Capybara Madness

Morning Bath

A lot of people ask me what my day is like. “Caplin,” they say, “what the heck do you do all day?” Well, that’s a tough question. Obviously I do different things on different days. But I thought I could give an example by showing what my day was like last Saturday.

Continue reading "Sunny Saturday" »

Wild capybaras with caiman (photo by Coral Waters)

I think humans are romantics. They have dreamy visions of the world. Fantasies based only loosely on reality. I think this because so many people comment that I would be better off in the wild. If I could actually speak human, I would tell them that they would be better off in the wild.

I’m not saying that all capybaras should be pets. In some ways I do envy my wild cousins. I’d like to be free to travel far and wide. To swim the languorous Amazon. To graze grassy meadows stretching as far as the eye can see. To lie with a band of my family and friends under the scant shade of bushes in the heat of the day. It sure sounds great.

But see that photo at the top of this post? That is a young caiman with a couple of adult capys. Caiman are like alligators. That one is too small to hurt those capys and they all know it. But it could catch a baby capybara and eat it. Or it’s larger friends could even threaten those adult capys.

And caiman aren’t the only dangers that lurk in the water.

Continue reading "The Wild Life" »

Me with Carpincho

The photo above shows me with my little stuffed capybara friend Carpincho. Carpincho means capybara in Spanish. That’s kind-of funny because Carpincho was born in England and now lives in Russia! He’s a world citizen capybara.

Carpincho lives with my friend Lina in Moscow. The two of them made this excellent slide show of their winter holiday and I just had to show it to all my fans. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, I’m sure Lina would love to read comments from you, so please post your impressions.

Me on Yahoo!

This was a big week for me. My owner’s interview with Linda Lombardi of the Associated Press came out. Here’s a link to it on the ABC News but that is not the only place it appeared. Here are some links to other incarnations of it.

Here’s a slide show of the photos on MySA (I think that is My San Antonio).

Here I am honored to be an Animal Cracker!

This is the same article without the photos (which is lame) on Madison.com.

Here it is on GoUpstate.com. I wonder if that is New York state. NY is not a very rodent friendly state. They have all kinds of laws against us.

This is a short blog someone wrote about me after reading the AP article. Kind of cute, really. I like it when people are really surprised and excited to find out about capybaras.

I also got a “Call Back” from the nice folks Urlesque for groundhog’s day. Thanks!

Here’s a kind-of fun post that asks whether a photo of me is real or fake. You can never trust the internet but I seem to remember posing with my owner for that photo.

And if you look at the photo at the top of this post, you can see that I made the top two most emailed photos on Yahoo! How cool is that?

Maybe the biggest thing I did was a short appearance of still photos from the AP article on CNN’s Rick’s List show on Tuesday. I don’t think that’s available on the web but if you follow any of the other links, you’ll see the photos. I didn’t like Rick Sanchez’s comments though because he mispronounced Buda and Capybara and he said some things that were just inappropriate and thoughtless.

In case you didn’t know, I am an ambassador for capybaras world-wide. I do my best to teach people about us so that they will love us and protect us. Also so they may be more open minded about all rodents. Some people don’t like rats even though they are very cute and smart. Or maybe they are scared of mice, although it is hard to see how a mouse could hurt a human. But if they learn about capybaras, they might think differently about all rodents.

I wonder how many people learned about capybaras from this just this week alone? A lot, I’m guessing. So you’d think maybe I would get some kind of bonus or award. Maybe a little something extra in the way of treats. Well guess again.

Going down the slide to get frozen blueberries.

See that photo above? That’s just one of the things my owner made me do to earn a few (delicious) frozen blueberries.

And she made me get on this little stool. I even had to stand on my hind legs on that thing. Seriously, it was humiliating.

Begging for Blueberries

She made me use my cutest begging face and then claimed we were “out of blueberries.” I’ve heard that before. I bet there were still some in the freezer.

I’ll be honest, I really don’t think my owner appreciates me. I am doing an outstanding job of being both a pet and an ambassador but, well, she’s not what you’d call a top-ranking owner. I wonder if I should trade up?

Me sharing my salt block with Kapibara-san

Sometimes I wish I lived in Japan. Here in Texas no one even knows that capybaras exist, let alone that we are the kings of all rodents. But in Japan things are different. In Japan people appreciate capybaras.

Here are some of the wonderful capybara things in Japan:

1. They have Kapibara-san, a cartoon series that stars a capybara! See photo above and also capyblowg for examples. Capyblowg is actually a blog written by two Kapibara-san toys. Imagine.
2. The capybaras roam freely at zoos in Japan, not trapped in small pens or enclosures, and people can interact with them. Check out this video, Capybara Approach from CapybaraCamera. Actually, you need to check out all the photos on CapybaraCameras blog. She gets some really great shots and you can see people interacting with the zoo capys.
3. The Japanese have a strange art form made out of (in my opinion edible) paper called origami. You can make anything in origami. Even a capybara! That is so cool! I wish my owner were talented enough to do that.
4. Back to toys, there is a giant, life-sized stuffed capybara toy in Japan! I kid you not! Life-sized! Actually, I think it is even bigger than I am. This blog entry from CapybaraCamera shows what one looks like.

Japan seems like the place to be if you are a capybara or a capybara lover. At least for everyone except my owner who needs to stay right here with me all the time. She doesn’t need to go to Japan because she has access to a capybara all day every day.

So why is she going? She says it’s for work but is it really? Is she really just going to see those othe tame capybaras? Is she thinking of trading me in for a kinder, gentler model? And now I found out that Siatama–that’s where CapybaraCamera took photos of capybaras in a hot bath–is close to Tokyo, that’s where my owner is going. Maybe she is going to replace me with a life-sized stuffed animal capybara!

It is making me very upset so I’m just not going to think about it.