I found this editorial on CNN.com about dolphins and why their smiles aren’t really smiles to be fascinating, heartbreaking, and an opinion that should be shared,

… the smiles you see on these animals are not true reflections of happiness. In actuality, they hate to be enclosed in their holding tanks and are often not fed until it is time to perform their daily routines. During his time as a trainer, [Ric] O’Barry learned dolphins had true feelings — they would get depressed, stressed out, even suicidal. In some parks, the trainers have to give the animals Maalox and Tagamet to treat the ulcers that develop from their stress.

Sad. I feel some guilt that I’ve been one of millions of people who’ve gone to these sea shows to watch dolphins and other sea creatures perform.

It’s not likely that they’d find grain or hay to chew on, but three cows decided to take a look inside an Arkansas house anyway.  Joe Powell said there’s one very unfortunate result,

And naturally, the woman’s home insurance does not include provisions for damages by bovine intruder.

The article in the Dallas News said the largest visiting cow was 1600 pounds.  That’s a lot of beef.

Photo of tired cow from newspaper.

Be careful about opening whale videos that supposedly show footage of the trainer attacked and killed at Sea World by the whale.  Apparently, hackers are using killer whale videos that are now spreading computer viruses,

The IT and security firm Sophos is warning computer uses to be ware of messages and Web sites that claim to show video or pictures of the death of killer whale trainer Dawn Brancheau.

Hackers have created Web pages stuffed with content that appears to be video footage of the trainer’s death, but the sites are actually designed to infect computers.

Our deepest sympathy to Ms. Brancheau’s family and friends and to her colleagues at Sea World.

Several years ago, my husband’s best friend found true love.  His cat Ollie meant the world to him and he doted on that silly orange boy… the kitty had a small head and a gigantic body so I always smiled when I saw him.  The roommate - the bad bad bad wolf in this true story - left the front door open one day and Ollie escaped.

Our friend was devastated and grieved for days, weeks, months.  He looked everywhere for Ollie, but never located his missing feline friend.  One day though, the same bad roommate knocked on the bedroom door and said, “There’s someone out here who needs to see you!”

The roommate had walked to the dumpster to dispose of some trash and heard a meow.  He looked behind the dumpster and sitting just on the inside of a big drainage pipe was Ollie.  I believe that was about the happiest I’d ever seen our friend when he and Ollie were reunited. 

This is why it made me happy to learn that Jesse James of West Coast Choppers has been reunited with his dog Cinnabun.

She’s in good shape…maybe a few pounds thinner than when she left. But super happy to be home. We’re taking her to the vet to get her all checked out and chipped, and GPS’d, and live-tracked by Google Earth…the works. We don’t want to lose this little gal again!!!

That’s awesome!

H/T to Aunt B… thanks for the heads up.

A new business is taking off these days.  With many people believing that the Christian occurrence called “Rapture” is imminent, they worry about what will happen to their pets after they themselves disappear in the second coming of Christ.

Enter Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, a company that specializes in caring for the animals people leave behind. The challenge is finding the right people to care for the pets, according to Business Week,

This paradox poses a challenge for Centre. He must reassure the Rapture crowd that his pet rescuers are wicked enough to be left behind but good enough to take proper care of the abandoned pets. Rescuers must sign an affidavit to affirm their disbelief in God—and they must also clear a criminal background check.

While I think it’s a nice gesture to protect the pooches, my guess is that in this event people will have far greater things to worry about than those poor animals that remain Earth bound.

Although purportedly all over the web, I just now saw this!  Scientists have discovered pigmentation by studying the melanosome patterns in living birds.  Using these findings, they’ve accurately figured out the color of a 150-million-year-old species called Anchiornis huxleyi, about the size of a chicken.  According to the New York Times,

Anchiornis had a crown of reddish feathers surrounding dark gray ones, and its face was mottled with reddish and black spots. Its body was dark gray, but its limb feathers were white with black tips.

I can’t wait to see what amazing colors other dinosaurs might have!

I love it when zoos run contests to name the newest babies … from monkeys to elephants, it’s always a lot of fun for me to try to come up with a catchy, cute name.

I remember several years ago that I was devastated when the name Stretch that I picked for a baby giraffe wasn’t chosen!  Didn’t the National Zoo have a name contest for the baby pandas born in captivity?  My own nominees - Ping and Pong - were ignored.  No surprise those are the names I came up with when you consider my cat’s name is Kitty.

Sadly, the baby pandas returned to China with their Mom today as part of the agreement between the zoo and the foreign giant.  China’s newest citizens were greeted with lots of bamboo and lots of cameras.

We’ll miss you, Mei Lan and Tai Shan.  Have a happy life.

Fido and Buster aren’t just average dogs in Moscow.  If these were really their names, they’d be part of a pack that have evolved to the point of knowing how to ride the subway system and understanding which exits are theirs.

With one dog for every 350 citizens, the population of dogs has divided into four distinct groups: guard dogs, scavengers, wild dogs, and beggars. It’s the beggars that have figured out how to ride the trains, according to PopSci,

Relying on scraps of food from commuters, the beggar dogs can not only recognize which humans are most likely to give them something to eat, but have evolved to ride the subway. Using scents, and the ability to recognize the train conductor’s names for different stops, they incorporate many stations into their territories.

Additionally, Poyarkov says the pack structure of the beggars reflects a reliance on brain over brawn for survival. In the beggar packs, the smartest dog, not the most physically dominant, occupies the alpha male position.

It so reminds me of the show Life After People on the History Channel, where Lacy dogs are best equipped to survive because of their hunting skills and ability to scrounge for water.

One blogger wrote that her sister sent the info to her (and sent pictures),

The clever canines board the Tube each morning. After a hard day scavenging and begging on the streets, they hop back on the train and return to the suburbs where they spend the night. Experts studying the dogs say they even work together to make sure they get off at the right stop — after learning to judge the length of time they need to spend on the train.

Just amazing!

After getting stuck on a big piece of ice on the Vistula River and riding it for 100 miles, a dog was rescued from the Baltic Sea when a ship spotted him.  My favorite part is the dog’s huge smile at the end of the video on the MSNBC link. Whew!

Ship engineer Adam Buczynski managed to scoop the dog off the floe onto an inflatable dinghy and wrapped him in a blanket.   “He didn’t even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes,” said Buczynski.

Here’s the raw footage from Reuters (and posted on Youtube.com).

I already bragged once today about our own Ron from Shaktronics for his finds at PopFi, so no harm in tipping my hat again to this incredible find.  Incredibly ugly, that is.

I give you the World’ Ugliest Endangered Fish and I promise - it’s not pretty.  As in “Could I have a nightmare for the rest of my life with that?” kind of ugly.

Found in Australian waters, the blobfish is harmless,

They spend most of their time gently floating around waiting for food to pass in front of them, which sounds like quite a nice life to us!  Because they live so far from the sea surface they’re not often seen by humans.

Okay… I’m happy to have them stay at their 900 meter depth and out of my dreams.