Category Archives: Animals

I love animals! These posts are about cats, non-cats, behavior, health, animal welfare and rights, animals in the news, pets, animal humor, animals in the wild, you name it.

My Dog Is From Outer Space!!!

Posted in Animals, Non-cats by

Yes, my dog is wearing a cone. He feels humiliated, shamed, less than canine. The tragedy of it all! It started a few days ago when I took Teddy to the groomer. He’s an older pup – 13 1/2 years old – so he has a few lumps and bumps and assorted nuggets as older dogs tend to have. I highlighted these for the groomer (literally, in bright blue) so that she could avoid them when she shaved him, but alas – I think she nicked the cantankerous growth that has existed like a second head on Teddy’s ear. Last night it was all pussed up and a complete mess – yuck! So, today I took him to the vet (he loved it, oh yes, loved the muzzle they put on him – what fun!) who said that the angry nugget should be removed – in surgery – tomorrow! Boo hoo! So, like a car going in for a tune-up, Teddy will be going in for surgery to get the growth removed and his teeth cleaned (let us not forget the deworming medication for his tapeworm infestation, too). All for a pretty penny, which I will be charging, of course. The good thing is that I get to make fun of him for having to wear a cone for the next two weeks. The cats are kind of scared of it, and Teddy is having a hard time not banging in to things when he’s wearing it. Anyway, here are some pictures for you to enjoy!



A cool day at the Wild Animal Park!

Posted in Animals, Cats by

Yes, it does actually get cool at the Wild Animal Park. I went there today with Mark, where we visited Lion Camp and saw two of the lion cubs (cute!), saw a tiger, walked around Mombasa Lagoon, visited the deer in the petting kraal, and fed the rainbow lorikeets. Here are some of the pictures!

 

There ARE some good things about my job…

Posted in Animals, Career, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

It’s good that I can get outside every once in a while. You know, away from my desk, my computer, my office without a window…

Today I got to hike around Lake Calavera in reviewing the City’s trails program. It was such a nice day out – sunny, not too hot, a nice breeze. There were about ten of us on the hike and about eight of us walked over this poor little guy without realizing that he was even there (and to tell you the truth, there were so many dog and coyote turds all over the trail, my eye probably dismissed this baby rattler as a dog dump. But don’t tell him that!).

Hhhiiiisssssssssssssssss!!! (Translation: don’t tread on me!)

It’s a good thing Teddy Bear is so cute…

Posted in Animals, Non-cats by

…or else he’d probably be living in Tijuana as a dog scrounging around for scraps of crack or whatever he could find. Yes, TB is very cute. These pictures were taken by a friend of my mom’s during a recent visit to the dog park. Aside from being cute, TB can be pretty annoying – but I’ve been told that it’s probably because of his breed and not simply a personality defect that makes him incredibly needy, whiney, insistent, and demanding, not to mention having bad breath.

I’m just joking around (kind of!). I love the little guy, personality defects and all. He’s loyal, a great watch dog, and does a great job of cleaning up any little bits of food that might fall on the floor, saving me the trouble from having to do it myself.

Labor Day (Under the Tucson Sun)

Posted in Animals, Non-cats, Travel, Vacations by

Wow – you’re probably thinking to yourself, incredible! Two new blogs from Marci??? Amazing! Well, don’t get too used to it. Like I said earlier, I’m busy! Now bug off and continue reading about my fabulous weekend trip to Tucson.

I planned a four-day weekend so that Mark (the new boy in my life, in case you were wondering) and I could drive back to Tucson – I wanted to see his house, meet his mom, and experience the insanity of Tucson drivers for myself. It’s only a 6.5 hour trip if you average about 85 mph – it was a long trip going out Thursday after work, but nice that I could spend Friday just relaxing instead of driving. Most of Friday and Saturday Mark and I just hung out at his house – a very nice house indeed – watching movies and not doing too much. On Sunday, his mom drove out from Pierce and we went to the Sonora Desert Museum, which is kind of like a little Wild Animal Park full of all sorts of desert animals. Did you know that Javalinas are little pigs that run around the desert and snort and rub each others’ butts to mark their territories? And actually, they’re not pigs at all, but collared peccaries. The museum was really amazing – I had fun tracking down all these stamp stations that you got to stamp in a little book about animal tracks. Woo hoo! After that we drove back into town for dinner at P.F. Chang’s (I’d never been there before), and then a private viewing of Ronin back at Mark’s house. Today we drove back to San Diego, and well, there you have it. It was a good weekend!

There’s no fish in the desert…

Posted in Animals, Career, Day Trips, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

It’s true. There are no fish in the desert, especially here in Southern California. I know this because I’ve looked. Well, there are desert pupfish, but not in the area that I was in.

I have a lot to catch up on! I’ve been very busy, with training in Sacramento and Denver and moving and field work, but back to the desert. In late May, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend three days out in the desert near Palm Springs searching for the endangered Coachella Fringe-Toed Lizard. I didn’t see any of those, but I did see a ton of zebra-tailed lizards, desert iguana, desert horned lizards, and even a long-nosed leopard lizard (which was absolutely gorgeous, by the way). We were surveying in a few areas, including the valley that has hundreds of windmills. There’s a reason why they chose that area for windmills, too. You know why? Because it’s frickin’ windy! I think I saw a few lizards fly by, but I mostly just found abandoned shoes and rubber hoses in those plots. And it was global safety day – I was busted by some workers for not having a hard-hat and safety goggles, who warned me that propellers fall off the windmills all the time (my response: “gee – if one of those huge blades fall off and hit me on the head, do you really think a hard-hat will help me out?”).

I sure do miss the desert – it wasn’t as beautiful as Utah or Arizona, but it was still good being out there in the dry air and hot hot temperatures. Good times! Here are a few pictures I took – there’s the horned lizard and desert iguana, in case you were wondering (alas, the leopard lizard ran away before I could get my camera out – boo hoo!).

Ho ho ho (hey – are you talking about me???)

Posted in Animals, Cats, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

‘Twas a quiet Christmas this year: the warm glow of a muted TV, the happy hymns of James Brown’s Funky Christmas playing softly in the background, the smell of apple cider and cinnamon air freshener wafting through the air…and oh yeah…our mayhem-otic zoo of animals trying to destroy each and every present as we tried to unwrap them!!! Chaos reined in our living room, the cats shredding anything with ribbon on it, spacing out on catnip, the dogs trying to see if each package had a squeaky in it. Teddy Bear whining for more dog treats, Michael squawking to get out of the cage, and Leo…lurking in the back room just daring anyone to disturb him while he plotted…plotted for destruction.

Actually though, it was good – Mom and I got lots of great gifts; I think my favorite was an Indo Board that kind of simulates surfing or skateboarding – you have to balance on this roller thing and try not to kill yourself or damage the walls in the house when you fall off and the board goes careening out from under you. I’ll be posting pictures of me with broken limbs shortly…But I also got some PJ’s (thanks for supporting my lounging habit, all), and a watch jewelry box (woohoo! A nice organized home for my Swatch collection!), and various other fun things. After opening all the presents, Mom and I went up to Uncle Danbo’s house where he had bought and prepared a fabulous feast for us – turkey, green beans, cranberry sauce, candied yams, and cornbread. Yum! It was in fact the easiest holiday ever – no cooking, no cleaning up. Merry Christmas to us!

Anyway, we went to see “Memoirs of a Geisha” on Christmas Eve – excellent flick, you should go see it. It’s a little long and the book was better, but still outstanding if you like that sorta thing. And just so you can get a picture of how my weekend went, here’s a photo montage of Zoe during her reign of terror as we opened presents (yes, her eyes naturally have an evil glow about them that the camera captures quite nicely; this, my friends, is the horror I live with daily):

Yeah, it was one of those weekends.

Posted in Animals, Career, Cats, Humor, Me Me Me! by

Here’s how I felt after dealing with private school brats and Satan’s personal minions, a.k.a. “cub scouts”, all weekend:

Always an adventure…

Posted in Animals, Career, Me Me Me!, Non-cats, Rights and Welfare by

I just returned home from my first night covering security at the back gate at the Wild Animal Park. The good news is that I managed not to curse over the radio. The bad news is that they didn’t give me a gun. I suppose this was good thinking on their part, but with a gun I might’ve actually had something to do. Let me tell you, not a whole lot goes on at the back gate between five and eleven pm. I think I saw a bunny cross the road, but it was pretty dark out, so it was hard to tell.

On the way home, as I was about to cross a very busy intersection, I saw a rather large dog bounding confusedly down the road. I pulled over my car and called the dog over, and lucky for me, he was pretty friendly and very cute. I then noticed another large black dog that was with him, but no owner in sight. I managed to get Pete (the first dog) into the trunk of my car so that I could read his tag – luckily, there was a number on it, and Pete’s owner answered right away. They’d been looking for the two dogs frantically for the past hour and said they’d be right over to pick him up (the black dog had headed down the road, across the intersection, and I couldn’t go after her). Unluckily for me, as I was securing Pete in my car, I slammed my trunk hatch down on the bridge of my nose, which proceeded to spill blood from the cut. Good thing I’m so prepared and had a first aid kit! Well, the owners drove up right fast, and the guy was an EMT so he checked me out to see if my nose was broken; alas, it’s just ugly. The woman took my name, address, and phone number, and I didn’t even ask her why as my head was still spinning from eight hours of mind-numbing boredom followed by a swift crack to the ol’ noggin. Anyway, they loaded up Pete and I hope they were able to track down the other dog. They were very friendly and very thankful that I called – they both seemed quite distressed, but relieved, too. So I’m glad I could help.

What do you think? Should I tell everyone at work tomorrow that I got cut in a fight at the back gate when I single-handedly stopped lion thieves from getting into the park, or should I just tell them the sad, sad truth? Hard-core, huh?

Mom’s in the doghouse because…

Posted in Animals, Cats, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

She’s got a new dog! Yesterday, Mom went to Petco to buy her cat some stuff and came home with a new dog (which indeed is not the “cat stuff” she originally intended to buy). His name used to be Poncho, but Mom is renaming him Bailey. He’s two years old, some sort of border collie mix (I think maybe with Australian sheep dog or something), and seems to be fairly well trained and obedient. A bit goofy, too.

Of course, Leo (Mom’s cat) can’t stand him, and Michael (Mom’s parrot) has already crafted a handful of plans resulting in Bailey’s demise (which mostly involve a lot of pecking and biting). I introduced Teddy Bear to Bailey in neutral territory – the grass island on Fairway Park – and things seemed to go pretty well – Teddy growled, they sniffed each others’ butts, and then ignored each other. However, when Mom brought Bailey into my place, Teddy went ballistic and ran out from under the bed, barking, and charged Bailey. Zoe, my cat, puffed out immensely. Ok, so we have some territory issues, but that’s ok. Things will work out well between the two of them, I think!

Mom seems to be very excited with her new companion, and I hope it works for her. Her house is now officially a menagerie of animals (all of whom hate each other), and if Teddy and I ever stay with her again it’s going to result in some real chaos. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we have to!