Do you ever wonder why your peeps eat garlic, onions, almonds, and spicy foods but tell you it is deadly — that’s right, deadly — for you to eat? #notmissingit #nottasty #evolution
Kissy Noses and Deeper Thoughts by Sassy
Category: Columnists
This category is for a columns page that shows all the columnists posts.
Introduction to TJ and Bart!
Bart: Hello! We had to introduce ourselves to Anipal Times readers! My name is Bart!
TJ: And my name is TJ! Hewwo!
Bart: A wittle about ourselves. First, me. Because I am more important.
TJ: What?????
Bart: Never mind! I came to Daddy’s home thwee years ago. It was a vewwy happy day!
TJ: Bart likes to eat more than any doggo I know! He even tries to eat my food!
Bart: You snooze, you whoose, TJ!
TJ: I’m the one who does the work here. I have been here eleven yeaws! I bwavely guard the house all of the time!
Bart: TJ is scared of the dark and thunder.
TJ: Hush! At least I’m not smaller than the fwogs around the house like you are, Bart!
Bart: Whatever! We just got together to share our thoughts on serious issues for doggos.
TJ: We will tackle the controversial issues like, um, tail sniffing and stuff like dat!
Bart: What does controversial mean?
TJ: As you can tell, I am the smart one.
Bart: Whatever! Well, dat’s who we are, Anipal Times readers! Good to meet you!
TJ: Dat wight! Now it’s time for doggo naps! See you soon!
Quote: Bob Mortimer on Cats
I can’t remember ever cooking food to impress a woman. The idea’s quite cheesy and sort of makes my skin crawl. But I sometimes make a special effort to impress my cats, with chicken liver or something. It’s tricky to know if a cat’s impressed. They might give me a little look, a glimpse at least. That’s cat ownership for you.
— Bob Mortimer
The Jersey Devil
Imagine if you will…
You are camping with your friends in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. It’s an early fall evening. There’s a chill in the air and the moon is full.
As you sit around the campfire telling ghost stories, there is a sudden thrashing in the blueberry bushes. Something moves quickly toward your campsite. Wait, were those antlers? Is it a deer this late at night?
No, it is not a deer. It is South Jersey’s oldest cryptid, the Jersey Devil himself!
In 1735, decades before the Revolutionary War, Mrs. Leeds had her 13th child. As the boy was born, Mrs. Leeds cursed him. For a time, he seemed like a normal baby. Then one evening Mrs. Leeds entered the nursery to find her baby had grown hooves, wings, and vicious fangs. With a blood-curdling shriek he flew up the chimney and disappeared into the night!
The Jersey Devil has been sighted many times over the centuries, and he is responsible for many strange goings-on. Campers see glowing eyes in the brush. Children go missing, livestock is killed, and banshee-like wails are heard through the pines. He has even been seen on Long Beach Island cavorting with mermaids.
Today there is a little tavern on Leeds Point. The lights of Atlantic City are visible across the bay. And on stormy nights you may hear the Jersey Devil clip-clopping across the tavern roof.
Quote: William S. Burroughs on Cats as Familiars
Cats didn’t start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.
—William S. Burroughs, “The Cat Inside“
Quote: Oleg Gazenko On Laika
Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.
— Russian scientist Oleg Gazenko, 1998, speaking about Laika, the first dog in space.
Bob’s Your Agony Uncle
Hello everyone, and let me introduce myself.
My name is Bob and I am going to be your resident Agony Uncle on Anipal Times from December.
Please come along and support this wonderful publication, the Anipal Times, with lots of fab features, articles, puzzles, and musings.
Hope to be able to help you all soon with things like my human is trying to trick me by breaking my treat in half, or my human made me have a bath after I had just gotten my Au’D’Fox just perfect. You name it, and will can solve these dilemmas together.
Until then
Bob 😊
Lola’s Story
Thursday, the 2nd, started out like any other day since I had moved in with Hoosis after Hoomum became ill.
My breakfast followed my usual walk before I settled into the day. Then something different happened. I noticed that all my possessions were being boxed up. I previously witnessed this during my travels from Hoomum’s to this location.
Could this mean that Mum was better, and I was returning home to her? I certainly hope so. My 11th birthday was 2 days earlier; what a present this would have been.
Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. The day continued as normal, and my possessions just sat there.
A doorbell broke the silence, and to everyone’s surprise, I didn’t bark. I stood and watched as 2 strangers entered. Did they come to bring me home?
Once more, I didn’t bark at the man, which surprised everyone. Instead, I walked over to him and stood beside him, waiting for some fuss.
I always barked at anyone who appeared near the entrance, and then again when the individual proved male. Once they moved into the lounge, I again surprised them by continuing to stay beside him.
After a brief chat, I was again walking. It did not fit into my routine. This escorting individual was odd.
What was going on?
The walk ended unexpectedly with me beside a vehicle near home. The individual remained with me while others entered the building, afterward exiting with everything I owned.
Surely this means that I am going home.
Those I met here appeared, spoke to me, and showered me with attention. I noticed Hoosis had tears in her eyes as she talked and fussed over me. They exchanged my collar for a harness, and I boarded the vehicle’s compartment while they loaded baggage.
As we drove away, I looked out all the windows to keep Hoosis in sight until she disappeared from my sight. I then continued to examine various windows, noting location, until the route straightened, later settling once the view lost interest.
My subconscious stirred me from slumber upon detecting a shift in pace or course, prompting me to sit up, observe, before returning to slumber as the journey’s routine resumed.
Finally, we re-entered developed sectors; it proved crucial to pay attention.
It did not appear familiar; thus, I was not returning home to Mum.
I confirmed my suspicions when we finally stopped on the driveway of a house that wasn’t Mum’s house.
I hopped out of the car, and more strangers greeted me, but it didn’t last long because I climbed back into the car and into the driver’s seat. Someone ushered me into the back seat, and we were underway once again.
A short car ride ensued, and in next to no time we pulled onto another driveway. I didn’t recognise this place either.
I swiftly exited the car and had a good sniff around the plants in the front garden, checking the surroundings, before being led indoors.
My possessions followed, and I realized this was my new life, with my new family in my new home.
Hopefully, this time it will be forever. We shall see.
Quote: Milan Kundera on Dogs and Eden
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring—it was peace.
— Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being“
Quote: Lewis Thomas On Meddling
Is it not in the nature of complex social systems to go wrong, all by themselves, without external cause? Look at overpopulation, look at Calhoun’s famous model, those overcrowded colonies of rats and their malignant social pathology, all due to their own skewed behavior. Not at all, is my answer. All you have to do is find the meddler, in this case Professor Calhoun himself, and the system will put itself right. The trouble with those rats is not the innate tendency of crowded rats to go wrong, but the scientists who took them out of the world at large and put them in too small a box.
— Lewis Thomas, “The Medusa and the Snail“
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