother, as they cried and screamed. Monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhibited the same behavior as the monkeys with no mother.
Once the monkeys reached an age where they could eat solid foods, they were separated from their cloth mothers for three days. When they were reunited with their mothers, they clung to them and did not venture off to explore as they had in previous situations. Harlow concluded from this that the need for contact comfort was stronger than the need to explore.
The study found that monkeys who were raised with either a wire mother or a cloth mother gained weight at the same rate. However, the monkeys that had only a wire mother had trouble digesting the milk and suffered from diarrhea more frequently. Harlow’s interpretation of this behavior, which is still widely accepted, was that a lack of contact comfort is psychologically stressful to the monkeys. (via wikipedia)
Uh why are people reblogging this deeply unethical experiment as “adorable”? Go read about the pit of despair . Who would have thought that loving mothers are important. Or that abused babies would become psychologically unstable. Thanks Harry! In 1974, American literary critic Wayne C. Booth wrote that, “Harry Harlow and his colleagues go on torturing their nonhuman primates decade after decade, invariably proving what we all knew in advance—that social creatures can be destroyed by destroying their social ties.” He writes that Harlow made no mention of the criticism of the morality of his work.[12]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgf8xz7Nny1qb3iw0o1_1280.jpg)
