Animals – davidbruceblog #2

David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

• Sometimes, whales become entangled in nets and flotation devices left behind by fishermen, leading to death. In 2005 in Gordon’s Bag, South Africa, police diver Eben Lourens cut away most of the ropes entangling a southern right whale. National Sea Rescue Institute Gordon’s Bay Station Commander Stuart Burgess said, “We slowly approached [the whale] until we were about 30m away and then cut the engines. The whale swam up and gently bumped our rescue boat. At that point we got good visuals of the problem.” He added, “We could see the ropes and buoys entangled around the tail and the pieces trailing behind her.” Mr. Lourens was deployed ahead of the whale, and as the whale swam past him, he grabbed onto the fishing net and started cutting the ropes. He cut away most of the ropes and all of the flotation devices. Mr. Stuart said, “Although there is still some rope attached to the whale, we were unable to do more and we suspect that the remaining rope will fall free as it untangles.” Mr. Lourens said, “It’s not something I’d done before, so the adrenalin was pumping through me. But it was very satisfying afterwards.” After the rescue, the whale was swimming much more easily. Mr. Burgess said that commercial crayfishers often left their nets behind: “We find them all the time. In one afternoon recently we found four of them.” The nets are hazardous not only for whales, he said, but also for boats—especially at night. Freeing a whale can be very dangerous—even deadly—work. Nan Rice of the Save the Whales Campaign said, “It is very dangerous to attempt such a thing without the proper equipment and tools. The public must take note and not try and do this by themselves. You cannot swim up to a whale and try to cut it loose. It is extremely dangerous.” In New Zealand, a diver was killed during an attempted whale rescue, she said: “The whale slammed its tail down on top of him, and he was gone. I feel that human lives are just as valuable as those of animals, and I don’t think it is right to risk one for the other.”

• Kaye Harris, the owner of a pony farm in St. Rose, Louisiana, took care of many animals that had been let loose because of Hurricane Katrina. Two such animals were a pony named Molly and a pit bull terrier. Unfortunately, the pit bull attacked Molly, chewing on her jawbone, belly, and all four legs. Ms. Harris said, “He gnawed on this pony like a meat grinder.” She knew that many animals had been traumatized because of Hurricane Katrina, so instead of having the pit bull euthanized, she gave it to people who were skilled in handling problem pets. One of Molly’s legs became infected, and it looked as if Molly would have to be euthanized. However, Ms. Harris persuaded the vets at the veterinary hospital at Louisiana State University to look at Molly. At first, they did not think that they could save Molly, but Dr. Rustin M. Moore, the director of the veterinary school’s equine health studies program and a veterinary surgeon, watched Molly and noticed that she was taking good care of her infected leg and so he thought that she could successfully be fitted with a prosthesis. The vets amputated her infected leg below the knee and fitted her with a prosthesis that had been built and donated by the Bayou Orthotic and Prosthetic Center. Ms. Harris said, “She went out and she went right to putting her weight on it, and I just cried because I knew it was going to work.” After being fitted with her prosthesis, Molly visited a prosthesis center for children who were getting prostheses for missing arms and legs; the children were amazed by the pony with a metal leg.

• Regina Mayer wanted a horse, but her parents would not get her one. Therefore, the teenager, who lives on a farm in southern Germany in the hamlet of Laufen, which is very close to the Austrian border, used what was available and started riding a cow named Luna, even teaching it to jump over a hurdle. The 15-year-old Regina says about Luna, “She thinks she’s a horse.” Teaching Luna took many hours and many treats, but now the two take long rides together. At first, Regina simply put a halter on Luna and took her for a walk, and then gradually she got her accustomed to other riding equipment. After six months, Regina climbed up on Luna’s back. Regina says, “She was really well behaved and walked normally. But after a couple of meters, she wanted me to get off! You could see that she got a bit peeved.” But now Luna understands commands such as the German equivalents of “go,” “stand,” and “gallop.” Anne Wiltafsky, a cow expert near the Swiss city of Zurich, gave Regina advice when requested. Ms. Wiltafsky says about cows, “Especially younger ones can jump really well.” She also pointed out that cows can be “unbelievably devoted” to people. Martin Putzhammer, a 17-year-old neighbor of Regina, says, “At first I thought it was kind of weird—a kid on a cow? Had to get used to it, but once I did I thought it was pretty funny.” Regina still hopes to get a horse one day, but she says about Luna, “She’ll stay my darling.”

• Top, a Great Dane owned by Axel Patzwaldt, saved not just one life, but two. An 11-year-old girl took Top out for a walk one day, but she did not notice a truck coming toward them. Top barked, jumped in front of the 11-year-old, and pushed her out of the path of the truck. Top’s leg was badly damaged by the truck, and for seven weeks his leg was in a cast. When the cast was finally off, Mr. Patzwaldt let Top loose outside, and quickly Top returned, barking loudly. Mr. Patzwaldt followed Top and discovered two-year-old Christopher Conley at the bottom of the apartment complex’s swimming pool. A former lifeguard, Mr. Patzwaldt dove into the pool and rescued Christopher, bringing him to the surface and giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. For saving two lives, Top was named Ken-L Ration Dog Hero of the Year for 1969.

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

• Lots of truckers are using their wheels to get dogs to new homes. Sean Kiel, a 46-year-old who has been a truck driver for 30 years, helped to rescue a curly white Bichon Frise from life in a puppy mill. He took the ball of fluff to a woman in California who was eager to adopt it. Mr. Kiel said, “Here I am, a big ol’ tough truck driver, and I’m sitting here choking up right now. She was so happy to get that dog — just absolutely happy. It was so touching to see.” Sue Wiese, age 68, is a former truck driver from Joshua, Texas; she is also an animal lover. Ms. Wiese said, “You just have to do something.” Following Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster in which lots of pets lost their homes, Ms. Wiese took action. She said, “My heart was just breaking from all the stories about the pets. I was driving down the road and I was praying, ‘Lord, what can I do? I’m just a truck driver.’ And then I heard one word: Transport.” She founded Operation Roger. People can read online about animals that need a home, and truck drivers can volunteer to take the animals to the people who wish to adopt them. From 2005 to 2011, Operation Roger took approximately 600 animals to new homes. In some cases, animals are reunited with their owners. For example, Robert Montagna, age 56, a truck driver and Operation Roger volunteer living in Michigan, witnessed a waitress in Colorado being reunited with her chocolate Labrador retriever. Mr. Montagna said, “When they saw each other, they just ran together toward each other like it was in a movie. She cried and cried when she saw that dog.” Mr. Montagna said he loves being a member of Operation Roger: “I just love doing this. I always say that if I won a big lottery, I’d buy a big RV and I’d call Sue up and say, ‘Where’s the dog at? I’ll deliver it.’ And after that, I’d call her and say, ‘OK, where’s the next dog at?’ I’d just keep doing this all over the country.”

• In December 2005, someone tried to kill a cat by putting it in a cage, weighting it with a 16-pound rock, and dropping it in the icy Clark Fork River in Montana. Fortunately for the cat, the cage hit the ice instead of the water, and firefighters from Missoula, MT, rescued it. After media reports about the rescue appeared, many, many people called the fire station to thank the firefighters for saving the life of the cat and for finding it a good home. The firefighters had used a rescue boat to get the cat and had then fed it turkey and milk. Firefighter Josh Macrow took the cat to a veterinarian and then took it home to his 12-year-old daughter, Taylor, who had long wanted a cat. City Fire Chief TomSteenberg said, “We’re just doing our job. We are happy that we’ve got the tools and firefighters with the training to go out in the river and operate this kind of rescue safely. It takes a lot of training and specialized gear to do this kind of thing, and we train constantly.” These days, firefighters train for major disasters, including complicated high-rise and confined-space rescues as well as hazardous waste emergencies. Mr. Steenberg said, “We really aren’t in the business of getting cats out of trees anymore. On the other hand, a can of tuna fish has always worked. In this instance, with a caged cat out on the ice, tuna fish isn’t going to work and we have a lot of people here at the station with big hearts. We can’t ignore a situation like that.”

• In autumn 2005, 10-year-old Chantal Burnup was swimming in the Sale River in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. A 9-foot-long crocodile grabbed her by her torso and tried to pull her underwater. Her 14-year-old brother, Simon, assisted their father by punching the crocodile in a successful attempt to rescue her. The children’s mother, Gabrielle Burnup, said about Chantal, “She’s very well. She’s had treatment and all her dressings have been renewed and she is lying in bed watching a video. She is OK as long as she doesn’t have to speak directly about what has happened. She gets very emotional to put herself back into that situation.” Mrs. Burnup said about Simon, “He doesn’t say much, but I think it very much scared him as well. I think he was [brave] to get back in the water knowing what was in there, which is what he did. I thought he was fantastic.” Chantal said, “I tried to get it off me, and my dad pulled me out of the water and he pulled me back onto the rocks.” Simon spoke about his part in the rescue after his father had grabbed Chantal to keep the crocodile from dragging her underwater, “By that time I got out of the water and was watching and Dad was shouting at me to help. So I got back in and smacked it on the head and Dad pulled her out.”

• Comic artist G.B. Jones says, “All girls should have big dogs.” She has two bull mastiffs—huge dogs. Ms. Jones says that “there is nothing like the feeling of walking down the street, any time of the night, be it 10, 11, 12, or 3 in the morning, and seeing guys get right off the sidewalk. Nobody bothers you. Nobody says anything to you. You can go where you want. You are totally free. Can you imagine?” She says, “If a guy’s bugging you, you can say, “F[**]k off, jerk.” You don’t have to worry that he’s going to rush over and kill you.” She adds, “The first time I went for a walk with a dog at night, I couldn’t believe it. I experienced total freedom. I guess it’s the way men live their whole lives.”

• “An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.” — Martin Buber

• “We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” — Immanual Kant

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

• Comedian Fred Allen knew a small-time vaudevillian who acquired enough money to buy a chicken farm and retire. Unfortunately, the vaudevillian missed the excitement of entertaining people and did not enjoy the lack of excitement of raising chickens. Mr. Allen visited the retired vaudevillian one day and listened to him complain. Around them were dozens of white chickens, each of which had a round red spot on its behind. To Mr. Allen, the sight reminded him of dozens of Japanese flags. The retired vaudevillian explained what had happened. He had been giving the chickens a special feed to make them lay larger eggs. The special feed worked — the chickens had been laying eggs so large that they wrecked the chickens’ egg-laying equipment. The retired vaudevillian complained, “I had to catch every lousy hen and dab her behind with Mercurochrome [a red medicine]!” Speaking of edible birds, a butcher friend of vaudevillian comedian Jack Inglis gave him a plumb turkey in early October to eat for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Mr. Inglis’ children enjoyed playing with and chasing the turkey, and in the seven weeks before Thanksgiving, the turkey ran so much that it lost 20 pounds. Mr. Inglis’ fellow comedian and friend Fred Allen wrote, “For their Thanksgiving Day dinner that year, the Inglis family had what looked like a tall sparrow.”

• During the winter of 2011 in the village of Anglesey, North Wales, passersby heard meowing. The meows were coming from a recycling bin, and they were afraid that a cat was trapped inside, so they called emergency services. Unfortunately, no one could get the locks, which had been tampered with, open, even though the fire service, the RSPCA [Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] and bin operators all tried. Eventually, they transported the bin to specialist engineering firm K Owen in Llanrhyddlad—an 18-mile trip. Almost 24 hours after the meowing was first heard, engineers cut their way with a steel saw into the bin. Kelvin Owen said, “Once we got into the bin, we heard the meow again. It sounded just like a cat, and we all started to carefully search the bags.Then I found a bag of toys and picked out a toy cat.I said, ‘It couldn’t be this, could it?’ It wasn’t making any noise, and I asked if I could cut it open to investigate. As I held it, it went off, ‘Meow, meow.’ Mystery solved! The lads were in stitches, it was such a laugh.” Jasmine Hazelhurst said, “I did feel embarrassed when they pulled out the stuffed cat.But I am also proud at the way everyone rallied around to save the ‘cat.’Local people did so much to save the ‘cat,’ and it shows what community spirit there is.We feared finding a dead cat in the clothes bank, so to find a stuffed toy was a relief.”

• This is a story that TV personality Ed McMahon used to tell. Back in the days of Prohibition, a cub reporter on the New York Tribunewas assigned to write an article about the arrival of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. He got the assignment because the circus would arrive at 4 a.m., and none of the veteran reporters wanted to be up that early. Like many city reporters during Prohibition, this cub reporter drank alcohol at a speakeasy. Although he had to be present at the arrival of the circus at 4 a.m., the reporter did not want to miss out on any drinking time, so he went to the speakeasy as usual and simply did not go home to sleep. At 4 a.m., he left the speakeasy, hailed a taxi, and told the driver, “Drive up Fifth Avenue until you see an elephant.” During Prohibition, when many people ceased to drink moderately and instead drank immoderately as a form of protest, cab drivers sometimes got requests like this. This cab driver figured the passenger simply wanted to go up Fifth Avenue, so he started driving—and he was shocked to see an elephant and the rest of the Barnum & Bailey Circus parading down Fifth Avenue.

• Like other employees, Walt Disney ate at the concession stand at the Disney Studio. One day, he sat at the counter and ordered just a coffee. A stray dog came in with him, without him noticing, and Mary Flanagan, who ran the concession stand, said, “I’ll have to call the guard. I don’t know where this dog came from.” Walt said, “He’s probably hungry. Give him a hamburger.” Mary gave the stray dog a hamburger, and then Walt gave her a dollar to pay his bill. Mary gave him 40 cents change, and Walt yelled, “What kind of price are you charging for coffee, Mary?” She replied, “The coffee’s only a dime, Walt, but the dog was your guest, and that was 50 cents for the hamburger.” Walt laughed. As you would expect, Walt was well loved and had many fans. At the New York World’s Fair, teenaged girls came up to him and asked him for his autograph. He signed a few autographs, and then he gently took a girl’s hands and said, “Look, honey, I’m going to get mobbed. I can’t sign anymore.” She screamed, “He touched me! He touched me!”

• On 11 November 2011, Deputy Ryan Swartz responded to a car-hitting-deer accident on Hellems Road in Dwight Township, Huron County, Michigan. The deer was a small doe, which was not seriously hurt but which was dazed and standing in the middle of the road. Deputy Swartz picked up the small doe and carried it to the side of the road, where it stayed for about 20 minutes before running off into a field.By the way, a writer who calls himself “forcd ind” and posts on a Chevelle Tech blog remembers seeing a deer that was stuck on a fence. He put on gloves and lifted her hind legs over the fence, being very careful to avoid any kicks. He writes that “after she got over, she turned and looked at me, almost like she was thanking me, then w[a]ndered off.”

• “Two kangaroos were talking to each other, and one said, ‘Gee, I hope it doesn’t rain today. I hate it when the children play inside.” — Henny Youngman.

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

• In June 2008, 12-year-old Tony Bailey went swimming in the Platte River near North Bend, Nebraska. In the past, that was not a problem, but this time the river was dangerous because rain had caused higher levels of water and dangerous currents. Tony said, “It was, like, over my head, and I couldn’t touch.” He cried for help, but the only one who heard him was Jake, his 4-year-old Labrador retriever. Tony said, “I was saying, ‘Help, help,’ and I saw him jump in, and then my head went under, and when I came up, he was right here by me.” Tony grabbed the dog’s neck, and the dog towed him to the riverbank and safety. Tony’s mother, Doris, was surprised by Jake’s heroism: “It’s something that I wouldn’t have expected him to do — to have the brains to do, I guess. He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t mind.” Tony added, “Sometimes he can act real hyper and weird. He’ll pick up rocks and think they’re balls and wants you to throw them to him.” Diane said, “You think you know your dog so well, but then he does something like this. He’s got a big heart, and he does have a brain in there.” Tony has the final words: “Thanks, guy. I love him so much.” Jake did get a reward for his heroism: a really big bone and forgiveness for every time he tracked mud into the house or dug a hole in the yard.

• Eric Carle, author and illustrator of the children’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, loves animals. He once had a cat named Fifi, and when he was preparing string beans, he noticed that Fifi was deeply interested in the string beans. He threw a string bean down the hall, and Fifi chased it and retrieved it and begged him to throw it again. The game continued until Fifi looked tired to Mr. Carle, and then he stopped throwing the string bean. Fifi took the string bean, put it in one of Mr. Carle’s shoes, and then curled around the shoe and took a nap. Each time Mr. Carle prepared string beans they played this game. And once while Mr. Carle and his wife were taking a walk to a park, they came across a turtle that was marching down a concrete sidewalk. Thinking that the sidewalk was no place for a turtle, they picked it up, carried it to the park, and released it. They then enjoyed the park. On their way back home, they came across the turtle, which was again on a sidewalk, walking toward the spot where they had first discovered it. Mr. Carle and his wife looked at each other and smiled. They picked up the turtle, carried it to the place where they had first found it, and put it down on the sidewalk. The turtle then walked to a bush and vanished.

• Stories of animals rescuing human infants appear in myths, such as the myth of Romulus and Remus being rescued and suckled by a mother wolf. Sometimes, animal heroes appear in real life. In August of 2008 a frightened 14-year-old girl gave birth to a boy in a shanty town near Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, and abandoned him in a field. The temperature was a chilly 37 degrees. Fortunately, an 8-year-old dog named La China, who had a litter of six puppies, came across the abandoned infant and saved him. La China picked up the infant with her teeth and carried him 50 meters to her litter. La China’s owner heard crying and investigated and found the baby boy, only a few hours old, lying with the six puppies and covered with a rag. The frightened 14-year-old mother came forward soon after. She was hospitalized and received psychological care. The baby boy, who weighed 8lb, 13oz, had no bite marks. Daniel Salcedo, chief of police of the Province of Buenos Aires, said about La China, “She took it like a puppy and rescued it. The doctors told us if she hadn’t done this, he would have died. The dog is a hero to us.”

• On September 15, 2007, a bear was walking on the Rainbow Bridge on Highway 40 near Donner Summit in the Sierra Nevada, near Lake Tahoe. Some oncoming cars frightened the bear, and it jumped over the railing and off the side of the bridge, which was 80 feet above ground. Fortunately, it managed to grab a ledge and pull itself to safety on a concrete girder beneath the bridge. Although it was safe, it was also stranded. Officials did not take action that day, but the next day when they saw that the bear was still on the concrete girder, sleeping, they formed and executed a plan. They slung a net beneath the bear, shot the bear with a tranquilizer, and then used poles to shove the bear into the net, which they lowered to the ground. When the bear regained consciousness, it wandered off into the woods. “I’ve been on a lot of bear rescues,” said Dave Baker of the Truckee BEAR League (People Living in Harmony with Bears), “and this is the most intense bear call that I’ve been on.”

• Eric Carle, author and illustrator of many children’s books, observes animals closely. At the zoo, he was watching the penguins and noticed that they were weirdly still and quiet. They were also closely observing something. Mr. Carle looked, and he saw a snake on a rock. Snakes and penguins come from different worlds, and it seemed to Mr. Carle as if the penguins were trying to figure put what a snake was and the snake was trying to figure out what penguins were. Mr. Carle told the zoo director about the snake and discovered that the snake was an escapee. The zoo director told him, “The reptile enclosure is on a different floor and quite a distance from the penguin pen. It’s a mystery to me how the snake could get from one to the other.” Mr. Carle went with the zoo director to the penguin pen. The zoo director saw the snake, and then he smiled and shook Mr. Carle’s hand.

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

• On April 28, 2009, Tierney Tredo, 19, of Penhook, Virginia, was walking her two dogs when they encountered a black bear. Her Shetland sheepdog, whose name is Sophie, saved her from being attacked by the bear. Her other dog, a large, long-haired, mixed-breed dog named Cheyenne, who is two or three years old, first encountered the bear. Ms. Tredo said, “Cheyenne was in the thicket about five minutes before she came running out, tail tucked between her legs. She was hollering. Then I saw a shadow behind her and thought it was another dog. In a minute or so, I heard footsteps coming down toward me […]. It was then I saw the face break through the thicket and realized it was a bear.” Her dog Sophie was beside her as she yelled, “Get away, bear!” She said, “I could have touched it if I had wanted. I felt his breath on my legs.” The bear swiped at Cheyenne, glancing it, and Cheyenne ran away. However, Sophie stayed with Ms. Tredo, barking at the bear and positioning herself between the bear and Ms. Tredo. Ms. Tredo said about the bear, “I knew it wanted to get at me.” Ms. Tredo said that after a five-minute standoff, “Finally, Sophie ran the bear back into the thicket where it came from. I could see the bear in the woods walking back and forth. I could also see Sophie. Sophie looked back at me and barked like she was telling me to leave.” Ms. Tredo said, “I ran a little way, and I heard the dog holler. I knew then the bear had gotten hold of her.” Mary Plunkett, Ms. Tredo’s grandmother, heard Sophie barking. Ms. Plunkett got into her pickup truck and drove toward the bear, honking the horn to scare the bear away. Ms. Plunkett and Ms. Tredo then took Sophie to the vet for treatment. Possibly, the black bear was a female with cubs. Lt. Karl Martin of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said, “Normally the black bear is shy and not aggressive with humans. The big dog [Cheyenne] may have posed a threat when it entered the woods, causing the bear to follow it into the open.” Fortunately, Sophie recovered from the wounds the bear inflicted on her.

• On February 16, 2004, flooding developed on the North Island of New Zealand. Kim Riley and her husband had a dairy farm near the Manatawa River gorge, and the flooding river was threatening their livestock. Kim got on a tractor and started herding cows away from the flooded area, but the tractor got stuck, and cows were being swept away downstream toward the dangerous gorge. Kim tried to swim, but the current was too strong for her to make headway, and she was afraid that she would be swept into the gorge, tossed against rocks, and killed. Fortunately, she noticed Cow 569 swimming out of the flood. Kim knew Cow 569, who was a strong-willed animal. She said, “I could see even now how determined she looked, and I figured she was going to make it out of the river.” Kim was able to throw her arms around Cow 569 and hitch a ride to safety. The Rileys lost 15 cows to the flood, but they did not lose Cow 569, and Kim did not lose her life. For three more years, Cow 569 worked as a dairy cow, and then she retired. Most cows end their careers by being made into hamburger, but out of gratitude the Rileys are letting Cow 569 live the rest of her life the way a cow likes to live: eating grass and sleeping.

• As a kid, children’s book illustrator/author Diana Cain Bluthenthal did not have any real pets: Her parents did not want the fuss of taking care of real pets. Therefore, Diana’s “pets” were mainly two houseplants. In addition, she carried pussy willow branchess in her pockets, and they became her pets. She says, “When their fur fell off, I was so upset. I was truly a child in need of something to love and something to love me.” As an adult with a family, she has many pets: a small snake, two pet rats, a tank of fish, and two dogs. During warm weather, the family has many more pets in what she calls her family’s “summer catch-and-release program”: ants (in an ant farm), caterpillars, crickets, frogs, lizards, salamanders, toads, and turtles. She says, “I’ve never been accused of having a farm, but once my husband did say to me the place was becoming a zoo.”

• When a fire broke out in the utility room of Mr. and Mrs. Howard Carlson’s home in Granite Falls, Washington, their German Shepherd mix, named King, came to the rescue. King could have escaped by going out some open sliding glass doors, but instead he chewed through the wooden door leading to the utility room. King first woke up 16-year-old Pearl Carlson by nudging her and whining. Then he and Pearl ran into the Carlsons’ master bedroom. The fire destroyed the house, but the family made it to safety. King had splinters in his mouth, a gash on his back, and burned paws, but he recovered fully. Mrs. Carlson says, “When King joined our family five years ago, we never dreamed that he would someday save our lives. King was named the Ken-L Ration Dog Hero of the Year for 1981.

• In December of 2007, a couple of family dogs apparently saved a two-year-old boy from drowning. The boy had wandered from home and gotten onto a neighbor’s property near Mackay, Queensland, Australia. The neighbor had a dam, and hearing a noise, the neighbor ran down to the dam, where she found the two-year-old boy covered in mud and lying on the embankment, with the two dogs — a Rottweiler cross and a Staffordshire bull terrier —lying by him. From the water to where the boy was lying were drag marks; in addition, the boy’s arms had scratch marks that were apparently made by the dogs. A police officer said, “We are certain the dogs pulled him out of the dam. It is an amazing story.”

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

As a teenager, author Gary Paulsen was the favorite victim of a bullying street gang. Once, as he left his job at a bowling alley late at night, he tried to find a new route home by leaving from the roof. As he climbed from the roof into an alley, he stepped on a ferocious dog. Frightened, he threw the dog half of a hamburger he was carrying, then he ran from the alley—right into the hands of members of the bullying street gang, who immediately started to beat him. Suddenly, the ferocious dog jumped out of the alley and began biting gang members. Gary gave the dog the rest of his hamburger, and after the dog bit the gang leader in another encounter, the gang left Gary strictly alone. (Eventually, Gary found the dog, now friendly to everyone except Gary’s enemies, a new life on a farm.)

Fans often get on major-league players, managers, and coaches. Usually, the pros ignore the hazing (they are too busy hazing the opposing team to listen), but occasionally a fan will go too far. Once Danny Murtaugh got up close and personal with a heckler and said to him, “When I was a youngster, I lived on a farm. We had a jackass on that farm that just wouldn’t do anything. One day I really gave that jackass a beating. My father heard the jackass hollering and came to his rescue. Then he turned to me and gave me a good lacing for what I had done. His last words were: ‘Someday that jackass is going to haunt you.’ And you know, up to now I never did believe him.”

Actor Patrick Macnee had a chance to display his riding ability in the Avengers episode “Silent Dust.” He actually rode the same horse that Sir Laurence Olivier had ridden in Henry V when he made the speech “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” Then, the horse was two years old. At the time of the filming of theAvengersepisode, the horse was 22, but still wonderful. Diana Rigg also rode on a horse, but during filming she confessed to Mr. Macnee that she had never been on a horse until the day before yesterday. When he asked what she had done the day before yesterday, she replied, “I went and had a lesson.”

Quakers tend to try to avoid pride of ownership of material possessions, especially during meetings. Benjamin Maule (1794-1873) was especially proud of a horse that he often rode to meetings. However, some Quakers noticed that he had not ridden the horse to meetings in a few weeks, and Mr. Maule confessed to selling the horse. When they expressed surprise that he would sell a horse he was so obviously proud of, Mr. Maule replied, “I felt I should; he would [metaphorically] come into meeting with me.”

Two lions lived in a zoo. One lion was a newcomer, while the other lion had lived in the zoo for many years. Each day the old lion feasted on hunks of raw meat, while the newcomer was given only bananas to eat. When the newcomer asked the old lion why this was, the old lion explained, “This zoo doesn’t have much money, so you are listed in the zoo roster as a monkey.”

Adelie penguins share egg incubation duties equally. After the female penguin lays the eggs, she goes off on a two-week vacation of swimming in the ocean, eating, and growing fat, while the male penguin incubates the eggs and grows thin. When the female penguin returns from her two-week vacation, the male penguin goes off on his own two-week vacation. When the male penguin returns, the egg or eggs are about ready to hatch.

A crowd of Republicans was talking about the fortunes of politics. One Republican boasted that at one time, the Republican party could nominate a jackass for office and get him elected, too. Unfortunately, the Democrats now were winning elections handily. When he was asked to explain the reversal in fortunes, the Republican said, “I am inclined to think the reason is that when we had the power, we simply elected too many jackasses.”

When Anna Pavlova and her company danced Don Quixote, Rocinante was played by a real horse. Although the horse was well-taken care of, when it was made up for its role it resembled the broken-down nag Cervantes had written about. In fact, in Great Britain, members of the audience complained to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Before Ulysses S. Grant rose to a position of prominence, the union soldiers in the Civil War suffered from poor generalship. One day, President Abraham Lincoln learned that a Union brigadier general and 12 mules had been captured by Confederate soldiers. President Lincoln remarked, “How unfortunate! Those mules cost $200 apiece.”

The first performance of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah took place April 23, 1742, at Neal’s Music Hall, located on Fishamble Street in Dublin. The name “Fishamble” is interesting. A market used to be called a “shamble,” and Neal’s Music Hall used to be a fish market.

Natalie Schafer, who played Mrs. Thurston Howell on the TV series Gilligan’s Island, had a small French poodle, Fifi, as a pet. Fifi was too small to jump onto Ms. Schafer’s bed to sleep with her, so Ms. Schafer had a ramp built so that Fifi could climb into bed with her.

Obviously, the White House is very concerned about security. When Caroline Kennedy’s pet hamsters escaped from their cage, JFK’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, announced at a press conference, “Our security is very tight, but these were extremely intelligent hamsters.”

John Gielgud once played Hamlet at the Castle in Elsinore, Denmark, where the historical Hamlet is supposedly buried. However, Mr. Gielgud reports that many people think that Hamlet’s grave is a fake, and that some people even think that buried in Hamlet’s supposed grave is a cat.

In a Boxford, Massachusetts cemetery is a tombstone the front of which is dedicated to Sarah J. Wood, who died before 1875. On the back of the tombstone is the inscription, “Here at my feet lies my dear pet cat, Tommy, Aug. 24, 1875, aged 17 yrs.”

According to the ancients, although a fox is faster than a rabbit, frequently the rabbit will elude the fox. Why? Because the fox is running for its dinner—but the rabbit is running for its life.

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

At one time, zoos kept large animals such as gorillas in small cages, but now zoos prefer to have larger, more open spaces—that resemble the animals’ habitat as much as possible—in which the animals can roam around. The open spaces make the viewing experience more pleasurable for the zoos’ visitors, and it makes the animals happier—and more likely to breed in captivity. The first person to design larger, more open spaces for the display and comfort of animals was Karl Hagenbeck, who in 1907 placed antelopes and lions near each other in the Hamburg Zoo in Germany—the lions were kept away from the antelopes by an impassible moat. Today, zoo workers go to great lengths to make the settings resemble the animals’ natural habitat. For example, animals in a tropical forest setting will be forced to take shelter a few times a day when zoo workers create artificial rain showers. During the showers, the zoo workers flash strobe lights for lightning and play recordings of thunder and the shrieks of howler monkeys and the calls of birds. All of these things make the animals feel more at home.

Following World War II, when Gary Paulsen, author of Hatchet, was a child, he lived with his parents in the Philippines. There, he and his dog, Snowball, wandered everywhere and saw many things. Together, they discovered a very poor Philippine family living under an overturned Jeep. Despite the family’s poverty, they offered young Gary and even Snowball a bit of food. Thereafter, Gary took food from home and brought it to them, and they shared meals of sardines and rice. Snowball once saved Gary’s life. Walking barefoot along a trail, Gary came across a pretty—but deadly—snake that was about to bite him. Snowball grabbed the snake, shook it, and broke its neck.

William Butler Yeats wrote some plays in the Japanese Noh style, including The Hawk’s Wells, which created a problem. The stage direction “The Girl gives the cry of the hawk” appears twice, but Yeats, choreographer/dancer Michio Ito, and costume/mask designer Edmund Dulac did not know what the cry of the hawk sounded like. They made a few trips to a zoo, but were unsuccessful in hearing the cry of a hawk, even though Mr. Dulac prodded a hawk with his umbrella. Finally, they decided that the Japanese word for hawk, taka, was onomatopoeic, and so when the Girl gave the cry of the hawk, she cried taka.

Once, a bear nearly killed Ruth Paulsen, the wife of popular children’s author Gary Paulsen. She had been weeding the garden when the bear approached her and prepared to attack, although she did the right things—she backed away from the bear, and she avoided eye contact with it. Fortunately, a tiny dog named Quincy saw what was happening, came running, jumped on the bear’s chest, bit down, and hung on. Mrs. Paulsen then did what she shouldn’t have—she ran toward the bear, grabbed Quincy, and ran away. Mr. Paulsen says that in doing this his wife used “all the good luck from the rest of her life,” for the bear turned around and went away.

Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, nicknamed Sodoma (1477-1549), who apparently enjoyed shocking people, once listed the inhabitants of his house as follows: “Item an owl to frighten witches, two peacocks, two dogs, two cats, a sparrow-hawk and other birds of prey, six fowls, eighteen chicks, two moor fowl and many other birds; to name all of which would only cause confusion. I have, besides these, three abominably wicked beasts, to wit, my three women.”

General George B. McClellan felt that President Abraham Lincoln was interfering when he requested to be kept better informed of activities in the field. Therefore, the general sent the president this sarcastic telegram: “Have just captured six cows. What shall we do with them?” President Lincoln was able to meet the challenge. He sent back this telegram: “Milk them.”

English actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell loved Pinkie Panky Poo, her pet Pekingese, and she wanted to take him with her whenever she traveled. She once bundled him under her cloak and tried to smuggle him past customs. Later, she told her friends, “Everything was going splendidly—until my bosom barked.”

When country comedian Jerry Clower was a boy, his family owned a bulldog named Mike. This bulldog looked out for the children of the family, and whenever Jerry’s mother wanted to spank him, first she had to lock up the bulldog, because if she didn’t, as soon as she started to spank Jerry, it would bite her.

The family of Quaker humorist Tom Mullen adopted a stray dog, which they named Terry. Terry was so well fed that she was overweight, and because she was overweight, her legs bowed. In addition, her tail wagged so much that one of the Mullen children called her “a story with a happy ending.”

During the 1970s, Mary Bacon worked as a woman jockey, and while doing her job her face used to be caked by the mud flying out from under the hooves of the racing horses. She once told the New York Daily News, “Some women shell out $25 for a mud pack and I get ’em for free.”

Rudolf Nureyev once watched a nature show during which a sheep carcass was thrown into the Everglades, where it was immediately devoured by frenzied alligators. Mr. Nureyev recognized the scene: “Ah, Paris Opéra.”

A bullfighter appearing on You Bet Your Life told Groucho Marx that in the ring he had met more than 300 bulls. Groucho replied, “You must be the envy of every cow in Mexico.”

Dogs can be trained to do strange tricks. A man in New York trained his dog well. Whenever he said, “Adolf Hitler,” the dog would raise its leg and pee.

George Jean Nathan once wrote about a performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin: “The dogs were poorly supported by the cast.”

“A Christian should so live that he would not be afraid to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.”—Will Rogers.

Gay comedian Bob Smith says that his pet dog is half poodle and half pit bull: “Not a good attack dog but a vicious gossip.”

Sydney Fairbrother was an eccentric British actress long ago who used to suddenly pull out live mice from her sleeves or from her bosom.

“I’m not so sure that none of us have ever been loved by an earthly creature until we have been loved by a dog.”—Jerry Clower.

Life can be tenacious. At Antarctica, where the environment is brutal, lichens live just underneath the surface of rocks.

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

LuLu, a pot-bellied pig, saved the life of her owner, Jo Ann Altsman, who had a heart attack in her holiday home in Pennsylvania. LuLu came running when Jo Ann fell to the floor, and then LuLu went out of the house through a dog door. Outside she left the yard—something that she had never done before—and she waited in the street. When a car came along, she lay down in front of it. The driver was forced to stop, but he was too afraid of the pot-bellied pig to get out of his car. Another car came along and stopped, and this driver did get out of his car. LuLu led the man to the porch of her owner’s home, and the man knocked on the door. Jo Ann cried, “Please call 911.” Soon, an ambulance arrived. LuLu tried to get in the ambulance with Jo Ann, but of course the medics wouldn’t let her. LuLu saved Jo Ann’s life—if 15 more minutes had passed, Jo Ann probably would have died. When Jo Anne recovered, LuLu received two rewards. She won the ASPCA Trooper Award for Bravery. Jo Ann also gave LuLu her favorite treat: a jelly donut.

When Margaret Cho was in Tibet, she visited a dog monastery, which she describes as a temple for reincarnated monks—that is, monks who went astray during their human lives and who have come back as dogs. Ms. Cho remembers that the temple is quiet: The dogs do not bark, howl, or fight, and at the temple the major activity of both monks and dogs is quiet meditation. Visitors can feed the dogs pieces of dough, and the dogs wait in line for their turn to eat! Ms. Cho says, “When I think of Tibet, I remember the politeness of the dogs, pulling back their dog lips and ever so gently taking the food from my hand with their open teeth, not wanting to bite my hand accidentally, and then looking warmly into my eyes with a silent thanks.”

Guardian columnist Michele Hanson calls the British Guy Fawkes celebration “dog-breakdownseason” because the fireworks scare her dogs so badly that they are unwilling to relieve themselves outside. In 2007, her dogs cried and whined all Guy Fawkes weekend. They wanted to go outside to relieve themselves, but each time they tried, fireworks would go off and they would run back inside the house. Ms. Hanson complained about “no sleep for me, of course, because of the whining, farting dogs, running up and down the stairs, begging to go to the toilet. Again and again I tottered to the back door, opened it—BANG—they chickened out and stood quivering on the doorstep. All night for three nights. I am a wreck.”

Chris Lemmon, the son of actor Jack Lemmon, wrote a memoir of his father titled A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father. In the book, and in interviews about the book, he tells stories about the two of them chasing a couple of poodles through the yard of actor James Coburn. Chris and Jack look up, see Mr. Coburn glowering at them through a picture window, and they point to each other and say, “It’s his fault.” By the way, Mr. Coburn is actually a nice guy. Chris said in an interview that “he was just one of the biggest teddy bears you’d ever want to meet on the face of the earth.”

Philip Baker Hall starred in the 2007 movie Duck, and yes, his co-star was a duck. Well, actually several ducks. Adult ducks look very much alike, and different ducks were used for different scenes. Mr. Hall explains, “The director determined that some ducks were better for certain moods than others. So if we needed a duck that was nervous or sort of grouchy, that would be, like, #25…and if we needed a duck that listened well quietly and seemed to be absorbing dialogue, that was Duck #34.” So what is like to have a duck as a co-star? Mr. Hall says, “Well, what it means is that you have to learn 100 pages of dialogue yourself!”

Children’s book author Peg Kahret and her husband, Carl, volunteer at a Humane Society. One day, they met Daisy, a six-month-old Cairn terrier (just like Toto in The Wizard of Oz), and fell in love. However, they already had a cat and a dog, so they thought that they ought to go home and discuss whether to adopt Daisy. Actually, they didn’t have to go home to make their decision. They talked it over for a few minutes in the parking lot, and then they adopted Daisy. Now, when Daisy gets in her doggie bed to go to sleep, Peg sings her a doggie lullaby—something they both enjoy.

On January 27, 1997, Lisa Harry and her son, two-year-old Sean were visiting his grandmother, Phyllis Ingham, in Boston, Georgia. Sean was playing outside on a warm day. Lisa heard him scream, and when she looked up she saw a three-foot-long poisonous water moccasin by Sean. The Ingham family pet, a tiny Chihuahua named Haven, took action. Haven grabbed the snake in her jaws and ran off with it, leaving Sean safely behind. The Ingham family had gotten the Chihuahua from an animal shelter, and Phyllis Ingham says, “The good Lord meant for us to have Haven.”

Buddhists believe in reincarnation, meaning that we have all lived many, many lives, including perhaps lives as animals. Buddhist stories include tales of the previous lives of the Buddha; these are known as the Jataka tales. Buddhists strive to be compassionate, and when the Buddha lived a previous life as a rabbit, he vowed to be so compassionate that if a beggar were starving, he would offer his own flesh to save the beggar.

Some anecdotes need not be completely told to be funny; after all, some things are best left to the imagination. In 2007, when playwright Edward Albee was 80 years old, his beloved cat died of cancer. While the cat’s grave was being dug, Mr. Albee put the cat in a freezer. He says about his cat, “I put her in plastic and forgot to tell the cleaning ladies. One of them went in there, saw a dead cat and, well ….”

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David Bruce: Animals Anecdotes

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Wally Cox

As a small boy, Wally Cox owned a cat that was smarter than he was and smarter than the adult humans in his household. For example, like all house pets, this cat would sometimes be accidentally shut in a room with all the doors and windows closed. When that happened, the cat would meow, then wait. If that didn’t bring a human running to let the cat out of the room, then the cat would knock something small off a shelf or table onto the floor, then wait. If that didn’t bring a human running to let the cat out of the room, then the cat would knock something large off a shelf or table onto the floor, then wait. The bigger items made lots of noise, and soon a human would come running to let the cat out of the room. Once the cat was shut in the basement with lots of canning jars. This time, however, the humans thought that they would train the cat. No matter how many jars of canned goods the cat knocked onto the floor, the humans would NOT come running to let the cat out of the basement. The cat knocked a canning jar onto the floor, then another, and then another—until 32 canning jars were on the floor. The humans remained resolute, and did not come running to let the cat out of the basement. Then a truly major racket exploded in the basement, and the humans came running and opened the door to the basement. The cat came out of the basement—objective achieved—and walked haughtily away. This is what had happened. An ironing board was at the top of the basement stairs, and the cat had managed to knock it over so that it crashed down the basement stairs. After that experience, the humans were properly trained. Whenever the cat needed to be let out of a room or the basement, the humans came running—very quickly.

People get dogs for various reasons, including to replace a deceased pet. One older man came to the Friends of County Animal Shelters (FOCAS) to look for a puppy that was born after March 20. He asked Peggy, a volunteer there, “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Peggy replied that she was willing to believe in a lot of things if it would persuade the man to adopt a pet. The older man explained that his dog had died on March 20. Of course, he had grieved over the death of his pet, but an angel had appeared to him in a dream and told him that he would have to look for his dog but that his dog would return to him. “So,” said the man, “here I am to start looking.” He looked at several dogs, and one dog that he looked at looked at him. He said, “There she is!” Peggy pointed out that the dog was three or four years old and definitely not a puppy, but the man was satisfied. When the cage door opened, the dog ran to the man, who said, “I’ll take this one; this one is mine.” Outside, after the adoption forms had been filled out, the man and the dog walked to his car. The dog waited by the passenger’s side until the man opened it, then she jumped in the car. The man and the dog then drove away together.

On April 13, 1931, in Minneapolis, MN, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Remackel were asleep in their apartment when a next-door neighbor decided to set the building on fire. Their pet Spitz, Buster, woke up first, and he went to Mrs. Remackel’s bedroom at 4 a.m. and woke her up, licking her face, pulling the blanket off the bed, and finally lightly biting her arm—but not hard enough to break the skin. Finally awake and smelling smoke, Mrs. Remackel woke up her husband, who was in another room. The Remackels made it to safety, and Buster went from door to door in the apartment building, barking and throwing himself against the doors, making lots of noise. The neighbors also got out safely. The last thing that Buster saved was Fluffy, the Remackels’ Persian cat. No one died in the fire, no one was injured, and the man who set the fire was arrested. Several newspapers in Minneapolis wrote about Buster, and in 1932 he received a Gold Medal, the highest honor given by the Latham Foundation.

Mulla Nasruddin had two lovebirds, but he worried when they did not excrete their waste for an entire week. A veterinarian paid a house call, looked in the lovebirds’ cage and asked, “Do you always line the bottom of the cage with a map of the world?” Mulla Nasruddin explained that he usually used newspaper to line the bottom of the cage, but that he hadn’t been able to find any newspaper last week when he cleaned the cage and so he had used an old map of the world. The veterinarian said, “That explains it! Lovebirds are very sensitive. They haven’t excreted their waste because they figure that the world has had all the crap it can stand!”

Naturalist Sir David Attenborough knows a lot about animals. Once in a while, he receives hate mail from creationists because he does not believe that an infinitely good and merciful God created the organisms he knows so much about. Of course, he is an intelligent man, and he has reasons to back up his beliefs. For example, he says, “I always reply by saying I think of a little child in East Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator.”

Jerry Spinelli, the author of Maniac Magee and Stargirl, gets interesting letters. A boy once wrote to invite Mr. Spinelli to visit his school so he could meet the school’s pet duck. One year later, the boy again wrote Mr. Spinelli to visit his school so he could meet the school’s pet duck—but to hurry because the pet duck was getting old.

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David Bruce: Animal Anecdotes

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Agatha Christie in 1925

While on an archeological dig in Lebanon with her husband, Max Mallowan, mystery writer Agatha Christie stayed for a while in a horrible house that was infested with mice that ran across her face as she tried to sleep. Fortunately, Mr. Mallowan’s assistant, Hamoudi, was able to solve the problem by going to a man who owned a gifted cat. The man brought his cat to the mice-infested house, and at dinner, five times mice ran across the room, and five times the cat pounced, catching the mice. After five days, no more mice were in the house, and the cat was able to retire with the gratitude of Ms. Christie and her husband.

When children’s book author Gary Paulsen was a boy, each summer he worked on farms, where he got to know many useful farm dogs of the collie type. One dog named Rex helped take care of the farm animals and farmer’s children and patrolled the farmyard constantly to make sure that everything was right, and when something was not right, he took care of it. For example, he killed a skunk that was trying to get into the chicken coop. One day, Gary followed Rex around to see what he did. One of the things Rex did was to watch the other animals as they were being fed. For example, at milking time, the farmer poured milk into an old pail lid to feed the cats. Rex noticed that one kitten wasn’t strong enough to get to the milk—the bodies of the other cats were blocking his way. Therefore, Rex cleared a place for the kitten and made sure that it was able to drink some of the milk.

Children’s book author Betsy Byars has always been very interested in animals, including snakes and bugs. When she was a young girl, she waded in a creek. When she came out, she was very interested to find that brown things had attached themselves to her legs and didn’t want to come off, so she went home to show everyone. The brown things were leeches, and her mother was not happy. But despite being forbidden to get leeches on their legs again, Betsy waded in the creek whenever she wanted to collect leeches for a free-admission “zoo” in the backyard.

Lee Brewster owned and managed Lee’s Mardi Gras, a store for cross-dressers (mainly men who dress like women) in New York. He had a beloved house cat named Kitty Cat, and when he had to take his beloved cat to a pet hospital for emergency treatment, he was outraged because the staff placed money before comfort. After Kitty Cat had been treated, the staff would not allow Mr. Brewster to see his beloved cat until he had paid the bill. Mr. Brewster threw his platinum American Express card down and shouted, “Kitty Cat is no pauper!”

While doing research for her children’s book A Snake’s Body, Joanna Cole met in her home with a snake expert from the New York City Museum of Natural History. He had brought a snake skin for her to look at, but when he showed it to Ms. Cole, her pet dog, Taffy, jumped in the air and grabbed it. Taffy then disappointed under a bed, where she apparently ate the snakeskin. The snake expert told Ms. Cole, “Don’t worry. We have plenty of them back at the lab.”

Bruno, the pet dog of children’s book illustrator Victoria Chess, frequently brings her presents—a dead squirrel, a dead woodchuck, a live chicken, a red ball with blue stars, a bottle of suntan lotion, etc. Ms. Chess jokes that the best present he ever brought her was a purse belonging to a neighbor lady—not only did the purse contain $80, but it also contained 15 credit cards!

Researchers and animals at Antarctica eat high-calorie, high-fat diets—simply keeping one’s body warm requires a huge number of calories. The milk that Weddell seal pups drink contains about 20 times the fat of the milk that comes from cows. (Weddell seals are interesting animals—because they can store huge amounts of oxygen in their blood and muscles, they can swim under the Antarctic ice for close to an hour without taking a breath.)

Sir Arthur Sullivan, a conductor, once heard that the young son of soprano Emma Albani was ill. He visited and had tea with Ms. Albani and her young son, who had nearly recovered from his illness. To amuse the boy, Sir Arthur brought a white rabbit, which hopped around the boy’s nursery. Thereafter, Ms. Albani’s son referred to Sir Arthur as “the White Rabbit.”

Children’s book illustrator Ted Lewin grew up in a household with lots of unusual animals as pets—a lion, a chimpanzee, and many monkeys. (Their neighbors called them “the circus people.”) One afternoon, young Ted made many drawings of Jago the chimpanzee as he lay on the porch. When Jago woke up, apparently he didn’t like the drawings—he immediately bit Ted.

Sitting on a bull moments before it was released to begin bucking in a rodeo arena, 16-year-old Diane Schott was asked by an attendant, “Are you nervous?” She ignored him, so he said, “Well, you better get nervous.” It’s good advice—you can stay on the bull’s back longer if all of your muscles are tense.

French comedian Jacques Tati used some dogs that he picked up at the dog pound in his M. Hulot movie Mon Oncle. After filming was over, he needed to find good homes for the dogs, so he advertised that they were movie stars. Every dog found a good home.

Performance artist Rinde Eckert identifies his pivotal performance as the time he played Peter Rabbit while he was in kindergarten. Whenever he dipped his head so that his bunny ears flopped over his face, the audience laughed.

When he was a small boy, Quaker artist Benjamin West made brushes out of hairs from his family’s pet cat, but he had to stop doing this after his father noticed that the cat looked as if it had been severely attacked by moths.

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