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.

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

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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!

Police: Dog breeder cited for animal cruelty in E.B

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EAST BRUNSWICK — Summonses have been issued to a township woman who police said was breeding and hoarding more than 60 Shih Tzus in her Rues Lane home.Ellen Shih was cited for 63 counts of animal cruelty, 63 counts of failure to provide veterinary care, 58 counts of unlicensed dogs and 58 counts of no rabies inoculation. Police said Shih used to breed and sell the dogs, but the situation had become “unmanageable.”According to police, the dogs were found in poor condition, with flea infestation, flea dermatitis, contact dermatitis, conjunctivitis and other health conditions when the Helmetta Animal Control Service went to the home on Sept. 27 in response to complaints of possible animal hoarding. The dogs were removed and taken to the Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter, Main Street.After reports of the dogs’ removal surfaced in the local media, dozens were quickly adopted by new owners.Brandon Metz, an animal control officer for the Helmetta Animal Control Service, said that as of Oct. 9, only nine of the 63 dogs remained at the shelter. The majority of the remaining dogs are pregnant females, he said..."  More

SPCA seizes 51 animals at Adams County farm

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The Adams County SPCA has seized 51 animals at a farm near East Berlin.

A humane officer said some of the animals were found dead or near death with parasites, untreated wounds and signs of malnutrition. A dozen cats had to be euthanized after they were seized.Calves, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, horses and rabbits were seized, according to a property owner.The property owner said the animals were not neglected or distressed.The SPCA plans to file charges including animal cruelty..."  Link & video