Cynthia The Lost Peacock

Here's the link to the cnn story.

Seems that a peacock or peahen as she's called because she is a female is living by the Sheriffs department in Marion County OR, the picture is of a male from the national geographic website but Cynthia is a beautiful bird and I don't like birds. I admit it, I'm bird phobic.

Cynthia showed up Saturday on the property next to the Sheriffs office and the cops have tried to find her owner or get an animal welfare agency to take her to no avail. She is eating bugs and drinking from a well but people have started to drop off water for her. She seems determined to watch over the police headquarters. They say they can't keep her because the groundskeeper wouldn't like to clean up after her but she eats bugs and I'm sure she keeps an eye out for intruders, what more could they want?

We actually did have peacocks @ one time, raised them in the chicken coop till they were older and they gradually stopped coming in for the night. Coyotes are thick around here and we figured that was what happened to them BUT one day while mushroom hunting in the woods on scared the daylights out of me flying up in front of me, perhaps they survived? This was 30 years ago so I'm sure they are long gone now. But Cynthia's story caught my eye, she's such a cute bird.

Kosovo Seargeants Give Their Boys Surprise Puppies

Here's the link.

The picture above is the two puppies before the family got there.

A husband and wife who are Sergeants in the National Guard recently returned from Kosovo. The father saw a litter of 8 lab puppies on petfinder @ the Stover Animal Shelter and emailed them about keeping two of the puppies for their boys, who are 10, 6, and 5. The boys had NO idea what was going on when they went to Stover. It's all in the article. This animal shelter is my pet charity, pun intended. Carol Sue Wiegel mentioned in the article is the local real estate agent and her primary volunteer is one of my oldest friends, Brenda Cook, she emailed this to me:

About 2 months ago a army guy e-mailed us from Kosovo. He had seen our pets on petfinder, and was interested in some lab pups we had ( 8 ) of them. He has 3 little boys and had promised them a dog when he returned, he really wanted 2 of them but wanted us to keep 2 for him for 2 months until he returned. Well of course we did and he got home last Tuesday, and came for the pups this Monday, his boys new nothing about this, it was a surprise for them. He brought his family down and you should of seen the look on those kids faces they are 10, 7 and 5, they went crazy!! they named thier dogs Scarlett and Duke. The Sedalia paper was there and so was KRCG tv Jefferson City. Great Press and did a good thing too!

I LOVE stories like this.

Valentines Day for Dogs

The story of a dog named Darby, link below.

http://www.smallpawsrescue.org/pup3/feb1209.html

Ok, we have valentines for people why not dogs? I am extremely prejudiced I know because I own a bichon and a lab but today with the economy the way it is and all why not do something truly loving for yourself, your family, and one of our furry friends. Think about adopting a dog.
You can go here, for a bichon or you can type in your breed preference and zip code on the left hand side to see other breeds. (Such as Labradors?)

Bichon Trying To Save Mama From The Vacuum

Here's a semi funny video I did this afternoon. I'd gotten up from my day off afternoon nap and decided I couldn't take the family room floor anymore and had to vacuum, remembered there was string in the vacuum brush from the last time I'd used it. The string is from a place in the carpet that the Labrador dug up when my husband and he were playing with the laser light, the lab thought he could dig the light up and get ahold of it?
Anyway the Bichon is distressed by the vacuum, I'm pretty sure he thinks we are not in control of things with motors that make noise such as the vacuum and the lawnmower so he must protect us. This is also the noise he makes when I get out of the car or leave him in the house if amplified 10 times.

Neighbor Sells Womans "Lost" Dogs on Craigslist

Seems that this woman Theresa let her 3 little dogs out and they got out the back gate, one came back the other two didn't. She then saw them THE NEXT NIGHT for sale on craigslist, the woman posting them was a neighbor in Columbia, PA, who said they had been her grandmothers dogs and she had had them for 3 days??
Here's the link, what do YOU think? I think I'm glad the original owner found them and I hope she has them back safe and sound.

300 Dogs Rescued From North Carolina Puppy Mill

Three hundred dogs were rescued Friday from a puppy mill in North Carolina. The dogs were mainly Lhasa Apso, Shih-Tzus and Chihuahuas.
The link is here to the complete story.
The animals were housed in unheated unventilated outbuildings without proper medical care or socialization.
Being an animal lover and perhaps letting my animals run a little too freely I just can't understand how people can treat dogs like this.
If you have room in your heart and home for a dog please consider adopting a rescue dog.

Temperament Testing for Dogs

American Temperament Test with breed statistics.

Temperament testing for dogs for you to do yourself.

Testing suggestions from Paw Rescue.

To be honest I heard about the first one on the radio this morning on the way to work @ the unholy hour of 6 am and googled the others. Bichons didn't do so good, actually little dogs didn't do so good, lab's have very good temperaments. If you have a dog you spend lots of time with you probably can do the temperament testing in your head and not bother leaving the computer. The tests from Paw Rescue give you clues what to look for in a rescue or shelter dog. My bichon gives the sort of a growl but I'm not really growling when I tell him he can't get up in the night and bark with the other dogs. I can turn him over and put my hands on his neck (OK he rolls over and I play like I'm choking him and he makes this ahhh ahhh noise but he loves it), he hates to be held on his back though but we are working on it, those are some of the things the tests ask. My Bichon would flunk the person running by or riding a bike by, he LOVES to chase things like that.

What else is new? It snowed and sleeted last week, got way behind with everything because it took me forever to get to work and back. We will say that is the excuse for the infrequent postings. The dog is "telling" me I need to do something now, must go! Ahhh we had a playing howling session, he is satisfied for the moment. Wonder what that says about his temperament and mine?