Animal mascots are a pretty foreign concept to me.  Take my three high schools, for example.  In North Dakota, we were the Knights; in Virginia, the Spartans; and in England, the Lancers.  All guys in armor with big pointy weapons.

Then there's college -- no mascot, period.  In my four years at Indiana, the closest things we had to a "mascot" were two big balloon guys for football games that were blantant ripoffs of Nebraska's Lil' Ben (for whatever that's worth) and an old guy on stilts wearing extra-long candy-striped pants throwing t-shirts at basketball games.  Par for the course, I guess, in a state where the big schools mascots are a choo-choo, a leprechaun, a tree and a harmless bird (that has also mascoted 10 World Series champs...YES!)

Having been in Aggieland for going on four years, I've taken a shine to Reveille VII.  I like dogs a lot to start with, but a real animal representing a whole school is pretty darn cool to me.  Of course, I wouldn't want her schedule, the hub-bub everytime she walks the campus, or the weight of being the face of an institution.  Having spent a day with her and her now-former handler opened my eyes to that.  Heck, it might cause me to snap occasionally, too.

So after you check out videos and photos of her retirement announcement, my question to you, Reader, is: have you had an encounter with the First Lady o' Aggieland, memorable or otherwise?  If you haven't, does anything stick out to you about her in particular, or even animal mascots as a whole?