Fauna - Mega and Micro

I was walking the dogs at the park at the La Brea Tar Pits and I was stunned to notice a sign saying that it was "Megafauna Awareness Day" Actually I had MISSED MEGAFAUNA awareness day.

Who doesn't like a day devoted to animals like the giant sloth, the Megatherium, the Diprotodon, a hippopotumus sized marsupial and my favorite the largest carnivorous marsupial, the Thylacine, which became extinct in the 1920s, unlike the Sloth which became extinct in the Pleistocene era. Most of the really good megafaunas died out in the Pleistocene but we have some elephants and whales still around that are classified as megafauna.

Megafauna means big animal and in general they are classified as bigger than humans. Hmmmm. Anyway, someone mentioned that I hadn't been posting any photos of the dogs lately, so I decided to take some snaps of them as MegaPBGV's. Here the towering Lechus MegaPBGVus is passively sitting. And below the Gigantorus Besosus is wondering what the heck I put on his pillow.

The dogs have definite seasons, like Fig Season (squirrels in fig tree), Feioja Season (squirrels in Feioja tree) and Avocado Season (squirrels in avocado season) which in a dog bred to hunt squirrels and vocalize about it is always a pleasant thing for the neighbors. Lately it has been little feral kitten jungle gym in the front garden season, which has kept the dogs in an aroused frenzy for several weeks now. They howl, run from front window to front gate, howl, bark and in general pull me off my feet when I try to take them for a walk. Often I end up in the shrubbery.

The other thing about feral kitten season is that all the neighbors walk around in the front yard looking at the kittens, feeding the kittens, trying to catch the kittens (ha!) which also arouses the dogs. It also means that I have to be a little more careful about being clothed.

A couple of nights ago the feral kitten coalition was wandering around the front yard. I was alarmed at first, who are these people in my front yard? But they had traps and were able to trap two of the kittens (out of six!) immediately. They were working on the whole gaggle of feral cats and kittens in the hood, and they baited some traps in our front yard and left to see what was going on down the block. I went back inside and both dogs rushed out screaming like banshees. Luckily the dogs were concentrated on the area in our front yard known as kitten jungle gym so the beloved C was able to grab Beso. Leche on the other hand, the little food hound, was actually in a trap eating the bait. She was so happy, eating! Unauthorized Eating! Yea!

And then she calmed down and went uh-oh. She had dived into the trap, couldn't back out, couldn't stand, couldn't go forward. Poor dear, she was trapped!