The Week in Tweets (19th November) | Some Thoughts About Dogs

Each week, I summarise postings from my Twitter account, and pick the best as the ‘Tweet of the Week’. Some colossal reading for those with a couple of hours on their hands.

Tweet of the Week

For something different, it’s not a doggy tweet of the week this week. Instead, it’s about a little bird called the fairy wren who has developed an incredible mechanism to avoid raising cuckoos. Fairy wrens sing a particular song to their eggs, and when their eggs hatch, their babies in turn sing this song. This reassures the parents that they are raising the right chicks. However, if a cuckoo was to lay its egg in the nest, they generally don’t spend enough time to learn the song. This means that, when a cuckoo hatches, it neglects to sign the ‘special song’, and the fairy wrens will abandon their nest, thereby not raising the introducer offspring. Pretty cool! Read more here: Fairy wrens teach secret passwords to their unborn chicks to tell them apart from cuckoo imposters.

RSPCA Criticisms

After the recent SBS Insight program, the RSPCA has been under increasing criticism for it’s shelter kill rates, which has also expanded to criticisms a lot broader than the running of their shelters.

One inident was when the RSPCA Nowra Facebook page claimed that two dogs pictured at the Million Paws Walk were in new homes, when in reality, they were killed by the shelter or ‘behavioural issues’. (Yes, the two dogs were able to attend the Million Paws Walk, with an abundance of people and other dogs, but were deemed unsuitable to enter a home environment.) This prompted an article in the South Coast Register: RSPCA cops a serve over two dead dogs. Saving Pets also commented, “Is RSPCA NSW’s ‘Drives for Lives’ killing pets?”

As well as a video on how RSPCA’s fundraising rile local rescue group.

And in the news: Consumers duped by RSPCA, farmers claim.

Rescue and Welfare

In non-RSPCA animal news:

Saving Pets, as always, posted a bunch of good content. They looked at a year in NSW pounds in terms of ‘bad’ stats, and then in terms of ‘good’ stats (and the ‘good’ doesn’t include the RSPCA, surprise!). They posted, “The UK leaves Australian animal shelters for dead” and “‘Pit bull’ hype still rules aussie media“.

PetRescue posted on Aussie Working Cats.

Greyhound racing euthanasia rates slammed.

If you’re needing to purchase some Christmas Cards, these fetching options are quite divine! AND proceeds go to rescue. A win/win situation.

This one was a front runner for the Tweet of the Week, because I very much agree. Deb Hipp asks, “D0 pet adoption contracts go too far?” Or, in other words, are we being too fussy with the homes rescue animals go to?

From the KC Dog Blog, Brett Toellner talks about the KC Pet Project statistics in September (after taking over a shelter, with the aim to make it ‘no-kill’).

Australian Rescue and Rehoming Resource.

Nathan Winograd talks about ‘Toothless’ the cat, who was ‘oops’ killed by a shelter.

Dog Science

Dogs that chase their tails may have OCD.

Shelter dog aggression study.

Puppies don’t pick up on yawns: Dogs, like humans, show a gradual development of susceptibility to contagious yawning. (Interesting as I’ve noted previously: puppies yawn in stress!)

Cheese and dogs and pills to kill mosquitoes. (Only a little bit about dogs, but the other stuff is good, too!)

Dog Training and Behaviour

Do it yourself nail trims.

Teaching a puppy to sit.

Our favorite, useful everyday cues from Team Unruly.

I tweeted two posts by trainer Denise Fenzi. One was on “Maintaining a positive attitude while ‘correcting’ a dog” and “Play (and a shameless advertising).”