My favorite duck song is

"Nice Weather for Ducks" by Lemon Jelly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8yx4k4tzqE

The "bicycle Mounted Running Guard for Dogs" doesn't look as good as a product, the Springer ( http://www.dog-training.com/springer.htm ,) already on the market for people who want to safely bike with their dogs.

And the "Dog Droppings Catching Apparatus" (or something very much like it) is on the market. I saw it reviewed on a dog blog. It's a really dumb idea since you still have get the harness and poop bag off the dog and then clean the poop out of the bag. From the photos, it hinders the dog's movements (not surprisingly he walked like a toddler with a loaded diaper) and, lastly, it's so stupid looking even the dog looked embarrassed.

No, it's a Bobcat, not a Lynx - two different species. Bobcats look like house cats on steroids, have spots and a banded tail. Lynx don't resemble house cats as they have proportionately longer legs & huge feet. They are overall gray with faint spots and a non-banded tail with a black tip. That there is a Bobcat.

Horses do not have to be trained to trot, they do it naturally. Endurance horses trot the vast majority of the 100 mile races as it's a very efficient gait.

Horses have 4 natural gaits: the walk, trot, canter and gallop. Foals will often trot within a couple days of birth.

IMHO horses should be considered an endurance animal rather than a sprint animal. When horses were the only means of transportation they were often expected to move all day (often at a trot) and were able to do it with little trouble.

Quote: "Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon."

Not disagreeing with the idea of humans as long distance runners but this statement does not support the theory.

Like humans, horses cool by sweating, not by panting. And they can easily do distance as well.

Endurance riding is an equestrian sport that involves very long distances. The Arabian horse breed is noted for being ideally suited for it. From a quick google search I see that the 2008 winning 100 endurance race time was 9:53 and the US record for the 100 mile ultra marathon is 12:27. Not only is the horse faster than the human for 100, it's carrying a rider as well.

While this graphic is very interesting, I wish there was some info included which would explain some of the categories in detail ("expenses, other transportation" and "cash contributions"). What's interesting to me is that while our family is surprisingly similar in terms of demographics to the average "US Consumer Unit" (gross income, family size (I'm counting my son as 1/2), # of earners (I was recently laid off), even age); we don't line up at all with the average expenditures. I don't see anything about child care, savings, hobbies (in our case, pets), or charity (this might be "cash contributions" but I'm not sure).

I'm another ISU grad ('85). Personally I wished they just tried harder to make the Cyclone the mascot. Sure it would be difficult to do costumes & such but at least a cyclone is a powerful, scary, overwhelming force of nature (IMHO, a lot better than the Ohio State Buckeyes - a nut - ooo scary). The cardinal - while a very nice bird - just doesn't compare. Sure you can give it a fierce expression, bared teeth and put it in farmer boots but it's still a pretty songbird.

A few years ago, a cyclone touched down on central campus in the middle of the day. Many trees went down and IIRC a couple of backpacks were lifted off students and whisked away (providing an excellent excuse for not turning in homework). Having our mascot visit in "living form" is not so great actually.

Go 'clones

I've seen this photo before and I just hate it. While the position of the old Akita shown is a little like a dog scooting its butt (often due to anal sacs) everything in this photo points instead to a dog with probable neurological problems in his hind quarters. Sitting like that would not be comfortable for a dog of that size and the only dogs I've ever seen do it old dogs with severe hind leg weakness or paralysis.

Sorry for being a bummer but this photo makes me wince.

Over in England, a swede is a root vegetable - I think either a rutabaga or a turnip.

I have my doubts about this article. The photos are taken at low angles, with a wide angle lens & with the owner/handlers behind Chili the steer. Chili IS clearly a steer (neutered bull) yet the article refers to him as a bull/bullock/heifer/cow which points towards sloppy writing and I suspect a bit of hyperbole.

Steers can get huge (taller than bulls) and Holsteins are one of the taller cow breeds. Most steers we ever see are beef steer and the beef breeds tend to be short & stout. I recall seeing a team of Holstein oxen (oxen are adult steers trained to work) and they were huge. So I'm not doubting Chili is probably the tallest Holstein steer than most people have seen but mature Holstein steers just are not very common.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this image before and the farmer had spread food in a way that spelled out "Spring."

Even if I hadn't seen this image before, as someone who's actually herded sheep with my collies, I see a some things that make this photo inconsistent with the caption. The biggest is that there are no sheepdogs. This is a darn complex series of shapes and to get anything close to it would require a lot of dogs and a bunch of handlers. It's hard enough to get sheep to stay in one roundish bunch let alone forming a series of letters. Heck to form the "P" would require a dog in the middle of the loop to keep it open. Finally, when herding dogs are holding sheep to a definite spot, the sheep are alert and looking at the sheepdog. The sheep in the photo are relaxed not focused on anything but something on the ground at their feet.

I think it's cute they have a collie in the photo even though it's an uncommon version - a blue merle (splotchy gray-black with tan & white) smooth (short-haired variety) collie.

I have trained and worked with dogs for years and IMHO this experiment doesn't prove much. IMHO, dogs focus more on the owner's emotional/physiological state than in what position they are in. If I "fell down" in a field like in the experiment, my collies would wonder what kind of bizarre thing I'm up to now but they wouldn't be that upset. OTOH, I have fallen for real while trail running (tripped on a tree root or slipped in a muddy spot) - I usually yell in surprise, I hit the ground hard and my heart is racing. In those cases, my collies have acted very concerned until I tell them I'm OK and I get back up. I think it's very difficult for a person to fake an emergency with their dog.

And last year my smooth collie Lucy actually found her inner Lassie and helped in a emergency.

I was at a dog training facility out in the country side. At one point after the class, we were all outside chatting with our dogs off-leash when we realized that one dog (Bree) was missing. We all thought Bree must have spotted a deer and took off. So we put our dogs in our cars/vans and fanned out in the fields searching and calling for Bree. After an hour with no luck, Bree's owner was getting frantic and, on a whim, I decided to take Lucy with me for another try at searching the nearby fields. After a half hour I was getting extremely annoyed with Lucy - from my perspective she was being most unhelpful. Every time I called Bree's name, Lucy would pull back and try to head back to the training facility. This was very odd behavior for Lucy but I thought she was upset because of the general level of anxiety among the searchers.

Tracking trainers (people who work with dogs/handler teams trailing scent) say you should "trust your dog" (it knows better than you where the scent/object/person is). So, on a whim and because I was getting really ticked off dragging 45 lb of reluctant collie, I let Lucy lead the way. She lead me directly to one of the training building doors, which I opened to find Bree.

(We had trained outside that day and hadn't used the building which is why no-one had thought to check it. One person, however had gone in to grab a couple of poop-bag and Bree had slipped inside unnoticed.)

CJ