NEOTENY

Neoteny is a strange word, and the way you pronounce it is nee-AH-tuh-nee.  It is made out of a couple of Greek words that mean "young" and "tend to."  If you don't want to say neoteny, you can say juvenilization or pedomorphism, and you will be saying the same thing.  But I am going to use the word neoteny because it's shorter and easier to type.

Okay, so now we got that out of the way, and I can start talking about what neoteny is and also give you some examples.  And what it is is when an adult of a species still has some juvenile traits, even after being all grown up.  So in other words, it's an adult that still looks like a baby.

In humans, some examples of neotenous things would be:  a face that is flattened, broadened, or shortened; eyes that are set far apart; a large brain; a hairless body or face; a small nose, teeth, or jaw bones; thin skull bones; or short arms and legs compared to how long the body is.  Betty Boop is a character that shows a lot of neoteny, but of course Betty Boop is not a real person.  There are also some real humans with characteristics that make them look like children, even though they are adults.

But that's enough about humans.  What I mostly want to talk about is neoteny in dogs, because there is a whole bunch of it!  In fact, one reason that dogs evolved so quickly from wolves is because young wolves, who were more social and less dominant than adult wolves, were probably the ones that hung out with people, and these juvenile traits were the ones that got selected for in the breeding.  After several generations, the wolves started being more and more friendly, and something else happened, too.  The wolves began to look different and more puppylike, even when they were adults.  And that's how they started turning into dogs.

Here are some neotenous traits of dogs that wolves don't have:  soft fuzzy fur, round torsos, large heads and eyes, and ears that hang down.  After a while, humans began to breed dogs to have even more non-wolf qualities, because humans found out how helpful dogs could be if they were bred for certain jobs.






So for example, herding dogs were bred to control herds and flocks, and they do this by using the hunting instinct of wolves, except they don't actually hurt their "prey."  Scent hounds were developed to chase their prey and corner it, but then let the humans do the killing.  Also, a lot of these hounds make very cute pets because of their floppy ears and wrinkly faces.

Sporting dogs help the human hunter by finding the prey and then retrieving it, but they don't actually kill it themselves.  Sighthounds and terriers have less neoteny than a lot of other groups because they have an aggressive hunting style that is more like wolves, and it often involves killing what they catch.  Huskies and malamutes are really wolflike.  They might be cute and fuzzy when they are puppies, but when they grow up, they are very serious about pulling sleds, running long distances, and protecting their humans.

And guess where the basenji is in this whole list!  The source I read said that basenjis have the least neoteny of all because they were bred to hunt on an equal level with their people, and they know how to go out and hunt without much training or being told how to do it.

Of course, many of the toy breeds are neoteny personified.  Or maybe I should say "dogified."  Lots of these dogs are loved and adored just because they are so darned cute and puppyish, no matter how old they are.  Some have smushy faces and big heads.  They have big eyes and soft, fluffy hair.

But anyway, why is neoteny important?  The answer is that humans have this thing inside them that makes them want to take care of babies or puppies or kittens or anything that looks helpless and innocent.  This is very important for human babies, of course, so that they will grow into adult people.  But it's also important for dogs, because if humans did not think puppies were cute and in need of care, we dogs might still be wolves.  Which means that we wouldn't have soft beds to sleep on or yummy dog food to eat.  And I don't think I need to tell you what a horrible tragedy that would be!

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KITTEN JACEN

I'm sure you have been wondering about our new little kitten, Jacen, so I am going to tell you all about him today.  Also Mom took some pictures of him, but he is a fast little guy, so Mom said to tell you it's hard to get good photos.

Chloe and Charlie like to hang out around Jacen's crate, but they don't do this because they like Jacen.  They do it because they are lusting after Jacen's food, which they believe is better than the food they get.  I don't blame them, because I also think Jacen's food smells very, very yummy, and I could easily eat it all up without even spoiling my appetite for my own dinner.

Anyway, Jacen likes to play inside his crate, and he does all sorts of acrobatic things, like climbing up the sides of the crate.  Also he plays in his litter box, and sometimes he poops in it.  When he uses his litter box, he digs in it really fast, and he flings litter all over the place.  Mom thinks maybe she should find him a deeper, bigger litter box, but there's not much room for one in Jacen's crate.  Of course, Barry and I would love to eat the tasty little kitten turds, but Mom does not allow us to do that.

A couple of times a day, Mom puts Jacen in the back room, where Nicky eats his meals.  It's the room with Dutch doors, and it's where a bunch of plants live all winter.  But right now the plants are mostly all outside.  Anyway, Mom has started calling this room Jacen's playroom, and she puts him in there with a couple of toys, and he gets busy playing right away.

Mom bought Jacen some little toys Saturday when she went to the Bark in the Park thing.  She didn't buy any toys for us dogs.  She only bought toys for Jacen, which seems totally unfair.  Mom said that she thought it was very fair because Jacen doesn't chew up all his toys, like we dogs do.  I guess she has a right to her opinion, but I have to say I don't agree with it.

One time Mom let me go in the playroom with Jacen, and I was happy to do that because I wanted to eat his toy.  But Mom took the toy away from me.  Then Jacen tried to jump on me and play with me, like I was some kind of silly cat or something.  I did not want to play with a crazy kitten, so I had to growl at him just a tiny bit to let him know that I was way too grown-up and sophisticated to be playing.  Mom has also let Barry go in the playroom.  Barry just ignores Jacen and looks for a toy to chew up, but   Mom is very protective of Jacen's toys, for some reason.

Charlie went in the playroom with Jacen one time, because Mom made him go in there, and he hated being there.  All he did was hiss and growl at Jacen, and then he jumped over the Dutch door and ran away from that terrible situation.  The same thing pretty much happened when Mom tried putting Chloe in the playroom.  She just hissed and growled, so Mom picked her up and put her out of the room.

I don't know why the cats are so mean to Jacen.  You would think they would be nice to him just because he's a cat and not a dog, but they aren't nice at all.  Maybe they are guarding their territory or something, but I thought it was mostly dogs who did that.  Anyway, my brothers and I are nicer to Jacen than the cats are, but Mom is afraid to let him run loose in the house because she thinks one of us dogs might see him running around and decide he is prey that should be eaten for lunch.

You can tell that Jacen would like to run around the whole house because sometimes he meows a bunch when he is left alone in his crate or in his playroom.  But Mom is too afraid to let him run around, like I said.

We don't really know where Jacen came from or if he had any littermates or anything about him.  I have asked him what his history is, but he says he doesn't remember.  All he knows is that somehow he ended up at Animal Control, and he was in a cage there, and after that, he was in a cage at the Humane Society.  And then he came here, and he has a bigger cage and also a playroom, so at least he's moving up a little bit in the world.

Oh, and speaking of kittens, maybe I should also tell you that the lab results came back from our poor little Carson, and he did not have rabies.  So Mom does not have to get a lot of shots or worry about foaming at the mouth and dying or anything like that.  Which is a big relief to all of us.  We still don't know what was wrong with Carson, but we think he must have been born with his little kitten brain all screwy or something like that.  It's very sad, so I try not to think about it too much.

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MY LATEST ADVENTURES, by Nicky

Recently, I've had two adventures with Mom, except that I don't have any pictures of the first one because Mom did not take her camera.  But I can tell you about what we did, which was to go to a place called The Ceramic Cafe.  There were a whole bunch of greyhounds there because we were trying to make some money for REGAP (Retired Greyhounds as Pets).

After we got there, each of us dogs got paint put on the pads of one of our front feet, and then a lady pushed a ceramic tile up against our foot.  Mom picked a color called "jade" for my footprint.  It was weird having my foot painted, and the footprint turned out kind of smudgy, but I didn't care because I just wanted the paint to get washed off my foot so I could go back to being normal again and sniffing other greyhound butts.

But Mom thought she should also paint something on the tile -- as if my footprint wasn't enough -- so she did, but she wasn't very happy with how it turned out.  She wrote NICKY, because that's my name, and she also wrote "Greyhound Extraordinaire," because that's what I am.  Also she wrote the date and she made a sort of squiggly border around the edge of the tile.  But like I said, she didn't like the end result very much.  She said the thing that she had to write with was hard to control, but I think that was just an excuse for not having any artistic talent.  I would show you a picture of the tile, except that we had to leave it there to be glazed and cooked in a kiln, and then we can go get it on Thursday.

So that was our first adventure.  And the second one was Saturday, when Mom and I went to a little park in a part of town called Raytown, where Mom doesn't know her way around very well.  And of course, we got lost on the way there, even though Mom had looked at mapquest before we went.  But finally we found it.

The reason we went there was to attend a thing called "Bark in the Park," where there were a bunch of doggy activities and booths and stuff.  We were at the REGAP booth, and I was an ambassadog to show how wonderful greyhounds are.  The other greyhound there looked a lot like me, and he was almost the same age.  His name was Hiway, and he was the same color and everything, except he has a black muzzle and I don't.  People kept asking if we were related, but we're not.

We saw all kinds of dogs there.  Here are some of the breeds we saw:  pomeranian, chihuahua, English bulldog, Great Pyrenees, border collie, shih tzu, Yorkie, German shepherd, puggle, Aussie, Great Dane, Labrador retriever, schipperke, and Welsh cardigan corgi.  Also we saw a bunch of mixed breeds.  Mom saw a dog she knew from the Humane Society, and this dog is named Abby.  I've met her before because her people like to take her to events like Dog-n-Jog and the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

One of the strangest things we saw was a person dressed up like a wolf.  I guess we were supposed to think it was a real wolf, but I wasn't fooled.  I wasn't scared of the "wolf" either.  He was goofy, but he was not scary.  His name was KC Wolf, and Mom told me he is the mascot of the Kansas City Chiefs football team.  I think he must not be a very good mascot, because the Chiefs lost every preseason game this year, plus also the first game of the real season.  Not that I care, of course, because I'm not really into football.

There was a costume contest at the Bark in the Park thing, but Mom didn't make me dress up and enter it.  We saw this little pomeranian, and she was totally dressed up in sunflower stuff, riding in a little wagon decorated with sunflowers.  We don't know if she won a prize or not, but we think she should have.  Oh, and guess what, Hiway's dad took him to enter the peanut butter eating contest, and he won!  He got a very nice little trophy with a doggy footprint on it.

Well, that was all of that adventure.  But now I am going to briefly mention an adventure that Mel had last week.  Mel was out in the yard after dark, and Mom looked out there and she saw Mel running around like crazy, which he doesn't usually do, especially after dark.  Mel kept looking up our big, tall oak tree, and when the rest of us looked up there, we saw a possum!  Mel had treed it, just like a real hunting dog would do!

The possum went partway up and stopped and he (or she) just stayed there and looked down at us dogs in kind of a taunting way.  There was nothing we could do because the possum was so high up the tree.  Mom went and got her camera and took a few pictures.  Then it started raining, so we all went inside and watched TV.

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A Dog Named Roselle

Today is the 10th anniversary of when the planes flew into the World Trade Center, after which the two buildings fell down, and a lot of people died.  This was a very sad thing when it happened, and it is still a very sad thing to think about 10 years later.  But today I am going to tell you the story of a dog who became a hero on 9/11, just because she did her job and she did it exactly like she was supposed to, even though there was a lot of scary stuff going on around her.

This dog was named Roselle, and she was a guide dog for a man named Michael Hingson, who worked on the 78th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  Mr. Hingson had been blind ever since he was born, but he did not let that stop him from doing anything he wanted to do.  He went to the University of California in Irvine, and he got a Master's Degree in physics.

Roselle was not the first guide dog he had owned.  In fact, she was his fifth guide dog.  They first met each other on November 22, 1999, at Guide Dogs for the Blind, in San Rafael, California.  Right from the very beginning, they had a special bond, and Mr. Hingson knew they would make a good team.

On September 11, 2001, Mr. Hingson was at his job in the World Trade Center.  His job was working as a sales manager for a company called Quantum, and while he was busy working, Roselle was busy taking a nice nap under his desk.  Then suddenly there was a huge, loud boom, and the building shook, and then it leaned over maybe 20 feet.  But after that, it kind of came back up to the regular position.  Roselle woke up right away, and she came out from under her dad's desk, but she did not get all upset and panicky.  She just sat down and waited to see where her dad would want her to guide him to, because that was her job.

Lots of people got really scared because they thought they were going to die, and they especially thought so when they looked out the windows and saw all these pieces of paper and stuff that was on fire falling down.  But Mr. Hingson knew they had to get out of the building, and they weren't supposed to use the elevators, so he told everybody to come with him, and Roselle guided them through all the smoke and debris to Stairway B.

When they got there, they started going down the 1,463 steps.  There were 19 steps between each floor, and there was a landing where you had to make a turn in the middle of the 19 steps.  Mr. Hingson started smelling something that smelled sort of like kerosene, but then he realized that it was the smell of jet fuel.  This made him wonder if a plane had hit the building.

As they went farther down, it got harder to breathe, and it was hotter, and their eyes were burning.  Sometimes they had to move to the side because someone was bringing a burned person through.  And then when they were down to about the 30th floor, they started meeting fire fighters who were going up the stairs.  Some of them wanted to stop and help Mr. Hingson because he was blind, but he told them he was fine, since he had Roselle to show him the way out of the building.

It only took 20 minutes to get from the 78th floor to the 30th floor, but then they had to go lots slower because the stairs were all wet and slippery from the water sprinklers.  Finally, they got all the way to the lobby, and the whole trip had taken about an hour.  Then they went outside, but they only walked about 100 yards when the other tower started falling down, and there was a lot of loud noise, and people were running and screaming.  So Mr. Hingson and Roselle ran, too.  And there was a big cloud of dust and gravel, and Mr. Hingson could hardly breathe, but he just stuck with Roselle, and she found a doorway where they could sort of get out of the smoke and stuff.

The place where they were turned out to be a subway station, and there was a woman there who couldn't tell where she was going, and she was afraid of falling down the stairs, but Mr. Hingson told her to hold onto his arm, and his dog would guide them both to a safe place, which is exactly what happened.

In 2002, Mr. Hingson and his wife and Roselle moved back to California so that Mr. Hingson could take a job as National Public Affairs Director for Guide Dogs for the Blind.  Roselle and her dad traveled all around the country, being on shows such as Larry King Live, Regis and Kelly, and the CBS Morning Show.  They even got to ride on a float in the 2002 Rose Parade.  And wherever they went, Mr. Hingson talked about trust and teamwork and guide dogs and blindness.  He wanted people to understand that blindness is not a handicap, but that when other people don't understand what blind people are able to do, that is the real handicap.

Roselle had to retire from being a guide dog in 2007.  The reason she had to retire was because she had developed an immune disorder that she probably got from breathing all the bad stuff in the air on 9/11.  Then in June of this year, Roselle got a stomach ulcer that made her very sick, and I am sorry to tell you that she had to be put to sleep.

But just in case you think that Roselle will be forgotten, you can think again, because guess what!  A book about her just got published last month.  It was written by Roselle's dad, Michael Hingson, and a woman named Susy Flory.  The name of it is Thunder Dog:  The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero.  Which is a really long name for a book, if you ask me.  I have not read this book, but a lot of people read it and liked it, which made it go right to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.

Mr. Hingson started a foundation called Roselle's Dream Foundation in honor of his brave guide dog.  And what this group does is it helps blind children and adults get new technology and equipment so that they can work better and experience more of life.

And besides that, Roselle was named a finalist in the 2011 American Humane Association's American Hero Dog Awards.  Mom and I went to the website last night and read about all the heroic dogs, and then we voted for Roselle, which we can do again once every 24 hours.  You can vote for her too (or for another hero dog) by just going here and signing in.

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WOOLLY RHINOS

The woolly rhinoceros is extremely extinct.  You cannot find a live one anywhere, not in Europe or Asia or even in your local zoo.  There are some rhinos in Africa, but they are not woolly, so they are not the kind of rhino I'm going to talk about today.

The hollow teeth look like
they have little faces!

The scientific name for woolly rhinos is Coelodonta antiquitatis.  This translates as "old hollow-tooth," which is kind of a fun nickname for the woolly rhino.  I could not find any explanation about why these animals had hollow teeth.  All I know is that they did.

Woolly rhinos started out about 350,000 years ago.  They mostly lived in the steppes of Eurasia, all the way from Scotland to South Korea.  This was during the Pleistocene Period, so there was lots of snowy and icy weather.  Luckily, the rhinos had a thick, double coat of hair to keep them warm.  Also they had small ears and eyes, and a stocky body.  An adult rhino was about 12 feet long, 6 feet tall, and weighed 2 to 3 tons.  This is bigger than the white rhino, which lives in Africa today.

Woolly rhinos did not live in herds.  They liked to hang out by themselves or maybe with a few other family members.  Nobody knows exactly what they ate, but it was probably grasses and sedges that they got by grazing.  They might have browsed shrubs and short trees, but most scientists think it's more likely that they were grazers and not browsers.

The thing you might notice most about the woolly rhino was that it had two scary-looking horns, which were made of something called keratin.  The bigger horn could be as long as 3 feet.  It was used for scooping snow off the grass, for fighting, and to attract mates.

When people first started finding the bones of woolly rhinos, the only way they knew what the animal looked like was because of some cave paintings in France that dated back about 30,000 years.  Then in 1929, in an oil field in Starunia, Poland, a whole woolly rhino body was found.  It had everything except the hair and the hooves.  You can now see this rhino, who is a female, is in the Academy of Sciences Museum of Natural History in Krakow.

The woolly rhino in the Krakow museum

In the most recent issue of the magazine Science, which just came out on September 2, there is an article about a new woolly rhino in Tibet.  Well, this is not a "new" woolly rhino.  It's actually one that is even older than any woolly rhinos found so far.  This find includes a complete skull, a little bit of the neck, and some of the leg bones.  The name for this rhino is Coelodonta thibetana.  It dates back to the Pliocene Period, 3.6 million years ago, and might mean that woolly rhinos first came from the Himalayas in Tibet.

Back in the days when this Tibetan rhino was first evolving, the climate was warmer, but the Tibetan rhino had a thick, furry coat because it lived high up on the Tibetan Plateau.  Then when the Ice Age came along, the rhinos moved out of the mountains and started living in northern Asia and Europe, where it had also got cold because of the Ice Age.  Woolly rhinos never seem to have crossed the Bering Strait into North America, but my brother Nicky keeps digging in our back yard, and I think he is looking for a fossil bone to show that this theory is wrong.

Anyway, a bunch of big animals such as the woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, and giant sloths all went extinct at about the same time.  This might have been because the humans and the Neanderthals were hunting them.  Or it might have been because of the climate changes at the end of the Ice Age.  Or maybe the animals all caught some disease and died.  Anyway, by 13,000 or 10,000 years ago, the woolly rhino was all gone.  Which is too bad, because I think a dog bed made of nice woolly rhino fur would be the perfect thing to keep me warm this winter!

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BUGS BUNNY

Bugs Bunny is a very famous rabbit who has been in Warner Brothers cartoons starting all the way back in 1938.  The official story about where he came from is that he was born in a warren under Ebbets Field, which is where the Brooklyn Dodgers play.  But actually what happened was that several different cartoon people thought him up and drew his picture, and that's how he was "born."

Back in 1938, there was a short cartoon called Porky's Hare Hunt, and it had a character in it named "Happy Rabbit."  The directors of this cartoon were Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and Cal Dalton.  Mr. Dalton is the one who drew the rabbit.  In this cartoon, Porky Pig is a hunter who is tracking his rabbit prey, and the rabbit is more interested in driving Porky insane than in escaping.  This is pretty much how Bugs Bunny would act.  Also in this cartoon, Happy Rabbit says, "Of course you realize this means war!"

Happy Rabbit was in a couple of other cartoons, and then in 1940, he showed up in A Wild Hare as Bugs Bunny, along with Elmer Fudd.  This was also the first time when Bugs said, "What's up, Doc?"  The name "Bugs" or "Bugsy" was a nickname that was used in those days to mean "crazy" or "loopy."  There were some famous people who were called by this name, like for instance, the gangster Bugsy Siegel.  But nowadays you only hear it in a phrase like "you're bugging me."

Elmer and Bugs in A Wild Hare

Bugs Bunny soon became the number one star of Merrie Melodies.  A man named Robert McKimson redesigned Bugs Bunny a couple of times, and gave him more slanted eyes, longer teeth, and a bigger mouth.

During World War II, Bugs Bunny was really popular because everybody liked his free and easy attitude.  In 1943, he started getting star billing in cartoons, and in 1944, he began starring in the Looney Tunes series.  At the end of the cartoon Super-Rabbit, Bugs wore a Marine Corps dress uniform, and after that, the USMC made him an honorary Marine Master Sergeant.  He was also the official mascot of Kingman Army Airfield in Arizona, and of 530 Squadron of the 380th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force, U.S. Air Force.

After the war, Bugs was in a bunch of cartoon shorts that were shown in movie theaters.  Then he started being in feature films, such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Space Jam.  In 1960, he got his very own TV show, The Bugs Bunny Show.  First it was on in the evening, and then it moved to Saturday morning.  It stayed on TV for 40 years, which is a really long time.

The first voice of Bugs Bunny was Mel Blanc, and he did this job for 49 years, which is also a really long time.  He said the voice was a combination of Bronx and Brooklyn accents.  After Mr. Blanc died in 1989, the other people who have been the voice of Bugs are Jeff Bergman, Greg Burson, Billy West, and Joe Alaskey.  These same men also did the voices for other Looney Tunes characters.

Mel Blanc in 1976

Bugs Bunny is always getting into some kind of feud with another character such as Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Willoughby the Dog, Marvin the Martian, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Tasmanian Devil, Wile E. Coyote, or somebody else.  Usually what happens is that Bugs is just minding his own business, and then another character threatens him or cheats him or does something else that annoys him.  So he says "Of course you realize this means war!" which is a phrase that was first used by Groucho Marx in 1933 in a movie called Duck Soup.  Then Bugs will proceed to outwit the other character because most of them are pretty stupid, except for maybe Daffy Duck.

The other thing that Bugs Bunny says a lot is "What's up, Doc?"  He is usually leaning on a tree and eating a carrot when he says this.  The phrase came from Tex Avery, who directed the first Bugs Bunny short.  Mr. Avery said that the phrase was used a lot in Texas, where he came from, so he didn't think it was anything special.  But audiences really liked it, so Bugs started saying it all the time.

One thing Bugs Bunny likes to do is wear some kind of disguise.  He especially likes to dress up as a female.  The funny thing about his disguises is that they fool his enemies, but the audience can always tell who he is.

Anyway, that is the story of Bugs Bunny, who is probably the most famous rabbit -- or hare -- who never lived.  In 2004, Animal Planet made a list of the 50 Greatest Movie Animals, and Bugs was #3, right after Mickey Mouse and Toto.  And in Channel 4's list of 100 Greatest Cartoons, Bugs Bunny was voted number 10.  Oh, and he also has his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and you can't get much more famous than that!

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Goodbye, Carson......Hello, Jacen!

I am sorry to have to tell you that my little kitten Carson went to the Rainbow Bridge yesterday.  We are all very sad about it, and Mom even cried.  I didn't cry, though, because dogs can't really cry.

When Mom took Carson to the shelter yesterday, she put him on a towel on the counter in the clinic, and he started walking in circles, like he always does.  Dr. Michelle said she had never seen a kitten do anything quite like that before.  She also agreed with Mom that Carson was blind.  Mom told Dr. Michelle that Carson bit her yesterday morning, and it happened while Mom was holding Carson in one hand and trying to get a walnut out of Barry's mouth with the other hand.  And maybe she squished Carson, and that's why he bit her.

Anyway, Dr. Regan, who got bit by Carson last week when she was just trying to pet him, said that kittens didn't usually bite like that.  Mom said she thought anybody who ever adopted Carson would have to worry about getting bit, and Dr. Regan said Mom was right about that.

Dr. Michelle tried to think of a disease that Carson might have that would make him blind and also make him walk in circles, but she couldn't think of one.  Dr. Regan said maybe Carson had rabies.  Then some other people who were there said that if he had rabies, he would already be dead.  But Dr. Regan said that sometimes the symptoms take longer to show up.  Of course, if Carson had rabies, then Mom has rabies, and she will start foaming at the mouth and trying to bite us, and we will have to shoot her, like Travis did with Old Yeller.

After that, Dr. Michelle called a neurologist to see if he had any ideas about Carson, but he was busy, so he was going to call her back.  He didn't call back while Mom was there, so we don't know if he had any ideas or not.  Dr. Michelle said that the safest thing to do was probably to put Carson to sleep.  Mom said she agreed, but it was a sad thing to have to agree to.

So then Mom held Carson all curled up in a little ball in her hands, and he went to sleep for a while, and Mom watched Dr. Regan neuter a very cute airedale mix, and then she watched Dr. Michelle spay a feral cat and also take out one of her eyes because it got ruptured.  Mom had never watched an eyeball surgery before, and she said it was kind of bloody and gross, but interesting.

Then Dr. Michelle gave Carson a couple of shots to make him go really, really deep asleep, and Mom held him while he was going to sleep.  But she did not stay to watch the last shot because by then Carson didn't know if she was there or not.

Carson's body has to be sent someplace where they test for rabies, and the reason for that is because he bit Mom.  It's supposed to take two days to get the results of the rabies test.  Mom has had sort of a sore throat for the last two days, and she thought it was just allergies.  Or that she was getting a cold.  But after Dr. Regan said maybe Carson had rabies, Mom thought she might already be starting to get rabies, too.  So as soon as she got home, she looked on the internet to find out the symptoms of rabies in people, and none of the symptoms were "sore throat."  Also, it turns out that it usually takes 30 to 60 days before you even get any symptoms, especially if you are bit on your hands or feet, which are a long ways from your central nervous system.

But guess what!  When Mom was getting ready to come home from the Humane Society, she told Aunt Tania that she would be glad to foster a kitten again sometime, and Aunt Tania already had one that needed to be fostered, at least for a little while, so Mom brought him home.  His name is Jacen, and he is gray and white.  He is 11 weeks old already, and we don't think he walks in circles.  But mostly all he did last night was sit in his crate and look scared.

First, he sat in his litter box, but then Mom put him in the nice, cushy kitty bed that she made for him, and he liked that pretty well.  Mom says she thinks he will be more lively when he is not so scared.  He was supposed to get neutered this week, but he was "too puny."  That's what it said, right on the card that was on his cage.  He is kind of bony, so I guess that's what they mean by "puny."  Also, he is afraid of people, and Mom is supposed to just love on him a bunch.  And we don't think he bites, so that is a good thing.

When we were sitting around, watching TV last night, Jacen started acting all kittenish and he was playing with the sides of his bed and with his tail.  Mom took him out and held him for a little while, and he purred a whole bunch, which is something that Carson never learned to do.  And during the night, Jacen ate some of his food and he used his litter box, so this morning Mom told him he was an excellent kitten.

Anyway, I'm very happy to have another kitten of my very own because it makes me not think so much about poor little Carson, and I don't have to feel sad all the time.

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