Trouble is Our Middle Name

This is Ethel's "Bad Girl" position indicating naughtiness has transpired. There was an incident this afternoon. She had an accomplice. (I don't know why my picture is here as I am so obvs innocent of all charges).

After 5 years of trying with all her might to do it, she finally got a squirrel (artist's rendering, actual death scene much more gory, much less Anna Nicole Smith-y):

And our ape looked like this (disturbingly accurate artist's rendering):

Yup, we're in deep deep trouble.

We are seeking legal counsel. Will trade one Otis for representation.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled SPCA Saturday

There will be no SPCA Saturday this week. My ma ape was very busy doing very un-fun things. She wishes she was doing this:

The naked ape days are numbered!

This is a pho-to of a worried corgador.

As some of you may know, I have long had a plan to bring an end to naked ape hegemony and replace it with the benevolent dictatorship of dogs. A key part of my plan is the recruitment of hairy apes but it appears one of our allies is making our plans a bit obvious. Mother Jones reports:

Chimps have long been known to stockpile food, but a 30-year-old chimp named Santino is making news because he does far more: he finds stones in his Swedish zoo home, smashes them into throwable size, and then stores them in caches that face the viewing area on the edge of his enclosure. When tourists show up, he lets fly, throwing up to 20 rocks in rapid succession and sometimes hitting visitors standing 30 feet away across a water-filled moat. When no rocks are available for his villainy, Santino hacks chunks of concrete off the artificial boulders in his pen and assaults humans using those.

Be patient, Santino! And while you are learning to make weapons I have been dilligently learning to use tools. So far I have mastered the TiVo:

Thanks to my Onkel Eric for sending me the link and, I'm sure, warmly welcoming his hairy overlords.

Are you being served?

The NYT has a good story about service animals in this week's Sunday magazine. It's partially about the difficulty presented by non-dog service animals and the use of service animals for non-task oriented duties (like for those with mental rather than physical illness). We heard the journalist who wrote the story on the NPR this weekend (we sound like latte-sipping liberals, eh? SOY latte) and she was talking about Panda, the service horse shown above. He's awesome and does some really amazing things, like his owner can hear changes in terrain from the hooves. And he's housebroken! I would like to trade Oscar for him but the ma ape says that if there is controversy over what naked apes can use service animals it is unlikely that I can have a service pet, especially since I just want to ride him around and be taller than the other dogs and my ma ape says that being vertically challenged does not qualify one for a service animal or else she could have one.

It's a really interesting story and it is pretty remarkable what the animals do for you apes, especially the story of the man with bipolar disorder who has a parrot who helps him regulate his mood.

Wall-o-sophy

The Grey Lady has an article about cloning dogs and the curious fact that clones are not identical to one another nor to the original, displaying physical and behavioral differences. And the owner of one of the first cloned dogs did not want the cloned pup her son had made saying this:

“I already have a dog — a real dog.”

If we are all variations on a genetic theme then what makes some of us originals and others copies? Which of us are real and which are fakes?

I wonder, when I am cloned (and surely there are organizations bidding on my precious genetic material now) which of my traits will they carry? The incredible intelligence? The stunning beauty?

Well, I guarantee that no dog--real or otherwise--will look up at my ma ape with this level of devotion. Never forget that, ma ape.

Great News, Great Apes!

Scientists just discovered 125,000 gorillas in the Congo! They're still endangered but that's great news! I love the hairy apes! Let's have a banana to celebrate!

Doggone Crazy

A golden retriever at a Kansas zoo has adopted a litter of white tiger cubs after their mum abandoned them.

It's cute but I don't want any cats getting any ideas about MY food. Mine. Don't touch. I could take a whole pack of tigers if it came to that.

Otters Gone Wild!

These little dudes rampaged around Petaluma, CA, dropping by a tavern and an auto parts store:

Pigs in Boots!

Cinders, short for Cinderella (of course), has mysophobia or fear of mud! Not good for a pig. So she wears wellies. You can watch here jet around in her booties here. Why? Because it is adorable.

Also, Cinders is now becoming a pet rather than sausage. I imagine we'll see a lot of pigs rooting through closets looking for wellies that fit them.

The Apes Strike Again

I blog a lot about myself and a lot about dogs. And I also blog a lot about the naked apes, mostly my exasperation with them. And I admit I'm having a bit of a tiff with the apes right now. I'm very sad about the Kentucky Derby and Eight Belles (left above), the horse who ran herself to death, like many horses do. Though we should be clear, she ran for her apes and was rewarded with a second place and a death on the track. I know you apes have a lot of responsibility, fancying yourself the top of the food chain and having reason and all that. I just wish you'd take it a little more seriously sometimes.

From the NYT:

There were 15 horses at 39 North American tracks who failed to finish a race Saturday. Nine of them were reported to have been so injured or unsound that they had to be vanned off the track in an equine ambulance. Although the official result charts published online by Daily Racing Form do not provide any veterinary commentary beyond “broke down,” “pulled up,” or “went wrong,” a gut feeling based on racetrack experience leads me to presume that some of those stricken animals met the same beyond-hope fate as Eight Belles, and required euthanasia.

I am the Wallyrus

I have been told that with a pair of tusks I could be a dead ringer...


...for a certain sea beast with a name suspiciously similar to my own.


And after watching this I'm inspired to work on my dancing skills.

Melting My Hard Hard Heart

It has been raining all day. It is dark and thunder rumbly. I am grumpy. But then there is this:

What is UP?

My ma ape has not taken a picture of me in, like, two days. I don't know what her deal is. So here is a rodent with gigantic ears.




This is how lame my blogging will be until my ma ape gets off her keister and takes some pictures of me. I've had nothing to do but watch the Democrats be SO MEAN to one another in the debates in South Carolina. And I might be cranky if I had to be in South Carolina. Just kidding. I bet it's warmer than here. My prediction is that Ernest will win South Carolina by 15 points. He's doing well with the Dogocrats. And Giuliani will get third in Florida and say that is exactly what he meant to do.

Seriously, ma ape, get to work so that I can blog about important things. Namely, ME.

A Nature Film (in pictures)

I would like to thank the girls of the Corgi Lounge for giving perhaps the most accurate description of my athletic prowess EVER:

it looks like a lion about to take down a zebra on the animal planet or discovery channel, BOL!

I'm not sure why they felt the need to burst out laughing but I'll assume it is their amusement at the zebra being TAKEN DOWN by the ferocious lion. So, in the spirit of a great nature film, I give you Nature Red in Tooth and Claw starring Wally and Ethel. Please read the narration in a pompous and booming voice. This is Mutual of Omaha's WILD WALLY KINGDOM:

This is the Ethel, one of the fastest creatures known to man or beast, known to reach speeds of 30 mph when there is a Tennis Ball at stake.


The Ethel has not only freakishly long and fast legs, she also has a fearsome set of chompers, best used for disemboweling The Tennis Ball:


The only known enemy of The Ethel is this small but ferocious beast, The Wally, a rare and precious being. See how he stalks his prey, stealthily putting his ears back to make himself both more aerodynamic and less detectable.


The Wally's preferred hunting method involves the bark and poke in which he whines, barks and eventually pounces on and pokes his prey with his nose. Can you see the fear in the eyes of The Ethel who is trying desperately to ignore her harasser.


Note The Ethel's sheer terror as she is confronted by the beast.


As she reaches for the prize--The Tennis Ball--he attacks!


He is on the prey!


The Wally moves in on his quarry-The Tennis Ball--rescuing it from the mouth of The Ethel.


Yet another successful steal in the life of The Wally, a mysterious and wondrous creature of the wild.


He leaves The Ethel to contemplate how she has been bested by this remarkable animal.

Your Smarter Cousins

I've been meaning to blog about this but it turns out the naked apes' chimpy cousins are smarter than them! Chimps outperformed college students at memory games (no word if the college students were tested before or after the kegger):

Monkeys performed about as well as college students at mental addition, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that suggests nonverbal math skills are not unique to humans.

The research from Duke University follows the finding by Japanese researchers earlier this month that young chimpanzees performed better than human adults at a memory game.

As for the teams, both were paid. Boxer and Feinstein (the chimps) got their favourite reward: a sip of Kool-Aid soft drink. As for the students, they got $10 each -- enough for a beer or two.

As if to prove the idiocy of naked apes--AP, chimps are not monkeys, they're apes!

Walloween Tails

My granny sent me two spooooooky stories to share for Walloween. The best part? They are TRUE. Be afraid, apes, be very afraid (four legs gooooooooooood, two legs in trouble!):

1. The Dick Cheney of Dogs:

A man out hunting in Iowa was shot in the leg after a hunting dog stepped on his gun, authorities said.

The accident happened after James Harris, 37, put his gun on the ground to retrieve a fallen pheasant.

One of a pack of hunting dogs following behind stepped on the trigger, and up to 120 birdshot pellets hit Mr Harris in the left calf at short range.

2. Killer Cows in Sussex:

A Sussex policeman has been discharged from hospital after an attack by about 50 cows left him with four broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Insp Chris Poole, 50, said the cattle repeatedly butted and stamped on him when he was out walking his dog on the South Downs earlier this month.

The officer, from Brighton, said he was crossing a field along a footpath.

One cow butted him in the back, forcing him to the ground, before the others joined in, he recalled.

Look out naked apes!

Monkeys on the Rise!

Monkeys killed Delhi's deputy mayor, a follow-up to their 2001 invasions of Delhi government buildings.

Don't say I didn't warn you, naked apes!

Fetch Me My Lawyer!

My always helpful granny sent me a story about doggie lawyers! They handle important matters like inheritance and custody disputes:

The result has been the beginning of a qualitative shift - not merely the stiffening of animal cruelty laws, though in most states that has happened, but changes that are turning animals into legal beings with their own interests, and, in a few cases, their own enforceable preferences. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia now allow pet owners to endow pet trusts, the kind of legislation that made it possible for New York hotel billionaire Leona Helmsley to bequeath $12 million to her dog, Trouble. In some states, veterinarians are now required to report suspicions of animal abuse in the same way pediatricians have to report child abuse. Courts are starting to take seriously the claim that pet owners are entitled to compensation for pain and suffering in cases involving the death of an animal. And, in a Tennessee case this spring, a court appointed a legal guardian to represent the interests of a dog in a custody dispute.

I MOST DEFINITELY need a lawyer to handle my important business including managing my large estate of squeaky toys, securing my inheritance from my ma ape (don't worry ma ape, I wasn't really try to push you down the stairs, I swear!), and for suing the neighbor dog who always barks at me and runs away. Harassment! Also, I get relatively frequent sexual harassment on the Internets, though that might be because I'm always posting pictures of my bum. Also, I kind of like it.

New Recipe!

My granny loves me and she sent me this article that I think was a hint to my ma ape that she needs to bust out her new stew pot. It is about how in Australia they are COOKING feral cats!

I asked my ma ape to whip me up a batch of stew but I couldn't hear her answer through the retching noise:

Preparing this unusual stew seems simple enough.

The meat should be diced and fried until it is brown. Then lemon grass is to be added along with salt and pepper and three cups of quandong, which is a sweet desert fruit.

It is recommended that the dish be left to simmer for five hours before being garnished with bush plums and mistletoe berries.

Marinated moggie was not to everyone's taste. One of the competition judges found the meat impossibly tough and had to politely excuse herself and spit it out in a backroom.

More Animal News

There's big things afoot in the animal world.

First, thanks to Suki for covering this story about Oscar the homicidal cat. Oh, the humans think it's so cool that this cat seems to know when people die and it will get in bed with them until they pass. But Suki knows the score--obviously the cat is killing them!

To fight the cats we will need big firepower. I think we should recruit Joey, the chihuahuahuahuahuahua who saved a baby from a rattlesnake.

But more importantly we must scare them with the randy hordes of hedgehogs from Deutschland!

German police called to investigate unusual noises in the garden of a Bremen house late on Monday were surprised to find that a pair of amorous hedgehogs were to blame.

The hedgehog breeding season runs from April to September and their lovemaking is typically accompanied by very loud puffing and snorting, usually by the female as she tries to ward off the male.