This week my owner and I went to the Buda Public Library to give a presentation on capybaras. She had some slides of wild capybaras that she took in Venezuela and I had me. We actually make a pretty good team although, to be honest, I think I [...]]]>

Me and my owner at the Buda Library

This week my owner and I went to the Buda Public Library to give a presentation on capybaras. She had some slides of wild capybaras that she took in Venezuela and I had me. We actually make a pretty good team although, to be honest, I think I could carry the whole show by myself.

The library visit was really fun. There were lots of kids and adults there. Lots of my fans and some people who were just learning about capybaras for the first time. It is so great to meet fans who have seen me on YouTube or Animal Planet or here on my blog. It’s a pretty great feeling when those people come to meet me in person. I don’t think they are ever disappointed by me. I sure hope not!

One of my fans was Mark Sherwood.

Me with Mark Sherwood

Mark brought his whole family to see me! He is one of my FaceBook friends and I stole the photo above and the one below from his FaceBook page. I hope you don’t mind Mark!

Me eating a popsicle.

I also  met a really special fan named Nic Lara. You can see him in the top photo, he is wearing the blue shirt with white stripes. Nic brought me a bag of birthday presents! And they were all great. Here’s a photo of me with Nic and some of the presents.

Me and my owner with Nic Lara

Nic gave me that great orange bandana I am wearing in the photo. I have decided that orange is my color. It goes great with my fur.

But do you see the papers Nic is holding? Those are a comic strip Nic made featuring ME! I scanned them in so you all can read them. It is a great comic and I hope he sends me the second installment because I am dying to know what happens.

Don’t forget that you can click on the images to see a larger version.

If that weren’t enough, Nic also gave me a great big box of spinach! I love to eat spinach while watching TV with my owner in the evening so this is a wonderful gift for me. My owner made a video of me eating the spinach.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As you can see, the library visit was a pretty great day for me and my owner.

Me with my birthday gifts

I don’t want to sound bitter but, well, this birthday was a big letdown. I mean, last year I had a major party in the park. Tons of people visited me. I had a blueberry cake and lots of yogurt. This year my owner didn’t even bother [...]]]>

Me with my birthday gifts

I don’t want to sound bitter but, well, this birthday was a big letdown. I mean, last year I had a major party in the park. Tons of people visited me. I had a blueberry cake and lots of yogurt. This year my owner didn’t even bother to stay home and celebrate with me.

Oh, I know, she had to go off on some super vacation to French Polynesia and see a total eclipse of the sun.

"Diamond Ring" phase of total solar eclipse

But I don’t get why they couldn’t reschedule the solar eclipse so that it didn’t conflict with my birthday! If my owner loved me, I’m sure she would have done that.

Anyway, I did get a whole lot of birthday wishes on Facebook and I was very happy about that! My FB friends did not forget me.

And my little brother Dobby, who is the best little brother a capybara could ever have, sent me a totally cute book about a capybara named Kapibara-kun. It’s written in Japanese but you don’t really need the words to understand the pictures. Dobby also sent me some of his favorite grass. Too bad my lame owner didn’t open it until she got home from vacation and the grass was all spoiled by then.

Rick even got me a gift of a stuffed capybara toy! It looks just like Carpincho who came to visit me last year. I haven’t named my new toy yet so if anyone would like to suggest a name, I’d like to hear it!

Now you might think my owner would have brought me back something really special from French Polynesia but you’d be wrong. She didn’t bring me a darned thing. And then she tried to pass off this cute little teddy bear that she got for free from stuffedanimals.com as an actual present for me. That teddy bear is sample of what the plush version of me might look like. It’s not going to be realistic like the toy Rick gave me but it’s not going to be fluffy like the teddy bear either. At any rate, I love my new teddy bear and he is really super soft and bite-able. He is looking for a name too. Any ideas?

P.S. I am still open to receiving more presents, cards and birthday wishes, in case you were wondering.

]]> http://gianthamster.com/2010/07/im-three-not-that-anyone-cares/feed/ 14 http://gianthamster.com/2010/07/my-owners-vacation-plush-caplin-update/ http://gianthamster.com/2010/07/my-owners-vacation-plush-caplin-update/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:39:01 +0000 Caplin Rous http://gianthamster.com/?p=3230 Me sitting

My owner is going to be on vacation from July 3rd through July 16th. I will be too despondent to post during that time so the blog will be silent for a while. This is especially awful since my third birthday is July 10th and apparently my owner doesn’t even care.

On the plush Caplin Rous front, [...]]]>

Me sitting

My owner is going to be on vacation from July 3rd through July 16th. I will be too despondent to post during that time so the blog will be silent for a while. This is especially awful since my third birthday is July 10th and apparently my owner doesn’t even care.

On the plush Caplin Rous front, it looks like we could make a sitting version of me–maybe a combination of the alien drawing and the photo above–at about 8″ x8″ and sell it for around $15. In order for us to break even, my owner says we’d have to sell around 200 of them. So I need to get a feel for if that is possible. So if you could comment on this post and say whether you’d be interested in one or more at that price, that would be great.

Thanks everyone! If I don’t die of loneliness while my owner is gone, I’ll be back posting around mid-July. Don’t forget about me!

When I blogged about my new co-pets a little while ago, I didn’t mention the hamsters. That’s because I knew they would eventually deserve a blog of their own. There are two of them and their names are Proton and Neutron. They are robo-hamsters. I have no idea why they are [...]]]>

My co-pets, Proton and Neutron

When I blogged about my new co-pets a little while ago, I didn’t mention the hamsters. That’s because I knew they would eventually deserve a blog of their own. There are two of them and their names are Proton and Neutron. They are robo-hamsters. I have no idea why they are called that.

Proton, Neutron and I are so different thtat it is hard to believe that hamsters and capybaras are both rodents. It’s not just that I am large and they are tiny (and ZOMG they are tiny!).  The most amazingly different thing about them is their constant activity. Seriously, what is up with that? In my book, Celeste and the Giant Hamster, my owner wrote about a dwarf hamster that was constantly running in its wheel. I thought she was making that up! But no, those hamsters are constantly running in their wheels. I mean always. They make quite a racket.

When Proton and Neutron aren’t in their wheels, they are running around in hamster balls.

Neutron in her hamster ball

They each have their own hamster ball and they roll around the floor like maniacs when my owner lets them. I’m glad they have theballs, even though they run into me from time to time, because otherwise I might step on them and that would be bad.

The thing about all this running around is that it makes a lot of noise. It makes noise while I am sleeping on my windowsill. It makes noise while I am sleeping on my bed in the family room. It makes noise while I am sleeping on my couch. Lots and lots of noise. They’re running and I’m sleeping, which is okay.

The thing is, all that noise and all that running gave me my first nightmare! I had a terrible, terrible dream that I was the one doing all the running and making all the noise!

My first nightmare

It was a horrible dream. I know I look content in the photo but that is just a recreation of the event. In real life I was twitching and thrashing and I’m pretty sure I did not have that serene look on my face. I was still upset when I woke up. My owner gave me some mango yogurt which helped but I didn’t really calm down until I searched the whole house and made sure there was no giant capybara-sized rodent ball hidden in a closet or something. I am never, ever going to run like I did in that dream. Never.

The image above is my classic pawtograph. It is of my right front foot (notice that my little toe is on the outside not on the inside like on humans). Of course, a real pawprint doesn’t look quite like that. Really they are messy and indistinct and I normally smudge the front ones up [...]]]>

My Pawtograph

The image above is my classic pawtograph. It is of my right front foot (notice that my little toe is on the outside not on the inside like on humans). Of course, a real pawprint doesn’t look quite like that. Really they are messy and indistinct and I normally smudge the front ones up with the back ones when I walk over them.

A front pawprint

It is also hard to find mud that has just the right consistency to make a nice impression of my foot. Above is an example my owner captured after following me around for months with a camera. (Actually, she is always following me with a camera so make that years.) That is my left front paw.

Just this week, my owner caught a break in her relentless search for my pawprints when I walked across the back porch with super muddy paws. (I also had a super muddy body but there’s no reason to go into that.) She finally got an image of my back pawprint.

My left hind pawprint

She outlined it in red to try to differentiate it from all the speckles of mud that I have no idea how they got there.

My owner was really in luck too because there was a whole sequence of three front and back pairs of pawprints all nicely lined up.

Capybara tracks

They are a bit hard to see so, once again, my owner outlined them. She made the front paws blue and the back paws red.

Outlined capybara tracks

You can see that my left paws were muddier than my right paws because they left better impressions.

The good thing about this whole event was that my owner finally saw that mud can be good. One of these days she is going to take the next step and roll in the mud with me. Then she’ll know what I’m eeping about.

Do I look fearsomely scary in the photo above? I should! That is my snarl. Coral took this photo of me when she was staying with us. I used this face on her all the time trying to scare her away. Eventually, it worked, although it did take much longer than I was [...]]]>

My snarling face

Do I look fearsomely scary in the photo above? I should! That is my snarl. Coral took this photo of me when she was staying with us. I used this face on her all the time trying to scare her away. Eventually, it worked, although it did take much longer than I was expecting.

I think part of the reason my snarl doesn’t scare people is because I also make this face when I am happy or playing. We capybaras don’t have a lot of diversity in facial expressions so each one has to serve multiple functions.

This is an article about my new co-pets but I thought I’d start it off with a photo of me. Cute as my new co-pets are, I don’t think they can really compete with a photo of me like the one above. Do you see how cute my [...]]]>

Me eating out by the guinea pig pen

This is an article about my new co-pets but I thought I’d start it off with a photo of me. Cute as my new co-pets are, I don’t think they can really compete with a photo of me like the one above. Do you see how cute my little tongue is? Actually, this photo has some relevance to this post since I am standing behind the new guinea pig pen. My two new co-pets, Hello Pineapple and Sambal get to hang out in the pen in the evenings while my owner and I go swimming.

When Coral and Carl (that’s my owner’s daughter and son-in-law), pulled up roots and decided to basically live in their car, my owner and I ever so graciously took in their pets. For people living in a small one-bedroom apartment, they had a lot of pets. And now I have a lot of co-pets.

Maple Bunny

One of my new co-pets is also an old co-pet, Maple Bunny. She went to live with Coral and Carl about six months ago and now she is back. She’s a cute little dutch bunny but don’t let that fool you; she is sneaky.

Maple, up close and personal

Now Maple and I hang out on the front porch together in the mornings. At night she comes in and sleeps in my owner’s office. She loves to be scratched and can be a bit of a pain. Like when she climbs on me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You have to watch all the way to the end to see her climb on me but I think you’ll enjoy the whole video.

My other two new co-pets are Hello Pineapple and Sambal. They are guinea pigs. Guinea pigs are like little capybaras that are soft and don’t have any legs.

Sambal is shy

Guinea pigs are kind-of shy, from what I can tell. I don’t like to say it, but I like Sambal a little better than Hello Pineapple because she is not as soft. I guess I am a bit jealous of that soft fur most of them have. Sambal is more like me though. I wonder if she can swim.

Hello Pineapple (aka HP)

Hello Pineapple is pretty cute too but she is even more shy than Sambal. Surprisingly, she is also a bully. The two of them cannot be kept together because HP, who is about half Sambal’s size, will beat her larger co-pet up whenever she gets the chance. She looks sweet but she’s really a secret ninja. I am about 200 times bigger than her though so I don’t think I have anything to worry about.

You may remember that HP had a cameo on my segment on Inside Edition, at one point she was perched on my back.

I’ll be sure to keep you all updated on my new co-pets’ status in future posts. Hopefully the guinea pigs will stop being so shy and will learn to swim.

Maybe it’s just my vanity talking, but I believe capybaras are about the cutest animals alive. So look at this plastic toy capybara pictured above. What is up with that? Does that even look like a capybara at all? What’s with the red eyes? What’s with the long, pointy snout? Why is the small [...]]]>

Toy Capybara

Maybe it’s just my vanity talking, but I believe capybaras are about the cutest animals alive. So look at this plastic toy capybara pictured above. What is up with that? Does that even look like a capybara at all? What’s with the red eyes? What’s with the long, pointy snout? Why is the small toe on the front foot on the inside of the foot rather than the outside where it belongs? This toy was not made by anyone who has ever seen a capybara.  We are the Kings of Cute and that thing is hideous. I wish no one would ever buy one…except that it is offered by The Tapir Preservation Fund and they are one of my favorite charities. What a dilemma!

Then my owner got this brilliant idea when she saw on ad on FaceBook. There is a company called I Am A Stuffed Animal and they said they could make anyone into a stuffed animal. So my owner thought she’d get them to make one of me.

I am a Stuffed Animal Capybara

I think they tried really hard and I do like the way they captured my fur and my face, but we didn’t realize that the stuffed animal came in only one shape: human. A capybara is nothing without his shape. My nose really cannot be rendered flat like a human’s. We all felt bad with how disappointed we were with the outcome because they guys at I Am a Stuffed Animal were really nice. After we got the stuffed me, we couldn’t talk to them anymore because we didn’t want them to ask us how we liked it.

I suppose most of you have seen this YouTube video of me with a Kapibara-san toy?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kapibara-san comes from Japan and they love capybaras there. But, cute as he is, Kapibara-san does not look like a capybara. They got it right that we have a giant nose but, really, we are not all nose! And we have legs you know, how else could we swim?

There is a rather cute stuffed capybara available in the UK.

Me with a stuffed capybara available in the UK

This one’s name is Carpincho, which is one of the many Spanish words for capybara. He was just visiting me and actually lives in Russia. Here’s a cute post about him. Here’s a link to where you can buy one for yourself.

There are actually two versions of stuffed capybara available in the UK. Here’s a link to the second. This one includes the following “helpful” information:

Capybaras live in the forested areas in South America around water as they are aquatic creatures. They are found on the far East and Northeast regions of the country. They also live in African rainforests. They like densely forested areas near bodies of water such as lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds and marshes such as flooded savannah and along rivers in tropical forest.

That’s pretty hard to figure out since they say we live in South America, a continent, but “on the far East and Northeast regions of the country.” Makes no sense. And then that we live in Africa which is totally bogus. Oh well.

Speaking of plush capybaras, don’t forget Capulet, the toy capybara belonging to my friend Michelle. He is a one-of-a-kind, handmade toy though so you’ll never see another like him.

So you can see that there aren’t many possibilities for toy capybaras, so my owner got really excited when she found this cute little capybara online.

Dokidoki toy capybara

That is pretty cute!  And he has a friend who is standing up. We ordered a set right away but it has to come all the way from Japan and they only just started being available on June 1st so we haven’t received ours yet.

And then the most wonderful thing happened! My friend Angie Wallace came to visit and she is some kind of toy artist! Seriously, I mean it. She brought the most amazing toy capybara with her and it’s not even just some random capybara, it is actually a toy version of me!

Me, Angie Wallace and toy me.

Do you see how cute I am as a toy? No? Then look at this:

Me kissing Angie Wallace

Do you see me kissing Angie? This is how much I love the toy. And I didn’t even bite her chin off, which I totally could have.

Close-up of toy me

I love how Angie made me sitting in a colorful wading pool. And look at the great job she did on my toes! I have to say, I am kind-of in love with me. I wish you all could have toy Caplin Rous’ of your own but Angie said I am too unique to duplicate. Maybe if everyone leaves a comment begging her to make more, she will change her mind. But you know how artists are, they have to follow their muse.

I just want to end this post with a big

I love you Angie!

This was a long weekend here in the US, something called “Memorial Day.” It’s supposed to honor veterans and soldiers killed in the service of this country. I guess that sounds like a good idea, I mean those people are real heroes, but wouldn’t a better idea be not to have any [...]]]>

Sunset at Capybara Creek

This was a long weekend here in the US, something called “Memorial Day.” It’s supposed to honor veterans and soldiers killed in the service of this country. I guess that sounds like a good idea, I mean those people are real heroes, but wouldn’t a better idea be not to have any wars? Maybe if everyone just took it easy they way they do on Memorial Day weekend all the time, we wouldn’t need a Memorial Day. Or at least we wouldn’t have to keep remembering new people. We should probably go ahead and remember all the people who already served and died. Just my humble capybara opinion.

My owner and I mostly followed my advice this weekend and took it easy. The photo above is an example of that. One evening we went on a long walk but only got as far as the dirt road. I kept dragging my owner back toward the creek but for some reason she wanted to go to the Front 15. Needless to say, I won. I can be very persuasive (by that I mean persistent). I spent a good 45 mins just rolling around in the mud and eating mats of algae. That stuff is surprisingly good.

We also spent a bit of time chillaxing on the front porch.

Frozen blueberries can take the bite out of a hot day

Some of you may know that my owner is a writer. She likes to sit on the porch and write while I get a little treat or sleep in my bed. Now that Maple Bunny is living with us, she usually hangs out too.

Maple on the front porch

It’s hard to get a photo of Maple that isn’t just her nose. She is a real camera hog.

But the weekend wasn’t all play. My owner cleaned out my pool on Saturday. Then she filled it back up on Sunday. And then Monday, well, that was the best! My owner and I went swimming together for the first time this year!

My owner fed me a popsicle in the pool.

Those of you who know me will recognize the classic pose above. Yup, that’s me doing my tap-a-tap-a trick in order to get a popsicle. Sadly, when I bit into it a large chunk broke off and sank to the bottom of the pool. I looked for it later but it was nowhere to be found. And anyways, I thought ice was supposed to float!

My whiskers have never looked so beautiful.

You really need to click on the photo above and view it full-sized. My whiskers are totally awesome in that photo! I look like a cactus.

I'm pretty sure my nose isn't actually this large.

Then my owner did one of those shots where you hold the camera at arm’s length and just hope someone is in the picture. Look at how great it turned out!

I was so happy to have my owner in the pool that I kissed her!

My owner always says that she thinks I’m going to bite her when I do that. That’s crazy talk, I have never converted a kiss into a bite. At least not yet.

I love my owner.

One of the great things about my pool is my pool table. My pool table makes it so I can sit or lie down and be partially submerged. I can do that for hours. Sometimes I even leave room for my owner to get on the table with me. But sometimes I don’t.

The cool water feels wonderful on a hot day.

The highs were in the mid-90s at my house all weekend and there is really nothing better for hot weather than cool water. Sure in the winter I take warm baths in the house and that’s great but it just doesn’t compare with a swim in the pool on a hot summer day.

Me with my owner and the Rustlers

Well this is it, the long-awaited second half of the story about my trip to the Texas Rustlers’ Guinea Pig Hoedown! Sorry it has been so long in coming. Laziness is my only excuse. That and my owner was sick and my computer got a [...]]]>

Me with my owner and the Rustlers

Well this is it, the long-awaited second half of the story about my trip to the Texas Rustlers’ Guinea Pig Hoedown! Sorry it has been so long in coming. Laziness is my only excuse. That and my owner was sick and my computer got a virus and my blog was hacked and Coral and Carl were living with us and using the computer all the time. But basically, I was lazy. I don’t want you to think that means that the hoedown wasn’t great fun, it surely was. Let me tell you all about it.

First off, see that cute photo at the top of this post? That is me, my owner and all the volunteers who worked at the hoedown. What a great bunch of people. And they treated me like royalty, which is only right because I am rodent royalty, but still, it’s nice to be appreciated.

Here’s a link to the Rustlers’ home page. You can see their a great group because they rescue and care for unwanted guinea pigs and other rodents. Here’s a link to their info on the hoedown. They have a bunch of photos there that show all the people and events going on. There was a costume contest and a carrot eating contest, guinea pig checkups and lectures on how to care for guinea pigs. Very educational and great stuff to buy too.

Lots of people brought guinea pigs but I was the only capybara there. I guess that’s not too surprising, it was a guinea pig hoedown and not a capybara hoedown after all.

The Rustlers had a nice place set up for me to get my photo taken with hoedowners.

A boy and his guinea pig getting their photo taken with me.

You can see that I had a whole corner of the room just for me. Nice and quiet and private when no one wanted to get their picture taken…which was never! It seemed like everyone there wanted a photo of me with them and their piglin. Or maybe just with them. One woman came up to get her photo taken and a Rustler who knew who said, “Don’t you want to get your kids?” And the woman said, “What? I didn’t even bring the kids! I want a photo of me with Caplin!” I really had to eep when I heard that!

Me in a group photo at the hoedown

The photo above shows one of my favorite groups getting their photo taken with me. I tried to be nice to everyone but I was extra nice to these people because they all seemed to love me so much.

A very cute guinea pig

I’m not very good at human names but I thought I could do better with rodents. Turns out I can’t. I guess I waited too long to write this because I don’t even remember the name of the adorable guinea pig in the photo above.

Me, a cute guinea pig and a cute human

I don’t remember the owner’s name either. I feel badly about that but I bet if I made up random names for them–let’s say Celery and Samantha–and then just called them that, that the real person or pig would read this blog and be offended. Those are cute names though, if I do say so myself, and if those aren’t their real names they probably ought to change them.

Me with Bing, Beatrice and Ludwig in a photo-op

I know I said I wasn’t going to make up random names but once you start it is surprisingly hard to stop. And that guinea pig reminds me of the famous Bing Cavy.

A cute guinea pig and a cute boy named, let's say, Kyle.

Kids coloring capybaras

My owner brought crayons and coloring pages and a bunch of kids colored them. Coral and Carl colored drawings of me too. Carl colored me like a rainbow but Coral…well, let’s just say there’s a reason Coral and I don’t get along.

Coral's coloring of me.

Sometimes, not too often, I felt like people were loosing focus and not getting a big enough image of me in the photo. When that happened, I moved a little closer to the camera to make it easier for them.

Hey, isn't this about me?

I don’t know yet how many people attended the hoedown or how many got their pictures taken with me or how much money we raised for the poor homeless piglins, but I will update this post with that information when I know more.

Here is a link to The Photoetrist’s Blog with a nice little article and some good photos.

I would love to post more links and photos so send them in to me at CaplinRous@gmail.com and I will post them here.