jane's daily blah

Pet Owners: Support HR-3501

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:35:00 +0000

Check out this bill, sign the petition, and spread the word! If it passes, pet-owners would be able to deduct up to $3500/year off their taxes for pet-related expenses :-)

New Year's Day Puppy

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:53:00 +0000

How long have I been saying that I will be taking in no more animals? Good thing I didn't make *that* one of my resolutions, or it would be broken already. I was driving home from my mom's earlier today, and out in the middle of road, in the cold rain, was this:

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:49:00 +0000

2009 was a very dark year for me. I’m not going to go into the details. If you know them, you know them. If not, well, I don’t want to re-live the moments by writing about them, and besides, reading about it would just depress you.

I’ve never been one of those people who does the New Year’s resolution thing. The demarcation of a new year is just so arbitrary. So we say that January 1st is something new and wonderful in comparison to December 31st – so what? A day is a day is a day. Why should December 31st be so different from January 1st? Except that I feel different about it this year. 2009 was such a terrible black hole, and it’s only now that the year is ending that I finally feel like I’m clawing my way back out of it and into the light. And believe me, I want to stay in the light.

As such, I’ve decided to make some New Year’s resolutions.

1. Eat better. So much of 2009 I spent eating things that came out of the freezer and were microwaved inside of their packaging. Blech. And the times I wasn’t doing that, I was eating things which were cooked for me, by someone with a preference for hormone-laden, oversized chicken breasts. The goal is to stick to foods that contain fewer preservatives, are home or locally grown (when possible), and which are actually cooked (not merely nuked) by me.

2. Get janekeeler.com back in order. I used to obsessively design and redesign my website. While it’s gone through several incarnations this past year, none of these versions was ever finished. Such as what’s online over there right now… a pretty shell with no content. Must straighten that out.

3. Blog often. For someone who blogged obsessively for years, 2009 was… what? Blog burnout? Writer’s block? Unwillingness to write about the nastiness of my day to day existence? Inability to write about things that were secret and/or confidential? Yeah, all of those. Time to work past that and get back into this blogging thing again.

4. Finish all the paperwork and file for 501(c)3 tax-exempt status for Brierpatch Cats. I’m actually pretty close to done with all the paperwork, although it’s a rather tedious slog. I get to the point where I’d rather be playing with kitties than typing up all the necessary forms, but at this point, I need to stop slacking and get the paperwork finished and turned in.

5. Number 5 is predicated upon Number 4: Get Brierpatch Cats up and running, including working on the facilities out at the land, getting started on grant-writing and fundraising, and working on community outreach and education. But Number 4 has to get finished first.

6. Clean my car.

7. Work on my house. Specifically, get the front part of my fence installed, get the gate fixed, pull up the carpet in my bedroom and put down vinyl flooring, paint the door to my carport, and paint the interior rooms. (I think I’ll put off tackling the bathroom and its myriad of problems until 2011…)

I am a cat person, not a dog person...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:54:00 +0000

...although you'd hardly be able to tell that these days. Not that we still don't have a million and one cats (er, 46 between me and my mom and three different properties...) but I seem to be acquiring dogs rather a lot recently. Mom and I took a stray shihtzu/lhasa mix away from a yardsale last weekend, as the person having the yardsale kept kicking at him and saying, "get out of here, you damn stray!" and he was just too cute to allow that to continue. Luckily, we were able to find a home for him, and took him there this evening.

Of course, at my house, in addition to Duke and Koala (and the multitude of kitties), I now have two chihuahuas! Can you believe that? I've never really been a fan of small dogs, but I love these two.

Twitter is six months old. I found her in mid-October, huddling against the door of a closed business on State St. here in Waycross. She was riddled with fleas, scrawny, terrified, and obviously had mange. Luckily it turned out to be demodetic mange, which is not contagious to people or to other animals, and she is being treated for it. Her skin now looks much better, and her hair is starting to grow back. She's also no longer scrawny and much braver.

The Old Man showed up in my neighborhood last week, skinny, freezing cold, and riddled with fleas. He is obviously quite old. He has old dog teeth, grey hair, and arthritis. He also looks rather pathetic. He's very calm and sweet, and mostly just wants to sleep in front of the heater.

The Old Man, wrapped up in blankets.

Twitter and The Old Man

Another update on Big Guy

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:39:00 +0000

Big Guy is doing well, although he is not yet completely healed. After having the drains in his one wound for a week, he had them removed, and the wound was re-sutured. He got all of his stitches out a week later. That night (this past Monday), the wound where the drains had been popped back open. I took him back to the vet Tuesday morning, and they decided that at this point the best thing to do would be to let it heal on its own. (Apparently, too much flesh and skin were lost during the removal of the necrotic and otherwise damaged tissue for it the wound to successfully close.) Anyway, I now clean it and coat it with medication twice a day. It doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. Additionally, he no longer shows any traces of having been feral. He wants to do nothing more than play with and be petted by me :-)

Update on Big Guy

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:18:00 +0000

UPDATE: I just spoke with the vet (it's about five hours since I dropped Big Guy off). Upon closer examination of his wounds, the vet decided to go ahead and keep him overnight to make certain that no further infection developed. Some of the wounds had developed necrotic flesh, and there were several un-ruptured abscesses (including the one in his back foot that he wouldn't let me touch this morning). He has numerous sutures around the area where the dead flesh was excised, and he had a drain installed in one of the worst wounds. Plus, he won't be allowed into a litter box (at least not one with cat litter in it) until the injury in his back foot heals! And did I mention that they went ahead and neutered him, too? Poor guy is not going to be happy! We should be able to pick him up tomorrow morning.

The Misadventure of Big Guy

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:21:00 +0000

Big Guy is a semi-feral cat who found his way out to our land all on his own several months ago. At the time, he was completely feral, and it took several months before he would come near us, and even more before we had even the slightest chance of petting him. Recently, though, he’d become quite brave, allowing me and my mother to pet him, and even to pick him up! (Well, he really did not enjoy being picked up, but at least he let me do it.)

Every day when I go out to the land and call, the kitties all come running from every direction. They watch as I feed the horses, then follow me eagerly over to “their” part of the land – the buildings where they’re fed. Friendly and feral cat alike do this every day. Sunday, I noticed that Big Guy wasn’t around. Now, these critters have plenty of land in which to roam, so if one doesn’t show up for dinner one night, it’s not usually an issue. However, when Big Guy wasn’t there on Monday, I began to worry.

The last thing I do every day before leaving the land is to pump water into the horses’ trough. The trough is near the north fence, and beyond that is a tangled wilderness of pine trees, palmetto, and blackberry bushes. As I approached the pump, I noticed what looked to be a cat, lying in the brush. I walked to the fence for a closer look, and sure enough – it was Big Guy. My immediate thought was that he was dead. I called to him and he didn’t respond. So, I went out the front gate and traipsed through a rather extensive bit of brush and blackberry bushes (which, for those who don’t know, are riddled with thorns) to where I’d seen Big Guy.

As I drew closer, he lifted his head and struggled into a sitting position; I could see that one of his front legs was swollen and bleeding. Feral cat or no, I wasn’t going to leave him out there. I scooped him up and carried him back out, through the tangle of thorny blackberries, to my car. I did not have a cat-crate with me. What I did have, was a pit bull. Now, Brin loves kitties, and Big Guy and Brin had met before on numerous occasions, but it was clear that the kitty did not want to get into the car or be anywhere near the dog… much less get into the car with the dog! Nonetheless, I managed to get all of us inside, at which point Big Guy urinated a copious amount all over me and the driver’s seat of my car. Then we drove to my house.

Once I got Big Guy inside, he was amazingly well-behaved – especially for an injured semi-feral! I placed him in my bathroom sink and examined his wounds. Something – probably a dog, though possibly another cat – had managed to sink its teeth into both his front legs, creating three nasty punctures in each, all of which had abscessed. I did my best to drain and clean each injury, and he was very patient with me. When I was finished, he downed a bowl of canned catfood, and snuggled into a laundry basket for the evening

This morning, I noticed that one of his back feet looked large and deformed. At first I thought that perhaps he did indeed have a deformed foot… but when I touched it, it was hot… and he reacted rather violently to my attempts to inspect it. So, after that I took him to the vet. I had to drop him off to go to work/school, but the vet called a couple of hours later to update me.

He said the wounds had been inflicted by another cat, and that in order to treat all of his various injuries, they would need to sedate him. He also suggested that while he was under sedation he go ahead and neuter him - in order to curb his enthusiasm for future catfights. Unfortunately, the local vet is not cheap; however, given that he was already going to be under anaesthetic and given that I'd like him to be traumatized as little as possible, I agreed. I suspect Big Guy is going to be VERY cranky when all of this is over!

Help support Brierpatch Cats!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:41:00 +0000

Help support Brierpatch Cats (the non-profit my mom and I are starting - http://www.brierpatchcats.org) by purchasing a 2010 calendar!Just click here or on the photo above!

Do you use flickr?

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:53:00 +0000

Because I do! I know I haven't been much of a blogger of late... and I know not everyone wants to sign up for facebook. I've been trying to make sure that I upload the same photos to both facebook and flickr, since you don't have to sign up for anything to view my photos over there. Enjoy! http://www.flickr.com/photos/janekeeler

My puppy, Twitter, plays with Teardrop the kitten

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:48:00 +0000

Okefenokee Humane Society News Update:

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:34:00 +0000

Below is the entire text quoted from this article in the Georgia Times Union:

Okefenokee Humane Society asks sheriff to investigate fired director
By Carole Hawkins

WAYCROSS - The Okefenokee Humane Society board wants the Ware County sheriff to investigate former shelter director Lori Hartmann's use of shelter funds.

Since firing Hartmann three weeks ago, the board has discovered past due bills totaling $8,500, treasurer Sirena Cady said Thursday at a specially called meeting. Cady said it appears Hartmann also made personal purchases on the shelter's Lowe's account and wrote herself and family members checks that the board had not authorized.

Board members voted unanimously to ask the county sheriff to conduct a criminal investigation.
During a telephone interview Friday, Hartmann called the assertions ridiculous. She said she has not hidden purchases or paychecks and had already informed the board that shelter finances were falling behind.

She said she believed she was fired for personal reasons and was being discredited.
In an Oct. 10 termination notice, Hartmann was told she was being discharged for failing to perform her duties in a manner acceptable to the board.

Cady said over the last three weeks she has uncovered multiple unpaid bills, which were unknown to the board.

She also detailed the following financial issues:

- Internet services were discontinued for non-payment.

- Hartmann had purchased a more expensive cell phone service a few months ago.

- Late payments to the IRS and Georgia Department of Labor for payroll taxes had incurred penalties.

- The county paid an overdue fuel bill for Humane Society vehicles and docked its monthly check to the shelter.

- A worker's compensation insurance payment of $754 is past due.

- Hartmann had opened a Lowe's account for the corporation in December that the board, which was seated in January, knew nothing about. Monthly bills were being sent to Hartmann's home address. The account balance is $3,194.

"There are purchases here that don't appear to be items that were used at the Humane Society," Cady said.

That includes two charges for carpet installation, which were made in December at a total cost of around $2,000.

"There is no carpet at the shelter," Cady said.

Numerous payments had been made to Hartmann's husband and daughter, Cady said. Hartmann also wrote herself checks for bookkeeping services and paid herself overtime, even though she was a salaried employee, Cady said.

Hartmann admitted she made some personal purchases on the Humane Society's account but said she paid for them when she did so. She admitted part of the outstanding balance was hers and said she would pay it.

Hartmann said the first time she made a personal purchase on the Lowe's account, it was a mistake and former board president Millie Hopkins had told her to "just work it out."
Hopkins couldn't be reached for comment.

As for overdue bills, Hartmann said she had kept the board informed. She said she had told the board about the overdue second- and third-quarter payroll taxes and submitted regular financial reports to the board.

"I didn't do anything wrong. They knew about everything," she said. "They've been in financial despair. I've been telling them that for months," Hartmann said the board knew both her husband and daughter had worked there and said she paid them as contractors when they did.

She said over a year ago Hopkins suggested she hire her daughter.

Her husband performed maintenance work for the shelter on an as-needed basis.

"Millie knew he was there. And [board member] Jim Morton talked to him last June about building decks for the dogs and fixing fences," said Hartmann. "He was doing it in front of them and they knew he was getting paid to do it."

Hartmann agreed she had written herself checks for bookkeeping services but said former shelter director Kaye Thompson had also done so.

Rather than paying a more expensive accountant, the Humane Society paid the director to prepare the agency's tax documents, Hartmann said.

Hartmann acknowledged charging the Humane Society overtime, but only as an accounting technique to increase her tax withholding. Her take-home pay, including both regular and overtime hours, totaled her agreed-upon salary.

The Humane Society board voted to reaffirm Hartmann's dismissal Thursday.

The organization has been working to negotiate terms of payment with its creditors.

Just a reminder....

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:53:00 +0000

...I still update facebook more often than I do blogger. Join me there! Also, I am sick. Boo!

Alas, no house.

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Well, my mom decided that in the end she didn't want to spend the money it would take to get the house moved out to the land. She had decided to go for it based on an estimate that turned out to be a 50% less than what it turned out to actually be, so it's certainly an understandable decision. Disappointing, though :-(

Purchase the best of my Kyrgyzstan photos!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:21:00 +0000

I finally finished my coffee-table book of photographs from Kyrgyzstan. You can get it in either soft-cover ($39.95) or hard-cover ($49.95) - and believe me, the hardcover is a MUCH better deal. Simply click here or on the picture above. You can see the first fifteen pages of the book on the website... but that doesn't even get you out of the capital city! The book is 114 pages long and contains 188 color photographs, each with a detailed description and/or explanation. Enjoy!

House-Moving Woes

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:09:00 +0000

Mom just spoke to the other house mover in the area. His price is all-inclusive (roof removal, foundation pouring, permit/escort acquiring, etc) but it would come to $25,000! He seems to be a lot more competent than the other guy as well. (The other guy didn't think that we would need to pour any sort of foundation under the pilings, whereas this guy says that would be a definite requirement, which was what I had thought.) While that's a hell of a house for $25k (there's no way we could get something like that built out there for that price), we don't have that kind of cash on hand. And while normal people would just go get a loan, my mom is very Ayn Randish in a paying cash for items kind of way. Mom is going to think on it for a day or two before making her final decision. What do you guys think?

House moving decisions and dilemmas

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:02:00 +0000

So initially, we'd spoken with a local house-mover who had quoted us a price of $1500/day to move the house. He also said he "didn't think it would take too long to move." At that point in time, he had already seen the house and had told us that it was definitely moveable. After getting the go ahead at the end of last week from the current owners of this house, we called him back, and agreed to meet Saturday morning to look at our land (and the "road" to our land) to make sure it was somewhere he would physically be able to move the house to. We also planned to then go with him to take a closer look at the house. He checked out the land and the road, and didn't think that there would be any problems there whatsoever. Then we drove out to Blackshear to take a look at the house. We got there, and the first thing he told us was that we would have to get a carpenter to remove the roof. (I don't mean a roofer taking the roofing off, I mean a carpenter/contractor/construction worker with a crane who could separate the attic space, rafters and all, from the rest of the house, and place it on the ground, and who could then reattach it to the house once it was moved.) Now, we had assumed that since the house mover had already seen the house when he gave us his quote of $1500/day, that would be all-inclusive. This having-to-hire-a-contractor thing came as rather a shock. It was also somewhat bizarre that the house mover could not (or would not) recommend anyone to do the roof removal. He told us to just go through the yellow pages and select whoever gave the best rate. Now, surely, as house moving is his business, he has encountered tall houses before, and therefore should (in theory) be able to recommend a contractor. Right? This just seemed a little odd to us. There is one other house-mover in the area, and we are going to call him and get an estimate and see whether or not he does the roof removal himself. Right now we are trying to get recommendations for decent contractor who has the necessary equipment (like a crane...) needed to hoist a roof off and then back on to a house. No idea how much that part of the whole experience will cost, although chances are, it will double the costs. BOOOOOO! Suddenly the entire project is looking a lot more expensive than it did just a few days ago, and looks very well like it might drain all of my mom's savings in one fell swoop. That being said, even if it ended up running $20,000 to move it, there is no way that we could get a house of that size and quality built out at the land for $20k, so it still seems like a good deal. Thoughts? Also, for those of you who wanted interior pictures, here they are. Keep in mind, the current owners are using the place for storage right now, so it's somewhat full of junk at the moment.

Front porch

Living room, looking straight back from the front door

Livingroom, full view from front door - the ceilings are something like 12ft high!

front bedroom (just back from the living room)

This is the only room in the entire house with water damage.
(Located in roof and wall and furniture underneath leak)

bathroom behind front bedroom

The diningroom (to the left of the front door when you walk in) also has incredibly high ceilings.

The ceiling in the kitchen, however, has been lowered.

first rear bedroom

second rear bedroom

rear bathroom

laundry room

House Moving!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, and ad appeared in the local paper, offering a free house to be moved off someone's land. This is what my mother and I have been on the lookout for, although previous such offers have turned out to be for houses so far gone that they would have disintegrated on transport. One such house was in great structural condition, but was filled with bats. And bat guano. When we saw this house, however, we thought that we must simply be in the wrong place. It looked to be in too good of condition to be offered for free... but nope, it was the one. The owned warned us of "really bad water damage" - and after seeing some of the other houses that have been offered for free, we were prepared for disastrous conditions inside - but it turned out that the water damage was minimal and easily repairable. The house itself was huge: 3 bedrooms, a huge kitchen/dining area (bigger than mine, for those of you who've seen my house), a huge living room, two bathrooms, laundry room, and a screened in front porch. The owners told us they were going to wait until the following Tuesday, and that they would be in their business at 9am on that day... and that the house would go to the first person to make a commitment. This gave those of us interested enough time to track down a house mover and to make an estimate. We found a house mover and got a reasonable sounding rate, and waited for Tuesday at 9am. I called them at 8:50am that Tuesday... only to find that someone had just beaten me to it. My mom and I were second in line for the house. We expected that meant that there was no chance whatsoever that we'd be getting it. Then, this afternoon, the phone rang while I was napping. It was my mother, calling to tell me that we'd gotten the house. The people who had beaten us to making the offer had apparently fallen through on how they were going to finance the move. I was really excited, although promptly fell back asleep. I awoke an hour later and had to actually call my mom to confirm whether or not it had been a dream, or if we were actually getting the house - and we are! (Well, it's not 100% definite; the house mover has seen the house, but still needs to check out our land and our "road" - but it seems as though we'll be getting it!

Taxes, money, and (sadly) rethinking Nicaragua

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Property tax bills have just come in the mail. As you might know, between me and my mother, we have four properties, so this isn’t exactly a fun time of the year. Additionally, my house is in the city of Waycross, which has absurdly high property taxes, considering. My first year of home ownership, my property taxes were nearly $500. Now, I pay a monthly fee for water/sewer/trash, so what is it my tax dollars are paying for? The non-existent police presence? The fact that the defaced street signs which say I live on the corner of Ass and Ass have been there since before I bought my house? Anyway, after I had to pay my first outrageous property tax bill, I applied for homestead exemption. This greatly reduced my property taxes; last year they were something like $60.

This year, there was a yellow notice attached to the tax bill which reads:

The state homestead tax relief grant that funded an increased homestead exemption for homeowners for the last several years will not be available this year. Declining state revenues during the current recession means there is no money for the state to give tax relief to homeowners. This will mean a property tax increase of $200 to $300 on the 2009 tax bills for many Georgia homeowners. The grant appropriated by the General Assembly and the Governor for the past several years to counties, cities and schools had given tax relief to homeowners in the form of a credit on their tax bills. According to legislation passed this year, the grant will only be made available in the future if state revenues grow at least 3% plus the rate of inflation.

I owe $416 on my property taxes this year. I should at least get some new street signs.

Meanwhile, as much as I do very much want to go to Nicaragua as part of the WorldVets.org spay/neuter program, my mother pointed out to me that for the amount of money I’d be paying to take part in that program, I could pay for all of the kittens we got this spring to get fixed, now that they’re getting old enough. After thinking about that, it is kind of hard for me to justify going, despite the fact that I really would love to make an overseas trip to pretty much anywhere right about now. So, that being said, I’ve decided not to go to Nicaragua :-(

To Rob B and Diana E, it turns out that I entered the wrong email address in ChipIn... it’s still *my* email address, but in ChipIn sends money to PayPal based on the email address provided, and to receive money through PayPal, one’s email address must be confirmed. In order to confirm your email address, you must provide PayPal with your bank account number. I have only one bank account, and it is linked to my pre-existing PayPal account, and therefore can't be linked to any other. As a result, I can’t “confirm” my account or receive your donation anyway – must be a sign that I’m not meant to go. No worries; PayPal will refund your money if I can’t confirm my account (and I can’t).

So much death...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:58:00 +0000

Starting this past weekend, my mom's dogs had been digging out of her backyard. She keeps Brin (the brindle pit bull) inside anyway, but I ended up with Brin and Bitsy (the rat terrier) over at my house, while she did everything she could to keep Blackie (Brin's brother) and Hope (a doberman mix) from getting out. Tuesday, one of her cats, Annette, was supposed to go to the vet to get spayed, but she was nowhere to be found; we have yet to see any sign of her. Wednesday morning, one of the kittes, Silvie, was lying dead in her yard. There were no visible marks on her, so we didn't know if one of the dogs had gotten to her or if something else had happened. Wednesday afternoon, mom returned home to find another cat, Jessie, lying dead in nearly the same place as she had found Silvie that morning. The body did look as though it had been disturbed by dogs (saliva all over his side), but there were no visible bite marks, and we all know that any dog that finds an animal corpse is going to play with it. We didn't want to jump to any conclusions... especially since it seemed so weird for there to be two dead cats in the same place in such a short space of time. And especially since when Blackie and Hope were around cats in the presence of either me or my mother, they showed no signs of aggression. We took the two bodies of the cats to the vet to be necropsied, so we could learn if it had been a dog, or if perhaps one of the neighbors was putting out poison. The necropsy was scheduled for this morning. We ended up cancelling it, as Blackie got ahold of and killed another cat, Stormy, this morning. We cannot have a cat killer on the premises, no matter how sweet of a dog he is to us, so sadly, we had him euthanized this morning.

Please Vote!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:53:00 +0000

I haven't posted about JPG in ages, but here's a submission I have to Issue 23 under the theme of Decay. Please either click here to vote, or click on the picture below. Thank you, thank you! (BTW, this photo was taken on in the village of Khuzhir on Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, Siberia.)

Chip-in counter isn't working....

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:20:00 +0000

...but thank you to Diana E. and Rob B. for the donations!!! :-)

Combining my favorite thing with what I want to become...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:31:00 +0000

My friend Linda pointed out to me that WorldVets.org is taking a spay/neuter trip to Nicaragua during the exact same time that Waycross College has its spring break. The trip is open to vets, vet students, pre-vet students, vet techs and vet assistants. Now, how could I possibly pass up the opportunity to do my very favorite thing (travel to a foreign country) while assisting with something I care a lot about (spaying and neutering dogs and cats) which could help get me into vet school? Well, there is the problem that I am completely broke, as my ten hours a week at minimum wage doesn't even cover all my bills, much less allow me to put money into savings for a trip to Nicaragua. I have several different ideas for how to come up with the funds. One of these ideas will involve completely refurbishing my online store - but I can't start on that until after this week of exams is over. In the meanwhile, I am simply asking for your help. And as my birthday is September 25, you could also think of it as a birthday present :-)

:-(

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:52:00 +0000

I’d never met a dog like Dewey before. Don’t get me wrong – I love Koala and Duke, but they aren’t anything like my little Dewdrop. I knew he was sick when I brought him home from the shelter... but I thought I would be able to save him, or at least that my vet would be able to do so. My little guy got a month of love and affection and attention, but despite the best efforts of both myself and my vet, he died in my arms Tuesday night.

So many enemies...

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Towards the end of my sojourn in Kyrgyzstan last year, a new teacher arrived at the school where I had been working. Initially, we hit it off. When asked why she had decided to come to Kyrgyzstan, she told me that she had read a book entitled So Many Enemies, So Little Time by Elinor Burkett, which was the travel memoir of a journalism professor who moved to Kyrgyzstan to teach in 2001. She told me that this book had inspired her to look for a job in Kyrgyzstan herself. I had been planning to order a handful of books as a welcome back to the US present to myself, and I added Burkett’s tome to my list and went ahead and ordered it. Then this new teacher and I had what you might term a falling out. By the time I left the country and returned to the US, I greatly despised her. Additionally, in the interim this new teacher had read Saffia Farr’s Revolution Baby – a book which I loathed – and enjoyed it! As such, I had two different reasons to think that perhaps So Many Enemies wasn’t actually worth my time. I shoved it aside, read other books, and months flew by during which I didn’t give it so much as a passing thought. Then, one evening a couple of weeks ago, when I was rummaging through my bookshelves looking for something I hadn’t yet read, I stumbled upon it and decided to give it a shot.

It turned out to be pretty good. Unlike Farr, whose narrative was clouded so much by her utter dislike of Kyrgyzstan, and whose descriptive abilities were somewhat limited, Burkett presents an incredibly accurate and easy-to-picture view of what life in Kyrgyzstan is like. Granted, a lot of what life in Central Asia is like would indeed be viewed by most Westerners in a negative light; however, she presents it in an impartial manner which allows the reader to be the judge. Must be that journalistic training, you think? Burkett, like myself, was abroad during the events of September 11, 2001, and I found that her experiences of what life was like for an American overseas at that time were quite similar to my own. I also discovered that Kyrgyzstan has apparently not changed much at all since her time there (2001-2002) and my time there in 2008. In addition to describing her life and work in Kyrgyzstan, Burkett writes about her travels during that time to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It was specifically interesting to read about her reception in and descriptions of pre-War on Terror Afghanistan and Iraq. I know people who have been to these countries much more recently than 2001-2002, and their more up-to-date descriptions of these places seem so very different from Burkett’s. Sadly, it would appear that things have gone very much downhill. I wish Burkett would return to these countries now and do a piece on the contrasts she would find.

Anyhow, the long and the short of it is, that despite my rather silly delay in tackling this book, it turned out to be pretty good, and should be very much on the to-read list of anyone with an interest in Central Asia.

I’m voting no on crate training!

noreply@blogger.com (jane) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:09:00 +0000

For those of you who don’t know, crate training is a method of housebreaking a dog that many, many people swear by. You put a dog or puppy into a crate, and only take it out to use the bathroom. When it is left in the crate for a lengthy period (i.e. while you’re at work or asleep), if it defecates in its crate, it then has to sit/sleep in it. The idea is that a dog doesn’t want to defecate in its bed, and once it learns that if it goes in its crate it will have to sit/sleep in it, the dog will learn to “hold it” until it’s let outside. This knowledge is reinforced by leaving the dog in the crate during lengthy periods when the owner is unavailable to take it out regularly. Once the dog is in a pattern of not defecating during these lengthy periods, it should be relatively easy to then transfer this knowledge from not defecating in the crate to not defecating in the house... and any time there is a relapse, one can simply pop the errant beast back in his crate.

There are different views on crate training within the animal rights community. PETA is opposed to it, whereas the ASPCA supports it. Here’s what they have to say on the topic, respectively:

PETA says: Crate training does not speed up the housebreaking process. Regardless of the training method, puppies do not develop full bladder control until they are about 6 months old. It is counterproductive to crate young puppies in the hope that they will "hold it" because they are physically incapable of doing so and will be forced to urinate in their crate after experiencing great discomfort while trying not to soil their bed. Puppies who repeatedly soil their crates often lose the urge to keep their crate clean, which in turn prolongs and complicates the housebreaking process. Pet-store and puppy-mill puppies who are born and raised in crate-like structures may experience severe anxiety and develop fearful and/or destructive behaviors if they are confined to a crate. They may even injure themselves while trying to bite or scratch their way out of it. [source]

The ASPCA (who has their ‘seal of approval’ on the very crate I purchased) says: You can use a crate to safely contain your dog during the night and whenever you can’t monitor her behavior closely. Dogs don’t like to soil their sleeping areas, so your dog will naturally avoid eliminating in her crate. If used for house training purposes, the crate should be sized so that your dog can lie down comfortably, stand up without having to crouch and easily turn around in a circle. If the crate is any larger, she might learn to soil one end of it and sleep at the other. If the crate is any smaller, she might be uncomfortable and unable to rest. (When you no longer need to use the crate for house training, you can purchase a larger one for your dog if you like.) Using a crate will help you predict when your dog needs to eliminate and control where she eliminates. If she’s been crated overnight or for a few hours during the day, the chances are extremely high that she’ll eliminate as soon as you release her from the crate and take her outside. So, with the crate’s help, you can prevent your dog from eliminating indoors and have a chance to reward her for going in the right place—outside. [source]

Now, as I remarked yesterday, Koala is a bad little girl in many different ways. In addition to being an absolute heathen on a leash, she refuses to housebreak. We’ve pretty much solved this problem by turning our carport into a giant kennel for Duke and Koala to live in when no one’s home/awake (and they’ve pretty much been in there 24/7 ever since sick Dewey has been living in the house). Duke is actually pretty well housebroken (done before I ever met him), but Koala is just hopeless. Numerous people have told me that I should crate train her, but I really didn’t like the notion of sticking the poor little girl in a crate all day – after all, she’s been through so much torment in her short life, it hardly seems right. Then Dewey arrived, and despite my best efforts, if he’s left alone for a lengthy period, he pees and poops in the house. Again, numerous people told me that crate training was the way to go. I held out, thinking that it just seemed wrong to rescue a puppy from the pound only to put it back in a cage. Additionally, Dewey spent several days in a crate at the humane society, and it was always a filthy disaster area in the mornings. But, after buying a crate for Sunny and Easy (and therefore having one on hand) and after getting absolutely fed up with mopping my floor time and time again, I decided to try crate training.

After two nights of being unable to sleep due to Dewey’s incessant barking, I am feeling thoroughly crabby. He seems to be feeling the same – and so would you, if you had to spend twelve hours sitting in a conglomeration of feces, urine, spilled water and spilled food. Blech. Each morning, the first thing I’ve had to do – before I could even think about getting dressed or eating breakfast – was to clean the absolute mess that was Dewey’s crate. This involves dragging the whole contraption outside and bleaching and hosing it down. While this was going on, Dewey (who was likewise covered in filth) was so ecstatic to be out of his crate and reunited with his Jane, that he wanted nothing more than to jump all over me... thus showering me with both affection and shit. After cleaning the crate, I then had to bathe Dewey (who hates baths) and then myself. I’m a shower-in-the-evening type of girl, so that’s yet another aspect of this whole catastrophe that’s got me off my game. In addition to all this hassle, it seems that being confined in his filth has worsened his cough, which had started to get better. So I’m off the whole crate training thing. I’d rather scoop up a couple easy to clean lumps of poop when I wake up than put myself and Dewey through that whole nasty process again! Besides, now I can use that crate as a home for the bind kitten – at least until he gets bigger.