Dog Torture

You have to agree that whenever you see a dog-dressed-in-human-like-clothing you get that "How cuuuuuute..." blending into a "How saaaaaaaaad..." feeling. Paris Hilton comes to mind as one of those top offenders, torturing her poor Tinklebell into wearing little dog shoes with some matching pink outfit. I guarantee that dogs hate wearing shoes. I'll forgive owners that do it to save their pooch's tender paws from the hazards of city living (broken glass, snow salt, etc) but otherwise dogs don't care about fashion too much. My beloved Booboo was dressed once for Halloween but I could tell that he hated it all the way through, specially his antenna head gear.

I took the images above at the Palm Beach Pet Parade last week, hosted by no one other than Snoopy himself. Snoopy was only a hit with the human attendees as the canine kind did not spare him from many barks and growls, as they looked terrified by that 5'9" giant dog costume.

Cute Alert: Pug In Furs

Nothing like a cute pug photo to cheer up my day. This image is from the 2008 Palm Beach Pet Parade, that I did attend, though I did not take the photo above. I was there with my camera but couldn't wait until the small breeds came out as I was on a tight schedule that day. I'll post some miscellaneous images here soon, I promise.

Palm Beach Zoo

I took these photos a few weeks ago when I spent a beautifully sunny Sunday morning visiting the Palm Beach Zoo here in Florida. The zoo is a gorgeous park where the enclosures are mostly very large outdoor natural settings, with plenty of space, foliage and water sources for the animals to roam. I am sure that a large Siberian Tiger still feels trapped no matter how large the enclosure is but it sure beats most zoos that I have visited in recent years - and I love zoos. There are no steel bars in any of the pens but simple wire mesh giving a very open feel for the spectators. You can stare at a stunning spotted leopard from a few feet away, almost too close for comfort. The animals at this zoo were all bred in captivity and are often traded with other zoos when they come of age so to avoid inbreeding. One of the most unusual animals I saw there was a white alligator - a real freak of nature - that was set in a temporary indoor exhibition to avoid the caustic Florida sun on it's delicate hide. The keeper told me that he is one of about 1o survivors from a nest found 20 odd years ago somewhere in the American South. She said that they all would have perished in the wild because of it's lack of skin pigment had they not been rescued. If the sun didn't kill them first other alligators would have finished them off because of their white appearance. Note: they are not Albino alligators by the way. They are actually just white skinned - with blue eyes (!) - whether an Albino's eye color is pink.

Juicy Couture @ Worth Avenue

Great window at Juicy Couture's Worth Avenue shop in Palm Beach, Florida . I love the whole design and the plane-as-a-hat prop is just delightful. The light pink background is perfect for all the black accents such as the gloves and opaque tights. Love it!!