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Real Hunters Don't Shoot Pets or Farm Stock:
That seems a fairly simple idea, but in fact that's what a lot of folks are doing. It's called a "canned hunt," and from where I sit it encompasses quite a bit more than Ted Nugent shooting farm goats. As Ted Williams' notes in Audubon magazine, "There’s no 'thrill of the chase' if there’s no chase. But with canned hunts, there’s no effort either, and that’s the selling point." If folks are a glutton for punishment, they can read my musings on the same topic here.
The Return of the British Otter:
In Great Britain, the Otter has gone from near-extinction in 1970 to biologically maximum attainable populations — limited only by their own territorial nature — in rivers across England. As I have said many times before, if we will only take the boot off of Mother Nature's neck, she will rebound on her own. In this case, the boot was pollution.
Slo-Mo Elephant Seal Battle:
Check it out.
An Hermaphrodite Dog?
Yep, it apparently occurs once in a blue-moon. Over at the Cold Wet Nose blog, Beverley Cuddy reports on a one-year-old Staffie cross that has been given gender re-assignment surgery and is looking for a home. George is now Georgie Girl. In other nonsense, and just for my females readers with a shoe fetish (all women so far as I can tell), check out these jobs. Nice!
Mystery Solved:
Chupacabra's are just coyotes with mange.
Paint the Turbines!
It turns out all the wind turbines are painted the wrong color. When painted white, they attract bugs, which attracts birds, which results in astounding levels of avian mortality. The best color to keep both bugs and birds away? Purple.
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5 comments:
No shoe fetish here, and in fact I HATE heels. However, all the more reason I would happily buy and wear with pride a pair of these unique shoes. Come on, if Terrierman was Terrierwoman and had a dress-up to go to, you KNOW she`d be wearing these beauties. ;O)
As for the hermaphrodite dog, I`m stunned it doesn`t happen more often. It`s generally accepted that diseases shared by humans and dogs occur more often in dogs due to their inbreeding (or insert reason here). According to most studies, numbers vary based on location but are generally much higher than JQP would ever imagine.
And finally, as for the purple turbines... well, I`m from Alberta originally and travel there as often as possible. Along the highway between Calgary and Edmonton there`s not much to look at aside from the turbines which line either side of the highway. I just can not imagine staring at giant PURPLE turbines. I also can`t imagine public approval NOT going negative when faced with the idea of a field full of giant purple turbines. We have enough trouble with white ones, which most people fine aesthetically pleasing. Of course, this could be one more push towards geothermal as the energy source of choice - and that can only be a good thing - currently when people think of alternative energy, there are only three options. Wind, solar and biofuel. Despite geothermal being the most renewable and arguably the safest form of energy it`s generally ignored.
Nope, no shoe fetish here either, much less for heels...give me barefooting, or at least some comfortable sandals. At least those shoes are kind of cute and the heel doesn't look like a nail spike that could pierce my calcaneus at any time. What would be nice is if it's springly, so that the hock and stifle flex with each step to absorb the shock of the heel. Kind of like those running shoes with the springy heel (although who knows how well it "springs"), but fashionable!
I'd so go for purple in my wind turbines. It's one of my favorite colors!
And seriously, why would people be so choosy as to pass on a rescue dog whose only problem is that it has both male and female parts? I like what "wellie boots" had to say on the topic, and I agree completely!
Many years ago I went to see one of the first "warmblood" horses bred in the U.S. It was a lovely yearling gelding who was a hermaphrodite. The owners had had "his" vulva sewn shut and when it healed under his tail looked a bit tipped, wide and weird, but I probably would never have suspected he'd had surgery. I think he retained his internal girly parts. I liked him a lot, but was worried about possible health issues, so I passed. Six years later this horse arrived in my barn to be boarded. He was then owned by an equine vet student. He still had his original name, so I knew for certain it was the same horse, and raising his tail left no doubt. He'd had several episodes of laminitis, and was still foot-sore from it. Whether a confused body contributed I can't say for certain (but I think I know!), but it couldn't have helped things. His owner had no idea he was a hermaphrodite. He's the only one I've ever seen... as far as I know.
Seahorse
There have been several incidents of hermaphrodite race (both gallop and trotting) horses racing as females and then being taken for steroid use. In all casts, when the owners, who knew the horse wasn't doped, launched an investigation the horse was found to have un-descended testicals which was what caused the abnormaly high testosterone levels. If I can remember correctly, a very sucessful "female" trotting horse in Canada (?) kept racing but had to be entered in open or male races after "her" suprise was discovered. "She" also had to forfit all previously won titles as most had been won in female only races.
Interesting, AAIC - I suppose it's quite possible that the reason we don't see it very often is because we don't SEE it very often. After all, from a dog point of view a spay surgery is in a completely different area of the body than a neuter - even if the testes are retained.
A dog with either internal ovaries or testicles would likely never be noticed unless hormone levels were tested (highly unlikely) or surgery in that area is performed for other reasons - or of course, the animal has dual external parts.
I agree with several of the comments on the original article. One has to be a little upset that this dog was a) put through unnecessary surgery and b) cost the shelter additional funds... for an unnecessary surgery.
I also agree that a well-placed adoption ad would have had that dog a home in days.
Oh, and Viatecio - I like purple too - two of my dogs look best in purple, and most of my dog accessories are therefore in some shade of violet. I just think that giant purple wind turbines on an otherwise beautiful natural scene would be horrible. Keep in mind that this same highway has a view to one side that stretches for miles, and a view on the other that stretches to the Rockies.
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