The Animal Channel
Featured Photo Gallery
New West Presents Pam Voth’s “Dog Face”
There are dog people, and then there are people like photographer Pam Voth. The difference is difficult to put one's paw on, exactly, but I knew it when I saw it. Pam came into the New West offices last month to hang her show, Dog Face, for New West's monthly Missoula Art Walk party, greeted all of us warmly and headed straight for Rontu, Jonathan Weber's new pup. She knelt down beside Rontu calmly and looked him in the eyes. She didn't presumptively pet him as most of us irresistibly do with a pup. She didn't baby-talk him. She simply addressed him as one creature to another with a courtesy and respect that hinted at an uncommon rapport with dogs. And then she hung her photographs.... [more]
Save the backyard songbirds! Feed the dang fool squirrels
Springing From A Boise Backyard
It's spring and the squirrels in Boise are on crack. Exploding from their stinky winter nests with squirrely joy, they’re streaking across parks, riverbanks and neighborhoods raiding bird feeders, staking out territory, picking fights with each other and chasing off rival gangs.
And lordy, they are famished. Greedy for anything to fill out their winter bones, our house squirrels are doing their annual turn as little predatory maniacs. The kitchen window is the screen to our distinctly Western backyard habitat, which is home to fox, heron, the occasional hawk, owl, bats, damnpies (damn-magpies) chickadees, snakes, mountain bluebirds, raccoons and our Gang of Seven: Marvin, Aretha, Ike, Tina, Gladys, Smokey and Little Richard.
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Temptations
Yearning for a Yearling: BLM Wild Horses Tempt New Mexico
The four paragraph announcement in the Albuquerque Journal was easy to miss, but for the fact that three different people either cut it out of the paper or sent me a link.
The Bureau of Land Management held a wild horse and burro auction this morning at the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Posse. I am still here, at my computer, checkbook firmly stowed in the desk drawer. For once, when it comes to horses, I practiced self-restraint. I'm proud of myself, because last night all I could think about was that pen full of yearling fillies, sweet-eyed and tiny and dirty and a little ribby.
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The Animal Planet
Council Waffles on Animal OrdinanceI managed to sit through a good portion of the City Council debate on the HEART Ordinance last night (I no longer go to meetings, but I do watch them on channel 16). The HEART Ordinance(Humane and Ethical Animal Rules and Treatment) may be nearly as controversial as the minimum wage law. The councilors sat through hours of testimony, by veterinarians, rescuers, breeders, pet lovers, and others who came out either for or against the ordinance. [more]
On the Road
Horse Sports: A Bit Like Watching Grass Grow
A journalist friend recently sent me a note asking me what cutting is as it applies to horses. I hadn't actually seen a live "cutting" (which actually sounds like something the veterinarian would do to a stallion) but I've watched plenty on TV and of course, I'm an avid consumer of horse magazines in all forms, so I could give him enough information for his story.
Yesterday, I'm happy to say, I watched a live cutting, and fittingly, I watched it in Ft Worth's Will Rogers Equestrian Center. I happened to notice all the horse trailers coming through town, and mentioned it to the person I'm meeting with here, and she said, "Oh, there's a big cutting in town."
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The Animal Channel
Man’s Best Friend? I’d hate to be the enemy…On a long road trip at six or seven years old my mom turned around and covered my eyes so I wouldn't see the two puppies scrambling across the busy freeway, dodging cars. But it was too late, I'd already spotted them. For a long time I let myself believe they made it to the other side. In reality, I'm sure they didn't. But twenty-five years later and that image is still burned in my memory. Last year in Albuquerque after the finale of the International Balloon Fiesta in October, we rode up to the northeast heights to get some photos of a spectacular moon before riding the hour home to Santa Fe. Coming down Tramway, I grabbed Shane's arm and yelled "stop!" as a dog stepped out onto the road a few feet in front of us under the lamplight. [more]
Development overflow
Development Encroaches on Albuquerque Horse Playground
It's a rite of spring: The Annual Watermelon Mountain Pony Club Horse Trials is in just two weeks, and this morning we took the horses for a final ride around the course high up on Albuquerque's West Mesa.
Seven years ago, on my first visit to the cross country course called Boca Negra after the black volcanic rock that litters the area, I found it a desolute, cactus-y kind of place, but the jumps and the terrain were challenging enough for what we wanted to do — participate in the horse trials and have fun.
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Saving Salmon
Sea Lion 1, Corps of Engineers 0It took a wily and determined sea lion less than a month to beat $1 million worth of new salmon-saving barricades at Bonneville Dam. 
The Army Corps of Engineers
erected the dozen steel barricades in early February to protect salmon passing through the dam's fish ladders from voracious sea lions which follow them. The barricades worked...for a while. But now one sea lion — known to official-types as "C-404" — managed to squirm through a 15-inch opening and make himself at home inside the fish ladders.
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Better Than Bird Watching
Living the Wild Life in IdahoIn Idaho, living the wild life means living with wildlife. And that's what I like about it. What follows is a catalog of my close encounters of the wildlife kind. [more]
The Horse Business
New Mexico To Profit from Catering to CowboysNew Mexico economic developers efforts to attract aviation or biotech companies from Colorado haven't reaped that many benefits. Sometimes, you have to go back to your roots to be successful.
On Saturday, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association announced it would move its headquarters from Colorado Springs to Albuquerque. According to KOAA-TV Colorado Springs, New Mexico offered the PRCA a $17 million incentive package to move the PRCA and the Rodeo Hall of Fame to the city.
Colorado Springs loss is Albuquerque's gain. The Albuquerque Journal reports that the PRCA will bring 85 jobs and a $3.35 million payroll to the city.
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