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[EXTRA EDITION TUESDAY, FEB. 2, 2021 -- PetPowellPress] We’ll try not to judge people at this point. After all, the important mission here is to help this girl Chiquita find a safe place to live out her life with love and respect. 
Look at the eyes in this photo — she’s blind. Her ears are listening to the sounds in a shelter, not the sounds in the home she’d had. She’s on a blanket waiting for a familiar hand to pet her? Hah. Fat chance, apparently.
This story is touching a number of people — we got a note handed from Kristen Barg Morrison to Jennifer Sellers to Donna Bradshaw and I’m sure it’s going on.
Chiquita is A46570544 at Fort Worth Animal Care and Control. She’s 13, weighs 20 pounds, hasn’t been spayed…You know the story.  
The report read, “She was an owner surrender on 2/1 for health of animal. The owner states the dog has been having diarrhea and is totally blind. Dog seems to be blind at time of examination; fecal was negative. She is extremely sweet!”
When you click on THIS LINK, you may find your heart breaking for a dog you’ve never met.
Remember, Fort Worth Animal Care and Control doesn’t do adoptions and rescues over the phone. Email [email protected]. Use Chiquita’s ID A46570544 when you offer to save her life and give her a home or a safe place to wait while you find one for her.
[LARRY ASIDE: I’m posting this to help the dog — maybe by the time you read this, she’s already been helped. Maybe not. It just ticked me off to see another lovable dog put at peril by the people she trusted. At our house, we’ve had old dogs and cats and they’ve had sight problems and illnesses. I’m no shining example of a do-gooder, but love matters when it comes to the WHOLE LIFE of the dog and cat. They’ll love you their ENTIRE LIVES; you oughta return the favor. Humans are harder to love than dogs and cats — the fact that dogs and cats will love humans is a demonstration of how big and forgiving their hearts are.]
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EDITION OF TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2021 [PetPowellPress] You know, of course, that Groundhogs and Porcupines are large rodents who are relatives. You may have some prickly relatives, too. And some cute ones.
All this kind of makes a person wonder why some promotional minded civic club in Texas hasn’t come up with an event that involves getting a politician to pick up and hug a porcupine and declare that the number of quills stuck in the celebrity will indicate how many more days winter will last.  Good luck to all the snow-dwellers in the Northeast. At Gobbler's Knob in Pennsylvania on Monday, may Punxsutawney Phil (left) predict the exact amount of winter left that you folks in the Snowbelt can stand today. Not how many quills you can endure (that’s a Texas porcupine on the right.) Cousins, you know.
And, addressing the urgency of getting a grip on winter, this is a Monday mid-morning photo of the Staff Relaxation & Cocktails Deck at our Eastern Seaboard Bureau on Indian Lake in Denville, N.J. The veteran Bureau Chief Andy Fisher reported Monday that Meteorologist Jeff Morrow on The Weather Channel said, “The snow is coming down in buckets!” And Andy wrote, “I’d better not get hit with one of those buckets — I do see a lotta snow, but, so far, no buckets…” It’s New Jersey, anything can happen!  Like, for example, snow can bury the staff car at the Eastern Seaboard Bureau! Click on the artwork to make the snow look deeper -- I mean, make the pictures bigger.
MARNIE THE CAT—
UNEXPECTED CHANGE
A few weeks ago, with the help of animal advocate/rescuer Cheryl Morse-Stephenson, we wrote about this cat Marnie, about a year-old and “found abandoned at a local hotel in Mount Pleasant.” You may recall that rescuers thought she had a family at some point because she was wearing a collar. You couldn’t guess how long she’d been on her own but it was too long and she needed help.  In her note Monday, Cheryl reports, “It turns out that Marnie isn’t pregnant after all. We can only guess that she was quite the hungry girl when she first came to the shelter, so she gained quite a bit of weight! She was not picked up by any rescue so now we need to find her a home. … I’m afraid she may not have much time left at the shelter but thankfully Mount Pleasant is not overflowing cats at the moment (or I should say as of Friday when I was there.” To ask about giving Marnie a safe place to live, call the shelter at 903-575-4174.
HERE A CAT WITH A NAME
THAT, WELL, FITS CATS
Anyone who lives with a cat knows how determined they can be. Tami Kukla, who spotlights dogs and cats from all over the place on her Facebook page, sent a note about this guy.  She wrote, “OCD...one of the funniest names for a cat, but a great name for this 4 year old with a huge personality. If it was up to him, his morning would consist of breakfast. A nap. Watching birds out the window. Having you carry him around. Another nap. A snack. And chasing the laser or snuggling with a friend — two- or four-legged.  OCD has so much to offer. ..he just needs a home.” 
Where is he? Sam B. Coffee Animal Shelter in Junction, Texas.  How long? “Fifteen months of shelter life for him in Junction. How about a home for Valentine's Day for this guy?” The number to call to help OCD find a new place to be happily obsessive is 325-446-9066.
NEW INFO ON LAYLA;
SPARKLE NEEDS A HOME
We posted this photo of Layla in our Monday edition and for Tuesday we’re adding two more. Why? She needs all the help she can get. It develops now that after being adopted from the Wilmer Shelter and handed around like she was an annoyance, the poor girl was dumped in the Bastrop County shelter. Thin and starving, it turns out she has been diagnosed with heartworms. That, folks, is a rock-solid sign of neglect and a don’t-care human. To ask how you can help save this sweet girl Layla’s life, get in touch with 4-Legged Helpers by calling or texting Laura Macias at 214-949-2726 or email [email protected].  
The non-profit 4-Legged Helpers is also trying to help this Pointer/Bulldog mix, a girl named Sparkle. “Such a sad story for this baby,” the 4-Legged Helpers’ bio reads. “Her owner apparently lost her home in a fire and this sweet dog was fortunately saved. Since the lady had no home, she put the dog in boarding in October and only paid for one month and abandoned the dog there, not paying the bill for the last 3 months. Interestingly this lady found herself an apt that, she said, ... did not allow pets. The boarding facility had to gain ownership of Sparkle -- which they have done through correct legal means (registered letter, etc.), The facility is desperate to find placement for her and hates to see her taken to a shelter after everything she has lived through. They said she is an INCREDIBLY SWEET, CUDDLY, well-behaved girl and clearly was a house-trained indoor dog. Her personality and sweetness clearly show why she was named Sparkle.”
Again help this girl by calling or texting Laura Macias at 214-949-2726 or emailing [email protected]."
CONTEMPLATION
TONY BENNETT — A STAR
What a nice guy. I met him briefly years ago at the Fairmont Hotel’s famous Pyramid Room in Dallas. I’d been listening to him for decades. Such a voice. Fans will recall listening as he silences the musicians and sings alone with such power. It was such a joy to applaud so happily for a man demonstrating great pleasure in performing.
Monday, I read with tears that this great man — a Civil Rights worker, a man with heart, a great performer — is challenged by Alzheimers. The link to the story is HERE. From my personal experience listening to the wondrous Mr. Bennett in the different eras of my own existence, here is a great one-two punch on behalf of love. (Pardon the ads that pop up before the songs.) Click to hear Once Upon a Time HERE and click HERE to enjoy For Once In My Life.  And here’s an extra one, an earlier one, Mr. Bennett. It’s one by you, it’s one for you! (That's the star and his Maltese, Happy.)
Thank you so very much for the many shows you’ve performed for all of us. May you find a blessing that gives us — your fans — more of Tony Bennett.
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