Posts Tagged ‘animals’
Tips For Bathing Your Cat With Minimum Risk
Cats do not by and large require bathing because their mothers teach them how to clean themselves while they are kittens. Furthermore, cats have a valid reputation for not being fond of water too much. However, there might be occasions when you feel the need for bathing your cat.
For instance, your cat might be old or sick, have been in a bad scrap or be infested with fleas. If these times crop up, you will be glad of some tips for bathing your cat, as they can get fairly nasty about it, inflicting serious scratches that could get septic.
This first thing to do is gather everything you require in advance, because you will probably need to hold your cat down. So, you want the shampoo, a flannel and a towel close by.
If you already know that your cat is going to become difficult, bathe it in a bowl either in the garden shed or in the bathroom, where flying water will not cause much of a difficulty.
Otherwise, you could bathe your cat in a bowl on the lawn, but an enclosed space might help your cat feel less at risk and it will be easier to catch it in an enclosed space if it escapes your grasp.
If your cat really, really detests bathing and you have trouble holding it, place it in a pillow case with only its head sticking out. You can use a cat collar to keep the pillow case in place.
If you use a pillow case, wash your cat through the pillow case as you would a delicate, costly woollen sweater. Use an old collar, because otherwise you may wash out the insecticide that is impregnated in it.
If your cat’s fur is matted or clotted with blood, you had better remove the clots and cut away the hair with the cat on your lap before you begin bathing it.
Whilst preparing the bowl, place a non-slip mat or towel in the bottom and only half fill it with luke warm water. The shampoo ought to be mild. In fact, you should bathe your cat as you would a child who does not like getting soap in its eyes.
Lower your cat gently but fairly quickly into the water and talk to it reassuringly all the time. It will probably hate what you are doing to it, although some breeds are fairly happy to be in water. Yours probably will hot be though and it will become more than a little frightened, so carry on talking to it.
Work quickly and do what you can. It is better to get most of the work done the first time round and have to come for a second go later than to actually stress your cat out with a long session and who knows, it may become used to it after repeated sessions, if they do not last too long.
When you are done, wrap the cat in a towel and be nice to it. If it is in a pillow case, wrap the towel around the pillow case and take it off under the towel. When your cat is fairly dry, you can let it go if it wants, because it will dry itself off anyway.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with feline distemper vaccination. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Distemper Vaccines
RFID Tags: Passive, Active And Hybrid
All RFID tags are used to store and ultimately send data. They can best be thought of as the replacement for the bar code. However, they have significant advantages over bar codes. For instance: RFID tags can hold much more data than bar codes; they can be scanned from further away and they can in point of fact send data, not only store data.
There are three varieties of RFID tags: passive, active and hybrid. Passive RFID tags are the least expensive, because they are less complex. They need to be induced to disclose their data by taking power from an RFID reader. When the reader’s radio waves hit them, they reflect back their data. This is the kind of tag used in goods in a retail outlet or on crates in a warehouse.
On the other hand, active RFID tags have a battery, a transmitter and an aerial so that they are always transmitting. These devices are obviously a lot more expensive and so are used only on more expensive items such as a container, a battle tank, an aircraft, on criminals ankle bands or on an animal of an endangered species.
The hybrid RFID tag is capable of transmitting, but it has to be told to transmit; it has to be turned on by a signal. This signal could be a satellite flying over head. These hybrid RFID tags are also costly, but the battery lasts longer because they are not ‘always on’. These tags have the same uses as the active tags, but are suitable for use where it is not vital to know where something is every minute of the day: for instance cows in a field or goats on a mountain.
Passive tags can be attached permanently by sewing them into hems or putting them under skin because they do not have their own electricity source and do not wear out. This is a cause of anxiety to some people who worry about an invasion of their privacy or the erosion of their human rights.
Active and hybrid tags are most frequently plainly visible so that the batteries can be changed as and when required. If this is going to be unlikely to take place, as in the case of wild animals, the tag can have a biodegradable clasp which will break sometime after the probable expiry of the battery.
Some uses for RFID tags are on season tickets so that the holder can pass through the style more quickly than a customer paying by cash. It has uses in security; most of the ID badges you see pinned to jackets have RFID built into them so that security guards do not have to stop and question everybody.
They can be put into wagons that repeatedly cross frontiers so that they do not have to stop for identification. They can be put on windscreens so that, as you pass through a motorway toll post, either your credit card is billed or the charge is added to your company’s monthly statement.
Hospitals utilize them on patients so that they do not lose anyone or misidentify them. RFID tags are helpful in our daily lives but people are concerned about criminals being able to read all this information too readily as well.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is now concerned with the RFID asset tracking. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.
Radio And Inventory Control By The Use Of RFID
RFID is the recognized acronym for Radio Frequency IDentification. The basis of RFID technology is that every RFID chip or tag is capable of sending a radio signal on a frequency totally unique to itself.
Therefore, every RFID tag must have its own identifying frequency and the RFID tag readers have be sensitive enough to be able to distinguish between frequencies that are only a very minute bit different from its neighbouring tags. The disparity can be infinitesimal.
Therefore, the technology has to be precise and selective, but not fragile, because the apparatus has to be used on the shop floor and by people who are often pushed for time and in weather that may be bad.
In order for RFID to have the desired result, you have to have a tag, which is an smart sort of bar code and a radio receiver, often called a (tag) reader. However, whereas a bar code can only hold a small amount of data and the bar code reader has to be pointed at it, an RFID tag can store much more data and can be read from a hundred metres or more – even out of line of sight.
Passive tags will only divulge their details when required to to by a reader, whereas an active tag is constantly relaying its information. Obviously, active RFID tags are more costly than passive tags, because they have to have a long life battery.
These tags can be utilized to track goods from the moment they leave the manufacturer of the goods they describe to the in-bay of the retailer. The tags can then be up-dated or renewed and stored in the warehouse. Once there, RFID readers can keep management up to date about which goods are where and if the sell-by-date is approaching.
This has implications for the levels of stock that a company needs to hold, the quantity of goods sold cheap because the sell-by-date is too near and for theft, all of which should boost company profits more than paying for the cost of the tags, the readers, the printers and the programmes.
At the click of a mouse, managers will be able to read how much inventory they have in real time and if this is all linked to the checkout cash registers, which are the most and least profitable items. This makes reordering easy . Easy to the point of automation. For instance, when stocks of the top ten percent of the best selling items falls below 1,000 order 10,000 more. Automatically, no questions asked.
RFID has many other applications too. The ideas mentioned above can be applied to farm animals, a call centre’s IT hardware, a fleet of commercial vehicles, an record of household items, your pets, your car and even your garden furniture. Some people who work over a border are even having them put under their skin so that they do not have to wait at customs.
And do not forget that criminals on early discharge are also tagged. It is the same technology.
Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is now involved with the RFID asset management. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.
How To Keep Your Dog Motivated
Keeping the attention of a dog while training is not always an easy task. Dogs can be very easily distracted, and it is important to not allow the dog training sessions to be sabotaged by boredom. Making dog training fun for the dog and the human alike is essential to creating a happy, well-adjusted and well-trained dog.
You should provide random positive stimuli throughout the day in order to keep the attention of the dog. Doing things the dog enjoys, like walking in the park, riding in the car, and playing with other dogs, are good methods to keep the dog’s attention, but you must reward him for small successes.
For instance, in order to reward the dog for coming to you when you call him, ask the dog to come to you, without giving any clues about a walk, a car ride, or other treats.
After the dog has come to you and obediently sat down, attach the leash and start the reward. This can be either the afore-mentioned walk in the park, ride in the car, or anything else the dog likes to do.
Giving some kind of reward, whether a treat, a special outing, or just a tickle behind the ears, every time the dog does something you want him to, is a great method to maintain your dog’s motivation while you are dog training.
If the dog knows something great is going to happen every time he follows your command, he will be motivated to please you every time.
Distraction training.
When training a dog, it is vital to not let distractions ruin the training. The dog must be trained to ignore distractions, such as other people, other dogs, other animals and loud noises, and concentrate on what is being taught These types of distractions can even be used as rewards when training the dog to come when called.
For instance, if your dog enjoys romping with other dogs, whether it be in a park or with the neighbour’s dogs, let him play with those other dogs. Then go into the park or garden and call your dog.
When he comes to you, provide lots of praise, treats and other rewards, then immediately allow the dog to go back to playing with his pals. Repeat this a few times and praise the dog every time he comes to you.
Your dog will soon learn that coming to you means good things (treats and praise) and not bad ones (being taken away from the park).
So-called distraction training is one of the hardest things to teach, because dogs are naturally social animals, and breaking away from the pack is one of the hardest things you can ask your dog to do. Most dogs will be understandably reluctant to leave their canine companions, but it is important to persist in dog training.
Training your dog to come to you when you call can take some thought on your part at first. For instance, waving a favourite toy, or a lure, is a good way to get your dog’s attention and put the focus back on you. If your dog has been clicker trained, a quick click can be a good motivator too, when training your dog.
Once the dog begins to get used to coming when called, you can begin to reduce and eliminate the visual cues and focus on getting the dog to respond to your voice alone. It is important that the dog obeys voice commands alone, since you will not always have the availability of a toy or other lure.
Does your dog require training? If you require further details on dog training, then visit our web site entitled Successful Dog Training
Cobras
The snake called the spitting cobra is one of the most peculiar species as it not only has a venomous bite but it also sprays venom into the eyes of its prey and aggressors. Contact of this venom with your eyes can be very painful and even temporarily blinding, therefore, if you get cobra venom in your eyes, irrigate them immediately in order to prevent permanent tissue damage.
The King Cobra, Ophiophagus hannah, also distinguishes itself in this large family of snakes (elapids) by the fact that it feeds almost entirely on other snakes with mice and small birds also falling prey to its venom.
The King Cobra sets another record in terms of size: it can get to nearly twenty feet long, which makes it the largest venomous snake in the world. The most recent discovery of a new cobra species was made in 2003, when a specimen was identified at a London Zoo as part of an illegal shipment of exotic pets.
DNA studies revealed that this new species of snake is similar to the red spitting cobra but has different genes. It seems to originate from an area between Sudan and Egypt and it has been called the ‘Nubian Spitting Cobra’.
Although they are highly dangerous when threatened cobras will rarely attack if you keep your distance from them, although the spit can travel very accurately for two meters. Compared to the strike of a rattlesnake, the cobra is rather slow in its attack and besides that, many bites prove to be non-venomous.
A study conducted on Malaysian cobra snake victims indicates that only 55% of the wounds involved venom release and the same statistics indicate a mortality rate of 10% for people bitten, since the toxins injected into the blood of the prey devastate the nerves (neurotoxin) inducing respiratory failure half an hour after being bitten, giving you 30 minutes to seek an antidote.
The colouration of this snake is variable from light green-grey to black, whereas juveniles have alternate yellow and black bands.This snake is to be found all over south-eastern Asia.
Do you care for Cobras? To learn more about snakes visit Caring for Snakes our brand-new web site.