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8A Daily News – Saturday, March 31, 2012 healthPets & Vito Vincent wowed New York, but Hollywood a tougher town By Nita Lelyveld Los Angeles Times (MCT) LOS ANGELES — Poor Vito Vincent, who came to Hollywood chas- ing a dream. He's been in L.A. for nearly a year without land- ing a single acting gig. Once he was homeless in New York. But before he came West last May, Vito was living a Cinderel- la story there. His career was taking off. He'd appeared in print and TV ads. He'd been on a pilot, guest-starred on "The Colbert Report" and scored a small spot on "30 Rock." Even now, emails arrive with offers on the other coast. But here, nothing — and not for lack of trying. People all over town have Vito Vincent's head shots. And whenever he's out in public, he generates buzz. When shoppers at The Grove spy him sitting on a patio or going up the glass steps at the Apple store, they inevitably stop what they're doing to gaze, snap cellphone photos, try to touch him. Still, Vito Vincent does- n't have an agent. He can't even get an audition. What exactly does a tal- ented tabby cat have to do to catch a break in this town? Vito's biggest acting role to date is Christiane Aman-purr. He played the feline version of the famed for- eign correspondent on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" last year. Stephen Colbert lifted him onto his desk and questioned him for two minutes. The lights were bright. The live audience of 150 was loud. People kept laughing as Colbert urged Vito to take a stand on the protests in Egypt. Colbert pushed the cat to choose between two bowls of food — one marked "Democratic Uprising," the other "Islamic Power Grab." He tossed some food right at MCT photo Vito Vincent, a 5-year-old ginger and white tabby, visits The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles on March 19, with Michael LeCrichia, 42, who moved with the cat from New York in hopes that his pet will make it in Hollywood as an animal star. the animal, jiggled a laser pointer and waved around a colorful feathery toy. Vito didn't flinch. He barely moved. Try that with your aver- age cat, says his stage father, Michael LeCrichia, who crouched under Col- bert's desk. Vito is a certified pet therapy animal, calm enough to visit with, and be held by, ailing strangers, LeCrichia said. But he also has great range — for a cat. He walks confidently — and rapidly — on a leash. On command, he can come, spring from the ground to a higher spot and move or jump from Point A to Point B. He also knows how to ride an esca- lator. He wasn't born know- ing, LeCrichia says. Just teaching him to walk on a leash took a year. At out- door sessions almost every day, LeCrichia would squat behind his cat, urging him on, inch by inch. ___ One day LeCrichia read a New York Post article about pets getting into movies and on TV shows. It mentioned some local agencies. LeCrichia thought a serene cat would stand out. He began calling and writing, and finally got a face to face. The women at All- Tame Animals on the Upper West Side were blunt. Vito was over- weight. He was nearly 19 pounds, and had to get down below 15. He also needed to expand his skills by learning to come and to stay on a mark. Once he did, said All- Tame's office manager Sharon Halley, the tabby worked steadily. He has a look that is popular in ads, she said, and when she sent out his photos, he almost always was hired. Basic jobs, without a lot of extras, pay about $500 a day plus expenses, she said. Vito posed with a pre- scription-pill vial for a Pre- vention magazine article on how to avoid poisoning your pets. He was ray- gunned in a skit for the College Humor website. He did a Black Friday TV spot for Macy's and "Ani- mal Planet," in which he zigzagged across a kitchen counter crowded with for- gotten Thanksgiving left- overs. For a Comedy Cen- tral pilot, he sat on a very large woman's small lap as she tried to resist ordering more tchotchkes from a TV shopping channel. Need a cat or a dog for a movie shoot in L.A.? Chances are you'll go to one of fewer than a dozen big outfits. Most have large spreads, mini-zoos and in- house animal trainers, said Steve Dayan, business agent for Teamsters Local 399, which represents 140 animal handlers, trainers and wranglers. "There are companies that handle exotic animals like alligators and lions down to dogs and cats and even squirrels and skunks," Dayan said. "Someone with just a cat is kind of limiting his desirability." The studios know whom to contact, he said. "It's not like they'll usually do a casting call for an ani- mal." What with animatron- ics, computer-generated imagery and the decline of the Western, there are fewer spots for animals and their trainers, he said. "It's a very small and very specialized pool of talent." It's also a close-knit one, said Jennifer Hender- son, operations manager for Birds and Animals Unlimited, which worked on "Hugo" and "We Bought a Zoo," and pro- vided Crystal, the capuchin monkey for "The Hang- over II." When one company doesn't have an animal, it asks the others, she said. Henderson has met Vito. "He's a good cat. He's a really good cat," she said. "But generally it's not real- ly a personal pet kind of thing." In Los Angeles, there is always, of course, the dream of being discovered. The man walking past Vito at The Grove might be a big director in search of the perfect big-movie cat. Then, too, fame might come from seeking it, a la Angelyne. On a recent morning at The Grove, Vito kept turn- ing heads as he visited boutiques, skulking under displays of designer purs- es, bras and books. Small crowds formed, cameras clicked and a paparazzo scanning for stars got curious. "So the cat's famous, huh?" asked Jose Reyes. "Well, he's working on it," said LeCrichia. Reyes walked away, then circled back. "You never know," he shrugged. As Vito stood outside the Coach store, Reyes focused and called out: "All right, Vito. Let's go, baby. Right here, baby. Don't be shy." A star isn't born — yet activities Animal Island: Cover windows to prevent bird strikes By Marc Morrone Newsday (MCT) Spring is early this year, and the wild birds are building their nests now. The rush of hormones in the male birds has made them very territorial, and every day I get phone calls about a robin or cardinal that is "trying to get into my home through the window." Actually, what is happening is that the bird sees its reflection in the window and is fighting with the reflection, thinking it is another male bird challenging his territory. The issue is that the challenger never goes away, so the poor male bird spends all day fight- ing with its reflection, thus neglecting its mate and young. The best thing to do here is to just put some cardboard on the outside of the window. You only need to cover the first six inches up from the win- dowsill. This will block the bird's reflection and he will quickly forget about the issue. Then you can remove the cardboard. ___ Q: We feed our two 18-month-old Labradors a pre- mium brand kibble once a day. They are brothers and get along just fine, but when we put down their bowls, they eat so quickly I am afraid they will choke. They only started to eat this way in the last couple of months. They also swallow so much air while eating that it comes out the other end for the rest of the night — usually while we are all in the living room watch- ing TV together. The breeder told us they were prob- ably competing and that's why this eating race started. We followed the breeder's suggestion to feed them in separate rooms, but even when separated they still swallow the food as if it were their last meal. Can you offer any other suggestions? A: For most dogs, rapid eating like this is not a problem. It is not abnormal for dogs to consume an entire meal in only a few minutes — especially young, active dogs like yours. However, the amount of air the dogs are swallowing seems not to be doing anybody any good. First, consider feeding them twice a day rather than once a day. Years ago, the common idea was that an adult dog should eat once a day, but eating is one of the few things the modern dog has to look forward to. Two small meals break up the day better than one large one. If you feed a canned food or at least wet the kibble with warm water, the dogs will not swallow as much air. If you must feed the dry kibble, try spreading it out on a tray or cookie sheet rather than putting it in a dish. This forces the dog to pick it up one piece at a time and thus slows down the whole process of eating. ___ Q: We built a fish pond in our yard last fall. Much to our surprise, when I went to turn on the filter today, I found a whole lot of jelly strings all over the plants, with little black dots spaced in the strings. We looked on the Internet, and it says these are the eggs of toads. While I am happy to see we have toads living in our yard, I am not sure what to do. I want to turn the filters and waterfalls on, but I'm afraid this will hurt the eggs. A: It's nice that your backyard has enough natural habitat to support a population of toads — amphibians are getting scarce these days due to habitat destruc- tion. You are correct that the current from the filters will destroy the eggs and tadpoles. Toads lay their eggs in small ponds of still water. Their tadpoles are too small to handle a swift current. The best thing to do is to get a child's wading pool and bury it in a quiet corner of your yard. Fill it with water from the hose and put in a chlorine removal solution that you can buy at any pet store. Sink a large plastic bag into your fish pond and gently move the egg masses along with lots of water into the bag, then lift the bag out of the water. It is important that you do not lift the egg masses out of the pond without mak- ing sure they're submerged in water. Then, gently transfer the egg masses to the wading pool and you can enjoy watching the eggs hatch and the tadpoles turn into toads without the worry of them getting sucked up in your pond's filter system. You will have to do this soon, as it only takes a few days for the toad eggs to hatch. When that happens, you will not be able to turn on the filters and clean out your fish pond without hurting them. You don't need a filter in the wading pool — just put some of the plants from your fish pond in the pool with the tadpoles. You can even feed the hatched tad- poles a bit of goldfish food. ___ Q: My cat caught a mouse in my garage today and swallowed it whole. Can he get any diseases or para- sites from eating a whole mouse like this? A: Cats have been doing this since the beginning of time ... however, rodents do carry parasites in their digestive tract that can bother domesticated pets. To be sure your cat is not harboring any parasites that it may have contracted from the mouse, pay a visit to the vet. Contact Marc Morrone: petxperts2@aol.com James W. 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