Huck, a golden-retriever mix, recently jumped into Broad Branch, the small stream that runs along the Melvin Hazen trail, which is near the zoo in Rock Creek Park. Huck always jumps in Broad Branch. It’s part of his daily routine. What wasn’t part of his routine was coming home sick and lethargic because of something he swallowed in the water.

Huck’s owner, Tracy Sacks of Cleveland Park, describes the something as “oil/gasoline/petroleum stuff” and says Huck came home covered in it and was sick all night. So she made a few calls to the District Dept. of Environment, the National Park Service, and D.C. Fire & EMS describing the spill. To Sacks’ surprise, someone from the DOE called her back and even went down to the creek to check it out.

“He assessed that someone had dumped a couple gallons of turpentine, maybe five or six, and that it would wash away,” says Sacks.

So, thanks, to the fine citizen dumping chemicals into Rock Creek and its tributaries. Next time try the Benning Road Trash Transfer Station. It’s open every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. to take your hazardous, non-dog-friendly materials.

Quick! Bring your dogs to Marie Reed to poop all over the kickballers’ field! Bring them to romp and dig into the baselines where kids from the learning center play! Clearly, this park belongs to dogs and their owners. Never mind there’s only a single coat of paint over “NO” and “AT ANYTIME.” No one paid any attention to the original sign anyway. Never mind there’s an actual dog run up the hill at Walter Pierce. I get it. It’s too far to walk. That would be, like, giving you and your dog way too much exercise. Maybe you’ve heard this all before. I know I have.

Hot for Creature Update: Bigfoot enthusiasts Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer claim to have found the corpse of a Bigfoot creature in the woods of northern Georgia. You can read near-identical accounts here and here.

Check City Desk tomorrow for substantive analysis from William Dranginis, Bigfoot researcher and subject of Eric Wills‘ July 17 City Paper cover story.

—Ted Scheinman

As if any more proof were needed that the D.C. area is uninhabitable in August, stepping out of the shower this morning I encountered a creature closely resembling this thing:

Yup, camel crickets are back. That picture doesn’t give you a good sense of scale, so let me make it clear what’s going on here. Camel crickets are approximately four feet tall, with antennae that stretch eight feet. They smell fear and live on human limbs. Every summer millions of them leave their native habitat, Hell, and arrive in the D.C. area, a large proportion of them setting up shop in my basement.

I’m exaggerating, but I’m still unhappy to live in an area that’s attractive to creepy bugs that leap toward you when you try to shoo them away. The last time I was a big baby about this in public, a commenter suggested oven cleaner. I’m willing to try it, even if keeping a can of the stuff next to the shampoo seems risky on mornings when I’m not quite awake yet.

Photo by discutant

Just in time to save us from debating a New Yorker cover that left so very many of us so very confused (was Michael Eric Dyson really expounding on the intrinsically unsatirical nature of fist-bumps on the News Hour?) here’s an uncomplicated picture of Barack Obama holding a three-legged puppy dog at the Lincoln Memorial. The picture is on the side of the bus promoting a book by Jana Kohl about puppy mills—Baby, the ridiculously cute dog in the photo, was rescued from such a place—and both Baby and Kohl are in town for the next few days. On Saturday Kohl will be signing books at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, as part of the Taking Action for Animals conference. No word on whether it’s available as a poster.

Dogs just shouldn’t have to poop in litter boxes.

I know you. You bought this cute little pricey dog. You can tuck it under arm. Put it in a purse. Whatever. But no matter how small, you shouldn’t force it to crap in a box made for cats.

Maybe dear reader, you’re wondering: Do people, sophisticated people renting in the Capital of the Free World, actually force dogs to poo in boxes? Yes. They do. I’ve seen it. And it’s disgusting.

Think sweaty sausages coated in sand. Think glistening ice cream smeared in gravel. And it smells like dog poop. Do you think a dog likes crapping in a little box? Do you think a dog doesn’t like going outside for a nice walk? Are you that lazy that you can’t take your freaking dog for a jaunt around the block? People: Please stop torturing dogs this way!

Cats produce little pellets. Dog poop is more like human poop. It belongs outside wrapped in a plastic Safeway bag—not chilling out in your closet.

While on my apartment search last week, I noticed two things about a Columbia Heights one-bedroom: a little barky dog and a litter box filled with dog turds in a hall closet. I did not sign a lease for that apartment. I don’t care if the dog and the box would disappear, if the same construction crew that built Nationals Park would buff and scrub the place. That dog scene was serious bad karma.

So dog owners, again, please let your pooches crap outside. It will not only improve your dog’s health but the housing market.

Have you heard the news ? The National Zoo’s panda, Mei Xiang, might be pregnant.

Oh lord, here we go again.

All panda stories strike a particularly nostalgic chord with me. This is not because I lived across from the National Zoo when I was a toddler (I did. It was awesome). Nor is it because I just adore pandas in all their slow moving, bamboo-gnawing cuteness. Nor is it that I care about their plight as an endangered species.

No, any mention of a panda brings me back to my first days as a reporting intern a few summers ago. I was tasked with writing a brief piece about the last baby panda at the National Zoo. I can’t exactly remember that day’s breaking panda news. Maybe, the panda opened its eyes for the first time. Or it had a good check-up. Or it gained three pounds.

Whatever it was, it was clearly something MAJOR. So, I called the damn zoo, wrote the damn story, and didn’t think much of it.

Apparently other people did though. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day. Could have fooled me. I’m at work. I don’t see any dogs. Usually this place is crawling with dogs: There’s food critic Tim Carman’s dog, Ol’ Meatsack; there’s that other dog. Boy, are there dogs.

Not today.

Photo by Zach Klein.

Dogs! We are all inspired by them. And after the 12-month Wall Calendar Photographer and the Personalized Mug Designer, the profession most inspired by dogs may well be the Poet.

“There is an amazing amount of poetry about dogs,” explains Michael Gushue, poet. Gushue is a member of the Brookland Area Writers and Artists*** collective, which tonight will hold “Dog Days,” a poetry reading “about, by, for and around dogs, canines and man’s best friend.”

Past BAWA* reading themes have included Sterling A. Brown, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and obscenity. But the dog theme has (four!) legs: This is the fourth year that BAWA* has turned its attention to the domesticated critters.

“In poetry, you can use the dog to talk about anything else you would talk about,” says Gushue. “There are a bunch of corny, brilliant, heartbreaking poems about dogs getting old and dying, which touches one one of the two great themes of poetry: Death. You can use dogs to talk about friendship, about philosophy. Really, I cant think of a single theme that dogs haven’t been integrated into.”

The reading will be held tonight at 7 p.m. in the Brookland Visitors Center at 3420 9th St. NE. Do not bring your dog. “We haven’t figured that out yet, because the reading is held in an art gallery,” says Gushue. “At some point we’re going to do it outdoors and everyone’s going to bring their dog.”

** asterisk theirs.

Today’s Washington Post article about the five ducklings who met their fate in the drain of a pool outside the National Museum of the American Indian is a bit of a downer. But behind every mass baby animal water grave lies great copy! Check out this plum quote, from an NMAI spokesperson:

“Nobody wants to see any sort of wildlife killed,” spokeswoman Leonda Levchuk said. The incident was especially painful for the museum because it occurred at a busy hour and in an area full of visitors, she said. “We hate to see when visitors actually witness them kind of being sucked away.”

According to the piece, despite preventative measures, ducklings are frequently kind of sucked away. But if Levchuk’s quote wasn’t enough to cheer you up, check out this happier tale of duckling-meets-grate: A rare sewer duck rescue!

Update: Eep eep eep eep eep eep eep eep eep eep eep eep eep eep!

Dear CNN,

I’m sick of all the primary coverage. I implore you: More rat on cat on dog.

Sincerely,

Amanda Hess

I thought we, as a civilization, were going downhill. Smoking bans are spreading across the country. New York is outlawing trans fat. Chicago (and soon California) put the kibosh on foie gras. Apparently it’s cruel. (Too bad it’s oh so delicious.) But there is light at the end of the smokeless, healthy, svelte tunnel. Chicago has overturned its two-year-old foie gras ban. Does this mark a new bellwether? Does my future involve eating a plate of foie gras, followed by a doughnut fried in trans fat, and finished off with a cigarette over a cocktail? One can only hope.

Inventions! We all use them. And Erik Roberts of Bowie, Maryland has another one for us: The Animal Sounds Whistle.

Part hunting call, part See ‘n Say, the Animal Sounds Whistle means to turn regular old human breath into the mighty calls, terrifying growls, and subtle moos of the animal kingdom. Roberts’ lightbulb moment came seven years ago, while visiting the National Zoo with his two young sons. “They were trying to call the animals. Kids do it all the time, they try to make the animal noises,” says Roberts. But when Roberts, 37, checked the gift shop for a whistle that would aid in their animal calls, he discovered that no such thing existed—yet.

Years later, “I saw this commercial on TV after a court show for InventHelp, that had a caveman beating on a wheel,” says Roberts. “It comes on after Oprah and Judge Mathis.” He called them immediately. After suggesting a couple other inventions—a child beeper and a video game system that used a built-in camera to superimpose a child’s image on the screen—Roberts finally hit on a patent-worthy invention with the Animal Sounds Whistle. “I’ve always been thinking about this one, the whistle,” says Roberts. “It’s been on the backburner for the longest time.”

Truck driver by trade, inventor by nature, Roberts says he’s always had a lot of ideas. “I mean, ever since I was like 17 or 18, I’ve just been coming up with things,” says Roberts. “And everything I came up with, a year or two later, I’d see it come out.”

But with patent secured, now it’s Roberts who will be disappointing other would-be animal sound whistlers. Roberts will exhibit his invention at InventHelp’s invention trade show, INPEX, to be held in Pittsburgh this June. He hopes to sell the idea to a distributer—maybe it will even end up in the zoo. “That’s my dream,” says Roberts.

Roberts says he’s pretty confident he’ll find some takers: “You know, because animals have been around forever, it’s not going to just be some fad.”

WaPo’s Juliet Eilperin clocks in today with an update on the court case over giving the polar bear a little bureaucratic love under the Endangered Species Act. Like many such cases, this one is gummed up in federal court, with environmental groups pushing the Bush administration to make a decision on the Endangered designation. The Interior Department missed its own deadline on this matter back in early January.

It all boils down to ice. That is the PB’s habitat, and that’s what’s melting everywhere. The Bushies don’t wanna act because protecting the habitat would require it to make the sacrifices it hasn’t wanted to make ever since it kicked Kyoto to the curb.

But I swear–who in good conscience can stand around while another big animal fades from the landscape. Last time I checked, there were, like, 3,000 tigers left in the entire world, a fact I’m not going to verify right now. Elephants are in trouble. Grizzlies have serious issues.

Large vertebrates! We all love them. Kids, especially, adore them. Though I am a professional journalist and unbiased and objective on all issues, I say, List the PB. I’ll gladly install solar panels, cut back on auto trips, use corn in more creative ways, eat cereal out of the same, uncleaned bowl every morning, make greater use of the hand dryer, refrain from liposuction, or do what’s necessary to stave off a planet consisting solely of humans and squirrels.