Dragon Dictate software incorrectly capitalizes 'tiger, 'lion' and 'jaguar'

Dragon Dictate, the voice to typed word software that I often use, incorrectly capitalises tiger, lion and jaguar. These are three of the big, roaring cats. They should not be capitalised as they are ordinary nouns. I suspect that the software capitalises these words because they are often used by people in circumstances when the word could be capitalised such as a sports team.

To pick one at random: Melbourne Tigers, a Melbourne basketball team. The word 'tiger' should be capitalised when used in this way.

As for the jaguar (the cat) the word is capitalised when referring to the car brand. This is probably why Dragon Dictate, by default, capitalises it. It believes the word is more used to describe the car than the cat.

As a Dragon Dictate user you have to customise the software to rectify these defects.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Women steal elderly Ragdoll cat from front yard in Melbourne, Australia

NEWS/COMMENT: The video shows a couple of women in Melbourne, Australia, stealing an elderly Ragdoll cat owned by Andrew Ward, from the easily accessible front yard of his Melbourne home. The theft looks a bit haphazard and badly organised. Amateurish might be the correct description particularly as they were captured on the home owner's security camera.

The video tells us that four women might have been involved. They dumped the cat three days later but was thankfully reunited as she is microchipped. The cat had been injured in the meantime. Apparently she has lost some teeth and had a sore spine which looks like mishandling when the cat was struggling. 

The video is meant to be an example of a surge in pet thefts in Melbourne. Clearly this Ragdoll cat was targeted because she looks so beautiful but they decided that she was too old (15) to be a commercial success and that they wouldn't be able to sell her for a good price.

In Australia, purebred Ragdoll cats can sell for AU$5000. The police are investigating. The video is quite good so one would think that they would be able to identify thieves.

Screenshot from the CCTV video.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Heart disease (HCM) affects 1 in 7 shelter cats as per a study

The title may seem concerning to readers. It certainly concerned me which is why I am writing about it. The information comes from a scientific study so it is pretty sound. The researchers tested 1007 cats over the age of 6 months in shelters. They were all healthy on the face of it.

Tabby shelter cat keen to be adopted. Image in the public domain.

Of the 1007 they obtained 'complete data' for 780. 40.8% had a heart murmur. Although I understand that this condition does not automatically mean that the cat has heart disease. That said the percentage is high.

"The prevalence of HCM was 14.7% ". Yes, 15% of the cats or around 1 in 7 cats had HCM which is a common type of feline heart disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The left ventricle enlarges and the heart malfunctions.

The scientists concluded with the following words:

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is common in apparently healthy cats, in contrast with other cardiomyopathies. Heart murmurs are also common, and are often functional.

I am unsure what the phrase 'often functional' means in this context. Taking a common sense interpretation it means that the heart although diseased functioned.

Comment: 15% is a high percentage. It encourages me to believe that tests for HCM should be conducted on all shelter cats as a default procedure. The study might not represent the general shelter cat population.

If I was adopting a shelter cat I think I'd ask about HCM and whether they did tests.

Study details:  Cardiomyopathy prevalence in 780 apparently healthy cats in rehoming centres (the CatScan study). Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvc.2015.03.008

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

U.S. First Amendment gives staff the right to criticize a shelter publicly including on social media

Nathan Winograd, a lawyer, a very prominent animal advocate and an expert on how to run an animal shelter to minimise euthanasia, has kindly, in an email to me, reminded us that Americans have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to speak out against government policies with which they disagree including, the situation in which a rescuer and volunteer wishes to speak out and criticise the shelter where they work because they believe that the shelter didn't do enough to prevent the euthanasia of a dog at the shelter.

Of course, it could be any animal earmarked for euthanasia because the shelter might not be well run and therefore too many cats and dogs are being killed. Let's be clear about that. Euthanasia is often simply killing healthy animals. Euthanasia means the humane termination of life of a chronically and terminally sick animal. Many cats and dogs at animal shelters across the world are killed simply because nobody has adopted them and the shelter is full.

Anyway, to get back to the main topic which is the US Constitution's First Amendment. In this story, a former volunteer has filed a lawsuit against Multnomah County Animal Services (MCAS) in Portland, Oregon, USA for violating her constitutional rights.

She alleges in her lawsuit that the shelter management retaliated against after she had publicly aired her concerns about the shelter's plans to euthanise i.e. kill a healthy one year old poodle.

The volunteer and plaintiff in this lawsuit is Monica Klein. She alleges that the manager of the said shelter, Marian Cannell, terminated her services in July after she had posted on social media her opinion that the shelter's decision to euthanise a dog named Cloud was unnecessary because the shelter management had rebuffed her request to have a chance to find the dog (named Cloud) a suitable home.

The First Amendment most importantly protects American citizens who want to criticise US government agencies, quangos and any other US government organisations. This is been made clear by the US Supreme Court which has consistently ruled that, "speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values and is entitled to special protection".

The First Amendment prohibits shelter management from forcing employees and volunteers to sign a nondisclosure agreement which prevents them from criticising the shelter publicly. The first amendment also prevents shelter staff from deleting comments online and social media platforms from banning commenters.

The shelter concerned, MCAS, according to Nathan Winograd, is "no stranger to illegal and abusive conduct thanks to years of mismanagement at the hands of managers and elected officials indifferent to animal suffering."

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Winnipeg will change the law to allow people to legally do TNR work

NEWS AND COMMENT: CBS News reports that it's going to become legal to care for feral cats in Winnipeg under TNR programs if the community services committee agrees to proposed changes. Why should there be a need for a change in the bylaws of the City of Winnipeg just to do TNR work which is a way of controlling feral cat population numbers?

Winnipeg, Canada will change the city bylaws to allow TNR programs to conducted legally.

Well, in Winnipeg you need a licence to own a cat or dog. This is unusual. There are very few cities that demand a cat licence. For dogs it is normal because dogs are more dangerous to people than cats but in Winnipeg they have some quite strict rules about pet ownership.

Because of these licensing laws, there appears to be an unintended consequence in caring for feral cats because it might mean that a volunteer becomes a de facto owner of a feral cat or cats. And therefore they would have to get a licence which is not what was intended.

In fact, it would probably be in violation of the current pet licensing laws to do TNR work in Winnipeg. This problem in the bylaws of the city needs to be rectified. People engaged in TNR programs and caring for feral cats have been pushing for a change in the law for some time.

One of those people is Lynne Scott of Craig Street Cats. She said that, "Anyone who cares for a cat in their yard becomes the de facto owner of the cat."

This can lead to being fined or receiving some other penalty. It's an ambiguity within the existing city laws.

The change will allow people to do TNR work and look after feral cats provided they keep their area of operation clean and tidy and do not build too many shelters and other structures in order to maintain the amenity in the area and satisfy residents.

The Animal Services General Manager of Winnipeg, Leland Gordon, is keen for this change to take place to make it entirely legal for people to do TNR work.

The community services committee supports the change and it should go through their committee successfully on January 10, 2024. 

They hope it will encourage people to volunteer to limit feral cat population numbers. Organisations involved in this kind of work will have to have a cat management program recognised by Animal Services or be registered with a recognised cat management program.

Sources: CBC NEWS and the City of Winnipeg website.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.