Leap Day!

February 29.  It’s Leap Day.  The day that occurs once every 4 years. Personally, I don’t get it.  It has something to so with the calendar and the fact that if they didn’t add this day every four years it would somehow mess up dates.  Adding a day keeps our calendar in sync with the earth’s revolutions around the sun.  I guess if they didn’t do it,  we could have Christmas in June.  I’m not really sure about that fact– I just made that part up.  But to us dogs, every day is like the next.  We don’t really LOOK at the calendar.  Mind you, if my birthday occurred every four years,  that would NOT make me happy.  Apparently the chances of being born on a Leap Day are 1 in 1500.  Poor buggers. And there is even a name for people born on Leap day.  They are called “leaplings” or “leapers.”  And NO – I did not make that up.

I read that in honor of Leap Day, the Associated Press did some research on Leaping Dogs.  And not “leaping” in a good way.  Leaping as in jumping so that they hurt themselves.  According to a Pet Insurance company, since the last Leap year,  there were 107,502 claims submitted for soft tissue trauma.  And that’s just the dogs whose humans have insurance!  They wrote about a Lab in California who in his over-exuberance, accidentally leaped over a balcony and down two stories onto a car.  Yikes!   Luckily for him, his only injury was a broken toenail.

Personally, I love to leap.  It’s my MO.  In this photo, you can see me leaping when I was a puppy:

You have seen video of me leaping when I want to go out.  I DO need to be careful as I could end up being on that list of injured dogs.  But it’s VERY hard for me.  I think I was a rabbit in another life.  Maybe THAT’S why I like them so much. 

Anyway – Hoppy Birthday to all leaplings today!  Enjoy your day – you won’t have another one for 4 years!

©  Linda Wozniak