Please vote for animal rescue shelter - Clarion PAWS!

One of my local feral cat rescue organizations, The Hundred Cat Foundation, is asking for votes for their partner, Clarion PAWS. This cat org. helped me find a home for a feral kitten last year (THANK YOU!!!) and has helped trap, neuter and release many older feral cats near my apartment complex (unfortunately we have a real feral cat problem here). They have found homes for so many cats and kittens, and are run by the sweetest people!! :)

Please vote in this contest on the Animal Rescue Site! Funds will be directed to the winning shelter.

Here is the description from the email I received this morning from the Foundation:

The contest runs through December 20 and I would like to ask all of you to cast your daily votes for Clarion PAWS. Clarion PAWS is currently in 4th place in PA and with all of your help could easily climb to #1. The good people at Clarion PAWS asked us to train them in Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR) a couple years ago and have been doing an awesome job since then. They have spayed or neutered 886 cats and 42 dogs since April 2008! Several of their volunteers came to State College and helped at our first couple clinics. Let's all join together and help them win some much needed funds.

Go to: www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Click on the purple button that reads "Click Here to Give - It's Free"
Next click on the small button at the top of the page to "Vote"
type in Clarion PAWS and select PA as the state, then click "search"
When their name comes up, click on vote and then complete your vote by typing the name of the animal they picture.

It's multi-stepped but really very fast and easy to vote. Let's see what we can do to help out Clarion PAWS! Thanks so much!!!

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So I'm off to vote now, thank you for helping out! :)
(btw, that's my cat Camille up there at the top, hugging a journal I got from Spiderbite at etsy (http://spiderbite.etsy.com))

HARRY POTTER WIDGET

Yes, you CAN teach a cat tricks! :)

Cats CAN learn tricks! My husband and I have two kitties, a boy named Salem and a girl named Camille. They know about 10 words so far, and I'm always working on more! We talk to them all the time, and I think that's part of the reason they pick up on words so well. One word that they picked up just from hearing us use it in everyday speech is "bird". We have a bird feeder on the balcony, and they've come to associate the word "bird" with the birds that arrive at the feeder; every time I say "bird!", they run right over to the sliding glass doors to look at the little birds.

Three of the tricks they do are "sit", "down", and "footsie" (the latter is similar to a dog doing "paw"). I trained them to do one of these commands at a time - first we did sit, as that was pretty easy, then a week or two later we learned 'down', then later, 'footsie'.

To teach them sit, I used food (they used to like these little treats that were good for their teeth, so I called them "tartar treats", another word the cats know, even though they don't like tartar treats anymore!). I'd hold up a piece of tartar treat and say "sit", and then gently push them into a sitting position, or wait until they naturally sat (you can move the food over their head and usually they'll sit right down to follow the food with their eyes).

Down was a little more interesting - their natural instinct to get food was to jump up or just bully their way towards it... so I had to gently put them on their sides and say "down" as they went over on their sides. Because of this, now when they do "down", they flop over on their sides instead of neatly lying down on their tummies!!! It's really very cute. They're not supposed to beg, but it's kind of silly when they do because their way of begging is to flop over on their sides! We don't give in, but they still try :)

Footsie drove my husband nuts. That was the most difficult for them to learn - it took several evenings, maybe 45 mins to an hour at a time, of me repeating "footsie" and touching their paws lightly so that they picked them up and put one in the air! They start from a sitting position, and pick up a front paw. The less natural something is, the longer it will take for them to learn... and holding up a paw to get a tartar treat definitely wasn't a natural instinct for them! The cutest thing about their learning footsie was when my parents visited with their little dog (a lhasa poo named Moxie!). Moxie watched while Salem and Camille did 'footsie', and she saw that they were rewarded with a tartar treat - so the next time I said footsie, all three pets lined up and held up their paws!! Moxie is quite the quick learner :) I swear my parents are training her for the circus, that dog does all sorts of tricks and things on visual commands!

So... now we are learning "speak". So far I'm trying it with a brush instead of tartar treats. They both just adore getting brushed, so I hold the brush up and say "speak", and as soon as someone does, they get brushed for a few moments. Then I take it away and hold it up so they can see it and try again!

If you're training your cats and having some trouble getting them to understand what they need to do, I have a slightly bizarre tip for you - enlist the help of another human as an example! :) My husband just loves this... ha. He was asked to help train them on footsie by holding up his 'paw' for food... and tonight he did "speak" to demonstrate for the cats! After seeing how much Moxie learned from just observing S & C, I'm convinced that's a useful method of teaching. We'll see how long "speak" takes! Tonight they got distracted when I accidentally moved a toy with my foot :)

Free Shipping Coupon Code for MOO Business Cards!

Here's a code for new-to-Moo customers to use on their first order of cards, to get free shipping!

Code: URMAGY ***UPDATE 10/30/09 - I believe this code has expired, but I'm sure someone else must have one posted if you google it! :) ****


And, I'll 'fess up (as my Mom says) - if enough people order using that code I get a free pack of Moo cards ;) But, either way, I'm a big fan of free shipping coupon codes!! I always check online for coupon codes before I order from ANYWHERE - do you? Sephora ALWAYS has coupon codes... sometimes Ann Taylor Loft... some places never have them though :(


Have you tried Moo business cards yet? I'm a huge fan. They come on fabulously thick paper with a lovely finish, and the colors are so vivid! They come in packs of 50, 100, and 250 I believe (for the regular sized ones - they have minis, which are the size of a business card cut in half lengthwise, quite unique! - I don't remember the pack size for those but I think it's the same). The best part - you can have a different image for every card!! I usually order a pack of 50, and use about 40 different images (they double up on a few if you don't choose 50 different images).

The Moo cards are really professional and unique-looking! The only downside - it takes roughly 2 weeks for them to arrive to me (in Pennsylvania) from England.

If you have any other business card suggestions for people, leave 'em here! :) Or if you have a Moo free shipping coupon code to get your own pack of free cards feel free to leave that too!! (If you're already a moo customer, check your email - there may be a message with your own coupon code to give first-time customers for free shipping) :)

Update on What are these Eggs?!

Visited the eggs in the pond (see What are these Eggs for the original "What are these eggs" pictures!) this evening, the floating flattish round ones (pic 1 of my previous post) were gone... hatched? eaten? However, the blobby submerged ones were still there and there were more of them! They were in different stages of development, it seemed. Here's a closeup pic of the most well-developed looking set - it's kind of a shoddy pic but it was the best I could do without falling in!! :)

Exhibit at East West Crossings in State College, PA

Exciting news for hubby & me - our photos are being exhibited at East West Crossings cafe in State College (well, actually Lemont), Pennsylvania! We have 37 pieces up, the pic above shows maybe 3/4 of them. If you're in town, stop by! :) They have fabulous teas - my favorites are the masala chai and the roasted Japanese green tea, as well as scones, wraps, soups, samosas, quiches, fresh fruit cups... YUM! :) Today they are celebrating chocolate chip day with choc chip cookies and choc chip banana scones.

http://www.eastwestcrossings.com/

AND they have free wifi and nice tables for studying :)

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So... anybody have fun weekend plans? I might go back, with husband, to see if those eggs (below) have developed any further - I hope I didn't miss the hatching!

What are these eggs???

I visited a pond last weekend and saw 2 different types of egg masses. This is the first - they were floating on top of the water. The inside circle shaped eggs were white with black round centers, and the whole set was encased in an opaque white mass.


Here is the second type:



These were submerged and looked like big blobs...


Can anyone ID these? I checked some online sources and the first look like frog or salamader eggs (from online pics), but I haven't seen anything similar to the 2nd pic... though I've seen them in various states (Mass, PA, CT)... so I'm sure they're very common.

Thanks!!