PETS BANNED IN RIYAD - People Who Hurt Pets Hurt People
It’s a well-known fact that a very large percentage of people who end up doing heinous things to other people started out on animals. A very accurate measure of a person, male or female, can be construed by how they relate to pets and animals.
In my experiences dealing with animals through my business I have found there are basically three kinds of people when it comes to relating to animals.
1 The person who loves animals.
2 The person who is afraid of animals
3 The person who ignores animals
I give a person who loves animals much more credence because they love animals even if I donn’t particularly like them. If the same person was afraid of animals I don’t necessarily hold it against them because I have seen people who were afraid of animals do a 180 once they met their soul mate animal. Many times they become animal activists. Like born again smokers.
It’s the third category – people who ignore animals that scare me. People who shoo dogs or cats away and treat them as chattels are the same people that you should take great care with because they’ll shoo you away too. I’ve learned this through my business dealings. If some one I’m dealing with ignores my dog and treats her like a pest we usually end up not doing business.
People who ignore animals and mistreat them will ignore and mistreat you -which brings me to the reason I’m writing this. An article in the Los Angeles Times with the headline:
PETS BANNED IN RIYAD.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice want to ban the sale of dogs and cats as pets (what else do you use them for a comes to mind immediately –but that’s another article) and arrest people for walking their pets with penalties of fines and confiscation of the pet. They’re afraid men are using them to make passes at women and pester people – which is really stupid because men always make passes at women and pester people.
The whole country of Saudi Arabia or at the very least The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice falls into the category of people who ignore animals. That’s the scary category. Maybe we should look at the Saudi’s a tad more carefully. I just don’t trust or like people who condone the mistreatment of animals – for any reason.
I personally was outraged by the article, which I think should have been on the front page instead of page six. It infuriates me anytime I learn of animal abuse especially animal abuse condoned on a national level. How would you like to be living there? As Count Floyd used to say, “Pretty scary kids!”
In gambling it’s called a “tell” and if you don’t read it properly you lose. It’s the same with the information in the Times article.
I know Saudi Arabia is our “partner” in the “war on terror” and a staunch friend of the current administration but think it would behoove us to remember:
People who hurt pets hurt people. That’s all.
The Greatest American Dog Blows It – Big Time
| Are the people at CBS who created Greatest American Dog off their medications – or on medication – or do they need medication?
How can you take a bulletproof concept like American Idol for DOGS and blow it so completely in such a short period of time without professional help? I mean we’re talking about DOGS here. There are over 60,000,000 dog owners in the United States alone who would probably go without food before they would let their dogs go without a meal. This is the country where people get death threats for abusing DOGS from the same people who couldn’t care less to what’s happening to people in Darfur. A country where people will do anything for DOGS – except watch the Greatest American Dog more than once. So tell me then, just how did the folks who came up with this reality show concept that should have been a no-brainer slam dunk (if you are a dog lover) lose touch with reality? Instead of making up all kinds of stupid (and I mean stupid) pet tricks for the competition why not include real categories along with the fluff? People would so connect to, for example, a DOG who made it back from fighting in the war in Iraq, or one of the search dogs from 9//11, or a therapy DOG who eases people’s pain and suffering. And last, but not least are the mutts. Most DOGS are mutts as are most people. Need I say more? All CBS had to do if they wanted to know what to look for in a Greatest American Dog contestant was watch Oprah and check out SkidBoot. It’s really too bad, CBS had a chance to create something lasting and beneficial to television, society and DOGS, but they couldn’t hear the barking for the popping of champagne corks. I wonder if the execs at CBS will still be popping them at the end of this DOG. Don’t think so. |
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Not The Greatest American Dog
I have to say that I was very disappointed after watching The Greatest American Dog – or rather, after watching about five minutes of the show.
I was hoping that someone in Hollywood had finally got it right vis-a vis creating a reality show based on animal content – dogs specifically. Once again it seems that people creating shows about animals have missed the boat by featuring the owners, not the dogs.
I was involved with a show on Lifetime with the same problem – the writers and/or producers seemed to have forgotten that a show called something like The Greatest American Dog should be about dogs – not the people who own them. Anyone tuning in to the show for the first time is doing so because they love dogs – not because they want see people they don’t care about trying to get famous through their dogs.
I also noticed that there didn’t seem to be any mutts involved – dogs or people. Beverly Hills all the way. There’s nothing wrong with Beverly Hills but I certainly think some other neighborhood might have been included. After all, it is called the Greatest American Dog and most dogs in America are mutts. The whole show was a mish-mosh of the worst of three or four other reality shows currently on air. Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of creative originality going on in Hollywood land these days.
Why the producers didn’t go to shelters for a contestant or include rescue dogs or guide dogs or war dogs or fire dogs or just plain dogs is a mystery to me. It seems like the people who created the Greatest American Dog didn’t really like dogs at all. I wonder if any of them actually own a dog.
I personally couldn’t have cared less about the human contestants - or the hosts for that matter. They were interchangeable with every other Hollywood reality show and boring from he start. I don’t think it was their fault, I think probably it was the direction of both the actors and the show.
The whole program reeked of corporate Hollywood. Those guys should get out in the real world a tad more. If you’re going to do a program about dogs – especially the Greatest American Dog – do a show about dogs. If you would like to see a great American Dog google Skid Boot.
CBS has a chance to do some really good things for dogs and the network itself. All they need to do is get some people on the show that actually seem to like dogs as opposed hanging around the swimming pool swirling champagne. Maybe it’ll pick up, but I doubt it. It’s very hard to screw up something that is canine based, but I’m sorry to say I believe the Greatest American Dog has achieved that distinction.
It’s really too bad. The only thing missing on the Greatest American Dog were the dogs.
Koko - famous gorilla who understands English helps produce music CD about herself
July 19, 2008 by Skip
Filed under Koko - Fine Animal Gorilla
Laurel Canyon Music Company together with famous gorilla Koko who understands English and communicates through the use of a variant of American Sign Language have produced a music CD.
When we first contacted the Gorilla Foundation, they told us that it was too bad, but Koko didn’t particularly like music so we shouldn’t too feel bad if she wasn’t interested. It probably wasn’t personal. After all, she didn’t like Sting or Paul McCartney so why should she like what we were doing.We used all the information about Koko that we had gotten from Dr. Patterson to create the content for our first song – Koko - Fine Animal Gorilla (Koko’s name for herself). It was a soft rap song using a mellow female voice.
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Koko - Fine Animal
Koko is the only gorilla in the world who communicates using a varient of ASL. The Gorilla foundation is the only organization dedicated to understanding and saving the endangered Lowland Gorilla. |
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When we sent a rough mix to the Foundation we received a call the day after the CD arrived telling us for the first time Koko loved the music. We personally think it was because almost every word in every song was about something Koko was very familiar with. From her scary alligator plush toy, her trip to Maui, to her two favorite games – tickling and the game of chase.
Our process was to create a song and then sent it to the Gorilla foundation so that Koko could listen and approve or disapprove each song. Since Koko understands English perfectly she knew what we were writing about and sometimes didn’t like what we were writing so we had to change lyrics several times.
Koko became our co-producer. It was really cool. It was like Close Encounters of the Third Kind — for real. We were communicating with another species using computers and music.
Interspecies communication.
We finished the CD – with Koko’s approval of course.
We were planning to release Koko’s CD in due time so we could prepare a publicity campaign but it didn’t work out exactly as we planned. A reporter for the San Mateo County Times called the Gorilla Foundation to check up on anything new that was happening with Koko – like I said earlier she is very famous, especially in the San Francisco area. (She was born on the 4th of July at the San Francisco Zoo.) Someone at the Foundation told the reporter about Koko’s new CD and our carefully timed publicity campaign flew right out the window. The next morning the headlines on the front page of the San Mateo County Times read
LOOK OUT BRITTANY — KOKO’S GOING POP!
The Gorilla was out of the bag – and that’s another story.
Cockatoo finds love through Pet Psychic
The Cockatoo’s name was Nomad and he didn’t like it – unfortunately no one knew it until pet psychic/intuitive communicator Dr. Kim Ogden got involved. If I hadn’t seen it myself I wouldn’t have believed it.
I signed a parrot to my record label and brought her into the studio to record. In the process I became quite attached to the double yellowhead Amazon parrot. At that time we weren’t using pet psychics to help us involve animals in the creative process. A year later we were. We produced an album for dogs with pet psychic/intuitive animal communicator Dr. Kim Ogden.
We brought Dr. Ogden to Los Angeles to conduct a focus group of dogs for the CD. Since Kim was in town I thought it would be very interesting to see what Carla (our parrot) thought about the recording session so I asked Dr. Kim if she would talk to Carla and ask her what she thought.
When we got to Laurie’s (Carla’s guardian) Dr. Kim was ready to talk with Carla but Laurie (who also rescues parrots) asked Kim if she would talk to one of her other birds before she talked to Carla.
The bird’s name was Nomad and he was a beautiful white Cockatoo. Apparently Nomad had been upset for a while and was plucking out his feathers and exhibiting other self destructive tendencies. Laurie wanted to know if there was anything she could do to help resolve the problems. She had never used a pet psychic before so she was a tad skeptical about the whole pet psychic thing.
Dr. Kim consulted with Nomad for a few moments, then turned around and said, “He doesn’t like his name. He wants to be called Pete!”
We all chuckled and Laurie said that she would try it out as nothing else seemed to work and we all moved on to the reason we were there – to have our pet psychic find out what Carla thought about being a recording star.
Turned out that Carla enjoyed the recording session, thought I was a nice guy but that she could sing much better than me. Typical.
We hung out with the Carla and Laurie’s other birds and turtles and then said our good byes – not giving Nomad a second thought.
A week later I received this email from Laurie. As usual our pet psychic was right on the money.
Hi Skip -
When Kim was here she spent some time with my little white cockatoo. The
bird is ten years old and he’s had several owners. This bird is a talker,
and he has maybe a hundred words and phrases. His name has always been
“Nomad”, but he’s never once said “Nomad” for me or for any of his other
owners. (That’s okay with me because I never liked the name “Nomad”.)
This bird let Kim know that he wanted to be called “Pete”, so I’ve been
calling him “Pete” and “Sweet Pete”. Today, for the first time, he
said, “Hi, Pete”, “Hello, Pete”. He’s never said this before, and I was
amazed! I told him, “Your name is Pete!” He responded, “Baby Pete”. When I
told him, “You’re MY baby, Pete!”, he responded, “I love you”.
I’m thrilled! Please thank Kim for me. I’ve had a difficult time with this
little guy, and now I feel that I’m getting closer to him.
Carla says to tell you, “Hiiiiiiii, Chicken”.
Take good care.
–Lorrie
Much later, after observing many sessions and consultations with Dr. Ogden I learned that names play a very important part in an animal’s well being. Pet psychics – gotta love ‘em.