Marcia Lyons

A cat can provide companionship, humor and delight to your life. If you’ve made the decision to add a cat to your family, here are some suggestions for giving your cat a good start.

Step 1: Research the breeds of cats that exist. Most purebred cats fall into one of three categories based on physical characteristics; natural, semi-foreign and oriental. Determine whether it is important for you to have a purebred cat or if you will be happy rescuing a shelter cat.

Step 2: Think about what age cat will suit your lifestyle. If you work full time or have small children you might not be able to meet the needs of a kitten or cat less than 18 months of age.

Step 3: Purchase the supplies you will need for your new pet. A cat requires a collar, a litter box, a scratching post, and a carrier. He or she will also need grooming supplies, toys and treats. If this is the first cat you’ve welcomed home, it is also a good idea to purchase a book on cat care.

Step 4: Find an appropriate spot in the house for the litter box. The ideal environment for a litter box is quiet and easy to access; a bathroom or laundry room is usually perfect. Decide whose responsibility it will be to scoop the litter daily and who will dump, wash and refill the box once a week.

Step 5: Prepare a cozy place in the house for your cat to nap. Your cat should have its own comfortable bed. Plan to keep your cat indoors, as outside cats are susceptible to diseases, ticks, other animals, etc.

Step 6: Carefully observe the physical features and the social behaviors of the cat you are considering adopting. Look carefully at its eyes, ears, coat, feet and claws. You are looking for a friendly, social cat that responds to your attention. Ideally, the cat should nuzzle your outstretched finger and purr when snuggled against. You want the cat to be relaxed but not listless or lethargic.

Step 7: Take the cat to the veterinarian. Your veterinarian can perform an initial examination to determine the health of the cat and help you choose the appropriate food for your cat. If the cat isn’t already spayed or neutered, have that procedure done immediately (as long as the cat is over 6 months of age).

On average, the life span of a cat is 13-17 years, but some live as long as 20 years! Make sure you’re ready to commit to your feline friend for a long time!

This article was provided by pet-super-store.com an online pet store featuring dog doors, dog crates and dog carriers.

Once you’ve determined that you have the money, time and space for a horse, you’ll need to find a breed that fits your needs. Consider the following points when you set out to make this lifelong commitment.

Step 1: Consider the reasons why you’d like a horse. Do you want a show horse or a workhorse? Do you want a horse who will meander through your property or would you like to ride or race your horse competitively? Different disciplines of competition require different styles of horses. It’s imperative that you focus on the horse’s purpose and your lifestyle needs when choosing breed.

Step 2: Determine who will be the horse’s primary owner. A retired rancher, a competitor in his prime, and a family with small children should not all choose the same horse.

Step 3: Choosing the gender of the horse is an important step as well. It’s especially important if you’re considering breeding the horse. Stallions are male horses that have not been neutered and can be aggressive and hard to handle at times. Geldings are male horses that have been neutered and therefore would not be a good fit for a person wishing to breed a horse. A mare is a female horse who experiences a reproductive cycle that can sometimes cause her to be temperamental.

Step 4: Narrow your choices by thinking about the age of the horse. If you want a rodeo horse, then you’re looking for a younger horse. If you want a calm quiet riding horse, you may want a more mature horse. (Don’t be fooled into thinking a pony is a baby horse, it’s simply a smaller adult horse.)

Step 5: Unless you are strictly showing the horse, do not consider color. Believe it or not, many people put this consideration near the top of the list when it shouldn’t even make the list! With all of the factors to consider, a horse should not be chosen based on its looks.

Step 5: Look at and ride a lot of horses. Once you’ve narrowed your breed selections, you’ll want to spend time observing the temperament of the breeds you’re considering.

Step 6: Once you’ve analyzed your needs and determined it’s time to buy, consult Horse Rescue and Horse Adoption services in your area, as well as Horse Breeders/Sellers and classified ads. You might be surprised to find the many different avenues for obtaining a horse. Communicate your needs clearly in order to guarantee that you won’t waste anyone’s time and you’ll be matched up with the right breed for you.

This article was provided by pet-super-store.com an online pet shop carrying dog training collars from petsafe and innotek.

If you have ever witnessed a dog “play dead” on command, then you probably got a laugh out of it. Not only was it fun for you, but the dog probably enjoyed the attention, too. Trick training is a great addition to obedience training. Playing dead is not too difficult, but it does require that you pooch have an understanding of basic commands. Here’s a few, easy tips for teaching your pooch to play dead.

Trick training is not only entertaining for friends and family, but it is also a way to implement and reinforce obedience training. Training your pooch to perform tricks is often a nice break from training for obedience. Since training can become monotonous and cause your pooch to lose interest, your best bet is to mix in a little trick training with your regular obedience training. You can even use trick training as a way to treat your pet!

Before you start training, there are a handful of items you need to acquire and a few things you should keep in mind. First, make sure you have a “handful” of treats on hand. You want to reward your dog for the good he is doing, and he will love the reward of a tasty treat! The first thing to keep in mind is the length of the training session. An appropriate session will last about 10 to 15 minutes, but you can conduct more than one session each day. Ten to fifteen minutes is enough time to get your pooch familiarized with the behavior but not so much time that he loses interest. Second, never get angry with your pet. Remember, trick training is fun…not necessary! If your pooch doesn’t get the hang of things, then keep trying. With patience and a few treats, he’ll learn. Lastly, you may not like entertaining the thought of your dog “playing dead.” So, come up with a command that you would like to use. Instead of “play dead,” how about using “take a nap,” “go to sleep,” or “sweet dreams.” You’ll also need a command to tell him that it’s okay to release the trick. A simple “okay” works and so does “good morning,” “rise and shine,” or “wake up.” It’s all up to you what you choose to use.

Now, onto the training. Grab the treats, your pooch, and find a quiet area in your home free of distractions. Your dog needs to at least understand “sit” just so you can get him to be calm and listen to you. If your dog can lie down on command, then this is also a plus, but it isn’t necessary. If your pooch doesn’t understand “lie down,” then you are in the perfect position to take care of two skills at one time!

Sit in a chair or beside your dog on the floor. Tell him to “sit” or “lie down” (whichever command he understands). If he does not understand the lie down command, then hold a treat at his nose and lower it to the floor. Say “down” as you do this; you may have to push his hind quarters down into the lying position. Give him a treat for completing the command, and repeat this a couple more times.

Once he understands that you want him to lie down, begin teaching the play dead trick. While he is lying on his stomach, manually turn him on his side as you say “play dead” (or whatever command you come up with). Hold him there for a couple of seconds, but do not force him to stay down. As you let him up, use the second command “wake up” or “good morning,” whichever you prefer. When he stands up, give him a treat. Repeat this several times, but try not to exceed the ten to fifteen minute time frame. Try to practice the trick several times each week, but try to mix things up a bit.

Trick training is a wonderful addition to obedience training. If you practice a few times each week, your pooch can learn to “play dead” and “wake up” in addition to his obedience skills. Don’t forget to let him show off his new talent to family members and friends. Everyone will enjoy watching your dog perform, and your dog will love the extra attention!

Article provided by pet-super-store.com an online pet site carrying aluminum dog crates, dog beds and dog carriers.

Elusive and stealth, one of my favorite contemporary artists Banksy has made a stir for over 10 years because of his controversial and political graffiti art. Unlike art geniuses of old, Banksy hasn’t died or even been entrapped in controversy for him to be known and sought after. He has done the complete opposite, opting to stay hidden, mysterious and unconventional.

Among the present artists, Banksy has always been drawn to blank spaces of wall and is in constant search for his next canvas. He carefully plans where he’d go and think of what to put and prepare. He works with spray paint and template cutouts and brushes for final touches. An as his curator said, no matter where Banksy paints and whatever image he portrays, there is no mistaking it for anyone elses except his. Banksy art is very tongue in cheek and very much symbolic of the political problems in the world.

He’s been to Israel and painted the tall and endless wall. He’s also been to Palestine where he was told that he should go home because he was making the place beautiful (funny Palestinian?). While this year, his works were spotted in L.A.

I must admit, my preference for an artist consists of the use of color, design and the difficulty of the masterpiece. With Banksy’s covert stencilling and the mystery he embodies there is no doubt he’ll be the icon of graffiti world.

“…redefining the way that creativity can exist in an urban context”

“…being certain about things didn’t help…being sure of anything is being totally ridiculous”

Our cat had started to get the confidence not to come home and just recently started to loathe bathing. For a while there the challenge of having to get through with the bath without a scratch was not worth it, so he got away with sleeping at home without taking a bath. Getting so used to living with a pet we sometimes forget that our pets, specially furry ones make germs and infectious disease transmittable.

Toxoplasmosis can be spread via a cats feces and often goes undetected. A healthy person infected with this does not suffer badly and would eventually be immune to another bout with the infection. Toxoplasmosis is dreaded when effects are irreversible and impossible to treat without consequences. People with weak immune system and infants are often the victims. Even a pregnant woman that contracts the disease puts the fetus at risk for birth defects.

Pets are part of the family and may enjoy a certain “spoil me” attitude, for everyones safety require your pets to frequent baths. As a safety measure and additional obedience training, install pet gates going to the bedrooms. Early on a pets life train them not to make a child’s bed their own. Better yet, have your pet stay at a certain spot in the home and mark it with their very own bed. Having their own bed confines the spread of dander and fur.

Pet owning is not giving your pet the run of your home, it is sharing your life with pets. Every member of the family is required to be clean and stay clean, if trained well your pet won’t mind.

My Grandmother was supposed to be in college at age 14 if it were not for the Japanese war. Still after serving in the army, getting married to a gorgeous senior officer (Granpa) and having a child (my mom) she still finished college. She received her doctorate from Penn state and died knowing how to speak in 7 languages fluently. With that to keep up with, I can honestly say she never liked my easy going attitude with school- I dropped out of college.

In every generation, education and its importance have not changed as people would like to believe. I do know that it is ones circumstance and choice that may block a person from pursuing a degree. The contrast of our Matriarch’s education from mine was brought about by two articles that show the alarming state of education and the deterioration of interest in knowing more than you can use in work or in life.

USA Today’s Craig Wilson did a piece on how not to be as dumb as a door knob and that knowledge was just there for the taking (read books!) and not exclusive to people with money. His take on it was honest and a wake up call for parents and teachers alike, the key to this is the extended time the library is opened to the public and the Library of Congress being open to students as young as 16 years old for research. Wilson clearly stated that the extent of education was a choice.

In contrast, BBC News on the Internet had an education top story titled “Working classes have lower IQ’s”. The headline felt like a kick in the gut since I am from the working class and have a career that requires creative thinking and analogy (IQ test components).

Dr. Bruce Charlton said “… a simple and vital fact has been missed: higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes.”

I do find it bothersome that someone would find it a matter of social class. True that a better standing in life does get you perks: a tutor, a house wit a library, good food and certainty that you will live the next day. But I do not think that students coming from a working class family should be looked down upon as unworthy of a spot in a good school. If people in prestigious schools like from where Dr. Charleston is from share his snobbery then the future will just be full of bullies and snobs- from the higher class of society though.

Craig Wilson’s moves people more positively to the right direction with no reference to class, race or gender. While the Dr. Charleston really doesn’t give anyone much choice, you are born into a higher IQ or with a silver spoon in your mouth.

Again it all comes down to choices, like which line of thought would create a better change in society?