Wednesday Afternoon Cute: All in the Game

Posted on August 13, 2014 by wellsdc

Sorry I’m a bit late with my cute entries. Hopefully this makes up for missing this past Monday. This is an adoptable dog from Austin Pets Alive! whose name and description ought to make TV geeks chuckle a bit (h/t Lindsay).

Are you looking for a dog to keep you in the game? Check out Avon Barkstail. He ain’t no suit-wearin’ businessman. He’s just a sweet dog looking for a home where he can learn to become a great family pet.

Mr. Barkstail is a major player in the Austin dog scene. Major. We’ve put him under heavy surveillance to monitor his daily movements. Here is the 411: He leaves his kennel several times each day for walks. His leash manners are fairly good, and we are working to improve them. Once a day he likes to meet up with other dogs (no sign of Stringer Tail or Wee-Bark). He hasn’t shown any reactivity to other dogs, but also not a whole lot of interest in playing with them. Additional socialization is recommended.

It is important for Mr. Barkstail’s new family to know that he is good at jumping fences – even tall ones. It makes for a handy escape route when Omar is on his tail, but his new family won’t want Mr. Barkstail to be escaping their yard. So a primarily indoor environment, with continued surveillance on all outdoor activities, is heavily recommended for Mr. Barkstail’s new home.

Okay, it’s cheesy. But it’s cute, right?

Huskies Take Up Contradictory Positions

Posted on August 10, 2014 by wellsdc

If you haven’t seen this ridiculously adorable video of two huskies arguing over whether or not they are going to play (with subtitles!), miss out on the joys of life no longer:

Post by OfficialHuskylovers.com.

(h/t Jason)

I don’t know if Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic” inspired the two hounds, or their presumably-human translator, but I’ll tip my hat to them as well.

Dogs Sure Do Love to Play with Balls

Posted on July 17, 2014 by wellsdc

Dogs love to play—everyone knows that. Sometimes, though, they get a bit more than they bargained for, and the results are adorable. Take this dog, who gets 100 balls for his birthday and pretty much loses his mind (h/t Joe Veix).

There’s a cutely hilarious (I think) moment when the dog sees the giant mass of balls approaching and doesn’t know what to do. Once he realizes that they’re all for him, he calms down and begins to approach the real problem: how to play with all of them.

A few years back, another dog received the gift of many, many tennis balls. This is for all the dogs out there—may they play with all the balls: Continue reading →

If You Have Some Free Time and Want to Feel Some Feels….

Posted on July 3, 2014 by wellsdc

Wikipedia has a collection of famous dog stories that are certain to get the feels going—the section on “faithful dogs” in particular. Here are a few highlights (text is quoted directly from Wikipedia, links are from footnotes):

Hachikō, an Akita who became a symbol of loyalty in Japan, is now honored by a statue in Tokyo. Hachikō is famous for his loyalty to his long dead master Hidesaburō Ueno, by returning to the train station and waiting for his return, every day for the next nine years during the time the train was scheduled to arrive.

jpvargas [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)], via Flickr

Greyfriars Bobby, a Skye Terrier in Edinburgh, Scotland, was loyal to his master long after his master’s death in 1858. Until Bobby’s death 14 years later, he reportedly spent every night at his master’s grave. A statue in memorial of Greyfriars Bobby was erected near the graveyard.

By Michael Reeve [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Capitán, a German Shepherd Dog, ran away from his home in central Argentina, after the death of his owner Miguel Guzmán in 2006. About a week later, Guzmán’s family found Capitán standing guard at Guzmán’s grave after finding the cemetery on his own. When brought home, Capitán again ran away back to the grave of his former owner. As of 2012, he continues to stand vigil over his owner’s grave and receives provisions from the cemetery staff so he does not need to leave.
Hawkeye, a Labrador retriever, stayed by the coffin of his owner, Jon Tumilson, a Navy SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan in 6 August 2011 when the CH-47 Chinook he was riding on was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Constantine, German Shepherd Dog aka Kostya or Faithful Kostya, in the mid-1990s in Togliatti, Russia – a family died in a car crash during the summer of 1995, leaving the dog as the only survivor. A German Shepherd Dog, named Constantine by the locals, kept coming to the same spot for the next 7 years braving freezing winters and hot summers. The Monument of Devotion – a bronze statue honouring the dog’s loyalty was placed on that spot in 2003 by the city authorities .

You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

Yup, the saddest animation moment ever created, from Futurama‘s “Jurassic Bark.”

Photo credits: Hachikō photo by jpvargas [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr; Greyfriars Bobby photo by Michael Reeve [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Monday Morning Cute: Jurassic Pug

Posted on June 30, 2014 by wellsdc

Imgur user cookiearthquake apparently got drunk and bought this online for their pug:

I bought the exact same costume for Zeta, albeit probably in a larger size, while completely sober.

I’ll try to get some pictures of Zeta the Triceraterrier up soon.

Dog Abuse, Neglect in Arizona

Posted on June 26, 2014 by wellsdc

You’ve probably heard about Green Acre Kennel, the dog-boarding facility in Gilbert, Arizona where at least twenty (the count seems to vary from one news source to another) dead dogs were discovered last weekend. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (yes, that Sheriff Joe) initially called it an “accident,” but has now announced that he will conduct a “thorough investigation.” Here’s a quick guide to the legal issues involved.

Arizona, along with every other state in the U.S., has felony provisions for animal cruelty. Arizona’s law went into effect in 1999, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund. A report on the case at The Daily Beast looks at the civil liability angle. In many states, such as Texas, civil liability for causing injury or death to an animal—meaning a pet in this sort of case—is limited to the animal’s fair market value. It does not include other compensatory damages, nor does it includes any sort of noneconomic damages for what is, for many people, the loss of a family member. The Daily Beast‘s article discusses some of the civil claims that may arise under one Arizona lawyer’s take on that state’s laws: Continue reading →

A Companion to the End, and Further

Posted on May 19, 2014 by wellsdc

A pit bull named Cletus walked the stage at Idaho State University’s commencement ceremony last week, in place of his human. Cletus is a service dog, who was there on behalf of Joshua Kelly with Joshua’s father.

Commencement is always a special time, but for one family, Saturday’s Idaho State University graduation ceremony was especially meaningful.

Their son was not there to receive the degree he worked so hard for. Instead, his faithful service dog walked in his place.

More than 2,000 graduates were celebrating their hard work of years, energy and sacrifice. Among all the feet were some paws that stood out.

Cletus, a black pit bull, would have been at graduation anyway this year.

“I’ll be honest,” said Joshua Kelly’s father, Terrell. “I was one of them that was giving (pit bulls) a bad rep until I met Cletus. And he allows our little grandchildren to climb on him, pull his ears, pull his tail. He’s just great.”

But the person Cletus is missing is the one he was trained to help.

“Josh had epilepsy,” his father said. “This was Josh’s last semester. He was taking his final two classes when he ended up in intensive care in February.”

Joshua Kelly passed away Feb. 13.

Terrell said EMS crews in Idaho Falls found Josh on the side of the road or on someone’s lawn numerous times with Cletus standing over him.

He said the pair would get on the bus at 6:30 from Idaho Falls to ISU, which meant a two-mile walk both ways. But it was worth it.

Go get some Kleenex if you need. The video from the local news station isn’t embeddable, but here’s another video showing the event.

Thanks for being an awesome dog and an awesome friend, Cletus.

Pitties Get Some Online Love

Posted on May 9, 2014 by wellsdc

I came across an article on a site called Dognotebook.com entitled “15 dangerous dog breeds most likely to turn on their owners,” with no attributed author. You can probably guess who tops the list.

The post is a long litany of bullshit, but that’s not why I mention it. About 19/20 of the comments range from “This is bullshit” to “Here are researched and peer-reviewed facts about dogs that debunk everything you have said in this article.” It’s a good thing to see.

Going to Purgatory for Your Dog: A Comic

Posted on May 4, 2014 by wellsdc

“The Dog’s Sins,” a comic by KC Green, looks at what might happen if a person stood in judgment for the wrongs committed in life by their dog.

(Cross-posted to Imgur, h/t BuzzFeed)

Do Dogs Remember Theirs Puppies? A Comic.

Posted on April 17, 2014 by wellsdc

I wonder sometimes how dogs remember their puppies once they’ve been taken away.

“Written in the Bones,” a comic by Carey Pietsch and Christopher M. Jones, offers one idea of how they might. Continue reading →

Cryptic Philosopher

Don't Look, but Your Keyboard is Covered in Spiders

Category Archives: Dogs