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.