Everybody, WATCH OUT! One of my worst fears has been confirmed: pet treats at PetSmart containing peanut butter can kill your pet. This is particularly disturbing because Giuseppe (my pet python) gets really squeezy when he doesn’t get his favorite peanut butter treats. Just stay tuned and I’ll let you know when peanut butter treats are safe again.
PS: What the hell is “salmonella” anyway?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgkOKLRQjlo]
I have nothing to add.
This one has been up at one of my anonymous news sources for quite a while now so I felt that I should mention it just for the of completeness. This dog, Buddy–real creative, was trained by his owner to bite a telephone if he (the owner) has a seizure. Well, he did and so he did. YAWN.
Peep the video here if you want
**No images of Buddy were available, so this picture from Wikipedia is the best I could do. It looks a lot like Buddy, though.
More bear news. I don’t have much to say about this, but I’m just putting here to be complete. Here’s what happened:
It’s HIGHLY unlikely the bear would put up with a dog chewing on it. What’s much more likely is the peace-loving bear just wanted to avoid conflict and knew he couldn’t reason with the dog on the ground.
Here’s the link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/08/07/pkg.bear.treed.wtlv
I’m really sad to report some sad news tonight. Apparently some guy driving a street sweeper in The Bronx ran over the dog pictured below and killed her as her owner still held her leash. Why did this happen? Well, for one, we all know truck drivers hate dogs. I would guess that street sweeper drivers feel the same way. Also, the driver may not have a soul and that would explain a lot.
OK, everybody, it’s time for a break. I’ve been covering relevant animal news now for some time and have been helping all of you to the tune of 3000 hits (that’s enormous in internet terms) since the site’s creation a way back who knows when. Would you believe the only animal news on CNN today is this stupid video featuring a dog and a sheep? That’s BORING. So, on this Sunday evening, I’m going to tell you about my cat, Skittles. Well, our cat. Here’s the story.
My fiancee and I had been itching to get a pet. We already have some fish. The biggest fish is Amadeus. When we got him, we also had three others: Punky Brewster, Lucius Tertius and Jimmy Tango. However, Amadeus systematically killed off his tank mates. First went Lucius, then Punky and finally Jimmy. It turns out that Amadeus had been pregnant, though, and he was just making room for his son, Hush Puppy who’s a happy, healthy fry right now. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is fish don’t make loyal companions.
Another bit of important tid-bit of background is that my apartment building, a high-rise in Crystal City (Arlington, VA) is beginning to fall apart. Knowing this, management sold it to Bainbridge Companies, which is definitely the sorriest property management company ever. Just ask Catherine (who’s in the property management business). Well, we found out that Bainbridge was allowing animals in the building when we heard a dog barking upstairs. A couple days later we were at Petsmart perusing the cats. Here’s a picture of Skittles in her cage.
Some time back we had decided that “Skittles” would be a great name for a cat, especially if it was a really mean cat. We named this cat Skittles but she turned out just to be stupid. A stupid cat? Yes. Skittles is pretty dense. She’s extremely clumsy, more interested in tin foil and Catherine’s hair than very realistic rabbit’s fur mice and she doesn’t bury her treasures in the litter box.
Actually, the litter box situation is pretty funny. See, Skittles LOVES to eat. She eats all the time and throws a fit if her bowl is empty. And with all that food she produces a lot of waste. Cleaning litter boxes doesn’t bother me at all. Even scooping Skittle’s box daily would have been fine, but daily isn’t enough with this cat. Since she doesn’t bury, a fresh box is only fresh until she uses it, which is very, very frequently. It was getting to the point where my entire apartment smelled like her litterbox everyday when I came home from work. We got the Littermaid to clean up after her for each visit to the box just so the apartment would be tolerable.
Here’s Skittles inside her food bag, eating, because she finished off her bowl.
Unusual traits aside, Skittles is a really great cat. I think we’re going to get her a buddy, though, and name him Kringle. Kringle will probably be a Siamese.
Brisbane, Australia — A family lost their chihuahua-terrier mix today. It seems the dog had been stocked by a scrub python for some does which finally got hungry enough to make his move [1]. The python is fine, but the two kids (5 and 7) who witnessed the carnage will never be the same. Below is a picture from the incident (CAUTION graphic/distasteful):
The scrub python, Morelia amethistina, is a long slender snake found in Indonesia, Australia, and places like that (you know what I mean–not Korea or anything, just those islands you sometimes hear about). They can be extremely long, but a generally a large specimen is only about 5.5 meters (~16′) [2]. That is the same size snake that ate the dog. Usually, these guys eat small wild animals but all of that has changed.
I think eagles and I have a lot in common but I don’t think I could ever be one. Today, I left work slightly after noon to get lunch. Salad was the plan, but as I neared the Balducci’s in Alexandria, VA, I began to doubt myself. I decided to go with sushi instead. I like fish the way bears like fish: raw. I’ve never had the chance to eat live salmon, but I have eaten raw bits of salmon on clumps of rice. One time my family went to an Asian restaurant and I ordered sashimi thinking it would be fish on rice, but it was just fish. I became closer to the bear than ever that day, though I’ve drifted–through no fault of my own–slightly since.
As I was eating my sushi and reading CNN, I spotted this article. It seems a bunch of bald eagles dove into a TRUCK OF FISH GUTS. I guess they were so pumped up by the smell of raw fish they couldn’t take it any more. I can relate, but not totally. Some of the eagles did not survive–they probably drowned. The lucky ones were washed off and suffered the indignity of being left to dry out in a warehouse. If you ask me, it just wasn’t worth it. Below is what an eagle looks like wet.
I guess dogs and cats probably eat fish guts in their food, but it’s generally nonlethal and the smell is disguised with the smell of old fish. I bet my dog, Resi, would jump into a tank of fish-anything. She can swim really well.
Below is an excellent video targeted at viewers who have little to no knowledge of eagles. Intermediate eagle fanciers will find this mostly review. Eagle experts should move on to something else right now.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1x1m6SB4ks&rel=1]
Peace out.
