When we first moved here, I wanted to "save" every bird and critter that needed help, and quickly learned no one else around here was as worried about the wild things as I was. Our first year, a big owl crashed THROUGH the fiberglass skylite panel on the roof of the chicken coop. He cut his head and hurt a wing. I called all over southern Oklahoma and no one (least of all the local Fish and Wildlife people) were interested in helping that owl. I was crushed. Finally, we moved him to an adjacent small guinea coop/pen and put the guineas in with the chickens. We left the door open, and he finally flew away on his own after several days. I refused to catch mice for him, so he had to live on canned cat food for those few days. I guess if you live in an area where wildlife is very abundant, people don't get as excited about one injured bird. If blue jays are engangered, you can't tell it here! We probably are overpopulated with birds, though, because we put out food for them and have a constant water source. I HAVE noticed that there are more birds than usual hanging out around the garden and eating bugs in the garden. Birds are a terrific method of pest control, so I encourage them in every way possible. We ALWAYS have a pair of owls who stay together all the time and hunt together. One is a really big barn owl, and we call him Hooty. The other is a little screech owl, obviously named Screechy. You never see one without the other, which is fascinating. They've been here as long as we have. I don't know if the current Hooty and Screechy pair are the actual same Hooty and Screechy pair that we first saw in 1999. I think it is an odd pairing. I feel sorry for them....the crows harass them relentlessly and try to run them off. Our owls are mostly out at night, but every now and then I see them out late in the morning. For all the birds we have coming to the feeders, predator birds do not come into the yard much. Maybe the cats and dogs help keep them away? Oh, and the Purple Martins also like to chase off other birds attempting to "hunt" in their territory too. Dawn

Sounds like you're doing great with him. As Cesar would say: "Dogs live in the moment." So what matters is now, not a slip when you were surprised and spoke louder than you meant to. "Dogs respond to a confident leader." When you walk him, stand tall, shoulders back, loose lead, in charge, ready to conquer anything that comes your way. "Don't encourage fearful behavior - ignore it." Go about your business as if there is nothing scary going on, just like balanced dogs would. If a dog acts scared and you scoop it up and comfort it, the message the dog gets is that there is a reason to be afraid and it is rewarded. So the next time that stimulus comes, she reacts the same way because you taught her she was right to be afraid of it. A rescue dog I got reacted slightly when there was thunder. I ignored it and then thought of a game that would make her happy. We played her favorite game, a game of her own I called growly bump. There it was thundering and I'm on my hands and knees, doing the let's play position and jumping around with her, bumping her hip, immitating her play growl. We made much happy noise and drowned out the storm. I did this a few other times with particularly bad storms, and she quickly forgot that storms were once scary to her. Hope that helps you.

Me too, mimipadv. Nature is not for the squeamish. Has anyone else heard of Wild Heart Ranch in Claremore, Ok? They do a lot of great work. They rehab and return eagles (and many other animals) to the wild. Their FB feed is always interesting. http://www.wildheartranch.org/default.asp

This is getting complicated. For less than the amount of money you're looking at to get your living room (or entire house) rewired, you could buy two lithium ion portable power banks with 200-350WH capacity. Put one under the table powering the heating pad, and keep the other on charge. Swap them as necessary. If they're (say) 350WH each, and you run them only 70% down to extend battery life, they'll run a 4W heater for 60 hours before needing a charge -- and that's if the heater is on 100% of the time. You could buy two smaller units if you didn't mind swapping them more often. Just for fun, let's look at the economics here. Most of these gadgets are rated for 500 cycles (recharges), but I'd guess that you could extend that to 1000 if you didn't go below 70% discharged. I see a 346WH "Chafon" brand power bank here on Amazon (warning, I've never heard of the brand, no idea of the quality, looks like generic Chinese sweatshop stuff) for $349. So if you bought 2 and got 1000 cycles each at 60 hours per cycle, you'd have 120,000 hours or 13.7 years of use at $51 per year. Or this "Powkey" 210WH unit (ditto above disclaimer) That would run your 4W heater for about 36 hours. So 2 of them would give you 8.2 years of service for $300, or $37 per year. That's a fraction of what you pay for cable TV service, and as I said, the snake might be more entertaining. :) As always, no endorsement intended, links for information only, et cetera.