BOOKreMARKS: Did You Know…?

My brain is aflutter with what I’ve read this week and I wanted to share with you a few things I’ve learned.

1. Snails have more than 2,000 tiny teeth. Some species shoot the object of their affections with a love dart. Really.
from The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

2. After the Korean War, the Marines schemed to make money and fame by breeding an equine war heroine, Reckless, with a stallion of royal bloodlines. The military PR folks expected her offspring to win a Kentucky Derby. Problem was that Reckless fell for a bronco instead of the blueblood.
from Chicken Soup For The Horse Lover’s Soul: Inspirational Stories About Horses and the People Who Love Them

3. I often wondered how humans so quickly decimated large populations of elephants and rhinos in Africa. Here’s one reason: In the 1970s and ’80s, poachers used machine guns. Talk about having an edge…
from Bulu: African Wonder Dog by Dick Houston

4. When geriatric canines start showing signs of anxiety and behavioral changes/problems, it’s time for a vet visit. Typically, the anxiety indicates a health issue of some sort—one that your pooch is sometimes aware of long before you or technology can detect it. You can control the anxiety through behavior modification training and medication, but you need to monitor and treat the more critical source of the behavioral changes—that is, the tumor or cancer or whatever physiological ailment is taking root. (I suspect the same is true for cats.)
from The Dog Who Loved Too Much: Tales, Treatments, and the Psychology of Dogs by Nicholas Dodman

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”
—Edmund Burke

5. If someone you know—especially an elderly someone—shows signs of confusion about recognizing everyday objects or faces or places, don’t immediately chalk it up to a faulty memory or poor vision or senility. It may be a fancy-named neurological glitch. Encourage your friend or loved one to see a neurologist.
from The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks

6. Some horses run better on turf than on dirt. No surprise there. But I AM surprised that at one point at Santa Anita, the turf racetrack crosses paths with the dirt track. That is, it switches from turf to dirt and back again to turf. If I were doing the racing, I’d find that unsettling—as did one of Smiley’s horses. Not only can it impede the horse’s ability to win, it poses potential physical danger to the horse.
from A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck by Jane Smiley

7. Jill Abramson, making history as executive editor of the New York Times, once drove the getaway van in a kidnapping. Well, more of a rescue, actually. She was assisting a friend in removing a dog from the house of the woman’s abusive ex-boyfriend. You gotta love someone who has superhero tendencies.
from The Puppy Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout by Jill Abramson

[Art by Gyula Benczúr.]