My personal bodyguard

I’ve always had this dream (and it is likely to remain so) of having a big tiger (yes, those real orange-coloured ones that you find in the jungles of Malaysia) as a pet. One whom I could take for walks without a leash and who would walk beside me, and I won’t even have to lock the doors at night because my pet tiger would be on guard. 


But…of course, that isn’t possible in this lifetime since I have no plans of migrating to live in the jungle.


Little did I know I actually already have a smaller version of my dream-come-true…

Yes, this is my personal bodyguard, and coincidentally, he is called Tiger, too.

This morning, since it’s a public holiday, I thought I should go for a walk around the neighbourhood, something I have not done for a long, long time. As I headed out down the road, Indy and Pole followed. I know they would usually do this, but they would stop after a few houses. 


But as I reached the end of the road, Tiger came trotting after me, and he was meowing very loudly. I knew he was trying to get me to come home as that’s about as far as the cats would go. Beyond that point, it is already considered crossing into enemy territory, and one may not be safe anymore. So, Tiger meowed and meowed for me to return.  


I had no choice. I couldn’t let him worry, so I turned back and we both walked back to the house. No, actually, we FOUR walked back – Tiger, Pole, Indy and me.


Then, I thought maybe I could sneak off up the road instead when Tiger’s not looking.  


So I tried….


No way…I could not get away with this either.  


Tiger came trotting after me, this time with Indy and Pole as well, so three cats came after me, urging me with meows to get home and not cross the boundary.


I just had to turn around and go home with them.  


I mean, HOW could anyone disappoint these sweet little things, right?


I guess just as we create boundaries for their safety, they also do that for us.  


Just as we impose our rules on them (for their own good), they also do that for us (for our own good), and we just have to respect and appreciate them for it.

My son took this photo this afternoon when I was dead tired and had plonked on the floor for a nap. I didn’t know Cow, Tiger and Bobby had joined me too! Notice that Tiger is on guard and not sleeping.

P.S. Cow was in a cranky mood this afternoon and bit Ming-Yi real hard on the hand. It bled in spurts. I had to take her for a tetanus jab! Now, Cow is feeling real bad about it and he is camping outside Ming-Yi’s door, meowing softly.  

Life is never boring….

Pole gets the pink box

Pole is really fighting her way back into the house, I think….(I hope!)

 She took over the pink box tonight…

 Bunny has to take a tshirt box.

As tough as he looks, Bunny is a real….bunny.

And when one learns to give and take,
there will be peace on earth and goodwill to all cats!

Goodnight, folks!

Pole fights back

Last night, after what I thought would be a peaceful night where Pole had taken one of the tshirt boxes as her bed, there was an “episode” in the room.  It happened too fast to be caught on camera, though.


So, there was Pole, sleeping peacefully in the tshirt box while Bunny was on his pink box, as usual, both in the same room. 

No issue with that. 


Cow came in and wondered why Pole, of all people, was in the room, so he neared the box to look and check if it was really Pole.


Pole got up and hissed. Then she growled. Real fiercely.


Before I knew it, Bunny, poor thing, was so afraid, he jumped off his pink box and ran out for his life!


He was so scared, he slept out in the porch all night.  

 Pole, after the hissing and growling episode last night.
Nobody’s taking my tshirt box away from me!

This morning, all was well again….

 Bunny was back for breakfast as usual. Raw chicken followed by kibbles.

 But on the way out after breakfast, Bunny decided to take it out on poor Indy.

There was a stand-off, which we humans intercepted. Note Indy’s fluffed-up tail.

Indy ran upstairs to hide and Bunny ran out of the house.

Sorry, but did I start this?

No, Cow, not you. Don’t worry…

Er….did I miss anything?

And with that, we wish you all “Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin” and may there be peace on earth!
(Since there can be peace even in the animal kingdom!)

P.S. Later, my son said he saw Indy carrying a squirrel all the way from upstairs and he ran out the window downstairs. I know only female cats hunt. Maybe Indy found the squirrel from somewhere and he wanted to take it back out to the garden? We won’t know….

Reunion with Christian, the lion (guaranteed to make you smile)

Here’s another heart-warming reunion story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=FZ-bJFVJ2P0

Watch how Christian runs into his caregivers’ arms.
Absolutely priceless!!

Wildlife conservation is a different ballgame altogether – it is acclimatizing the animal back to nature, where he belongs. There is no need for spay-neuter or “training” of any kind.  


It is REALLY back to nature, where animals truly belong.  


In my next life, I’d like to be that jungle-man who lives with the lions!  

Yes, this man.


Small cats this life. 
Big cats next life….

Man reunites with gorilla he raised (guaranteed happy story)

After all the sad youtubes today, I owe you this.


If only our ancestors had not domesticated animals as pets, we would be doing this kind of work now…http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=FZ-bJFVJ2P0
(It’s a happy story of how Damian Aspinall reunites with a gorilla he raised.)


Aeons ago, our ancestors domesticated animals as their companions and made a covenant with them – Come and be our companions, we’ll look after you for life. The animals agreed and all was well….for a while.  


Then, our later ancestors destroyed the earth by building concrete jungles, and some of them discarded these animals when they no longer wanted them as companions anymore as the animals kept breeding uncontrollably and our ancestors could not cope with it.  


The animals kept their part of the covenant and remained loyal, but the humans did not. 


And so, we pick up the pieces left by our ancestors and we have to look after the strays who live amongst us now.  


Else, we’ll be looking after gorillas….wouldn’t that be fun?  

This is why we must take care of ourselves

…so that our loyal companions do not suffer.  


Warning – all of these video clips WILL make you cry. If they don’t, you’re probably not human or animal! I cannot even survive till the end for half of them.  


http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v;=7zv7UGs8pRg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjd4-Hixxw&feature;=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46AR-e7WE6k&feature;=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgIBS-ojy_4&feature;=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqp4NuzO7U4&feature;=related

And there are so, so many more real-life stories of the unconditional loyalty of our companion animals.   

The moral of the stories here is this: We have to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our loyal companions and they do not have to suffer not knowing why we have died.  They do not understand, but we do.  

The story of the Silver Spring Monkeys

Besides guinea pigs, rabbits, dogs and cats, monkeys are also widely used for animal-testing. I overheard the other day that there is even a monkey farm in Sabah where monkeys are bred to be used in animal-testing.  


I sometimes post news from PETA but it does not mean I fully support what PETA does. Just as with most big organisations, there are bound to be things they do that cannot please everyone. Some organisations even have skeletons in the cupboard which cannot see the light of day.  


So, news is just news. Posting news from any organisation does not mean I fully support everything that they do. I prefer to take the standpoint where no one organisation (as with people, too) is perfect. Can we take the good, learn from it and discard the bad?  Can we applaud them for the good that they do and yes, critique them for the bad (provided we can do better, that is).  


So, here’s news about how PETA started their fight against animal-testing 30 years ago: 
In the summer of 1981, one of PETA’s founders, a student named Alex Pacheco, set out to gain some experience in a laboratory and began working undercover at the Institute for Behavioral Research (IBR). IBR was a federally funded laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, run by psychologist and animal experimenter Edward Taub, a man with no medical training. There, Pacheco found 17 monkeys living in tiny wire cages that were caked with years of accumulated feces. A rotting stench permeated the air of the cramped, dungeon-like room, and urine and rust encrusted every surface. The monkeys were subjected to debilitating surgeries in which their spinal nerves were severed, rendering one or more of their limbs useless. Through the use of electric shock, food deprivation, and other methods, the monkeys were forced to try to regain the use of their impaired limbs or go without food. In one experiment, monkeys were kept immobile in a dark chamber made out of a converted refrigerator and then repeatedly shocked until they finally used their disabled arm. The inside of the refrigerator was covered with blood. In another experiment, monkeys were strapped into a crude restraint chair—their waist, ankles, wrists, and neck held in place with packing tape—and pliers were latched as tightly as possible onto their  skin, including onto their testicles. The trauma of the monkeys’ imprisonment and treatment was so severe that many of them had ripped at their own flesh, and they had lost many of their fingers from catching them in the rusted, jagged cage bars. Workers often neglected to feed the monkeys, and the animals would desperately pick through the waste beneath their cages to find something to eat. PETA gathered meticulous log notes detailing what was happening inside IBR and secretly photographed the crippled monkeys and their horrendous living conditions. Then, after lining up expert witnesses and showing them around the laboratory at night, PETA took the evidence to the police—and an intense, decade-long battle for custody of the monkeys ensued. This groundbreaking investigation led to the nation’s first arrest and criminal conviction of an animal experimenter for cruelty to animals, the first confiscation of abused animals from a laboratory, and the first U.S. Supreme Court victory for animals used in experiments. It even led to landmark additions to the Animal Welfare Act—and unrelenting public scrutiny of the abuse that animals endure in experimentation. PETA has scored many victories for animals in laboratories since the landmark Silver Spring monkeys case, but tragically, experiments like this still go on. You can help by asking your congressional representatives to divert public money from cruel animal experiments into promising, lifesaving, and relevant clinical and non-animal research.

Please take a look at the photos (yes, it will tear your heart out, but perhaps after looking at the pictures, you’d join me in encouraging people not to support products that have been tested on animals): http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/the-silver-spring-monkeys.aspx?c=weekly_enews  

Animal-testing is cruel, selfish and unnecessary. It is, in fact, a waste of money and resources because we are biologically different from animals and the results cannot be transferred to humans.  
I have studied the question of vivisection for thirty-five years and am convinced that experiments on living animals are leading medicine further and further from the real cure of the patient. I know of no instance of animal experiment that has been necessary for the advancement of medical science; still less do I know of any animal experiment that could conceivably be necessary to save human life.  – H. Fergie Woods, M.D.  

Consider the following facts taken from 

http://whitecoatwelfare.org/aat-text.shtml:

1. Penicillin kills cats and guinea pigs but has saved many human lives. 

2. Arsenic is not poisonous to rats, mice and sheep but is deadly to humans. 

3. Morphine is a sedative for humans but a stimulant for cats, goats and horses. 

4. Digitalis dangerously raises blood pressure in dogs but continues to save countless cardiac human patients by lowering heart rate. 

I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence. – Mahatma Gandhi. 

Animal experiments confuse the issues and their results will never have scientific precision. There is absolutely no connection between vivisection and human health. The general belief in the value of animal experimentation is the result of brainwashing that the public has been submitted to for a long time. Behind it are the pharmaceutical industries, which spend fortunes on publicity and finance the research institutes and the universities – Arie Brecher, M.D. 

I had bought two male chimps from a primate colony in Holland. They lived next to each other in separate cages for several months before I used one as a heart donor. When we put him to sleep in his cage in preparation for the operation, he chattered and cried incessantly. We attached no significance to this, but it must have made a great impression on his companion, for when removed the body to the operating room, the other chip wept bitterly and was inconsolable for days. The incident made a deep impression on me. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures. – Christiaan Barnard, first surgeon to perform the heart transplant from human to human. 

Now, let’s get down to real practice and not just talk: 

1. Household products – support Amway (I’m not a member, but I buy and use their products to support their no animal-testing policy). Google for other companies, there are many. You can also get such products from the organic shops. Enzyme products are readily available these days. 

2. Medicine – As far as possible, I subscribe to Hippocrates’ “Let food by thy medicine”. Go natural, as far as possible. Go herbal (with informed knowledge). Some natural supplements are not tested on animals. 

3. Cosmetics – If you have to use, support companies like Body Shop, etc. Better still, don’t use. Grow old gracefully because that’s how it is supposed to be. You don’t need cosmetics to look pretty. Beauty comes from the heart. 

4. Soap – I use Orifera’s Coconut Soap. It is not tested on animals. It is also not expensive. 

5. Shampoo – I use Radiant or any enzyme product sold in the organic shops. They are all cheaper than the usual commercial shampoos which contain SLS. 

6. Toothpaste – I use Greenzhi toothpaste or any vegetarian toothpaste. There are many herbal ones that are not tested on animals. 

I am a minimalist. This is the stuff you’ll see in my bathroom.

Product check: 

http://www.peta.org/living/beauty-and-personal-care/companies/default.aspx  

Spare the monkeys, guinea pigs, dogs, cats and rabbits. They should not be made to suffer for humans’ selfishness.

There is hope yet…

Sometimes, in the midst of having so much to do, more so, in dealing with all kinds of humans, especially those who like to make life so complicated, those who back-stab, those who only think of themselves, it helps to find the meaning of life by going back to basics.


And what are the basics that we need in order to survive?


I think it is kindness. 


That’s all?


Yes, I like to keep things simple. That’s all.


Here are two photos I’d like to share with you.

This photo was taken by my friend, Mr Poon, on his previous trip to India. He was so touched when he saw this bag-person feeding the dog. Apparently, in India, the stray animals are very well-fed. 

Source: http://mettarefuge.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/a-buddhist-prayer-for-the-well-being-and-happiness-of-all-beings/


With this, I reaffirm that the goodness in humans still exist.  


So, yes, there is hope yet.


The simpler we make our life, the purer it becomes.  


Forget race, forget religion, forget colour, forget species – we are ONE. 
And our purpose in life is to help each other.   

Are you wearing dog leather?

This is from PETA:

Where does the leather for purses, shoes, and belts come from?

Many of us may think that we know the answer but don’t know what animal the skin was taken from — or how that animal suffered. 

The truth is quite disturbing. Undercover investigators have provided PETA with horrifying photographs of dogs in Thailand as they were being slaughtered so that their skins could be tanned for leather. The photographs show terrified dogs sitting in crowded cages, awaiting their own violent death as other dogs are killed right in front of them. The skins ripped off their bodies will join those of other animals at leather auctions or go to private dealers to be sold by wholesalers throughout Asia who feed the global leather trade. Will they end up as a leather belt or a furry cat toy in a store near you?  

PETA’s eye-opening campaigns are helping people all around the world to see that the only individuals who should wear animal skins are the animals themselves! Please send a gift today to support PETA’s work to stop the skins trade and to stop animals from being killed for clothing and other products.  

Many believe that leather comes from cattle and calves in the U.S., a “coproduct” of the hideous and well-documented abuses in the meat industry. But the skins used in some leather products come from animals some would never suspect could have been slaughtered to manufacture a belt, a pair of gloves, or a leather trinket. From zebras and kangaroos to snakes and even dogs, the majority of the skin sold to the U.S. comes from developing countries throughout Asia.  

PETA is leading the fight to save animals’ skins—from old Indian bullocks whose skin is worth far more than their meager flesh to dogs strung up in the jungles of Thailand.

There’s no justification for sentencing an animal to even a moment’s suffering for a pair of shoes or a wallet. And with your help, we will work to ensure that everyone connected to the bloody skins trade — from the wholesalers who peddle the skins of abused animals to the designers who are still buying and promoting fashion products made from skins — is aware of the terrible harm inflicted on animals for leather goods.

There are a few ways to help curb this practice:

1.  Do not wear or use leather. The killing will not stop until the buying stops. (I wear sneakers to work and I don’t have leather furniture. My car seat is fabric. Buy good fitting pants so that you do not need to wear a belt.)
2.  Educate others about it through information and gentle persuasion.
3.  Donate to any creditable NGOs that are actively and genuinely doing something to curb these practices.
4.  Google for pictures, show the horrendous photos on your facebook or blog and use the shock treatment to get the point across? 

Atrocious delicacies in China

Whenever there is atrocious news about food, it always seems to come from China.


A friend sent me photos (which I shall not reproduce here, because it took me two days before I dared look at the photos – you can probably google for them if you do a word search on “waxed dogs and cats in China”).


Yes, apparently, the Chinese in China capture dogs and cats, wax them and sell them as “delicacies” and the Chinese consumers eat them.


The photos are….very heart-wrenching, more so, to dog- and cat- lovers because they are all puppies and kittens. Yes, all baby animals.


We already know some Chinese eat dogs and cats (I hear there are even such restaurants in Puchong and other parts of KL though they are “underground”). There are more on mainland China as it’s done openly. A friend told me there is even a village in China whose specialty was cat noodles – he visited the place and being a meat-eater, he had no qualms in savouring the special noodle AND telling me about it later as he was slightly sadistic and enjoyed making me squirm.


Someone once lost her precious pet-dog and after futile searching and not being able to find the dog, but yet, the family wanted closure, she actually went to all the underground dog-restaurants she could find with a photo of her dog and asked if they had received any such dog. I cannot even begin to imagine the anxiety and pain she must have gone through in doing that. I hear she finally found her dog, safe and sound, and I cried tears of joy just reading the news. 


So, we come back to this story of Chinese in China waxing dogs and cats as delicacies or even Chinese anywhere in the world (maybe other races too, I don’t know) eating dogs and cats.


My vet would say, “okay, so we cry foul, but what about those who eat chickens, cows, goats, pigs, rabbits, etc., isn’t it the same?”


He’s right, you know.  


Some animal lovers claim that they love animals, yet some animals are called “pets” while others are called “food”.  


Once, I was looking for a vet for someone’s pet chicken and I rang several vets to ask if they could treat the chicken. One vet laughed and said, “No, I don’t treat them, I eat them!”


The final analysis here is that it’s sad when one is born an animal, isn’t it?  


Watch out for my next book, please – it’s being typeset now. It’s called “Do we have a choice?”. It encourages the reader to reduce her meat intake. Every bit of meat that we remove from our diet helps save some animals from being slaughtered. A meat-eater, on the average, would end up eating 11,000 animals in one lifetime, whether it’s pigs, cows, goats, chickens, rabbits, dogs or cats. That’s indirectly causing 11,000 deaths and untold suffering in the factory farms and fear under the knife.  


Let these animals not die in vain, let’s reflect upon their suffering for a moment now, see their pain with our hearts, and let’s go veggie this lunch, shall we? In Singapore, I hear many university students adopt a Veggie Thursday.  


Then, we can at least say, “Yes, I love animals, I even go veggie once a week (or several times a week), that’s how much I love them. I’m willing to sacrifice the pleasures of my tongue for their sake!”


An elderly couple once attended one of my talks, I don’t know what I said in that talk, but after that, they both decided to drop meat entirely from their diet and the husband wrote to tell me and thank me. I must have said something right….I wish I knew what it was!

Go veggie once a week!

Better health to you!