Plumb tuckered out

We went out of town last weekend, and our dog Jera stayed with a coworker friend of mine. They took her to the dog park all day on Saturday and Jera was very tired when she got home!! Isn't she cute? :-)

The difference between cats and dogs

When I first got my kitties, they had bad colds so I had to give them a little pill twice a day for several days. I hated this, because I felt like we were starting out on the wrong foot! I didn't want them to hate me right off the bat. (It was fine in the end, though. I think they like me. :-) Or they just like me to feed them, one of the two.)

I would try to push the pill down their throats, massaging it so they'd be forced to swallow. When it seemed like the deed was done, I would let them down. They would promptly go over to the living room and spit out the little white pill.

Now, for comparison, take the puppy we recently got.

She had a mild parasite when we got her. We had to give her a pill every day for a week. Remembering the ordeal with the cats, I decided to get these things called Pill Pockets. Basically, it's a treat that has an opening where you can hide a pill. Jera loved them. Every time she saw my hand reach for the Pill Pockets bag on the top of the fridge, she went beside herself with excitement. Tail wagging, jumping up and down. Oh boy! Oh boy! A treat!!

One evening I gave her the Pill Pocket with the capsule neatly disguised inside. Jera, literally quivering with excitement, munched on it happily. She was so wild with her munching that the pill fell out and hit the kitchen floor. Oops! Jera, however, know that a piece of her Delicious Treat had fallen to the ground. So she immediately gobbled the pill up without a second thought.

There, my friends, you have a difference between cats and dogs.

Oh, they make Pill Pockets for cats, too. I have my doubts as to whether the cat would indeed be tricked into eating a pill like that. I know mine wouldn't fall for it.

Dog Pack Kills Alligator

From an email forward...

Dog Pack Kills Alligator In Florida

At times nature can be cruel, but there is also a raw beauty, and even a certain justice manifested within that cruelty.

The alligator, one of the oldest and ultimate predators, normally considered the apex predator in its natural eco-system, can still fall victim to implemented team work strategy, made possible by the tight knit social structure and survival of the fittest pack mentality bred into canines over the last thousands of years by natural selection.

See the remarkable photograph attached, courtesy of Nature Magazine.

Note that the Alpha dog has a muzzle hold on the gator preventing it from breathing, while the remainder of the pack prevents the beast from rolling.

Beware! This is not for the squeamish!

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The guests of honor

I love animals! Here are the current ones I live with:

Ebony
She's sweet and a bit aloof to those she doesn't know. She likes to roll on the ground purring, but if you try to pet her then she edges just out of reach! She's beautiful and sleek, like a panther.

Lewis
Lewis is the friendly brother of Ebony. He loves to eat, and even though I try my best he's become quite a fat cat. He loves people, and is friendly with anyone who will hold him. He is less afraid than his sister, and also less agile. He can be quite the cuddlebug if you give him a chance!

Jera
Jera is a 7 month old Beagle puppy. She's very bouncy - we think she's part kangaroo! She is VERY friendly, and loves to greet anyone who crosses her path. Does her tail ever stop wagging? She loves to get all the dogs to chase her at the dog park, which makes us happy because she wears herself out that way! In addition to romping at the dog park, she enjoys Greenies and chewing on shoes. She also is trying to figure out how to get the cats to play with her.

Cat quotations

Someone sent me the following quotations about cats. Here are a few of my favorites:

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."

-Albert Schweitzer

"Time spent with cats is never wasted."

-Collette

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through the snow."

-Jeff Valdez

"Cats are a tonic, they are a laugh, they are a cuddle, they are at least pretty just about all of the time and beautiful some of the time."

-Roger Caras

"The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it."

-Doug Larson

"A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are equivalent to another kitten with which the forepart plays. She does not discover that her tail belongs to her until you tread on it."

-Henry David Thoreau

"A dog is like a liberal, he wants to please everybody. A cat doesn't really need to know that everybody loves him."

-William Kunstler

"After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference."

-Charlotte Gray

"Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance."

-Dan Greenburg

"No one can have experienced to the fullest the true sense of achievement and satisfaction who have never pursued and successfully caught his tail."

-Rosalind Welcher