Results tagged “animalplanet”

We already covered the Super Bowl half time show alternatives, but what if you're not a football fan or your team didn’t make it? What if you don’t want to sit through a football game to watch commercials or if you hate Joe Buck and Troy Aikman? Well, don’t worry, there are some television alternatives for you if you don’t want to watch either the game or the countless hours of pre-game shows.

Sometimes the only interesting parts of Super Bowl Sunday are the ads and the halftime show, and neither of those things are really that great. But not this year! On top of getting a home team in the big game, we get Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performing during the halftime.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

Puppy Bowl III (Sunday, 3:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m. Animal Planet) Puppies from shelters drink water, pee, and play for three hours is someone's idea of something to go up against the Super Bowl.

Tom Shillue performs at clubs all over New York City, has a Comedy Central Presents half hour special, has appeared in commercials for Audi, Heineken, Ameritrade, Snickers, and provided voiceovers for Verizon, for Amex, and Met Life. He'll be headling at http://comixny.com/event.aspx?eid=69&sid=221on the 14th.

For nerds like us, every Tuesday is like a birthday – with a new NYT Science Times section ready to be violently unwrapped, played with, and tossed aside. So here’s this week’s: Predigested and regurgitated in an owl-like fashion just for you!

Me-ow! We loved the idea of Meow Mix's reality show for cats so much that we had to check out the Meow Mix House for ourselves. The webcams are great, but there is nothing like going up to the window and trying to convince a cat that you're his or her best friend in the whole wide world.

Awesome! The Meow Mix House webcams are up. Why webcams? Why a house? Meow Mix is running its special cat reailty show where cats compete for a job with Meow Mix. Seriously. Cats from shelters across the country were selected to be put into a "house" at 425 Madison Avenue (Meow Mix's director of advertising and marketing, Ira Cohen, did tell the AP, "This thing is very tongue-in-cheek."). Each week, people can vote for the cats they want to stay in the house, and the winner will be named the "Feline Vice President of Research." But cats who are voted out will get placed in a home, plus a year of Meow Mix, as a prize, so not all is lost. In fact, one of the goals of the Meow Mix House stunt is to remind people about adoption season and how older cats need homes.

You can take your 21st century crimefighting techniques and shove them - psychics are totally coming back! At least with investigations involving missing dog show dogs. AM New York reports that the owners of Vivi, the show-worthy whippet that has been missing since last week, are taking tips from various psychics. Apparently, four of the twelve psychics have been saying the same thing, but it's unclear whether or not that was "the dog is lost, scared and alone." Still, the owners have hope:

Monday afternoon, one of those psychic leads appeared to have paid off. [Vivi's co-owner Paul] Lepiane said dog droppings consistent with the 30-pound whippet's were found behind a cargo building in the northwest section of the airport.

Additionally, according to a friend of the owners, the psychic also said, "She said Vivi could hear a person calling to her, but she didn't recognize the voice." Now, Gothamist watched The X-Files and we want to believe the truth it out there, yada yada yada. But we could have guessed those things! A group of volunteers will conduct a grid search around JFK Airport today, and the owners are looking to bring in special whippets trained to search for their own kind today.

Gothamist has our guacamole and Tostitos with a Hint of LIme (best tortilla chip ever!) and we're ready to see if anything crazy happens during the game.

Who knew petsitting could be fraught with million dollar lawsuits? A Manhattan family is suing a family friend's friend for failing to return their dog. Martin Klein says that Ted Kohl was supposed to watch their Yorkshire terrier Hershe while the family was on vacation, starting November 20. However, Kohl gave the dog to his friend Gayle Fisher Worth when he was sentenced to prison on November 28. Yes - Kohl, a contractor, had pleaded guilty to grand larceny in October, after stealing millions during a renovation at the Trump Tower Asprey store. The Klein family says that Hershe, given to their daughter Michele by Kohl during her bout with cancer, was left with Kohl because it would be the last time Kohl would see him for a while. Well, of course.

The National Zoo's veterinarians confirm that the baby panda born a scant three weeks ago is a boy! Today was the first day the zookeepers spent some time alone with the cub, who weighs 1.82 pounds and is 12 inches long, and is described as being "very solid and sturdy and extremely cute." We assume that in future visits, the world can expect adorable and extensive photographs of the baby (like this one of San Diego Zoo cub Mei Sheng). Baby Boy Panda won't be on exhibit until October, when he is three months old, and there will most likely be a 100 days naming ceremony around that time, too. So, this is as good as a time as any to mention that the Amtrak Acela has increased the number of trains that go to DC. We'll be there with our panda ears on.

Gothamist loved loved LOVED the City section article about the teacher's cat who answers sixth graders' questions at MS 391, a specialized school known as Tapco, the Theater Arts Production Company, in the Bronx. Not only can kids write to Sophia the cat for love advice or to say that their teacher (and Sophia's owner) Craig Roberts shouldn't use their slang ("Please tell him to stay in his age group"), but they get class visits from her! Man, all Gothamist had as class pets were the occasional baby chick, newt, frog or dimestore goldfish. Best quotes about whether or not Sophia could really answer their questions:

Demetrious Cacheres, expressed his feelings more strongly. "I haven't sent her letters," he said, "because personally I feel it's ridiculous."

Continue reading "The Cat Who Knew How to Write"

My boyfriend and I live in a studio apartment with all our windows facing the backyard, where our landlord keeps his two big and very, very loud dogs. The backyard is pretty small and the dogs are left there for days at a time, whatever the weather, so it seems that the barking is more of a cry for help than anything else. They go at it for 10 to 20 minutes at a time, several times a day, and even more frustratingly - late at night. When they're not barking, they're whining, and there's just no hiding from the noise - the acoustics make it seem like they're in our bedroom. Sometimes, there's a neighbor's dog out in a nearby yard, the three of them bark together for what seems like hours.

This is a horrible case, but it reinforces both the importance of the ASPCA, which is a resource to educate people about how to take care of their animals, as well as find people who mistreat them, and the fact that animal cruelty is not tolerated. Gothamist has seen Special Agent Pentangelo has arrested people people, as one of our favorite shows is Animal Precinct on Animal Planet. His bio is here (here's the ASPCA's page on the show as well).

Governor Pataki tries to secure the animal lovers' vote by signing a bill forcing dog owners to give their pets proper shelter in "inclement weather [including but not limited to rain, sleet, ice, snow or wind, as well as extreme heat and cold]," or else they will face fines between $50 and $100 for their first offense ($100 to $200 for a second offense). Of course, the ASPCA is thrilled with the decision, as they had been trying to pass similar laws without luck. One dog owner in Long Island who also owned a cat wondered why there wasn't a similar law for cats, but then answered his own question by saying, "Cats kind of know when to come in. They're smarter."

Panda Passion Play
Yesterday, Gothamist decided to see what the National Zoo pandas were up to...