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It's Your Dog's Birthday! How Will You Celebrate It?

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I love celebrations, especially when it involves one of my kids, so this month when my four-legged baby turns one-year-old, I'm throwing him a bash.

While some friends and family roll their eyes, and my neighbor's think I'm corny, I don't care. The joy of seeing Tally Ho dive into his cake will overshadow all scoffing.

As far as the party, my children (the furless ones) love any excuse to send out invitations and break out the bakeware. Whether or not Tally understands the celebrations on him, I know he'll enjoy every second and crumb.

Do you long to throw your dog a party? I have three words for you: Go for it!

While I've spent my 30-plus-year career helping people understand, troubleshoot and teach their puppies and dogs good manners, lately I've been called on to help plan playdates, supervise doggie gatherings and orchestrate celebrations. As an all around canine-party-planner here are some tips.

What day are you celebrating? Loop your guests in with an event title. Are you hosting an actual birthday, a Gotcha Day, award ceremony or a moving-up celebration? Dog parties aren't just for birthdays anymore! Any time is the right time to socialize and celebrate your dog love.

Guest List Is the party for your friends or your dogs' pals? Either way, it will be fun if you keep the list to the people and pooches he loves best! Let your guest list shape the rest of the party planning from where you'll meet to your party favors.

If your kids are calling the shots, let them. Few grown-ups have the time to adore a dog as a child does. Yes, it might cost you a gob. Yes, your kids will use your dog's party to invite their friends. Yes, you'll have to make two cakes,one in the shape of a ball or a squeaky toy, another store bought or creative creation for the kids, but so what? My family records each pets' Gotcha Day: my kids still celebrate each and every one of them right down to Ruby our long-lived Chinese Fighting Fish!

On or off leash? I stand by my claim that a dog leash is one of the cruelest inventions. Necessary, yes, but kind, no. Dog's don't like being tethered any more than you would. While you can make the effort to teach your dog to enjoy being hooked up, it's relative. All dogs prefer to play off leash.

So when it comes to the question of partying, off leash is best. If you don't have a fenced enclosure, schedule a time to meet at a local dog park. Still stumped where to hold your event? Try a few doggie day care centers: they may be willing to rent out their space.

The Main Event Deciding to throw your dog a party is one thing; planning it is another. Keep these things in mind:

Your Menu Since dogs and people have different nutrition needs read up before you create your menu. Make a head count of dogs-to-people so you'll have enough food to serve everyone. Potlucks, where everyone brings a dish, can be fun for any get- together. Like kids who have allergies, individual dogs may have sensitivities too: ask anyone bringing a dish to share to include a list of ingredients.

Activities Few dog's play alike. Consider the games your dog guests like best. Tug, fetch, body slamming and teeth gnashing are all fair game, but if you're bringing dogs together who haven't met, make sure chaperones are on hand to redirect them if the interactions get dicey.

Cake Few dog cakes measure up to our standards. I recommend a split fare, although a few cross-species dishes can be found in one of my all time favorite canine cuisine book, the Doggone Good Cookbook (St. Martin's Press).

Party Favors Party favors also depend on the recipient. A cake-shaped squeak toy is a no-brainer, although you can get more creative in your offerings passing out a busy toy or treat-stuffed pacifier to settle the dogs' on their way home.

Are the party favors for people? The world is full of dogcentric chachkies that will commemorate an afternoon well spent!

Of course, I can't end this piece without mentioning the importance of spay/neuter. A couple of unaltered interactions may leave you with a few extra "party favors.".

Stay tuned here and on my Facebook page for photos from Tally Ho's birthday bash. And don't be shy! Share your images and ideas for celebrations had or hoped for. Remember, life's an adventure. Call your dog and cmon' let's play!

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Our Ocean, Our Tomorrow

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"Being a card-carrying fisher entitles us to fish and participate in work programs," says Jomar Brusa, a fisherman registered with USAID's FishR program in the Philippines. (Photo credit: Gil Maraguinot, ECOFISH Project)

Our ocean impacts all of us--what we eat, drink, and breathe is all connected to this water that washes over more than 70 percent of our blue planet. A healthy ocean is central to human wellbeing--it creates millions of jobs, feeds billions of people, and generates trillions of dollars in the global economy. Twelve percent of the world's population--more than 870 million people--rely on fisheries and aquaculture alone to support their livelihoods. More than three billion depend on our ocean as a significant source of animal protein.

As vast as our ocean and its resources are, they are not infinite. Without a healthy ocean, billions of people would be unable to live with the health, wellbeing, and dignity that our American values and ethos dictate they deserve. Our U.S. foreign assistance is fueling the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) efforts to reverse this trend and to help keep our ocean healthy and productive. By investing in programs that protect the lifeblood of our planet, we invest in ourselves and the future of our global community.

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing poses a critical threat to our ocean and our foreign policy goals and objectives by destabilizing the food and livelihood security of coastal communities. At this year's Our Ocean Conference, Secretary of State John Kerry announced the Safe Ocean Network initiative, which, supported by our U.S. foreign assistance, builds a global community of dozens of nations, including the United States and private partners, to combat IUU fishing. Our new foreign assistance commitment of $2.0 million will give support, using satellite data to identify boats suspected of IUU fishing, strengthening partnerships with Pacific Island Nations through ship-riding programs with the U.S. Coast Guard, and providing technical assistance to countries as they sign up to the Port State Measures Agreement--a global framework for stopping IUU fishing. By integrating existing and emerging technologies, expanding the use of internet-based tools, and enhancing coordination and information sharing, this Network will strengthen efforts to detect, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing around the world.

USAID's work to address IUU fishing is also essential to U.S. efforts to protect our ocean. In the Philippines, USAID partners with the country's Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to deter IUU fishing. With USAID support, in 2013 a first nationwide Municipal Fisheries Registration Program (FishR) was established for purposes of determining fishing allocation priorities, limiting entry into municipal water, and monitoring fishing activities. More than 1.5 million of the estimated 1.7 million municipal fishers have registered with FishR to date. These dynamic initiatives are just two examples of how the United States works with our partner countries to address complex challenges that threaten our global community.

Ocean Acidification--the ongoing decrease in the pH of our ocean--is another threat that our foreign assistance works to mitigate. Ocean Acidification is dangerous for many reasons, but its potential to harm fisheries is perhaps the most critical--it threatens food and trade sources for people around the world. Our planned investment of $500,000 in our Ocean Acidification program will allow the U.S. to enhance capacity for ocean acidification monitoring in areas including the Pacific Islands, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. Our U.S. foreign assistance will also support initiatives that mitigate climate-related impacts on coastal ecosystems.

Our foreign assistance will also provide an additional $1.5 million to support Marine Protected Area (MPA) projects in developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and East Africa. Our support will build capacity to strengthen technical, legal, and policy capabilities in order to establish and effectively manage and enforce MPAs. MPAs are critical to sustainable development--they protect our ocean's coral reefs, maintain fish populations, preserve habitats, and bolster economies by enhancing industries such as fishing and tourism. From reducing IUU fishing and ocean acidification to creating MPAs, our U.S. foreign assistance works worldwide to ensure that our ocean remains healthy.

These are just a few examples of how State Department and USAID foreign assistance drives unique and dynamic solutions to the complex issues that threaten our ocean. The United States is committed to protecting our ocean, and to all aspects of development, and in 2015 we joined our global community in setting ambitious, common priorities for the decades ahead: the Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals). Water flows through each of these 17 Global Goals, which include ending poverty, promoting gender equality, combating climate change, and more.

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Coral bleaching is dangerous because it threatens the ecosystem that provides a habitat and food for marine organisms. (Photo Credit: Bryan Young)

U.S. foreign assistance, with a price tag of just one percent of the total federal budget, fuels the Global Goals and provides a tremendous return on investment for the American taxpayer. Our foreign assistance demonstrates our commitment to our core American values, like the right to live a dignified life, and freedom and equality for all. It also bolsters our national security goals and objectives--we invest in the countries that are developing today, so that they can become even bigger and better partners tomorrow, ensuring a safer world and a healthy, sustainable planet for all of us.

Our U.S. foreign assistance works on behalf of the American taxpayer to support our ocean, address global health challenges, counter violent extremism, combat climate change, and more. All of these efforts fortify our global community, and our neighbors around the world--from our own hemisphere to Asia--are becoming stronger. We will have more opportunities than ever before to engage, to learn from each other, and to grow trade and job markets. Our global community will rely on our ocean more than ever before, too--we will need more food, more water, and cleaner air. Our investment in our ocean today, in our foreign assistance programs that nourish and protect our blue planet, is critical for our tomorrow.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in partnership with Secretary of State John Kerry's Our Oceanconference and Ocean Unite, an initiative to unite and activate powerful voices for ocean-conservation action. The series is being produced to coincide with the Our Ocean Conference (September 15th, 16th) as part of HuffPost's "What's Working" initiative, putting a spotlight on initiatives around the world that are solutions oriented. To read all the posts in the series, read here. The State Department does not endorse the content of this blog. Follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #OurOcean #MakeASplash.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Let's make it a green peace

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Today (21 September), around the globe, we mark Peace Day 2016 knowing that for many peace is nowhere to be found; not today, and unless things change dramatically in many places, not any time soon.

2015 saw the number of refugees and displaced people reach record numbers - surpassing even post-World War II. It is with heavy hearts that we follow the news from around the world: the images are heartbreaking: a terrified child, a ruined hospital, a capsized boat, a city bombed to the ground, a community at the end of their tether. For every image that catches the media attention, many others go unnoticed. Suffering and grief beyond comprehension and beyond the limits of what people should have to endure, are the daily reality for many.

And while we cannot pretend to comprehend, we can, and must, ask ourselves - what must we do?

For Greenpeace, this is a question we grapple with, hold ourselves accountable to: how do we contribute to making our world more green and peaceful? Answers are not straightforward and are never sufficient. Collaborating with and supporting other non-governmental organisations, partners and communities opposing violence is one step in the right direction. Using our skills to help those impacted by conflict is another. These are necessary and important but are also after the fact.

One additional answer, one that we are passionate about, is - speaking up against the idea that the only way to achieve security is through military might and that borders and weapons hold the key to a peaceful existence. Instead, we believe we must work to address the root causes leading to conflicts, to try and prevent them from occurring, or escalating in the first place. We must all work alongside communities to identify non-violent solutions to problems.

War is the ultimate challenge to peace; violence is the most extreme form of threat. But peace cannot be solely defined by the absence of war or conflict. This is not just playing with words.

It underpins what approach we take to achieving peace. Governments spend a fortune on 'defense' - guns, bombs, war planes and the ultimate weapon - nuclear weapons. By comparison there is currently very little focus on and very little time and money spent on proactively preventing conflict.

The twentieth century model of security, based on military might, is no longer applicable. The notion that weapons are the way to safety, military dominance is a mark of superiority, and "what happens over there stays over there" are powerful myths that many see only leading to more violence and suffering and rarely resolving conflict. Peace in the 21st century means more than the absence of war.

We need to replace a narrow paradigm, a national security approach based on military might, and a fear of those different from ourselves with one that reflects a broader understanding of true security - human security. Human security focuses on protecting and promoting the dignity, empowerment and fulfilment for all people. It means not only protecting people from threat, but creating the kind of environmental, social, political, and economic systems that support and enhance people flourishing alongside each other and their environment.

A healthy environment is key to human security. Caring for the environment is a necessity, not a luxury. Our fates and that of the natural world are intimately connected. We humans cannot survive, nor live peacefully, without a healthy, functioning environment.

Nobel Peace Laureate Willy Brandt once said: "Peace is not everything, but without peace everything is nothing." This logic applies even more-so to the natural world that provides us with the basis for our very existence.

Much of the damage we are inflicting on our planet is irreversible. We are now at a critical juncture, a tipping point, where overstepping our planetary boundaries is leading us down a path to growing instability, resource scarcity, fear, crisis and potential conflict. Some of the adverse impacts of climate change are already unavoidable. Crisis will continue to occur. It is how we choose to respond that matters.

Resource scarcity (water, arable land, energy) does not have to lead to conflict. In fact, research shows that often, it can create the conditions for rival parties to cooperate.

Sharing our scarce resources fairly and protecting the global Commons for us all are two essential ways to achieve a green and more peaceful world.

We can address the issues of growing resource scarcity and the local and global impacts of climate change by promoting sustainable options to resource scarcity.

Take energy for example. Conflicts are always complex, but around the world, the quest for resources and conflict often go hand-in-hand. Current conflicts in Iraq, Ukraine, Sudan, the South China Sea to Nigeria are all to an extent, linked to the ownership, access and transport of fossil fuels.

"Resource wars" are not new. But today we can overcome them. Energy is a key example for how transitioning to sustainable, clean renewable sources, could not only reduce conflict, but make life easier and more bountiful for billions. Worldwide 1.3 billion people - equivalent to 18% of global population - continue to live without access to electricity. 2.6 billion people are without clean cooking facilities. This is a problem especially for displaced people and refugees. Renewable energies are already helping to transform lives around the world, and Greenpeace is doing our part contributing to this by both mapping the road to 100% renewable energy for all, as well as working on the ground connecting people (for example in India, Italy and Lebanon).

Our vision is for a world where the intimate, symbiotic relationships between peace and the environment are cherished and acted upon. We stand for a world where people co-exist peacefully with one another and with nature. We stand for a world where the limits of our resources are respected, celebrated and shared. But to get there we must choose cooperation over conflict. We must choose equity and sustainability over greed, human dignity and courage over exploitation.

We stand for peace.

And as one of our founders said: Let´s make it a green peace.

Co-written by Jennifer Morgan and Bunny McDairmid - Executive Director Greenpeace International (a shared leadership role)

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Mt Taranaki by Ronnie Li

Brussels, Belgium by Remo Scarfò

Brussels North High-Rise.

A Prelude to Autumn by Richard Beresford Harris

Langkofel of the Dolomites in South Tyrol, Italy.

Gloomy Days by Jessica Drossin

One of my children, sad he can't go outside. Please follow me here: Facebook I Google + I Twitter I Instagram Edited with JD Beautiful World Foundations and Fine Art Tints available here.