Wednesday, May 25, 2016

A spoon playing world record, pets in apartments and animal hoarding

We need to focus on living well with companion animals. This is Chiana enjoying the dog park.

SAT interviewee Deb “Spoons” Perry is an animal lover but also plays stainless steel spoons. Today she will be attempting to smash a world record. She’s been invited to play at the TEDx Sydney Event in the main Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. The current world record for people playing spoons is 1800. That’s 1800 people making music with spoons.

This afternoon, 15 minutes before afternoon tea, Deb will perform to “Lonely Boy” then proceed to teach 2500 (hopefully more) TEDx delegates how to play “Dumb Things” by Paul Kelly.

If you’re at TEDx, make sure you’re in the audience equipped with your spoon. We wish Deb the very best in her world record attempt.

This week is the last week to register your support for the proposed NSW Strata Regulations. Urban cultural geographer Emma Power explains why this is a good idea in this article for The Conversation.

Animal hoarding is a serious animal welfare issue, one for which there is no easy solution. The University of Sydney worked with the RSPCA to identify key characteristics of persons convicted for hoarding relatedoffences.

This week, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald mentions new findings by Drs Rosemary Elliot and John Snowden. This article is particularly insightful as it contains a first person account of animal hoarding from someone who proactively sought help, and who obviously had a great GP. Read more here.