California 2 Puerto Rico

Well, I think we official have a new kitty. Stefan and I were driving to dinner tonight and Stefan swerved to miss a kitten that was standing in the middle of the road. I thought we ran it over, but Stefan saw that it went between the wheels and was still standing, frozen, in the center of the road. Stefan pulled over and ran back to the kitten and snatched it off the road, just before another car came around the bend.

The poor little guy was tiny and was mewing like crazy, but other then that he was fine and pretty sweet for just losing one of his 9 lives…He was obviously hungry (as he is pretty much skin and bones under all that kitten fur), so we drove back home and fed him some turkey. We took him to dinner with us and after a few minutes he was purring like crazy with his little belly full and getting lots of love.

So, here he is…What should we name him?!

I was thinking we should name him Bronco (since that’s the vehicle we almost ran over him with), but we need more suggestions…

We’ve heard a lot of this and that about pitbulls and hearsay about Puerto Rican laws regards owning pitbulls, since one of our dogs is sometimes mistaken for a pitbull. So, here are the facts:

In 1998, a bill (HB585) was signed by the Governor of Puerto Rico, which bans introduction, importation, possession, acquisition, breeding, sale, and transfer of Pitbull Terriers or hybrids resulting from a breed of these dogs or with dogs from other races, are all prohibited. The banned race of canine is defined as “a race of bull terriers that include the Stafforshire Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terriers, American Pit Bull Terriers and combinations of these and other terrier races.”

The bill also states the following:

“Any person, as of the date of enactment of this Act, who owns any of the canines mentioned, shall register said dog or dogs in a registry intended for those purposes, at the Agriculture Department. The registration will take place within the eight (8) months following the approval of this law. After that grace period has expired, the opportunity to register them will cease and the Registry will be closed. The registration application must contain the name, address, and telephone numbers of the owner, the location where the animal will be kept, and all the information needed to identify the dog. Said application must be accompanied by a registration fee of twenty-five (25.00) dollars. Every dog so registered will be assigned a registration number which will be engraved on a small metal plate to be affixed to said dog’s collar. The owner of the dog will receive, in addition to the duly engraved plaque with the registration number, a certificate of registration as evidence of the dog having been duly registered with the Department of Agriculture. In the case of a female, she is to be sterilized, tattooed with an indelible mark indicating this surgical procedure has been performed, and the corroborative document signed by a veterinarian will be required by the department of agriculture prior to her registration. Any dog that fails to carry a plaque indicating its registration number and whose owner fails to produce the registration certificate after the eight (9) month grace period shall be immediately confiscated by the pertinent authorities.”

So this is the just of it: Pitbulls were officially banned from Puerto Rico, when the bill was passed in 1998. There was a 8-month window where they allowed you to register your Pitbull with the Department of Agriculture. You can no longer register a Pitbull or bull terriers and they are illegal to possess if they are not already registered. If you are caught with an unregistered Pitbull or bull terrier, the dog will be confiscated and you will be charged with a misdemeanor.

I’ve been playing the roll of gardener for the past week or two, since the guys are concentrating on the inside of the house. As I’ve been watering, weeding and planting, (I’ll leave the pica pica to Stefan ;)…) I’ve been getting ideas for how we are going to lay out the garden(s) and outside living areas. There is a HUGE mango tree near the back of the house that I want to put a swing in and I got the idea that I wanted to clear out an area under the tree for a table and chairs as well. So, I raked out under the tree, pulled the weeds and was prepping to dig out a decent sized tree to transplant into the front yard. I grabbed the pickaxe and round nose shovel and went to work.

On my first swing of the pickaxe, I hit the BIGGEST centipede I have ever seen. Lucky for me, I chopped it in half, otherwise I could have been in big trouble. I went up to the house and grabbed my camera, but the pictures came out too dark, so I photoshopped this reenactment for you…

Behold! Summer the giant centipede slayer!!!

Seriously, though, the centipede I came across under the mango tree was pretty close in size to the one pictured above. Scary! It makes me a little nervous having the dogs running around, being as a centipede that size could easily kill a dog. I’m going to have to fashion some sort of centipede-proof doggy boots for Kuta and Monkey…

Stefan and I have been really busy and will have some pictures to share in the next couple of days, but let me tell you this…The freaks come out at night, here in Puerto Rico.

And by “freaks”, I mean BIG, creepy crawly creatures.

I was working in my office last night (which is downstairs) and I saw something in the doorway out of the corner of my eye. I squinted to get a better look and thought it might just be some construction debris (we have plenty of that…), but upon further inspection, it turned out to be a HUGE toad. Seriously it had to have been a couple of pounds, at least.

I am working late again tonight and I went out to get my shoes that I left on the front porch. Apparently some tarantula had other plans for my pink Pumas, because he was looking longingly at them when I opened the front door.

Screens for the office windows has just moved up the priority list…

Kuta and Monkey are not like the typical Puerto Rican style dogs down here. They were raised in San Diego in fenced in yards and really only got to interact with people and dogs when we were outside the ‘compound.’ Because of this, they are very defensive of the house down here (especially when summer is here) and don’t particularly care for visitors.

Jerry is here helping with the house almost every day…and even so, Jerry gives them special attention so that they like him instead of barking at him everywhere he goes. Just in the past week, Monkey has warmed up to Jerry enough to run up to him wagging her tail in the morning. Kuta still barks at him coming down the driveway before he slowly goes over and says hello…but one false move on Jerry’s part (loud yelling, quick aggressive movement) and Jerry could have bite bruises from Kuta’s herding skills.

Kuta and Monkey getting some love from Jerry

If you have ever been to Puerto Rico you know about their famous frogs. They are called ‘coqui’ meaning little frog and there are around 300 different varieties. They don’t ‘ribbit’ like frogs in California, they say their own name very loudly, over and over again from sunset to sunrise. Here is an audio clip of a coqui; KO-KEE.

Imagine 100’s of these little frogs yelling their name all night long. Eventually, it becomes white noise, but in the beginning, they are loud. Here is the kicker though, I have been coming to Puerto Rico for 15 years (as a surfing tourist) and had never actually seen a coqui. They are extremely elusive.

Because of this, Summer has a conspiracy theory. Here it is; The constant “Ko-KEE” noises that last all night long in actuality are really made by giant cockroaches. Knowing this is bad for tourism, the tourism board of Puerto Rico has fabricated the story about the coqui so as not to deter tourists from visiting.

Who would want to visit an island with singing cockroaches? She is genius, I never would have thought that. Man, cover-up after cover-up, when will the madness end?

The madness ended last night. I came home from the The Pool Bar where I had a great dinner of rice/beans, breadfruit and chicken ka-bobs and there was a coqui waiting for me on the front porch. I think word got out about Summers little conspiracy theory so they sent this little guy over prove her wrong (they probably get some sort of kick-back from tourism taxes or something).

I pulled out my camera, set it to MACRO mode and got up real close and personal with this coqui. I took about a dozen shots, but these two looked the best. At one point, he jumped from a chair to the door and he was lightning fast!