Unemployed? Become a vet "Vets are in "red-hot" demand and that students out of school have four or five job offers upon graduation." Oh, and you'd better love animals... [Seattle Times]

Weird: dogs use bathroom, man must go outside CA  In a twisted tale of elder abuse, a 91-year-old man's step-daughter married him, cleaned out his bank account and made him go outside for toliet duties while her rottweillers stayed inside:

"There were at least 100 dog feces in the back room where he showered," says Lauren Dills. "He had tried to shower that day but couldn't. The refrigerator was full of thick mold on the food, rotting, gross food." Wendi says she has no idea how her rottweilers got into the house during her absence. "It's a mystery what happened," she says. " . . . I didn't do anything wrong in not caring for him." ... [San Francisco Chronicle] (Yeah, right; no mystery here... the dogs were abused too; dogs need to go outside... ) More like this: Daily Rotten 

Animal First Aid Classes Offered Nationwide NY "Red Cross branches across America are offering pet owners courses in animal first aid, from treating nose bleeds to mouth-to-muzzle resuscitation..." Electronic Telegraph via news.AltaVista.com] Related: If your dog steps in a trap

Weird google searches: Every day somebody somewhere searches for variations on "humping dog" and they end up at Dog News... totally strange... There are even weblogs devoted to strange google searches... What's in your referrer logs? (don't worry, just the referring url gets recorded so who knows who you are)

Design your own Radioland theme: Paolo Valderman's store is open for US users, and it works like a charm; you go to the store, order it, and voila.... you have a license. I just spent the last four hours creating some custom icons for Dog News. His theme tool is supposed to be incredibly easy to use and if I succeed, then it definitely is.

You can also buy the RSS distiller and other tools, so you can take it easy while the distiller sorts through the news for you (I haven't bought it yet... probably should have done that first). If Dave Winer raves about it, it's gotta be really good.

I'm putting off redesigning the site until I  feel competent enough, ie, I've read the documentation and tutorial thoroughly. The last time I tried to applied a customized theme (slightly modified Transmitter by Bryan Bell), I crashed Dog News and was down for a day (now that's a newbie for you).  Lawrence saved my bacon, as usual (now that's service: I don't know how he does it; does he ever sleep? inquiring minds need to know. Does he have a life outside of Userland and Radioland.)  Lawrence says the "best place to watch for all updates is with the Radio.root updates RSS feed:" at http://static.userland.com/updatelogs/Radio.xml

Dogs and supernormal senses We know that dogs have supernormal hearing. But is it also possible that dogs can sense brain waves? Just what are the limits of a dog's senses; has science seriously investigated the outer limits of a dog's ability to perceive its environment? Several articles published recently illustrate the supernormal abilities of dogs to predict immediate events, via their supernormal senses:

Miracle dog aids seizure-ridden girl "Chrissie the dog barks before Sandy seizures. Then the dog pinches a nerve in her hand to stops the shaking." (the dog was never trained to do this.) [WSAZ.com]

Fido's getting a charge from the phone Perhaps some dogs bark right before the phone rings because they can sense the changes in the electrical field which occur just prior to the phone ringing... [Arizona Republic]

It is also known that dogs and other animals act strangely just prior to earthquakes. Dogs are arson investigators, termite detectors, USDA investigators, and even cancer detectors. Wouldn't it be a hoot if dogs could do even more...

Is it art or is it roadkill? Dead dogs in art exhibit  Chile "Animal rights activists in Chile are protesting against an artistic exhibition composed entirely of dead dogs. Antonio Becerro found the dogs dead on the streets of Santiago. He then stuffed them, painted on their fur and arranged them in different poses..." Becerro's hilarious dismissal of the animal rights activists protesting his art exhibition: "They are stupid and can get lost. It's not my problem that they can't think properly." What's next? painted dog poop? pictures of dog poop? stuffed dog turds? [www.Anova.com] 

Related: On road kill and flattened pets (Personally, I'd rather see an arty "road kill" exhibit than have road kill end up in my dog's food); God Father of Animal Rights Movement says baby killing okay

Dogs help disabled to reclaim normalcy "Billie used his teeth to clench a red rope that hung on the door handle of a refrigerator, pulled it open, grabbed a beer and handed it to a trainer. Then, again using his teeth, he handed over a telephone receiver....The two-year-old Labrador retriever strutted his stuff, demonstrating the skills he learned through the Liberty Dog Program at Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center." Inmates at the center train the dogs to work as guides for the disabled... [Green Bay Press Gazette] (Our dog's trainer, George Cockrell, has trained his own dog, Tug, to understand and obey a record-setting number of commands... )

Blind pup gets 'seeing eye dog' "A blind  puppy's sibling is acting as her guide dog so she doesn't get lost or injured when they're out walking." The blind puppy's littermate had already started acting as a guide for the pup before anyone realized it was blind. (If only people were so kind...) [Ananova Quirkies]

Dog Quotes "My neighbor has two dogs. One of them says to the other, "Woof!" The other replies, "Moo!" The dog is perplexed. "Moo? Why did you say, "Moo'?" The other dog says, "I'm trying to learn a foreign language."- Morey Amsterdam

The Top 20 Reasons Dogs Do Not Use Computers...Courtesy of www.TopFive.com

20. Can't stick their heads out of Windows XP, 98, 95, Lindows  or Linux.
19. Fetch command not available on all platforms.
18. Hard to read the monitor with your head cocked to one side.
17. Too difficult to "mark" every website they visit.
16. Can't help attacking the screen when they hear "You've Got Mail."
15. Fire hydrant icon is very frustrating.
14. Involuntary tail wagging is dead giveaway they're browsing www . pethouse.com instead of working.
13. Keep bruising noses trying to catch that MPEG Frisbee.
12. Not at all fooled by Chuckwagon Screen Saver.
11. Still trying to come up with an "emoticon" that signifies tail-wagging.
10. Oh, but they WILL... with the introduction of the Microsoft Opposable Thumb.
9. Three words: Carpal Paw Syndrome.
8. 'Cause dogs ain't GEEKS! Now, cats, on the other hand...
7. Barking in next cube keeps activating YOUR voice recognition software.
6. SmellU-SmellMe still in beta test.
5. SIT and STAY were hard enough, GREP and AWK are out of the question!
4. Saliva-coated mouse gets mighty difficult to maneuver.
3. Annoyed by lack of newsgroup, alt.pictures.master's.leg.
2. Butt-sniffing more direct and less deceiving than online chat rooms.

and the Number 1 Reason Dogs Do Not Use Computers...

1. TrO{gO DsA[M,bN HyAqR4tDc TgrOo TgYPmE WeIjTyH P;AzWqS,.*

"Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful." --Ann Landers

Police Dog cleared of racial profiling PA Yes, we are a litigious society; this case of a dog being accused of racial prejudice proves it. The case received mountains of press coverage when it was first presented. [ Vermont News via Moreover]

Dog people vs. cat people   Are dog people more loyal to their pets than cat people? Maybe... an informal poll seems to indicate that they are (perhaps not scientifically valid because the sampling of participants is self-selected). The study is revealing, however. "Dogs have owners; cats have staff," the saying goes. Perhaps that's why dog owners are more willing to spend large sums to save their pets. According to the latest Voice of Atlanta questionnaire, one in three dog owners would spend "whatever it took" on veterinary treatment to save their dogs. One in five cat owners made that claim..." [ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Google translates the web: useful and hilarious: If you have a news source in another language and you want to read it, you can and if you want to subscribe to that RSS news source in your own language, you can: thanks to Google, the god of web tools! It's useful enough to get the gist of what is said and in a hilarious translation at that. Google's Language Tools open a whole world of news, (especially RSS feeds) and web entertainment  to the rest of the world. Of course, it helps to have the ability to use a news aggregator, an integrated feature of Radioland, which is so easy to use, that even my doggie can use it ( okay, so I exaggerated, but only about our wonderdog.).  If you're too cheap to get Radioland (a steal at $39), try Amphetadesk, a free, richly featured news aggregator for Windows. There are even filterers for RSS feeds, so you can monitor only the news you are interested in, ie, dog news. (but that's another story)...

"In Radio, all the functionality is arrayed for you in one place at the top of every page. Radio's News aggregator] "It means less hunting, and quicker navigation. One more thing, while macros are a relatively recent innovation in MT-Land, they're built in to Radio. Radio is the result of constant development in weblog software since 1996. The depth is there for you to use..."  [from Scripting.com, Dave Winer]

Whoah, here's what happens when a web site gets translated from English to German and then back again from German to English! (What does Lobhudelei mean? ).

[ the ultimative Lobhudelei ] : Now, since Dog News can read the shock wave rider (via Google translation, see below), follow also equal the ultimative Lobhudelei: "Now that I CAN READ Shock Wave Rider (in amusingly English broken), it's easy ton lake why people READ it: Joerg of writes about the latest and greatest software and writing tools for the Web savy more writer. He has the pulses to OF the Web recorded in his watchful blog and he TRACKS the latest in communication innovation (and some amusing Web of sites that.) (Naturally, he uses radio country software for his own site.)" Thanks, more of it! [ Dog News: weird, inspiring dog valley ] ...The Macher of Dog News found out, how one can subscribe the Google translation of the shock wave rider as RSS feed . Congrats!] [from Der Schockwellenreiter in Google English]

Just how many languages can Google translate? Over 75! Check it out and if you don't see a language, why not offer to be a translator. Doggy, anyone? Gadget converts woofs into words  Called Bowlingual, the gadget translates a dog's bark into expressions, such as "I've had enough" or "I'm a little bored, let's play." No more need for a pet psychic. Der Schockwellenreiter recommended an incredible site, DeutshlandRadioBerlin for understanding the language and intelligence of animals, a site I would have completely missed, without Shock Wave Rider, Google's language translator, and Radioland....