Jonathanb977

Thank you all - really appreciate the responses, absolutely terrific. We're back at the vet's tomorrow for a routine visit following some unrelated surgery.

Hi - I have mongrel dog called Ben - smaller than a lab but bigger than a terrier. He's a sandy coated cross lurcher / whippet border terrier thing, probably. The vet's advised I now need to feed Ben renal food. Ben seems to be trying to drink more water, needs to wee more,often during the night, and it seems his renal function is reduced. It would appear that I need to feed him food which provides a different kind of protein to he does not have to separate it out so much. Have others had any experience of this and might there be food recommendations? (He like a steak now and again but I guess I'll have to knock that off.) All insights & observations gratefully received. With thanks. Jonathan

thanks all - I'll try these solutions. Knew I could rely on SF's dog lovers for top quality advice & expertise!

I've never left him for this long, no. And he's more attached to me than my wife, definitely. Tends to be me that walks him, usually.

No, he wasn't neutered. The dogs trust gave us a voucher to have him done but my kids (who, erm, have 'issues,' to put it mildly) couldn't deal with the idea. I don't feel too bad about it - he's never out of our sight line so procreation is not a problem that's looming large. ---------- Post added 03-08-2013 at 16:33 ---------- thanks for the responses so far.

Does anyone have any advice? I just took a fortnight's holiday with my 2 younger kids, leaving my wife and oldest son at home. While I was away our adored mongrel dog Benny, who I'd left at home with them began to do something he's never done previously - weeing on furniture. He was being provided with all his walks and outdoor time as usual and his diet was unchanged. Now I'm back he's still doing it...shld I approach the vet? Or put it down to separation anxiety and just monitor, to see if it ceases? He's a half whippet half terrier thing, bout 9 maybe 10 years old if that helps. He's a much loved beastie, provided by the dogs trust 3/4 years ago. I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks, Jonathan

The House Skatepark, Shalesmoor, celebrates its 15th birthday this weekend. I'd just like to put on record my congratulations and thanks to Rob and the team. The house is a terrific resource for the city - it's given countless kids the chance to do something constructive and healthy with their time and countless parents a break. Well done and here's to another 15 years.

I for one would be grateful if you would keep posting please - I'm keen to see what response the council offer. As I say, when they're on form they're effective, and will regard anyone failing to look after a dog (by allowing it to be loose and dangerous) as negligent. I'm particularly interested in this at the moment - my normal dog walk on the bole hills has been spoiled a couple of times by a gormless couple with what look like 2 rottweiler pups, off the lead and beyond their control. I'm monitoring but contemplating what action to take at the moment.

in my experience the council will investigate this. That's what they did when some muppet's neglected beastie was giving my son grief on his paper round. Give them a call, it's worth a shot.

Hi - wondered if anyone had seen my missing keys? On a silver coloured teapot logo fob, lost around bole hill rd walkley mid may. Very grateful for any info. grateful thanks. J

On Saturday 21st April 2012 at the Sadacca Sheffield & District Afro & Caribbean Community Association, Wicker, Sheffield 1, Cuba Solidarity Campaign are organising a Latin American day School - I'm going to attend to participate in the session on human rights in Cuba. Contributors to and readers of the thread might wish to come along. Jonathan

Amnesty International has called on the Cuban authorities to release an activist on hunger strike who was detained for his human rights work three months ago and is set to face trial at the end of March. Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, the president and co-founder of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, was arrested last December in relation to a meeting he organized at his home in August 2010 and anti-government banners he displayed outside his home. Néstor, his brother Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina and three other members of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy - Enyor Díaz Allen, Roberto González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanet - have been charged with public order offences relating to an attack on his home by a mob opposed to the meeting. The five men were arrested in August 2010 but released the following month. Only Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina was rearrested. "Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina has spent more than three months in prison for expressing his opinions, defending democracy and promoting human rights in Cuba," said Gerardo Ducos, Cuba reearcher at Amnesty International. "Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience jailed solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression and is calling on the Cuban authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally, or bear the responsibility of the impact of the hunger strike on Néstor’s physical integrity. "Néstor's imprisonment is yet another example of the suppression of the rights to freedom of expression and association in Cuba." Held at Combinado de Guantánamo prison, Nestor started his hunger strike on 15 February. The next day he was transferred to an isolation cell and denied water for eight days. Nestor's health deteriorated during his hunger strike and on 28 February he was transferred to a health post in the prison. He was then transferred to Augustino Neto Provincial Hospital on 1 March. Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina was arrested by state security agents in Guantanamo on 9 December 2010. He was pepper sprayed and manhandled into a police car in front of his 10-year-old daughter who was left alone in the street as her father was taken into custody. While in detention Néstor says he has suffered beatings and threats from other inmates.

And please might I add in Cuba itself there is better news. The 75 political prisoners have now been released - many of them forced into involuntary exile, but released nonetheless. Those released to Spain have been in contact with human rights campaigning organisations and have expressed gratitude for the support offered. Their view of apologist organisations who attempted to shore up the Cuban regime's line isn't known. So, we need to keep up the pressure on the Cuban authorities more than ever now, to bring an end to the repressive laws and practices which are stifling the most basic human rights in Cuba and to ensure that the 2003 so called `Black Spring' is never repeated.

The case of our council and the choir continues to lurch along. Because I'd originally been sent an initial `fob off' reply by my councillor instead of one that actually addresses the point I'd made, I put the further questions I've listed in the thread above (who's cash are you using, is the choir that's coming over a set of Castro stooges, etc) to the council in an e mail. I was then sent a holding reply but I've had no detailed formal response, as yet. When (if?) I receive one, I'll post its contents on this thread in case folk wish to see. My original challenge to Sheffield Socialist Choir (last April, a full year ago) was `put something on your website condemning the lack of human rights and democracy in Cuba.' And it's this that drove my more recent correspondence with the council. If they're using ratepayers cash or other resource to support this stuff, then as a minimum they need to ensure their partners are signed up to basic rights. The choir have, in the last couple of days, put something on their site. They don't condemn human rights abuses in Cuba specifically - but in fairness they do offer a more generic commitment. Movement, then, of a sort.

Good thread, LC. I'd like to think that anything that moves Cuba closer to democracy would be welcome. All this reminds me of Castro's rapid and influential negative criticism of the Prague Spring in the sixties. That's something the Czechs haven't forgotten, and they've pressed for a wider understanding of the human rights abuses in Cuba ever since the wall fell down. Still looking into the curious case of the council and the choir, by the way. I'll update the thread referred to when a couple of pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. Becoming interesting economically over there. I think Raul Castro (and, some reports suggest, even Fidel Castro) realise that Government control of the minute details of economic life can have a stagnating effect. Cuban national debt is high and without some measure of official free enterprise, they'd be without any means of sorting it out. The newspaper reports of lists of businesses Cuban people can now be licensed to do are baffling, if they're true. Apparently you can work as a clown at kids' parties officially now, but allegedly it's just if you're a particular clown character, sanctioned by the regime. Dunno how true all that stuff is. But it seems pretty clear that people are keen to apply for business licences so they can set up bars for tourists and shops - or just legitimise existing, furtive enterprises. I hold no particular brief for left and right but I think anyone can see there's a point when Government just has to butt out of citizen's lives.

Please may I offer a recap / update? Sheffield City Council is supporting an exchange-based visit to Sheffield by the Camerata de Música Aúrea Choir (CMAC) of Cuba. The hosts are to be the Sheffield Socialist Choir. The choir's website boasts about the council's prompt involvement. It looks like some sort of exchange visit. The Sheffield Socialist choir has already been to Cuba, more than once. Its members discussed with enthusiasm the regime's triumphs in the pages of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign newspaper upon their return recently. (A grimly hilarious magazine - don't ever pass up the chance to peruse it...think Pravda, circa 1974. Really.) Just a quick reminder of the regime we're talking about here: the Economist magazine’s well respected democracy index groups countries into four categories: "Full Democracies", "Flawed Democracies", "Hybrid Regimes" (these first three are all considered democracies), and "Authoritarian Regimes" (considered dictatorial). Cuba sits in the last category. I have challenged members of Sheffield Socialist choir to condemn, unequivocally, on their website, the absence of meaningful democracy and human rights in Cuba. I await a response keenly. I wrote to the Council and to Sheffield University to ask if they bothered to extract a commitment from their hosts in the Socialist Choir to basic rights. Neither organisation addressed my point directly in replies I received. (In the case of the council, this reply arrived seven months after I wrote to my Lib Dem councillor, without apology or explanation for the delay.) The University is essentially a private company, as I understand it, so is I suppose at liberty to do as it wishes. The council, of course, has a responsibility to the people of the city. Both the University and the Council simply stated that they are supporting this because it's a multicultural event and will encourage dialogue between the UK and Cuba. I have some questions for the council: Will it really encourage multi culturalism or dialogue? As far as I can see the choir they're bringing over is one approved by the Cuban Government, and as such it will only dare promote the pro Castro party line, will it not? I can't find much out about them, but what little I can see points to their being Castro loyalists. Nothing else would be tolerated by Cuba’s leaders. Are sheffield’s ratepayers therefore subsidising publicity for a repressive Government that locks people up for wanting to vote? This project is called, laughably, the `voices of Cuba’ project. It seems to me that what’s on offer is probably the voice of the unelected Cuban Government. Am I right? Can we see the research you carried out? The council claims also that it isn't funding this, stating instead it's just providing a civic reception and trying to find venues for the choir to use. OK. Who's forking out for that then? There must be a cost attached, mustn't there? And can everyone on this forum have an invitation if it turns out to be consuming our resources in these difficult times? It seems to me that as a first step, if the council is supporting an organisation, any organisation, financially or otherwise, it should require that organisation to meet basic equal opportunities standards by supporting human rights explicitly. I’m happy for anyone to come and make music in the city. I just don’t like the fact that this project is seemingly pretending to be something it’s not, and it appears that nobody in the council bothered to research it before signing up to it. If anyone wishes to enquire of his or her councillor what they make of all this, I'd be fascinated to know if they receive any response. The youtube link is here:

I remember a band from the eighties called Furious Pig. Their crowd pleasing classic `I don't like your face' was available on Oven Ready Records I believe.

anyone mentioned 'John Merrick's Remains?' (Professional sounding and most memorable elephant man themed local rock band. Saw 'em a few weeks a go in West Street Live. Really have a way with a melody.) Come to think of it, on the same bill were Floating Death Picnic. One of far too few local bands to acknowledge in song the role the Sheffield Supertram plays in making all our lives more convenient.

Bit of an update. Amnesty International has criticised Cuban authorities for preventing independent journalist Guillermo Farinas from leaving Cuba to collect an international freedom award, European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The regime detained, temporarily, many campaigners during international human rights day recently.

My son's bike was nicked from King Edward VII lower school today, Crosspool, May 26 2010, we reckon in the early afternoon by someone who rode in on an inferior dark red BMX which he left there, scarpering on our good one after cutting its lock away. If you see a low, longish BMX bike (dark metallic blue GT frame, black Castillo bars, salt headstock, diamondback military pattern seat, front rim black, rear silver) call me on 07533 261 030. (Most annoying - it's a bike me and my kid built together gradually.) Thanks, Jonathan Bailey

It's with regret that I announce that the Amnesty International 12 May presentation on Cuba is cancelled. For now. Our Cuba coordinator is unable to attend that day due to work commitments. I'll be rearranging. Apologies if this inconveniences anyone. Jonathan

Just checked out the choir's website. Plenty of material there about what they're up to. I offer this challenge. I hope they'll respond. Will they put two sentences on their Cuba pages? One condemning, unequivocally, the human rights violations in that country and another condemning the absence of meaningful democracy there? So that's my question for them. Will they put these two sentences on their website? Jonathan

If anyone wants to know more about life in Cuba then they shld come along to the Quaker Meeting House - which is situated on St James Street by the Blue Moon Cafe and the cathedral - at 7:30 pm on 12 May (Wednesday night.) It's the normal Amnesty meeting - but the main bulk of the evening wll be given over to Amnesty's national Cuba Coordinator. It's a chance to hear a presentation on Cuba and ask questions. I normally chair Amnesty meetings but I'm not sufficiently impartial on this one, so someone else from the group will. I'd really like it if as many people could attend as possible - from the range of perspectives... Jonathan

The local business owners like to use the West Street bus stops, particularly the outbound ones close to the uni, as long or short term parking spots. It means of course that those of us waiting there have to step out into the roads to check bus numbers - not ideal from a health and safety point of view, especially on dark misty nights. Dispiriting then recently to see a policeman stop, get out of the patrol car, and then offer to keep an eye on one offender's chunky 4X4 car while he set about a leisurely visit to load/unload his food outlet. Little one can do. Be good if the council would tackle this. (Yes, btw, I did protest about the above. Little good it did me.)

quick update folk might be interested in - Benny seems to be settled into the family nicely, thanks, mainly. He's now insured and registered with a local vet, and we've got the hang of fleas and worms. The problem with him growling at youngest does persist, but I've noted advice above, particularly about the disctinction between 'manipulative' growling and 'communicating anxiety' growling. I think we're seeing a slight improvement: under some circumstances he's happy to be petted by the child. Now all I have to do is persuade the kids to let me take the dog to the vets to be neutered. They're not convinced he's a threat to the female dog population, because he's pretty much invariably on the lead whenever he's out of the house. Any advice on helping Benny be less aggressive to other dogs? (Apart from castrating him...I keep rehearsing that line.) Would letting him off the lead help? It's been suggested that he thinks he has to protect us because he's leashed. But I don't fancy having to separate dogs in a fight.