Puppy Saga - the diagnosis

It's late, and we're just back from the emergency vet with Roxie and her three surviving puppies. It's all a long story, so I figured I'd blog it while I'm staying up to check on their well-being hourly-ish.

It was really hot today, and the spot Roxie had picked for her pups turns out to have not been sufficient to keep them cool. They were clearly not well when we got home from work, and so a trip to the vet was needed. Roxie was great about letting us put a leash on her and collect her puppies for the ride to SW Vet Specialists.

The vet said that all the puppies were hyperthermic and dehydrated, but one of them was in worse shape than the other two. The two good shape puppies are pups 2 (the white one John is holding in the photos) & 3 (the surviving brown and white one). They needed subcutaneous fluids and some glucose, and to have the dirt and crud cleared out of their little airways - but they were/are feisty and plump.

Pup 4, the little white one who shows up in the
photos in the Kodak Easyshare Album I posted as a small white lump hanging out in the back, with his head in Roxie's belly, was in pretty serious distress. His temp was 105.4 or something, and he had to go in the oxygen tent. He's not nursing, and it's not clear if he may have had brain damage from the hyperthermia. We can only wait and see. He's also a lot smaller than the other two.

By the way, all three are boys. We don't have names for them yet - but names will have to come soon.

Roxie seems to be fit, and all pups were released into our care at about 9pm tonight.

The Answers

Diane has posted the correct answers to the sparrow naming quiz:

A = Chirpy McMutington
B = Sitty McStandington
C = Sleepy McWakington

Excellent sparrow naming, DKO!

A naming convention for sparrows, etc: X-ie Mc-Y-ington

So, the other day at lunch John and I figured out the solution to the age-old problem of how to develop naming conventions for sparrows, doves, grackles and other creatures who don't have obvious color-morph differences to go on. One has to develop names based purely on behaviors, and stock names such as 'Hoppy' and 'Tweety' just don't seem to do the trick.

The solution is the X-ie Mc-Y-ington name schema! Take X to be any uninflected verb representing the creature's behavior (i.e. 'walk', 'stare', 'fly', 'land') and Y to be a different (preferably opposing) verb, and you've got a great name for whatever creature it is that you're visiting with at the time. For example:

Standy McFlyington
Pecky McGulpington
Swoopy McLandington

Now, let's have an exercise. You should use this naming convention to name sparrows A, B & C from the photo. Answers will be given in a subsequent post.

Of course, this naming convention is to some extent derivative of one of our favorite nicknames ever - one given to the main character in one of the latest Mel Gibson flicks by that genius movie reviewer who writes for the Tucson Weekly. That nickname? Drippy McBloodspurt. Our convention has innovated from that, but we know where our roots are, and wish to acknowledge them.

Ruffian and Rags to Riches

I felt so sad when I learned that ABC/ESPN was going to do a TV movie on Ruffian, to be broadcast the day after the Belmont Stakes. Ruffian was such a brilliant champion, but her story is so horribly sad. And it was just too soon after Barbaro - whose breakdown and (way subsequent) death is still very fresh and painful. Which was why they planned the Ruffian movie for this year, I'm sure. They were intending to allude to the Barbaro story, and make hay (as it were) from the comparison. Well, the universe stomped that idea like a bug when on Saturday the winner of the Belmont Stakes was...a filly! For the first time in a century, a girl won this longest of the triple crown races.

Her name is Rags to Riches. If you saw the race, you know that she demonstrated not only tremendous talent and speed, but also incredible courage and heart. She was nose to nose with Curlin (also an awesome horsie) almost the whole way down the stretch, they were trading the lead with each stride, and she never gave up. She never even looked at him (although he seemed to be giving her the eye - and who can blame him? She's a BEAUTY!).

R2R does not match Ruffian in terms of career wins, and there have been other great fillies in the interim. And R2R's Belmont Stakes time of 2:28 and change leaves Secretariat's record safely intact, though her closing furlong was screamingly fast. As, of course, was Curlin's - who had three weeks previous tied for the official record time in winning the Preakness (Secretariat of course holds the *actual* record for that race, but due to a timer error, his *official* time was several seconds off his actual time).

Ruffian didn't win the Belmont stakes because she didn't run in it. She wasn't entered in any of the triple crown races, but was undefeated in 10 starts as a 2 and 3 year old. It was her 11th race, a match race against Foolish Pleasure, that resulted in her injury and death. Before the Belmont, R2R had run only 5 times, with four wins and one 4th place (the latter in her very first start). That's a pretty good record, but time will tell whether or not she'll be able to build a winning streak to match Ruffian's.

Not many fillies have run in the Triple Crown races. During my lifetime only 2 others (Genuine Risk and Winning Colors) have won (both won the Kentucky Derby). So R2R finds herself in rare company. Had Ruffian been allowed to run in the TC, perhaps she'd have been in that group as well.

It was a thrill to see a Belmont stakes in which nobody got hurt, everyone ran an excellent race, and history got made by a red filly with a beautiful white blaze. The commentators said that she's a terror in the stable - she likes to bite and kick, and is generally ill-mannered. I say - you go, R2R! You're incredible! And I hope that if there's a place horsies go when they die, Ruffian is looking down from that place and giving someone a nip or a kick in solidarity.

Glarey McBoldacre

Today at lunch, we were joined by Glarey McBoldacre, who wanted to help us devour our food. Glarey turns out to have been a female Great Tailed Grackle. I found this lovely portrait of a fGTG on the web, the photographer is Dave Furseth, and he has many other lovely bird photos at www.davesbirds.com. Anyway, Glarey got a few treats, and moved on. She was followed only a few moments later by Hoppy McTweetipie, a European sparrow, who also wanted some lovely fries.
We love Glarey and Hoppy!

(One of) DKO's picks

Since DKO has shown an interest in C.P. West as a possible pick, I thought I would provide a photo showing more of his cutitude. He looks very sweet - and potentially quite swift, also!

Belmont Stakes

Congratulations, Rags to Riches! First filly to win the Belmont in a century!

The Belmont Stakes will be held Saturday, June 9. Coverage will be on ABC, live, 5-7pm Eastern Time (but what does that mean for us? I *think* 1-3pm, but I'm never sure about this). No final word yet, of course, on the field. It will include some subset of the Derby and Preakness contenders, plus perhaps some additional horsies. I'll keep my eyes open for a final listing so that we can review any new entries before the race.

Preakness Stakes

(Update: Congratulations, Curlin! Winner of the Preakness stakes, in a time that ties the official record for the race. Also, congratulations to Street Sense, who ran a brave race and never gave up!)

Some subset of the horses who ran in the Kentucky Derby also ran in the Preakness. I'm not going to tell you which, however. This is because that would give you a clue as to the Derby winner (the winner of course ran in the Preakness, but not everyone else did). Also, I can't link you to each of these horsie's full page in the official Preakness site, because it has a banner header now telling who won. So, I'll try to give the relevant info here, and link you to a picture rather than an informative page.

In addition to that subset, here are the horsies who ran in the Preakness but NOT the Derby:

• Post Position 1: Mint Slewlep; odds = 30-1; Jockey = Allan Garcia; Trainer = W.R. Bailes; Outstanding characteristic = Best Name to Have Run in the Derby, Too Bad He Didn't. Also, Grandson of Seattle Slew, The Only Undefeated Triple Crown Winner In History.


• Post Position 2: Xchanger; odds = 15-1; Jockey = Ramon Dominguez; Trainer = Mark Shuman; Outstanding characteristic = Very Pretty Grey Horsie With Lovely Lighter Grey Tail, Has Northern Dancer, Mr. Prospector and Spectacular Bid As Grandpas or Great Grandpas.


• Post Position 5: King of the Roxy; odds = 12-1; Jockey = Garrett Gomez; Trainer = Todd Pletcher; Outstanding characteristic = Grandson of Bold Forbes. Say His Owners, "He stands 16 hands 1 inch, has a ton of scope, correct front limbs and a hip wide enough to act as your picnic table for the Fourth of July."


• Post Position 6: Flying First Class; odds = 20-1; Jockey = Mark Guidry; Trainer = D. Wayne Lukas; Outstanding characteristic = Very Pretty Bay Horsie Who Likes to Run Real Fast The Whole Race No Matter What His Jockey Says (note: the Preakness is the shortest of the Triple Crown races). He's Related to Secretariat and Nasrullah, If Distantly.


• Post Position 9: C.P. West; odds = 20-1; Jockey = Edgar Prado; Trainer = Nick Zito; Outstanding characteristic = Grandson of Dynaformer, Who Was Barbaro's Pappa, Ridden by Barbaro's Jockey.

Kentucky Derby 2007 - The contenders

(UPDATE: Now that we've seen all the races, I can reveal the winner of the Kentucky Derby. Congratulations, Street Sense!)

This year's kentucky derby had a field of 20 adorable horsies. Each horse's name is linked to his little web page in the official Kentucky Derby site where there is lots of info about him (this year they were all colts), including photos. But beware! If you navigate off of the linked pages, you may accidentally learn too much about the outcome of the race!

• Post Position 1: Sedgefield: Odds = 50:1.


• Post Position 2: Curlin: Odds = 7:2.


• Post Position 3: Zanjero: Odds = 30:1.


• Post Position 4: Storm in May: Odds = 30:1.


• Post Position 5: Imawildandcrazyguy: Odds = 50:1.


• Post Position 6: Cowtown Cat: Odds = 20:1.


• Post Position 7: Street Sense: Odds = 4:1.


• Post Position 8: Hard Spun: Odds = 15:1.


• Post Position 9: Liquidity: Odds = 30:1.


• Post Position 10: Teuflesberg: Odds = 30:1.


• Post Position 11: Bwana Bull: Odds = 50:1.


• Post Position 12: No Biz Like Show Biz: Odds = 8:1.


• Post Position 13: Sam P.: Odds = 20:1.


• Post Position 14: Scat Daddy: Odds = 20:1.


• Post Position 15: Tiago: Odds = 15:1.


• Post Position 16: Circular Quay: Odds = 8:1.


• Post Position 17: Stormello: Odds = 30:1.


• Post Position 18: Any Given Saturday: Odds = 12:1.


• Post Position 19: Dominican: Odds = 20:1.


• Post Position 20: Great Hunter: Odds = 15:1.

Barbaro, Rest In Peace

I haven't posted for a while, but today I got my first ever comment on a post - (thanks, Yo) - and it was about Barbaro, and how dangerous horse racing is. It's not long until this year's Kentucky Derby, and I wonder how many of us are dreading it a little bit. I've read a bit about the new track surface that's being developed - I hope it's safer, but Yo's right that it'll never be completely safe. Horsie legs are just fragile, and they're also completely obligatory for horse survival.

I know I'll have Barbaro (and Ruffian, and the others) in my thoughts this Spring, and all the ones that follow it. I hope all of this year's Triple Crown (and Breeder's Cup, and all the other races) contenders run safely.

He was such a beautiful boy! But nobody should think that we loved him more than any of the other amazing equine atheletes we see each Spring.

Pigeons may not know art, but they know what they like.

A study by Watanabe, Sakamoto and Wakita (1995) found that pigeons could be reliably trained to differentiate paintings by Monet from those by Picasso (even paintings they had never seen before). Some interesting facts about this:

1. If the paintings were turned upside-down, pigeons were not as good at identifying Monets - but inversion did not cause problems in the identification of Picassos (duh).


2. College students were trained at a similar task (but with Van Gogh and Chagall paintings), using the same training methods, were about as good as the pigeons.

Pigeon Heroes

I've just learned, via this BBC radio show, that more pigeons (32) than any other animal have been awarded the Dickin Medal for heroism. This medal is meant to be equivalent to the Victoria Cross. It has also been won by a slightly smaller number of dogs, a few horses, and one cat.

Gustav the pigeon is seen receiving his award here.

Lions of Florence

One of the most excellent parts of visiting Italy was seeing all the great lion statues that are distributed around the sites at Rome, Florence and Venice. Of course, the art is generally amazing, and may even be enough to renew one's faith in the capacity of humans to be great. But that's for another post - what I've been thinking about this morning is the lions, specifically. For example, this is a picture of a lion at the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. He was created by an artist who's not really paid that much attention to - Flaminio Vaca, and he's a copy of a Roman lion (perhaps the one who sits on the other site of the little loggia). But he's stunning!

And he's sitting across the square from a copy of Donatello's Marzocco, the heraldic lion of Florence. Also beautiful, but in a sadder, sweeter, way. The original Marzocco is in the Barghello museum nearby. Wikipedia has a description of these in which the Vaca lion is mistakenly labeled as Donatello's. Clearly, it is not.

Italian pigeons (Venice)

The Venetian pigeons in the Piazza San Marco are especially lovely. Here I am with Il Scacchiera ('checkers'), who was a very congenial companion.

Italian pigeons (names thereof)

Well, it's been quite a while since my last post - and in the meanwhile I've had a lovely trip to Italy in which I saw many, many beautiful items. Including, Italian pigeons. About whom I've learned that they seem to conform nicely to the naming conventions I've outlined here (perhaps with simple translations, such as "Il Pantalone" and "Il Blu"). For example, this bird - Il Pantalone - was sitting on a ledge on the Santa Maria della Fiore in Florence. Isn't he lovely?

Emails to Barbaro

So, Barbaro is continuing to recover from his injury, in the care of the University of Pennsylvania's Vet school. Who, very appropriately, are raking in the $$$ in donations based on their excellent care of him. His updates are easily accessible on the web, and they've established a little app through which people can send Barbaro get-well emails.

Of course I have sent my messages to Barbaro, and I've been checking his message board (all the messages sent in by everyone else) regularly. I expected that my messages would be mixed in with millions of others, all from 12 year old girls. Because, well, who else would send a horse an email message? Right?

Wrong! So, I'm 42 years old, and it turns out I'm one of the youngsters on the message board. Here's a little demographic breakdown of the messages that were visible yesterday. There were 78 messages, all had been sent that day or one day previous, that included the sender's name and age.

Overall, the average age of a sender was 48 years.
Only 7 of the senders were younger than 20.
The oldest of the senders was 77, the youngest was 8.
64 of the 78 senders were women. This is the only part of the deal that I thought was totally predictable. Average age of a female sender = 48, average age of a male sender = 46.

Really, really, weird. Maybe little 12 year old girls aren't going through that horsey stage anymore? Or maybe nobody under 40 watches the triple crown races? I don't know. I would bet you that at least 90% of those posting messages to Barbaro were watching when Ruffian (undefeated filly) broke her leg in the match race against Foolish Pleasure (Kentucky Derby winning colt) back in the 70s (remember battle of the sexes matches?). Ruffian had to be put down - and I recently learned from the UPenn vet site that this is what happened to Ruffian.

She underwent a successful surgery to repair the leg she broke in the race. However, when she was coming out of anesthesia, she begain to flail about (as apparently horses often do) and ended up re-breaking that leg and another. Which is why now they float horses in a pool when they're coming out of anesthesia - they can flail and flail, and they won't re-injure themselves. Barbaro profited directly from Ruffian's experience - and here's the proof!

Pigeon Naming Conventions 2

In addition to the color-phase-based naming conventions provided below, a number of names are available for use in addressing or pointing out pigeons in one's environment that are related to the pigeon's behavior, attitude, or special markings. Some of the more useful of these shall be described here.

The name "Pants" should be used for a pigeon whose markings are a light blue-grey on his or her underparts, and which therefore give the impression that the bird is wearing some sort of light-colored trousers. Most often, Pants is of the blue-bar or solid color type - but in principle any bird with a lighter underside may be addressed as Pants.

Birds of the Cap'n variety, should they have a darker patch of feathers on the top of their heads, which patch is shaped as a triangle, may be called "Napoleon". There may only be one such bird on earth - but he is a very handsome Napoleon indeed.

The names "Greasy", "Sticky" or "Gummy" may be used for birds who have an oily-feathered appearance. This happens most frequently in environments in which the pigeons are stressed and unhappy, and so such birds should be addressed with more than just the usual amount of empathy and kindness.

Many birds in urban environments suffer injuries or deformities to their feet and legs - but these problems don't seem to affect their viability or overall health and well-being. These birds may be addressed (warmly) as "Gimpy", "Limpy", "Lumpy", or "Stumpy", depending on the nature of their problem. Birds who have injuries or deformities which seem to be endangering their health should be rescued and properly tended to rather than merely named.

All pigeons bob their heads as they walk - but a pigeon with a particularly salient bobbing motion may be called "Bobby" or "Prancey". Pigeons who seem to enjoy the twirling-high-stepping-pigeon-dancing type walking may be called "Dancey" or "Swirley".

Finally, pigeons of any type who display a greater-than-average acumen for graceful flight may be referred to as "L'il Lindbergh". Those who fly extremely rapidly and sometimes land near enough to others so as to displace them from their perches should be called "Maverick". Birds who seem to greatly enjoy flying, whilst sometimes being a bit awkward at it (especially in terms of take-offs and landings), and who often limit themselves to short flights at low altitudes, should be called "Orville" or "Wilbur". Birds who show up with spectacular feats of aeronautic prowess, but who appear to be completely lost while on the ground should be called "Amelia".

You will notice, as you watch pigeons in flight, that there are a great many more Li'l Lindbergh and Maverick type birds than befit any of the other aeronautical names.

Pigeons Dream

Another reason to believe pigeons are smart.

In the early 1970's (Tyver and Allison, 1972, A Polygraphic and Behavioral Study of Sleep in the Pigeon. Experimental Neurology, 35, 138-153), evidence was found to show that pigeons, like humans and other mammals, have 'paradoxical sleep' (read: "REM sleep") cycles. Pigeon sleep is apparently similar in nature to guinea pig sleep - pigeons are light sleepers, and easily roused (a common trait amongst prey animals).

So, what do pigeons dream? What do guinea pigs dream, for that matter? I don't know - but it seems to me that if you dream you have a mental life of some sort. Which has something to do with being smart. Don't you think?

Pigeons think in logarithms

Pigeons are smart. If you disbelieve, here's one thing to check out: news from New Scientist online about pigeons' categorization of segments of time. Their behavior 'conforms neatly' to the logarithmic model (which may also characterize some kinds of human thought).

Pigeon Naming Practice 1

For practice in using the pigeon naming conventions, you may wish to name the pigeons in this photo. Or, for a slightly greater challenge, try this one. Note that proper naming of the birds in this picture may require additional tools beyond those provided in the previous post.
(Correct answers: picture 1, left-to-right: Cap'n, Cloudy, and Patches. Picture 2, left-to-right: Pants, Sarge, Cap'n and Rusty.)