Dog the Bounty Hunter bails out Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage was released from a New Orleans police station yesterday after having his bail posted by Duane 'Dog' Chapman.

Gossip Cop reports that Chapman and his wife Beth, best known for starring in the popular A&E television series Dog: The Bounty Hunter, posted Cage's $11,000 release bond.

"My guy just walked out of the jail damn New Orleans 8 hours holy cow that's a lot of time to process one guy," Beth Chapman tweeted after the incident.

Cage was arrestedyesterday morning on charges of domestic abuse and disturbing the peace following a public argument with his wife Alice Kim in the city's French Quarter.
The Chapmans run a bail bonds company out of their home in Hawaii, and claim that they are able to bail anyone out of prison from any state.

Cage has yet to make an official statement regarding his arrest.

Watch Nicolas Cage in the trailer for his recent film Season of the Witch below.

Training, Training, Training

The number one question I am asked about training is group or private?  There is no "right" answer, it is a personal choice and it really depends on what you are looking to achieve with your dog.  For instance, if you are looking for basic training, you may find that classes are most cost effective and will serve your purpose, whereas, if you are looking to address aggression issues or something like that, a series of private sessions would be best as most classes do not get that specific.

I have a group class starting this Saturday for Basic Obedience and this is the first session in a very long time that I am having trouble filling it.  I had a handful of people interested, but quite a few pulled out at the last minute.  One sited because of rising gas prices and not wanting to drive additionally and another said they had some extra expenses they were not prepared for.  I guess I can just blame the state of the economy.

If any of you know of a person or people that have a dog that want to improve their skills or teach them the basics, please let them know about my class.  It is at 11am on Saturday's and it starts this weekend.  I promise it is entertaining and educational.

Children Riding Dogs

Yesterday Dogster had a posting about a Dear Abby letter concerning a child that had rode a family dog like a horse and now the dog possibly has life long injuries.  It is a sad story, the parents had let their son's friend come over to play, the friend didn't have a dog, he was excited by the family's lab.  The next thing the father knows he hears the friend say "Look, I'm riding your dog!"  He of course rushed in the room, but it was too late, he was already riding the lab around.  Though the father stopped it then, the days after proved to be very painful for the dog and he was unable to make it down the stairs in their house.  Three weeks of pain medication later, the dog is still getting worse and they now need X-rays or a MRI to find out what injury actually exists.

When I say this is a sad story, I mean all around sad.  It is most sad that a healthy lab went from being fine to being crippled in a matter a seconds because a bad decision.  Of course the little 9-year-old boy had no idea what he was doing, he was just having fun, but very sad that this wasn't prevented.  It is sad that no rules were ever set with the children to say this would not be an acceptable way to play with a dog.

Kids are kids, they need parents, guardians, adults or someone of authority to tell them right from wrong and when it comes to pets it all needs to be spelled out.  I understand from a child's perspective how it might be appealing to ride a dog, especially if we are talking about a giant breed, but this is just a horrible idea!  I also understand how some parents might think it is cute to let their child ride their dog, do a search on Youtube and you will see what I mean.  However, according to Cornell University Veterinarian Sarah Bassman: “Children riding on the back of their family dog is very dangerous for the animal, and the child, even if you have one of the giant breeds as your family pet. The muscles in a dog’s back are not strong enough and not designed to carry a passenger and could be damaged by this activity. We worry about muscle sprain and strain, vertebral subluxation, and disc-related problems. Lesser sprains and strains may need to be treated with pain medications or physical therapy while serious spinal injuries could lead to paralysis which may or may not be able to be surgically repaired.”

I hope you all have a chance to check out Dogster's original  post, it is listed below.  But more than anything, I hope you all take away something from this story and are able to protect your dogs from a tragic mistake like this.  If you allow children to interact with your dog, just make sure the rules of play are well spelled out, as clearly as possible, the difference between good play and bad play.

Listening To Your Dog

Over the weekend I learned some unfortunate news.  A dog that I have known and loved for quite some time has been diagnosed with cancer.  I am not going to disclose the name of the dog or family, I am sure they would rather face this in private.  You may then ask why I am blogging about it at all?  The reason is because the other dog in the household told the owner long before there was even a sign to check out at the vet.

Apparently two months ago the second dog in the household started to avoid our sweet guy.  The owners couldn't figure out why.  As time when on he started to become ill and they went to the vet and he was diagnosed at that time.  Of course in hind sight it is easy to piece together everything, but how could you in the moment?  The lesson I think for everyone is to listen to what your dogs are telling you.  They talk to us everyday in multiple ways, we just have to listen.  I realize this is easier said than done in our busy lives, but try to stop and observe what they might be saying, you never know what they could know that you don't.

I know that all the positive energy in the world cannot heal this dear dog, but we can all will him to be comfortable and happy for his remaining days.  So I ask everyone that reads this blog send some good energy towards this dog.  He really is a sweet and amazing guy with such personality and love.

Sleep Walking Dog

How many of you have watched your dog sleep and dream?  I find this to be rather entertaining if you have a dog that is active during sleep.  My dog has dreams that lead to him sometimes barking or running.  He has never got up on his feet and actually ran around, but a couple of times I thought he might.

I was telling a friend about this and they sent me this video, I thought it was perfect for a Friday.  It is a little bit of fun to get your weekend started.

Kids With Dogs Are More Active

I read in K9 Magazine Online about a small research that was done at the University of Minnesota to focus on the physical effects dogs have on kids.  The research was simple, they had 618 kids ranging between the ages of 12-16 years old wear accelerometers for a week to measure their physical activity. Half the families of the kids had dogs and half did not. 

I'm sure it is not that big of a surprise to know that the kids in families with dogs got more exercise.  The surprise to me was that the numbers were not that far apart.  The kids with dogs averaged 32.1 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day, whereas the kids without dogs averaged 29.5 minutes.  I would've thought the numbers would've been more wide spread.

The research is likely to be just the beginning of a larger study.  This was a simple research that focused on only one thing, the exercise a child gets by having a dog.  However, there are other researchers at other Universities that would like to take the research further because the research didn't take into account the size or breed of the dog, the safety of the neighborhoods where the families lived or the level of attachment the kids had to the pets. 

Whatever new research comes from this, it will be interesting to see all the additional benefits of having a dog besides the amazing amount of love they give us.

Japanese Movie ~ 10 Promises to My Dog

I know that it has been an awfully long time since I last updated my blog. Since my last post, The Myth, I have continued to watch movies and dramas but I guess that I just can't find the time to blog about them. It's either I watch, or I blog, not both, which makes me a bad owner of a movie blog.

Anyway, since The Myth, I have watched the following:

Korean movie - A Tale of Legendary Libido
Singaporean movie - Ah Long Pte. Ltd.
TVB drama - Moonlight Resonance
TVB drama - Heart of Greed
TVB drama - When A Dog Loves A Cat
Japanese movie - 10 Promises To My Dog


As you probably know from the title of this post, I am reviewing 10 Promises To My Dog, Inu to Watashi no 10 no Yakusoku. However, I will not go about telling what this movie is all about as you probably have already read about it online but let me just say that this movie has a very weak storyline, very tame and the only thing nice about it is the golden retriever, Socks.


Sure, it touches on the theme that many pet owners, particularly dog owners, could relate to but I feel that this story has just scratched the surface of a owner - pet relationship. The only scene where I felt emotionally involved in the movie was when Socks died (of old age) and I guess that's because as a dog lover and owner, I have experienced one too many times of canine death in various tragic circumstances to boot.


The basic plot of 10 Promises To My Dog is about how “life” came between Akira, the 14-year-old girl who promised to keep Socks no matter what, and Socks, her loyal companion. After ten years, Akira has so many things going for her that Socks no longer plays a part in her life, and in fact, Akira even felt that Socks was hampering her lifestyle.


I think that people who love their pets would never think so. Pets are like family and in this case, Socks was a perfectly healthy dog and she has Saito, Akira’s father, when Akira’s busy living.


In any case, this movie is worth watching if you love dogs. Socks, the puppy, is extremely cute and as an adult dog, she is absolutely beautiful. I know all dog lovers would appreciate her elegance. I understand that some of Sock’s movements were computer generated but I think that we could overlook that. Overall, this movie is only for dog lovers.

Dog's Dinner Photos

When I was in cooking school in England and one of the chefs wanted you to know that you had presented them with something that was truly awful, they might have told you that it looked like "dog's dinner" (or maybe it was dog's breakfast...it has been a while....). Of course the kiss of death would have been that it tasted like dog's dinner.

I probably never actually heard one of our chefs say this to someone—we had a pretty nice and encouraging bunch of chefs at school.  The harsh world of the professional restaurant kitchen is a more likely place to come across such a phrase.  When you think about it, comparing the efforts of a budding chef to dog's dinner is a fairly strong insult. I mean, I don't know about your dog, but my dog eats some pretty disgusting things. I happen to have a beagle, and while I do think that beagles are the garbage collectors of the canine world, even a picky dog eats stuff that isn't all that appealing.

Morning walks with my dog are generally a contest between the two of us. Can she grab that half eaten hamburger before I see it? Can I wrestle the abandoned, and now rotten, hard cooked egg out of her jaws?  In the late winter and into spring her snack of choice is acorns. There are so many of them that I end up getting a sore shoulder from pulling on the leash as she races around behind me, snout to the ground like a vacuum cleaner, attempting to eat them all, every day. I recall reading in Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire that acorns are so bitter that they are nearly inedible. She goes after them as if they were ambrosia.

This time of year her food of choice is the locust. (Isn't that cool?—my dog eats seasonally too.)  She is driven to distraction by their buzzing. And since they are pretty large, they make a substantial snack. I think she is gaining weight. She goes after bumble bees too, but there aren't as many of them around. We have had a bumper crop of locusts this year. 

Her desire for these creatures is a mystery to me. Can they really taste that good? Or is it some other sensory kind of pleasure? A good friend of mine says her dog likes them too.  She has conjectured that locusts and bumble bees must be for a dog what a jalapeño popper is for a human. (Although, wanting to eat a jalapeño popper is a bit of a mystery to me too.)

Ever since the locusts have come into season, my dog is so excited to go for a walk. This has made me pretty happy.  She is getting older and I would have expected her to be less inclined to go for walks...and that the walks we went on would be shorter. Instead, as I lace up my shoes, she sits at the front door quivering with anticipation of the banquet to come. All through our recent heat wave, when even a younger dog might have been expected to drag a bit on a long walk, she has impatiently pulled me along, always on the hunt for the next locust. In the evenings she sits at the back door waiting to be let out into the yard to feast some more.

For people who read my blog to find recipes and cooking tips, I hope you don't mind today's post.  I wanted to take a moment to celebrate my dog and share some of the laughter and happiness that is added to my life by the companionship of a very special beagle. I love my dog.

But since this is a cooking blog, and I titled my post "Dog's Dinner", I should state the obvious—when I cook I am always striving to produce something that would never be compared to dog's dinner. But I also have to say that if the food that I prepare gives my family and friends even a fraction of the pleasure that my dog obviously feels when she has gotten a hold of something she considers to be a particular delicacy, then whatever I have prepared will have been a success—because to bring pleasure and joy is the best reason to cook.

Dogs that people dyed weird colors

Oh, the humiliation of being a dog. People wanna dress you up like a bumblebee, people wanna dye you colors nature never intended.

Yes, thank you Costume Dogs.com for contributing the following beautiful creation. And just for existing.







For real, it is NOT a panda. Real talk! Where could this ridiculous concoction have come from? Why, where else, but England's The Sun "newspaper!" (See My Dog's Actually a Panda.)

my dog is nervous to eat food what can i do

why does my dog eat grass

10 Promises to My Dog

10 promises to my dog, tells about friendship between Akari and golden retriever named Socks. This movie is wonderful, besides of the story which very touching, this movie also teach us to treat our pet well and always fulfill our promises.






Plot


Akari is a schoolgirl, she live with her mom and dad. One day, she found a puppy in her backyard, she immediately falling in love with the puppy and she names it Socks because of the white mark in the her paws. Akari's mother consents to her keeping the dog but only after she agrees to keep 10 Promises to Socks. But, because of some disease, Akari's mother die, and her dad must take care Akari alone.

When Akari getting older, she must left her hometown and also socks to work in the Zoo. She start feels her first romantic feeling to her childhood friend, Hoshi, and only think about herself and forget socks. Unconsciously Socks getting older too, she became weak. When Akari realize that, she feels guilty because treat Sock cold and not fulfill her promises to socks.

When socks's time comes, Akari come to look after Socks to complete her promises to Socks. Although Socks died, she still in Akari's heart.
Akari finally married to Hoshi.

10 pomises
1. Give me time to understand what you want of me
2. Place your trust in me. It's crucial to my well-being
3. Be aware that however you treat me, I'll never forget it
4. Before you scold me for being lazy, ask yourself if something might be bothering me
5. Talk to me sometimes. Even I don't understand you words, I do understand your voice when it's speaking to me
6. Remember, before you hit me, I have teeth that could hurt you, but that I choose not to bite you
7. Take care of me when i get old
8. You have your work, your entertainment, and your friends. I have only you
9. My life is likely to last 10 to 15 years. Any separation from you will be painful for me
10. Go with me on difficult journey. Everything is easier for me if you are there. Remember I love you..