A LLAMA NAMED SCOOTER

There was this llama living in Florida, near Tallahassee, and his name was Scooter.  Last Friday Scooter decided he would like to see the world outside his pasture, so he broke the fence, and he went exploring.  On Friday night, Scooter's owner, Jack Conrad, saw that Scooter was gone, so he started looking everywhere for his llama.

But he couldn't find Scooter, so early Saturday morning, Mr. Conrad called the sheriff's office and they started helping him look.  Meanwhile, other people were calling to that they had seen a camel or an alpaca or some other strange animal wandering around.

The deputies gave Scooter a good chase, but Scooter did not want to be caught, so he ran fast, and he even jumped a 4-foot fence to get away.  Lt. Tony Drzewiecki said, "Scooter was running in the middle of the road, so he was going to cause an accident eventually."

Photo handout via AP

Finally, the deputies and police and everybody caught up with Scooter.  They got a lasso on him, but he did not want to go into the trailer that was there to take him home.  He used his 300-pound weight to resist his captors, and also he spat on at least one of them.  So the deputies had to use a taser on Scooter to subdue him.  After that, 6 men were able to pull and shove the llama into the trailer.  "I've been doing this for twenty years and this was the first llama I've ever had to chase," said Officer Drzewiecki.

Now Scooter is back at home with his owner, Mr. Conrad, who also has 3 other llamas.  Scooter likes to eat Triscuits, so he has been munching on those and acting like nothing happened.  Mr. Conrad will not have to pay a fine, but he has promised to make his fence stronger so that Scooter cannot get out again. This is good because now Scooter will stay at home where he is safe, but it also means he won't get to go exploring anymore.

Scooter back at home.  Tallahassee Democrat

One thing that the article about capturing Scooter said was that he had to be shot with a laser gun because "llamas don't respond to voice commands."  I thought this was kind of a strange thing to say because people in the Andes have been using llamas for years as pack animals, and you would think the llamas have learned at least a few commands.

On the same page with the Scooter article, I found a link to a story about keeping llamas as pets, and this story talked about a UK couple, Tim and Terri Crowfoot, who have seven llamas.  These llamas are named David, Dillon, Thomas, Oscar, Toby, Mary, and Ann.  They have learned lots of the same tricks that dogs do.  For example, they can fetch, sit, roll over, shake, pull carts, and jump through hoops.  The Crowfoots said, "The llamas can now do everything your average dog can do, and more."  Well, I refuse to believe that llamas are smarter than dogs, but in order to learn all those tricks, they would have to respond to voice commands.

A llama being trained.

The problem with Scooter was just that he had never been taught any voice commands, and not that llamas in general don't respond to them.  In my opinion, Scooter needs to go to some obedience classes, and the first thing he needs to learn is "Come!"

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PHOBIAS

Phobia is a word that comes from the Greek word Phóbos, which means "fear" or "morbid fear."  When psychologists talk about phobias, they mean a sort of anxiety or fear of an object or situation.  If you have a phobia like this, you do everything you can to avoid whatever you're afraid of.  Sometimes it makes sense to do this, like for instance if you are afraid of falling off the edge of a cliff and so you stay away from the edges of cliffs.  But sometimes you might be afraid of something that most people don't think is scary at all.

People have phobias and so do dogs.  Some of the most common phobias that people have are fear of heights, fear of small spaces, and fear of going out of the house.  Dogs might have a fear of storms, fear of people wearing uniforms, or fear of being in a crate.

When I started looking on the internet for types of phobias, I found this really cool website, and it's called The Phobia List.  The man who put this list together is not a doctor, and he says he does not know how to cure anybody of their phobias.  Instead, he is a person who is interested in words.  Every phobia on his very long list has actually been published somewhere in a reference book or medical paper.  Which means he is not just making these phobias up, even if some of them seem pretty weird.

Anyway, since there are so many interesting phobias on the list, I decided that today I would just to tell you some of the ones that start with "A."  Another day I will do phobias with another letter.  Oh, and the man who made the phobia list said that he thinks since the word phobia comes from Greek, the type of phobia should also be in Greek and not in Latin, like some people have done when they were making names for phobias.  I am not a scholar of language, but this makes sense to me, because if you go around mixing two languages together, you may end up having them fight with each other!


ABLUTOPHOBIA -- fear of washing or bathing*

AGRIZOOPHOBIA -- fear of wild animals


AGYROPHOBIA -- fear of streets or crossing the street


AILUROPHOBIA -- fear of cats

ALBUMINUROPHOBIA -- fear of kidney disease


ALLIUMPHOBIA -- fear of garlic

ALLODOXAPHOBIA -- fear of opinions


ANGLOPHOBIA -- fear of England or English culture

ANTHROPHOBIA -- fear of flowers


APOTEMNOPHOBIA -- fear of persons with amputations


ARACHIBUTYROPHOBIA -- fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth

AULOPHOBIA -- fear of flutes

AURORAPHOBIA -- fear of the Northern Lights

*I will just say that I have this phobia myself, and I don't see anything wrong with it.  In fact, I am proud to say that I both fear and hate getting a bath!

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A DIFFERENT NEW DOGGY SISTER!

We have had a very confusing life here during the last week or so, and that happened because Mom has been trying to find the perfect doggy sister or brother to suit all of us.  Meaning all of us dogs, the cats, and even Mom herself.

So first we had Agnes, like I told you in my entry on May 25, but Mom was not happy with Agnes.  This was not the fault of Agnes, because she was a nice girl, and she couldn't help it that she came from a puppymill and didn't have any social skills.  Agnes went to see Dr. Vodraska, and Mom pointed out some strange places on the bottoms of Agnes's back feet.  One foot had sort of a callous on one of the toe pads, and the other foot had a swollen lumpy thing between the toe pads and the foot pad.

Agnes

Dr. V said that the lumpy thing was kind of like a pimple, and it was caused by the hair follicles being all clogged up.  So she squeezed some of the plugs out of the follicles, and that was supposed to let the lump drain.  If it fills back up again, the only way to fix it would be surgery.  Dr. V prescribed some antibiotics to help it heal up.  The other foot might have a corn under the callous, but Dr. V wasn't sure.

It turned out that all of Agnes's canine teeth had their tips cut off, so they wouldn't be so sharp.  We also think she had been de-barked, which is why she never barked, except a couple of times she made sort of a coughing sound.  These are the kinds of bad things people do to dogs in puppymills.

We had Agnes here three nights, and she started sleeping on Mom's bed, but Mom always had to carry her up and down the stairs plus lift her on and off the bed.  Since Agnes was kind of plump and weighed almost 12 pounds, Mom's back started to get sore.  Also, Agnes kept peeing in the house, and not even on the pee pad Mom put down for her, which is what the foster mom said Agnes would pee on.  And when Agnes went out in the yard, she would sometimes run around a whole bunch, like grass was the best thing ever.  And sometimes she even peed out there.  But other times she just stood around like grass was the scariest thing ever, and she didn't want to move from where she was.

Dustin

So finally, Mom called up Ginnie, the woman with New Beginnings Dog Rescue, and told her she had made a big mistake in trying to adopt Agnes.  Ginnie did not seem very happy until Mom said she might be interested in one of their other dogs, who was a papillon mix named Dustin.  Then Ginnie said if Mom wanted to try Dustin instead of Agnes, that would be great.

Dustin was only 3 years old, and he had lots of energy.  He was very friendly, and he loved to go for walks, and he pottied in the yard (except for marking in the house a few times), and he was all the things that Mom wanted in a dog.  So Mom was happy, and we dogs didn't really care, as long as Dustin didn't pester us to play with him.  At night, Dustin slept in bed with Mom, and everything was great, and Mom thought we would be keeping Dustin.

But then Dustin started chasing the cats, and he did this all the time, especially with Jason and Latifa.  Chloe and Charlie just avoided Dustin by staying up on high furniture or in the cat room.  They didn't sleep with Mom anymore, and in fact, we hardly ever saw any of the cats.  Or if we did, Dustin went tearing off after one of them.  And if he cornered it, he would start barking at it.  Dustin would even jump out of bed in the middle of the night to chase cats, because that's how much he liked to do it.

Well, Mom decided this was not a good way for the cats to have to live, so she called Ginnie again and said she would have to return Dustin, too.  Mom thought Ginnie would just give her check back, and that would be the end of it.  But Ginnie said maybe Mom should try a chihuahua they had who was named Razzy, which was short for Raspberry.

Dorrie (who used to be Razzy)

So Mom agreed to try Razzy, who is 5 years old and weighs 7 pounds.  This is exactly the same as what Dustin weighed, but Razzy has short hair, so that makes her look smaller.  Anyway, we got Razzy on Thursday, and we have decided to adopt her.  Except we didn't like her name, so we had to find a new one for her.

Mom went through some long lists of names to try to find a good one, and she sent a couple of short lists to Aunt Cheryl, and finally Mom decided on Dorrie, which I agree is the most perfect name ever for my little chihuahua sister.  On Friday, Mom took Dorrie to PetSmart and bought her a harness and a little collar and a matching leash.  Oh, and also an ID tag.

Dorrie likes to sleep in bed with Mom, and she sleeps under the covers.  I have heard that some basenjis like to sleep under the bed covers with their people, but I never liked to sleep there.  Dorrie is very clever.  She can go up and down stairs all by herself, and she can jump on and off the bed by herself.  She has had a couple of accidents in the house, but mostly now she goes out and does her pottying in the yard, even if the grass is wet.  Mom says this should be an example for me, but I'm not sure what she means by that.

The cats don't mind having Dorrie around because she doesn't chase them or bark at them or anything like that.  And she doesn't pester Mel or me either.  And Mom likes her because she is a good lapdog and she is also pretty good at walking on a leash.  Plus she doesn't bite people -- or at least we don't think she does -- and that is always a good thing in a dog.

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COPPERHEADS

Photo:  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

I am sorry to say that I have not really been doing my duty to write about snakes during the Year of the Snake, but now I will start making up for that.  And today I will write about an American snake that is called the Copperhead.  You can find this snake mostly in the eastern and southern parts of the country, including in Missouri, where I live.  Except that I hope I never find one because it might bite me, and that would be bad!

The Copperhead got its name because it has a copper-colored head.  But maybe you already knew that.  The scientific name for this snake is Agkistrodon contortrix.  Other common names are chunk head, death adder, highland moccasin, narrow banded copperhead, pilot snake, poplar leaf, red oak, red snake, white oak snake, American copperhead, and (in Spanish) cantil cobrizo.

The head of the Copperhead is triangular, and the eyes have vertical pupils.  The body can be copper, orange, or pinkish-brown, with brown bands crossing it.  These bands are shaped sort of like an hour glass.  The length of the Copperhead's body can be more than 4 feet.

Copperheads like to live in forests and mixed woodlands.  A lot of times, they hang out on rock outcroppings and ledges, but you can also find them in low, swampy areas.  In the wintertime, Copperheads hibernate in dens or limestone crevices, and they often share these spaces with Timber Rattlesnakes and Black Rat Snakes.  The favorite places that Copperheads hide are stone walls; sawdust, mulch or compost piles; wood piles; under decayng stumps, in abandoned building debris, and under large stones.

Sometimes it's hard to see a Copperhead because of its coloring, so people might get bitten when they step on one by mistake.  But usually, a Copperhead will try to get away from people.  They only bite when they are cornered or startled.

Photo:  Ian Jensen

Copperheads are pit vipers, so when they hunt, they wait in ambush until something warm comes by, such as a mouse, and then the snake strikes.  But if a Copperhead is hunting insects, it goes out looking for prey to eat.  One thing that Copperheads really think is yummy is a cicada that has just come out of its shell.  I like cicadas, too, as I have told you several times before, so I have that in common with these snakes.  The only difference is that Copperheads can slither up trees and catch the cicadas up there, but I have to wait for them to fall on the ground.

Other things that Copperheads eat are mice, chipmunks, voles, frogs, lizards, insects, and even small birds.  Like other snakes, they swallow their food whole and then let their stomachs digest everything.  A Copperhead may only eat 10 or 12 meals a year.

The bite of a Copperhead is poisonous, but it will not usually kill you unless you are a mouse or a frog. But even if you don't die from the bite, it can still make you feel really bad.  Symptoms of a bite can include extreme pain, tingling, throbbing, swelling, and severe nausea.  You can also get permanent damage in your muscles and bones.

Some researchers found out that the venom of the Southern Copperhead has a protein called contortrostatin  in it.  This venom stops the growth of cancer cells in mice and also keeps tumors from spreading to other places in the body.  A lot more research has to be done in order to figure out if this venom stuff works the same way in humans.

Copperheads breed in late summer, and then they give birth to live baby snakes.  The normal size of a litter is 4 to 7, but sometimes there are as many as 20.  The mama snake does not take care of the babies.  They just have to start fending for themselves.  Young Copperheads look like adults, except that they have a bright yellow tip on their tails.  This tip is handy because it is good for luring frogs and lizards for the babies to eat.  Copperheads can live to be about 18 years old.  This is longer than most basenjis live, which doesn't seem fair, somehow.

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SALLIE: A CIVIL WAR DOG

Sallie joined up at a very young age.  She was only four weeks old when she was given as a gift to 1st Lieutenant William R. Terry of the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.  She grew up among the soldiers, and they were happy to have a puppy around to take their minds off being homesick and scared.  Sallie was a brindle bull terrier, and she was named after a beautiful girl who lived near the camp.

The only known photo of Sallie,
from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission

People said that Sallie only hated three things:  Rebels, Democrats, and Women.  I don't know if this is true or not.  I am just reporting what I read.  Anyway, even though Sallie loved all the men in her unit, she definitely did not like soldiers or civilians she did not know.

When Sallie heard reveille every morning, she was the first to get up and go for roll-call.  Every time there was a dress parade, Sallie pranced along beside the regiment's flag bearer.  When the unit camped out, she slept by the captain's tent.  And when her soldiers went on marches or into battle, Sallie always followed right along.

Some reenactors trying to load their muskets

The 11th Pennsylvania was first formed as a 3-month regiment of recruits from several counties on April 26, 1861.  Later on, the enlistment period was changed to 3 years.  At the Battle of Falling Waters, Virginia, on July 2, 1861, the group earned the nickname of "The Bloody Eleventh."  When their 3-year enlistment was up in January 1864, a lot of the men reenlisted, and after that the unit was called the "veteran volunteers."  The 11th Infantry was also special because they were the oldest unit in continuous service from Pennsylvania.

Here are the major battles the regiment fought in:  Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomatox Campaign.  Sallie's first battle was in 1862 at Cedar Mountain.  What she liked to do was position herself at the end of the firing line and bark furiously at the enemy.  If the troops were advancing, she went along beside the color bearer.

11th Penn.V.I. Monument,
Gettysburg, PA, USA
Photo by:  RFM57

During the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the 11th Pennsylvania was driven back almost a mile from their original position on Oak Ridge.  Sallie got separated from the unit, and didn't know how to find them.  Finally she lay down with the dead and dying soldiers and guarded them until the Union troops took the field back again.  When her unit found her several days later, she was very weak, but she was still alive.















Sadly, in February 1865, at the Battle of Hatcher's Run, Virginia, Sallie was killed by a bullet that hit
her in the head.  Some of the men from her unit stopped to bury her with military honors, even though they were under heavy fire from the Confederates.

The unit mustered out on July 1, 1865.  A total of 1,890 men served in the regiment during the war, but only 340 came home at the end of it.  Later on, when a monument was built at Gettysburg to honor the 11th Pennsylvania, the veterans insisted that Sallie be included.  The monument is located on Oak Ridge, where the right flank of the First Corps was positioned on July 1, 1863, and where Sallie later stood watch over the wounded and dead.

When there was a reunion of the veterans of the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, the men posed for a photo near the  monument, and they made sure they left a space so that Sallie could be seen in the background.

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MY NEW DOGGY SISTER!

You'll never believe what Mom brought home for me and Mel yesterday -- a brand-new doggy sister!  Her name is Agnes, and she is 7 and a half years old.  She is a Maltese, so she is kind of small and white and hairy.  Mom found her on Petfinder.  Mom was mostly looking for something like a long-haired chihuahua or a papillion or maybe a cairn terrier.  But then she decided to apply for Agnes.

The group that Agnes came from is called New Beginnings.  They got Agnes from another group that got her as a breeder surrender.  So we think Agnes was in some sort of puppymill, or at least she was with a backyard breeder.  Which means she probably had a bunch of puppies.  But now she has been spayed, so she doesn't have to have puppies all the time anymore.

When Agnes first got rescued, she was thin, and she had some bald spots on parts of her, such as her nose and her back and her tail.  But now she has lots more hair.  Also she is kind of pudgy, so Mom says Agnes will have to start eating less.

Agnes is very shy, and you can tell this by the way she is always running away from Mom.  Every time Mom is just walking through the house, Agnes runs away.  But if Mom sits still and talks to Agnes, sometimes she will come up to Mom.  We hope Agnes will stop being so afraid soon.  Mel and I like her just fine, and Agnes is not afraid of us.

When Mom first brought Agnes home, she let her loose in the back yard, but she left a leash on her.  Agnes ran all over the place, and Mom had trouble catching her again, so it's a good thing she still had the leash on.  After that, Mom started holding onto Agnes' leash outside, but Agnes doesn't do anything when she's out there.  She just stands in the grass and trembles because she is afraid.  She doesn't potty in the yard because she is too scared to.  Then she pees in the house, and Mom has to clean it up.

Today Mom is taking Agnes to Dr. Patricia's office.  Then she is also going to take Agnes to PetSmart and get her a collar and some of the food she's used to eating.

Mom is not totally sure if we are going to keep Agnes or not.  We were wanting a dog that was more friendly with people and that Mom could take out for walks and that kind of thing.  Aunt Cheryl called this morning, and she said she didn't think Agnes was a good fit for us, and Mom told her she had been thinking the same thing.  So we will wait a few more days and decide for sure what we want to do.

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OCICATS

Here's how to make an Ocicat:  breed an Abyssinian to a Siamese, and then after the kittens grow up, breed them to another Siamese.  The second generation will have at least one spotted kitten, and that is an Ocicat.


Anyway, that's how it happened in 1964 with Virginia Daly of Berkley, Michigan.  But she wasn't trying to make an Ocicat.  She was trying to make a Siamese cat with Abyssinian points, and she was very surprised when one spotted kitten showed up.  Her daughter called the kitten an Ocicat because it looked a lot like an ocelot.  The kitten was named Tonga.  He eventually got neutered and sold as a pet.

Tonga's parents were bred again, and they had more spotted kittens.  So after that, Mrs. Daly and other breeders got interested in actually trying to make a new breed of spotted cats.  After a while, they also bred in some American Shorthairs, which gave the Ocicats bigger bones plus a silver color to go with the original 6 colors.









The Cat Fanciers' Association was the first group to accept Ocicats for registration, and by 1987, the cats could get to be Champions at cat shows.  Lots of cat registries around the world now recognize the Ocicat.  It has become a popular breed because it looks like a wild cat, but it has the nice temperament of a house cat.

Here are the different colors that Ocicats come in:  tawny, chocolate, cinnamon, blue, lavender, fawn, silver, ebony silver, chocolate silver, cinnamon silver, blue silver, lavender silver, and fawn silver.  Nobody knows for sure why the cross of Abyssinians and Siamese cats made cats with spots.  I guess it is kind of a genetic mystery.

Many people say that Ocicats are a lot like dogs, which is a good thing, in my opinion.  You can train an Ocicat to do many of the same things that you can train dogs to do, such as fetch, walk on a leash, come when called, speak, sit, or lie down on command.  Also, Ocicats are good at kitty agility.

Cats of this breed are friendly and outgoing.  They are not shy around strangers, and they get along well with dogs and other cats.  Ocicats are curious, playful, and active.  They often bond more with one person in the household than with others.  It's easy to take care of an Ocicat because they have short hair.  Also, they don't have any genetic health issues.

Personally, I think Ocicats are cool-looking cats.  I know some basenjis in Illinois who have an Ocicat brother named Malcolm.  None of our cats are Ocicats.  I would ask Mom if we could have one, but I am afraid she will just say that we have too many cats already, which we do.

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