odds ’n’ ends

LOS ANGELES:

It’s early morning, just after breakfast, and sixyear-old Cayley is wide awake, eagerly anticipating her daily dose of cannabis.

The black labrador, tail wagging, laps up the liquid tincture owner Brett Hartmann squirts into her mouth, a remedy he uses morning and evening to help alleviate Cayley’s anxiety.

“Ever since I started her on CBD (cannabidiol — a marijuana extract), her separation anxiety has disappeared,” says Hartmann, 30, of his pet, a service dog he acquired while in college because he had epilepsy.

Hartmann, who lives near Los Angeles, said he turned to medical marijuana for Cayley after he no longer needed her to accompany him everywhere, having himself overcome his epilepsy with the help of the drug.

“I just allowed her to retire and ... I don’t think she handled the transition too well,” Hartmann, who also has his ageing dachshund on cannabis, said. “But CBD has really helped.”

With the multi-billion dollar medical and recreational marijuana industry for humans blossoming in the United States, so is a new customer base — animals.

“We are seeing about 20 percent growth every single month,” said Alison Ettel, founder of Treat Well, a company in California that specializes in non-psychoactive medical cannabis products for animals and humans.

She said owners of animals — from dogs, cats, lizards, turtles, alpacas, horses to farm animals — are increasingly turning to cannabis to help treat ailments ranging from cancer and heart murmurs to arthritis and ear infections.

And the feedback, Ettel says, is more than encouraging.

“We probably get at least one to five cancer patients a day and the results we’re seeing are just blowing my mind,” she said, claiming the drug can help improve life expectancy. (AFP)

MOSCOW:

Huddling close to his mother, a baby Asian elephant has faced the public for the first time at the Moscow zoo.

The appearance of Filimon, who already weighs 90 kgs (198 pounds), is such a rare occasion that Moscow City Hall dispatched a deputy mayor to present the baby elephant to the public. Some visitors specifically went to the zoo on Tuesday to see the newborn.

Filimon, born less than a month ago to parents who have been living in Moscow since the late 1980s, has increased the number of the elephant family at the zoo to five.

Visibly disoriented, the baby walked into the sunlit enclosure Tuesday morning, sticking close to his mother and trying to grab carrots scattered on the floor. (AP)