pet connection

We have seen turtles mating. Twice. That is all.

Well, okay, a few more details. Turtles (tut’ls in local parlance) mate on the surface of the water. Given the wave action we’ve been seeing, that must be akin to having sex on a roller coaster. Lots of fin flailing goes on. Mating season lasts from April through July.

Our friend Wayne spotted them as we were riding on the bow of Ocean Frontiers‘ Nauticat, headed for our second dive of the day. George, our captain, stopped the boat so we could get a better look–at a respectful distance, of course. We then moved on to the dive site, Kathleen’s Reef, which for the day was renamed Turtle Love Nest.

During that dive, we saw a green sea turtle, but he didn’t appear to be basking in the afterglow. Hard to tell with turtles. They always wear something of a self-satisfied expression. Based on his size, though, we suspect that he’s not yet old enough for the mating game. Other sightings of note include a porcupine fish, a file fish, and a couple of trunk fish. Topside, we’ve seen lots of chickens. A trip to the Botanic Garden to see the blue iguanas is on tap for later this week.

We saw the second pairing this morning. George says he’s seen five or six this season. Maybe the Nauticat should be renamed the Love Boat.

No, it’s not a joke. Or if it is, I don’t know the punch line. But I do know my dad, the Pet Connection’s Dr. Marty Becker (seems so weird to spell out your dad’s name like that) is in New York now, preparing for a bunch of meetings and upcoming appearances.

Gina has asked me to keep track of him so she doesn’t have to. Later in the month, he’ll be on a bunch of TV shows, including, of course, his regular appearance on “Good Morning America” to talk about pets and summer hazards. I’ll write about that more then.

This trip, though, he’s meeting with magazine editors. Dad says phone calls are like Internet dating — hey, what does my dad know about internet dating? My folks have been happily, lovingly and devotedly married for 26 years!– and he’d rather meet people in person any time. (Those are my parents, on our family’s Idaho ranch.) (more…)

Tip of the hat to Pat for pointing out this AP story on behaviorist Dr. Emily Weiss of the ASPCA and her work trying to “cat”-egorize felines into personality types:

“People come in and say, I had a black and white tuxedo cat before, so that’s what I want,” says Jim Monsma of the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington, D.C. “But cats are not all the same. They have widely divergent personalities.”

That’s why the shelter is now using the Feline-ality program, developed by behaviorist Dr. Emily Weiss of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Part of the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match program, which also includes Canine-ality for dogs, the program assesses a variety of behaviors in individual cats. It rates the animals on confidence and sociability, which Weiss’ research has shown are independent of each other.

The program then tallies those assessments to place the cat into nine personality categories, which can be matched with a family’s situation and desires. [...] The program is used at 45 shelters, with additional facilities preparing to use it.

Our Pet Connection behavior team, Susan and Dr. Rolan Tripp, just wrote a piece (coming out next week) for our newspaper clients on how to judge personality types in kittens.

Cats aren’t as diverse in their personalities as dogs are, but certainly the person who wants a quiet lap-cat isn’t going to be happy with an adventurous, always in motion go-kitty. And of course the person who wants a playful, engaged cat will find the lap-kitty too boring.

I’m glad shelters are trying to look at feline personality types to help people make a better match.

Completely unrelated: Check out the lattice mane braid (click the image to see it larger) done and photographed by the amazing Sarah K. Andrew, lead photographer for our Ultimate Horse Lover book. Sarah, you rock! (I also like this picture revealing the secret of the equine photographer: Who needs a tripod when you have a quad-pod?)

More completely unrelated, but way cool: Thanks to everyone who sent me this one:

When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught - recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor’s roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

“I’m Mr. Yosuke Nakamura,” the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

Not just “Yosuke Nakamura” but “Mr. Yosuke Nakamura”! Ha!

As you know, my Borzoi, Kyrie, has been battling an infection with multi-drug resistant staph (MRSI) for the last few months. A lot of you have been asking about her in comments and email, and I promised to post an update.

Gina called me last night. “I thought you were going to post about Kyrie.”

I assured her I was working on the post at that very moment. And I was. In fact, I worked on it for around four hours yesterday, and I’ve been working on it for at least an hour this morning. Trust me, five hours on a single blog post? If all my work took me that kind of time, I’d be hard-pressed to pay my utility bill, forget about my mortgage and the dogs’ grass-fed beef.

The problem isn’t that she’s worse. The problem isn’t that I don’t know what to do. The problem is that she’s, at least at the moment, completely free of all symptoms, and has been for two weeks now. None of her previous antibiotic treatments accomplished that — the first one didn’t work at all, and while both the second and the third drugs did, the infection returned within a couple of days after the course of antibiotics was finished.

So now you’re wondering, er, Christie? What’s the problem?

What I used was medical grade honey. (more…)

Poor Harper was stung by a bee this afternoon, somewhere on a hind leg. She was screaming bloody murder and running in circles trying to get it off her. I didn’t know what was wrong until I saw it fall off and then I stomped it and carried her inside, dragging Bella and Twyla behind me. I called the vet, who recommended a quarter tablet of Benadryl and a cold compress.

She’s still freaked out by it. She curled up into as small a ball as possible on the sofa and stared at me with that expression that said “How could you let that happen to me?” She wouldn’t eat dinner, and I haven’t been able to get her to go potty since. I have visions–terrible visions–that this will set back her house training. She acts so grown up most of the time that I forget what a little baby she still is.

I took her out a little while ago and we practiced heeling around the complex, my hope being that it would keep her mind off the scary stinging things that might be lurking outdoors. Still no potty action. We came back in and I opened the garage door, only to see a large black spider (the garden kind, I think, not a black widow). Naturally, Harper ran right toward it and brushed up against its web. I don’t know what I would have done if it had gotten on her since I’m an arachnophobe from way back. I guess we would have both had the heebie jeebies.

Speaking of fun words like heebie jeebies, I saw a new coinage today (new to me, anyway) in the LA Times food section. It was “dogateur,” a reference to vendors of premium hot dogs. I like it as much as my creation of barkoisie.

Well, we’re going to go outside one last time before going to bed. Wish us luck.