Friday Fun: Tarra & Bella

In Tennessee there’s a very special place called The Elephant Sanctuary. It’s a place that takes in retired or troublesome elephants and elephants not receiving proper care.  They take in sick elephants too—tuberculosis, potentially fatal foot problems, & PTSD.  These elephants are finally allowed to live more normal lives with 2700 acres to roam and no coercive handling from humans.  We’ve happily  supported their work for years.

Check out the sanctuary’s site to learn more about the individual elephants, watch their live ele-cam, and the sanctuary’s philosophy of elephant care, which shares some of the same approaches as non-coercive dog/cat training.

I especially love the story of Tarra & Bella—an elephant & dog who are best friends.  Pretty neat!  (I posted this story last year, but it’s so cool, I wanted to repeat it.)  There’s a children’s book about them too, Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends.

Procter & Gamble Buying Natura Pet Products

This is so disappointing.  Procter & Gamble is acquiring Natura Pet Products which was a privately held company that produced high quality pet foods—Evo, Innova, Karma, California Natural, Healthwise and Mother Nature. (We use Innova and Evo.) Quality brands often seem to go downhill once they are bought by the large conglomerates.  Look at Science Diet (Colgate-Palmolive Company), Iams (Procter & Gamble), Eukanuba (Procter & Gamble), & Nutro (Mars).  Craptacular.