Animals

In any event, the next Carolina sighting is only briefly detailed, sadly, since it sounds even more interesting than most. On the afternoon of 16 September 1904, in the countryside near Troutman, North Carolina, Mrs John B Lippard and her children saw "30 or more large snakes sailing through the air" over their farm. Each was about 5ft (1.5m) long and 4-5in (10-13cm) wide. "They watched the snakes sail around and alight in a piece of thickety pine woods... Most assuredly these people saw something." (Statesville Landmark, 20 Sept) Quoted from p. 34 of Jerome Clark, "Sky Serpents," Fortean Times magazine, #248, June 2009, pp. 30-36. UPDATE (12 September 2014):  There are, in fact, gliding snakes in the jungles of south and southeast Asia. Gridman (2009-05-09): Darn, that sounds like a good one. Pity I let my subscription to the Fortean Times lapse. Obviously they weren’t really snakes but it might have been a primitive form of UFO. I believe that before they setup the Sedona Vortex UFO re-energizing portal UFOs had to generate their own dimension power by undulating wildly. ...

We found this dog–some kind of Spaniel?an Aussie sheepdog–at 20th St. and Euclid, where he appeared to be wanting to get into a mini-van with a group of mariachis. They just drove off and ignored him, so we stopped our dog walk to pick him up. He had a collar, no tags. This dog is a neutered male, unusual for the strays we find. This could have been our seventh stray of 2009, but the pack of three dogs we saw running along the canal yesterday morning wouldn’t let us near them. UPDATE: We’ve been contacted in email by the owner; this dog’s name is Woody and the owner will be going to pick him up at the pound. ...

This black unneutered male Cocker Spaniel came up to us at around 11th St. and Caldwell while we were walking our dogs. There were some people nearby, and we asked if this was their dog, and they said no, so we brought him home and called Animal Care & Control. He’s wearing a spiked collar with no tags and looks like he’s been wandering the streets for a couple of days or so. He was very tired and thirsty. We’ve put his picture and description up on Pets911.com. ...

As we prepared to take our dogs for a walk this evening, we found this guy in our yard. He has a collar, but no tags. We’ve put his photo up on Pets911.com, and he’ll spend the night here and get a pound pickup tomorrow. UPDATE (February 7, 2009): This black lab (mix?) isn’t happy-go-lucky like our first stray of the year–he was quite fearful, but did relax a bit when we got him on leash. He was interested in our dog Fred, which we used to catch him. Once on leash and after receiving some attention, he warmed up, and he would then come back after being let off leash. He was terrified to come in the house, and didn’t seem to want to walk on the wood floor of the kitchen, but we did eventually get him into the spare bedroom, where I stayed with him overnight. He ended up sleeping peacefully at the foot of the bed. This morning, I had the same challenge getting him out of the bedroom that I had getting in–so I ended up letting him straight out to the side patio, and he’s now back out in the front yard. UPDATE: The same animal control officer who picked up our first stray just picked up this dog, and gave us some good news–the first stray we turned in was successfully adopted, and is now named Truman! UPDATE: We got our first call today about our Pets911.com listing for the above dog, which includes a photo and a description. The call went like this: ME: Hello? CALLER: Uh. Did you find a lost dog? ME: Yes, we did. CALLER: What did it look like? ME: It’s a black lab mix, young … CALLER: Oh, that can’t be our dog. Our dog is white.Every phone call save one that we’ve received as a result of our found dog notices online has been from someone whose dog could not possibly have been confused with the dog in the description. (The one exception was one where the dog was returned to his rightful owner.) By contrast, when we’ve put up posters there’s been no similar mistake. I suspect the Internet information is being passed on to the callers by friends or family, but apparently people who look at lost dog information on the Internet do not know how to communicate basic information about color or breed. Or perhaps this caller has a computer infected by a virus that replaces all images with photographic negatives? ...

We found this dog at Circle K Park while walking our dogs. He is a friendly pit bull mixed with something big and shaggy (perhaps Bernese Mountain Dog), with a partly brindle coat. He was easy to capture on leash–he came right up to Kat. We brought him home and he eagerly drank a full bowl of water and some food. He raced around our front yard and chased a ball and brought it back. He’s just a puppy with perfect teeth and bad habits of jumping up and being overly excited. We put his picture on Pets911 and took him by the house of a neighbor who said he lost a brindle-coated pit bull a few months ago that had been seen in the vicinity of the park. We had trouble coaxing him into the car, but eventually he crawled in on his own accord. Unfortunately, the man’s wife said this wasn’t their dog He seemed to have some kind of allergy, as he had red around his eyes and his gums were bright red, so we gave him a Benadryl. I spent the night with him in our spare bedroom, and he couldn’t seem to sit still or stop breathing hard (or stop wanting attention) until the Benadryl kicked in, and he had a couple of decently long periods of sleep and rest. When he got up this morning, his eyes and gums looked much better, and he again enjoyed racing around the front yard and playing fetch. Animal Care and Control picked him up just a few minutes ago, and he was shaking in the kennel on the truck. I don’t think he’s one who is going to do well in a kennel situation. We got his case number, in case someone calls us as a result of the Pets911 ad, but unfortunately, that rarely happens. UPDATE (February 7, 2009): When the animal control officer picked up our second stray of 2009, he let us know that this good boy was quickly adopted, and is now known as Truman. Congratulations, Truman! ...

I am once again asking for donations. I will be walking January 25, 2009 in the 1st annual PetSmart PetWalk to help raise funds for R.E.S.C.U.E. Please visit my donations page and help out if you can, as always, donations are tax deductible.

This is what we need more of in apocalyptic future science fiction–rampaging herds of feral hogs: There are thought to be between 4m and 5m feral hogs at large in America, spread across 38 states. The biggest population is in Texas, but states from Florida to Oregon are infested and worried. Feral hogs destroy the habitats of plants and animals, spread diseases, damage crops, kill and eat the eggs and young of wildlife and sometimes menace people with their aggressive behaviour. The problem originated with the Spanish conquistadors, who took herds of pigs with them as they marched across the American continent. Stragglers reverted to their wild state. Much later “sportsmen” began releasing hogs into reserves for commercial hunting. More recently still declining pork prices have induced farmers to turn some of their stock loose rather than continue feeding them. Pigs produce so many piglets that a feral herd can double or even triple within as little as a year. Via The Economist. Eamon Knight (2008-12-17): This is what we need more of in apocalyptic future science fiction--rampaging herds of feral hogs:I take it you've read Oryx and Crake? Make that genetically-enhanced, intelligent rampaging herds of feral hogs... ...

Our dog Otto continues his celebrity career by being featured on the front of a “save the date” postcard for a fundraiser for Altered Tails, a local charity that provides low-cost spaying and neutering for dogs and cats. The image is a painting done by local artist Susan Barken. ...

Last night Otto was barking at something while inside the house. This isn’t unusual, but what was unusual was that he didn’t run out into the backyard to bark. I was trying to get to sleep early in order to deal with 4 a.m. irrigation, and he came upstairs and continued to bark. Kat went outside to see if there was an animal outside (such as a cat that spends a lot of time in our front yard), and heard a dog barking nearby that was too close to be one of the neighbor dogs. She got a flashlight and went out to find a dog trapped in the Highline Canal, struggling to get out, but the sides were too steep. The dog’s front paws were bloody from the effort. She managed to get a leash around its neck to try to pull him out, but he resisted. She called the Arizona Humane Society to get someone to come take him (and help get him out if we were unable to manage it)–since he’s an injured dog, this was a case they are permitted to deal with. (If a stray dog is over 6 months old and uninjured, Maricopa County Animal Care & Control is the only entity legally permitted to take them.) I went and got a ladder and put it into the water to see if he could use it to pull himself up, but he just used it to hold himself in place. When the Arizona Humane Society arrived, they had a dog snare which, combined with the leash, we were able to use to pull the dog to safety. He was dried off and willingly jumped into the kennel on the truck. The dog had a collar, but no tags. Kat will be putting his photo up on Pets911 this morning. Thanks to Otto’s barking, this dog avoided the fate of another whose skeleton was pulled out of the canal by our house, in the same location, earlier this year. ...

As of last Tuesday (October 7), the ducks have returned to the Highline Canal. They left sometime after May 18.