St. Thomas Dog Blog

If you collect Shoppers Drug Mart Optimum points, you can redeem them for extra value on skin care products and cosmetics today through Monday (Feb 11 to 13).  It’s one of the bonus weekends, but this time you can’t stock up on dog treats and frozen pizzas, just skin, hair and nail products, fragrances and [...]

Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter is a wonderful book.  Written by Elizabeth Hess, a New York City arts journalist and author of Nim Chimpsky, it details her experiences as a volunteer at the Columbia-Greene Animal Shelter near Hudson, New York.  She and her family were among the [...]

A 1916 play Trifles was written by American journalist Susan Glaspell.  It is a murder mystery based on a real event in Iowa at the turn of the century.  A man is found strangled.  The sheriff and a neighbour man search the house, barn and outbuildings, can’t find anything.  Their wives are there too.  They [...]

So William and Kate opened the Calgary Stampede and attended the parade.  William even took part in a chuckwagon race.  I’d been wondering what they’d do.  Before their visit, there had been a huge furor about their endorsement-by-attendance at what some call an event about animal abuse. My feeling at the time was doesn’t Vancouver [...]

Revenue Canada is planning changes that will affect the charitable status eligibility and actions of animal welfare organizations.  I have only just read about this so am borrowing liberally just to get something up.  The deadline for commenting on these changes is March 31 – that’s Thursday. So here it is in a nutshell from [...]

There are so many animal rescue groups and people in our area.  They are working quietly on their own, without help from large animal protection organizations or municipalities.  They have supporters and helpers.  But they never have enough help or resources to be able to look after all the animals that need their care.  But [...]

A month ago, I met a new horse.  A pretty little quarter horse, Gem had a very heavy winter coat.  She also had large bare spots on her face and side.  She had just arrived at Brenda Hull’s Equine Rehabilitation farm in Southwold.  She had come from  somewhere in the London area. In December her [...]

It’s very hard to buy products that are not tested on animals or made by companies that test on animals in at least some of their product lines.  In this, I am not talking about government-mandated animal testing on pharmaceuticals and medical products.  I’m talking about cosmetics, hair products and household cleaning products.  I knew [...]

I used to keep chickens.  Mainly bantams who produce lovely little eggs.  They also are very broody, meaning they will easily sit on eggs in order to hatch them.  When you have chicks, it’s 50/50 whether you get hens or roosters.  Any chicken coop can only handle so many roosters, I found.  They get along [...]