The Birds and the Bees and the Kangaroos

Have you ever taken young children to the zoo and inadvertently seen animals doing animal things that raised questions and comments from said young children? Such as the time we were at the zoo and overheard an excited child screaming out 'Look the elephant is PEEING!!!' as the elephant was indeed peeing like a firehose?

Because peeing and pooping are oh so hilarious to young children?

Well, imagine the questions raised by this young child as he was innocently trying to feed the kangaroos at the local petting zoo?

This story comes from the comedian Tim Bedore's website at:
http://www.vaguebuttrue.com

WARNING-NOT SAFE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN TO VIEW UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT TO HAVE 'THAT TALK' TODAY!!

Petting Zoo Closed

Sacramento, CALIFORNIA- Keller Petting Zoo has been forced to close due to horny kangaroos. Owner Bob Keller pleaded with city officials to wait until he could do the necessary surgeries on his male kangaroos but pressure from parents groups prevailed.

They're just playing leapfrog, honey, yeah, that's it, leapfrog!

More CALM

This is the new train ride at the California Living Museum-only $1.00 for a ride! So of course, we had to go on the train.
Not much in the way of scenery, but this is where I would like to live-a big ass house on the banks of the Kern River. I don't know where all this water goes, but by the time you get back into the city the river is just a big dry riverbed.
The mountains out here are really pretty but with no rain for months they are just brown as far as you can see.
A mule deer-they are native to just the coastal mountains in California. I guess they call them mule deers because of their very large ears?
A bobcat-just a little bigger than our house kitties. This one saw Keith further down the fence, ran down there and then turned around and tried to spray him!
Bear hugs.
The almost extinct parking meter species.
And the roadrunner-BEEP BEEP! There was one roadrunner inside the turtle exhibit (no turtles that we could see) and this roadrunner that was outside was kind of like taunting the inside roadrunner. The inside roadrunner was having a fit and jumping up against the cage.

There is an exhibit for coyotes but they must have been hiding from the heat (or maybe the roadrunners got them) because we couldn't see them.

So, the California Living Museum is a fun way to spend a few hours of what otherwise would have been a pretty dull Sunday.

Sad

We were watching the news last night, which doesn't happen that often since I kind of forget to keep up with what's going on in the world and tend to get my news from yahoo's home page, and the saddest story came on about the effect that home foreclosures have on dogs and cats.
Here in Bakersfield and in lots and lots of other cities across the country, people are losing their homes to foreclosures because of the 'creative financing' that got them those homes in the first place. People who bought new homes recently are living in neighborhoods with half finished abandoned houses all around them and have bought a home that is currently worth about half the price that they paid for said home. I've never thought about what happens to the family dog or cat when these people have to find alternative housing-moving in with relatives or finding a rental-where the family pets are not welcome.

These family pets are being abandoned at the foreclosed upon home.

Keith was telling me about a realtor that went to a foreclosed upon house and found a mama dog and her four puppies that were just left in the back yard-no food, no water. She gave the dogs some water and had to call animal control to come pick up those dogs and take them to the pound where they will unfortunately end up being put down. According to the news story, this is becoming a huge problem in a city that already has a huge problem with stray animals. People are just moving out and leaving their pets behind-in the back yard and in some cases even inside the house.

Why don't these people take the animals to the pound or the spca where they might have a chance at being adopted or at the very least will be put down rather than starving to death? The spca here in town is packed with animals and just can't take any more, and unless you are bringing in a stray or lie about the animal not being yours, there is a fee to drop your animal at the pound. People whose houses are being foreclosed upon probably don't have the extra money to pay the pound fees, so they just leave the animals behind.

We've often wondered what we would do with all of our cats should something like this happen to us where we just couldn't take care of them anymore-whether due to having to move out of our house, or losing a job, or sickness, or death, and it is kind of heartbreaking to think of having to find a place for them or have to take them to the pound. I just don't know what we would do, but leaving them to fend for themselves is just out of the question.