Google Scholar & You

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Here are answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about Google Scholar. I often get asked what I think about Google Scholar, so I wrote a post on my library's blog in response -- and have referred several students to it. I figured it was worth sharing with the wider community, so here it is again, in slightly modified form.

Q. What is Google Scholar?
A. Google search for scholarly articles, books, theses on a variety of topics, heavy on science & social science. Good for international materials.

Q. What do you think about Google Scholar?
PROS:

• easy to search
• quick
• good for citation searching (who's cited this article)
• good coverage for international / non-English topics

CONS:

• can be hard to track down full-text of articles (see below).
• no clear description of scope or scale of their holdings (are they a science search engine? social science? what neuroscience journals are included? how far back is the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience indexed?)
• full-text may be from author's website -- which might or might not be the same as the published version
• some metadata is wacky, leading to incorrect citations (see Peter Jacso's 2009 article on "ghost authors")

Q. How do I get full-text of articles I find through Google Scholar?
A. This is a huge question -- and it's easier to answer for the UNC community than for scholars at large. For UNC, use this link for Google Scholar and look for the "find article @ UNC" link to the right of the search results. UNC Library staff have activated "Find @ UNC" within Google Scholar to facilitate easy access to content available at UNC.

If you're not at UNC, but you are affiliated with a university, check Google Scholar Library Links page -- it's possible that your library has set up a linking system similar to what the good folks at UNC have done.

If you're not affiliated with a university, you may be asked to pay for an article you discover with Google Scholar. Check with your public library to see if they will request articles for you via Interlibrary Loan.

Q. What is "Find @ UNC"?
A. Links article metadata to article full-text if available through any UNC-licensed databases (using the OpenURL standard). If the article is in a 2008 issue of Journal of Communication, "Find @ UNC" knows that we have that issue available online through the publisher.

Q. Hey, that doesn't work for me!
A. It won't if you're off-campus and don't have the magic URL. If you have a UNC ONYEN, are off-campus, and want to use Google Scholar, use this link: http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=http://scholar.google.com/.

Q. Hmmm. I don't want to rely on Google Scholar so much. What else can I do?
A. The UNC community has many reliable, scholarly search engines for just about every topic. Those are listed on the Park Library home page. Your state library probably has some excellent academic search engines -- see what NC Live offers to North Carolina residents with a library card; Connecticut residents should check out iconn.org.

For More Information

• Hoseth, Amy, Google Scholar. The Charleston Advisor, January 2011.
• Jacso, Peter, Newswire Analysis: Google Scholar's Ghost Authors, Lost Authors, and Other Problems. Library Journal, Sept. 24, 2009.
• UNC Library staff, About Google Scholar. March 27, 2009.

David Eagleman on Time and Synesthesia

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Burkhard Bilger had a great piece in the April 25, 2011 New Yorker entitled David Eagleman and Mysteries of the Brain. In it, Bilger discusses Eagleman's fascinating work trying to figure out how we think about time. Eagleman goes to a Zero Gravity "ride" to see if he can measure how our sense of time slows down when we are afraid (he can); he also goes to London to see if drummers' brains are more precise about time than "normal" brains (they are).

Our general perception of time seems to be influenced by emotion:

When something threatens your life, [the amygdala] seems to kick into overdrive, recording every last detail of the experience. The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. “This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,” Eagleman said—why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.

For more on this story, read the transcript of Bilger and Eagleman's chat session, Ask the Author Live: Burkhard Bilger on Time and the Brain. It's all fascinating!

Shortly after I read the New Yorker article, I was going through itunes, pruning some of my podcasts. I found a January 2010 episode of Australia's terrific All In The Mind in which Natasha Mitchell interviewed David Eagleman, in a show entitled: The afterlife, synesthesia and other tales of the senses. Eagleman talks very little about time, but quite a bit about synesthesia. If you want to know more about numbers having colors, or names having taste, give this show a listen.

Stephanie's Favorite Songs, 2011

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As always, it was a good year for music! I've completed my favorite song list of 2011 and posted it on Spotify.
The full list, in song order, is below, with a few annotations here & there.
Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks A great song to kick off the collection, it also kicks off a short gun-themed set. Note that the collection ends with a gun-themed song too.
Imelda May – Johnny Got A Boom Boom
Danger Mouse – Two Against One (feat. Jack White) Danger Mouse's Rome CD was amazing - I chose 2 songs for this collection, but there are many more great songs too.
Chris Difford – Like I Did Good for all the rock-loving parents out there, and quite a lovely tune too.
Diego Garcia – Under This Spell I'm guessing Amy's Leo will like this one.
Gomez – Options
Imelda May – I'm Alive Sounds quite a bit like Nick Lowe; and each of the 3 Imelda May songs here sound different from each other.
Nick Lowe – Shame on the Rain Yeah, I should have included his song "I Read A Lot" but this fit better.
The Steep Canyon Rangers – Atheists Don't Have No Songs Steve Martin is amusing here. This song kicks off a short (and hopefully not-too-offensive) religion set.
The Dirt Daubers – Wake Up, Sinners
Eliza Gilkyson – 2153
Eleanor Friedberger – Heaven
Emmylou Harris – Big Black Dog A great sing-along song, whether you have a dog or not. It's fun for cat lovers too.
Iron & Wine – Tree By The River How can you not love a song with this lyric: "I mean the world to a potty-mouth girl, with a pretty pair of blue-eyed birds." ?!
Danger Mouse – Black (feat. Norah Jones)
Sarah Jarosz – Annabelle Lee
Robbers On High Street – Second Chance Thanks to Amy for alerting me to Robbers on High Street; this isn't the song she first recommended, but it's quite a fun song anyway.
Garland Jeffreys – Rock On The first of two covers; I want to pair this one with Spiders & Snakes.
Imelda May – Tainted Love The start of this song makes me think of the Waitresses, which surely was intentional.
Noah And The Whale – Just Me Before We Met My favorite line: "don't be shy; be brave little champion."
Peter Bjorn And John – Tomorrow Has To Wait
Angus and Julia Stone – Big Jet Plane Lolhusband doesn't like that there is only one lyric here, but I love how it sounds.
Thomas Dolby – Road To Reno It's been a long time since he's had a new album, and this was worth waiting for.

If CDs were more than 80 minutes, we'd have more songs here ... but these are the cream of the 2011 crop.

A Librarian's View of ScienceOnline

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I've submitted a photograph to #scio12 science-art show.  I wanted to convey something about science, which is tough since what I most like to photograph is flowers and cats. Ok, I could have argued that they were science photos, but I thought it was a stretch.
I thought more about it and decided to take photos of some of the books I've acquired (for myself or for my library) as a result of ScienceOnline past & current.  Here, therefore, is my view of ScienceOnline:

The books are, from top to bottom:

• Graedon, J., & Graedon, T. (2011). The people's pharmacy quick & handy home remedies. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
• Zimmer, C. (2011). A planet of viruses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Skloot, R. (2010). The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown Publishers.
• Dunn, R. R. (2011). The wild life of our bodies: Predators, parasites, and partners that shape who we are today. New York: Harper.
• McKenna, M. (2010). Superbug: The fatal menace of MRSA. New York: Free Press.
• Linden, T. (2011). The New York times reader: Health and medicine. Washington, D.C: CQ Press.
• Tucker, H. (2011). Blood work: A tale of medicine and murder in the scientific revolution. New York: W.W. Norton.
• Mooney, C., & Kirshenbaum, S. (2009). Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future. New York: Basic Books.
• Specter, M. (2009). Denialism: How irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives. New York: Penguin Press.
• Meredith, D. (2010). Explaining research: How to reach key audiences to advance your work. New York, N.Y: Oxford University Press.

You can check out (literally and figuratively) these books on my WorldCat list of ScienceOnline Books.

Field trip to Durham's @LifeandScience museum! #scio12

To contact us Click HERE
I was thrilled to go on a behind the scenes tour of Durham's fabulous Museum of Life and Science at last week's ScienceOnline conference. Here is an annotated visual tour of the trip, with photos taken by several of us on the tour. I used Storify to curate the images, which were posted on Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube (the bear video is awesome; especially the last 10-20 seconds).

Thanks especially to Keeper Mikey for the tour!

Stephanie's Favorite Songs, 2011

To contact us Click HERE
As always, it was a good year for music! I've completed my favorite song list of 2011 and posted it on Spotify.
The full list, in song order, is below, with a few annotations here & there.
Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks A great song to kick off the collection, it also kicks off a short gun-themed set. Note that the collection ends with a gun-themed song too.
Imelda May – Johnny Got A Boom Boom
Danger Mouse – Two Against One (feat. Jack White) Danger Mouse's Rome CD was amazing - I chose 2 songs for this collection, but there are many more great songs too.
Chris Difford – Like I Did Good for all the rock-loving parents out there, and quite a lovely tune too.
Diego Garcia – Under This Spell I'm guessing Amy's Leo will like this one.
Gomez – Options
Imelda May – I'm Alive Sounds quite a bit like Nick Lowe; and each of the 3 Imelda May songs here sound different from each other.
Nick Lowe – Shame on the Rain Yeah, I should have included his song "I Read A Lot" but this fit better.
The Steep Canyon Rangers – Atheists Don't Have No Songs Steve Martin is amusing here. This song kicks off a short (and hopefully not-too-offensive) religion set.
The Dirt Daubers – Wake Up, Sinners
Eliza Gilkyson – 2153
Eleanor Friedberger – Heaven
Emmylou Harris – Big Black Dog A great sing-along song, whether you have a dog or not. It's fun for cat lovers too.
Iron & Wine – Tree By The River How can you not love a song with this lyric: "I mean the world to a potty-mouth girl, with a pretty pair of blue-eyed birds." ?!
Danger Mouse – Black (feat. Norah Jones)
Sarah Jarosz – Annabelle Lee
Robbers On High Street – Second Chance Thanks to Amy for alerting me to Robbers on High Street; this isn't the song she first recommended, but it's quite a fun song anyway.
Garland Jeffreys – Rock On The first of two covers; I want to pair this one with Spiders & Snakes.
Imelda May – Tainted Love The start of this song makes me think of the Waitresses, which surely was intentional.
Noah And The Whale – Just Me Before We Met My favorite line: "don't be shy; be brave little champion."
Peter Bjorn And John – Tomorrow Has To Wait
Angus and Julia Stone – Big Jet Plane Lolhusband doesn't like that there is only one lyric here, but I love how it sounds.
Thomas Dolby – Road To Reno It's been a long time since he's had a new album, and this was worth waiting for.

If CDs were more than 80 minutes, we'd have more songs here ... but these are the cream of the 2011 crop.

A Librarian's View of ScienceOnline

To contact us Click HERE
I've submitted a photograph to #scio12 science-art show.  I wanted to convey something about science, which is tough since what I most like to photograph is flowers and cats. Ok, I could have argued that they were science photos, but I thought it was a stretch.
I thought more about it and decided to take photos of some of the books I've acquired (for myself or for my library) as a result of ScienceOnline past & current.  Here, therefore, is my view of ScienceOnline:

The books are, from top to bottom:

• Graedon, J., & Graedon, T. (2011). The people's pharmacy quick & handy home remedies. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
• Zimmer, C. (2011). A planet of viruses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Skloot, R. (2010). The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown Publishers.
• Dunn, R. R. (2011). The wild life of our bodies: Predators, parasites, and partners that shape who we are today. New York: Harper.
• McKenna, M. (2010). Superbug: The fatal menace of MRSA. New York: Free Press.
• Linden, T. (2011). The New York times reader: Health and medicine. Washington, D.C: CQ Press.
• Tucker, H. (2011). Blood work: A tale of medicine and murder in the scientific revolution. New York: W.W. Norton.
• Mooney, C., & Kirshenbaum, S. (2009). Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future. New York: Basic Books.
• Specter, M. (2009). Denialism: How irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives. New York: Penguin Press.
• Meredith, D. (2010). Explaining research: How to reach key audiences to advance your work. New York, N.Y: Oxford University Press.

You can check out (literally and figuratively) these books on my WorldCat list of ScienceOnline Books.

Field trip to Durham's @LifeandScience museum! #scio12

To contact us Click HERE
I was thrilled to go on a behind the scenes tour of Durham's fabulous Museum of Life and Science at last week's ScienceOnline conference. Here is an annotated visual tour of the trip, with photos taken by several of us on the tour. I used Storify to curate the images, which were posted on Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube (the bear video is awesome; especially the last 10-20 seconds).

Thanks especially to Keeper Mikey for the tour!

Mom's 75th Birthday!

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Sunday, Aug. 26th 2012 my mom turned 75. We had a party for her at W.Dennis Beach, which we entitled "The Party of Lights". Everyone was supposed to be 'lit up' in some way. This is how it looked after dark. 
Here's a photo of my mom and her 4 kids: (in order of oldest to youngest) Treg, Me, Odin (dark hair) then Grethe. Yes, we have really weird names, but you have to blame that one on my dad. They are all Scandinavian like he was. 
Here's the birthday girl herself! She was in her glory with all her kids, grand kids and friends gathered for her special day. 
I bought some light up balloons and we tied them to a bucket, put them in a kiddie pool filled with water so they wouldn't pop, (and so the kids wouldn't step on them) and my sister had some easter egg lanterns with glow sticks in them hanging off of bamboo sticks, and the candles were all just led candle lights. There were no flames at all, but the whole place looked and glowed as if there were. It was really neat looking!
Then of course, we glowed too. I have to say, it stopped passer by-ers. One even wanted to take photo's!

Breten (me), Brielle (my oldest) Odin (sister) Mom, Sienna  (my youngest) Grethe (sister)

Here is all the girls in the family, except for my youngest niece, Qena. She's only 2 and was running around  somewhere. We couldn't catch her for the photo. 

me and Brielle all a glow

This is a great photo of Brielle and her aunt, but look closely in the background and you'll see my nephew, Frey (another Nordic name) making a lovely face. Leave it to a 12 year old...

Here's Qena! (my 2 yr. old niece)

My mom with her son who she sees about twice a year (even though he lives 45 minutes away. )

Sienna, Grethe and Quince (her oldest son)

The sun went down and the lights started to glow!

My brother, and his sons, Brenden and Dylan set up their instruments and started to play. They are all really good and it was great to have live music!

another shot of the pool and lights

Add caption

It was a really fun party. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and the glow lights were such a great thing to do. I think we may just do that again next year! Happy birthday Mumma. ~

10-12-12

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Friday, Oct. 12, 2012  is the 5th anniversary of my daughter Brielle, and her boyfriend Pat. They started going together when they were juniors in high school and now, are both seniors in college (not the same one though). If you notice the inset, they were actually in the same kindergarten class (Pat on the left, Brielle on the right with the green sleeves) so have known each other since then. Pat is a great kid (young adult!) and I guess I'm actually the lucky one to have had him as her boyfriend all these years. He's so respectful (and polite!), and sincerely nice, I've never had to worry about her with him. How many mothers can say that?  .Congratulations guys!! You're better than ever. :) love mumma

The Easter Bunny's Important Message

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Every year, around June and July, animal shelters around the country are seemingly instantly flooded with rabbits that are no longer wanted. Countless well-meaning families buy cute baby bunnies as Easter presents for the children, only to realize a few months down the line what complex creatures these are, what complex care they require, and what a bad combination a skittish, unneutered rabbit and a rambunctious child can be. Read this article on why rabbits don't always do so well with children and vice versa and read here about the importance of spaying and neutering.

Buying a rabbit as an Easter present is a time-tested bad idea. Sure, baby bunnies are ridiculously adorable, but they also require a varied diet, not inexpensive vet care, a spay/neuter surgery, daily attention and playtime, and intricate rabbit-proofing (which in turn requires a watchful eye and sometimes infinite patience). Rabbits are excellent pets, but only in the right circumstances, which includes knowing full-well what you're getting into. And if you've done the research and still think you're ready to get a rabbit, don't ever buy from a pet store! Instead adopt from a shelter or a rescue and save a life!

Buy a toy rabbit for Easter-- adopt a real rabbit for life!

Celebrate Petfinder's Birthday by Sending in Your Adoption Story!

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March 15, 2011 will be Petfinder.com's 15th birthday! This revolutionary website has not only helped unite hundreds of thousands of homeless pets with their adoptive parents, it also tirelessly works to educate and entertain the public with their blog, message boards, library of articles on pet health, behavior, training, and much more. To celebrate this exciting milestone, Petfinder.com is staging a takeover of the Internet on March 15. This will entail a massive awareness explosion about adoption and shelter animals by numerous participating pet-centric blogs.

In honor of this momentous occasion, here at The Rabbit Advocate, I am hosting a rabbit adoption story contest. Send in a picture and story (up to 100 words) of how you and your bunny friend found each other and I will post a winner here on March 15th. Let's all get to writing!

The Easter Bunny Isn't Real

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I know all of us bunnyparents look forward to the Easter holiday season and the sudden availability of all imaginable rabbit-shaped objects that comes along with it. But while we’re enjoying the bunny cards and figurines, we need to realize that Easter is also a terrible time for many rabbits. Year after year, unsuspecting parents buy real baby bunnies to put in their children’s Easter baskets alongside jelly beans and chocolate eggs. Weeks later, these rabbits are dumped at shelters or (even worse) released into the wild, when the family slowly realizes that rabbits are not perfectly behaved inanimate objects.

As you and I know, rabbits are not toys, and they’re certainly not appropriate gifts for young children. Help spread the word to people in your area by writing in to your local newspaper, putting up posters at obliging shops/malls/grocery stores/veterinary clinics, or simply talking to friends and family about the commitment involved in owning a rabbit. Shelter and rescue volunteers have already begun spreading the word all over the country and I urge you to reach out and educate your local town or city about choosing toy rabbits for Easter, and adopting real rabbits for life.



While Peanut (left) and Jimmy may look like toys, these 3 lb. dwarf Hotots are real-life bunny brothers, adopted for life by Caroline and Matt in Boston, MA.

To read more about a national Easter awareness initiative, check out the House Rabbit Society’s Make Mine Chocolate campaign.

Mom's 75th Birthday!

To contact us Click HERE
Sunday, Aug. 26th 2012 my mom turned 75. We had a party for her at W.Dennis Beach, which we entitled "The Party of Lights". Everyone was supposed to be 'lit up' in some way. This is how it looked after dark. 
Here's a photo of my mom and her 4 kids: (in order of oldest to youngest) Treg, Me, Odin (dark hair) then Grethe. Yes, we have really weird names, but you have to blame that one on my dad. They are all Scandinavian like he was. 
Here's the birthday girl herself! She was in her glory with all her kids, grand kids and friends gathered for her special day. 
I bought some light up balloons and we tied them to a bucket, put them in a kiddie pool filled with water so they wouldn't pop, (and so the kids wouldn't step on them) and my sister had some easter egg lanterns with glow sticks in them hanging off of bamboo sticks, and the candles were all just led candle lights. There were no flames at all, but the whole place looked and glowed as if there were. It was really neat looking!
Then of course, we glowed too. I have to say, it stopped passer by-ers. One even wanted to take photo's!

Breten (me), Brielle (my oldest) Odin (sister) Mom, Sienna  (my youngest) Grethe (sister)

Here is all the girls in the family, except for my youngest niece, Qena. She's only 2 and was running around  somewhere. We couldn't catch her for the photo. 

me and Brielle all a glow

This is a great photo of Brielle and her aunt, but look closely in the background and you'll see my nephew, Frey (another Nordic name) making a lovely face. Leave it to a 12 year old...

Here's Qena! (my 2 yr. old niece)

My mom with her son who she sees about twice a year (even though he lives 45 minutes away. )

Sienna, Grethe and Quince (her oldest son)

The sun went down and the lights started to glow!

My brother, and his sons, Brenden and Dylan set up their instruments and started to play. They are all really good and it was great to have live music!

another shot of the pool and lights

Add caption

It was a really fun party. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and the glow lights were such a great thing to do. I think we may just do that again next year! Happy birthday Mumma. ~

Monument Beach, Cape Cod Ma.

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Last week we had some really nice weather (it was in the low 70's) so I took advantage and got out there on my motorcycle for a long ride up Cape. I ended up in Monument Beach which is near Falmouth, but on the Buzzards Bay side. 

The sun was sparkling and dancing on the water ...and in my eyes...somewhat blinding me, but I loved it!  I found some interesting Queen Anne's Lace skeletons that I thought might make an cool photo. 

If you look really hard you will see the last rose of summer. 
I wonder what it's like to live in a house this big, right on the water. I was actually taking a photo of the Adirondack chairs, but now I'm looking at that house! I always wonder what they might do for a living. (probably NOT an artist!) ha
I was ready to head home as the sun started getting lower in the sky. There were quite a few sailboats coming back into the harbor -probably after spending a wonderful day out on the water. It's days like this that make me feel so fortunate to live- at least NEAR the water. There's just nothing like it. 

A Librarian's View of ScienceOnline

To contact us Click HERE
I've submitted a photograph to #scio12 science-art show.  I wanted to convey something about science, which is tough since what I most like to photograph is flowers and cats. Ok, I could have argued that they were science photos, but I thought it was a stretch.
I thought more about it and decided to take photos of some of the books I've acquired (for myself or for my library) as a result of ScienceOnline past & current.  Here, therefore, is my view of ScienceOnline:

The books are, from top to bottom:

• Graedon, J., & Graedon, T. (2011). The people's pharmacy quick & handy home remedies. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
• Zimmer, C. (2011). A planet of viruses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Skloot, R. (2010). The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Crown Publishers.
• Dunn, R. R. (2011). The wild life of our bodies: Predators, parasites, and partners that shape who we are today. New York: Harper.
• McKenna, M. (2010). Superbug: The fatal menace of MRSA. New York: Free Press.
• Linden, T. (2011). The New York times reader: Health and medicine. Washington, D.C: CQ Press.
• Tucker, H. (2011). Blood work: A tale of medicine and murder in the scientific revolution. New York: W.W. Norton.
• Mooney, C., & Kirshenbaum, S. (2009). Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future. New York: Basic Books.
• Specter, M. (2009). Denialism: How irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet, and threatens our lives. New York: Penguin Press.
• Meredith, D. (2010). Explaining research: How to reach key audiences to advance your work. New York, N.Y: Oxford University Press.

You can check out (literally and figuratively) these books on my WorldCat list of ScienceOnline Books.

Field trip to Durham's @LifeandScience museum! #scio12

To contact us Click HERE
I was thrilled to go on a behind the scenes tour of Durham's fabulous Museum of Life and Science at last week's ScienceOnline conference. Here is an annotated visual tour of the trip, with photos taken by several of us on the tour. I used Storify to curate the images, which were posted on Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube (the bear video is awesome; especially the last 10-20 seconds).

Thanks especially to Keeper Mikey for the tour!

40 animals seized from Pasadena home

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Animal Control officials in Anne Arundel County said they removed 40 live animals and a few that were dead from a Pasadena home that police have been investigating since August.Animal Control officers and county police served a warrant at the home in the 8000 block of Lockwood Road on Thursday and said they removed two dogs, one cat, two turtles, seven birds, four chickens, one goat, one pig, one chinchilla, three snakes, 12 aquatic animals, three geese, one duck, one kinkajou (a rainforest mammal) and one tarantula.Shane Taylor, who lives at the home, said he is not animal hoarder."Was I neglecting them? Absolutely not. Was it too much for me? Yes, but I was not neglecting them. Too much for me as in I was going nonstop taking care of these animals and my neighbors would tell you in a heartbeat they see me all day long taking care of the animals," Taylor said.Molly West lives down the street from Taylor."Animals, they were never a problem," West said. "He took care of them. He took very good care of them. They always were fed. They have that large property to roam on. It's not like they're on an eighth of an acre. They've got a decent size property over there."Officials said a majority of the animals had no food or water, and the animals were being housed in unacceptable conditions. A dead rabbit and several dead quail were also removed from the home."Most of the animals we took from the residence did not have access to fresh food or water. Those that did have food had very little. Those that did have water, it was not palatable water that they could drink from," an Animal Control official said.Police said they've been investigating the number of animals inside the house since Aug. 31, when someone brought the case forward over concerns for the animals' safety and welfare..."  More

Read more: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel-county/40-animals-seized-from-Pasadena-home/-/10137088/16819454/-/us9dmo/-/index.html#ixzz28CX7fefb

60 Animals Seized In Orient Surrendered To Humane Society

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By: RICK REITZEL 


Sixty animals that were seized Tuesday from an Orient home and out-buildings were surrendered by their owner to the Capital Area Humane Society.Michelle Horn appeared in the Franklin County Environmental Court for a probation revocation hearing and a new case of animal abuse involving four dogs. She told Judge Harland Hale that her attorney was on maternity leave and she was appearing without an attorney. Hale continued the arraignment on the new charges to November 6 and the probation revocation hearing until December 7.At the hearing, Horn told the court she was voluntarily surrendering the animals to the humane society. But she claimed the animals were not hers."The iguanas, the snake and the reptiles are my son's. They are not mine," Horn said.The assistant city prosecutor said that does not matter."Her son lives with her, the probation says she is not allowed to have those types of animals in her home," Assistant City Prosecutor Shawnda Martin said.The animals seized Tuesday include and underweight Mastiff mix breed, a pit bull exhibiting hair loss, two Chihuahuas, two Geckos, frogs, a ball python, an iguana, one rooster, four chickens, a ferret and mice and crickets."In that type of hoarding situation, it is not uncommon to deal with those types and numbers of animals," said Kerry Manion, chief agent for the Capital Area Humane Society..."  More

Animal Hoarding In Santa Ana: 23 Cats, 8 Kids Found In Urine-Soaked Home

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By Kathleen Miles 


Officials essentially walked into a zoo of a home in Southern California Tuesday.Responding to a complaint about a foul smell, Animal Control arrived to a Santa Ana home covered in urine and feces that was home to 23 cats, eight kids, one dog and an African grey parrot, the Los Angeles Times reports.Authorities said that the smell of ammonia was so strong that they called in a hazmat team, KTLA reports. The stench was exacerbated by the Southland's triple-digit heat.Child Protective Services officials went to the schools of the children, aged two to 17, to check if they have respiratory problems, fleas or other health issues, ABC reports. The animals were taken to a shelter to be cared for..."  More