Beautiful Animals

Adding - I remember there were a lot of strictures against copying the photo, thus I never posted it. Wish I could remember the source, so I could link to it.

If anything gets me to tackle my scanner, it'll be this photo.

My business partner and I used to take a side road off of highway 101 to go see the alpacas. I've some - not to brag - great photos. And then there was the carrot story...

listening to Brad Meltzer's book The Book Of Lies

he mentions these dogs



The Canaan Dog is the national dog breed of Israel. It may have existed in the Middle East for millennia.

osso, Thanks for Secretariat in motion. There are surprisingly few really good pictures of him online. Wonder what's going on.

dj, Thought about vultures (condors in particular) because of their extraordinary ability to soar. No flapping. Just riding the wind. Wonderful.

Love the Canaan. Beautiful pic of an ancient breed.

Here's the smallest avian. Highest metabolic rate of any warm-blooded animal. I read 60-90 wingbeats a second, but that can't be right, can it? Exquisite little boids. Green violet-ear hummingbird:

Sigh.

Ok, now I'll search some more.

No luck so far, he remains a young horse for intents and purposes.. died at nineteen, in 1989, laminitis the proximate problem. I wrote Secretariat.com - we'll see. I assume they've no interest in promoting photos of an older horse... if they even answer. Still, there must be some photos out there, including the striking one I saw. He looked as good old as young, perhaps more majesterial, but I don't quite remember.

Usually when I can't find something, it has to do with someone not wanting to spill the beans prior to a book coming out. But this has been a while.
I do respect photo rights - I've been hoping to link.

osso, I did some more poking around. A Secretariat movie is coming out in 2010.

caribou, Thanks for your contributions. Love that flying horse.

This animal is so close to us genetically that it's hard to find the distinction. Toolmaker, smart, aggressive. Chimpanzee:

I've had six of these over the course of time. Each with a distinct personality. Delightful pets.

Parakeets:

So much for memory.. I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Secretariat.com site did answer my inquiry and assured me that he remained copper colored until his last days, sending me a photo from of him as an older horse at Claiborne Farm.

Now, dagnabbit, what horse did I mix him up with........

Stay tuned.

Now I'm thinking it was a gray horse who turned white in older age - but suddenly my memory is suspect.

Turned white??!! Definitely another horse. I've seen pics of him when he was older. Still Big Red.

And here's Big Gray--an elephant. Smart, strong, great social animals:

Pretty birdies...

Samoyed:

Gorgeous tree reaching elefante..
and fine Samoyed..

(I still can't remember the horse's name. Now I think it has two parts, like Seattle Slew, but not Seattle Slew. Never mind me, I get this way... )

In the meantime, while I ponder, some white horses in paintings or photo, if they hold up to linking:


by Gauguin, The White Horse



backlit white horse by Tony Wharton -



white horse in a Constable -



white horse carrying Henry, Prince of Wales (by Peake?)

Nice website - http://www.shafe.co.uk/art/early_stuart_04_-_henry_prince_of_wales.asp


a horsey from the True Cross Cycle by Piero della Francesca - this one I've seen in person, how ever dimly lit (Constantine at the Milvian Bridge)


and one from National Geographic by Sam Abell -

Ah, that last horse - White Horse, Aran Islands, Ireland, 1993

The linking held up just fine, osso. Wonderful, wonderful. My leanings? The Gaugin and the National Geographic shot. Love them both.

By way of thanks,

Pembroke Welsh corgi:

Oh, that's perfect. He's (or She's) pausing before some more leaping of leaves.



Back to that elephant, that's quite memorable - I really liked the photo. I saved something similar for a while (and maybe someone here posted it in the first place). I don't have that many animal photos saved since I did a file clearing back when my computer was acting up. Will post it if it's there.

I liked the Gauguin (not that I ever knew how to say that) too. And the older irish horse, yes. One thing that doesn't interest me all that much is the mass of posters out there of sort of fairy like white horses. Of course I get that, but much like with humans, I'm more an more interested in animal character, in youth or age, not as much interested as I used to be in some kind of perfection.

Maybe I can link my avatar photo, we'll see. (Read about the source, Far View Ranch, in my profile.)

Meantime, one of my favorite Bernini sculptures - the elefante - in piazza Sta. M. sopra Minerva - in different views, none of them mine (mine is filled with people, pretty lively but not yet available, etc.) -

I take it that the elephant is disturbed (discordia) from reading the links. In person, I just thought it was a neat elephant, and caught the obelisque mode that was going on in Rome around then.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/218058
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicodewal/195162283/
http://www.specchioromano.it/Fondamentali/Lespigolature/VARIE/A%20piazza%20della%20Minerva%20l’elefante%20della%20discordia.htm

The latin, Paquidermus tremebundus, is enough to get me going in itself..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zorrilloproducciones/3775202528/

A flikr photo of an obelisk & elefante in Cantania, apparently derived from the Bernini.


Enough artorama from me.

Here's the photo from the Far View Ranch - (overocorgis.com)

Pacco had a longer snout, which I prefer, which I take is poor for show. Cute little corgis rather annoy me, calendar fodder. I take the FVR ones as inbetween. But of course, I'm not a follower of corgi breeding.

Pacc might have been lesser bred, harrumph. Tartarin (a2ker of yore), who knows her corgis, told me he was a ranch type corgi, which made sense. I doubt she was being nicey, as she is a straightforward person. If I remember right, she guessed there was an Oregon background, which also made sense, since we were about eighty miles from the Oregon border.

One more, and I'll be quiet for a while. The older Pacco with thriftshop velvet and the setting sun...


Aghh, I see this is a stretcher.. but not all that far.