Working out with dogs

How did they create this?
and… why?

Creepiest Pet Memorial Ever?

Our vote for the pet memorial most likely to give you the willies goes to the infamous Buck Booth at Huntsville, Utah’s Shooting Star Saloon.

Buck — (or maybe Newfy — no one’s really sure what his name was anymore) weighed 298 pounds, and was once listed in the Guinness Book as the World’s Largest Saint Bernard.*  After the dog died in 1957 his owner decided to memorialize him by having his head mounted by a local taxidermist.

You’d expect any 50-year old head mount to have a certain Frankensteinesque ambience, but Buck serves a double shot of creepy because he was mounted over a grizzly bear mold.  This is (hopefully) where Buck’s pugnaciously lowered head, pinned back ears and pig-eyed stare come from.

According to RoadsideAmerica:

The head juts out over “The Buck Booth,” which smart patrons know to ask for. If you didn’t know it was a dog, you’d probably think it was just another stuffed animal head (this place is dark, and adjacent are the heads of an elk and a black bear).

A dog’s head isn’t the only odd taxidermy specimen on display at the Shooting Star.  Check out their unique pronghorn mount via StraightChuter (yes Virginia, there really is a warthog’s head emerging from its ass).  Ye dogs — getting drunk at the Shooting Star could lead to some really freaky nightmares…

The Shooting Star is the oldest continuously operating saloon in Utah and word has it they serve excellent burgers. Adding another layer of oddness to the story, the only taxidermy business currently operating in Huntsville is a place called HairDog Taxidery.  Their current price list does not include dogs.

---

*In a somewhat uncharacteristic bit of common sense, Guinness no longer recognizes “heaviest dog” records to prevent irresponsible, publicity-hungry pet owners from creating home-grown versions of Jabba The Hund.

So, You Have a Rat Problem…

Do you get a terrier,

A cat,

Or a carnivorous plant?

Popular Science reports:

Deep in the jungle primeval, Nepenthes attenboroughii awaits its furry prey. But N. attenboroughii isn’t a stealthy cat or poisonous lizard. It’s a plant, and it eats rats.

Scientists recently discovered this new species of pitcher plant on the verdant face of Mount Victoria in the Philippines. It is the largest carnivorous plant ever discovered, and has been named after the famous naturalist and TV personality Sir David Attenborough.

Meat-eating pitcher plants were first described by science in the time of Linnaeus, but the previously discovered Nepenthes species stuck to small prey like insects and spiders — if an unlucky mouse or bird became a meal, that was a rare treat. But the giant N. attenboroughii is a vertebrate specialist.

The plant lures in the rats with the promise of sweet nectar. When the rat leans into the plant to drink the saccharine liquid, it slips on the pitcher’s waxy interior, and gets stuck in the gooey sap. Once it is trapped, acid-like digestive enzymes break down the still-living rodent.

The plant was is named after Sir David Attenborough who is a keen enthusiast of nepenthes.  If I had discovered it, I think I’d have named it Nepenthes audreyii.

Rube Goldberg Obedience Challenge

And other assorted weirdness from Japanese television.

I have absolutely no idea what Japan’s TV Challenge series is about — but apparently, back in October they featured an episode where dog trainers were challenged to turn problem pets into obedient companions. To test  each contestant’s work, the producers set up an elaborate course full of distractions and temptations that would have made Rube Goldberg proud.

Here’s a clip:

Apparently multiple commands were allowed.  “Mate” (mah-tay)  is Japanese for Stay.

Here’s another clip of a show where Japanese dogs compete to see who can do the best trick.  IMO, the last dog won hands down (or is that… paws up?)

And last, but not least — the amazing Japanese Double Dutch Dogs:

Dog Cloning, Mormon Kidnapping Former Beauty Queen also Sought on Bizarre Theft Charges

As if it couldn’t get any weirder….

(Joyce) Bernann McKinney sold her house to get the money to clone her beloved pitbull Booger – and put herself into the international limelight.  As reported by the TimesOnLineUK:

The publicity led to her identification as the fugitive suspect in the sensational British case of the alleged kidnapping and rape of a Mormon missionary in 1977.

It is alleged that the former Miss Wyoming stalked the missionary, a former lover she met at university in America, to a tabernacle in East Ewell, Surrey, and kidnapped him and held him in a cottage in Devon. The 17st missionary, Kirk Anderson, claimed that the petite beauty queen tied him to the bed with mink-trimmed handcuffs and forced him to have sex.

Now, according to the TimesOnLineUK:

The “manacled Mormon” kidnapper who was exposed after cloning her pet pitbull terrier in South Korea is wanted on burglary charges involving a three-legged horse in the United States.

Joyce McKinney is accused of telling a 15-year-old boy to break into a house in Tennessee so that she could get money to buy a false leg for her beloved horse, her lawyer said.

Ms McKinney, 58, was charged in 2004 with criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary, contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

A story in today’s Telegraph states:

David Crockett, Miss McKinney’s lawyer in the Tennessee case, said she hoped to get money to buy a false leg for the animal. “She loved it dearly,” he said.

He said he had not heard from his client since she missed a court appearance for the alleged 2004 offence but after seeing media coverage of the dog cloning, said he was certain she and the dog lover calling herself Bernann McKinney were the same person.