Four-legged and furry...

As most of you know, I volunteer at a local humane society to satisfy my jones for having a dog while living in a no-pet apartment building. But for the last couple of weekends a bridal shower and moving house have kept me occupied on the weekends. As a result, I found myself ogling a dog park this morning on the way to work. About six or seven people were out with about as many dogs, tossing sticks and balls or just having a cuddle. I really wanted to pull over and go play too, but I soldiered on, to the relief, I'm sure, of both my boss and a bunch of pet-owners who would have found my dog-less presence suspicious. 

While at the shelter, I'm constantly amazed at the intellectual abilities of the dogs there. The fact our pits are among the smartest (while family favorites like labs and retrievers are the dumbest) is usually one of the selling points I use when talking to dubious visitors (or my mother). Recently I went through training, so I could start clicker training with the dogs. That's basically when you use a little metal clicker to get animals to get used to the following process: clicker sound ->good behavior -> cookie. 

My enthusiasm for animal intelligence is usually treated with the verbal pat on the head, but now Yahoo! News has published  story to back me up. Stanley Coren, a leading dog expert at the University of British Columbia found that dogs have the overall intelligence of a two year-old human in terms of language and have better math and socializing skills than three to four year -olds. 

The dog in the following story used his intelligence to save a boy's life (thanks, Michelle, for passing this along). The Segovias took in a stray dog initially for a day, but when no one claimed him, he stayed and became somewhat attached to Yolanda Segovia's 10 and 21 year-old sons. Her elder son suffers from severe Down Syndrome. One afternoon while Yolanda was outside, the dog came crashing through the screen barking up a storm. Raelee the dog led her back to the elder son's room, where he was having an epileptic seizure. Segovia's neurologist said the young man would have died if no one had found him. (The story on pawnation.com is the third one down...)

Some people think pets are just dumb animals, but I think that dog and the cat in this next story might go a little ways to disproving that. The photo from today's post is of Casper, a 12 year-old British cat who has caught the No. 3 bus at 10:55 a.m. once a day for four years. According to the Daily Telegraph, Casper hops on at the stop in front of his house and rides the whole 11-mile circuit before being deposited back at his stop. He has become such a regular that drivers in the company are told to look out for the little one, making sure he gets off at the right stop in his advanced age. Apparently Casper gets on and likes to curl up in the back seat during the ride.

One man's trash is another's treasure...

It really is all about perspective when it comes down to it. I've decided that is the secret to life - it's all in how you look at it. Yesterday I got up and walked dogs at the MSPCA as usual and after showering off six dogs worth of appreciation for treats, I gathered my things together to run a couple errands. One glance out the window canceled the trek to Target and instead sent me on an odyssey to the Berkshires. I'm not entirely sure who else would drive two hours each way on a whim, but I guess that's what makes me me. : ) Anyway, I decided on my destination after looking on the bright side of all this rain - the Bridge of Flowers located in Shelburne Falls, Mass., had to be beautiful now. So off I went and I was not disappointed. 

Speaking of the MSPCA, I went into the cat room yesterday for the first time since stationing my cat at my parents' house. It appears I've turned into more of a cat person than originally thought. I spent the last 15 minutes of my shift cuddling homeless kitties. One feline who recently made news, even all the way out west in the LA Times blogs, was Postina. She was found by a Boston mail carrier after being dumped in one of those big blue mail bins. After some TLC at the animal hospital she was adopted by the same mail carrier who found her. 

Recently I was listening to Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" on CD in the car. It tells, in language I can understand, how the universe was created and thus the rest of history. Part of it is devoted to prehistory and dinosaurs. In his imitable style, he does mention some of the more ludicrous examples of ignoring or misidentifying dinosaur bones. Recently, Australia has had no such issues. Yahoo! News reported paleontologists have found three new large species of dinosaurs in Oz, including one bigger, even-more-scary Velociraptor-type creature. These are the first dinosaur bones found in Aus since 1981 and seem to point to a more complex past than originally thought.

And in a perfect example of things not turning out as one may have thought at the start, porcelain created for an emperor in the Chien Lung dynasty (during the middle to late 1700s) has turned up in the hands of an average American woman. Reuters says that woman has scored the first $1 million appraisal on the TV show "Antiques Roadshow." Her father bought the pieces while stationed in China in the 1930s and '40s. Previously the highest estimate had been $500,000 for artwork. 

(Photo courtesy of LA Times blogs)

Fun in the sun...

Recently I was trying to explain a uniquely Baltimore concept to someone who had never been there - "Hons." I eventually had to show the movie "Hairspray" to help illustrate my point. But that "hon" discussion led to a chat about Baltimore accents with examples. The one I have actually been guilty of, despite never having lived in "Bawlmer" proper, is telling someone I'm "goin' downy ocean." 

So I was delighted this morning to read a story in the Baltimore Business Journal on Ocean City, Maryland having its largest-ever May crowd. I have many fond family vacation memories of the real OC - take that California and New Jersey! It is terribly kitsch and probably bordering on seedy in some parts, but I used to love goin' downy ocean with all my family for a week.

Something I have been dragged - often kicking and screaming - into doing since moving to New England is going hiking. Despite being an athlete, I have never been what you call an "outdoorsy" girl. I am a country girl at heart, but I like me some 600 thread count sheets, unlimited hot water and central AC. Don't get me wrong; I love the outdoors. But I like to love them from a chaise with an umbrella drink in my hand, preferably brought and made by someone else. However, in the past two summers I have been guilted or cajoled into going hiking in and around the area, so when I saw in the LA Times the national parks will be free for three weekends this summer, I was tempted to search a little deeper to see if any of them included parks around my area. I then concluded that I would simply mention this to my hiking friends and let them do the "leg" work. : ) 

The last story has absolutely nothing to do with summer activities, but was just too darn cute to pass up. MSNBC.com had a story about an Australian Shepherd in South Dakota who took over mothering duties for four newborn kittens after their kitty-mom was struck by a car and killed. The seven year-old dog feeds and bathes the kittens, and, in an example of her dog heritage shining through, tries to herd the itteh bitteh kitteh committeh around the house.

(Photo credit: msnbc.com)

Reunited and it feels so good...

I'm sorry; I've been trying to avoid using that title for pretty much as long as I had this blog. But this morning I'm sleepy and my defenses are down. I'm...powerless...to...resist. You will have guessed by now my theme for today is reunions. It still makes me marvel even this far into doing this blog how stories sort of seem to show up in themed groups even though they almost always come from different sources. 

The first one today is from the Times Online in Britain. In 1982 a woman lost her son after her ex-husband took him for the day, supposedly to the zoo. In reality the man fled with the boy to Hungary. Since that country was, at that time, on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, the woman had little recourse in tracking down her boy, but with the fall of Communism and the rise of social media, an aunt reconnected her and her son via Facebook.

Part of the fallout from the economic crisis I see on occasion at the animal shelter where I volunteer is people having to give up their pets due to finances or losing a home. KPHO.com in Phoenix, Ariz., featured a story on a man who was evicted and was forced to board his two cats since he was living in his car. The owner of the pet resort where the cats were staying heard about the man's situation and offered him a job working the night shift. The man has gotten a daytime job since and is working toward finding a place to live.

My uncle was a state trooper for years and at one point adopted a former police dog who had "retired." The Visalia Times-Delta reported on a local K-9 policeman who did something similar. Detective Andy Garcia worked with German shepherd Tigar for three years before being promoted out of the K-9 unit. Tigar rode everywhere with the officer during patrols. When the dog suffered an injury in training and was forced into early retirement, Officer Garcia bought the dog from the department and brought him home as the family pet. 

(Photo credit: Visalia Times-Delta)