Category Archives: Animals
Gerbil Beauty Pageants: Better Than Other Trump Organization-Affiliated Pageants?
The Associated Press reports that the American Gerbil’s Society recently held its annual pageant in Massachusetts to determine “top gerbil.”
3 Pageants We’d Less Like To Judge
1. New York City’s Top Rat. Our reluctance to judge such a competition has less to do with fear of cat-sized rats, and more to do with fear that our top choice for co-judge, a.k.a. “America’s Top Gerbil” may be inadvertently eaten by one of the rat contestants.
2. Australia’s Top Stinger. While possibly less dangerous than “Australia’s Top Biter,” we don’t want to have to disappoint a pageant full of Man Of War jellyfish that they failed the swimsuit part of the completion. Also if you really want to convince judges at a pageant that you are sincere about world peace, you might want to change your name to something more pacifist than “Man Of War.”
3. Maui’s Top Fruit Fly. This pageant would be over before it started. By the time the fruit flies’ owners filled in our 50 page applications, and boarded a ten+ hour flight to Hawaii, many fruit flies would be middle-aged to retired. And it their average 24 hour lifespans didn’t do them in, then the Department of Agriculture would probably deny them admission to the state, making for a weak slate of contestants.
It’s May, Which, Of Course Means, It’s Time To Ask Yourself: “Does My Dog Need A Tattoo?”
DNAinfo.com reports that New Yorkers everywhere are getting trendy tattoos for their dogs, often on the hindquarters, a.k.a. “tramp stamp” position.
Don’t worry, the tattoos are temporary, and from what we gather reading the article, also safe, unless your dog is generally stupid and tries to eat the tattoo and you got it somewhere that makes tattoos out of non-dog friendly ingredients, like rat poison.
So don’t get your dog a tattoo from a rat in a New York City subway.
3 Tattoos We Don’t Want To See On Dogs
1. Anything in Asian characters when the dog’s owner can’t read any Asian characters. Your dog especially will not be happy with a tattoo calling it a “power piglet,” which, incidentally, a real person who couldn’t read Asian characters unknowingly had inked on their body. Since your dog can’t read Asian characters either, chances are, best case scenario, it will feel the same way when others who can read Kanji mock it walking down the street. Worst case scenario: you have a super-genius dog who will be able to read it, and enjoy Sunday drives by the pork-rendering plant far less.
2. IKEA product assembly instructions. As we frequently report, these are not fun to read, especially when you are trying to get your dog to sit still while assembling a cat bathtub to remove the temporary tattoo your cat likes less than the bath you plan on giving it.
3. IKEA meat product labels. As we also frequently write, these aren’t always reportedly accurate. Come, on, how can you confuse “elk” with “pork?” (Tattoo artists who permanently put words like “power piglet” on human bodies need not answer this one.)
Pig In China Born With Two Heads – Doesn’t Nature Know 2007 Was “The Year Of The Pig” On The Chinese Calendar?
ABC News reports that a pig in China was recently born with two heads.
3 Things We Might Expect Pig Head #1 To Say To Pig Head #2
1. “No, we’re not going shopping for bunk beds at IKEA. First, bunk beds are suboptimal to prevent insomnia given our shared neck situation. Second, haven’t you been reading the news? They found pork in IKEA elk lasagna in Europe! And yes, that does sound like a recipe for disaster on so many levels!”
2. “This is not the future that the Iranian scientist predicted using his time machine for China! You don’t understand that current events reference either? You really need to check out Google News China or something. That’s not a thing? Oh.”
3. “You know what they say, two heads are better than one, unless they’re pork heads in your elk lasagna, and you don’t eat pork! What? You only speak Mandarin? I knew something was lost in translation!”
Are Americans Going To Start Finding Seahorse Meat In Their Fishburgers?
Looks like the horse DNA recently found in some beef in Europe isn’t the only surprise animal substitute you may find in your next meal!
CBC reports that a recent study indicates that 33% of fish sold in U.S. grocery stores, restaurants, and sushi venues is mislabeled.
From the article:
“For instance, pangasius is often sold as grouper, sole and cod; tilapia as red snapper; and Atlantic farmed salmon as wild or king salmon.”
Three Questions That Arise From This Story
1. If you go out for seafood with two of your friends, one of your friends will probably get what they paid for! Unless it’s at a sushi restaurant, where if you all order meals sampling six raw items, chances are everybody loses! Does this mean all you can eat-sushi may not be a good idea?
2. What are the odds that if your fish seems a bit chewy that it’s really “mislabeled” tires or other trash floating in the Texas-sized mass of garbage in the Pacific Ocean?
3. What are the odds that your seafood dish is really made of correct labels saying “100% Pangasius?”
Sometimes You Think You Bought A Poodle, But Really Bought A Rodent On Steroids…
The Daily Mail reports that a man in Argentina was surprised to find out that the two “two poodles” he bought at a bazaar were actually ferrets on steroids.
3 Worse Things You Could Buy When You Think You Are Buying Toy Poodles
1. Real poodles. It’s not your fault you didn’t know “toy” poodles weren’t actually toys, but it will be your fault when they start trashing your living room if your kid who you bought them for doesn’t feed them and take them out for walks.
2. Major League Baseball players on steroids. Not only will your child be disappointed for not getting a poodle, they will be more disappointed to learn that their hero is a steroid-using cheater!
3. Ferrets that are not on steroids. How are these pets ever gonna win the Ferret World Series? The good news is they still have a shot of getting into the Ferret Hall of Fame.
Great News, New Yorkers, Your Pets May Be In Better Shape Than You!
Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt Challenge asks:
“Do you have animals in your life? If yes, what do they mean to you? If no, why have you opted not to?“
In other news, Scott from Toronto found this latest scoop from Pet Product News International:
- 58.3% of cats in America are overweight or obese; and
- 52.5% of dogs in America are overweight or obese.
And according to Bloomberg, who presumably has the best source of information from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
- 58% of adult New Yorkers are overweight or obese; and
- 40% of New Yorker children in public schools are overweight or obese.
Daily Prompt: 3 Reasons To Have Animals In Your Life
1. Carrying a Chihuahua in your purse can now not only be considered fashionable: it can be considered exercise, since you’re probably carrying extra weight compared to vintage 2005 Paris Hilton purse-Chihuahuas. And it is even more fashionable because next to the likely overweight or obese purse-pooch, you will look thinner!
2. Your kids are clearly likely to be in better shape than the dog, even though they promised to walk the dog when you bought it as a puppy at the pet store, since they, like most kids, stopped taking care of the pet the first time the alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. and they had to mop up pet urine from your laundry room. Why is this a reason to have an animal in your life? Because it will serve as a constant reminder that children never follow through on their promises to do work in exchange for expensive commitments, so remember this next time they ask you to buy them junior NASCAR lessons. You’ll save much more money when you remember to say “no” on more expensive commitment requests like child-sized NASCAR vehicles, track-rental time, and the-ever-illusive child racecar driver car insurance!
3. It appears the fat cats on Wall Street are just as overweight as their fat cats, with both at 58%. Which proves the point that people often make that pet-owners start to look like their pets. So since you look so much like your cat, send it to work all day to sit at a keyboard and trade complex derivatives you don’t understand, while you sit at home, curled up in a ball, eating lasagna just like Garfield! With your cat wearing a firmly-pressed Gucci suit, nobody will notice it’s not you!
Don’t Mess With Texas, Unless You Want A Company To Examine The DNA of Your Dog’s Poop!
WFAA-TV of Dallas-Fort Worth reports that local apartment building landlords are demanding samples of dog DNA from canine-owning tenants, to help catch pooper-scooper offenders on building property.
A company called “PooPrints” determines which dog is responsible for unscooped poop and the landlord apparently then issues a fine to the dog’s owner.
According to the CEO of PooPrints, his poo-DNA-dog-identifying system is 99.9% accurate, which sounds about as pure as Ivory Soap, except for the poop component.
From the news story:
“It’s accurate. It’s 99.9 percent accurate,” he [the CEO of PooPrints] said. “And it’s just a swab to get the DNA. We don’t want to clone Fido. Trust me on this. We do not want to clone your pet. We just want you to be responsible.”
3 Questions We Have For PooPrints
1. Really? That’s the company name? If you have a receptionist, do they get paid extra for answering the phone with the corporate name “PooPrints?”
2. You seem pretty sensitive about this pet-cloning issue… and keep repeating that you don’t want to clone pets. Hey, we don’t want to clean up after our pets, but we do it anyway. Is this the same sort of deal? How do we know dog-poop DNA companies don’t have a conspiracy to clone dogs and then have the clones poop around apartment buildings to frame innocent-cloned, law-abiding dogs?
3. If a dog eats at Taco Bells or IKEA stores in parts of Europe that have recalled beef containing horse DNA, who gets the fine: the dog-owner, a cattle-rancher, or an 18th century horse-trader?
Rodney Dangerfield Of Turtles Found In Box After 30 Years, Almost Thrown Out
The Daily Mail reports that a family in Brazil was cleaning out a storage room in their Rio Home when they discovered a box with an old record player inside… which they took to the curb to throw away… leading to a neighbor asking if they were throwing away the turtle inside the box…
Turns out the turtle was the family pet which disappeared 30 years ago, and possible survived eating termites in the wooden floors.
This is the Rodney Dangerfield of turtles! 30 years locked in a storage room, and then about to be thrown in the trash.
3 Other Ways A Turtle Can’t Get No Respect, No Respect
1. Being trapped in a box featuring records of the band the Turtles for 30 years, more than a decade past the band’s prime, making it unlikely anyone would stumble upon this obvious clue.
2. 30 years of eating nothing but termites while trapped in a storage room, and then upon escape a termite says “Hey, stupid, if you didn’t eat us, we could have eaten a hole through the walls, leading you to freedom in time to see the Thriller video debut.”
3. “I can’t get no respect. I won a race against a hare. Too bad the prize was the human race, who left me at the finish line in a storage room for 30 years.”
Dog Discovers $68,000 Worth Of Whale Vomit, Which May Be Used In Your Fave Perfume!
Newser reports that a British man and his dog uncovered $68,000 worth of whale vomit on a beach.
According to the article, whale vomit is a key ingredient in perfumes and spices, so if your date last night went poorly with your whale vomit perfume, and candle-lit dinner featuring spaghetti with sun-dried tomatoes and whale-vomit spices, perhaps you may want to buy the cheaper non-whale-vomit perfumes and spices in the future.
3 Things That May Cause A Whale To Vomit
1. Nude scenes and related dialog in HBO hit series Girls.
2. The giant mass of garbage floating around the Pacific Ocean, that is the size of Texas. The whale isn’t vomiting from consuming the trash, but rather the irony that someone has messed with something the size of Texas.
3. The sadness of paying $11.99 for 30 shrimp at Red Lobster and then watching someone else get paid $68,000 for its own vomit.
