Run Spot, Run
A growing number of dog owners are involving their dogs in various kinds of fun and athletic dog events. One of the most exciting is called "fly ball." This is a relay-team sport. The dogs run over a series of jumps, hit a lever, catch an ball and run back to their "team" and tag the next dog. Also, of course, there are the frisbee catching dogs and a national Frisbee championship on the DC mall sometime in the summer.

The Valley Paradise
The north branch of the Potomac River was some years ago the victim of a vicious rumor: they said it was dead, gone, with no hope of survival or revival, the victim of bitter, acidic poison pumped up from the bowels of drowned, ancient coal mines. It was close, after all, but the miraculous has happened, and the north branch now is a living organism again and begs for an occasional bass fisherman to test its mettle by casting toward the weeds - which is exactly what we do once we're there.

King Neptune's Steed
Sea horses are among the most unusual critters on land or in the sea. It is the males who give birth to dozens of babies, and sea horse locomotion -- vertical swimming -- is truly unique. Sea horses are fascinating to watch gliding through the water or anchoring themselves with curled their tails on swaying sea grasses -- witness the public hoopla attending this spring's upcoming opening of a sea horse exhibit with dozens of species at the Baltimore Aquarium. A new international team of scientists from Europe, Asia, Canada and the United States have launched Project Sea Horse, a research and preservation effort to determine the status of sea horse species world-wide -- at least 20 million are taken from the world's ocean reefs for food and medicinal purposes every year.