pet connection

Happy Memorial Day, everyone.

Please let’s all take a moment to remember and thank everyone we care about (yes, our animals, too!) who has gone before us.

Today, I can’t stop thinking of my two uncles, both buried in Veterans Cemeteries, both of whom saw bloody combat in the Pacific during World War II. They both came home and were wonderful men to their families, friends and communities for more than a half-century before they died and were taken to their graves in flag-draped coffins with an honor guard to bear witness.

Uncle Pete and Uncle Bob, I miss you both and I’ll never forget either of you. (My own father didn’t serve … he was a child when Pearl Harbor was bombed — too young for WWII and too old for Korea.)

In your memory I would like to thank all who died and will die fighting on our behalf. My uncles came home, but many others didn’t and won’t. And still others bear the wounds of their service for life.

We owe them all so much.

***

The finish line is in sight, and the books are almost, almost done. Just a few hours more of clean-up and editing.

Regular blogging — and life — resumes on Tuesday.

Would you like to be the envy of your weekly agility class?

Or would you like to make everyone wonder if you’ve just won the lottery, or inherited your great grandfather’s fortune cookie factory?

All you need to do is drive up in a brand-spanking-new 2008 BMW X5.

Then watch the jaws drop.

Some people like the X5 for it style and performance, while others like the status that comes with driving one of the world’s most respected brand of automobile.

But for dog lovers, it’s the cargo capacity and fold-flat seats of the X-5 that make our tails wag happily.

The BMW X5 may be a tad on the pricey side for many ($46,675 to start), but in our DogCar evaluation, we found that it clearly earns four paws up.

You can read the full review here.

I couldn’t care less about the Triple Crown. Last time I did was the year of Smarty Jones (2004, pictured), and I’m so over it now.

Cripple Crown, I’m done with you.

I can’t watch this celebration of an industry desperately, desperately in need of reform. I’ll stick to watching the grown-up stakes horses at the better tracks, because I may be a more reluctant racing fan then ever before, but I still count myself among the dwindling numbers of followers.

And because I know a lot of really good people in horse-racing.

I don’t know Big Brown’s people. And that’s fine with me.

Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown has a hoof injury. Or rather, another hoof injury. This one is said to be minor, whatever.

Does this lessen his chance to win the Belmont Stakes?

Who knows? And who cares? With his “horse hedge fund” owners and a trainer who’s a poster child for drug use in racing, the extent of my caring is that I’m sorry people like these have been so royally rewarded.

From The Race Is Not Always To The Swift blog:

Whether it’s the drugs, commercial breeding or year round racing, it’s a game in a death dive.

It stopped being a sport when it became an industry. … We live in the era of the short attention span and the quick buck; Big Brown is the poster boy for both, enjoy him while you can.

Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly writes about steroids today, by the way. Meanwhile, the great State of California, first to mandate safer synthetic surfaces for all its tracks, is now telling the ‘roid boys to go play somewhere else.

Maybe there’s hope yet?

***

Can anyone out there save a Frisky Spider? Gifted equine photographer Sarah K. Andrew and I have been fans of a horse named Frisky Spider for a long time. He won his first race on Sarah’s birthday, and she has followed him in person at the New York/New Jersey/Maryland tracks. I just sort of picked up on him on the Derby trail during that Smarty Jones year, long before I ever heard of Sarah or saw one of her pictures. I put Frisky Spider (that’s Sarah’s picture of him to the right) on my watch list for his races and followed from afar. He won some nice races and then started down the claiming ranks.

Smarty Jones went to stud at the same place Big Brown is heading. Frisky Spider ended his career with an injury recently and needs a new home and a new job. Nice horse, by all accounts, and can be re-trained for life off the track.

He’s 3,000 miles away, and I have a suburban back yard. I can’t take him.

Sarah’s first equine responsibility has to be to Alibar — they’ve been together nearly all their lives. She can’t take on another horse, nor can any of her friends she has been asking. Tough times, right now, for everyone.

OK, so look: There are a ton of horses out there in need of a nice place to land, especially now. Why this one? Just because Sarah and I both think he’s special — and because we came to that conclusion independently of one another! — and so do other people. (Sarah and I have never even met: I’m just a fan of her work.)

Doesn’t anyone know a good place for Frisky Spider?

My gosh, I need property. I need more room for critters and a place for a nice riding horse and a couple of retired racehorses, who just deserve forever.

I interrupt our holiday weekend of non-blogging for some important chicken news.

This morning I got up at dawn and took a quick run up into the hills to the former 4H leader’s house, the woman who got me started with Abigail (the Delaware), Beatrice (Rhode Island Red) and Charlotte (Barred Plymouth Rock). She had more young laying hens she had decided to sell.

I was too slow in my response to her to snag the Gold-Laced Wyandotte, but I now have three additional layers, named:

• Hester (Barred Plymouth Rock)
• Hazel (Rhode Island Red)
• Harriet (Buff Orphington … that’s Harriet, pictured)

The Buff Orphington is a new breed for me. The others are more of what I already have. The original six hens are now spending part of the day in the main yard, digging through the grass for bugs. The dogs leave them alone as long as I’m out with them. (I surely wouldn’t trust them all together without my supervision!) With a few words and a handful of grain I can get the hens — the original six, anyway, but I’m sure the new three will learn soon enough — running back into their secure run for the night.

Chickens are the coolest!

By the way, I think the Americunas knew I was upbraiding them for their lack of a work ethic. I’ve found a beautiful green-shelled egg every day since Friday.

Update: I may have erred in naming the new Plymouth Rock “Hester.” The other hens seem to think she has a scarlet letter on her.

Next day update: I have had to separate poor Hester from the rest of the flock. She is now on the other side of the fence in the regular garden area while everyone adjusts, glaring at Hester through the wire.  Charlotte, the other Barred Plymouth Rock, hates Hester most of all … she’ll start in on her and then the Americunas jump in like a street gang on top of the brawl. Sheesh.

Christie has out of state company. Kim is visiting family out of state. And I’m wrapping up the new books for fall.

Blogging will be light to non-existent during the holiday weekend. If you see something worth sharing, pop a few words and a link into the comments.

And relax! Summer is (not officially, but sorta-kinda) here!