Shasta is a smart dog. She's figured out how to turn that annoying Roomba off! Yeah, she is scolded for it, but it doesn't take long for the aggravation to overtake her desire to obey her woman.
Shasta has the right idea. Are Roombas really that loud? I'd much rather spend five minutes with a broom than listen to that. -via Tastefully Offensive
Dogs love sticks, for some reason. This dog found what he considers the perfect stick, and he won't settle for any less.
The problem is that the stick is still attached to the tree, and is not inclined to let go. Neither is the dog. He even manages to bark at the stick while hanging by his teeth! -via Tastefully Offensive
Sid the cockatoo must consider it his job to remove Dave's glasses. He hates the eyeglasses! No, wait, Sid thinks it's loads of fun.
Sid is a cockatoo with a huge personality and a highly developed sense of humor. He took a liking to Dave but didn't like his glasses. Sid repeatedly yanked them off Dave's face and threw them to the floor. It wasn't clear why Sid was doing this until he started to laugh at his own pranks. After a few minutes, this became a very entertaining game that had the two of them laughing. Cockatoos are highly intelligent and very social, demanding a lot of attention from their people. Amazingly, Sid even removes the glasses carefully before tossing them aside.
He's quite proud of himself! You won't be able to help but laugh at this prankster. -via Tastefully Offensive
Want to have a memorable wedding and support a worthy cause? Well, if you live in Portland, Oregon or Vancouver, Washington you should get in touch with Mtn Peaks Therapy Llamas and Alpacas. By renting a set of llamas or alpacas for your wedding you will not only have the best possible guests at your wedding, you'll also help support the group's therapy and education programs. Talk about a win/win.
And these aren't just any llamas or alpacas pulled right off the farm, they not only come finely dressed, but they are perfectly trained for such respectable occassions.
Still not convinced that a llama or alpaca couple will make your celebration the event of the year? Then check out the weddingllamas Instagram stream and see just how much they add to every wedding they attend.
Via Brides
You've seen how your cat gets ready to pounce on prey, whether real or toy: the head drops, the eyes dilate, and the hindquarters go into windup mode. Here we see Pusic (previously at Neatorama) putting that response to work. Shake that booty!
Pusic's people spend a lot of time editing his voluminous video clips to bring you such entertaining productions. The soundtrack really makes it.
It's completely against a cat's instincts to fall backwards without trying to twist and catch himself. But this is Didga (previously at Neatorama) who can skateboard, surf, and lead a pack of dogs. Her human Robert Dollwet trained her to trust him so much that she will fall without looking and let him catch her.
Is there anything that Didga can't do? -via Tastefully Offensive
How do you take a photograph of ten kittens? They are all from one litter, so they need a family portrait. But arranging kittens to face a camera is like …trying to herd cats. Exactly like that.
No wonder mama cats are always on their last nerve. Evgeny, the Russian cat daddy, found that it's best to just use video instead of a still camera. -via Tastefully Offensive
Some dogs will do backflips for bacon, others will sit and shake paws all day long for tasty bits of human food, but those dogs are missing the boat because you get a whole lot more treat if you go gaga for bananas.
And since the little pooch in this video looks so darn cute while eating a banana he probably gets a treat any time he wants, which hopefully means we'll get to see him in more utterly adorable videos in the future!
-Via Boing Boing
When people got together on the internet, they shared enough cat pictures that LOLcat, the language, was born. It took a while longer, but there's also a language for dogs: DoggoLingo. Even if you've never heard of the language, you recognize it when you read it. Maybe you already speak this language!
DoggoLingo, sometimes referred to as doggo-speak, "seems to be quite lexical, there are a lot of distinctive words that are used," says Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch. "It's cutesier than others, too. Doggo, woofer, pupper, pupperino, fluffer — those have all got an extra suffix on the end to make them cuter."
McCulloch also notes DoggoLingo is uniquely heavy on onomatopoeias like bork, blep, mlem and blop.
Many of the terms come from popular places like the Facebook group Dogspotting and the Twitter feed WeRateDogs.
Here's a pupper before and after being asked "who's a good girl?" Unsure as h*ck. 12/10 hint hint it's you pic.twitter.com/ORiK6jlgdH
— WeRateDogs™ (@dog_rates) March 4, 2017
One thing is for sure- they're all good dogs. Read about the rise of DoggoLingo at NPR. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Chelsea Beck/NPR)
Some people believe the whole therapy animal thing is out of control, but if you think about it the "therapy" most of these animals provide involves calming and comforting a person, so just about any animal can provide therapy.
Just ask little Amber Austwick and she'll tell you- a donkey makes a fine therapy animal, and her hoofed friend Shock from The Donkey Sanctuary in Birmingham, England actually helped her speak again.
In 2011 Amber was born prematurely and couldn't breathe, so doctors gave her a tracheotomy that left her mute due to vocal chord scarring. Amber was also born with cerebral palsy, making the first few years of her life a struggle for the poor little girl.
But then she met Shocks the donkey, who changed her life with his gentle charm:
"She struggled to sit up and showed no signs of crawling 'til very late on," Julian Austwick, Amber's father, told The Dodo. "A friend mentioned The Donkey Sanctuary to Tracy [Amber's mother] and told her the donkeys can give therapy to additional needs children, so we decided to try it."
It was Amber's first time meeting a therapy animal — and, as it happened, Amber was Shocks's first patient. And when he met Amber, the connection was instantaneous.
"It was fairly immediate to see they had a bond together, as they were both so gentle with each other," Austwick said. "Shocks would lower his head to her and would allow her to hold him around his neck. It was scary for us, as parents, as he was so big compared to little Amber, but they really seemed smitten!"
Finally, when Amber turned 3, she was old enough for another surgery to make it possible for her to talk — but it would take practice.
She still hadn't said a word when she went to visit Shocks one day in November 2013. After taking a ride with him and getting ready to leave the sanctuary to go home, she hugged the donkey and said, "I love you, Shocky."
So there you have it- donkeys actually make pretty great therapy animals, and unlike a dogs or cats you get to ride them too!
-Via The Dodo
I once semi-successfully trained my cat to walk around my backyard on a leash- he would walk around okay for a while, and even climb trees here and there while tethered to me below. But you could tell he was holding back, and it only made him want to run away more when the leash was off.
My mission to leash my cat would have been more successful had I watched these videos by Doug Meyers of Berkeley, California, and then I could have taken my cat everywhere just like he does.
Doug's videos reveal how he trained his Ragdoll cat Eduardo to walk on a leash by taking him out of his comfort zone:
Using a knapsack was my key discovery in getting Eduardo to go for long walks. He was reluctant to walk away from his home territory. He was uncomfortable doing that it was a hard direction for him to walk in. The easy direction is toward home. By using the knapsack I carry Eduardo away from his home territory and when I put him down he has a natural goal or purpose for his walk, which is to get home. Once I began using the knapsack to carry him, he started to walk almost like a well-trained dog, moving right along
Man, strolling around Berkeley in the spring with a cat on a leash, life does not get much more chill than that!
-Via Laughing Squid
Pusic was taken in when he was a very sick kitten abandoned in a box. He pulled through, as you can see in this video, and grew up to love the Russian couple who took him in. He especially likes getting picked up by his mommy, as you can see here, and biting his daddy's ear, as you can see in this video. But last fall, Dad went away for twenty days, and that was hard on Pusic.
When he finally came back, it was a joyful reunion for the cat. -via Laughing Squid
You may think it's a good and fun idea to teach your cat how to perch on your shoulders and wrap around your neck, but the fun quickly wears off when you discover you can't shake off your new fur collar.
Musician Roger Brawn made the mistake of letting his cat Spiggy perch without making him sign a lease, and now Spiggy refuses to vacate Roger's shoulders.
But Roger seems to enjoy having a Spiggy-shaped scarf wrapped around his neck, so much so that he has figured out a way to put on a jumper without disturbing that spoiled shoulder dweller.
-Via Tastefully Offensive
Symbio Wildlife Park in New South Wales, Australia, has a set of red panda triplets: Mohan, Raj, and Phinju. They were born on Christmas Eve, and are just old enough now to go exploring outside their den. Lucky for us, the moment was captured on video. You can tell they are excited by the way they are tripping over each other!
Their mother Kesari is right behind them, though, to make sure everything goes alright. -via Tastefully Offensive
Alligators have a gruesome complexion and a mouth full of pointy teeth so most animals find them intimidating, especially animals that fit inside a gator's mouth.
But horses don't give a crap about the alligator's fearsome reputation, and if one of those smily faced savages tries to get too close to a horse they're asking for a good stompin'!
The alligator looked like it was minding its own business, but I think the horse had the right idea because you never know what a gator might do when they start feeling a bit peckish.
-Via Daily Dot
