Good morning Helen, the two videos I was referring to are at this link in the first post.

http://community.adlandpro.com/forums/post/2514937/Welcome-to-AdlandPro-Learning-Center.aspx?flag=9

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He has several threads. Which one for the videos?

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Hello everyone, don't forget to visit the New Adlandpro Learning Center, compliments of Mark Dewey. Be sure and watch the two videos. Mark has done an outstanding job on them. I have already taken advantage of a free program introduced there by Rick Martin.

http://community.adlandpro.com/forums/forum/547240/AdlandPro-Learning-Center.aspx

:)

Hi Miguel, of course my forum is the place to show this article and thank you for thinking of it.

True, this little dog had suffered greatly and when I hear or read stories like this it makes me see red. Why do people even take in an animal if they're only going to mistreat it and not take care of it? Makes you wonder how a monster like this man, and I use the word "man" loosely, treats his family. Does he also beat and kick them? To intentionally and physically hurt an animal or another human being is inexcusable but sadly there seems to be more and more people like this everyday.

I read an article a couple of days ago where a grandmother and stepmother made a nine year old girl run for three hours until she collapsed and died because she had eaten a candy bar without permission. How cruel is that and too you hear about not only child abuse all the time but animal abuse too. People that do these things are no more than monsters and it's enough to make you sick to your stomach.

Hope you're having a great weekend Miguel.

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Dear Evelyn,

The below story deeply impressed me. It is about the suffering of a little dog, but also about Love; and like the one about "The Little Dog That Could," it has a happy ending. I guess your forum is the place to show it.

Hugs,

Miguel

Saving Smeegle from the Fiery Brute

• by Laura Simpson
• February 23, 2012

Written by Ness Watson of West Sussex, United Kingdom

In the Autumn of 2007, our very old Border Collie, Frog, went out for a long walk as usual without any problems. On her return, she climbed the steps to where we lived, got to the top and lay down and couldn’t get up again. We rushed her to the vet and they told us that at nearly 15, she was going into heart failure quite quickly and although they may well be able to make her comfortable, there was no coming back from it. I said goodbye to Frog and she crossed the rainbow bridge.

Cut to a few months later and we were having a lot of difficulty adopting a new dog. I live in a very large apartment and this went against me when it came to adopting from all the larger organizations in the UK. ‘Dogs cannot live in apartments’ I was told. I felt this is incorrect as I take my dog out for four long walks a day, a lot of dogs I am aware of just get to do their business in a garden and rarely see the outside world.

One day, I received an email from a lady who was desperate to rehome her dog, JJ. She told us all about him, how he was 8 months old and a handful. She said she and her husband had four kids and that her husband no longer wanted the dog. I went immediately to find out more about the situation. When I got there and first met with JJ, he cowered and cried so much, I couldn’t put a hand on him as he shied away and he wouldn’t walk properly, just crouched so low to the floor. He was bald in a lot of areas, very underweight and most of the fur from his face was gone, only pink skin remaining. He did his best to keep well away from my partner and would try and disappear if my partner put a hand out for him to smell.

When He Walked in, the Dog Hid Behind Me

The husband came back just then and the dog tried desperately to get out of the room we were in, his tail disappeared between his legs, his eyes looking at the ground and he hid behind me. I began asking questions.

It turns out the husband would beat the dog with belts and fists and kick the dog whenever he saw him. The dog was made to live out in the rain and cold with no shelter at all and had not been socialized with human nor animal. We didn’t get a single thing for him and even then I pressed £40 into the womans hands and said to keep it for the kids or herself. JJ was bearly 8 months at this point and I believe to this day he was taken from his mother way too young.

We Showed Him that Hands Could Deliver Love Instead of Pain

Back at home JJ, or Smeegle as he’d chosen to respond to, started his journey to become a well rounded dog. At first he couldn’t even bear the lightest touch to stroke him, but would tolerate it. Slowly I could build that time up until at last we could stroke him for 5 minutes before he ran away. His fur grew back in nicely and he filled out, putting on 8 klimograms (17.6 pounds) as when we got him he barely weighed half of the weight he should have been.

He still took a long time to get used to having my partner around and would have serious issues when males would come into the house, running away only to return, bark and run away again. It took him more than two years to stop barking at my dad. The best advice I could give to people was ignore him completely, don’t look at him, and after half an hour of people being there he would appear and begin to settle down a bit, although he’d be ready to run if need be. He’d have trouble eating foods and so we’d let his holistic biscuits soak for ten minutes before letting him have his dinner. He hated his paws being touched or even looked at and became funny if you found a mark on him, preferring to run to the safety of his bed.

We bought him toys and like most Collies, he became best friends with a variety of tennis balls, handy as we live next to tennis courts and a big park. But he wasn’t very socialized with other dogs. He doesn’t have aggression, but more curiosity and fear. It took at least a year of hard work to get him to the point where he could bring a ball to males who visited and then retrieve it when they threw it for him. It took nearly a year to get him to come onto my bed for a hug and when he started doing it, there was no stopping him. Lovely & humorous Smeegle photos here.

Don’t Stop Now

Smeegle now lives for attention and woe betide you if you stop stroking him before he is ready as he’ll be ready with a slap of the paw as if to say ‘why did you stop? I want love!’ He loves people and even my 4-year-old nephew is treated with kid gloves by him. He has learned Spanish commands as well as English commands and has a hilarious ‘sense of humor’ doing some very wacky things. I hate to think what would have happened if someone hadn’t contacted me out of the blue.

Brought to you by The Great Animal Rescue Chase….heroes welcome.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/saving-smeegle-from-the-fiery-brute.html#ixzz1nLvdzxGg

My dad tells the story of watching a special on public television 30 years ago which took a look at where life on planet Earth came from. After a couple of hours of working backwards using Darwinian evolution as the basis for understanding where we came from, the scientist came down to the most basic form of life -- the cell. The cell is pretty much universally agreed to be the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life.

Even if you bought into the theory of evolution presented in the PBS show, there was still one major problem with how the program ended: it failed to say where that one living cell came from. And a fundamental law of science is that you cannot get life from non-life.

Whether someone believes in the God of the Bible is one thing. And perhaps agnosticism is understandable. I can have respect for someone who genuinely says, "I don't know if God exists, but I am willing to consider the possibility and look at the evidence." But for someone to just be an outright atheist, that is to arrogantly declare with certainty that there is no God, is not intellectually plausible when you consider the marvel that is the world around us.

In fact, the Bible in Psalm 53 is more direct. It reads: "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

Charles Darwin, often called the father of evolution, is best known for his work titled The Origin of the Species. In chapter six of that book, he goes into great detail about the human eye. He writes: "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of the spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection (evolution), seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."

Darwin then goes on to basically say: "But it could happen." In other words, Darwin says it's absurd to believe that the eye could have been formed by evolution, but he believes it was anyway. You can read that part for yourself if you wish, but it is painful to read because is it a tortured attempt to explain away what he had just admitted was "absurd in the highest possible degree."

Renowned scientist Albert Einstein, named Person of the Century by TIME magazine in 1999, was an agnostic. He did not believe in a personal God. However, he did say this: "Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe -- a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."

I believe God created the heavens and the Earth. And unlike Mr. Einstein, I do believe in a personal God, which is what Jesus Christ taught. The New Testament teaches that Jesus is the one and only mediator between God and man. That is to say that man cannot reach God without going through Jesus Christ. You can choose not to believe that, but it is the essential doctrine of the New Testament.

Jesus himself said in John 3:16-17, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him."

Hi Helen, this a very thought provoking article, I must say. :)

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Hello all

I liked this little article. It gives us food for debate in an easy manner should we ever need it. Should we pass it on to our private email lists? It's up to you.

Helen


From Darwin, to Einstein ... to God

Tim Wildmon - Guest Columnist - 2/24/2012 10:45:00 AM

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1543036





I have a friend, Frank Turek, who wrote a book titled I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

I don't either, Frank.

My dad tells the story of watching a special on public television 30 years ago which took a look at where life on planet Earth came from. After a couple of hours of working backwards using Darwinian evolution as the basis for understanding where we came from, the scientist came down to the most basic form of life -- the cell. The cell is pretty much universally agreed to be the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life.

Even if you bought into the theory of evolution presented in the PBS show, there was still one major problem with how the program ended: it failed to say where that one living cell came from. And a fundamental law of science is that you cannot get life from non-life.

Whether someone believes in the God of the Bible is one thing. And perhaps agnosticism is understandable. I can have respect for someone who genuinely says, "I don't know if God exists, but I am willing to consider the possibility and look at the evidence." But for someone to just be an outright atheist, that is to arrogantly declare with certainty that there is no God, is not intellectually plausible when you consider the marvel that is the world around us.

In fact, the Bible in Psalm 53 is more direct. It reads: "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

Charles Darwin, often called the father of evolution, is best known for his work titled The Origin of the Species. In chapter six of that book, he goes into great detail about the human eye. He writes: "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of the spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection (evolution), seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."

Darwin then goes on to basically say: "But it could happen." In other words, Darwin says it's absurd to believe that the eye could have been formed by evolution, but he believes it was anyway. You can read that part for yourself if you wish, but it is painful to read because is it a tortured attempt to explain away what he had just admitted was "absurd in the highest possible degree."

Renowned scientist Albert Einstein, named Person of the Century by TIME magazine in 1999, was an agnostic. He did not believe in a personal God. However, he did say this: "Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe -- a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."

I believe God created the heavens and the Earth. And unlike Mr. Einstein, I do believe in a personal God, which is what Jesus Christ taught. The New Testament teaches that Jesus is the one and only mediator between God and man. That is to say that man cannot reach God without going through Jesus Christ. You can choose not to believe that, but it is the essential doctrine of the New Testament.

Jesus himself said in John 3:16-17, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him."