Dog Training at Home More Effective than Obedience Classes

Most experts agree (though few will admit it!) that dog training at home is faster and more effective than weekly dog classes, dog obedience school or expensive dog trainers.

It doesn't matter if the dog is a puppy or an older adult. Good home dog training program can produce BIG improvements in a dog's behavior in as little as 30 minutes.

Obedience Training Can Save A Dog's Life

Most dog owners will agree that it feels great to have a well-behaved dog that people enjoy having around. It is also rewarding to have a dog who will play games and do tricks. But personal pride and enjoyment are not the only --- or even the best--- reasons to have an obedient dog. Excellent obedience training can actually save a dog's life.

Dog Training at Home More Effective than Obedience Classes

Surviving on a low income: Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean Pedzi, 29, tells the BBC News website how he manages to get by working as a payments officer in the country's eastern city of Mutare.

"I skip breakfast because I cannot afford to eat three meals a day.

My lunch of stew with sadza [Zimbabwe's staple diet made from maize meal] is subsidised by the company I work for.

Over weekends I will eat sadza and vegetables or some Kapenta fish or two eggs which costs me about 50,000 Zimbabwean dollars (24 cents).

I am studying for my final diploma in credit management.

I cannot afford the classes though and so I just have to get hold of the reading material and then register for the examinations.

This year they cost Z$4m."

Oh, Africa, how can we really help you?

Surviving on a low income: Zimbabwe

Beauty Secrets of the Ancient Egyptians

The ancient Egyptians described their native country as "the black land," recognizing it as a font of fertile abundance in contrast to the harsh, unyielding deserts surrounding them. This fertility applied to more than just agriculture. The inventiveness and creativity of ancient Egypt still exerts influence and inspires awe today. The ancient Egyptians were trailblazers in many fields, but particularly in the field of beauty. Pioneers in the arts of adornment, including cosmetics and tattooing, they did not limit themselves to enhancement of only the body's natural charms. The ancient Egyptians were also brilliant innovators in the creation of jewelry.

The ancient Egyptians loved ornamentation. Jewelry was designed, crafted and worn with great care thought and care. In their typical holistic fashion, fine jewelry was valued not only for beauty but also for the magical and spiritual protection it provided for its wearer. Did the concept of purely ornamental adornment exist for the ancients? Did they make that distinction between amulets and jewelry? Many anthropologists believe not.

Minerals and metals were identified with specific deities as well as with specific spiritual and therapeutic values. Thus their words for lapis lazuli and turquoise were synonymous with joy and delight, respectively. Copper and malachite were identified with Hathor, gold connected to the solar deity.

Beauty Secrets of the Ancient Egyptians

Taronga Zoo's condor learns to fly

Lesley the Andean Condor is learning to fly - all nine kilos of her.

The South American bird, the world's largest bird of prey, spread its three-metre wing span over the northern Sydney suburb of Mosman, as Taronga Zoo bird trainers prepared her for the zoo's daily free flight bird show.

Two-year-old Lesley showed no stage fright in front of her first crowd, leaving her trainer to fly over a Mosman park and land on a bench in the same park.

Zoo trainers have started Lesley on an intensive 15-week training program to teach her to fly on command, rewarding her with mince balls and mice.

Taronga Zoo's condor learns to fly

The secret life of bats

Of the world's 4,800 or so species of mammals, nearly 1,000--almost one in five--are bats. They vary in size from minuscule, almost butterfly-sized creatures, to huge animals with wingspans of nearly two metres. Thanks to their mastery of powered flight, bats are distributed across much of the world. They feed mainly on insects and fruits, but some eat nectar, frogs, fish, other small mammals or even blood.

Everyone reacts to bats, sometimes with horror but more often with fascination. Although they are linked in many people's minds with scary films, the truth about these amazing creatures' lives is very different. In this seminar, Phil Richardson, chairman of the Bat Conservation Trust in the UK, goes behind the scenes and reveals that bats have a complex lifestyle, a rich social life and senses that are almost beyond our comprehension.

Amazing, fascinating and bizarre are words that barely start to describe the bats of the world. Some are big, some are tiny, many eat insects and fruit, yet there are others with more unusual tastes in food such as the fisherman bat which uses its claws to catch fish or the unjustly demonized blood-eating vampire bats. Bats will not fly into your hair and they are not blind, though most find their food and avoid obstacles in the darkness of night not by vision but by using their remarkable and highly developed sense of echolocation. Their role in pollination is crucial to the environment in which they live. Bats are full of surprises.

The secret life of bats