Interview

For my interview I first e-mailed three places that I felt would have experts in the Field I am writing about, but unfortunately none of them emailed me back. I then found Carol Ann Ryan who is the Dietary Supervisor at Heritage place. She gave kinda of brief answers but was an expert in dealing with people who she feels truly has food addiction.

1. Do you feel like food addiction is growing and becoming more common?

She said that yes she felt it was growing and becoming more common, "Its something that has always been there but is starting to become more recognized."

      2.    Do you think it is additives that make the foods so addictive?
She said that she doesn't believe its additives that are being put in to peoples food, " Its people's personalty that makes them addictive, they can get addicted to any food weather it was processed with additives or not."

      3.Is this something that can just be helped with a meal plan?
Yes she felt that it could be helped with a set meal plan and counseling, " but not cured, just helped"

      4.Would you compare it to some one addicted to drugs or is it not as strong?
Yes, she believed it to be just as strong, " Its like alcoholism or gambling, its a real addiction with its own problems."
       5.Do you actually believe that food addiction is a disorder or just will power?
Carol Ann believes that it is a disorder and should be treated like one, "Its an addiction not just will power."

       6.What would you say is a way for somebody with food addiction to get better?
She said that its very different for everyone, "Its really personal, its such a different plan for everyone I couldn't really give a general answer, people usually lose alot to work towards this addiction getting better."

       7.Is there a cure, can they ever really eat "normal" again?
She said " No there is no cure, its like any other addiction and you will struggle with it the rest of your life."
        8.Where do you think food addiction all started from, when and why did people start to believe we could really be addicted to food?
Carol Ann believes " Food addiction has been around a long time, its nothing new but people have now just started to recognize it."

       9.What causes food addiction, do you think it develops slowly over time unnoticed or is taken on by a tragic incident in life?
She said, " I definitely believe its something unnoticed, you start eating when your depressed and one day you try to stop and realize you just can't"

Interview Questions

I hope to be asking these questions to a professional who works with people who have have eating disorders.

1. Do you feel like food addiction is growing and becoming more common?
2. Do you think it is additives that make the foods so addictive?
3. Is this something that can just be helped with a meal plan?
4. Would you compare it to some one addicted to drugs or is it not as strong?
5. Do you actually believe that food addiction is a disorder or just will power?
6. What would you say is a way for somebody with food addiction to get better?
7. Is there a cure, can they ever really eat "normal" again?
8. Where do you think food addiction all started from, when and why did people start to believe we could really be addicted to food?
9. What causes food addiction, do you think it develops slowly over time unnoticed or is taken on by a tragic incident in life?

Annotated Bibliography(10)

Barnard, Neal D. "Breaking the Food Seduction." Good Medicine. Summer 2003: 10-12. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

      This article helped to identify some of the reasons we may be addicted to food. Studies have shown that chocolate actually works inside your brain the same way that opiate drugs do. They had people take a drug called naloxone, an opiate-blocker that is used in emergency rooms for drug addicts to make sure they don't overdose. They then gave the people a tray filled with chocolate and found out it was no more exciting than dry bread crust. Cheese also seems to be very addictive because it is found a chemical is in milk (all animals) that is closely related to morphine. They said the chemical is produced in the bodies to help an infant bond to its mother. At a "Cheese Forum" they discussed ways to push people to eat more cheese and wants to find ways to push the cheese craving trigger.

Higgins, Jim. "He Didn't Want to Die So He Changed the Way He Lived--And Ate." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI). 28 Jul 2003: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

      This article truly gives me an insight about somebody who was extremely obese and could not control their eating habits. He walks through the step by step progress of his recovery and what he felt like like. It talks about how he feels like its an addiction in the sense he can never go back to eating "normal" since he was never there. He feels that food addiction stops you from eating like normal people because you can't just have one doughnut because it wont be enough. Its like alcohol in the sense you can't have just one because you can't control yourself and he feels like he was never really cured.

Gionta, Daria. "Food Addiction." American Health. Jan./Feb. 1995: 52+. SIRS Issues Researcher.

Web. 21 Nov 2011

     This article talks about many symptoms of food addiction and what might cause some people to have food addiction. It talks about the feelings that many people feel before they binge eat and after they do. Normally before it happens they feel a sense of excitement and will eat until their stomach hurts so much they can't move. But soon after they feel guilty and ashamed of themselves for it. But it seems that as soon as their stomach can handle it they will consume more calories usually a whole days worth in 15 minutes, up to 2,000 to 3,000. It also states that food addiction is a progressive disease and slowly gets worse. They claim they don't know , "if binging is a manifestation of the person's unhappiness or if the unhappiness results from the effects of overeating."

Jameson, Marni. "After Gastric Bypass Surgery, New Addictions." Sun-Sentinel. 27 Jun 2011: A.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

     This article talks about gastric bypass surgery and how it does not solve the problems of somebody addicted to food. After the surgery it seems one out of four turn to some other addiction that includes drugs or alcohol. Alcohol enters the small the intestine faster and so alcohol hits them harder. It seems that food addiction like most addictions needs therapy and time not just a quick fix or those addictive behaviors will turn to something else.

"Mindful Eating." Harvard Health Letter. 20 Jan 2011: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

      This article is about some of the ways people with food addictions can help easing them. Some tips are taking 20 minutes to eat, so you have time to feel full before you just continue eating. Eat with your non dominate hand and take your time to eat and chew.Before eating ask yourself if your really hungry. Studies had shown that people who binge eat were able to do better when using some of these mindfully strategy's. This article wasn't the best but did give some ideas for a closing argument are some ways of solving the problem.

Fargen, Jessica. "Food Addiction Support Groups Growing in Popularity." Boston Herald (Boston, MA). 08 Aug 2010: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

This article is about a group called faa which is food addiction anonymous. This is a group for people who have a food addiction and can come to a support group and go through a 12 step program. The group helps people control their eating and it is growing rapidly. Some people though don't believe you can really count food as an addiction since everybody eats but many argue that its like alcohol and it affects everybody differently.But they say that it is a disease just like obesity. It is something that many people say completely consumes their whole life and they can't take control.

Dailey, Kate. "Finding a Healthy Medium." Newsweek Web Exclusives. 06 May 2010: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

      This article talks about if we consider anorexia and bulimia an eating disorder why don't we consider food addiction an eating disorder. It says the addiction could start at as a bad image of yourself and an attempt to get thin because of the pressures of society but it then consumes your life and you end eating to much because your depressed and then your depressed because of everything you have eaten. It shows that people who tend to diet not all of course but some seem to get so overwhelmed in it that it consumes. It also seems like people with food addiction need it to be recognized because they need more than just a meal plan but some therapy and ways to cope with cravings and binges.

Haddadin, Jim. "Fighting food addiction." Wicked Local n.d., n. pag. Print. <http://www.wickedlocal.com/arlington/features/x363495722/Fighting-food-addiction

      This article is about two Lady's who used a food addiction group to overcome their fears of food since both say they could not control their eating habits.They explain it as a group for people who have trouble eating when they need to stop. She says they put you on a good diet of three meals a day that starts out pretty basic but you can eventually add other foods in, you also get a sponsor to talk on the phone with if you need. She, like the man in another article i posted explains that she can't have sugar because a little bit or in moderation just isn't enough.

"Will Aguila, M.D.: Why Food Becomes Addictive." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-aguila-md/food-addiction_b_1030632.html.

      This article gives the four characteristics of substance dependency, which is Persistence of use despite problems related to the use of the substance, Compulsive and repetitive use, Craving, and
Withdrawal. It also seems as though food addiction falls under each of those. The hard part about food addiction is we can't just stop eating like you can with drugs or alcohol.It also looks like any other addiction a food addition can be triggered by life changing event that is tragic. The author believes that it is not taken seriously because food is such an acceptably thing in society even overeating. Twenty years ago we had smoking and alcohol addiction high because it was more socially acceptable.

Of, Study. "What Is Food Addiction? - HealthyPlace." HealthyPlace.com - Trusted Mental Health Information and Support - HealthyPlace. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.healthyplace.com/addictions/food-addiction/what-is-food-addiction/menu-id-54/>.This article brings up the fact that food does not just trigger the reward system in your brain but many other things because you do need food to live .It seems to think that food is not an addiction but just a craving that some people have more than others. I think in some sense food is addictive with all the additives we put in it but i wouldn't compare it to drugs since rugs we make our body need them and that's why we get withdrawals but food is something you were born to need so the withdrawals are natural and hunger pains or dizziness not anything we would actually call withdrawal.

Annotated Bibliography

Helliker, Kevin. "Food May Be Addicting for Some." Wall Street Journal. 05 Apr 2011: D.4. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 14 Nov 2011.

      I liked this source because it showed some actually studies of the brain and what showing a milk shake does to the brain compared to someone who is not "addicted" to food. It also makes great points that drug addicts are usually harming themselves and it gets in the way of jobs and normal activity's. When somebody who could have a food addiction can go on living a much more normal life. It also talks about the brain using food as a reward because it is a natural survival instinct.

"Binge Eaters' Dopamine Levels Spike at Sight, Smell of Food." Brookhaven National Laboratory News Release. 28 Feb 2011: n.p. SIRS Government Reporter. Web. 14 Nov 2011.

In this article it also shows test that were done on obese binge eaters and non obese people with out eating disorders. The people had to fast for sixteen hours and were shown food that was their favorite and heated up. The dopamine levels in the brain of the obese binge eaters had spiked extremely high when the non binge eaters showed no release of dopamine which I found interesting since they had not eaten in sixteen hours. They showed that a drug addict has the same release of dopamine when there is a hint or sign of being able to use drugs soon or having them around.

Billhartz Gregorian, Cynthia. "Craving for Food Can Be Addicting." St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 17 Feb 2011: B.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 14 Nov 2011.

I learned a lot from this article that I had not considered yet. Like high calorie foods with lots of sugar and fat can actually mess up your bran and make you much more susceptible to cravings. The question posed here is if you stay away from high calorie and foods with sugar and fat does your brain learn to live with out them and forget about them or think about it all the time since you made that food untouchable. It also brings up the point that addiction runs in family's and test have shown that people with parents who struggled with alcohol and drug addiction have a higher chance of struggling with food addiction.

Kirkey, Sharon. "Bacon and Cheesecake 'Alter Brain Like Heroin'." CanWest News Don Mills, Ontario, Canada. 31 Mar 2010: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 14 Nov 2011.

      In this article I learned that it may be better for people who struggle with food addiction to limit their intake of "comfort" foods to a minimum since the more you have those foods the more you will be likely to crave them. It also mentions the rewire of the brain when you eat high calorie foods its the same effects a drug addict has. Studies prove that it seems to be beyond control when eating for somebody who is addicted to food.

Letter of Intent

        The topic I have decided on is food addiction. I want to research weather or not food is really addictive or is it all in our heads. I would like to narrow down weather McDonald's and other unhealthy food really put things in their food to make them addictive or weather we just can't stay away because it taste good. I plan to approach it by searching for any studies that are done on the ingredients and finding out exactly what all those list of ingredients are. I have narrowed down my topic from obesity to addictive foods so it is not such a broad topic. I hope to finding the true source in why Americans are having such a hard time losing weight even when we know how to. Is it a matter of addiction or mere will power?
     I' am interested in learning about this topic because of the growing numbers in obesity. I have family members and friends that I see are overweight and would like to lose it but surprisingly its not exercise that's the problem its being able to eat healthier and in moderation. I would really be interested in learning if it is so addictive then why does it have no affect on some people and others can't help themselves. I am really into exercise and healthy eating, somebody who reads all the food labels and have always been interested in obesity and what is really causing it so I hope to learn more about the foods we eat everyday. I have also thought about being a dietitian or in some way help people lose weight and eat healthier and so I would like a better look into why some people can not give up food.
      I would like to know  how long people have been questioning food additions and weather their is a problem here. I would like to know what food in specific people have the hardest time putting down more than others and why. I am hoping to get a better perspective about what people are going through who struggle with overeating and why it is so hard to use will power to eat healthier. I believe that yes food addiction is a very real possibility. I think it comes from all the added salt and preservatives,  not to mention fast foods. We eat so much food that we can't even pronounce the ingredients to and have no interest in finding out what its doing to our bodies and brain. I would like to know some of the plans people have about approaching food addiction and if we need to start paying a much closer look into it considering the child obesity rate has sky rocketed.

Logical Fallacie

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_817934a4-9ff0-11e0-a5d3-001cc4c002e0.html

This article committed the fallacies of ad populum. They go on saying that it seems right to kill the wolf population because  2/3 majority said that we need to. The ad populum fallacies says that because most people think something is right then it must be right. They seem to only mention the comments from the majority to prove that lots of people are for the wolf hunt and think the quota should be higher so you should to. The second fallacie they committed was post hoc. They said that if wolf population increases then elk herds will get smaller which may be true but they don't provide any facts that actually show or connect that's what is going to happen. I think the last fallacies I noticed in the paper was red herring. They go the whole time about the comments people made rather than really listing any facts as to why hunting wolves is ok.

Research Paper Brainstorming

1. Processed Foods

• How long have processed foods been around?
• What exactly are preservatives made of?
• Does it make it difficult for your body to break the foods?
• Are there any positive effects of processed foods?

    2.Building and designing your own house

• How much does it cost?
• What kind of materials do you need?
• What is the average time length?
• Can you continue to build in the winter?

   3.Benefits of Exercise

• How much healthier does it make you?
• What is better for you, weights or cardio?
• Does it really add any years to your life?
• What exactly is happening in someones body when they exercise vs someone who doesn't?

   4.Eating meat

• Were we really meant to eat meat?
• How healthy is it for us?
• Is somebody who eats meat as healthy as somebody who doesn't?
• Is there anything we can only get from meat?

   5.Dogs Evolution

• How long have dogs been domesticated?
• How did we come up with so many breeds?
• Do we have much evidence of the domestication of dogs?
• What breed is closest to wild?

   6.Factory Farming

   7. Learning to Grow a Garden

   8. Learning to Scuba Dive

Looking for Logical Fallacies

The first fallacies I noticed was hasty generalization. The "expert" uses this when talking about illegal immigrants and says they all have disease's because a study has shown an increase of disease's we thought were gone.He is putting illegal immigrants in one group and making assumptions that they all must have disease's.His sample is also inadequate and doesn't really prove anything. The "expert" could also be considered using post hoc fallacies by saying that because immigrants come into the country we now have lots of disease's coming back. The "expert" is claiming that because the event of immigrants coming into the country and then disease's we thought were gone are coming back that it must be because we just had an increase of illegal immigrants.He is just relating two events that happened at the same time and don't really have any facts that connect them but coincidence. He uses slippery slope when explain what will happen if we keep letting immigrants come into our country. He says we will eventually have hoofs because this diagram shows a very dramatic sequence of events that we are losing fingers from the immigrants being here. He is claiming there is a chain reaction of what is happening and if the immigrants don't get out we will have dire consequence's.

Nevada Horse Round Up (Editorial)

Dear Editor,

     I am writing regarding the Horse Round Up article and why I think it is very unrealistic and provides no facts, I believe the horses are being rounded up inhumanly and for no real purpose. Your article mentions that rounding up horses "isn't pretty" but I think its an excuse to make it look like there is no alternate ways to rounding up the horses and no possible solutions. I also find it to be sneaky in the fact there is very limited access to what is going on and hard to is to take pictures or videos of these horses because your  afraid of a public outcry.

     The treatment of removing the horses is completely inhumane because they are using helicopters to round them up. They have a trained horse run in the front of the herd while a helicopter flies low to the ground and forces them into small corals. According to USA Today's article, "This latest wild horse controversy started after a BLM contractor using a helicopter moved 250 horses on July 10, when the Tuscarora gather began. By the next day, seven horses had died from dehydration, according to the agency." They are having increasing deaths occurring to horses during the round ups, this proves we need a new method in rounding horses up. Our efforts to rounding horses up harming and killing them.

   The horses were extremely effected by the heat since the BLM rounded them up this summer in the hottest month of the year. The BLM says that the horses needed to be removed because of a draught but they knew about the drought since march and could of done something before it got so hot. Another article from the USA Today says "Horse activist Laura Leigh, whose lawsuit put a temporary halt to the roundup July 14, blames the deaths on the BLM, which she says allowed the horses to become dehydrated and held the roundup during the hottest season of the year." We could have prevented the horses from being dehydrated and having to suffer from the heat in over one hundred degree weather in Nevada. It was inhumane to the horses to perform round ups in that hot of weather and should have been planned earlier or later in the year for the treatment of the animals.

     A problem that needs to be considered is where will all the horses go when they are removed. They intend to remove 2,500 horses but don't say more than they will be put up for adoption or taken to a ranch. Although according to 8NewsNow "The local office spent almost nothing on adoptions of the horses it rounds up. Only eight were adopted this past year." We are clearly having problems when it comes to adoptions and not being able to put out the money we need for the horses to go to good homes. We need to think about the horses and if we take out another 2,500 horses will we be able to provide safe places for them to go.

   These horses should be able to be humanly removed and be placed up for adoption rather than crowded on a ranch on some other land we can't afford. I think we need to explore our options on more humane ways to removing them and take the weather into account. It was very unnecessary to remove the horses in the hottest month when we saw this drought coming in spring. I just hope we can see that these animals are not just profit and in the way but can look at facts and see the toll this has taken on them then maybe we can look for a better solution.
  
 

Wild Horse Roundup

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34578945/ns/us_news-life/

This first article is really good on talking about both sides. The side that's against it brings up good points about weather its right or not to use helicopters to round up horses and weather its humane considering many could be injured or killed during the process. It also talks about us not having enough money to euthanize the horses or place them in long term corals so we would be in a tight spot once we moved them. For the side that's for it they make great points that the horses are overpopulating and making it hard on the rest of the wild life that live around them. They also mention that it will be much easier on the horses them selves because there will be more food and land space for them.

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/80570272.html

This article makes some good points that so far we have no studies that have proven that the wild horses are skinny, malnourished or that the land is being eaten away. They also feel that a few horses might be OK to take but 2,500 is way to much to be taking away.They explain the process better about how these horses are being captured, which is a helicopter that chases them into a pin of some sort and a trained horse that follows. It mentions that many horses are injured and one was just reported trying to escape and was caught in barb wire.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-07-22-wild-horses_N.htm

After reading this article I learned that many deaths occurred because they did some of the round up during the hottest months of the year instead of doing them during the spring or fall so many horses died of dehydration. They had horses running in 100 degree weather and hotter without being able to get water. The BLM says that there is a drought and to many horses so will die of dehydration but they predicted the drought and march and could have done something sooner before it got so hot. Animal rights activist say that they just want to use the land for cattle grazing and energy. The BLM is making it very hard to see the method on the horses being rounded up because they say rounding up wild horses isn't pretty but animal activist say they feel more people would be against if they saw it happening and all the horses that were being injured or killed.

http://www.8newsnow.com/story/5699743/controversial-wild-horse-roundup-in-cold-creek-nevada?redirected=true

This article really interested me since it talked about a specific place which is Cold Creek and how the residents there feel about it. Many people said they moved to that area because of the wild horses and coming from people who visit and observe these horses think they look fine. They think the government is exaggerating about dehydration because they feel there is plenty of water around there for the horses. The BLM came to talk to the residents but never gave them a chance to speak just said they could put their comments in writing. Also it talks about the lack of money the government has for all these adoptions they talk about and how there was only 8 adoptions in the past year.

Wolf Hunt Debate

Against wolf Hunt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/14/wolf-hunts-idaho-montana_n_926465.html

The wolf hunt is strongly debated by two very different sides. Many environmental groups feel it’s wrong to hunt wolves because it would kill off way more wolves than necessary and put them back at risk. They tried a petition to put wolves back on the endangered species list but it had failed. They feel skeptical because they think wolves have only barley recovered and are still at risk for going back into being endangered. They also argue that there has not been a wolf attack on a human since the 1990's. They think that wolves still need protection and this wolf hunt will be very hard the future of wolves and open the doors for many things that will harm them. Many people against it think it is unconstitutional to take them off the endangered list and separated powers.  They think wolves should still have protection and that people are exaggerating the problems of wolves so they can have something else to hunt.

For Wolf Hunt http://www.subletteexaminer.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=1831

On the other hand people are complaining their livestock is being eaten by wolves and the big game like deer and elk herds getting much smaller. Hunters are the majority of the group and farmers. They claim that wolves are taking out their livestock and causing them lots of money, they feel the wolves are overpopulated and many would like to get rid of them all together. Hunters also feel that wolves have made a huge comeback, now there is so many of them that they are taking out the big game making it harder for them to hunt and get food during hunting season. Many people believe it should be up to the state to handle wolf management because they are the ones dealing with it. They think wolves have caused nothing but problems and want the number of wolves to decline heavily.

Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien felt that good stories about war shouldn't have a moral because then they wouldn't be true. I like how he put in that if a story has a moral you shouldn't believe it. So when you read a story about war and you feel uplifted or that you really got something from it, that its not true. He also says that truth in a story doesn't always have to be true in the sense that it actually happened because sometimes you need to add stuff and you can't always remember exactly what happened. For his story about war he felt that to get the truth and what mattered he need some time to organize the truth and whats important. A good war story is one that you don't see the point until twenty years later and sounds pretty unbelievable. Anything in a war story that sounds believable probably isn't true. The reality in story telling he says doesn't need to be true but could still be what happened, he says a true story that never happened. War stories are not supposed to be about war but the friendship and love in it. Stories don't always have to have a point or a moral to be a good story with the truth. The way he wrote in the "The Things They Carried" I didn't care for the story at all but could picture it being very true and with reality in war.

Dialogue

Dialogue

I saw my mom reading the paper and was glad she was up early enough to see if she wanted to go to breakfast with me this morning.

“ Hey mom wanna go to breakfast?” I asked but she looked away from the paper just enough to tell she didn’t want to go but with out saying it.

“Depends who’s paying” she replied rather rude.

“Well, how much money do you have?” I asked rather suspicious hoping that I wasn”t paying again.

“Let me check, thirty-five cents.” she whined in a way that told me she was asking if i would pay.

“Thirty- five cents?” I said and she nodded her head. I walked away and decided i wasn’t paying again.

Show! Don't Tell

The puppy is undisciplined.

When i walked through the door "Biscuit" immediately put his yucky paws all over my clothes while he held a new shoe in his mouth. I tried to sit down to eat dinner but couldn't because he had chewed off the leg to it. So i settled on standing but still found it hard to focus as biscuit was as close as he could get to my legs, drool dripping on my shoe and eyes deep gazing at my sandwich. I walked to the front door, opened it and pointed outside but almost as if he was laughing  at me he jumped up grabbed my sandwich and raced outside to eat it.

Adopted a Puppy Mill Survivor (Free Write)

I had kept seeing a dog on petfinder (a website that shows dogs at animal shelters for adoption) but decided that i just couldn't take him at the moment because i was to busy and didn't need another dog. After a few months i looked on the website and saw the the dog "Niko" was still up for adoption which i thought was strange because he was a Japaneses Chin and that's a very rare dog to see at an animal shelter. The info box about him said he was maybe from a puppy mill and he spins in his kennel and runs in circles when he's outside but given the time would bond with some one. So i called the shelter in Polson and set up a meeting for her to bring him to the Kalispel animal shelter. When i saw him he was  so small ( a change from the giant American bulldog i already had) and shaking terribly. She told me he had been adopted to four or five homes already and returned each time. I had worked with terribly shy animals before and figured after some time he would come around, but i was in for a big surprise. I took him and as i guessed he lived under the bed, i had to move my bed every time I took him out potty. Which I had to do so on a leash because he would run away and hide in the back yard if i let him off leash. After Two months and still having to move my bed also never seeing him wag his tail decided to take the frame off my bed so he couldn't hide and I didn't have to move the bed each time to get him. I took him to the vet to get him a check up and had to pay 400 dollars so he could get infected teeth removed then he got into the habit of going to the bathroom on my bed which was new. I have now had him for 7 months and need to buy a new mattress, I have to take off my sheets and blankets every time i leave so i don't have to wash my blankets everyday its also still a struggle just to get the leash on him. After this experience I did research on dogs from puppy mills and realized just how much it messes up putting an animal like that in a small cage with no contact. It has been one of the biggest wake up calls about the way we use dogs as profit and thanks to Niko I am reminded of it everyday.

Been a Vegan (Free Write)

It all began with a book i read "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran. Ever since i was about 11 or 12 i decided i wasn't eating animals. When i was 15 i moved up to Montana and became familiar with hunting and thought that was just the greatest and most natural thing because I am against factory farming, After reading that book though i decided to go all out and not eat anything that came from animals that was factory farmed. I gave up cheese, eggs, milk and meat. Some people go as far as not eating honey because it comes from bees but i didn't go that extreme. After being introduced to hunting and farming life when i moved to Montana i decided to eat meat and eggs but buy them from local farmers. Being a vegan in Montana is highly criticized and most people don't want to hear a word that comes out of your mouth after you say that you don't eat meat. I unlike most vegans don't believe that eating animals is wrong i just believe that the treatment of putting animals in small cages and feeding them hormones is unnatural and unhealthy. So being a vegan has played a very huge part in my life and informed me about farming, hunting and eating animals in general that i knew nothing about. When i first decided not to eat meat it was all based on the thought that  killing and eating animals was wrong but as i got older my belief started to change and i decided that i felt that eating animals is a natural thing i just don't like the system we have about going about. And decided that small farms and hunting is the way I am striving to support.

Jumped in a Frozen Lake to Save a Dog (Free Write)

When i lived in Ferndale on loon lake I used to walk around the Lake with my dog and my dads dog in the spring time when it was to warm to walk on. I could see both dogs walk on the lake and fall through a bit them swim back to shore and go on again. I wasn't worried since they both seemed to get the hang of walking and falling through then swimming back. After i was getting to the end of the lake i could see my dads older dog cowboy walk out to the middle on a log then walk around, right before he was at the edge of the ice he fell through and made a little circle. I watched him for a minute or so trying to get out of the hole using his legs to pull him self out but just couldn't do it. He had been hit by a car a few years ago and had a little bit of a harder time jumping and doing things. Once i realized he was starting to bob under and take longer to come up i decided to go help him. I ran to the shoreline and took off my boots and jacket and walked in the freezing water till it was deep enough i couldn't touch and i had to swim till i reached the ice and used my forearm to break it, once he was free from the little hole he started to swim back with me to the shore and i grabbed my stuff and carried it until i got home.

Have You Ever

Have You Ever...

• Jumped in a frozen lake to save a dog?
• Swam with stingrays?
• Lived in Californiaa?
• Been in a car wreck?
• Worked in a nursing home?
• Been a vegan?
• Volunteered at an animal shelter?
• Visited Mexico?
• Adopted a puppy mill survivor?
• Lived in four different states four years in a row

google docs

After watching the video i think google docs would be very helpful for school, i just started using it in my English class in high school and find it much more simple. For my English papers i  turn in, she is able to correct them and write notes right on the page with out having two different copies of the paper. I also think it would be helpful for sending information to my family over the Internet since they live so far away, there wont have to be copies all over the place just one that everybody can see.