Capybara Madness

My 2nd Annual Buda Library Visit

Caplin Rous — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:23:42 +0000

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.

I’m Three! (Not that anyone cares)

Caplin Rous — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:21:05 +0000

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.

My Owner’s Vacation & Plush Caplin Update

Caplin Rous — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:39:01 +0000

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!

Plush Caplin Rous?

Caplin Rous — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:30:00 +0000

#1) Alien Caplin

#2) Sleepy 'bara

I am thinking of getting a plush toy version of me made. So far I’m considering one of two designs, as shown above. But this is not an inexpensive proposition to get a toy designed and the minimum order is 500 units. Before my owner and I do any of that, we thought we’d get the opinion of the fans to see if they are interested and what they would prefer if we choose to go ahead with this project.

Can you please answer the poll on the right side-bar and indicate whether you would be interested in a toy, which one and how much you might pay? We’ll leave the poll open until July 21st so you have some time to think.

Please post a comment if you have any insights or suggestions. For example, would a beanie baby be okay or should it be a real plush toy? Is there some other drawing of me or pose that you think would work better?

Thanks!

I Had a Dream

Caplin Rous — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:05:57 +0000

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.

Capybaras in Japan are Reading Celeste!

Caplin Rous — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:32:02 +0000

Harry the Capybara

I was so excited when my friend Neighboring Wild (@nbwild) sent me a link to his blog showing capybaras and other animals reading my book, Celeste and the Giant Hamster! Look how cute little Harry is in the photo above. He even has a little tuft of hair on his forehead just like I do! Of course he’s still a baby so the zookeeper has to read the book to him. Plus it might be scary a little for a baby capybara to read alone.

The blog is in Japanese but even if you don’t understand the words, the photos are priceless.

Don’t forget to pick up your own version of Celeste and the Giant Hamster either on Amazon or here.

Happy Father’s Day!

Caplin Rous — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 22:32:10 +0000

Happy Father's Day!

One of my viewers sent me a request to have my photo taken with a little sign wishing her father–who I hear is The World’s Best Dad–a happy Father’s Day. I was just supposed to email it to him, which I will do, but it got me thinking. There are a lot of great dads out there. They probably all deserve signs. I can’t make one for everyone so I’m going to post this same photo with the dad’s name. My viewers can photoshop in the right name or just print the photo and write in a new name. I would love to hear if anyone decides to do this and what the reaction of the recipient dad is. In the meantime…

Happy Father’s Day to all you great dads out there!

By the way, Steve has a guinea pig rescue operation and so I know he really is a great guy!

My Pawprints

Caplin Rous — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:36:45 +0000

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.

Baby caybaras are too cute for words

Caplin Rous — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:56:59 +0000

Capy Trio Rocks Chessington Zoo

If you are in the UK you must go see these three adorable capybara babies as the Chessington Zoo! And follow this link for more adorable photos on ZooBorns.com.

The Snarl

Caplin Rous — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:32:59 +0000

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.