When Animals Heart Attack
I once watched a lizard have a heart attack as it ran up a wall.
I suppose it’s possible that the lizard didn’t have a heart attack…maybe it slipped and fell to its death. One minute scurrying sure-footedly, the next, free-falling to a back-flop on the concrete?
I just never expect to see an animal fall. You know, the Majesty of Nature and all… but I bet it’s not really all that majestic. How many mountain goats trip and fall to their deaths each year? How often do eagles dive-bomb their prey and overshoot, only to slam into the ground and tumble in feathery cartwheels? I bet monkeys miss the next branch and land on their butts all the time.
Someone must have stats on this kind of stuff.
I watched a show on Komodo Dragons the other day. This nine-foot, two hundred pound lizard, trailing three-foot streams of bacteria-fortified saliva, ambled up to a herd of wild deer–and they did not run. The dragon, of course, bit one of the deer, dooming it to death by blood poisoning and eventual eating-by-giant-lizard.
Again, it was a NINE-FOOT LIZARD WITH THREE-FOOT STREAMS OF SALIVA! Come on deer, OF COURSE it bit you! If a nine-foot lizard enters the same state I will run. I only live in Utah because the zoo here is too crappy to have Komodo Dragons.
Actually, after watching that, I may stop being afraid of Komodo Dragons. I don’t think it’s smart enough to catch an animal that doesn’t just sit and wait to be eaten. Its entire hunting strategy consisted of lumbering into the middle of a deer herd and biting the nearest dimwit (though that didn’t stop the narrator from calling it an “ambush”).
As long as I am at it, I may drop my long-standing policy of being terrified of lions too. I could easily outsmart a lion. I can picture telling my grandchildren the story, “…and as the lion was about to pounce I shouted, ”What’s that?!“ and pointed behind him. As he turned to look I kicked him right in the nuts. He crumpled to the ground and I bit him on the nose for good measure.”
Then I would refill my pipe.
Stupid animals.
My friend was driving to Utah once on Highway 6 and an eagle flew down and took her passenger side mirror off when it hit her car. It then tumbled down the road, got up, and flew away. I think it caused $300 in damage because it also broke the right headlight.
I fear no beast as long as I have an aluminum baseball bat, and they don’t surprise me. Other wise I’m a friggin coward. You come from a family that’s first reaction when being attacked by a dog is to punch the dog in the face! Thus the lion would run from you because you have no fear. Maybe that’s why the deer didn’t run, they thought they could kick the dragons a**. That must he its secret weapon – reverse psychology! I must say that I am quite terrified of a poison lizard capable of using reverse psychology on it’s prey.
I only fear rats, because they have no fear, travel in large numbers, they often take over a whole house (without making a single mortgage payment), and will eat food that is left on the table. Also, their only calling card is pooh. Can you imagine if the neighborhood bully’s only calling card was pooh. Talk about a psychological edge!
Let me describe my worst nightmare as a kid. I’m sitting, watching T.V. Without warning, a large bulge emerges in the carpet. The bulge gets really big and I, for some unknown reason, poke the bulge with a wire hanger. Suddenly, my poke allow thousands, nay, millions of rats to pour out of the bulge. The rats eat me, a little at a time. Then they leave me as their usual calling card.
Tell me that is not scary.
I love reading about urban legends of giant birds with 12 foot wing spans flying off with horses. There are plenty, even one where a guy filmed the bird in a tree, but there was no frame of reference, so you couldn’t really tell.
I use to be really afraid of saskwatches until seeing Harry and the HENDERSONS. Then the tv show came out and all was cured.
I wonder what Crocodile Hunter would do if he came across a Komodo dragon…
Quick Links
Once again Josh Penrod writes a funny and whacky blog entry (Some colorful language included). I laugh more at this guys sense of humor than anyone I can think of. This entry is also one of my favorites and leaves me in tears of laughter everytime I re…
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A welcome and worthy accompanyment to the Anaconda story. The two essays should be issued jointly. I can picture the book covers. both would feature the pipe. One with the Anaconda clenching the pipe in its teeth and the other with Josh, one foot on the Lion, tamping a pipe while looking off into the purple but snow covered mountains in the distance, an insoucient smile on his lips. (and Lion hair between his teeth) No, strike the hair thing. Yeah, that doesnt work. Just the same,any essay that can stand up to about eight re-readings is a worthy successor to the Anaconda (which I am submitting to the pantheon of “Great Literary Works of the Western World)
I think you just came up with a new episode of Discovery Channel’s Animal Face Off (A show that is both awesome and disappointing at the same time). Josh vs. Lion. I can hear it now “The Lion is a strong beast with a bite that measures 800 psi, his main method of attack is the ambush, where he hides himself only to pounce on his victim when it is least expected.” “Well Josh is 6-6, was at least once very agile, and has no fear, he is best known for his distraction techniques and nose-biting attacks, this should be a match of the ages.”
That would rival the Great White vs. Salt-Water Crocodile episode.
this is killing me! it reminds me of the incident in CA a few years back where Sharon Stone and her then husband (a San Fran lawyer – there’s all kinds of jokes in there somewhere) were at the zoo in LA and HE got bit on the toe by a komodo dragon and nearly died! What was even more fun was watching the afternoon LA news personalities try to relate the incident without laughing out loud. The exchange of looks between everyone on the set was enough to make you rewatch it “with film, at 11!”
Actually, the Hogle Zoo had a Komodo Dragon on exhibit in the “butterfly house” a couple years ago. Far more exciting than the parakeets they have in there now.
I wonder if the Sharon Stone Husband attack was just an extension of the “…biting the nearest dimwit” komodo hunting strategy?
Slothdog, I am glad I didn’t know about the Hogle zoo dragon two years ago. I would have moved. Though, I am curious who they are hiring as zoo keepers. A komodo dragon and parakeets in the butterfly house? I may have to send them a handy guide to identifying butterflies…though I would hate to be the one to break it to him, “Damn, these aren’t butterflies either?! Curse you butterflies! I will catch you and put you in my zoo, mark my words!
Maybe they have some sort of connection on a purely emotional level. Truly a real life scenario of the Beauty and the Beast folktale. The dicotomy of the Kamodo dragon, gentle with the butterflies, yet hunts and kills a deer in the same hour.
I saw this tv show where they build robots that simulate animal bites, like a tiger bite with a lion bite, or Great white sharks etc. They get meat from a building that has lots of dead meat, then they look at the bit marks and shake their heads at how sweet the robots are. Then they take us to some sweet computer graphics doing the same thing. Simulation is what it’s all about these days.
I would love to see a bunch of hip nerds take on this little scenario of Josh kicking the lion in the balls.
Simulation of the lion biting Josh, but then of course the simulation of a size 12 1/2 chuch Taylor kicking simulated Lion balls, and then oohing about how deadly it is, how they would hate to be on the other side of that attack as they examine the now injured animal balls. Then another simulation of Josh’s jaws clamping down on a simulated robotic lion nose. Truly Josh is the grand victor of this face off, but the lion will come back with a new plan, as the sun sets on the great African Planes, the Lion is still king of this jungle (read like in the voice of Lourne Greene)>
i love this siterooooooooooooooooooooo
My dog had a heart attack. He started shaking and then stopped breathing for a minute. I thought he died at that moment:(
My dog did finally die. I miss him.
I have a story about dog heart attacks. Ahem.
My sister-in-law got married in Laie, Hawaii just before New Year’s Day. Her in-laws [the Goos]are Chinese, as are many of their neighbors. So every New Year’s Eve, the entire neighborhood strings up about a thousand or so 15′ strings of firecrackers, and then set them off when the clock strikes midnight. It’s like Armageddon, only everyone’s cheering.
The Goo’s next-door neighbor’s dog had died of a heart attack just the year before, when his poor old heart couldn’t take another 300,000 rounds of live ammunition. So now Helen gives their stinky, matted, tired old dog Homer a shot of Valium each December 31st so that he can drift through the holiday in a soft, peaceful, pillowy slumber.
(“Like a cloud, in the sky, oh so high…”)
Ruff, ruff. RIP
I had a dog once who’d I thought was having a heart attack, but it swallowed a piece of twig as it was gasping for air and doing these convulsions. I guessed at it and stuck my finger in his throat and out came the twig. He started wagging his tail in no time.