Hello, Texas! Is your Friday afternoon proceeding sluggishly? Worry not: here is a reprieve from said sluggishness in the form of a video from the Dallas Zoo of a cheetah and a dog who are celebrating their first birthday together after a year of being best friends by enjoying a giant popsicle and playing with balls in a bucket with the letters “BFF” on it. 

Winspear is the cheetah in the video, and Amani is the labrador—and the two have been hanging out together since they were two months old. Their birthdays are three days apart, which is why they’re celebrating together with that giant red, white, and blue popsicle made up of 30 gallons of water, 2% milk, and low-sodium chicken broth. 

Winspear and Amani were brought together because everybody loves animals of different species who are best pals, and that attention has helped educate zoo-goers on the plight faced by the wild cheetah. Amani’s friendship has made Winspear, still very much a wild animal, more comfortable in public, a boon since that’s a big part of the life of an animal that lives in a zoo. 

Even more uplifting: the El Paso Chihuahuas now have the best uniform not just in minor league baseball, but perhaps in all of sports.

“Best,” admittedly, is a subjective term, but we can all agree that these are certainly striking, and if any of the Chihuahuas go on to become stars in the Majors, the image of that gentleman spitting tobacco while wearing his all-over-print image of a dog face on his chest is sure to appear on Deadspin or someplace for perpetuity. 

Still, these new uniforms shan’t be replacing the Chihuahuas regular, non-dog-faced uniforms: These are strictly for the “Bark At The Park” event on August 3rd, during which fans are encouraged to introduce America’s Pastime to their furry, four-legged friends as the team takes on the Reno Aces. The jerseys will subsequently be auctioned off to benefit the Humane Society of El Paso. Once again, everybody wins.

Of course, everybody can’t win everything, which means that list of America’s most dog-friendly cities must settle on one winner, ultimately. That winner, of course, is Austin, because Austinites clearly get very cranky when anyone doubts their greatness—and also because it’s harder to find a restaurant, bar, bookstore, record store, etc, in the city in which dogs are forbidden than it is to find one in which they’re welcomed by the staff with a skritch behind the ears for being a real, real good boy, yes you are!

A fear of another round of grousing from Austinites who felt disrespected and the fact that seemingly every establishment in the city is open to pups are not the only criteria that the experts at Dog Fancy magazine used to determine dog-friendliness, of course: The number of veterinarians per-capita, the amount of pro-dog legislation, and the fact that Austin is the nation’s largest no-kill metro area helps, as well. 

The reward for Austin’s dog-friendliness is a $5,000 check for the rehoming/adoption organization Austin Pets Alive!, which will of course just bring more dog-friendly resources to the city, resulting in a feedback loop that will see Austin continue to win such awards and, eventually, elect its first dog to City Council by 2022. 

As the dog days of summer proceed apace, rest assured that—whether our furry friends are kicking it with cheetahs, adorning the chests of Minor League ballplayers, or earning Austinites something else to pat themselves on their back about—we’ll be there to cover it.