The Moose, The Whole Moose and Nothing But the Moose

Sasha (left) and Moose (right) laying together as they often did. We lost Sasha in April 2013, her body just worn out after 17 years. Moose is still with us.

August 2001 I was beating the pavement looking for work. My wife and I had been involved in Cocker Spaniel rescue for several years now and were known by several shelters for this. My wife got a telephone call from the Associated Humane Society in Tinton Falls. The volunteer that actually made the call told my wife there was an ASCOB male cocker that was supposed to have been euthanized “three days ago” and she hoped she’d come over and “pull” the dog from the shelter. The shelter is within walking distance from the house so my wife went over to see “Scooby” as he was known at the shelter.

What she saw was definitely an ASCOB male cocker who was disheveled who cat a wary eye at my wife. Long story short she brought the dog to our home and put him in a crate while she left the house again to run some errands.

Somewhere in the timeline I got a call on my cell phone from my wife telling me about this dog. I got home and found the dog as far back in the crate as he could go giving me a suspicious eye as he lay there shivering.

I quickly determined that this boy needed special handling and I should not rush in and force myself on him. I opened the crate and sat on the floor sideways with respect to him and didn’t look at him directly.

Using my peripheral vision I watched as he slowly inched his way out of the crate sniffing as he went. He warily approached me sniffing and flinched a couple of times as if he was afraid I’d do something evil to him.

Slowly he got closer to me and finally with two paws on my lap he was sniffing my face. At that moment my wife and daughter came through the front door. The dog retreated back to the crate, I got up off the floor and fastened the door to the crate. My wife says to me at that point “Oh by the way: he doesn’t like men.”

From those beginnings a bond started to develop between “Scooby” and I and we quickly dispelled the notion that he didn’t like men. He started to look to me for comfort when he was uncomfortable or scared. I discovered if I looked at his face straight on and yawned it went a long way to comfort him. If I imitated his noises back to him he loved it. My finest discovery was when he was really nervous about something (kiddies don’t try this at home) pressing my face against his it really calmed him.

As part of our “pull” agreement with the shelter we had a free vet visit and since I was unemployed at the time we certainly were going to take advantage of it. Off to the TED (The Evil Docotr) we went. In this case TED turned out to be a good term for who this dog (now named Moose, I hated “Scooby” as a name) was about to meet. This was not their first encounter I was to find out.

The TED in question exclaimed as soon as she saw him “OH! I now HIM! He’s evil! He is aggressive!!” and she started swinging a muzzle at his face by the strap trying to snag it onto his nose.

Now dear readers, I can saw with certainty if someone was to swing something at my face trying to snag my nose with it I can certainly think of about a dozen hostile actions I might take to get them to stop. Moose was no different and in my mind his reaction was perfectly legit. He snarled ferociously and went after the TED with every intention of taking her out.

I scooped Moose up in my arms and held his head under my chin and calmed him. TED for her part screamed at me “don’t let him near your face he’ll bite you!” ”Shut the **** up! I know this dog better than you do.” was my reply.

That cemented our bond but it would still take the better part of a year before he would fully trust me. I found out later the poor boy had been place in homes and returned three times and he was only eighteen months old.

Now just as an aside, my wife and I originally had not intention of keeping Moose. He was to be a foster that we’d place in another home as soon as we found one. Spending a year rehabilitating a dog does something special. Moose and I were fast bonded and became inseparable.

That could have been the end of the story and could have ended with “and they lived happily ever after.” But that’s not the end of the story.

I am a diabetic. I had a period of time in my life where at night my blood sugars were dropping through the basement into the forties and thirties while I slept. I would not wake up on my own when this would happen. Very dangerous.

One night I woke up to the sensation of something pulling on my mustache. I opened my eyes and saw and felt this long nose up against mine. A pair of Cocker eyes staring me in the face. His expression unmistakably asked “you awake now?” I then felt the sensations that went along with hypoglycemia.

The first time it happened I shrugged it off as coincidence being the natural born skeptic that I am. The second, not so much. By the third and fourth times I knew I had something going here. I praised the daylights out of him and rewarded him for his service.

The worst incident happened on a Sunday morning. My wife and daughter and left the house without me (wife to an obedience trial, daughter to sing with the worship team at church) and I could not wake myself up.

Queue the beard pulling action. Moose was not taking “no” for an answer and seemed to insist I get up. This time instead of laying back down in the bed he followed me down to the kitchen and would not leave my side until I had take care of myself.

I tell this story to encourage others to rescue your best friend. There are many dogs in shelters looking for homes. Moose has paid me back in spades for saving his life. Rescue dogs all do that, maybe not as spectacularly as Moose did.

His other “best friend” Sasha and he were constant companions. She went to the Rainbow Bridge a few months ago, her seventeen year old body just worn out.

Veterans Saluting

There I am attending a graduation ceremony. I’m sitting in the bleachers when the MC announces that the National Anthem is to be played and for everyone to stand.

This posting is not going to be a screed about all those that refuse to stand for the National Anthem and continue to talk, text, whatever as it plays.

What happened next is what I’m going to talk about. I stood up, assumed the position of attention faced the flag and rendered and held a hand salute.

There were two young ladies about two rows behind me that were still chatting away and had not even stood. One turned to the other and asked “how come he’s saluting and doesn’t have his hand over his heart?”

At that moment I found that somewhat amusing if not a bit hypocritical. They haven’t even stood up and their faulting me for my manner of showing respect for the National Anthem, our Flag and my country in general. Really?

Continue reading →

“Is that a 21 gun salute?”

I am the Captain of the Color Guard, Post 346 Neptune NJ, American Legion. As part of the duties of a Color Guard we render honors over the graves of the fallen during the Memorial Day season.

One of the common things I hear the practice called by folks that just don’t know any better is “a twenty one gun salute.” I’ve even heard folks that should know better call it that.

Well, it is not a twenty one gun salute. First off is the fact that the salute is being rendered by firearms, mostly rifles and occasionally shot guns.

In point of fact a salute rendered by a Honor Guard grave side is called a “three round volley.” Technically speaking a volley is multiple firearms being fired simultaneously.

So, what is a twenty one gun salute anyway and where did it come from?

Back in the days of sail a ship entering a foreign port would discharge its cannons towards the open sea discharging all their ammunition. This rendered the ship harmless in the eyes of those that governed the port and demonstrated peaceful intent. With the evolution of naval firepower that connection dissolved. In modern times a battery of twenty one howitzers (normally) fire one one shot at a time in a measured sequence to honor heads of state.

Where did the three round volley come from?

To find that out you have to go back to Roman times. At the end of a battle the dead were buried. A Roman officer would call the names of missing and presumed dead soldiers three times. If the soldier did not answer it was assumed he was dead and his name stricken from the rolls. During Napoleonic times during a battle a truce would be called to bury the dead and collect the wounded. When it was time to signal the end of a truce a three round volley was fired to signal the end of the truce.

Now you know…

Careful Who You Donate To

Let me start this by taking a small detour. Back in the 1990-2000 time frame the internet as we now know it was referred to by those of us using it in those days as “The Global Village.” Back then that was very true and we even had our share of village idiots.

By 1998 and possibly earlier I started referring to the Internet as the “Global Big City” as it no longer felt like a village at all. It seems there were prostitutes (porn sites) and muggers (trolls, spammers and hackers) everywhere and if you weren’t careful you’d pick up a disease (virus).

Now it would seem that has become the case even more. Ever get an email or a tweet or Facebook page enticing you to visit a web site and click as many times as you want and (fill in the blank) will be donated (fill in the pull your heart strings cause)? I know I have.

Animal rescue is a big hot button of mine. There are lots of very well deserving rescue charities out there who work very hard to perform the cause they represent. Dog rescue, cat rescue, horse rescue and you name it rescue.

Likewise diabetes research is a hot button of mine. As is supporting personal freedoms and so are the needs of special needs children. All of these are likely to attract my “good side” and receive my support in a manner that I can.

A few weeks ago on Twitter I started following what purported to be an animal rescue site. When I did I discovered much to my chagrin they had a website that promised “1.1 cups of food per click” if you clicked on their link.

I’ve always felt these were fishy. Where is the money coming from that is being used to purchase this food? Why 1.1 cups not 1 cup or 2 cups? This caused me to start digging and find out who was behind this website.

I won’t share the actual data that I gleaned during my investigation as I want to protect the identity of this outfit. I will however give you enough information to investigate other “causes” such as the one I am talking about.

whois is your friend

If you don’t have the utility “whois” installed on your computer fear not. There is a web site that has the whois utility on it called “DNS Stuff.” Whois is a method by which you can take a domain name and trace who the domain belongs to.

Here is an example pf tracking a domain down:

$ whois subdomain.domain.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

No match for "SUBDOMAIN.DOMAIN.COM".
>>> Last update of whois database: Mon, 06 May 2013 17:13:58 UTC <<<

(stuff snipped off)

Ok.. that didn’t work out, let’s drop the subdomain part of this:

$ whois domain.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

   Domain Name: DOMAIN.COM
   Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
   Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
   Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/
   Name Server: NS-A.PNAP.NET
   Name Server: NS-B.PNAP.NET
   Name Server: NS-C.PNAP.NET
   Name Server: NS-D.PNAP.NET
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Updated Date: 04-oct-2011
   Creation Date: 04-dec-1998
   Expiration Date: 03-dec-2013

>>> Last update of whois database: Mon, 06 May 2013 17:14:13 UTC <<<

(stuff snipped that consists of disclaimers by the registrar)

   Administrative Contact:
   Happy, Barry           admin@anotherdomain.com
   Fake Charity,LLC
   123 Main Street
   Suite 666
   Seattle, WA 98101
   US
   206 555-1212 fax: 206 555 2121

(more stuff deleted)

Having the company name for behind the name you now have a way to check them out. Here a Google search is all you need in this case.

In the case of the “charity” I was investigated I found several bits of information:

It was not a 501(whatever) charity at all but a “for profit” corporation. That means any money you send them is not tax deductible. It also means that some percentage of all proceeds go to the company owner(s).
The click through button presents advertisements (some are truly obnoxious and won’t let you leave once you click through) which is what generates revenue for the company.
You don’t have any control over where the monies go. If you read carefully the phrase used is “select charities” which means your well intentioned donation may be going to a charity that you don’t necessarily want to fund. (HSUS comes to mind for me)

Let me wrap this up by saying be very careful what tin cup you drop your money to. For all you know you are feeding someone’s crack habit.

Leggings as Pants? Are you kidding me?

Oh.. my!

Of all the fashion trends I’ve seen in my more than half century on this planet that has literally gotten my attention has been the whole leggings as pants fad. On an adult woman who is making a choice based on her maturity level and knows what she is doing I’m fine with that.

What’s got me boiling a little bit is this article in the Huffington Post about the backlash from parents over a ban of this particular fad by a Junior High School because they find them too darn distracting to young men in their school.

Right on I say.

Why? There is a wealth of difference between a young lady between the ages of say 12 years old and 14 years old and a lady 18 years old and older. There is also a world of difference between young men between the ages of 12 years old and 14 years old and young men over the age of 18, admittedly sometimes I am hard pressed to tell the difference in individual cases.

One mother is quoted as saying: ”Boys need to be taught to respect women no matter what they’re wearing, and that’s a big deal,” Well yes, but teaching someone restraint from overeating does not include making them live in a bakery.

I understand the desire of young ladies to emulate what they see older women wearing. The ages of junior high youngsters is fraught with raging hormones and self identity crises. It is a time for finding one’s place in the social hierarchy of life. I understand all that.

I also understand (especially with the raging hormones thing) that young men in that age bracket constantly think about the wonderful differences between young men and young women. With the media constantly bombarding these youngsters with messages about how wonder sexuality is they are anxious to experiment. Why make it worse?

To the mother who cites teaching young men to respect women I would counter that respect begins with yourself. Leaving little to the imagination with what you are wearing is not a great way to demonstrate self respect. (Again, if you eighteen plus, if you got it flaunt it.)

When I first read the article I was asking myself “where are the parents with this?” I was imagining (and I know this happens) the young ladies in question were dressing one way when they got up in the morning to pass muster with mom and then changing either on the way to school or once they got there.

I was unfortunately disappointed to discover that is not the case. At least for one mom.

Why Dog Rescue is so Needed

dog rescue nj Watching my Twitter feed this morning I saw this post:
Well, no kidding. The majority of the issues for dogs being euthanized in shelters is there are too many being turned in. The reason so many get turned in is because Fido is not being taught manners or what is expected of him in his home.

I have first hand experience with this having run a rescue I’ve heard the excuses. Most of the issues used as an excuse to turn a dog into rescue could have been solved if the dog had as a puppy been trained an socialized. Including biting. Dogs bite when they have exhausted all other means.

Classic example: An Australian Cattle Dog I took in as a foster was turned into rescue because “he’s biting the children.” Asked a few more questions and it turned out the puppy in question was nipping the children’s heels when they ran. ACDs are herding dogs. Nipping the heels of stock is how they do their job and is an instinctive reaction to something running away.

Here is what went wrong there:

Puppies and small children should never be unsupervised with each at the very least until the puppy has learned what acceptable behavior is.
Research the breed you are bringing into your home and make darn sure the breed’s personality and needs match your home situation and lifestyle.
Train your puppy. Training just means you are teaching the puppy what is expected of them.

Another scenario that breaks my heart every time I hear it is an older dog (8+ years) or even younger that get’s turned into a shelter or rescue because the owners suddenly realize how hard it is to take care of older dogs.

Bringing a dog into your life is a long term commitment. How’d you like it if your family had the option of turning you into a shelter where you’d be euthanized when they couldn’t find you a new home? Same applies to dogs.

Poltical Correctness Strikes Again!!

So here I’ve been a fan of Google for many years. Since their start really. I tend to be very loyal about those that I am a fan of so this is very difficult for me to come to terms with, but come to terms with it I will.
Here is, Easter Sunday, and there’s no mention of Easter on the Google search page. Instead the picture you see at the left. I put my mouse pointer over it and what shows in the tooltip is this is Ceasar Chavez. WTF?

Now if there’d been an Easter bunny, Easter egg, I’d have shrugged and said “oh well, that’s being politically correct for you.” Can’t offend anybody can we?

Well, dammit, I’m offended. As a practicing Christian I find the lack of mention of the most single important holiday of the year other than Christmas.

Approximately one third of the world are practicing Christians like myself, yet it would seem the thought police are only worried about offending everybody else.

So, Google.. WTF? Did you leave Easter off of your calendar? You’d rather pander to a political interest?

Maybe I should take a harder look at some of your competition. Maybe I made a bad decision being supportive of Android?

I think I have a lot of thinking to do here and so do a lot of other folks who are tired of the political correctness which is neither correct nor political.

New Blog of Mine

Announcing a new blog of mine which focuses on food, cooking and eating. Give it a look.

Happy Easter/Resurrection Sunday Everybody!

Our Lord and Savior has risen indeed. Let all of us remember the reason for this time. The Easter bunny ain’t it either…

Staying Informed about Politics. (or how to talk smart about your views)

politics
Some political discussions remind me of a State Farm Insurance advertisment where one person says something and the other answers “where’d you hear that from?” The answer is “the internet, they can’t post anything on the internet that isn’t true!”

One of my pet peeves about political discussions is the polarization of opinions that occurs. I hate extremist views of any stripe. The expression that comes to mind is “any truth taken to an extreme becomes error.” So it has become true in political discussion these days.

How to prevent this? Become more informed about the facts.

I was inspired to write this article because of this post in Lifehacker. I will reiterate some of the things said in that article:

“Go Back to Civics Class” — well not literally. Hoever brushing up on your understanding of how our government works is a great place to start on the journey to enlightenment. I’ve even googled various parts of our Constitution just to make sure I understand what it really says. I’m always amazed at how often it is misquoted.
“Study Multiple Viewpoints” — This is crucial in my mind. Knowing how both sides of an argument thinks is a great insight to have. Sometimes you might surprise yourself and change your mind about how you feel about an issue. Then again maybe not, it might strengthen your views.
“Take Emotion Out and Stick to the Facts” — I’m as guilty of this as anybody I get worked up real easy about some issues. So called “Separation of Church and State” being my biggest hot button, but I won’t go there right now. One of my favorite sources is Fact Check which is a bi-partisan resource for dispelling the many myths that float around. Another site is Snopes for that occasion when your email friends send you stuff that either sounds too good to be true or just sounds too convenient.
“Separate the person from the party” — In any political party there are the sycophants who toe the “party line” or take it to an extreme. Then there are the folks that are more centralist in their views. Those folks are worth separating from the party in your mind and dealing with as an individual. I’ve been known to vote for candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties because my perception of them is they are reasonable to deal with.
“Just don’t talk politics” — Unless I am particularly passionate about a topic, this is my normal mode of operation. And there are hot buttons for me. The operative phrase here is “sometimes it is better to say nothing and have others think you a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

So, read the Life Hacker article and think about it. I know you’ll be glad you did.

Musings of a Curmudgeon

Random thoughts and politcally incorrect thinking.