One Foot on a Banana Peel

RESPONSIBLE "PET" OWNERSHIP  No, I’m not going to lecture you on making sure Fido has plenty of fresh water and shade during the these dog-days of summer (though, it’s a good idea) or tell you not to bring him along when you run errands and then leave him in the car.  I only have good, caring readers and I know you’d never do that.

What I am going to lecture on is the danger of keeping exotic pets. I grew up with a father who was in the PA Game Commission for over 30 years.  I have lived on a Game Commission pheasant farm and on a privately owned wildlife preserve.  Dad was also an official measurer for Boone and Crockett, the organization that scores big game trophies.  I’ve had a lot of experiences and learned a lot about animals over the years.  One of the most important lessons I learned from Dad, was that wild animals are wild animals.  They do not make good pets.  I don’t care how long you have had the animal or how gentle and tame you think it is.  Eventually, it’s wild instincts will kick in and override any "taming."  The problem is, when it happens it may be an instinct that is more bothersome than anything or it may be something that puts you or the animal in danger.

I bring this whole subject up because there’s been a story in the local news this week.  A really horrible, tragic story.  A story that shouldn’t have happened.  In Pennsylvania it is illegal to keep wolves or wolf hybrids without the proper license.  Yet, there are people who keep the hybrids, claiming them to be wonderful pets.  They skirt around the law by not calling them hybrids to the authorities and licensing them as dogs, which takes jurisdiction away from the Game Commission.  Even though their hands were officially tied, both the Game Commission and the county’s humane officer had been monitoring a local woman who kept a pack of hybrids in an enclosure at her home.  Monday, the woman was found dead in the enclosure.  The body was in bad shape.  An autopsy showed the animals had indeed killed her.  Experts think one of the animals may have decided to challenge her place as pack leader.  Read the whole story here.

STEELERS NEWS  For those of you waiting paitently for news of Steeler’s quarterback Ben Roethlisberger following his nasty motorcycle accident earlier this summer….Ben is doing fine.  He recently filmed his role in "The Mr. Right Now" music video for a local country band, The Poverty Neck Hillbillies.  The video is expected to be released on August 1 and will air on Country Music Television (CMT).

An odd Steelers fact…18 former players have died since 2000.  That means of the NFL players from the 1970s and ’80s who have died since 2000, more than one in five were Steelers.  Could it be due to steroid use that helped build the hulks that populated the offensive and defensive lines?  Could it be the weight issue?  Those guys had to be huge and immovable.  Of course, not all the deaths were heart related.  There were accidents, a suicide and one former player died in a car crash following a high-speed police chase.  Just a weird co-inky-dink, I guess.

Steeler training camp begins here in Latrobe at St. Vincent College on July 28.  Woot!

ORGANIZATION=BETTER OFF FINANCIALLY  Sarah over at Mommy, Are The Toys On Sale? wonders if we’d be better off financially if we were better organized.  She offers pictures from around her own home as evidence that not knowing what’s in the pantry, under the sink, or in the medicine cabinet costs us lots of extra money, in that, we buy duplicates of what we already have because we don’t know we have it.  Yikes!  I think she’s been poking around in my house.  I’m sooooo guilty of that.  I believe I’ve found today’s project.

Blinkie courtesy of LilMsGlitter.