Rico Suave, Lucky Dog, Celebrates

Rico Suave is a rescue dog who is about as lucky as lucky can be.

This is how he spent 10/10/10, at Bear Creek, chasing a red ball that his people threw for him, over and over.

Last night, he celebrated Thanksgiving, greeting guests, eating scraps (he has strong opinions that people food makes fine Rico food) and generally pretending that he's a lap dog.

For more stories and pictures about the dogs and cats we love, check out Karin Bugge's column in Altadena Patch.

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Rico Suave, Lucky Dog: A 10/10/10 Celebration

Rico Suave is a rescue dog who is about as lucky as lucky can be.

This is how he spent 10/10/10, at Bear Creek.

Update November 23, 2010:

Rico has a lot in common with another little guy named Pepe. Pepe lives at the Pasadena, California Humane Society and is in need of a family to make him a "lucky dog" like Rico.


Pepe and Rico also share underbites and the fact that they are mutts, strong and smart and loving.

Pepe is a blue-ribbon winner because he's a perfect companion: great temperament, thanks to his lab and pug genes. (Rico is also a perfect companion, though I don't think he has the blue ribbon to prove it, and being part terrier, he's naturally more feisty.) And he is waiting for his new family. Note: Pepe needs to be the only dog in the family, much like our beloved dog, Ember. Rico is also an only dog.

Update November 26:.

Pepe has been adopted.  And Rico had a fine Thanksgiving, with plenty of table scraps and hugs and nice laps to sit in.  (He's really a bit too large for the latter.) 

Happy Thanksgiving!

About the October 4th mystery of nature, the tree is a crape myrtle. Only one of its trunks (the center trunk) is twisted.

As to what caused this, nature or nurture, see this interesting discussion. It appears this was a harder question than I realized.

But I think we can rule out Paula's vine theory because of where it's located in my garden, because it's surrounding limbs are straight, because another tree in the yard has a vine growing in a spiral pattern around it, yet the trunk remains untwisted and, finally, because of what I know about the folks who planted this garden.

I also think we can rule out injury because trees never fully heal from an injury; the injured part is just walled off.

I also think we can rule out wind conditions because the other trunks are straight.

I supposed it could have been trained this way, but once again, this seems unlikely to have been done by the people who grew this garden.

I lean toward genetics to create this shape, but then, I have naturally curly hair, so I'm biased for that solution.