A 2nd chance with a 2nd dodo -- one that’s also unique

Dodo  (Getty Images)

Let’s hear it for The Dodo!  No, not the dodo that went extinct centuries ago, but the website named for that unfortunate, flightless bird. Happily, www.thedodo.com is all animals, all the time. It’s a great nightcap that sends me to bed on an “animal high” – learning new things; seeing animals rescued, not abused; laughing out loud or just “awww”-ing over images or videos.

I don’t remember when The Dodo began, but I signed up as soon as I saw it. With four or five subjects each day in story (with still images) or video (with subtitles) form, its diverse subjects include the following:

            ·          rescues (farmers uncouple two battling bucks whose antlers got tangled together; firefighters save a dog stranded on an ice floe. . . ) 
https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/cat-sleeps-in-doll-bed?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=52617&utm_content=52617+CID_516c006bd682cf011e81ad9165fbf3df&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor

·         can this (animal of any kind) be saved – from being covered in tar; from crippling abuse or birth deformities?

·         unlikely animal friendships -- a chicken who stands on her barnyard friends; a cat and a horse;  a rescued piglet who makes herself at home with eight varied family and foster “siblings”

https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/piglet-puppies-kittens-live-together?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=51817&utm_content=51817+CID_465c624b269ba4fd3a2a9eca837dd349&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor

·         pit bulls – invariably shown as tender-hearted love givers and seekers. (If this is a campaign to soften pits’ image, it worked for me!)  

·         LOLs –bounding baby goats, often wearing sweaters; the husky who throws a tantrum when it’s time to leave the playground; a baby elephant who wants to charge the photographer but retreats to his nearby mom; the kitten popping bubble gum bubbles; the pet rat who munches out on spaghetti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkXCERCrpsM&index=29&list=PLLoPYaJqlcK69nfIAGdxIslrCUof8XHzI

Occasional stories can seem staged or rehearsed – the elephant who runs to his rescuer once he comes into view; the squirrel who taps on the window for snacks; the mixed-species pets who cuddle together just too beautifully to be spontaneous.

Doesn’t matter: I lap it all up.    

Some of the stories are so compelling they demand reader-involvement: the three amigos -- two elderly dogs and a cat who finally got attention and freedom from the squalor they lived in; the ramshackle animal shelter made far riskier by catastrophic flooding and short staffing; a cat no one would touch because of his severe mange and other unsightliness . . . until someone did --   and rescued him and now months later, he’s healed and in foster care. It’s hard not to donate and/or reach out to ask about progress.

I hope you’ll try The Dodo (www.thedodo.com).  It’s a tonic.

Two sad shorts

     Bear Killing: It’s bad enough that New Jersey’s black bears are unfairly vilified and hunted. Now, despite bear sightings in every county of the state, some police depts. – most, I’d bet – still lack tranquilizer guns. Then when they kill a bear for seeming rush-to-judgment reasons, they claim “but we don’t have tranquilizer guns!”

On Sunday, the Union Beach (Monmouth County) police reported they had killed a large bear. As sketchily reported in Monday’s Times of Trenton, police said the bear “had to be put down . . .  to prevent an even more grave situation [not specified] from occurring.” The PD’s  Facebook post said, . . .”as we know – human life takes precedent [sic] over animal life.” 

Oh?  And if that’s the group’s belief, then the animal can be killed with impunity (thereby setting a precedent)?  You have to wonder whether this PD has training or policies for how to deal with bears and other wildlife.   

     Puppy mill sales can continue unchecked in NJ:  The state senate failed to override Gov.

Christie’s veto of the puppy mill sales bill (S3041), which would have benefited both pet-buyers

and the animals forced into “lives” of constant breeding. There’s talk of a second override

attempt late next month.

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