It's a large chiton

This is O'Connor. He was a little distant but was glad to be out of his cage for a while. The other two dogs I walked and hung out with are recent arrivals without pictures; a labbish girl named Heather and a female Rottweiler, both very very nice. Heather would walk a few feet and then lie down in front of me so I would rub her belly. When I did, she'd close her eyes, in her own world. Scratch the Rotty down the spine and she was in doggy heaven, not knowing which back leg to reflexively help out with.
I wish I could do more there, but it's a small outfit with little direction. So I walk who they tell me to walk and pet cats in the kennels up front.
We had another astronaut (and former AFIT graduate) guest-lecture today; our third so far. He didn't mention a lot of Strategic Leadership graduates that go on to be mission specialists. He did say that he grows 2 inches taller when he's in orbit, so they have to send you up with clothes that accommodate.
Yesterday, we watched a movie about the Exxon Valez oil spill, so that was fun watching all the dead animals. Our reading said that in 12 years after the 1989 catastrohpe, only 2 of 24 major species had recovered. One of them was not the gumboot.
I asked my instructor what a gumboot was; she didn't know. I asked Rich from Mississippi if he knew, since it sounds like something Mississippian. No.
Got to Statistics class, Dr. Han started out with his usual shut-the-class-up announcement: "Do you have any question?"
"Do you know what a gumboot is?"
"Heh?"
So I looked it up. It's not attractive. It looks like excrecetory organic matter. I think we could have sacrificed a lot more of them if it would have meant the otters and birds would have survived.

Left unexplained by the multiple websites out there on the gumboot is whether or not the plural is gumboots or gumbeet.