Ok, here's an interesting idea...Flush Puppies, flushable doggie poop bags. These guys make it sound like they invented it, but there are other brands out there. Still, it's the first time it has come to my attention, which is hard to believe since dog poop bags are such vital element of my daily existence.
These, like the others, are made with a plastic film called PVA (poly-vinyl alcohol). I looked it up and everything I find seems to show that it really is water soluble and breaks down with bacteria. Then again, I'm not a scientist, so I'm not sure I totally understand what I'm reading.
Given our experiences with other "making the world better through plastic" issues, they'll probably find something dangerous about it after we've flushed thousands of them down the loo. But I guess the question is, would it be any worse for the environment than tossing your dog's doo in the local creek (a favorite of some of my neighbors, unfortunately) or preserving poop for eternity in a landfill in a normal plastic bag or some-time-less-than-eternity in a "bio-degradable" plastic bag as we do now?
Then there's the back yard dog poo composter...
If you're in a quandry, as I am, the NRDC has published a good overview on the options.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Where's ScruffyDog? Damfino.
They (meaning the blogging experts) say that one of the worst things a blogger can do is to not write regularly in his or her blog. The audience, who comes to expect to see new material, comes to the blog only to see the same post day after day, week after week. And, as time goes by, the audience gradually dwindles to nothing.
I fear ScruffyDog has come to the nothing point. One of my dear readers finally sent me an email asking if I was OK...she hadn't seen any posts in so long, she wondered if I had fallen off the face of the earth.
Sometimes it feels that way. When the pressures of work and life come to a peak, my creative energy seems to get supressed. This is frustrating. Because if there's ever a time when one needs creative juices to flow freely, it's when the pressures of work and life come to a peak. So I conserve my energy, parsing it out to each project until there's very little left for things like blogging or working on that historical novel I've been meaning to start for the past 10 years.
The one thing I do make time for, however, is playing with the dogs. If there's anything in my life that helps to replenish that well of energy it's canine companionship. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it's because unlike human interaction, which is wonderful but draining on me, dog interaction takes nothing away. Sure, I expend physical energy heeding the call of the dogs' biological needs, trying to coax the poop bag open on a cold morning, wiping eight wet feet, scraping up the wads of dog hair that collect on the carpeted steps. But that's just stuff to do. The time I spend playing, scratching behind ears, rolling around and napping on the floor with Baxter and Kirby comes effortlessly to me. And it regenerates me in a way nothing else can.
So even though I may not always take the time to focus on my dog blog, I always take the time to focus on its subject matter. And that's what matters most.
I fear ScruffyDog has come to the nothing point. One of my dear readers finally sent me an email asking if I was OK...she hadn't seen any posts in so long, she wondered if I had fallen off the face of the earth.
Sometimes it feels that way. When the pressures of work and life come to a peak, my creative energy seems to get supressed. This is frustrating. Because if there's ever a time when one needs creative juices to flow freely, it's when the pressures of work and life come to a peak. So I conserve my energy, parsing it out to each project until there's very little left for things like blogging or working on that historical novel I've been meaning to start for the past 10 years.
The one thing I do make time for, however, is playing with the dogs. If there's anything in my life that helps to replenish that well of energy it's canine companionship. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it's because unlike human interaction, which is wonderful but draining on me, dog interaction takes nothing away. Sure, I expend physical energy heeding the call of the dogs' biological needs, trying to coax the poop bag open on a cold morning, wiping eight wet feet, scraping up the wads of dog hair that collect on the carpeted steps. But that's just stuff to do. The time I spend playing, scratching behind ears, rolling around and napping on the floor with Baxter and Kirby comes effortlessly to me. And it regenerates me in a way nothing else can.
So even though I may not always take the time to focus on my dog blog, I always take the time to focus on its subject matter. And that's what matters most.
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