9 Feb 12

Pets and Pesticides

When discussing family members, many of us undoubtedly include our furry additions-pets! How often do we involve pets as part of the annual family Christmas photo? Or take them to the groomers more often than we frequent the hair dresser?

Hunter checking out the products under the sink.

We’ve done previous posts about protecting your family—proper storage, signal words, and poison prevention—but wanted to dedicate this blog to our furry family members. This two-part feature will begin with safe household practices and poison help for your pet and the second part (in a future blog) will focus on flea and tick applications, as well as recognizing counterfeit pet pesticides.

Household Pesticide Products and Your Pets
Similar to the principles that apply to young children, the same practices can be applied to pets.

  • Make sure products are stored out of reach of your pets, especially in areas where a pet can noticeably access, i.e., garden sheds, garages, basements, or back rooms of your home.
  • Remove your pet’s food bowls, water dishes, bedding, toys, and other belongings before using a pesticide product in the area these items may be located.
  • After application, ensure the space is well ventilated and confirm the product has properly dried before allowing your pet to reenter the area. This includes outside areas as well.
  • Use caution when placing bait stations around the house to ensure that pets cannot access them.
  • Always READ the LABEL for more specific instructions on pesticide safety around your pet!

The Pesticide Education Program emphasizes the importance of keeping products in their original containers for the safety of humans so keep this in mind for your pet as well!

Hunter looking at a cleaning product bottle.

While your pet might not be able to unscrew a bottle cap, a product stored in an alternative container with a loose fitting lid or even no lid could allow the product to easily spill.  The original container, with its normal tight fitting lid or cap, could prevent your pet from a potential chemical  exposure.  Be sure to keep your pets out of the area if you do have to clean up a product spill.

Pesticide Exposure Symptoms of Pets
A pet’s eyes, nose, and mouth are potential routes for “pesticides to be absorbed into your pet’s bloodstream through their mucous membranes.”(1) If you are concerned that your pet was exposed to a pesticide, watch for the symptoms listed below or other uncharacteristic behaviors.

  • Lethargy
  • Increased Salivation
  • Tremors, Convulsions, or Seizures
  • Losing Consciousness
  • Difficulty Breathing

Where to Find Help

If your animal is exhibiting extremely adverse symptoms, immediately take your pet to an emergency veterinarian clinic or to your veterinarian with the suspected poisoning product/label. If the symptoms seem less severe, call your veterinarian. In either case, be sure to share your observed symptoms, the product’s label, and your animal’s characteristics (breed, age, weight, etc.). Keep your veterinarian’s number accessible or even add the number to your contact list in your mobile device.

You can also call the National Poison Center at 1-800-222-1222. Poison Centers will do their best to offer pet assistance; if they are not able to help, you will often be referred to the Animal Poison Control Center hotline at 1-888-426-4435. There is a consultation fee associated with this service; please visit Animal Poison Control Center

Kathys Cat, Coco, stretching out on the couch!

Garos dog, Nittany, begging for some good snacks!

Julies dog, Hunter, and son, Nate, taking a rest from playing!

___________________________________________________________
References:

  1. Fishel, Frederick M. “Protecting Your Pet from Pesticides.” University of Florida.
  2. “Read the Label First: Protect Your Pets.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
  3. “Animal Poison Control FAQ.” American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

0 Comments
Filed in Education Articles
  Posted by Abbey Santo
Tagged Pets, Pets Pesticides
4 Feb 12

Nearly a decade of closures and closure plans, all mapped out

The 23 schools that the Panel for Educational Policy could vote to close or shrink tonight would join more than 100 other schools shuttered in the last decade.

We put together a map that shows the 113 schools that have been partially or completely phased out under the Bloomberg administration alongside the 23 schools that could join them tonight. We also included the 33 schools that the city has said it would require to undergo turnaround, a process that entails closing a school and reopening it immediately after changing its name and at least 50 percent of its teachers.

The map is interactive so be sure to click around to explore.

View map on GeoCommons

 

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Filed in Education Tips
  Posted by Brodie Mollison
Tagged Decade, Decade Closures
23 Jan 12

The Basics of Japanese SEO

Facebook

Japanese SEO really is a World apart. if you do SEO in English, French or Russian, the techniques and processes are always pretty much the same. But Japan’s got its own, unique way of seeing things about Internet and web marketing.

If you’re going to do SEO for a Japanese website, you should see link building very differently you would normally do. For example:

-There are very few quality directories in Japan, website and article ones both included. Most of them are automated or semi-automated link exchange systems with little to no unique contents. Avoid them!

-Social bookmarking and networking sites: very few social bookmark sites here in Japan. As for SNS, although Facebook and Twitter are gradually gaining pace, the most important ones are not even indexable by search engines for the most part (Gree, Mixi and the like…)

-Blog commenting works fine, but you will soon find out that most Japanese bloggers use free blog platforms rather than own their own domains

The only thing that really works and produces good results is link building based on contents: open a blog about your niche, post high quality, unique contents, befriend with fellow bloggers and it should be enough for your SEO campaign to reach success!

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    Submitting your new site to good quality directories is certainly one of the first tasks most link builders would handle. When you post to the right places, you can get a bunch of fairly relevant… – 2 months ago

  • Japanese SEO and Black Hat Tactics

    One thing I always find fascinating about SEO in general is how well it reflects aspects of different societies. For example, in this article, I wrote about how link building sometimes felt like… – 3 months ago

  • Keigo, polite Japanese: is it necesary to do business in Japan?

    This one question I see debated a lot lately: you, as a foreigner, do you need or at least shall you use keigo when you do business in Japan / with Japanese people ? From what Ive seen, there… – 3 months ago

  • Japanese SEOA Japanese SEO consultant based in Osaka.
0 Comments
Filed in Education Tips
  Posted by Brodie Mollison
Tagged Japanese Seo, Seo
23 Jan 12

Primary school population to hit a 50-year high

Figures show almost 800,000 additional children aged 11 or under will be in state education by 2020 because of rising birth rates and the effects of immigration.

According to the Department for Education, the primary population is set to soar by a fifth – reaching its highest level since the early 70s.

The disclosure underlines the crisis facing local authorities in some areas that are being forced to cope with the biggest surge in school applications.

It also prompted fresh claims that Labour ignored repeated warnings over the looming population boom by cutting primary school places.

Local authorities in parts of London, the West Midlands and South West have already been forced to install mobile classrooms and educate children in church halls in recent years because of a shortage of space.

Earlier this month, it emerged that Sutton Council in south London had urged ministers to increase the maximum class size for infants to ease the pressure on schools. It suggested allowing schools to admit 32 pupils aged five to seven into lessons instead of the current limit of 30.

Today, the DfE said it was spending £4bn in areas with the tightest squeeze on places over the next four years to create additional primary school capacity.

But Gavin Williamson, the Conservative MP for South Staffordshire, criticised the last Government for failing to deal with the problem. He obtained data in a Parliamentary question showing that Labour cut funding for primary school places, despite warnings as early as 2007 that demand would rise by 110,000 in six years.

“Labour didn’t just ignore clear warnings of a surge in the primary school population, but they actually went against them – cutting funding for extra school places and ordering councils to cut surplus places,” he said.

“Thanks to Labour’s inaction, thousands of children could have been left without a place in the coming years.”

According to projections published today, there are currently 4,025,000 pupils aged under 11 in state-funded nursery and primary schools.

Numbers are expected to grow year-on-year to 4,824,000 by 2020 – an additional 799,000. It will be the biggest number of pupils in the system since the early-70s.

The rise would be equivalent to around 3,260 average-sized primary schools or an additional 26,600 classes of 30 pupils.

Earlier figures show that some 440,000 primary school places are unfilled nationally – but they are not in the areas expected to face a squeeze.

Despite a declining secondary school population in recent years, figures also show that numbers will start to increase again in 2016 because of the effect of rising birth rates.

In total, the Government estimate that the primary and secondary school population combined will rise by 810,000 by the end of the decade. Around 105,000 of these pupils are believed to be from immigrant families.

Stephen Twigg, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said the latest figures showed the Government neded to “respond to real need in our education system, not just promote pet projects” such as academies and free schools which primarily cater for secondary pupils.

“There is an urgent crisis in our primary school system that the Government is ignoring,” he said. “Ten per cent more places are needed before the election. By contrast, secondary school numbers are expected to be five per cent lower than in 2011.

“The majority of need is for primaries yet half the funding from the Autumn Statement will go on pet projects like free schools.

“Only a third of free schools in the pipeline are primaries, and the areas with the biggest need will not get a free school. This shows how out of touch the Tory-led Government is with real need on the ground.”

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Filed in Learning Portal
  Posted by Samantha Bischof
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