Fun_People Archive
2 Sep
WhiteBoardness - Friday, August 29, 1997

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue,  2 Sep 97 18:15:08 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - Friday, August 29, 1997

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Friday, August 29, 1997

Lancaster, South Carolina:

Cornered in the woods, a shoplifting suspect surrendered and told police to
call off the dogs. That was Officer Vincent Bazain's cue to stop barking.

Thanks partly to Bazain's unique talent for barking like a bloodhound,
officers were able to surround the man - also wanted on drug charges- and
scare him into giving himself up.

When Bazain got to the wooded area Monday, he enlisted the help of a cable
television installer he found there.

"I asked the man if he could bark like a dog, and he looked at me like I
was crazy," Bazain said. But the installer said he could and agreed to help.
They trudged about 70 yards into the woods with Bazain occasionally
shouting, "Go get him, boy."

The bluff worked. Later, when a fellow officer asked Bazain where he got
the dogs. "I said, `We are the dogs."'

Bazain cups his hands over his mouth to imitate a hound dog's fast bark, as
well as the drawn-out, deeper bark of a dog chasing a scent. He also can
perform a relaxed bark and a convincing growl.

"It works about 90 percent of the time," he said.  "Suspects don't want to
be bitten by dogs. They know the dogs will bite them."
==========

Tabernacle, New Jersey:

A groundhog at an animal shelter here apparently mistook a carat for a
carrot, yanking a diamond from a volunteer's engagement ring and swallowing
it.

Newlywed Lois Farley, 40, of Hamilton Township, is still waiting for the
critter to cough up the one-carat gem after gobbling it up on Monday, The
Trentonian reported for today's editions.

But she is also willing to let the groundhog go when it is ready to be
released from the shelter when it has been nursed back to health if the
diamond doesn't resurface, rather than kill it or have its stomach cut open.

"It's basic fairness," Ms. Farley told the newspaper.  "When you consider
all that humans have done to animals, maybe it's time they got one up on
us."

Ms. Farley thought the groundhog was lying peacefully when she cleaned its
cage at Wounded Knee Wildlife Refuge. With her gloves off, she decided to
give it some carrots.

Ms. Farley says the diamond's gleam probably caught the critter's eye. The
next thing she knew, it was yanked right off the setting.

"The diamond was loose anyway, so it was partly my fault," she said.
==========

Kenosha, Wisconsin:

It seems skunks have a taste for yogurt - and Bob Warren is the man who has
rescued a few by prying the discarded containers off their heads.

It's all in a day's work for Warren, an animal humane officer.

"As long as you keep its tail down, it won't spray," said Warren, who made
his latest skunk rescue Wednesday.

Seven times this summer, he has responded to calls of a skunk's head being
trapped inside a discarded "Yoplait" container after the scavenger tried to
lick out the inside.

The problem is the container's tapered tops, the skunk expert said.

"I've half a mind to write them and ask them to redesign their container or
to not make the stuff so appealing to skunks," Warren joked.

For his last rescue, he was able to use a noose to help the creature wiggle
loose.

And it isn't only yogurt they like. Another call found Warren trying to
wrest a skunk's head free from a mayonnaise jar.

In the process of trying to remove the jar, Warren dropped it.

"I ended up with a broken jar and a pretty upset skunk," he recalled.

© 1997 Peter Langston