The following is a request for help from Eric Blank as he searches for his lost cat.

I am hoping you can help me out. My cat Oaters disappeared! I haven’t seen him since Thursday evening, 11/11, which was Veteran’s Day. I’ve done everything, looking for him, putting up signs, calling his name, and I even hired a search and rescue sniffer dog. I’ve been to the shelter a bunch of times and check their website every day.

Here’s the flier I’ve been posting all over my East Rockville/Maryvale neighborhood.

I really appreciate any help you can provide!

Eric Blank

This is a Reader Note. We welcome submissions on all sorts of things — shopping, restaurants, performances, art, cultural events, and more. Rules: it should be in Rockville, and you should try to be nice. Get in touch with us us if you would like to submit something!

Saturday, October 23, 2010
Noon to 3 PM
Fallsgrove Community Center Lawn, 400 Casey Lane

Yappy Hour includes dog vendors, contests, and a demonstration by Montgomery County K9 Officers.

Contests for prizes for Cutest Smile – Best Trick – Best Dressed. Each winner will receive a gift basket of goodies from our vendors!

For the two-legged friends:
Carmen’s Italian Ice & Café will be selling hotdogs and warm pretzels (cash only).

If you don’t have a four-legged friend but are thinking about adopting:
Several rescues will be in attendance with candidates to be your next best friend!

The Montgomery County Humane Society will also be collecting monetary donations and needed pet items. Bring unopened cans or bags of pet food, blankets, or toys to help needy pets.

Photo from Deborah Landau

When asked about the annual Doggie Dip Day at the Rockville Swim Center, Deborah Landau responded, “We just had a blast!”.

The first time the City ever offered the Doggie Dip, her family went.

It was just the perfect event for us. We loved the Rockville pool. We loved our dog. Our dog loved to swim.

Sheba by Deborah Landau

Although they weren’t able to attend the last couple of years because their dog was slowing down, they were quick to give it a try with their new dog named Sheba. She’s a two-year old mix they adopted from A Forever Home which takes dogs when they near the top of the list at shelters.

She’s just wonderful. We knew she really, really likes dogs but we didn’t know if she’d like to swim. She loved it!

Since the event started, it has become more and more crowded but the outdoor pool is so big everyone can spread out. Even with the space, the atmosphere becomes quite chaotic. The water is a “sea of tennis balls”. All the dogs play with them and everyone constantly throws the balls back into the pool. Some reckless leapers spend their time jumping in while others go in carefully. Of course a few dogs are bone-dry with no desire to go into the water at all. All of the people are dry too, because only dogs are allowed in the water.

Deborah explained that all the dogs seem to get along at the pool whereas sometimes at dog parks there can be conflict. She believes the pool is a whole new element which distracts them.

When I asked her who enjoys it more, owners or dogs? She laughed and decided on dogs.

We had a great time but we were ready to go home before the dog. She panted for a long time afterwards but her coat is all shiny and clean.

Photo by Deborah Landau

In the past participants could make a donation in a jar, but this year $5 was collected for each dog entering the pool. Cans of food were also being collected for the Manna Food Center.

Proof of rabies vaccination was necessary for dogs to enter. The Humane Society donated free rabies vaccines at the event, but dogs receiving them couldn’t attend Doggie Dip Day.

The event always includes displays from vendors which all have bowls of dog treats for the taking. Deborah bought a meaty bone from Potomac Kennels which she hopes will keep Sheba occupied the next time she visits her dog-friendly office.

When humans are done with the outdoor pool for the year, our canine friends definitely enjoy this annual chance to swim.

Montgomery County Humane Society seeks board members

The Montgomery County Humane Society is looking for board members for the 2011-2013 term.

MCHS has served the community since 1958, working to create a community that supports animals and their value to human well-being, addresses animal mistreatment and overpopulation, and reduces reliance on institutional sheltering through responsible alternatives. MCHS handled more than 9,000 animals in 2009.

If you are interested in serving, you should submit a letter of application and resume to MCHS by Friday, September 24, 2010. Experience in strategic fundraising, capital campaigns, finance, law, and governance preferred. Plus, you need to be a MCHS member in good standing.

To apply or for more information, contact Stephanie Keyes, 14645 Rothgeb Drive, Rockville, MD 20850 or skeyes@mchumane.org or 240-773-5973.

Look Out For Mangy Coyotes Like This One (photo Natasha Tynes)

That headline may sound like it should be spoken by Foghorn Leghorn or Elmer Fudd, but it’s for real.

This morning Rockville Central friend Natasha Tynes spotted a coyote near a neighborhood park and snapped a photo. Her husband, Jeff, followed up with a note to his Twinbrook Neighbors:

The wife spotted a coyote this morning in our back yard. . . . It appears, from her photos, to have mange; it is almost hairless. This could be a public safety issue, as mange and it’s condition might mean greater contact with we the people – and it might be nearing death (very bony).

In addition, we are fairly certain it’s been stalking our kitties for a few weeks. We could smell the urine around, saw some scat on our driveway, and the male kitty was acting very nervous. He could smell the coyote when he came out where it’d been around our bushes. Our cats only go outside with our unadulterated supervision. But we are keeping them in now, much to their chagrin.

Coyotes, as we understand it, track animals for a few weeks, learning their paths, then lay in wait. They may remain around the area for months waiting for the chance to grab one.

Keep your kitties and small pets inside if around Tweed Park, and if he’s hungry, coyotes can be very mobile; he could definitely cross Veirs Mill.

We’ve reported him to the city, although they didn’t seem that interested. But as he’s a mangy sucker, he might be more of note than they seemed to believe.

PS: Here’s the City’s “living with coyotes” page.

Even though the National Zoo’s Beaver Valley is closed for construction of a new seals and sea lion exhibit, you can still see beavers right here in Rockville.

When I was out running a couple of weeks ago, a woman stopped me with great excitement to tell me beavers were visible nesting at Stoneridge Pond. I already knew. I first wrote about the beavers in the winter of 2008 but they disappeared suddenly several months later in the summer. Their nest was cleaned out almost immediately by the pond management company.

During the last two years, I have never stopped checking for beavers. Every time I’m out on a run, I stop and climb down to look. After all this time I never expected to see beavers again, so I was quite surprised to find them nestled together.

Beavers, our largest “rodent”, can be found throughout North America. They eat tree bark, pond vegetation, buds and roots. According to the National Zoo website, they mate in winter then gestation takes 105 days leading to a litter of up to eight young (but most likely two to four). I keep wondering if our happy couple will be parents soon.

Here’s a quick 40 second video. I was shunned!

Here’s the relevenat info from the Animal Exchange blog:

This little fellow was shot by Julia Leiby and the photo was passed along by her mother, Theresa Defino.

She says: “There’s an elusive blue heron who has been eating out of my pond. Two days ago he arrived in our yard, stood next to the pond and grabbed a fish! Julia got a shot of him as he flew off and landed on the neighbor’s roof.”

Lew, a brown, black, and white beagle was lost on April 4th, 2009 from the corner of Lewis and Rockland Ave in the Twinbrook section of Rockville. At the time he was lost, he was wearing a red collar, a red harness and had a red retractable leash dragging behind him. It is possible that these are no longer on him, esp the harness and leash. He was just recently adopted and doesn’t know the area. He is very shy and will likely try to avoid people. We set up a blog for him at http://findlew.blogspot.com. Details:

• Beagle / Basset Hound Mix
• Black / Brown – Neutered Male
• call 301-816-2976 or email

Montgomery College’s decision to drain a storm-water management pond for a construction project without removing the fish and wildlife that inhabited it has angered many students and faculty on the Rockville campus.

“It’s disgusting,” said Evin Eldridge, 20, who is to graduate from Montgomery College in the fall. “The most ironic thing is this is going to be a biology center.”

A new, roughly $60 million science center is being built on the Rockville campus. The planned four-story building will house the biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and geosciences departments. . . . The pond was to be drained as part of the construction. As of Tuesday, most of the water had been removed. Fish that were in the pond either were pumped out into the stream or scooped up with other debris, said college spokesman Brett Eaton.

Our reader included a watercolor by Mary Jane Lynch, “showing how wonderful the pond has been thru the years.” Here it is:

These cute guys would not stop barking at me the other morning, so I thought I would reward them with a little fame. . . .

While waiting for the voting to take place, according to WTOP, Armani bit a reporter:

Before Armani cast a ballot for Barack Obama, the monkey lunged off its [owner's] shoulder and bit the reporter’s finger.The reporter at the time was getting recording equipment from a table. The reporter is fine after being treated in a hospital emergency room, given a tetanus shot and antibiotics.

You’ll need to go here to see the video.

(Photo from WTOP’s files.)

I spied this little guy on my porch . . . he was there for about ten minutes, preening and grooming himself. or herself. I can’t tell such things.

It’s about The Cockatiels!

(You can see the video again here, if the embedded version above isn’t working.)

Keep ‘em coming, Ruth!