I always snort with laughter every time I see the monkey pulling the tail of the dog, but the last clip with the chimpanzee is pretty hilarious too!

My friend Newscoma writes that when you’re feeling down, it sometimes pays to look around and be grateful for what you have.  Some people have problems I wouldn’t want to shake a stick at.

They saved a puppy from the flames that went up 20 feet into the air in the house. I find that to be just wonderful, as I stood in the ice watching the firemen battle the flames despite the cold wet, the family apparently standing under umbrellas watching their home go up in flames with the harsh irony that the ice was coming down and could not save their home. Tongue and groove homes tend to go up fast the fire chief told me as we stood watching it burn.

Since she didn’t have a photo of the puppy, she gave us one of Mabel instead.

TheoGeo published this video on her site.  Her advice was to turn up the volume because it would drive your cat crazy. My cat, Kitty?  She opened one eye, looked at me, then fell back asleep.  But if I got the laser pointer out, it would be an entirely different story.

The laser pointer.

The otters are holding hands!  Love!

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!

My daughter and our neighbor’s horse.  Awww…

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.

I’m not a seamstress, though recently I did go to a friend’s house when she had a sewing class.  We made super cute purses and mine was okay  … I managed to not sew my two fingers together!  This idea for a doggie bed would be PERFECT for people like me because there’s no sewing involved!

From Apartment Therapy, here are a list of supplies needed - or ingredients if you will for the doggie bed:

One pair of scissors, two 12′ boxes of sticky back velcro (with a little bit left over at the end), optional superglue, one Ikea Flokati wool rug, one Ikea Gosa Vila 26 x 26 pillow stuffer and a tape measure.

Click through to see the rest of the directions… easy breezy!

When we first adopted Libby from the animal shelter, she was a shy little thing.  Never squeaked, was very gentle and had such a sweet nature.  She does bark now (not often), but remains a kind soul for a doggie.  She does have one major flaw that we discovered … a flaw that most dogs have.

She eats poop.

Libby particularly loves cat poop, rabbit poop, and what I can only guess is squirrel poop.  We discovered her love for the disgusting when we kept smelling something bad in the living room.  Finally we caught her happily chewing on something that absolutely wasn’t a tootsie roll.  Several gags and yells later, we gave up on keeping her out of the cat pan - her love of the nasty was too great - and just built a dog barrier that kept her out, but let the cats in.

The only poop she gets today are those left by rabbits as they graze in the clover in our yard.  There are other areas that we see her snooping and chomping in where clover is absent - I’m guessing that’s the squirrel poop.

But dogs eat everything else too.  Broccoli, green beans, peanut butter, shoes, couches, and lipstick.  Here’s the evidence they eat lipstick from my friend Beth.  This is Macie.

And this?  This is Macie on lipstick.

(By the way, Macie’s hair usually looks awesome. The dog groomer was scheduled the next day.

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!