My Cute Pet Pics!

Amazing Animal Facts: Part 2

Cats in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have a very high probability of having six toes.

A cat's jaws can not move sideways.

Pigs, walruses and light-colored horses can be sunburned.

Armadillos can be house broken.

Armadillos have four babies at a time, always all the same sex. They are perfect quadruplets, the fertilized cell split into quarters, resulting in four identical armadillos.

Armadillos get an average of 18.5 hours of sleep per day.

Armadillos can walk underwater. Fun animal facts.

Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

Police dogs are trained to react to commands in a foreign language; commonly German but more recently Hungarian or some other Slavic tongue.

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

Reindeer like to eat bananas.

The Pug dog is thought to have gotten it's name from looking like the pug monkey.

The newest dog breed is the Bull Boxer, first bred in the United states in 1990-91.

The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.

A bear has 42 teeth.

A cat has four rows of whiskers.

When angered, the ears of Tazmanian devils turn a pinkish-red.

Porcupines float in water.

Giraffes have no vocal cords.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

Mice, whales, elephants, giraffes and man all have seven neck vertebra.

Goat's eyes have rectangular pupils.

Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.

Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.

Hamsters love to eat crickets.

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Camel's milk does not curdle.

There are only two animals with blue tongues, the Black Bear and the Chow dog.

A 1,200-pound horse eats about seven times it's own weight each year.

A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't.

A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

A Holstein's spots are like a fingerprint or snowflake. No two cows have exactly the same pattern of spots.

A polecat is not a cat. It is a nocturnal European weasel.

A zebra is white with black stripes.

All pet hamsters are descended from a single female wild golden hamster found with a litter of 12 young in Syria in 1930.

An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away, and warns off intruders or reunites scattered members of the pride.

Beaver teeth are so sharp that Native Americans once used them as knife blades.

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

Catnip can affect lions and tigers as well as house cats. It excites them because it contains a chemical that resembles an excretion of the dominant female's urine.

Cheetahs make a chirping sound that is much like a bird's chirp or a dog's yelp. The sound is so an intense, it can be heard a mile away.

Despite its reputation for being finicky, the average cat consumes about 127,750 calories a year, nearly 28 times its own weight in food and the same amount again in liquids. In case you were wondering, cats cannot survive on a vegetarian diet.

Developed in Egypt about 5,000 years ago, the greyhound breed was known before the ninth century in England, where it was bred by aristocrats to hunt such small game as hares.

Dolphins sleep at night just below the surface of the water. They frequently rise to the surface for air.

During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

Elephant tusks grow throughout an elephant's life and can weigh more than 200 pounds. Among Asian elephants, only the males have tusks. Both sexes of African elephants have tusks.

Wow... what another amazing collection of animal facts!

Huge thanks go out to our dear member Corrina, for another awesome submission.

How many of these amazing facts, did any of you know?

Amazing Animal Facts:  Part 1

Amazing Animal Facts: Part 1

When a dolphin is sick or injured, its cries of distress summon immediate aid from other dolphins, who try to support it to the surface so that it can breathe.

The Albatross has a wing span of up to 14 feet and only needs to land once every couple of years to breed.  They can travel hundreds of thousands of miles each flight.

Certain Chinese and American alligators can survive the winter by freezing their heads in ice, leaving their nose out to breath for months on end.

Sea Otters use so much energy that they need to eat as much as one-third of their weight each day.

The biggest bird in the world is the ostrich, which can grow up to nine feet tall.

According to hospital figures, dogs bite an average of 1 million Americans a year.

The sailfish, the swordfish and the Maco shark have all been clocked at swimming over 50mph.

Montana mountain goats will butt heads so hard their hooves fall off.

It takes around 10 dump-truck loads of wood to make a proper funeral pyre for a full-size elephant.

The notion that cats and dogs are natural enemies (suggested by the phrase,"fighting like cats and dogs") is overstated, if not simply false.  Generally speaking, cats and dogs get along better than cats and cats or dogs and dogs.

The last animal in the dictionary is the Zyzzyva, a tropical weevil.

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.

There's a "meow" in the middle of "homeowner."

According to a survey by the American Animal Hospital Association, 53 percent of pet owners vacation or travel with their pets.

The Dalmatian breed of dog originates from the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia.

Surveys show that 62 percent of dog owners admit that their dog owns a sweater, winter-coat or raincoat.

Cats prefer to eat their food at 86º F, which is why they don't immediately gulp down the half-eaten can of food from the refrigerator.

In 1987, cats overtook dogs as the number one pet in America.

A frightened dog puts it's tail between it's legs because it covers the scent glands in the anal area.  Since the anal glands carry personal scents that identify individual dogs, the tail-between the-legs behavior is the canine equivalent of insecure humans hiding their faces.

Cat's urine glows under a black light.

The Antpitta avis canis Ridgley is a bird that looks like a stuffed duck on stilts and barks like a dog.  The bird was discovered by ornithologist Robert S. Ridgley in the Andes in Ecuador in June 1998.  Thirty of these long-legged, black-and-white barking birds were found.  It apparently had gone undetected because it lives in remote parts and, of course, doesn't sing.  The size of a duck, it is one of the largest birds discovered in the last 50 years.

Honeybees may collect pollen from as many as 500 flowers, all of the same species - in a single trip.

During the 1982 Falklands war British pilots reported that penguins toppled over backward while gazing at the planes.  British navy pilots were then banned from flying low over penguin colonies.  It led to a UK government study of the penguin-toppling effect.  For seventeen days two helicopters were flown from varying directions and heights over the penguins.  The result?  Penguins do not topple over while gazing at aeroplanes.

The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car. 

Huge thanks go out to Corrina, for sending in another amazing submission!

If I Didn't Have Pets...........

If I Didn't Have  Pets..........

I  could walk around the yard barefoot in  safety.

My house could be carpeted  instead of tiled and laminated.

All  flat surfaces, clothing, furniture, and cars would  be free of hair.

When the doorbell  rings, it wouldn't sound like a  kennel.

When  the doorbell rings, I could get to the door without wading  through fuzzy bodies who beat me  there.

I could sit on the couch and my  bed the way I wanted, without  taking into consideration how much space several fur kids would need to get  comfortable.

I  would have money...and no guilt to go on a real  vacation.

I would not be on a  first-name basis with 6 veterinarians, as  I put their yet unborn grand kids through  college.

The  most used words in my vocabulary would not be: out, sit, down, come, no, stay, and leave him/her/it ALONE.

My  house would not be cordoned off into zones with  baby gates or  barriers.

My  house would not look like a day care center, toys everywhere.

My  pockets would not contain things like poop bags, treats  and an extra  leash.

I  would no longer have to Spell the words B-A-L-L,  F-R-I-S-B-E-  E, W-A-L-K, T-R-E-A-T, B-I-K-E,
G-O, R-I-D-E

I  would not have as many leaves INSIDE my house as  outside.

I  would not look strangely at people who think having  ONE dog/cat ties them down too  much.

I'd look forward to spring and  the rainy season instead  of dreading 'mud'  season.

I  would not have to answer the question 'Why do you  have so many animals?'  from people who will never have the joy in their  lives of knowing  they are loved unconditionally by someone as close to an angel as they will ever get.

HOW  EMPTY MY LIFE WOULD  BE!


Thanks go out to JD'S family for this beautiful post and all these cute pet pictures!

Touching Story About Lucky The Dog

Mary and her husband Jim had a dog  named 'Lucky.' Lucky was a real
character. Whenever Mary and Jim had company come for a weekend visit
they would warn their friends to not leave their luggage open because
Lucky would help himself to whatever struck his fancy. Inevitably,
someone would forget and something would come up missing.

Mary or Jim would go to Lucky's toy box in the basement and there the
treasure would be, amid all of Lucky's other favorite toys. Lucky always
stashed his finds in his toy box and he was very particular that his toys
stay in the  box.

It happened that Mary found out she had  breast cancer. Something told her
she was going to die of this disease....in fact, she was just sure it
was fatal.

She scheduled the double mastectomy, fear riding her shoulders. The night
before she was to go to the hospital she cuddled with Lucky. A  thought
struck her....what would happen to Lucky? Although the  three-year-old
dog liked Jim, he was Mary's dog through and through. If I die, Lucky
will be abandoned, Mary thought. He won't understand that I didn't want
to leave him.  The thought made her sadder than thinking of her own
death.

The  double mastectomy was harder on Mary than her doctors had anticipated
and Mary was hospitalized for over two weeks. Jim took Lucky for his 
evening walk faithfully, but the little dog just drooped, whining and 
miserable.

Finally the day came for Mary to leave the hospital. When she arrived
home, Mary was so exhausted she couldn't even make it up the steps to her
bedroom.  Jim made his wife comfortable on the couch and left her to nap. 
Lucky stood watching Mary but he didn't come to her when she called.  It
made Mary sad but sleep soon overcame her and she dozed.

When Mary woke for a second she couldn't understand what was wrong.  She
couldn't move her head and her body felt heavy and hot. But panic soon
gave way to laughter when Mary realized the problem. She was covered,
literally blanketed, with every treasure Lucky owned!  While she had
slept, the sorrowing dog had made trip after trip to the basement
bringing his beloved mistress all his favorite things in life.  He had
covered her with his love.

Mary forgot about dying.  Instead she and Lucky began living again, 
walking further and further together every day. It's  been 12 years now
and Mary is still cancer-free.  Lucky? He still  steals treasures and
stashes them in his toy box but Mary remains his  greatest treasure.

Remember . . .  live every day to the fullest. Each minute is a blessing
from God. And  never forget . .. . the people who make a difference in our
lives are not  the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the
most awards.  They are the ones that care for us.

If you see someone without a smile today give them one of yours!  Live
simply. Love seriously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Thank you so much Jenny for sending in this beautiful story.

Stray Dogs Prayer

Dear God, please send me somebody who'll care!
I'm tired of running, I'm sick with despair.
My body is aching, it's so racked with pain,
and dear God I pray, as I run in the rain.
That someone will love me and give me a home,
a warm cozy bed and a big juicy bone.

My last owner tied me all day in the yard
Sometimes with no water, and god that was hard.
So I chewed my leash, and God I ran away.
To rummage in garbage and live as a stray.
But now God, I'm tired and hungry and cold,
and I'm so afraid that I'll never grow old.

They've chased me with sticks and hit me with stones,
while I run the streets just looking for bones! I'm not really bad, God, please help if you can, or I have become just a "Victim of Man!" I'm wormy dear God and I'm ridden with fleas, and all that I want is an Owner to please!

If you find one for me God, I'll try to be good,
and I won't chew their shoes, and I'll do as I should. I'll love them, protect them and try to obey....
when they tell me to sit, to lie down or to stay! I don't think I'll make it too long on my own,
cause I'm getting so weak and I'm so all alone.

Each night as I sleep in the bushes I cry,
cause I'm so afraid God, that I'm gonna die.
And I've got so much love and devotion to give,
that I should be given a new chance to Live!
So dear God, please answer my prayer,
and send me someone who will REALLY care..

That is, dear God, if YOU'RE REALLY there

Thank you so very much for sending us this beautiful poem Amber.  It had us deeply sobbing just thinking about all the strays in the world, that are in desperate need of a home.  May God Bless all the strays in the world and find each one a loving home.

Dogs in Heaven?

An old man and his dog were walking down this dirt road with fences on both sides, they came to a gate in the fence and looked in, it was nice grassy, woody areas, just what a 'hunting' dog and man would like, but, it had a sign saying 'no trespassing' so they walked on.  They came to a beautiful gate with a person in white robes standing there.  "Welcome to Heaven" he said.  The old man was happy and started in with his dog following him. The gatekeeper stopped him.  "Dogs aren't allowed, I'm sorry but he can't come with you."

"What kind of Heaven won't allow dogs?  If he can't come in, then I will stay out with him. He's been my faithful companion all his life, I can't desert him now."

"Suit yourself, but I have to warn you, the Devil's on this road and he'll try to sweet talk you into his area, he'll promise you anything, but the dog can't go there either.  If you won't leave the dog, you'll spend Eternity on this road."
So the old man and dog went on.  They came to a rundown fence with a gap in it, no gate, just a hole. Another old man was inside.  Excuse me Sir, my dog and I are getting mighty tired, mind if we come in and sit in the shade for awhile?"

"Of course, there's some cold water under that tree over there.  Make yourselves comfortable"

"You're sure my dog can come in?  The man down the road said dogs weren't allowed anywhere."

"Would you come in if you had to leave the dog?"

"No sir, that's why I didn't go to Heaven, he said the dog couldn't come in.  We'll be spending Eternity on this road, and a glass of cold water and some shade would be mighty fine right about now.  But, I won't come in if my buddy here can't come too, and that's final."

The man smiled a big smile and said "Welcome to Heaven."

"You mean this is Heaven?  Dogs ARE allowed?  How come that fellow down the road said they weren't?"

"That was the Devil and he gets all the people who are willing to give up a life long companion for a comfortable place to stay.  They soon find out their mistake, but then it's too late.  The dogs come here, the fickle people stay there.  GOD wouldn't allow dogs to be banned from Heaven.  After all, HE created them to be man's companions in life, why would he separate them in death?"

Thank you so very much for the beautiful submission Susan.?

Lost Souls Poem

I see little souls wearing fur
souls who bark and
souls who purr born
unwanted and unloved -
I see all this and more above
I watch them suffer
I see them cry
I see them lost
I watch them die
I see unwanted thousands born
and when they die
nobody mourns
These little souls wearing fur
(Some who bark and some who purr) are castaways who - unlike me -
will never know love or security
A few short months they starve and roam
Or caged in shelters - nobody takes home
They're special too (furballs of pleasure)
filled with love and each one, a treasure
My pain and suffering came to an end
so don't cry for me, my person, my friend
But think of the living - those souls with fur
(some who bark and some who purr)
And though our bond can't be broken apart
make room for another in your home and your heart

Thank you so much again Sharyn for another beautiful poem.  Your submissions are always so very touching and dear to our hearts.