Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Skeeter the Narcoleptic Poodle

Per my usual "boredom due to chronically avoiding work" routine one evening, I found myself on a website founded on the very spirit of mankind's ability to operate a videocamera: YouTube. As my friends and I were about 15 minutes into the hilarious tradition of sharing and discussing videos that exeplify the evolutionary failure of my peers, we decided to switch gears to videos of interesting animal occurances. While hitting on some key points of interest (ie. cats getting what they deserve, cattle seeking revenge, and fainting goats) I came across a stand-out situation in the form of a poodle. To be specific: Skeeter the Narcoleptic Poodle.

Now this is about the time where i try to dust off my moral compass to see if it still works. I know that busting up laughing over a puppy suffering from Excessive Daytime Sleepiness is not the most sensitive quality. Losing it when the poor thing passes out while eating, tips over while going for a walk, and faceplants into REM sleep and the floor directly after trying to jump on to a couch is not good either, but there is some science to be had in this situation. I like to think that balances out the raucous laughter.

Even in the video it is mentioned that there is no known cause for Narcolepsy, and that this pooch could yield some serious aid to researchers. There are theories as to how a person or puppy could be predisposed to such a malady. As someone with appreciation for science, I find the way that I think about things to be scarcastic as I normally am, but with a distincitve nerd-tastic undertone that few truly understand. When Wikipedia-ing Narcolepsy I was checking out the causes and find that I break things down into individual scientific punchlines to understand them. So instead of copy-pasting from ye olde reliable Wiki, I shall relate what I have learned in a more tid-bit fashion:

1) Who knew an HLA complex error on Chromosome 6 could be so cute and cuddly.
2) I bet this puppy is thinking "Man, increased levels of hypocretin would so rock my face off right now"
3) Foiled again by linkage disequilibrium. Sweet irony!!

So without further wait, so you know what the heck I'm talking about:

SKEETER THE NARCOLEPTIC POODLE



2 comments:

  1. Awe that poor puppy!
    I find it interesting that he would only fall asleep when he got excited.I must admit that I did lose it too when he kept falling over.
    Good post!

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  2. This is so funny, but I feel terrible for this little dog. He's so cute but there is nothing they can do to help him stay awake. It looks like he tries so hard but he just can't do it. I'm sure there are many researchers who would love to check out this dog.

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