Archive for the ‘ferrets’ Tag
I love weird. Always have and always will. That being said here are a few samples of unusual facts you may not have heard before. Like I always say, THE WEIRDER THE BETTER.
- Killer whales occasionally will eat a deer that’s not paying attention while getting a drink.
- Approximately 80% of all individual animals on the earth are nematodes.
- For every human on the earth, there are approximately 1,000,000 ants.
- Bananas are technically berries. Strawberries and raspberries are not.
- The average weight of a cumulus cloud is 1.1 million pounds.
- Monogamous animals include beavers, wolves, and swans.
- Algae and plankton produce more oxygen than trees.
- It would take over one million mosquitos to completely drain a human being of blood.
- The average 200-pound human carries between two and six pounds of bacteria.
- Female koala bears have two vaginas.
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A Fav
Buzz Aldrin claims to be the first man to pee on the moon.
I consider myself to be an animal lover. I have a long history of dealing with dogs and an even longer history with cats. Fortunately, or unfortunately people in this country categorize people as being either a cat person or a dog person for some reason. Over the years I’ve had every kind of pet you can think of from snakes, mice, birds, squirrels, hamsters, dogs and ferrets. My favorite pets after my cats were the ferrets and my best years as a pet owner were when I had one cat and two ferrets. There was never a dull moment in the house, and they kept me smiling with their endless play times. Today’s posts are some interesting facts about our pets.
- Your average cat uses up to 100 different vocalizations. Dogs, on the other hand, use a mere 10.
- Multiple studies have shown dogs are more emotionally intelligent than cats; they are more trainable, have larger brains, and are far more social. Sorry, cat people, if it makes you feel any better, other studies have shown that cat owners are smarter than people who own dogs.
- Cats can be trained in a manner of minutes simply by placing a litter box in the house. No actual training is required – it’s instinct that drives cats to use litter boxes.
- The average canine has 42 teeth, compared to only 30 teeth for domestic cats.
- Dog memory is more “associative” instead of true memory. And a dog’s short-term memory lasts for about 20 seconds.
- A canine nose has more than four times as many scent receptors as the average cat and more than 14 times as many as the human nose.
- In both cats and dogs sweat glands are present only in the paws. To cool down, dogs pant. The thin ears of cats expose blood to ambient room temperatures and help them to lose excess body heat.
- So-called “seizure-alert dogs are able to detect changes in their owner’s verbal cues and body language and warn them of things ahead of time. This skill is not taught – it’s innate in a very small number of canines.
- Most people are aware that chocolate is toxic to dogs. Fortunately for cats they cannot taste sweetness, so the odds are lower of cats gorging on your half-eaten chocolate bar.
- Studies show that dogs respond with less aggression, and cats display positive reciprocation when interacting with women rather than men.
BOW WOW & MEOW
This is my week for celebrating. There aren’t many days during the year that I choose to remember fondly but this is one of them. Today is my cat Stormy’s fourteenth birthday. Don’t worry, this posting will not be some crazy-ass cat lovers gushy and sentimental rant. I’m not some over-the-top PETA idiot who thinks animals are more important than people but I do have a soft spot for certain ones.
I’m what most people would consider a cat person. Over the years I’ve had a number of dogs, a snake, a ferret or two, hamsters, and a few cats. For some reason I like having a friend who keeps his or her opinions to themselves, who is that perfect listener we all seem to be looking for, and is somewhat self-sufficient. A friend whose who offers a fair amount of unconditional love and will listen to whatever nonsense I decide to spew. If he doesn’t like it he just walks away without snide remarks or any rolling of the eyes.
Of all of my pets two stand out from the others. They’re both cats and both lived to be more than fourteen years old. I started out as a dog person due to my father’s decision to raise and sell hunting beagles. We always had dogs and puppies running around the yard and I shoveled my fair share of excrement as part of my chores. I really do prefer shoveling it from a litter box instead of scraping it up from different areas of the house.
Once I returned from the Army and started my working life, dogs became more responsibility than I could handle. My jobs required that I move around from apartment to apartment, state to state, and having a dog would have been impossible. Dogs for me are much like small children who never grow up and remain needy as long as they live.
Stormy came into my life for a number of reasons. I found him in a local shelter the week after 9/11. One of my ferrets had just died and her bonded mate was grieving terribly. I brought Stormy home and that cat and ferret eventually became inseparable. Years later when the second ferret passed on Stormy was inconsolable and slept on top of the empty ferret cage for months. We’ve been together every since, thirteen years and counting.
He’s makes friends easily, had his own Twitter page for a while, and even had a children’s book written about him. Now that he’s reached middle age he’s slowed down some but still the best mouser I’ve ever seen. Just last night he was on patrol all night because he saw one of those annoying field mice that decided to take shelter in his house. It’s only a matter of time before that stupid mouse makes a fatal misstep and I’ll find his corpse in the kitchen next to Stormy’s food bowl some morning. That’s where he leaves his trophies so I can see and appreciate them.
He’s also attached himself to my better-half and slowly over time has become her official bed buddy. So a big Happy Birthday to Stormy and hopefully he’ll have many more years with us. I might even spring for a can of Fancy Feast for dinner tonight, after all it is a special occasion.
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