My dear little Maltese, Tammy, died on Aug. 30th. She was just approaching 16 and had lived with me for 10 years. I had known her for 3 years before that because she belonged to a very good friend of mine. Always loving, always cheerful and at the end of her life, when she went completely blind, very courageous. I felt she was a lesson to me on how to live the best life possible with the deck we are handed when we come into this world.

Animals can teach us so much if we open our hearts and our minds to them and recognise that they are not 'things', not even pets but living creatures who have all the same feelings and emotions we do ourselves. Like us they are trapped in their physical bodies and the circumstances of their lives over which humans have complete power. To assume because of this that they are inferior and have nothing to teach us is quite wrong.

Even their shorter lifespan is a lesson for us in making the most of our time with loved ones while we are together and letting go graciously when the time comes.

I have seen ‘simple’ chooks display both intelligence and courage. A tiny Bantam hen standing up to a large dog, even to the death, in defence of her babies, is being anything but ‘chicken’. I once saw another hen with a clutch of chickens who was being pestered by a small boy wait till she saw he had his back to a brick wall before closing in and retaliating. She was too smart to waste her sharp pecks on his gum boots but directed them at his chubby knees.

A younger Bantam hen lived with a rooster and two more hens I had decided in my wisdom (or lack of) would be good companions for her. They were a self contained group who had been together since hatching, and they didn't want her. She ate alone, and slept by herself at the far end of the perch. Eventually I moved her to another run where the resident rooster was her clutch sibling. There was none of the usual disturbance when a fresh hen joins a group, the rooster welcomed her joyfully and she is now one very happy little hen. I learned something about family ties and memory in these so-called simple creatures.

Hens are not alone in being the victims of our patronizing attitude. We talk about “silly asses”, “stupid donkeys” and “stubborn mules”, not only about the animals but people who we believe are foolish. We more often than not call animals stupid when their intelligence exceeds our own!

Cats are not at all “catty” as we use the word. They do not gossip and say spiteful and hurtful things behind people’s backs, they are honest and up front.

We profess to love, almost revere, dogs calling them “Man’s Best Friend” and rely on them to do a wide range of very responsible tasks from guiding the blind, herding our flocks, assisting law enforcement officers and helping in dangerous rescue work. They give us companionship and unconditional love ungrudgingly, yet when we want to say something really denigrating about another person we call them either a bitch or a son of a bitch.

Most unfairly we refer to people unable to get on together as “fighting like cat and dog” yet the vast majority of cats and dogs sharing the same home do so far more amicably than many humans.
Pigs - forced to live appalling and unnatural lives have given us expressions like “Greedy pig”; “pigging out” and “living in a pigsty”.

If we say a person is “bovine” or “cow like” we mean lacking in intelligence and sensitivity. The list is endless and speaks more for the superiority complex we exhibit in our relationship with our animal friends than their shortcomings..
We need to revise our way of describing badly behaved people as “behaving like animals” and instead say that anti-social animals are “behaving like humans”!

Time to think before we speak- and remember we are the species lousing up the world for ourselves and the other creatures who share it with us.

But what has this to do with animals? A great deal for those who share our homes to the environment and the rest of the world.

Dogs and cats, just like us can be allergic to certain chemicals and can be made quite sick by them. By cleaning with safer alternatives we make a safer home for them to share with us. But - and here is the big plus - we are apt to overlook or forget entirely that pulling the plug in the sink or pouring stuff down the drain is NOT the end of it. Everything we use in the home eventually goes into the environment, into rivers and drains and at the end of the journey out to sea. This overload of chemicals from our super clean 21st. century homes is a serious health hazard to the animals, birds and reptiles, all the other life forms who call planet Earth home.

We are all very good at sitting back regarding the world around us, tut-tutting in horror and saying, 'But what can I do about it?' and assuming the answer is nothing. Wrong - we can all do something.

Read the labels on cans, jars and bottles, shop ethically. Do not buy products tested on animals or harvested with child labor or containing palm oil produced by destroying the habitat of many species, including orang-utans.

If you want a dog or a cat take one from a shelter, don't impulse buy from pet shops or off the Internet. These are two of the main outlets for the operators of puppy farms, keep your own backyard chooks or if that is impossible make sure you never buy eggs from hens kept in batteries.

If you want to learn more about ethical shopping go to www.ethical.org.au who produce an amazingly comprehensive pocket sized booklet called The Guide To Ethical Supermarket Shopping. Each one of us can make a difference.

This is Lily, glamour puss cover girl of THE POWER OF THE CAT, saved from infant death by Ingrid Arving of INGRID'S HAVEN - http://users.ssc.net.au/ingridshaven/, a shelter worthy of the name as it has a no kill policy. Thanks to Ingrid this exquisite little cat never knew her life could have been snuffed out before it began.

Having followed his guidelines for many years I agree with him. Raw meat and bones is the natural diet for all carnivores. At least I haven’t met one yet, dog, cat or ferret, that actually cooks its food before having a meal. When it comes to bones the raw is important, cooked bones splinter and can cause internal injury. Raw bones get chewed up and digested and in the chewing clean the teeth and clean teeth means a healthy cat or dog.

This is a great little book, very reasonably priced and available from www.rawmeatybones.com. Tom’s earlier book, RAW MEATY BONES is much larger and more in depth but of great interest not only to those concerned with giving their animals a healthy lifestyle but the many of us who care about the health of our fragile planet and are unhappy with the ever expanding tentacles of Big Business in the form of huge international conglomerates squeezing the life out of small business and ultimately out of us all. Nestles and Mars are just two examples. You may ask what this has to do with feeding our cats and dogs, after all most of us know enough n
ot to feed them coffee or chocolate, but how many realise that they are the biggest manufacturers of pet food in the world? Don’t be fooled by the great variety of brands in the pet food aisle of your local supermarket, almost all are owned by these giants and their aim is to make big bucks for the manufacturers and their share-holders, not to make your dog or cat the fittest on the block!

Almost all dogs will joyously embrace a change to a raw and natural diet, cats, notoriously conservative, can be a little more difficult, it may even be necessary to put those delectable raw chicken wings under the grill for a very brief period to fool them into thinking you are cooking them. Cats often have the strangest tastes, I have known cats who have loved oranges, nuts, and tomatoes. If you have a cat with bizarre taste buds tell us about it.

Thank you Ingrid for the wonderful comment on hens you put on the March blog. It was good to hear from someone who shares my love for these endearing, and very useful, creatures. Please – everyone – continue campaigning for a better and fairer deal for them. And continue to add your comments to the blog – it is your input that makes it interesting and lively.

The cruelty endured by Australia's 11 million battery hens knows no bounds. Denied sunshine, fresh air and freedom, they are treated like production units rather than living beings, crammed into barren cages with up to four other birds. These intelligent and social hens suffer painful leg injuries and have no quality of life, imprisoned for the sole purpose of producing eggs for human consumption. (Christine Townend)

It was the plight of battery hens that precipitated Christine Townend, founder of Animal Liberation in Australia into a life of working tirelessly for the betterment of all animals both in Australia and India. I have  loved hens all my life and agree wholeheartedly with Christine's words.
In the 1970s she campaigned again hens kept in batteries, four decades later hens are still kept in batteries but today at least people have a choice and can buy free range eggs in the stores.   But there is still a long way to go, sentencing any living creature to a short and miserable life in prison cannot be right. For more on this  and what you can do about it see www.AnimalsAustralia.org

CHRISTINE'S ARK, which is a biography of this remarkable Australian and the work she has done for animals is also available from this web site. It is an inspiring book guaranteed to  grab and keep the attention of anyone who cares about animals, published in 2006 by Macmillan the author is John little.

He had been in the shelter a month and had been sent there from VETS ALL NATURAL in  Castlemaine where he had been for 3 months. Taken there as a stray they de-sexed him, sure they would find a home for such a lovely  cat. Three  months later he was still there and they sent him up to Bendigo to the RSPCA.

Because he was already de-sexed and innoculated I could have him immediately. Within three days he and Merlin were the best of buddies, eating, sleeping and playing together and Tara was left in peace. I had indeed made a good choice. He has always got on well with the  dogs and is sweet and gentle with people; his  weakness  is a  fetish for rolled paper! Paper towels which have to be kept in the linen cupboard which he can't open, if he can get at these or a toilet roll  he will unravel an entire roll and spread it about the house. I wonder was this the reason such an exceptionally nice natured  cat was  homeless?

He is now the kind and  benevolent Alpha of my feline family. About the only person, human, canine or feline, accorded deference and respect by Lily, fiesty cover girl on  my book THE POWER OF THE CAT. He has a favorite chair and a look stops in their tracks any other cat who  thinks they might like to sit there and  removes any that he finds installed there. He never has to resort to paw to paw combat or  vocalize.

He lives up to his name, Solomon, a wise ruler, He is the cat in my arms on the About Ann page.  He is a very special and much loved cat and I am deeply grateful to all the wonderful  people  who sent him good wishes and healing thoughts in his recent brush with death.

For generations far more people have been saying the opposite; that other living creatures were no different from us. They had feelings, intelligence, emotions. For the most part these writers were not taken seriously, other than by those who knew they were right because they too had first hand experience of other beings who were capable of feeling love, often to a depth that put us to shame.

Those of us who wrote about meaningful communication with between humans and other species were put in the same box as those who claimed to have spoken to, or been abducted by, aliens from another planet.

Stacey O’Brien in her wonderful book WESLEY THE OWL has changed that with her account of her 19 year relationship with a Barn Owl she adopted at a few days old and lived in a close relationship until his death because she is a trained biologist

Stacey believes that we are on the cusp of a new understanding of animal communication and the depth of their emotions and that in decades to come we will see this time as one in which we emerged from the dark ages of misunderstanding. She cites Jane Goodall as one of the leaders in this new enlightenment who in her work with Chimps showed them to be thinking, feeling individual personalities.

As more and more people accept that animals are, indeed, just like us so there is a groundswell of movement among thinking and caring people that “Shelters” for homeless animals that kill so many inmates cannot be right or ethical nor worthy of the name shelter.

I have to admit that I had not thought very much about this until my wonderful Mr. Mistoffelees told me that he knew he was to be killed and I later found out that he was absolutely correct. It was the realization that this sensitive and intelligent cat knew this (as no doubt do all the other inmates of such places) that pushed me into writing THE POWER OF THE CAT. Stoffy’s ‘crime’ was that he had reached the age of 5 months without anyone offering him a home. He has changed my thinking completely. I am now totally opposed to the idea that killing is the way to deal with surplus (to our mind) dogs and cats. Where ‘No Kill’ policies have been introduced the result has been a reduction in the number of strays not an explosion in numbers.

We can all do our bit, speak up against this wholesale murder of sensitive sentient beings, do not buy puppies or kittens in pet shops or off the Internet, Consider opening your home to a mature or even elderly dog or cat (or other animal in need) and above all follow Stacey O’Brien’s example and accept that it is a commitment for the life of that animal.