THE STORY ABOUT MARTHA, PAUL MCCARTNEY´S SHEEPIE

by Raul on January 10, 2010 in John Lennon, Paul McCartney, The Beatles

In October of 1968, The Beatles recorded the Paul McCartney penned “White Album” song “Martha, My Dear”.  At the time, most people assumed McCartney was indirectly singing a message of love to his longtime girlfriend, Jane Asher who had just broken off their engagement a few months earlier.

Funny thing is McCartney was actually not signing about his ex-girlfriend Jane but rather to the other subject in the photo above, his beloved English Sheepdog “Martha”.

Here’s the history of “Martha” who is included in thousands of photos with McCartney and withThe Beatles. Soon after buying his house on Cavendish Avenue, Paul McCartney bought his first pet, an Old English sheepdog puppy that he named Martha.  She was born June 16, 1966.

About Martha, Paul said,

“She was a dear pet of mine. I remember John (Lennon) being amazed to see me being so loving to an animal.”  He said, ‘I’ve never seen you like that before.’ I’ve since thought, you know, he wouldn’t have.  It’s only when you’re cuddling around with a dog that you’re in that mode, and she was a very cuddly dog.”

Here’s a really cool photo of Lennon and McCartney walking ‘Martha”.

Check out “Martha” on the set of The Beatles “Strawberry Fields Forever” video shoot.

In 1997, McCartney confirmed that “Martha” the dog had been the inspiration behind the song “Martha My Dear“.  It’s a communication of some sort of affection but in a slightly abstract way,McCartney said,

‘You silly girl, look what you’ve done,’ all that sort of stuff. These songs grow. Whereas it would appear to anybody else to be a song to a girl called Martha, it’s actually a dog, and our relationship was platonic, believe me.”

McCartney also said,

“When I taught myself piano I liked to see how far I could go, and this started life almost as a piece you’d learn as a piano lesson. It’s quite hard for me to play, it’s a two-handed thing, like a little set piece. In fact I remember one or two people being surprised that I’d played it because it’s slightly above my level or competence really, but I wrote it as that, something a bit more complex for me to play. Then while I was blocking out words – you just mouth out sounds and some things come – I found the words ‘Martha My Dear‘.”

Martha died in 1981 at the age of 15 at McCartney’s farm house in Mull of Kintyre, Scotland.  She is survived by her offspring, one of which was featured on McCartney’s 1993 album “Paul Is Live” album cover.  Her name is Arrow.

COCONUT OIL FOR OUR OES

The Health Benefits Of Coconut Oil For Dogs

Coconut oil consists of more than 90% saturated fats, with traces of few unsaturated fatty acids, such as monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Most of the saturated fats in coconut oil are Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs). The main component (more than 40%) of MCTs is lauric acid, followed by capric acid, caprylic acid, myristic acid and palmitic. Coconut oil also contains about 2% linoleic acid (polyunsaturated fatty acids) and about 6% oleic acid (monounsaturated fatty acids).

Most of the coconut oil benefits come from the MCTs. For example, the lauric acid in coconut oil has antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-fungal properties. Capric and caprylic acid have similar properties and are best known for their anti-fungal effects.

In addition, MCTs are efficiently metabolized to provide an immediate source of fuel and energy, enhancing athletic performance and aiding weight loss. In dogs, the MCTs in coconut oil balance the thyroid, helping overweight dogs lose weight and helping sedentary dogs feel energetic.

According to Dr. Bruce Fife, certified nutritionist and naturopathic doctor, coconut oil gently elevates the metabolism, provides a higher level of energy and vitality, protects you from illness, and speeds healing. As a bonus, coconut oil improves any dog’s skin and coat, improves digestion, and reduces allergic reactions.

Fed regularly to pets, coconut oil may have multiple benefits:

Skin Conditions

• Clears up skin conditions such as eczema, flea allergies, contact dermatitis,and itchy skin
• Reduces allergic reactions and improves skin health
• Makes coats become sleek and glossy, and deodorizes doggy odor
• Prevents and treats yeast and fungal infections, including candida
• Disinfects cuts and promotes wound healing
• Applied topically, promotes the healing of cuts, wounds, hot spots, dry skin and hair, bites and stings

Digestion

• Improves digestion and nutrient absorption
• Aids healing of digestive disorders like inflammatory bowel syndrome and colitis
• Reduces or eliminates bad breath in dogs
• Aids in elimination of hairballs and coughing

Immune System, Metabolic Function, Bone Health

• Contains powerful antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-fungal agents that prevent infection and disease
• Regulates and balance insulin and promotes normal thyroid function
• Helps prevent or control diabetes
• Helps reduce weight, increases energy
• Aids in arthritis or ligament problems

Integrative Veterinarian and Naturopathic Doctor, Dr. Karen Becker, says “Medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) have been shown to improve brain energy metabolism and decrease the amyloid protein buildup that results in brain lesions in older dogs. Coconut oil is a rich source of MCTs. I recommend 1/4 teaspoon for every 10 pounds of body weight twice daily for basic MCT support.”

Why not give coconut oil a try and introduce it to your dog?  It offers many benefits for your dog and is a more sustainable and less toxic source of oils than fish

POR QUÉ TU PERROS SE REVUELCA EN EXCREMENTOS O EN ANIMALES MUERTOS O SUCIEDADES??

Durante los paseos en el parque, el campo o el bosque es común ver perros que se revuelcan en charcos, heces de otros animales, o incluso en animales muertos. Por más extraño y desagradable que nos parezca este comportamiento, para ellos es algo natural.

Existen tres razones por las que un perro puede embarrarse sobre cosas desagradables:

Razón #1:

Los perros descienden de los lobos y aunque sean una especie completamente distinta y ya no tengan mucho que ver con ellos, aún conservan rasgos genéticos de sus ancestros. Uno de estos rasgos genéticos que nuestros perros conservan son algunos instintos de caza. Si bien no necesitan cazar para alimentarse, estos instintos son los que hacen que a los perros les encante perseguir “presas” en movimiento (como una pelota, un pájaro o un gato) y son estos mismos instintos de caza, los que provocan que en ocasiones se revuelquen sobre basura, lodo, heces o animales muertos. Un cazador necesita pasar desapercibido por la presa. Para tapar su olor y evitar que su presa lo detecte, un cazador necesita “embarrarse” y “cubrirse” con un olor diferente y de preferencia más fuerte. Por eso eligen revolcarse sobre cosas fétidas.

Razón #2:

Los lobos también suelen revolcarse sobre “algo” para llevar el olor consigo y poder comunicarlo a su manada (esto puede tener la intensión de llevar una advertencia o de comunicar un descubrimiento interesante). Nuevamente este comportamiento es algo que los perros heredaron y que conservan como un rasgo genético.

Razón #3:

Esta vez, la explicación no tiene nada que ver con los lobos sino que tiene que ver directamente con nosotros los humanos. Muchas veces cuando bañamos a nuestros perros el jabón deja un aroma que para nosotros es agradable (hoy en día hay jabón de todos los aromas: sandía, coco, chicle, frutas, lavanda, menta, etc.). Como ya hemos comentado en otras ocasiones, el olfato del perro es hipersensible, mucho más sensible de lo que podemos imaginar. Para los perros, el aroma de los jabones y lociones puede ser tan desagradable y molesto que no dudarán en correr al jardín a embarrarse de la primer cosa olorosa que encuentren. Esto último con el objeto de poder eliminar de su cuerpo el horrible olor que les pusimos.

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER THAT DOGS ARE ACTUALLY EMPATHIC GENIUSES

MARCH 7, 2016 

Dogs are just as emotional as their human friends. If you don’t believe me then you’ve probably never been in a room with a dog for more than three minutes.

Hopefully this post will encourage you to spend more time with your four legged friends. Same as humans, dogs feel a wide range of emotions and are apt at empathizing with us. That’s why dogs make such great additions to rescue teams and therapeutic practices.

I always thought this skill came from the dog’s inability to form words. Tests have shown certain breeds to be remarkably intelligent.

With all the intelligence and responsive natures nestled inside their doggy heads they communicate with us by ‘understanding’ where we are at and connecting with us. It seems that there is more to it than that.

A study out of the Sao Paulo Universities was carried out to determine dogs’ abstract reasoning skills, empathetic acknowledgement and connection. A team of animal behavioral experts and psychologists showed seventeen dogs abstract representations of positive and negative emotional states.

Visual stimulus was either a person or a dog being various states of happy, upset, in pain, or aggressive.

When each photo was shown to the test participant a sound clip was played in conjunction. The sound bytes were a dog’s aggressive or happy barking or a person saying ‘come here’ in Portuguese with an angry or happy tone.

‘Previous studies have indicated that dogs can differentiate between human emotions from cues such as facial expressions, but this is not the same as emotional recognition.

Our study shows that dogs have the ability to integrate two different sources of sensory information into a coherent perception of emotion in both humans and dogs. 

To do so requires a system of internal categorization of emotional states. This cognitive ability has until now only been evidenced in primates and the capacity to do this across species only seen in humans’ remarked one researcher from the University of Lincoln.

Per session the dog was shown one model expressing different emotions over two screens. Sound bites were played at 2.5 second intervals, and many of the sounds didn’t connect to the currently displayed model. Each participant went though 20 stimuli sessions.

The dogs responded nearly perfectly. The dogs clearly recognized the matching verbal stimuli to the correct image. The dogs confirmed this by staring at the correct image as the corresponding sound was played. The dogs many seemed confused up until the matching stimuli were paired.

‘It has been a long-standing debate whether dogs can recognize human emotions. Many dog owners report anecdotally that their pets seem highly sensitive to the moods of human family members. However, there is an important difference between associative behavior, such as learning to respond appropriately to an angry voice, and recognizing a range of very different cues that go together to indicate emotional arousal in another.

Our findings are the first to show that dogs truly recognize emotions in humans and other dogs. Importantly, the dogs in our trials received no prior training or period of familiarization with the subjects in the images or audio.

This suggests that dogs’ ability to combine emotional cues may be intrinsic. As a highly social species, such a tool would have been advantageous and the detection of emotion in humans may even have been selected for over generations of domestication by us.’  -Professor Daniel Mills, of the University of Lincoln

All of this has been common knowledge up to this point, but now we can start to break down just how dogs do what they do. It is important to remember that this mental and emotional diversity is unique to each breed and each individual dog.

Just as some humans are more in touch with their emotions than their peers, dogs too can specialize in their persona’s. None of the dogs in the study were given any kind of reinforcement or training. They did what they did on instinct.