Raff LURVE

EFFECTIVE!

So very busy... I WILL get back to better blogging. But in the mean time - a little moment of levity.

Zen Squirrel

Buddha - I want to have your peace... your wisdom, your serenity, your divine nature... your acorn hat! Love, Squirrel. (someone posted this on my FB wall - I LURVE it)

Boston Squirrel

I met this little guy in the Boston Commons. He ran up to me and climbed into my purse when I set it down to fetch him nuts. I would have taken him home except I don't have any trees in my apartment.

EEK or Sweet? Tarantulas....

This is one of the Educational Animals at the Houston Zoo.. a well-behaved tarantula named Rose. I am not a fan of spiders but in this picture you can appreciate every little hair on this incredible being.

RODENT LOVE

My intern introduced this little wonder to me as his Study Buddy... Major Squee. I asked what it was. Can you guess?

1-7-12 - JUST PUT THE ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS AREA....

Frog Love

Yep, it's real. A teeny tiny frog to star off your New Year....

Anyone for a Hot Dog?

Animal Holiday Cheer - Times Ten!

Well, if you want to grin, and have that grow bigger and BIGGER into a huge SMILE, showing ALL your teeth, then turn into a chuckle to boot, press PLAY. This is sure to cheer you up. The fish, parrot, turtles, the ferret, the shark and a few of the dogs and cats -- their voices, the little pranks that creep into this will make anyone who is the least bit stressed or blue cheer up INSTANTLY!!!

PRESS PLAY - AND SHARE THIS LINK ON YOUR WALL to pass all that goodness along.



***There is a second of a squirrel***

Cutes Otter Mom Picture in History

And that is no understatement, This has gone around on Facebook and the Internet but we all want to see it again, don't we? I mean, how can you not just melt into a PUDDLE looking at this, no matter how many times it's been? Wish I knew who to give photo credit to... for now, guess we will just have to credit the Universe...

Dogs with their Heads Out the Window... in Slow Mo

Ah dogs. We love 'em. And this is a great little ode to their penchant for loving being in the car with you and getting to stick their head out - to smell all there is to smell and to feel the wind in their face and the speed without running (have they figured out how that is possible, do you think?)

Press Play, sit back, and smile.


 
Dogs in Cars from keith on Vimeo.

Another Set of Same-Sex Penguins

At least THEY get a chick to parent.  Males do all the parenting in the penguin world anyway, after the female lays the egg, so they should do an excellent job. The two are at Harbor Polar Land in China, and are being given a twin chick from an inexperienced mom to raise! Hooray! Poor Buddy and Pedro, the two African Penguins at the Toronto Zoo that  I first wrote about HERE, and Roy and Silo, the two in New York's Central Park Zoo, who were inseparable ... until human beings broke them up in hopes they'd breed.

I understand and am all for Zoo's SSP programs. Because man is destroying natural habitats, and our weather is changing, tectonic plates are shifting etc... species survival grows more and more dependent on Zoos breeding programs.  African Penguins are critically endangered so they need to mate and multiply - and very specific and careful guidelines are followed in terms of what animals breed with whom and when because of bloodlines.... but penguins are a little tough to breed because they are choosy about who they mate with. We shall see what happens. Will Buddy and Pedro do the do with another? Stay tuned.

The Toronto Zoo i saying they will let the two reunite after breeding season is over. If the other two couples don't end up breeding with females and there is an orphaned chick available, I think this is a better solution....
Read more and see pictures in this article in the Huffington Post.

Sweet and Sour

And now, a squirrel eating a lemon, with out flinching.... except that he attacks the camera a the end. And by attack I mean he comes up to check the gate.

 

From the charmingly names Stupidvideos42

Gobble Gobble... or Not

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday everyone!

Five Reasons to be Thankful for Being a Primate

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/11/23/142596473/top-5-reasons-to-give-thanks-for-being-primate

"Gay" Penguin Couple Being Broken Up

Buddy and Pedro, two male African penguins, who are at the Toronto Zoo from Toledo to breed as part of the survival plan for endangered species, have been inseparable. They have even displayed mating behavior, and, after each day of playing with the group, pair off to snuggle down together every single night. Yet they are going to be separated and paired with lady penguins to get on with helping propagate the species. I wonder if they will succeed.

So it happens in the animal world too - we pull the pair apart and force them to do something else that's natural to them. *sigh*

See the video, they are awfully cute together.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/314064

The Best Job in The World?

You may have seen this on YouTube but if you haven't...

Hiccups

I have come to be known now as the squirrel lady. Someone got me a lunch bag with a red squirrel and acorns on it... and yes, I am using it today, and packed it with a smile on my face.

I got squirrel calendars for Christamas from my sister.

And people send me squirrel pictures and videos all the time.

Bring it.

I embrace it.

Let's face it: it's true.

Here's a YouTube vid by vivmus96 that I discovered today

after watching a different vid someone sent to me. Had to share.

Squirrels tend to jump and twitch a lot. But this one appears to have actual hiccups, as evidenced by the little squeak that comes out of him with each little convuslion. Enjoy.

WANT!

My blog friend Margo sent me this. She found it somewhere.

I have no idea what kind of puppy it is, and neither did she... but apparently it IS a dog.

If that hand wasn't in the picture, you'd never believe how small it is.

One thing there's no question about: How cute it is.

I knew you'd want to see it.

Snake Notes

I am not afraid of mice. You won't find me up on a chair screaming if I see one. But I'm not a big fan of spiders or snakes. While I cover that reaction to them in an effort to be "cool", inside you could peel me off the ceiling.

When you work at the Zoo however, it's impossible to not come to see every thing crawly, cold and downright ugly in a new light. And even if you might not come to love them all, you certainly can't get away without a new appreciation of them, because there's a person for every species.... a person that LOVES them as much as you love your cat or dog or horse. Those species are very lucky to have their people.

When I talk to them about the animal they're crazy about, it becomes very easy to see why they are in love. I mean, who knew I'd come to love ducks... and squirrels? I was a dedicated cat person when I was a kid. But because I can't have any pets due to extreme allergies, and yet am a die-hard animal lover, it forced me to seek out any animal I could be with. By the mere fact that I could sit at The Park and observe the ducks at a distance day after day, I got to know them by coloring, watched who hung with whom and where in the park they could be found, learned all about their eating, grooming and sleeping habits, and saw that they really had distinct personalities. It didn't hurt that they would come right up to me, and that many would eat from my hand. Of course personal interaction seals the deal. They are no longer separate from me, or objects, or potential meals of dim intelligence.

The woman at the Zoo who is in love with our komodo dragon made him one of m favorite guys. I see something different now when I look at his lizard face. I can even sense a subtle sense of humor. But I'm still not a huge reptile fan. The one species I didn't want to train to handle were snakes. And now I have about 20 acres in VA where I will someday be encountering them. The peeps in the Herpetology Department wrote to me about snakes, because knowledge goes a long way to dispel fear and empower. It was too good not to pass along to you.

First, the first rule when a snake is encountered is to leave it alone. Snakes do not attack people; they will only strike and try to bite when they are feeling threatened (and many won’t even bite at that time). Bites occur when people try to kill snakes or move them.

Second, snakes have several basic needs; namely, food, water, and shelter. If someone is finding snakes around their house, chances are that conditions are favorable for snakes to live there. Keep yards clean and free of debris or anything that could offer shelter to a snake or could harbor rodents. Keep yards mowed, trees and bushes trimmed, etc. If you do this and still see a snake, then the snake is just moving through. With the ongoing drought and the continued development in suburban areas, their natural habitat is being destroyed and wild animals are seeking new habitat.

Of the 34 or so varieties of snakes in the Houston area, only 6 are venomous. Of those 6, three are rattlesnakes and are never encountered in theHouston area anymore; occasionally, a Western diamondback rattlesnake is seen in west Galveston Island or on the Bolivar peninsula, but even these sightings are becoming less frequent. The only three venomous snakes that really occur in the Houston area are the Water moccasin (Cottonmouth), Copperhead, and Coral snake. My recommendation is to buy a field guide (Texas Snakes: A field guide by Dixon and Werler is an excellent book) and learn to tell these three species from the others. It’s not hard.

As for first aid treatment for a venomous snake bite, go to a hospital immediately. There is no recommended treatment, despite all that you hear on the media. If you can, take a picture of the snake so there can be a positive identification. Non venomous bites require no further treatment than soap and water.

As a side note, both Judith and I have received numerous calls over the years from hospital staff with snake bite victims (the last one was Saturday, August 13^th, in the morning). Almost all of the calls have occurred around 3:00am on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Not coincidentally, local bars close at 2:00am.

Man's Best Friend

And partner in crime?

Doggies - they're always by your side...

Dogs Are the Best

I believe each animal has a lot more going on than we give them credit for - though I'm not sure what the opossum has going on in it's head... When it comes to dogs, as any dog owner or dog lover knows, there's no other creature like them.

When they say to be sure to exercise your dog, I'm not sure they had this in mind.

Today's Puppy Squee

Rodent Kisses

So utterly fuzzy and cute -- but does anyone know what kind of animal this is? I don't. Not squirrels or chipmunks, too small to be prairie dogs... Anybody?

Maybe they are a kind of ground squirrel. The fur looks white-ish gray.

There Are Dog Lovers and Lover Dogs

No truer words ever said.

Beluga Whale Digs The Mariachi!

I saw this on YouTube and though one could agree with a commenter there who said "sorry for keeping you in captivity.. here's a mariachi band" I still was almost weepy watching the interaction of this beautiful creature with the band. I don't know if he could hear it through the glass, though maybe he could groove off teh vibration, but he clearly is bobbing his head to the beat...

My other theory is that the Beluga just wants the big hat. Watch and decide for yourself.






This whale's name is Juno and apparently was hanging out of his 750,000-gallon tank when wedding festivities began with this mariachi band... There is plenty of room in the tank to hide from people or choose to inteact with them...

You can read more in this Discovery News article.

Bow Wow

Dogs, gotta love 'em. They will do anything that you do -- as long as they can be WITH you.

Buy A Spirit Hood, Help An Animal

Now this is really something different! One of the ladies in my writers group came in wearing this. Not only did she look adorable in it, we had a lot of fun (and did little writing) passing it around, posing for pictures, and finding our inner animal.

Called Spirit Hoods, these are unique hat/scarf/glove-pockets-in-one. You can buy for women, kids, or men (I give the model props for posing looking hunky with them on).
The kids offer lines for boys and girls, are absolutely adorable and will be a BIG GIANT HIT, I promise you.
You can choose from bears, lions, leopards, pandas and wolves. They have kicky ear linings, and paw prints on the underside of the pocket/gloves.

The impressive thing is that they are high quality and something you won't find anywhere else. And Spirit Hoods have created a label called PRO BLUE. If you purchase something from that line, 10% of net profits goes to a non-profit organization helping that animal. You can read about it and the four organizations that they would donate those proceeds to by clicking HERE. .

Seeing Dalmation Spots

I have no words... Even the SOCKS match!

When Can a Bird Look Like Darth Vader?

Yo Roo! Kangaroo That Is...

Love it. Could not be more perfect... have no idea how the kangaroo even managed this (or why).

S-M-I-L-E

Fast Asleep

OK, I am completely slain by baby squirrels.

I know some people think they are tree rats and nuisances, building nests occasionally in someone's attic or eating all the food in the feeders folks put out to attract birds. But how can your heart not just swell to bursting with love when you hold sweet little sleeping babies in your hand like this? And he is sleeping because I just fed him warm milk... don't we adore our human babies in the exact same kind of moment?



I love how they sleep, with their skinny baby tails curled up over their face like we might pull up our quilts on a chilly night. And you can see him contentedly moving his mouth, as if he's savoring little dreams of his recent meal. He's so young his ears are still bent down to his little head. His fuzzy forearms! Those too-big hands and feet! His tiny shoulder blades as he hunts for his sisters to sleep! His wobbly attempts to navigate the blanket .... (I know, somebody stop me!). Even if you're not a squirrel lover, you've gotta admit, these babies are cute.

Here's an even smaller one -- just crossing over from being what we call a pinky (no hair at all, just born). You can see me put the milk nipple into the frame for a second to get an idea of how small, if not by seeing him compared to my thumb. I have a focus problem near the end, but his little black nose and whiskers become clear so hang in there.


A face like that just makes me smile, every time!

Are you with me yet?

A Lab Makes Best Friends with a Dolphin - MUST SEE

Save The Whales...Literally

I don't know if you have seen this video but you must. It will give you hope that yes, in the David and Goliath-like sense of the world these days, we oft (seemingly) puny and impotent human beings can actually DO something to make a difference. Yes, yes we can.

I have a friend from college who is pals with the guy who did this... I get lazy about clicking play but I did it with this and really, you must too. It will bring tears to your eyes and cause your heart to feel like it is literally swelling with love and wonder.

The folks you will see, who happen to have co-founded the Great Whale Conservancy, find a young female humpback whale while in the Sea of Cortez. She appeared to be dead. Her dorsal and 2 pectoral fins had been trapped by impossibly tangled fishing nets. The nets weighed her down as far as 15 feet deep and she was fading fast. Who knows how long these had been on her, keeping her from feeding, and tiring her (she probably initially struggled, in vain, to get free)!

These few people, in a small rowboat, have the courage swim out to the whale and check out the situation, then balance in this boat for about an hour, tirelessly cutting with a small knife (all they had on board apparently) until they freed the whale.

They then watched for a solid hour as the whale jumped and slapped around in the water with what can only be described as pure joy. And, it happened on Valentines Day.

Please pass this around and please please visit their Great Whale Conservancy website at www.eii.org/gwc/ and LIKE their Facebook page, to join them in helping to save these magnificent beings. More info below the video.

The Great Whale Conservancy (GWC) is a joint program of two premier projects of the Earth Island Institute: the International Marine Mammal Project and the Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters. To help, please contact Michael Fishbach at IMMP (828) 675-9387, fishdeya@gmail.com, or Gershon Cohen Ph.D. at CSAW (907) 766-3005,gershon@aptalaska.net.

Dog, Cat, Rat - Light Up Your Day

World Peace y'all. This is a must see for animal lovers. Light and delightful.

Remember Elvis?

The Muscovy duck I named Elvis, I mean.

He says hi.

The Only Big Cat That Likes Water

Thursday Husband and I walked through the zoo, which is just past the park we usually walk around. We have a membership and decided it's an easy way to stretch our exercise time to just sail through the gates and circle around whatever interests us. It's a big motivator when the scenery offers elephants, flamingos, bears, seals, raptors and lions.

It had been sprinkling and overcast, so the place was blissfully quiet and cool, unpopulated save for a few families, and thus free of the attendant chaos. The live oak trees --common to this area --with their incredibly long, low reaching limbs with fresh, shiny new leaves of spring fully unfurled on every branch created a protective canopy over our heads. We kept up our pace past twin cheetah kittens and the giraffes. But we were stopped dead in our tracks by the sight of one of the two brother tigers swimming his little lake.


Seems no matter what time of day we visit, usually the big cats are all sleeping. But there was the gorgeous, regal head of this creature, with it's bright orange fur slashed by jet black stripes, gliding smoothly though the darkened water.

His eyes were bright and blue. His thick paws were visible, paddling rhythmically, pushing him along on a diagonal and very deliberate path from one end to the other. He then climbed out, slinked across the grass past rocks and around trees to return to his starting point. Again he'd climb right in, and all but his paws would disappear as his body sank into the depths. His shoulder muscles were further defined with every stroke. Amid all this majesty, something cute: his tongue stuck out as he did it.

(click picture to enlarge)

We positioned ourselves (where I took the pic above) right in his sight lines. Here he swam VERY close to us. On one pass he made direct, proplonged eye contact. It was nothing short of chilling! This ain't no kitty, but a beautiful beast with quite humbling power -- a killing machine -- and there was only a short flimsy fence and an electrical deterrent between us.

Black Cats Advantage.

Must See Robin's Nest!!

This link is very worth clicking. You'll find 4 little blue robin's eggs in a very sturdy and beautiful nest made in someone's hanging plant basket on their porch.

Over the course of 4 weeks the eggs progress was dilligently filmed and this short video was put together showing the entire lifespan from egg to winging away. It's wonderful. Go ahead, make your day and click it.

Cat "Up" a Tree

Oh that's fabulous. Instinct trumps logic.

You Must Have Mistaken Me For Someone Who Cares

Cats "don't do" a LOT of things. What doesn't yours do?

It's True

They are devils wrapped in the softest fur.... it's all their secret evil plan to suck you in, for their own entertainment.

A Cat When It Means Business

Have you seen this face on your cat? And that innocent, I-don't-get-it look on your dog's?

It's Kitten Week....

Happy Monday! Hope your week is starting out better....

Hisssss x4

Tell me what you think they saw to set this off in the comments below. I can only imagine how creative...

Baby Seal Gets Ride From Sea Turtle

Waawwww. This is a great display of how sweet and innocent baby animals are and how anyone can be a friend or playmate -- at least early on in life!

The turtle may be a little freaked out at the fuzzy guy getting a ride when he didn't offer but he does fine in the end. Bet you will want to send this blog link to someone you know who'd love to see this once you're done... please do.

Death by Cuteness

We've seen it, but let's see it again.

And maybe you might need to send this blog link to everyone you know who needs to feel good today. Why not?

Eagle Babies Cam

It's Spring again, and that means babies.... certainly baby birds. There's not much as special as being able to watch them in their nests, which is made possible by technology.

I am watching two adorable fuzzy bald eagles and a very good mom who tucks them under her when the wind blows... And the babies make sweet little chirps back to her.

MUST LOOK. So easy to keep open on one corner of your desktop while you TRY to concentrate on other things...

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

The Cat and the Dolphin

Oh for joy. Joy is what you will feel three seconds into watching this video. I am completely envious of this cat. At first I thought -- oh, look at that. They are communing, because they both know they are animals (and somehow of kinship). I thought the cat was on a boat and here comes this random encounter with a friendly dolphin. Then I saw a human with a training whistle, and thought, oh, these are trained dolphins. None the less, it is still beyond delightful to watch. And then I thought - that cat likes them because they smell like FISH. Enjoy.