The chemistry is palpable...they are desperate to become friends!!

* Fantastic photo by KO!

* Via BuzzFeed!

* Thanks to my hubby for knowing I can never be sent too many cute animal pics.

So sad and scary.

He spent his life helping animals and then he gets killed by an animal - cruel, cruel, fate. Makes me think of Born Free.

I'm out in California right now and I overheard someone say that they felt bad saying it but they were looking forward to renting Jaws.

Humans are complicated.

* Thanks again to Chelsea for the link!

* Thanks to Chelsea for the link!

This is horrific. Why is it not surprising that China is the offender? No need to answer.

* Thanks to my brother for the link

If I didn't have a hubby who's allergic to cats I would have adopted George yesterday. I met this cat a few months ago and instantly fell in love. He is a big cat with an even bigger personality! He loves being with people even more than just being his sexy self. If you're someone who prefers a cat you don't see much, George isn't for you. If not, I encourage you to meet George! He needs a home by mid-May as his owners are leaving the country or he goes to the ASPCA. Please spread the word about this awesome cat. He is BFF potential!

A thrilling trio!
so painfully cute to watch,
nose grease smudge on glass.

Shortly after, Bodhi's tail snapped in half but fortunately cat's tails grow back...

Thanks to my brother (who just landed in Tokyo) for this!

"Conan started to pose in prayer like us whenever he wanted treats," said Joei Yoshikuni, a priest at Jigenin temple on the southern island of Okinawa.

"I'm glad that people feel more comfortable visiting the temple because of Conan," he said as he jokingly joined his hands and bowed to the dog.

Friends of mine are adopting this little guy in a few weeks. No joke.

* Thanks to Kendyl for the link!!!

Disabling embedding is lame!

Here is a sweet sweet taste of our trip to BVI. Watch the little fella (~2 ft long shell) fake me out twice!

While in the Bay Area over the holidays, Annie Maxwell so awesomely drove up from Santa Barbara to hang out with us! However, she not so awesomely bet against our fish parenting skills. Over dinner she bet that one of our three fish would be dead upon our return to NYC. It was a $10 bet and we were very serious about it. Who ended up winning the bet? The answer lays within this little piece of mail I received about 10 days after the bet.

Dip the Brita pitcher gently...GENTLY!! all the while muttering soothing sayings like, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, fishies..."

Once CAPTURED!, gaze at them through the embossed Brita logo and ponder if they know what's happening:

Do not forget to bring at least a third of their tank water. Be prepared for your hubby to complain about how heavy the water is and for you to grab it out of his hands and carry it yourself and to wake up sore the next morning.

LOCK THEM IN in case of nasty fall which would be their certain death:

Embody a loving and optimistic attitude as you embark on their transport:

* Thanks again for the gems, CP!

* Thanks Chelsea!

Introducing cuteness! Flocke the dog and Felix the rabbit:

* Thanks to Kristoffer Kaspersen for the photos!

Andrea Spratt's bunny Nigel/Nigelina/Nigelingers in stripes:

These two things:

1) While driving in Berkeley last month we watched a woman drive towards us with her dog in the passenger seat, lean over, kiss her pooch and continue driving without missing a beat.

2) Just a few minutes ago while walking back from the beach in Santa Monica to the car, I saw an older lady walking her dog and when her dog stopped walking for a few seconds she looked around then bent down and kissed her pup. There was no one but me when she looked around so I can only guess she sensed that I would understand. She was right.

* via BuzzFeed.

Here are some from the selection.

A-:

A- for effort:

I always think pooches are cuter than humans so I am stunned that this girl's cuteness actually rivals her pooch's!

This is wrong:

Hail:

Cute:

The winners:

What a sad dream to have dreamed. I sat down for dinner at an unknown location with dinner mates I now can't recall but remember feeling not super comfortable with (not BFFs). I then saw that we were about to eat from a plate with a medium sized grilled fish surrounded by three little grilled fishes (it's cute to make this grammatical error). All of a sudden the possibility hit me and I asked, "Are these our goldfish?" (The fact that I am pretty sure I said "our" makes me think Jonah was there which is unnerving because why was he ok with this?! - I will have to have a talk with him immediately upon his return from California on Sunday! Everyone pretty much acknowledged that they were the carcasses of my goldfish and were completely relaxed about it. I was tortured but confused about how I should feel and I am pretty sure I felt I should suck it up since I was in the minority and I may have eaten my goldfish.

This makes me so sad!! Especially because I have been having so much fun watching them recently (endless procrastination hours served) and talking with Jonah about how at first they were nervous and shy but they know nibble at my fingertips and when I do their weekly tank cleaning they graze my arm and I get as close as I'll get to petting them! And then I eat them...ugh. I am so over myself.

Daily Coyote is about an orphaned coyote cup, adopted by a woman living in a Wyoming log cabin. who was orphaned and this woman in Wyoming has adopted him. The photos are incredible as you'll see from the samples below and I am excited to follow the story.

* Thanks to MnL Della for the tip!

Poor forgotten animals...

Unnoticed and unappreciated for five decades, a large female turtle with a stained, leathery shell is now a precious commodity in this city’s decaying zoo. She is fed a special diet of raw meat. Her small pool has been encased with bulletproof glass. A surveillance camera monitors her movements. A guard is posted at night.

For many Chinese, turtles symbolize health and longevity, but the saga of the last two Yangtze giant soft-shells is more symbolic of the threatened state of wildlife and biodiversity in China. Pollution, hunting and rampant development are destroying natural habitats, and also endangering plant and animal populations. Continue reading...

* via KO.

Thanks to Amy Wood for capturing this crazy-looking cat in Nakameguro, Tokyo!

Thanks to everyone who wrote in. We have our names!!

Introducing Dog as in Alpha Dog, Dirty Dog. We came up with this one because well, he is so overwhelming Dog. And yes, that is a poopy. He who eats the most, poops the most!

Introducing Chicken!!!!! Chicken, Chicken, Chicken!!! I love this name submitted by my cousin Harmony Davis!!

And finally thanks to Amy Weintraub, we have Bugsy!! Not only does he have bug eyes but Bugsy Siegel is a pretty cool character so we love the name:

This past weekend we bought three goldfish for the 10-gallon tank we had been prepping for three days (having goldfish isn't as easy as you may think!) and we are head over heels in love with them and are loving having a fish tank in the apt.! They are lively, cute little fellas and I have spent long periods of time just watching them do their thing which consists of sucking at the top of the water which creates bubbles, doing the cutest little shimmys, inhaling little plant leaves then spitting them back out whole and seemingly searching for food all. day. long. They are all personality but lacking names! So I ask you, based on the photos and descriptions below can you give me some suggestions??

Fantail Fish: The most typical looking goldfish of the bunch. Fastest swimmer, clearly most clever, at one feeding he ate almost all the food (consequently the longest poops!) which is when we realized we may have to feed each according to their intellectual ability and some as you will see need more help than others. Clearly he's the alpha of the group but whether or not he's superior or a bully depends on your political perspective!

Oranda Fish: Orange guy has a carrot top fro that I can't wait to see grow!, has a flat face like a bulldog and is the most beautiful glistening gold color. He gets just one or two fewer food pellets during free for all feeding frenzy time. He likes to hang out with the "alpha" fish and I think of him as the middle child of a sibling trio - not as aggressive at his older sibling nor as slow as his younger - just in the middle and consequently gets passed over a bit while attention is mostly paid to the sibling drama between the oldest and the youngest.

Moor Fish: Black beauty with a pea brain. He swam against the filter current once or twice which may not seem like such a weird thing to do but trust me, it's a little special. He swims backwards sometimes which is of course adorable although it was less adorable the time I saw him bump his head into the branch sitting in the middle of the tank - ok so it was newly placed there but the point is that the others have not come close to doing things this little guy does - he has his own marching band whose offbeat he follows. His inbreeding takes the heaviest toll on his...eye sight! Goldfish are near-sighted to begin with but man is he sight-challenged. Food pellets will be sprinkled evenly in the tank as instructed and this guy doesn't see them while his mates are feasting and once he does figure it out he still can't get to the pellets most of the time. Of course this was distressing to us so we bent over backwards as only ridiculous parents would and Jonah has taken to custom feeding him - this involves placing the pellets at just the right angle in front of him as he happens to be swimming towards us. This has seemed to work and of course as he is our special needs baby we can't help but favor him a bit. Just a bit.

I'm sorry to make you sad this fine Tuesday but here's a whole lot of realness for you:

* You're jonesing for more George. Here it is.

The moment I set eyes on the large gray kitty George, I was in obsessive love. He was gregarious, hilarious, filled to the brim with 'tude and even though huge, he thought he was svelte and sexy. Unfortunately he terrorizes Black Cat - the only black cat in the photos and whose eyes you see in the background of a photo in which she sits atop a dresser, her only "safe place". George doesn't realize his awesomeness nor his terrorist tendencies. He may be looking for a new home. If and when that day comes it will be a fight to the death to see who gets to lay their paws on George first!

* Thanks again to Evan Roth & Michele Walther for a fun party!

* Thanks to Uncle Derek for the photo!

Foxy and Nicholas are buddies who like to terrorize the turkeys:

Foxy and newer to the ranch but slower! Nicholas follow Aunt's Suzi's truck:

Nahna has a little chat with Cukurs:

This is too much! Check out kitty's prideful gait like, "yeah, he's my buddy and I'm his righteous guide!" TOOOOOOOOOOOOOO awesome!!!

Thanks to Jodi for the tip!

* Kyoto.

* From Natalie and Josie's trip to the Bronx Zoo - both are around 1 years old and and it was unsupervised!!

apparently they really sleep like this!!!

* Thanks for this photo Heather Grossmann!!

* Thanks to Aunt Susan for this investigative report on rearing a panda in captivity!

Is this a hoax? I mean, if there were one place in the world this would happen, it would be Japan of course (Go, weird Japan!) but still...the first article claims that the same pig that was squealing a second ago (ew and poor pig) was roasted and served on a plate a few minutes later...the question is...how long does it take to roast a pig??? I think longer than a few minutes!! What do you think?

Bestiality Restaurants

Jonah's been fortunate enough to observe me watching this treasure trove of National Geographic YouTube videos while I narrate, in my own special way, the intense dramas of the underwater world. He suggested, "maybe you should be an Aquatic Forensic Psychologist!" Hey, great idea! I'll market myself as an Aquatic in addition to a Terrestrial Forensic Psychologist!!

:-)
:-)
:-)

While watching the second of the three tests, Jonah said, "maybe it'll be smart enough to tip over the container in order to get the crabs out" and then we see that the octopus is able to squeeze in and capture the crabs. I said to Jonah, "the octopus is smarter than we imagined! Had it tipped over the container the crabs would be harder to capture and eat!" And Jonah said, "So you're saying the octopus is smarter than me?" "Yes" :-)

Check out its strategic tentacle placement - brill!

A: Rat.

Say hello to BuzzFeed's mascot for a day and night - he was released back into the wild (Chinatown) last night. We're still not sure if he was a baby mouse or baby rat.

* Susan's sweet Hrairoo.

Ze showed us this last night and I almost cried. Here's the incredible backstory you should read before watching the video.

* Taken by Zee!

If you haven't yet been to the NY Aquarium, you should!