First Paul, Now Buddy

...AND THE WINNER WILL BE...

Unless you happen to be a bookie in Vegas where gambling is legal or a bookie or a bettor in places where gambling is NOT legal, you might want to follow some red hot tips. Oh sure, you can read the racing form or any of a hundred statistical sites willing to give you the skinny on which team to pick...even Vegas gives odds on just about everything from a flip of the Super Bowl coin to its final outcome. Rather than sifting through the morass of gobbledygook, I just check out what the folks in the animal kingdom have to say...sort of a Dr. Doolittle approach, you might say.
This first caught my attention during the 2010 World Cup in which this octopus from Germany had an amazing run (well, not RUN actually) of selecting the winner in matches played in South Africa. Paul the Psychic Octopus even predicted that the Germans would lose...and he lives in Germany! Wow!
Now we have Buddy the Beagle who predicts winners on Monday Night Football (3-2 so far this year). Interested parties can follow buddy on Facebook and a host of other sites. Just because I know you want to know ahead of time, here's where you can find Buddy's prediction on tonight's Jets/Vikings game:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports-sentinel-sports-now/2010/10/11/woof-dog-says-tonight-vikings-vs-jets-winner-is/
Of course, these two animals are merely the latest in a long line of predictors. Remember the augurers from Roman times? They used animals to predict the future...unfortunately, each animal was good for only one prediction, but still...
Pigs and chickens have been used to prognosticate the outcomes of football games in this country, and there are two orangutans in an Oregon zoo who are 4-1 and 6-1 when it comes to predicting Super Bowl winners.
So, while talking to the animals is a good thing, listening to them might be even more profitable.