I don't mean to add fuel to the fire, but I will anyway . . . I'd like to point out that today's COTD (Fern) belongs to the same household that Iris does, and Iris was COTD only 5 months ago and almost to the day (4/1/02). So . . . it would seem reasonable to conclude that the honorees are chosen purely at random.

There was another example of this with even closer spacing (like a week or two!) but I can't recall the cats' names or the dates . . . it was several months ago.

If I were Karen/Paul, I would probably do it no differently . . . sort of a lottery drawing or a throw of the dart to see which pet/dog/cat will be featured day to day. The only difference being that if my dart hit a pet bio from a familiar email that I realize had another of their pets spotlighted not long ago, I would throw their name back into the hat and draw again to give others a shot at "stardom"! But that would be "cheating" so to speak, so I will presume it is just coincidence (or luck of the draw) that sisters Iris and Fern were both COTD . . . what do you think??