Can I Keep It?

Welcome Home

Bye Bye Pie listed this link in her blog on Veteran's Day:  http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40324 . It's a page of videos showing several dogs' excitement at having their soldiers return home.  Some of them can barely contain their joy.

We get that sort of shear unadulterated happiness every time we return to the Hudarosa.  There is yelping and jumping and the occasional peeing on the floor, but it is all just so joyful.  Who wouldn't want to hurry home for that?

Their enthusiasm isn't limited to us.  Open the front door and all are greeted with the same sense of delight.  Once we had a man come over to repair the constantly fritzed out refrigerator. Geeze, I hate that machine. But I digress...  The dogs were all over him, issuing hellos, kisses and Zoe nearly knocked him over with a stuffed bear.  I apologized profusely.  He looked at me with a certain sadness in his eyes and replied, "Actually, I kinda' like it.  I wish my own dog was this glad to see me."

Watch the videos.  Keep the Kleenex handy and enjoy the love.

Snoogums

A petition was raised last week for Puppy Number:  199287 to claim a name for him.  The puppy is now known as, "Justice".  All pound animals should have names and not just numbers.  It would go a long way to helping the workers humanize (animalize?) the furry charges in their care.

Zooborns needs your help naming another fresh soul.  Who couldn't love  a smile like that?  I think I'm in love...

Name the Baby Beluga at the Vancouver Aquarium

Posted: 09 Nov 2009 11:27 AM PST

Beautiful footage of the Vancouver Aquarium's baby beluga, which was born earlier this summer. Additionally, the Vancouver Aquarium is asking Canadians to help them pick a name for the little girl. Submit your suggestions here!

Don't you want to squeeze those cheeks?  Phhhhttt.  I vote Woogums.  Or Snoogums.  Or Mine!IWantIt!

Is there an Inuit word for that?

Random Acts of Photography

The last time we went to the Memphis Zoo, the pandas were in their "Meet and Greet" area, giving each other the sniffaroo.

We were all enchanted by their movements.  Normally, the bears are passed out looking like they just finished some Sonic cheeseburgers and are relaxing in front of TV with a beer in one paw and a remote in the other..

Vigilance

Mayor AC Wharton's office has installed twenty-four hour surveillance cameras in the Memphis Animal Shelter.  The link is:  http://www.cityofmemphis.org/animalshelter/default.aspx .  It should be unnecessary to watch shelter workers, but I hope this will put an end to the abuses.

Puppy Number: 199287 on admittance to the shelter.

My own humanity would prevent me from following any order that would allow an animal to starve to death.  The ten complaisant co-workers who are on paid leave should be and will be fired, I trust, following city regulations and protocol.  If we treat the most helpless among us like this, what can we expect of our city?

Thank you, Mayor Wharton, for correcting this injustice with expediency and grace.

Puppy Number: 199287

On the first full day of office, Mayor AC Wharton broke the scandalous behavior at the Memphis Shelter wide open.  A whistle blower had been documenting the atrocities happening at the facility for quite some time.  These pictures are of Puppy Number: 199287.  They are quite graphic.  It will break your  heart. 

Puppy Number: 199287 arrived at the shelter in fine shape.  She was a friendly female pit mix, about twenty-three pounds, white with black spots. 

Three weeks later, she had lost a quarter of her body weight.  Her bone marrow fat mass was around 2.4%.  Average puppies have a fat content of 60%.  She passed away of non-accidental starvation.

According to the autopsy, she had been without food or water for at least seventy-two hours.  The real tragedy is that she is not the only one.  There were several other documented cases of dogs denied sustenance.  Other were put to sleep without an attempt to contact owners.  More horror stories are from owners who called to find their pet at the pound, but by the time they arrived, the animal had been euthanized.  Several weeks ago, a report of abuse was made public concerning a dog who had been picked up by the road crew and presumed dead.  From under a pile of bodies awaiting cremation, he woke and his cries of pain were so loud that they were heard from inside the building, through a heavy gauge steel door and concrete walls.  The technician, standing right next to the bodies, claimed he didn't hear it.  No charges were filed against the worker.  The mortally injured dog was humanely put to sleep. 

This would have been allowed to continue under the last administration.  AC Wharton relieved the current director, Ernest Alexander, of his duties today.  More dismissals are likely to follow.  Possible criminal charges, too.

I continue to hear people mistakenly call this city facility, The Memphis Humane Society.  It absolutely is not.  This little shop of horrors is the Memphis Animal Shelter, 3456 Tchulahoma Road.  The Memphis/Shelby County Humane Society is in no way affiliated with the city run shelter. 

Well, they did take in several of the animals after the sheriffs stormed the building this week.  But that is what a shelter is supposed to do --provide a safe, healthy environment for pets without homes to live in until they can be placed with a family of their very own.

Puppy Number: 199287 deserved better. 

The city of Memphis deserves better. 

Delirious

Wheeeeeee!  Zali and I have FINALLY gotten some new commissions to work on.  Things have been slow as molasses here at the Hudarosa.  Paintings have been as rare as hen's teeth.  My career has hit a dry spell...The puppies!  They are starving!

Not really.  But it is a relief to get some income to replace the outgo for a change.

We're gonna' party like it's 1999!  We're over the moon!  We're ass over appetite!  We're to the moon and beyond!  We're coo coo for cocoa puffs!

Not really.  Sigh.  I'm outta' cliches...  Back to work!

Romper Room

I now know how a vampire feels when the sunlight hits him.  The last two days, the sun has been so brilliant that I feared I might turn to dust under its bright beams.  The children have been beside themselves.  Zali has not stopped giggling since Halloween.  He and his sister, Simone have been playing non-stop.  All I hear are the sounds of thumping bodies as they flip each other across the floor.

The tone on the soundtrack would be, "Grahhhhh, grahhhh, arfoo, glabble!" and then a solid, "thwap"!  At one point, they were racing so fast from the kitchen, around the dining room table and into the foyers and back again, that I feared they might turn into butter.  Simone had broken into full on "crazy run".  Since Zali can't compete at that pace, he stopped, grabbed a toy and decked her with it as she wailed around a corner.  She spun, tail over appetite, jumped up and knocked him on his keester.  Such a delicate frail flower, our Simone...

All the breeders will warn you of the fragile nature of tiny breeds.  I believed them when we adopted Zali and gently lifted him on and off of any high surface.  Well, right up until I heard the big girls wrestling in the hallway and missing Zali, went to investigate.  I arrived just in time to see him fly out of the cartoon ball of rolling dogs and into the living room.  Whhhheeeeerrrrt!  Just like a paper airplane.  He shook off and slammed back into the fray.

Simone was not coddled like Zali.  She can leap to the heights of our bed and onto barstools.  No obstacle is too high for our little athlete.  It's as if she's been given steroids.

Either I have been misinformed or my Papillons are otherworldly super dogs. 

Or maybe on days when the sun is shining and they recently had a snack, a dog's gotta' do what a dog's gotta' do.  And mine can play with the best of them.

Random Acts of Photography

This tasty morsel is brought to you by www.tastespotting.com .

FEED ME.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!  Happy Halloween!

Halloween Happiness

My fabulous Huddie sent me these wonderful punkins carved with the faces of puppies.  It must have taken great patience!  Looks like I better get out the knives and start today if I want to do up my brood.  The aftermath of all that squash waste will resemble a great pumpkin massacre in my kitchen, I'm sure.  Zali and Carmen will assume that all debris are snacks.  Just like any other day...

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloweiners, everybody!

*  The artist's name was not included in the email.

Trick or Treat

Vickie sent me this from Gatlinburg.  Some early tricks are a real treat...

This is the true story of a Garage Owner

in Southwest New Mexico

He was sick and tired of thugs breaking into his garage shop to steal tools, etc.

So he came up with this idea.

He put the word out that he had a new Mexican Lion

that would attack anyone that would break in or climb his fence.  

Would-be thieves saw the "Lion" from a distance and fled the scene.

 

Now all he needs is a witch and a wardrobe.