Breaking News: Operation Puppy Rescue

Many apologies for the absent June issue, but we've got our hands full with this one! One of our neighbors decided that having a baby and a barking puppy was too much to handle. So, in order to fix the barking problem, he decided to get another puppy. If you know math, 2 barking puppies plus a crying baby equals madness. He figured that the solution was to "get rid of" the dogs, but in the stupidest way possible--he offered the youngest, Daisy, a 3-month old, DEAF Pit Bull, to the first passerby, who happened to be a street "gangsta" (I know what you're thinking: gangsters in Berkeley? Really??) When we heard that, we asked him to surrender the other dog, Duke (9-months old) and two days later, we caught up with Daisy, who had already been sold to another "gangsta" as a dogfight breeder, for $150. Then, her "asking price" was $180. Daisy is now my dog and I renamed her Nora. I just built a blog called raisingnora.blogspot.com to journal my experiences as a new parent of a deaf dog.

We are happy to report that Duke is now in an awesome home with another blue pitbull.

Why rescuing these Pit Bulls matter, you might ask? Pit Bulls are used in dog fighting which is a rampant blood sport in the US and in the town next door, Oakland. "Backyard breeders" don't feed their dogs for days to make them mad, drag them behind a car, put glass chards in the crates, breed them for years and years only to abandon them in the street, as well as other cruelties. It's so sad to see so much "breedism" against Pit Bulls there is because they are one of America's fallen heroes--the Pit Bull was the poster boy that represented the US in World War I and became "America's sweetheart breed, admired, respected and loved"* as a good family dog.

Designarchy Inspires!

Designarchy is honored to be featured in the listings of the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle's onehundredthings.wordpress.com. This new site with the title "101 Things Designers can do to save the Earth" has a compiled list of tips that can help designers and print buyers make decisions with a low footprint in the environment. The director of the school wrote an email to us to praise Designarchy's website as "excellent" (oh, my! I hope he's not talking about the code--I barely know HTML) and said it inspired some of the ideas that they have included in their site. All I can say is, "THANK GOD somebody finally compiled all these bits and pieces of information in one place! Oh, and when you mouse over the Designarchy name, there's a cute little note about me and dogs ;-)

Design Spotlight: Deaf Dogs Storefront

Last year we gladly donated monthly to animal organizations and we had intended to continue that this year. But for many unforseen reasons, that was not possible this year. At the same time, we began rescuing animals ourselves. Donating money to animal organizations is definitely easier than doing the work yourself, which is emotionally and financially straining. So in the process of raising awareness to particular issues, as well as trying to increase some revenue in order to provide the best care for our animals, we opened a storefront at Cafe Press called cafepress.com/deafdogs. While that's a small portion of the dog population, deaf dogs are euthanized in higher numbers than other dogs because people find it too hard to train them. They are born without a particular gene related to the lack of coat pigment, so they will likely have white coats and light colored eyes. We opened the online store with some basic items, such as mugs, and clothing with different phrases such as "Deaf Dogs/Powered by Training", "My Dog is Deaf/What's Your Dog's Excuse?", "Deaf Dogs/No Yelling Necessary" and "Adopt a Deaf Dog".

Book Worm: You Grow Girl!

This is such a fun, no fuss, gardening book that even my sporadic gardening interests find it incredibly inspirational. Written by Gayla Trail in February 2000, the book has grown into a vibrant online community seeking a more modern and doable relationship to plants, especially in a city environment. There is even mention of doing "guerrila gardening", aimed at bringing more green in the cities and lots of information on simple environmental steps, fun and cheap projects as well as a humourous look at gardening in general. Hail to Martha, but Gayla makes you feel like you're in kindergarden again!

Tip of the Month: Bioplastics

Few people know that there is an area between California and Hawaii called the North Pacific Gyre where there is a "patch" of floating plastic more than twice the size of Texas. Although we embrace bioplastics as a step in the right direction, bioplastics do not decompose in water in the same way they do on land. So if you use those corn plates and forks, be sure to throw them in your compost bin.