YAY! I remembered my password!

I have no time for a real entry, but I remembered my password, so this is cause for celebration because I can post random animal things again!!

I guess first and formost I'd like the few people who read this to sign a petition that advocates for animal welfare. They only have a goal of 1,000 which is so SMALL and I can't believe they have not reached their goal yet because there are so many who claim to care abnout household pets. So it might be hard to get the world to go fur-less or all become a vegetarian (heck, I'm not even a vegetarian!) but I think animal welfare is the MOST important thing. Because if we are going to use an animal or take a life for our benefit, I feel we at least have the duty to give them the respect and honor and proper euthenasia methods available.

Whether or not you believe that animals have a conscious or feelings or can feel pain, this should be irrelevant because we, as humans...have ALL of those...and because we do, we should know better. We should know how to treat living things right.

So if the video is too sad/graphic/sensitive, I don't ask that you watch it, because it was really hard for me to watch it...but I ask that you recognize the cause that you would be benefitting by signing the petition and I ask that you be more aware of what you buy...be a conscious shopper, don't let commercials and advertisements and sales run to your head! Be smart. Be kind.

CLICK HERE, OR COPY AND PASTE THIS: http://www.change.org/actions/view/message_to_china_pass_animal_welfare_law_for_western_acceptance

The Song: Barry White is Magic

The Sea Life London Aquarium has just upped its antics to try and mate zebra sharks!!

So the story broken down is this:

• Mazawabee= single, "lonely," female zebra shark
• Zorro= renown "ladie's man," male zebra shark--hailing from Belgium
• Barry White= awesome singer/songwrite with SOUL POWER (and a moving deep, bass voice) of the 70's
• Zorro so far has not lived up to his expectations...so the Aquarium people are trying a little something different, such as some awesome tunes to try and get everyone in the mood...
• If that doesn't work, they say they will switch to Marvin Gaye!

To see the awesome-ness for yourself, click here.

The Solved: Mysteries Unveiled

While hopping around my tumblr blog, I saw a link which led to an article titles " The Truth Behind 5 'real' Monsters that fooled the Internet." And it turns out that the myths addressed are actually ones that I've heard of before. Now days technology does wonders, especially with the advancement in photoshopping. Combine that with the witty, selfish, lying man...and what do you get?? MONSTER MYTHS!!

WELL HERE'S THE TRUTH:

1. The Montauk Monster Carcass: originally a monster that looks similar to Japan's water monster+monk, it became quite interesting when a "carcus" rolled onto shore and had people claiming it as the Montauk Monster.
---> Answer: simply a decomposing racoon which had lost all its fur from being in water (kind of YUCK when you get the image in your head!!)


2. The Moscow Monster: legend of a while meets the dinosaur long neck. When a decomposing carcus found near the sea seemed to have the exact head shape of the Moscow Monster, it got people talking
---> Answer: decomposing baluga whale! (strange how decomposition is misleading)


3. The "Chupacabra": Kind of the description of a wolf with a long, narrow snout, or a large coyote which also supposedly have some strange traits of a reptile. Also suppose to suck blood out of innocent animals and children around the globe.
---> Answer: hybrid coyote or coyote with bad, BAD skin disease.



4. Body of Bigfoot: Bigfoot is LEGENDARY, however, no one ever found a carcus of it...UNTIL noooow. (say whaaaa??)
--->Anwser: two police officers (who are supposed to be upholding honor, trust etc.) Actually bought a costume...then stuffed it, and including some guts!! genius~




5. The SewerCam Creature: a "creature" filled with goo and dripping weird wetness that looks as though it will eat you alive!
--->Answer: tubifex worms, aka sewage worms...are organisms who eat sediments, and actually started to coil around each other, creating a globe like "slime creature."




to read the whole article and see all its wonderful pictures, click here.

The Small: extra extra mini horse

While browsing facebook, one of my friends linked an interesting story that I thought I'd share with you guys. It's the most fantastical, yet weirdly minute story: the story of Koda.

Koda is an American Miniature horse who also happened to be born a dwarf. What this means is that on top of the already small stature on the breed, Koda is actually a "mini-mini horse." Size extra small please!

Normal American Miniatures cannot exceed 34 inches to be considered a full American Miniature. Now compare this to Koda who is a whopping 59cm tall (roughly 23 inches) in fact, Koda is often mistaken as a robotic, stuffed animal horse...strange!

Veterinarians were orginially going to euthenize Koda, as the hose has nurmous health issues includding a jaw too small for all its teeth and extensive leg problems...all of which need surgical measures to correct. However, the veterinary technician on hand felt for the little guy and decided to give him a fight chance! (woohoo, yay Koda!)

Now days Koda is enjoying the life of a full time pet and gets to relax with a companion closer to its own size: the veterinary cat :)

To read for yourself, this cute little article on the tinnnny horse, click here.

The Missed: Taco Bell Dog Dies

Our beloved 90's chihuahua famed of "yo quiero taco bell!" has passed away at the fruitful age of 15. She suffered from a stroke and had to be euthanized. So here we send our love and condolences, rest in peace Gidget (her name). Taco Bell FOREVERRRR!

The "Outrageous": weird facts...what the heeells?

I'm currently watching Animal Planet's show "50 Outrageous animal facts" and I've decided to share a couple of the facts because really...they are SO weird. The animal kingdom never ceases to amaze me, nature's truly talented!!

• A manatee (also known as the mermaid) sleeps in between breaths, making their full sleep time...actually only about 20mins.

• Dolphins sleep with only half of their brain at a time...which sort of explains why they're always on the go and active, crazy lil buggers!

• Mudskippers can actually climb trees even though, like their name, they are normally found in muddy, swamp areas.

• Octopus live longer without their sex organs

• Killifish usually mate in small pools of water, then the female will hatch eggs...and die afterwards because the small pool of water dries up. THE STRANGE PART is that even if you leave the mama female in a normal fish tank with enough water, after she hatches her eggs...she dies anyways =/

• An average of 10 people are killed each year by sharks...

• ...this compared to COWS who kill 100x more people on average per year. (yeah, that's right...fix those stereotypes!)

• As many as 4 million prairie dogs can live in ONE colony.

• Insects have roughly 740,000 different species.
  

The Fashionable: Ugliest Dog Competition

While studying for a test earlier today, some friends and I started doing some research on ugly animals. Animals like the sphinx, hairless cat came up and deformed dogs and such came up. This reminded me that there is a "WORLD'S UGLIEST DOG COMPETITION" annually!! how could I forget?!?!

They JUST crowned a new winner this past June. Everyone...meet Pabst, the new world's ugliest dog! Surprisingly, it's actually not that ugly to me...so I'm not sure why it won because in the past 7 years, the Chinese Crested breed has won!! Oh well...I must say...Pabst does adorn the "what the heck are YOU looking at" look well, so congrats to him!

For winning...Pabst and his owner received $1,600 from the Sonoma-Marin Fair for sweeping all three rounds ($100 for mutt class, $500 for runoff with the pedigree class winner, and $1,000 for World’s Ugliest Dog).

This year sponsor House Of Dog upped the ante with another $1,000 in prize money, a table of “bling” that included collars, leashes, and bowls plus a year-round modeling contract that Pabst signed with his paw. Event Photographer Grace Chon included a professional photo shoot.

Pabst was adopted from a rescue shelter 3 years ago and stands as the first "mutt" to win the competition.

2008's winner...a Chinese Crested cutie/ugly named Gus passed away a couple of months after winning the crown from skin cancer. He seemed to be an awesome, happy little one-eyed tripod (yep, only THREE LEGS folks!) and may he rest in peace. Gus was 9 years old.

To read more details on the annual Sonoma-Marin Fair and its awesome ugly dog show, click here.

The Ugly: Aye-Aye

I knew that my next blog post had to be something funny, maybe another profile? I thought of doing fictional animals like the unicorn or something, then remembered this ugly, hilariously looking creature I saw on animal planet once--The Aye-Aye...and secretly chuckled to myself. SO here is the animal in all it's fashionable glamor!

The Aye-Aye is a rain forest dwelling, ape/chimpanzee/HUMAN (whaat??) related ugly monkey-look alike...Madagascar native. and only in Madagascar will you catch a glimpse of the weird looking creature.

It's an omnivore which means it eats both meat and plants and has a diet that consists of fruits, veggies and insects. They are nocturnal, so they spend their days sleeping and only come out at night...and prefer to stay up in the trees unless absolutely necessary to come down.

Like many primates (that's us!) , the Aye-Aye has opposable big toes which help it grip and hang from trees and grab things easier. They can live up to 20 years and have a tail as long as 24 inch es! I think these guys, though ugly...are perfectly loveable <3. href="http://www.animalinfo.org/species/primate/daubmada.htm">here.

Interesting facts about these uglies:
1. They are one of the rare animals that use echolocation to find prey, such as listening for insects that crawl under tree barks
2. To the native people, Aye-Ayes are considered a bad omen...and are often killed on sight....resulting in their name being on the Endangered Species list. (good going humans!) The good news is that they are also now protected by law as their numbers are dwindling.

The Oops! Puppy down the toilet!

So for this installment of paw corner, I'm commenting on an article I read where a 4 year old boy in Britain accidentally flushed his week old cocker spaniel puppy down the toilet as he attempted to give it a bath after his twin brother took the puppy out for a walk. The puppy was flushed nearly 20 yard away from the house where he was finally rescued. Here is the link to the story with a video of the amazing sequence of events for the tiny pup.

As I read through some of the comments, I realized that my questions and concerns were very much alike with others. Who takes a week old puppy out for long, muddy walks? Why was a 4 year old washing a week old puppy with no adult supervision? anything could've happened...the child could have drowned the dog in the sink! I believe that it is hard to watch your child at all times, but during certain activities where extreme caution and responsibility need to be instore, such as bathing an infant canine, an adult should be present.

On the other hand...where would a child get the idea to wash a dog in a toilet in the first place?? Very unusual. One of the comments noted that children often mimic what they have seen before and perhaps assumed that flushing the toilet cleans the toilet and therefore would be a good place to clean a dog? It's any body's guess...at least there was a happy ending and the puppy is fine and healthy after 4 hours in the pipes, poor guy! The family named the dog Dyno, after its resucer.

Reiterating on OWNER RESPONSIBILITY, please please take caution, care and responsibiltiy if you have a pet. A pet might be a good tool to teach children responsibility, but adults must realize that children still have so much to learn. Not every case may be so lucky as this one...

The Ugly: The Snakehead Fish

I'm addicted to websites that rank certain things or have the top 10 most ____ something. Recently I read one of "world's most evil fish"...but maybe it's just misunderstood??

The Channidae is a type of fresh water fish found in Asia and Africa and are also known as "Snakeheads" because of their hunting habits and shape of their head.

They can weigh up to 60 pounds (whoa!) but the heaviest ever caught by man weighs roughly 9 pounds. They are "scary" and are considered a hazard to wildlife habitat in some areas due to their nature and ability to basically eat anything. They have no set diet and can eat plankton, aquatic insects, frogs, birds and the rest can be part of your imagination!!

What makes them even more unique is that they have been known to be able to breathe atmospheric air and can live on wet land for up to 4 days! With skills such as these, the snakeheads have virtually no natural enemies and are considered a top level predator.

The only thing standing in their way and world domination? humans of course. Though they are not an the endangered species list, they ARE caught and killed for food dishes in South East Asia (and some imported to the U.S.) and exotic aquariums. What would you feed such a fish if it was in YOUR tank?? To learn more about these ugly, snakeheads, click here.

Dedication: Dwarf Hamsters

A really dear friend died about 3 weeks ago, so I decided to make a small dedication to her/him/it. Hamtatoe, this is for you. (The picture to the left is Hamtaty and I!!)

Dwarf Hamsters are common house pets and can be found in most pet stores. They are active little buggers that tend to bite of not used to/trained being hand-held at a young age. They can grow up to 3-4in and live up to 3-4years. Hamtaty lasted a whopping 3 years, a true fighter!

They are social creatures and like to be with other hamsters. However, if you are introducing a new "friend" into the cage, make sure that the two agree with each other or else you'll have fights! Clean out the cage and put the NEW hamster in first, let it roam around and get its scent in the cage...then put in the old resident. If one if male, put the male in first. Let them adjust to each other, but observe them carefully! Some hamsters just like being solitary.


Hamsters are similar to rabbits and other rodents in that they like to gnaw on things. Some hamsters reject chew toys and will chew on their cages (like Hamtatoe)...this problem can be solved with a dog biscuit that is hard and tasty...YUM :)

Since hamsters don't have that long of a life expectancy, towards the later part of their life, they might be prone to health problems. Most people don't take their hamsters to the vet because the price of a hamster can be lower than $10 where as a trip to the vet could be over $100.

However, always remember that the easiest way for both you as an owner, and them as a pet, is just to take good daily care.

Good owner responsibility is key to a healthy, happy pet. This decreases the need for expensive trips to the vet and will likely encourage a stronger bond between you and your special friend. Remember that pets (like people) need daily TLC...so even if you're busy with school, work or social life....if you have a pet, remember your responsibility and commitment and make some time to bond and care for your pet.

To learn more about dwarf hamsters and how to care for them, check out this online community dedicated to dwarf hamsters!

Tail-Benders: A misconception-The White Tiger

Does this look like the pretty white tigers we see in zoos? Or on Post cards? Definitely not. Is it sick?? nope.

This is the true face of the white tiger.

The fact is that White Tigers come from a genetic mutation which is NOT favored in the wild. The key is that being the color white...sort of ruins their camouflage in the wild. This makes it so that a white fur coat is NOT favored.

The white coat is a recessive gene which means that the only way to produce a white tiger is through inbreeding from father to daughter, grandfather to grand daughter etc. So when you trace it all back...all white tigers are related to each other and come from the same original white tiger.

By the nature of inbreeding, animals who are excessively inbred are prone to severe birth defects and multiple health concerns. Things like immune deficiency, scoliosis of the spine (distorted spine), and grotesquely crossed eyes that bulge from their skull. Only a very small percentage are suitable for display! Most breeders will dispose of their deformed white tigers and continue inbreeding until a "normal" white tiger comes along.
The reason why we have white tigers in zoos is because of people. People enjoy the pretty coat and the exotic hype of an animal that is rare...and oh-so beautiful. Some have even claimed that the white tiger is a "special" rare species of tiger completely separate from the orange ones we are used to. They call it the "Royal White Bengal Tiger." Which does not actually exist.

Help inform the public and educate others about the origins of the white tiger. To read more, click here.

The Strange: Barreleye fish-the glass fish

As I browsed through random events on my Yahoo! front page...one of the titles caught my eye...mostly by its strange picture which appeared to have a fish with a lit-up head!

Alas, though the fish did not actually have a lit-up head, the Barreleye fish does have tubular eyes and a transparent head that does an excellent job of collecting light-->which is why it looks as though the head lights up!

When the fish was first described in 1939, people were in disbelief. Its eyes are surrounded by a transparent, fluid-filled shield that covers the top of the fish's head. This allows the fish to have some movement of the eye to look around the virtually black ocean around them for food.

In addition, the barreleye fish's big, flat fins allow for it to stay motionless and await for prey. Their small mouths suggest they are very selective in what they eat, but large digestive system suggests they can eat a variety of things...such as jellies!

Because these fishes live so deep in the ocean (down to where almost no sunlight can penetrate) it is very hard for oceanographers to find out about them, so research will continue to track the Barreleye fish and their survival patterns. To find out more about these weird looking fishes, click here.

Take Action: low cost spay and neuter

Ever think you see too many animals on the streets in your town its ridiculous? Well now's your chance to do something about it!

Low cost spay and neuter programs are supported all over the United States by various groups and organizations. In the Sacramento area, UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital provides the service monthly for low-income families. Programs such as these help keep the number of homeless animals to a minimum, and helps decrease the number of animals euthanized each year (up to millions!) because they cannot find permanent homes.

Neutering your male pets has been reported to help tame their behavior if you've got a wild one with non-stop energy! The animals will have a much lower testosterone levels which result in a calmer, more relaxed dog.

The money you pay (if any) usually goes towards a good cause such as your local SPCA or humane society or organizations supporting animal welfare and raising public awareness. So if you are adopting a pet or looking for a pet, please consider spaying/neutering your animal to prevent unwanted pregnancies and mating. And if you happen to have a few extra dollars in the pocket and are willing to help out your community, consider offering to pay for spay and neuters for the homeless animals in your neighborhood. For more information on finding low cost or free spay and neuters in YOUR neighborhood, click here.

Tail-Benders: A misconception-The Porcupine

Today's misconception is on the strange, adorable little spiky things known as the porcupine. How many of you guys thought that the cartoon was accurate in depicting the prickly animals as they shot out their quills as a defense mechanism in the presence of danger??

Well, even if you are pleading the 5th...the answer is that porcupines actually cannot "shoot" out their quills at all! When danger is near, the animal will raise its spikes to deter predators and the quills will detach easily onto anything it touches...which is why many animals and people walk away from an encounter with quills stuck on their bodies.

So there you have it...the breaking of the misconception behind porcupines. Next time you see one, you'll know that it can't shoot those crazy spikes at you...but make sure to wear proper gear before approaching it! To read more about porcupines, click here.

News: Animal Activitst attack UC Researcher's home

Animal rights groups often take strong actions towards those whom they consider have offended them or have endangered the welfare of animals. Animal research on a university level has been especially controversial as it is done in the name of aid in human medical break-through, but at the cost of how many animals' health and well being? I found an article dating on Feb 20, 2009 in AMP (Americans for Medical Progress) which reported two incidents in which animal rights activists approached and vandalized private property of both UC Berkely and UC Santa Cruz's professors. In both incidents the professors' attacked were involved in some form of animal research.

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (Title 18 U.S.C. § 43) states that whoever uses or causes to be used any facility of interstate commerce for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise, and in connection with such purpose, intentionally places a person in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury to that person or an immediate family member, or conspires or attempts to do so, by a course of conduct involving threats, acts of vandalism, property damage, criminal trespass, harassment, or intimidation, shall be imprisoned for not more than five years. Although animal use in research is a very sensitive and highly controversial topic, investigators and police state that it is cowardly to attack the family members who were not involved at all. The intruders were successfully apprehended and await trial.

So for all you active, passionate, animal lovers/supporters...please be respectful of others. There are other ways to express your opinion and to get the word out (media? local news papers? fliers?). It would be difficult to advocate animal welfare...from a jail cell.

To read the full article, click here.

Crazy Huge Sea Worm Alert

As I hunt around the internet for my first animal news, I found a website from abc.com about animal oddities. When I clicked on it, it housed a GINORMOUS picture of a worm...4ft long worm to be exact. So I did some Googling of "giant sea worm" and found the news article. How exactly does one discover a 4ft long sea worm so late in the game...? Well, one thing's for sure...I would NOT want to be stung by the poisonous sharps of Barry.

first paw printings...the intro.

I've come to the blogging world as part of the stepping stone to my eventual dream career, which will follow something like Rachel Ray's from the Food Network. Except I'm about animals.

I'm about the daily happenings, the local stories, the misconceptions, the cute, the ugly, the strange, the cool. The love. I hope that sooner or later the things I blog about will change the life of some animal out there. My goal is to save wildlife, reduce abandonment of domestic pets and raising awareness in the general public...all while still learning things myself.

I'm not part of PETA or any other animal welfare organization, but I do care. I am a junior in college and I'm 21 and I care. So join me!!