Recently in Pets and Animals Category

Went to the San Diego Zoo Christmas Day after the annual Christmas morning ritual.

Here is a picture I took. Notice how everything is nice and sharp, except for one blurry black and white spot?

That is the new Giant Panda cub (Zhen Zhen) falling out of a tree. I got lucky and caught her picture in mid fall.

Everybody gasped, of course. Then the keeper admonished us to use quiet voices, as this sort of thing happens quite often to pandas while they are learning to climb trees. Zhen Zhen sat there for a moment, then ambled off in search of a place to climb back up.

Here's a picture of that:

November 18, 1992 to January 6, 2007



Thing was a gift to me from my step-mother, but it would be more accurate to say that he gave himself freely. He spent fourteen years, fifty days in the little shell that is no longer part of our lives; of those, he devoted himself to me, and later, my wife and children as they joined us, for fourteen years and three days of that time.



His name was an English translation of Domovoi, the somewhat animistic slavic god of the house, and such was the place he occupied until my wife entered the picture. He accepted his demotion without noticing, except that there were now four hands to accomplish the rituals of worship, petting and filling the food bowl.



The thing that stands out in my memories of Thing was always his energy. Newton's laws were modified for him; A Thing at rest did not tend to remain at rest. That and his utter devotion to his human, and as that human developed other attachments, he added them without hesitation to his pack. I was single at the time, and going through a bad period. I was depressed. This little dog snapped me out of the depression, gave me things to look forward to every day, and got me believing, once again, that maybe I had something to offer those around me. Why else would this wonderful little creature worship the space I occupied?



I credit him with the fact of my marriage to the world's only perfect woman; had he not taught me again how wonderful the world is, I would not have been the person she married.



He always was my dog, almost exclusively. He'd cuddle up to my wife and ask her for attention if she was home alone, but as soon as I got there, he was Daddy's Dog. I called him my wizard's familiar, an appellation with more truth than even I foresaw. A wizard, legend had it, was vulnerable to damage done his familiar, and now that he's gone, there's a Thing shaped hole that I don't think will ever go away. It's not the first such hole, but it is the newest and rawest. I don't presume to tell the universe how it should be run, but if there's anything to this concept of the immortal soul, he will be among those waiting when it's my turn. Faith is that which you believe without any evidence, and I have faith that his is one of the souls mine shall meet again.



In his earlier years, he was a crazed ball-dog. He'd chase a ball as long as I'd throw it for him. When I stopped, he'd chew on it. Dachshunds have very strong jaws; indeed they are half the ancestry of Dobermans (along with Rottweilers). It took me years to find a ball he wouldn't destroy in zero seconds flat. In recent years, he slowed down to where he'd only go after it a few times before he'd hunker down and start with the gnawing. Squeek! Squeek! Squeek! Squeek! You always knew when Thing had his ball. He gave concerts that lasted for hours.



He was a gorgeous little dog, perfectly proportioned. I could always tell how much people knew about dogs from which of mine they noticed first. Mellon caught your eye because of her unusual coloration. Thing would have been a champion show dog if I'd had the time and inclination. He was very happy being just Daddy's Dog, and I enjoyed the time spent playing with him too much to want to waste any of it on unnecessary training. Go outside or on the paper, come when I call you, stop what you are doing when I give the command. That was about all the training I needed him to have. The rest of the time we had was too precious to spend teaching him stuff to impress other people I didn't know.



He was also bright. It took him about three seconds to figure out that if he climbed the stairs behind the couch, he could walk down onto it, and that was only one of his many exploits. He tied much bigger dogs up with their own leash twice that I saw.



The last couple of years, he had become much more sedentary. He lost a lot of his teeth despite my best efforts, and eventually, most of his appetite with them. He also developed a bad heart murmur, to the point where the vet was concerned about sedating him to clean his teeth.



He had always been something of a Tongue Monster, but when the heart murmur prevented him from chasing his ball for us as much as he wanted to, he got to the point where he'd lick as long as you allowed him to. I was concerned that it might be a mineral deficiency, but the vet said not to worry about it. On the other hand, he became, if anything, a more dedicated petting sponge, and he was always willing to chase the ball as much as he could. Little dog, big heart described him perfectly.



A few months ago, the vet saw indication of kidney failure in some blood tests. We put him on a high-protein, low bulk diet to see if we could turn it around or at least keep it at bay, and he perked up a little, but even so his appetite wasn't reliable and he kept losing more weight. A month ago I still had hope that we weren't just fighting a delaying action, but by Christmas I knew he wasn't going to be with us much longer. He wasn't in pain, but he wasn't the active joyful little dog he had always been. Just as devoted, just as appreciative of attention, but the special spark of joyful light in his eyes began to flicker. A few days later, his appetite decreased further and he started bringing his food back up. Yesterday, he brought up everything he tried to eat, and even had trouble keeping water down, and I knew it was time to perform the duty I had agreed to in my heart the day I brought him home. I couldn't make him better; I could only make his misery stop. I spent the night on the couch with him, perhaps selfishly absorbing the last time I could with him. He seemed to appreciate it, cuddling right in, and it seemed to help a little. This morning I called the vet. I held him and cuddled him and petted him and praised him while he left this world. Hopelessly inadequate, but all I could do.



Goodbye, little one. I can only hope that we shall meet again.

Some of my earliest memories are of the San Diego Zoo. I caught my love of animals from my father, and we visited frequently from the time when I was very young. Evidently, somewhere in the family archives is a picture of me riding a Galapagos Tortoise in the Children's Zoo in the very early sixties. I remember feeding many of the animals there back when you were still allowed to, something I'm sorry my girls are likely to miss out on. The elephants would congregate, and back then they kept a fairly large herd of at least a dozen at the zoo, not the three or four that are there now. The Sun Bears loved applas and oranges. I understand why that changed and would not go back to those days, but the memories are special. Indeed, when my father suddenly died four years ago, the zoo was the place where I wanted to go. He, of all people, would have understood why: It was where my strongest, and most of my fondest, memories of him were. Even though the number of exhibits has diminished, the quality has increased. Hilda can sit and watch the Siamangs and Orangutans at Absolutely Apes for as long as we let her, and even though there are occasional misses like Tiger River (the tigers are usually in a location where all you can see are the tips of their ears), their successes have been many. I happily visit anytime I can spare the time.



The same is not true, unfortunately, of the Wild Animal Park. While our membership allows us to visit there just as it does the zoo itself, we don't go very often and it isn't just because of the drive. Now, we are very aware that the important part of what goes on there is CRES and the Veterinary Center, and the tourists who pay the bills are just an afterthought. Nonetheless, while we go once or twice per year, of late we are increasingly disappointed with the Wild Animal Park.



One of the things is the fact that they make it difficult to see the animals. Aside from Condor Ridge and Lion Camp, the place is just not constructed for people to view the animals. I don't want to go down Heart of Africa trail because it all seems just an excuse to get us to the lunch stand at the end of it, and then you've got to slog back up, having seen it already that day. There just aren't that many animal enclosures along it - the Okapi and Gerenuk exhibits are the only reasonably decent ones, and they're near the beginning. Oh, and if you go all the way to the bottom, you can maybe feed the giraffes if you buy an acacia leaf at $2 per.



The latest insult is the truncation of the tram tour. It used to be an hour long, cover about 5 miles, and go basically around all of the exhibits. Unfortunately, about the time you started really getting a chance to observe the happenings, they're off an running for the next stop on the tour. And now they've cut it by about forty percent, lopping off a lot of the most interesting exhibits to me (I like the Goral and Serow, and really used to like the Mountain Goat exhibit before they took the North American ones out and put the others in, I always looked forward to the eurasian waterhole, and others). I understand the trams are getting old. But one suggestion that keeps getting ignored - far less expesive than updating the trams, I might add - is simply a paved pedestrian path with very occasional water fountains and outhouses. I would much prefer to walk the perimeter, old and fat as I am, if it meant I could view the park at my own pace, instead of being swept off when the guide is done saying their eight or nine sentences at a particular spot. Of course, this doesn't sell kid's meals, but we bring our own picnic anyway. And, I suspect, most of the folks would stay with the tram. Indeed, the Kilimanjaro Nature trail is the most deserted area of the park (You don't know what you're missing; not only the lion and tiger exhibits among others, but a lot of native stuff too). That's fine; they are welcome to do the tourist thing their way. I want to have the ability to do it mine, and take the time to show the girls the way the animals interact and have the leisure to watch a sequence play out rather than being swept off with the tram. Indeed, I don't see why they can't use the tram route for most of it. If there's another way to the Black Rhinos or the Bonobos, both of which would be easy walks for most folks, I haven't discovered it.



Now, our favorite time of year to go is the last couple weeks of the yearly Park at Dark. The park normally closes sufficiently before dusk as to miss the animal activity that naturally occurs then. But for about two months a year, it stays open later. Mind you, they're trying to show off the this and that back at the Village (and sell kids meals), and the back trails get closed off at dusk, but still it gives you an excellent opportunity to watch the animals throw off the torpor of mid-day for some activity at the end of afternoon and beginning of evening. Which last rant was, I suppose, an excuse to post some links to pictures I took yesterday.



Crane and Chicks

gorilla

Chilean Flamingo turning its egg

dik-dik. They have these right inside Nairobi Village. Some people were saying "baby deer!" "Nope, that's as big as they get!" They're probably half again the size of the Chevrotain, or Mouse Deer, but still small.

Blue Macaw, one of probably two dozen macaws the zoo keeps. The daily flight back to their night quarters at the zoo is impressive, but this one was just monopolizing the food tray



A pretty little seed eater in Hidden Jungle whose species name I cannot remember.Two Andean Cock-Of The Rock impressively colored birds. From how the population has grown, I gather the problem is how to keep them from breeding.

A gibbon swinging towards us. Series of three photos one two three (notice how the resolution improves. It's a fair size cage)

Three pictures of the girls doing one of the occasionally obligatory tourist things, Lorikeet Landing. one, two, and three. Hilda was nervous, but mostly got over it. Little Ramona wanted nothing to do with them.



From the tram, White Tiger. Assuming it's the same one they've had, she was seized from smugglers about 12 years ago. They tried her as an animal ambassador briefly, but it didn't work out. She is gorgeous, though! Slightly different view.

Probably the best view of a male asian elephant I've ever seen. A couple of females dusting themselves. female african elephant on the other side of the tracks.

Obligatory false pr0n bait: Look at that rack! (of antlers.)

Prezwalski's Horses

Ibex, one of their real breeding program successes.

Rhinos at the goodie truck. For about $75, you can go on these photo caravans to meet the animals up close and personal, feed them, and take pictures to your heart's content. The animals (all herbivores) swarm around. Maybe when the girls are older, we'll do it. A slightly different view. They got into a small tiff over some slight or other.

Some Armenian Sheep

Minions of Sauron, er, oryx. Joking aside, another successful breeding program. They're getting ready to send some back into the wild.

This buck was looking for the ladies

California Mule Deer. Outside the fence, of course. Visits to the Wild Animal Park aren't complete if you haven't seen at least half a dozen California Freeloaders.

A couple of RINOs rhinos expressing their true feelings about extremists. A couple more at the watering hole.

Rhino Mom and her 800 pound baby. just the baby. Yes, those are deer in the backgrounds of both pictures, I don't remember the species.



Off the tram now, taking a sunset stroll up to Condor Ridge. the old lion enclosure, and a panorama taken right after. You can see the lion beneath the wire human holder and above the rock, if you look closely.

A Harris Hawk, native to the area but in captivity. Just a good picture at sunset.

Porcupine in a tree. I don't know why, but I always think that's interesting. Maybe because I don't think of porcupines as being big tree climbers.

The condors themselves were done for the day, off on the other side of the rocks, but the Bighorn Sheep were quite active. This one was trying to climb a chainlink fence, obviously patched and reinforced, for some tree greenery.



That was all the ones worth sharing. Once it gets dark, you're mostly restricted to Nairobi Village, which they fill with tourist stuff. We come to watch animals, and we left when that was essentially impossible.

The last couple of weeks, I've been doing a Saturday post having to do with animals. No pictures this week, seeing as the stars are guppies. Aka rainbow piranha. Aka the model after which mice and rabbits are weakly patterned.



Now with guppies, the problem is how to keep them from breeding in captivity. Well, due to the fact that they will eat their own young, this hadn't been an issue for the last several months. If they were egg-layers, like the catfish, instead of live-bearers, there would never be a guppy that survived to hatch. We had a few juveniles in the tank, which weren't big enough to eat the babies on their own, but were small enough to go into the plants and flush them into the adults waiting jaws. Imagine if your parents and older siblings were cooperating in hunting you when you were an infant. Result: 100 percent consumption over a period of three months or so, and now the juveniles were fully grown.



Well, we have pretty guppies. We want them to have a few babies that survive. So I dropped two more plants into the tank sometime in mid December. I just did the first partial water change since then. Flushed at least twenty fodder and survivor sized babies out into the open (Baby guppies go from eyes to fodder to survivors, then juveniles). That is a rate that's just too high, large tank or not. Given the size of the tank, we're fine if we don't get any more, but we want a full spread of ages so that we never have a catastrophic die off without replacements. So I took one of the plants out and moved the remaining ones further apart, and resigned myself to taking a few to the one store in town that will accept them when they're mature enough (for resale as fancies, not feeders). They're pretty fish, but there is a limit to how many a tank will support.

Spent the day at the Wild Animal Park, an adjunct of the San Diego Zoo about thirty miles north. Our membership covers admission to both. New Years Eve we expected it to be less crowded than usual, and rain was forecast, so even better. It was wonderful, and just enough people that nobody minded talking to anybody else. Nice and cool and most of the animals loved it.



(If it bursts anyone's bubble to learn that it rain in San Diego, sorry. Once every three years whether we need it or not.)



This first one is what my dogs were bred to hunt, so it's a good thing they don't admit wiener dogs to the park. A nine month old badger. His mom was killed by a car up in Ventura County, and the zoo has been training him to put on these "animal encounters".



Red Tailed Hawks, one of whom was flying.



Bald Eagle.



California Condors. Wasn't too long ago these were extinct in the wild. They were down to nine total at one point. It was only about twenty years ago they were sucessfully bred in captivity - Sisquoc (the first hatched) made the news worldwide. This is where they bred most of what has been released (The Los Angeles Zoo also has a smaller program). Now they have a couple hundred. It looks like my girls are likely to grow up in a California where these can be seen not only in zoos, but in the wild.



There's a trail that goes round most of the park, but not that many folks walk it. It's probably two to three miles, and there's a lot of steep places, but you can see stuff there that people who won't walk can't. Got some pictures of the lion in the older lion enclosure. The white tiger was hiding today. But this is the first of two panoramic views I took from about halfway down the trail towards lion camp, just to give people who may not have visited an idea of how big the park is. The two people in the lower right are my wife and older daughter. The second photo was taken from exactly the same spot, turned about 120 degrees. Nor can you see the whole park from anywhere except airplanes; it's about 1800 acres (3 square miles).



This is one of several pictures I took at Lion Camp, an exhibit that's only a year or so old. Well laid out; they learned from Tiger River at the Zoo. I went around the corner and took another from a different vantage (no glass in the way, just a moat and wire) but decided not to upload it, and the exhibit as a whole is probably close to an acre.



Getting back to the more travelled areas of the park, this one is a pair of vultures, in Heart of Africa, and is very close, only cropped a little at the sides. Here's a family of gerenuk, and they were scampering about and playing. Despite coming from a hotter part of Africa, the relative cold didn't bother them but the keepers did bring them in. This little baby deer was only a week old, and I just happened to catch a view of him through a hole in the hedge, as he was doing his best to hide behind a rock from the normal viewing area. Finally, the public was being allowed to feed this giraffe, which explains why he was so interested in humans.



Another animal encounter, this one with an owl. I can't remember the type.



The nursery is a favorite stop at the Park, especially when the baby animals are getting fed. Here are a pair of Springboks. And here is a Transvaal Lion cub whose mother had a very difficult birth and had to be delivered caesarian. The posted literature strongly hinted that he's being trained as an animal ambassador, as they don't get canine companions for most animals. And yes, he did lick his keeper full in the face.



The final set of pictures I'm going to share are from the tram ride around the park. Always got to go on the WGASA Bush Line at some point, because the kids get tired of walking. So take my advice and wait until they do get tired, because the line is usually long and they get rambunctious otherwise. There were signs saying we had to be in line by three, and at 3:30 it looked like there was nobody left when our train pulled out, so we thought we were on the last one for the year, but one more pulled around the corner as we were walking to the car, so we weren't.



(There's a story, well known in San Diego, about how the WGASA part of the name came about. They held a contest among zoo employees, and one submitted it. It sounded african, so it won. And after it was publicized and opened, somebody asked him what it meant, and he informed them "Who Gives A S***, Anyway?")



One thing you encounter in the less travelled areas of the park are California Freeloaders. Birds and mammals who are native to the area, and come in to eat the Zoo's plants or swim in the Zoo's ponds. The Zoo actually encourages it a little. I understand we missed Canadian Geese by only a few days. But here are mule deer, a mother and her fawn. These were smallish for Mule deer, I've seen them much bigger in the Sierra Nevada. Next up is a male Golden Eagle, half of one of only fourteen known breeding pairs in California. They live on Zoo property, and the Zoo actually makes certain their nest is undisturbed, but they are not themselves zoo property.



Somali Wild Asses, the one front and center is only about a month old.



A female Serow, from Japan. The opposite enclosure had Chinese Goral, which are closely related, but no pictures good enough.



Three Ibex in the exhibit that used to house mountain goats. The guide said they couldn't catch these three, so they had to be careful as they were doing some work introductory to putting some different animals in. Looking at the exhibit, I want to know how they caught the rest - not to mention all of the sixty-odd mountain goats that used to be in there.



Still from the tram, here are some Rhinos! Rhinos evidently love the rain. The wetter it was, the more they played. Mom and two kids. The older is three years, the younger is about eleven months. Rhinos along the fence. Rhinos at the waterhole. Rhinos scuffling. Two of Rhinos playing, and no, the earth wasn't shaking.



Finally, from near the end of the ride, a Black Rhino mom and her young one. These are half the size of the white rhinos in previous photos.



UPDATE: HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! (You can tell my wife and I are real party animals... not!) Off to bed.

Took the family to the zoo on the 24th. A true example of why I love San Diego. Christmas Eve, and it's Sunny and warm, temperatures in low to mid seventies, even turned on the air conditioner in the car on the freeway. Marine layer moved in around 3, so it cooled off a few more degrees, but we were warm enough from walking by that time. Being Christmas eve, of course not many folks there, and perfect weather for a lot of the animals, many of whom come from colder climes. Since we're members, all it costs is gas money.



Took the camera, got some decent photos, and thought I'd experiment to see how well frappr works.



Malayan Tapir baby was nursing. Still has baby stripes! This is one of the worse enclosures, had to zoom and crop to get the photo you see.



Jabba, the daddy hippo, was getting an enrichment hosing. This is a little bit cropped, but otherwise unretouched.



Panda mother and baby. This is Bai Yun with her third cub. This was the one crowded exhibit there was. Su Lin was just climbing up and settling as we arrived, but too quick to get a good picture. It really is a better exhibit for watching than taking pictures. This one is slightly zoomed and cropped.



Daddy Panda. Gao Gao, in the neighboring enclosure, was quite active. This is a little bit cropped. Got a picture of him stretching up a tree, but there was too much foliage in the way. The two year old, Mei Sheng, was off exhibit. He's probably going back to China quite soon.



This black Jaguar has been one of our favorites for a long time. He's usually active, and usually in the front of his cage. The photo is exactly as taken, no zoom, no crop. My wife got some others that will probably be better once we hit them with snapfish.



Rhino crash! Don't let anyone tell you these guys can't move fast. He plowed through that headbutting target faster than I could bring the camera to bear. This is a little zoomed and cropped (You do not want to stand too close behind a rhino! I saw four people get a full frontal spray a few years ago, and I've seen several other close calls)



Orangutan up in tree substitute. I (IMHO wisely) waited until the one in the hammock had stopped urinating. You don't want to know.



Orangutan up close and personal. I cropped just a little bit, but there's enough foreground left to see exactly how close she was.



Pygmy Hippos! This is in the new Heart of the Zoo, and is a wonderful exhibit. Ran out of camera power, but they were playing around, and the one in the water actually did a barrel roll a couple minutes later.

Why am I blogging at 12:30 Saturday morning, you ask? Just got in from the emergency vet. Thing, one of our (my) two dachshunds, gave us a bit of a scare. Threw up and didn't eat this morning. Stool a little loose. Didn't even eat a dog treat. When I got home, he was running a fever and didn't want to move. This is definitely not Thing, for whom Newton's laws have been modified (A Thing at rest normally does not remain at rest). Gave him the leftover rice, which normally is excellent for calming stomach, except he didn't touch it, even after I put him down right by it. As anyone who's ever had a dog knows, they are normally four-legged self-propelled apetites. Heart rate fast, breathing fast, a couple degrees of fever. More worrisome because he's recently developed a heart murmur. Ramona finally told me to take him to the emergency vet. I took him and spent five hours waiting for our turn, then test results. First hypothesis at this point is still he managed to eat something he shouldn't have. Really hope that's what it is because second hypothesis is cancer. Not totally out of the blue because he's almost thirteen and we had a mass removed from his back last month. Spent several hours holding him and petting him while waiting for vets and techs to do this and that. He was very quiet, calm, subdued - especially for Thing. Decided it was best to leave him there for the night, and finally came home. Really hoping he's OK. I will be a wreck when I lose this dog, guaranteed. He got me through a very rough time in my life. Mellon (the female) helped, but he did the lion's share, just by being Thing. He's a major part of the reason why I wasn't too far gone in cynicism when I met my wife, and why I have a family now. Just having the two of them to come home to, and watching his antics, has always been enough to cheer anybody up. How anybody can abuse, abandon, or ignore their dogs amazes me - and is a sure sign of someone who is not worth anyone's friendship. Sure hope he's alright.