Pickle Playbowing at Dexter and Tula
A few pics of the (rapidly growing) puppies. Everyone leaves within the next week – Pickle, of course, is staying, and Dwight will be right around the corner. I am still pre bereft.
Two great dogs were lost this week —
Gina Spadafori’s beautiful Heather
and Hope and Fran Saidel’s Golly, inspiration for their “GollyGear” shop.
Hope and Fran's Golly
Gina’s tribute to Heather is here, and ‘s for Golly is here. Like all great dogs, they leave holes in the lives of everyone who knew them.
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
Khalil Gibran
Structure of Canine Ear
I have a survey open as part of an article I am working on.
If you are a BREEDER of French Bulldogs who has ever produced a congenitally deaf French Bulldog puppy, your input is needed. The survey is confidential, no personal identification is required or collected.
The survey responses are limited to 100 persons, at which time it will be closed. The responses will be shared.
Please help me to gather as much data as possible on this condition.
Please share this with any other groups you think might be able to assist.
Thanks!
London, Ontario residents recently found something more interesting than ducks and beavers at their local reservoir – a five kilogram common Caiman, relative of the Alligator.
Locals had spotted the Caiman over the weekend, but Animal Control were unable to catch it.
Area resident John Stephan had heard about the creature, and decided to have look for himself while walking his Shih Tzu, Gunner, near the reservoir last evening. The film crews were apparently a dead give away that something out of the ordinary was going on.
From the London Free Press –
“I asked what was going on and I was told there was a small crocodile or alligator in the pond,” he said. “There had been sightings and it had been filmed.”
Stephan decided to look for the creature on the south side of the pond, “because I noticed it was reedy over there.”
When he got to the reeds, he followed a slithery trail in the muck until he found an alligator sunning itself on a bed of weeds.
Stephan is apparently quite the amateur crocodile hunter, because his first reaction on spotting the caiman wasn’t to run screaming in circles (my probable reaction), but rather to simply reach down and grab it.
“It wasn’t moving,” he said. “I came up to it from behind, reached down and grabbed it with my bare hands.”
“I think it was a bit listless because of the cold. But when I picked it up, it struggled to free itself. I wasn’t going to let go, though. I’ve got big strong hands and I kept a tight grip on it.”
Stephan walked with the caiman, a relative of the alligator, about 75 meters to an A Channel truck, where he asked television reporter Nick Paparella to get some duct tape and tape the mouth of the creature shut.
The Caiman was later “identified by an exotic wildlife specialist as a “spectacled or common caiman”. It’s been speculated that someone bought it as a pet, and turned it loose in the pond when it grew too large.
*Shortly after the Caiman was caught, Sarnia Animal Control Officer Brad Loosley arrived on the scene and insisted that the Caiman was actually a Pit Bull.
“Check out those locking jaws!”, a frothing at the mouth Loosley exclaimed to bemused television crews. “That’s a Pit Bull, alright. The beady eyes give it away”.
When Loosley was informed that reptile specialists had identified the creature as a Caiman, he scoffingly replied “Those guys aren’t experts on Pit Bulls – me, I’m a Pit Bull expert. I’m an Animal Control officer, dammit. Bow to my authority”.
Loosley then noticed Gunner, Mr. Stephan’s Shih Tzu, and attempted to nab Gunner with a snare pole. When asked what on earth he thought he was doing, Loosley shrieked that Pit Bulls come in all sizes, and that Gunner was obviously a miniature, long haired Pit Bull. “Oh, sure – they look like family pets”, a wild eyed Loosley was heard to exclaim. “Until the day they snap and savage your ankle, and then it’s all over, buddy”.
An A Team technician then wrestled a hysterical Loosley to the ground and duct taped his mouth shut, commenting that he ‘seemed a little bit irate, and was ranting something about being denied his due measure of death dealing. He seems a bit nuts, honestly’.*
I’m all upset this morning, because of THIS blog posting —
http://www.buzzfeed.com/digg/the-saddest-dog-in-the-world-pic
In case you can’t be bothered to click it, it shows this photo, with the caption “Saddest Dog in the World”.
