Sunday, April 22, 2007 , evening

Outsourcing goes to the dogs

Here’s one form of work outsourcing which doesn’t irritate me:  dogs which are trained to detect pirated movies.  I guess they could probably detect illegal software as well, so I suppose Bill Gates must be behind the whole thing.  Click the link above to read Susie Felber’s latest entry in the Court TV Informer blog, and when you shop at malls in Manila, leave your illegal movies at home! 

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 08:48 PM
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They’ve made it to four weeks

Carlo and Bunny celebrated their four-week birthdays on Friday.  They’re a couple of odd, wee kitty cats.  Bunny weighs 1 lb., 1 oz., has perfect litterbox habits, and is generally spotless.  She will not eat any solid food and only wants to drink from a bottle.  Carlo weighs 11.6 oz. (yes, he’s that much smaller, still), has a constant case of the runs, tries to use the litterbox but gets litter all over him, and will happily chow down on a big can of cat food, no bottle needed.  Bunny wants to play with toys and wrestle, but Carlo always seems to be about one week behind her, and all he’s done so far is to poke a plastic ball around on the floor, once.  He likes to snuggle with Missy Mae and nap.  In many ways he seems developmentally delayed, yet he’s hitting most of the proper growth milestones, and doing some things (like eating solid food) even earlier than expected.  His two big problems are his size/slow physical growth, and the fact that he’s never had a healthy digestive tract.  I wish I could figure out what to do about the digestive tract issue.  So far he’s had Albon (twice), Panacur, some other dewormer whose name slips my mind, and Benebac supplements, but he’s never had a single poop in his lifetime which could be called “formed”.  Even on solid food, he just produces drips, and he has a hard time in the litterbox because he leaves little poop puddles, steps in them, gets litter stuck to his feet, yada yada yada.  His fecal matter isn’t even the right colour, because it’s stayed a mustard colour on solid food, whereas Bunny’s changes to brown when I slip mushed up food into her bottle of formula.  His small size and diarrhea can be symptoms of a portosystemic shunt, although I don’t know if the symptoms usually manifest so early in life.  I’ll definitely be on the lookout for any more symptoms, like neurological problems.

Here are pictures of the birthday kittens:

carlo_4_week_portrait

bunny_reclines

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 05:07 AM
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BOINC!

I thought I’d written about this a couple of years ago, but apparently I was mistaken.  If you’re interested in science and geeky stuff, you may want to download a program called BOINC.  BOINC allows you to donate your computer processor downtime to a number of really cool science projects.  The most famous of all is probably the SETI program, but there are also programs researching climate change, and programs analyzing proteins for medical research.  You can configure Boinc to run as often or as little as you’d like—for example, you can just have the program run while you’re sleeping if you’re worried about it affecting performance.  Go on… let your inner dweeb have some fun!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 04:20 AM
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Vet-approved homemade pet food recipes

I’d have to guess that the majority of vets are strongly opposed to the idea of pet owners making homemade pet food.  Maybe the vets don’t worry so much about dogs, but they must definitely worry about cats, because cats have such strict dietary requirements.  There are many good pet food cookbooks written by reputable folks, but if you want to really win the feeding argument with your vet, you may want to use a recipe from a source which is recommended by the American College of Veterinary Nutrition.  In the ACVN’s official statement about the pet food recall, they strongly support the idea of feeding commercial food, but in lieu of that, they suggest that pet owners consult the websites BalanceIt.com, and/or PetDiets.com.

First things first—both websites will charge you money for each recipe you want access to, and it’s not cheap.  PetDiets.com wants $50 per recipe, but all recipes are certified as complete and balanced by a veterinary nutritionist.  If you have a pet with special dietary needs, you can have a custom consultation and diet plan designed for $200.  Again, that’s not cheap, but these people are theoretically the best-trained individuals in the world on the subject of dog and cat nutrition.  Many of you may disagree with that assessment, I know… I’m just saying that on paper, you can’t argue with the statement that veterinary nutritionists know more about dog and cat nutrition than the average person.  It still doesn’t mean they know everything.  PetDiets.com does not advocate raw feeding, and I’d imagine their recipes are quite conservative, if only I could see an example of one.

The second website the ACVN recommends is BalanceIt.com, which is run by two veterinary nutritionists in Davis, CA.  They have a consumer portion of the website, and a subscribers-only section for vets to use.  The site has a neat setup—you select one protein source and one carb source from a list, , and the resulting page will give you a recipe (or more than one).  For example, I selected “ground beef” as my protein source, and then “sweet potatoes”, as my carb, then said I wanted recipes for my cat.  The next page offered me one recipe called “Beef and Sweet Potato for cats”, and the raw ingredients of the recipe were beef, sweet potato, and corn oil.  It also said the recipe would require supplements, but that I’d be given specific instructions on how to add a combination of readily available human supplements to the cat food.  I was also told I could skip the human supplements and just buy the proprietary BalanceIt Feline Supplement.  The catch here is that I can’t see the actual recipe at all, or the list of human supplements I might have to buy—if I want access to all the details, it will cost $20.  The BalanceIt supplement also costs $20, and it doesn’t say how many servings it contains.  By the way, if I go back through the “design a recipe” process for dogs, using beef and sweet potato, I’m giving a choice of four recipes to purchase.  All recipes are $20 for one, $30 for two, and three or more recipes are $12.50 each.  I give the site props for having imaginative ingredient lists… you can choose from protein sources like chicken or beef, but also cottage cheese or tofu.  For carbs, you can pick potatoes or rice, but you can also choose spaghetti or couscous.  BalanceIt promises that if your pet doesn’t like the recipe you’ve chosen, just write to them and they’ll send you a different one.  There’s a link on the site to view all the available recipes, and there are well over 100 different ones for dogs, and at least 50+ for cats.

If I join the BalanceIt.com affiliate program they’ll give me a free recipe (so they say), so I hope to be able to join and to see how simple or how complicated their recipes are.  For those of us who are a bit nervous about feeding homemade for the first time, recipes from either BalanceIt.com or PetDiets.com seem reassuring.  I like that both sites are run by veterinarians, so you’ll have someone to consult with if you have questions or problems.  I do think the prices are a bit much, and I think it would be nice to offer one or two free recipes for people who don’t have $50 to toss around.  I’ve got my eye on a low-carb chicken and sweet potato recipe for cats, so if I decide to invest in it, I’ll let you know.  I just spent close to $100 at Petco, buying two weeks worth of Natural Balance cat food, so I’m not feeling wealthy enough to toss around an extra $20 today.

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Edited on 4/24 to add:  When you go to BalanceIt.com, a free recipe is available by typing the code “Wal-Mart” in the promo code box.  To take advantage of this offer, choose the link on the homepage which says, “Homemade Recipe Creator (free with PROMO code)”, in the section called “Complimentary Tools”.  Do not use the regular shopping link at the top of the page, i.e., the one which says, “I want to create a homemade recipe for my healthy adult pet.” I went through the process myself and it works perfectly.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 03:17 AM
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