Archive for November, 2007
Bad Nicknames
Thursday, November 8th, 2007Dear Poncho;
Although my name is Archie, my masters insist on calling me by other nicknames, such as Archity, Smoopie, or the absolute worst, PooButt. While I normally don’t mind, it’s an absolute horror in front of my buds. My buddy Spike overheard them one day and now when I go to our weekly greet and sniffs, he just yells out, “Hey, PooButt is here”! I’m now the laughing stock of the neighborhood. Plus our house cat (I’m sure it has a name) snickers every time they do it. A cat laughing at a dog! This is GI-NORMOUS! Is there anything I can do to gain back my rightly dignified canine respect?
– Archie, Chicago, Illinois
PONCHO:
The sad fact is the more you dislike a nickname, the more it sticks, and your nickname is very sticky. The only way to dislodge a nickname like that is through a heroic act. You need to save a kid from a well or something. Unfortunately there’s never a little rugrat stuck in a well when it’s convenient, so you may have to bide your time. In the meanwhile, tape that laughing house cat to your buddy Spike’s butt and point at him and start yelling “CatButt” . If the nickname sticks it might take the heat off you.
Baby Birds
Monday, November 5th, 2007I got myself in a little hot water recently with a storyline revolving around a baby bird “falling” (that’s Poncho’s story and he’s stickin’ to it) out of its nest. A couple of the jokes made use of the widely misunderstood notion that if you touch a baby bird the poor little guy’s mother will no longer care for it because they smell like huuu-mannn.
I admit that like many people I believed this was true, but fortunately I did a little research before I began the series and discovered that birds actually have a poor sense of smell, so that whole myth is a load of hooey, and I included that information in a strip further along in the series.
Not soon enough, however, as I received a flood of e-mails and letters from concerned animal lovers admonishing me for perpetuating the myth and thereby endangering birds who might otherwise have benefited from aid. And taking care of a grounded bird yourself should be a last resort, as there’s no substitute for a mother’s love, as was explained to me in a number of letters including one from Wild Bird Clinic volunteer Adria Gibbons, BSc.H:
“We often get people bringing in a baby bird that had “fallen” out of the nest and was
subsequently touched by a person. Falling out of the nest is a natural part of the process of learning how to fly, or fledging. The bird’s mom and dad do not ignore it once this has happened. They continue to feed the baby and defend it until it can do so on its own. If the little bird is touched by a human the parents won’t reject it for that reason. Most birds have a very poor sense of smell, on par with our own, and can’t tell if someone else has touched their babies. I have been told the best thing to do for a little bird out of it’s nest is to pick it up and put it back in the nest if you can. If the nest has been destroyed you can put the bird in a strawberry basket or other container with holes for drainage and put it in a nearby bush or crux of a tree. Mom and dad are probably around and will continue to tend to the baby.”
My thanks to all the concerned bird lovers who wrote in to help set the record straight.
