Summer Camp in Virgina!
When picking a summer camp to send your children too, check out this new
program- Doggone Fun Camp combines camp for your Child and your furry child.
A special camp designed for children and their dogs
With the start of summer comes the start of camps around the Washington DC area. One camp, sponsored by the Fairfax County Parks Authority, is designed not only for your child but for the family dog.
Doggone Fun Camp is designed for young adults ages 9 through 14 and their dog. It is a week long camp that combines fun with the learning practical skills in dog care. Participate in activities that are designed to promote a lifelong bond between the child and the dog. All dogs must be on a leash, have proof of vaccinations, and display a valid rabies tag.
amps are held at Lake Accotink Park in Springfield, Virginia and Lake Fairfax Park in Reston, Virginia. Space is limited and fills up quickly, so register today if you are interested!
Visit www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/parktakes.htm for schedules and availability.
Bo finally arrived!
Meet Bo, the First Dog
Senator and Mrs. Kennedy to Sasha and Malia, recently at the White House.
In case anybody is wondering, Bo is a boy.
Air and Space Museum-(L’Enfant Plaza) public art
I was on the metro the other day on my way to a new meet-n-greet and at L’Enfant Plaza stop I saw two really fun photographs of Weimaraners in NASA suits. It sparked my interest and being by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum I wondered if that was the dog I had heard of that first went into space before humans. Well, after investigation the dog is not what I was thinking rather a public art piece commissioned by NASA Art Program and were primarily funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in partnership with the Metro Art in Transit Program. NASA teamed up with renowned photographer and artist William Wegman, famed for his popular images of Weimaraner dogs acting out in human situations, Wegman put his subjects in a space suit loaned by NASA. The finished photos of dogs floating in microgravity are displayed on a pair of circular murals in the L’Enfant Plaza Station, one of the busiest stops of the DC Metro system.
Image Credit: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
After researching the dog in the NASA outfit I came across Laika (my original thought as to what the dog in the metro could be) who was the first living mammal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital casualty. Laika, the first animal ever sent to space, rode to orbit in Sputnik II on the 3rd of November, 1957. Several countries issued stamps honoring Laika. Laika is quite an interesting piece of Soviet cosmonautic history….
Little was known about the impact of space flight on living things at the time Laika’s mission was launched. Some scientists believed humans would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space, so engineers viewed flights by non-human animals as a necessary precursor to human missions.[1] The United States used chimpanzees; the Soviet program elected to use dogs. Laika, a stray, originally named Kudryavka (Russian: кудрявка Little Curly-Haired One), underwent training with two other dogs, and was eventually chosen as the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957. Sputnik 2 was not designed to be retrievable, and Laika had always been intended to die.[2]
Laika died a few hours after launch, presumably from stress and overheating, probably due to a malfunction in the thermal control system. The true cause and time of her death was not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she lived for several days.[3] However, the experiment proved that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness. It paved the way for human spaceflight and provided scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments. On April 11, 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika. A small monument in her honor was built near the military research facility in Moscow which prepared Laika’s flight to space. It features a dog standing on top of a rocket.[4][5]
source- wikipedia
Some believed Laika was a Heroine that lead the way for human space exploration, but there is also a lot of controversy regarding her death, more so in America than in Russia. The mission sparked a debate across the globe on the mistreatment of animals and animal testing in general to advance science. It was not until 1998, after the collapse of the Soviet regime, that Oleg Gazenko, one of the scientists responsible for sending Laika into space, expressed regret for allowing her to die:
- Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it… We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog.[3][20]
The Daily Candy
March 3, 2009
Doggy Houser
The District Dog Fitness, Playgroups, and Boarding
As even the Obamas know, living in D.C. means delighting in the city’s many pups.
Insiders know the secret is to love ’em and then leave ’em in the capable hands of The District Dog, a team of hip hound lovers that helps every dog have its day.
Poodle: Treat the pampered fluffball to a solo stroll morning, noon, or night.
Golden retriever: The social butterfly will frolic at will in an hour-long playgroup at the local park.
Greyhound: When he’s not watching the races at home, he’ll be out on a rapid run down the trail with a marathon-running staffer.
Basset hound: The lazy bum can get out for a ten-minute potty outing without breaking a sweat. There’s also the ultimate luxury — a bed-and-bone boarding package.
Each excursion gets a status report to keep you updated.
It’s a Fido-lized state of the union.
The District Dog (info@thedistrictdog.com or thedistrictdog.com) 201 705 4022
Designing for the first dog
Students design collar for first dog
By Jameel Naqvi, Daily Herald
As President-elect Barack Obama vets candidates for his cabinet, his daughters, Malia and Sasha, may have to make an equally difficult choice.Teams of business students at Community Unit District 300’s three high schools are competing to design a collar for the first family’s dog.
District 300 business students hope the Obama girls will outfit their new pet in one of the collars designed by the students and produced by Chicago-based pet apparel firm Urban Hund.
“What better way to do this than to bring a piece of Chicago to the White House?” said Kelly Gerst, who runs Urban Hund with her husband, Tom.
Many of the designs took inspiration from the Chicago skyline, the American flag and Obama’s message of change.Among the designs were a collar labeled “Top Dog in the White House” and a sports-themed collar created to appeal to Malia and Sasha’s interest in sports.
Students are voting on the best design and presentation, but Urban Hund wants all the students to get a shot at designing the First Dog’s collar and plans to present all the ideas to Malia and Sasha.