When Gary Mikus learned that an incurable nerve disease was starting to paralyze the hind legs of his German shepherd, he immediately dismissed the idea of putting the dog to sleep. Then he spotted an ad in a pet food store: "Eddie's Wheels For Pets. Help for Handicapped Pets." Now the dog named Bear, which has been Mikus' constant companion for a decade, has a lot of living left to do — much of it in his new pet wheelchair.
"He's healthy in every other way," Mikus said. "Until something tells me otherwise that he's failing, I'll do everything I can to keep him mobile and happy."
A growing number of pet owners are turning to custom-built wheelchairs to restore mobility to furry friends whose legs, hips or backs don't work. The owners' goals are simple: to reward their pets' unconditional love with whatever it takes for the animals to live normally.
That’s what a Kauai man said at Wilcox Memorial Hospital on Kauai—before taking a horse three floors upstairs.
Hospital security stopped the reportedly intoxicated man and his steed. He’d already trotted the horse through the hospital’s lobby and into an elevator, all to cheer up his relative.
But when he saw the stallion, the ailing patient said, “That’s not my horse.”
Mustangs at Las Colinas is a bronze sculpture by Robert Glen, that decorates Williams Square in Las Colinas in Irving, Texas. It is said to be the largest equestrian sculpture in the world.
The sculpture commemorates the wild mustangs that were historically important inhabitants of much of Texas. It portrays a group at 1.5 times life size, running through a watercourse, with fountains giving the effect of water splashed by the animals' hooves. (wiki)
A bizarre breed of guinea pig that was created for laboratory testing more than 30 years ago has become the latest designer pet.
The skinny-pig has no hair on its body except for tufts on its face and feet. They were created using mutated genes during the Seventies and their bare skin was used for dermatological experiments.
Research labs eventually handed the creatures over to breeders who have mated them with traditional guinea pigs to strengthen their immune system.
*****A martial arts teacher knocked over by a lion during a photo shoot at Bowmanville Zoo says she is happy to have come away with four broken ribs and a bloodied lung.
The photo session produced a successful cover photo, but from the beginning, the lion was playful and not entirely under the control of its two minders. Watch video. (thestar.com)
***** A keeper at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C, was taken to a hospital and treated for a laceration on her leg after Tai Shan, the zoo's giant panda cub, made "physical contact" with her. It seems the panda had amorous intentions - the keeper was not in the mood. (via) (Washington Post)
***** An eagle ray leaped onto a boat off the Florida Keys and stabbed a woman with its barb, knocking her to the deck and killing her. The animal's barb had impaled the woman through the neck which caused her to fall back and hit her head on some portion of the boat. (New Zealand Herald)
***** Chicago car dealers report they've seen a lot more vehicles damaged this year by animals getting under hoods and chewing on wiring. The culprits are typically squirrels, rats or mice. Whether they're taking shelter from the cold or chewing out of hunger, they can cause thousands of dollars in damages. (Sun-Times)
***** Rats are invading Thailand - or at least the offices of the ministry responsible for promoting health and hygiene. In the past two days, nearly 50 rats were caught inside the Health Ministry compound in Bangkok, prompting an announcement of a national anti-rodent campaign. The animals have become a nuisance. They bite wires, cables, documents and destroy office equipment. (AP)
***** Four steer who escaped from a transport truck during a morning accident made their way to a residential area in Mississauga, Ont. and held the community hostage for nearly four hours.
One steer was eventually shot after it knocked a couple of residents off their feet and charged a police officer. (ctv.ca)
London Zoo has spent £2.5m on a tropical bird house in a restored Victorian pavilion.
A miniature rainforest has been created in the Blackburn Pavilion which will become home to more than 50 species of exotic birds.
Star of the show will be tiny Amazilia hummingbirds which the zoo claims are the only ones in the UK.
Birds including the Socorro dove, Bali starling, Toco toucan and Mindanao bleeding heart dove will roam free in the pavilion which has been designed as part of ZSL London Zoo's plan to bring down the bars and allow visitors to come face to face with the occupants.
Rabbit Scissors Here’s a cutting edge rabbit to make playtime more fun. With it’s sturdy plastic body and safe, rounded tips, these scissors disguised as a rabbit, are perfect for kids of all ages. Comes in assorted colors.
Tarantulas are the largest and most revered of all spiders, comprising just over 900 species in the mygalomorph family Theraphosidae.
The name tarantula originated around the 14th century from two genera of poisonous spiders, Lycosa (Wolf spiders) and Latrodectus (Widow spiders), found on the outskirts of the Italian city of Taranto in the State of Apulia.
Rick West is one of the leading authorities on tarantulas (Theraphosidae) in the world and has traveled to over 27 countries to document and study them in their environment.
The World of Tarantulas: Birdspiders is a fascinating website full of information, history and photographs.
Puppy mills originated in the post-World War II era. Midwestern farmers looking for an alternative crop reacted to a growing demand for puppies, resulting in the development of the first commercial puppy mill business.
A puppy mill can be defined as:
* a filthy, trashy place where one or several breeds of dogs are kept in deplorable conditions with mostly no medical care and puppies are available at all times * any high-volume breeder whose cash crop is puppies * any high-volume breeders who breed pets as their livelihood and keep them in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions * a place where lots of dogs are raised, where breeding is done solely for financial gain rather than protection of the breed, and where puppies are sold to brokers or to pet stores
Puppy mills are able to stay in business due to the high demand for purebred dogs. However, the public does not know that pure breed registration papers and health certificates obtained with the purchase of a pet store puppy are not guaranteed by the American Kennel Club.
The Animal Welfare Act, which is managed by the US Department of Agriculture, is listing several categories of dog selling businesses:
* Pet dealers: import, buy, sell, trade or transport pets in wholesale channels * Pet breeder: breed for the wholesale trade * Laboratory animal dealers, breeders, bunchers, auction operators and promoters of contest in which animals are given as prizes * Hobby breeders: sell directly to pet stores
Warning Signs that help in identifying high-volume breeders
Does the breeder/seller…
* Advertise in classified ads in the newspaper or on the Internet * Use handwritten road signs to advertise puppies for sale * Advertise that puppies are ready for Christmas, Easter, etc. * Advertise many different breeds for sale
Does the breeder/seller…
* Tell you that the ‘deal’ can be completed by phone or e-mail * Make up excuses why you can’t meet the puppy’s parents * Offer stud services to the general public * Sell puppies less than 8 weeks old
If allowed on property, do the adult parent animals…
* Appear dirty or poorly groomed * Have temperament issues * Spend their lives in stacked cages * Have no water available * Appear unhealthy * Lack the proper shelter
Does the breeder/seller…
* Use registries that you have never heard of * Tell you that papers are no available at time of delivery of the puppy * Tell you to meet him/her and the puppy at a public location * Sell the puppies at a public place like a flea market, dog auction, yard sale, out of the back of a pickup, etc.
What you can do to help
With millions of unwanted dogs (including 25% purebreds) and cats euthanized in shelters every year, there is no need for animals to be bred and sold for the pet-store trade. Stay away from buying puppies from pet stores, over the Internet or from newspaper ads. Buying puppies from these sources will help to keep the puppy mills in business. Instead, adopt from your local shelter or rescue groups. You can also contact your U.S. senators and representatives and ask them for better enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act by the USDA. Speak up and spread the word about puppy mills to your family and friends.
If you're a dog in China then you'd better hope to be of the cute and furry variety sold in pet shops rather than a homely-looking mutt sold at a live animal market as the main ingredient in dog meat stew.
Keeping pets is becoming all the rage among the affluent in China, even though some Chinese still consume dog and cat meat.
Combined spending on pet food and pet care in China will be worth an estimated $870 million in 2008, according to Euromonitor International. That's up roughly 15 percent from the $757 million spent in 2007.
"In Beijing, there's a huge market with pitiful dogs waiting in cages to be sold as meat, and literally a few yards away standard poodles dyed in all colors of the rainbow," said Jill Robinson, CEO of Animals Asia Foundation, a Hong-Kong based animal welfare charity.
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents seized 411 bottles of illegal hooch Thursday at Bayou Bob's Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch in Palo Pinto County.
But it wasn't your typical variety of moonshine: the bottles of vodka also contained 10-inch rattlesnakes.
Bob Popplewell, the owner of Bayou Bob's, received widespread attention last year when Texas wildlife officials decided to tighten regulations for the collection of turtles. He is believed to be largest buyer of turtles in the state.
He testified before Texas Parks and Wildlife commissioners that he shipped 12,000 turtles out of state in 2006 and another 30,000 in 2005. Popplewell said that most of the turtles are shipped to Asia where they are considered a delicacy.
There was no evidence that Popplewell was shipping the snake-infused alcohol from his business but the investigation is ongoing.
Legend tells that St Patrick rid snakes from Ireland's shores as he converted its peoples from paganism during the fifth century A.D.
The Christian missionary supposedly chased the reptiles into the sea after they began attacking him during a 40-day fast he undertook on top of a hill.
An unlikely tale, but Ireland is one of only a handful of places worldwide — including New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica — which have no snakes.
St. Patrick had nothing to do with Ireland's snake-free status, scientists say.
Most scientists point to the most recent ice age, which kept the island too cold for reptiles until it ended 10,000 years ago. After the ice age, surrounding seas may have kept snakes from colonizing the Emerald Isle.
In better times, the Baghdad Zoo had more than 500 animals, including giraffes, elephants and exotic birds. But its location, inside Zawra Park in the city's center, put it in the middle of heavy fighting between invading U.S. troops and Saddam Hussein's forces in 2003. U.S. shells damaged the compound and inadvertently freed some animals; looting that followed the fall of Baghdad stripped away everything else.
Thousands of North Carolina-based soldiers and Marines are trying to make things as normal as possible for Iraq's people. North Carolina-based veterinarians are trying to ensure that for some animals in that embattled country, life is a zoo.
Veterinarians, students and animal researchers across the state are leading the effort to help the Baghdad Zoo -- once the Middle East's largest -- return to its pre-war glory days.
The U.S. established a Green Zone in Baghdad that included Zawra Park. Soldiers from the U.S. Army civil affairs were given oversight of the zoo. Cages and pens were rebuilt, and some animals were brought in. Last year, the N.C. Zoological Society raised money to buy computers to send to the zoo and got help from the military in getting an Internet connection. Eventually, zoo staff could use the connection to ask advice on how to treat the animals in their care.
While still not up to the standards of most zoos in the United States, the Baghdad Zoo is now an oasis for Iraqis, who stroll with babies amid grass and shade trees. The zoo has lions, camels, monkeys, bears, 23 aquariums' worth of fish, swans, eagles, donkeys, a hyena, a leopard, a fox, a few wolves and dogs.
***** In the Macedonian city of Bitola, a bear was convicted of theft and damage for stealing honey from a beekeeper. Since the bear had no owner and belonged to a protected species, the court ordered the state to pay the 140,000 denars ($3,500) to the beekeeper for damage the bear had caused to the hives.
***** After two years of debate, the Dutch Parliament voted unanimously yesterday to make sex with animals a crime. Sex with animals and making "animal pornography" now carries a penalty of up to six months jail.
*****The government of Randolph, Iowa, has rescinded a five dollar bounty on stray cats . Instead, the town has agreed to work with animal rescue groups on a catch, neuter and release program.
***** In a bid for privacy, Leanne, the Sumatran tiger at the San Francisco Zoo, licked the video camera being used to monitor her and her newborn cub. To everyone's surprise, Leanne has three new babies, not just the one which had been filmed. The three 9-day-old Sumatran tiger cubs, all males, had their first health exam on Saturday, March 15, 2008. (Photo: George Nikitin, San Francisco Zoo)
***** Daniel J. Collins, 39, of Indiana, is being held on one count each of animal cruelty and battery and two counts of neglect of a dependent. He forced his 7-year-old daughter to kill the family cat by holding a knife in her hand and making her stab the feline. Collins told his 11-year-old son and daughter he wanted them to "learn how to kill."
***** Delta Flight 4704 was delayed more than five hours at the Des Moines International Airport on Thursday morning because of a mouse. Crews set up traps with peanut butter on board the plane when a flight attendant was too frightened to fly with the mouse onboard.
***** In Church Hill, TN, investigators are searching for whomever poured deer urine into an air conditioning unit at a school in eastern Tennessee. About a dozen students became ill after the prank at Volunteer High School.
A fluffy little kiwi has been born, far away from a homeland it will never see.
The rare North Island brown kiwi is the new star of the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC.
The chick – its sex has yet to be determined by dna testing – is the third hatched there. In 1975 the zoo was host to the first kiwi born outside New Zealand.
In New Zealand the endangered brown kiwi population is estimated at 25,000 and falling.
David Henton, 72, who had been charged with murdering his partner after police recorded him apparently confessing to his cats was cleared yesterday by a jury that decided his comments were the ramblings of an old man.
During a seven-week trial, the prosecution played hours of secret and largely inaudible recordings of Henton muttering to himself and the cats.
A woman determined not to let her kitten become the second victim of a hungry python broke her wrist and was bitten twice as she fought off the large snake.
Ruth Butterworth, 58, of Bridgeman Downs on Brisbane's northside, said that as her mother's cat had been crushed to death days earlier, she knew she had to act to stop her kitten, Tuffy, from suffering the same fate.
Is your dog too refined to drink plain old tap water?
Dogs lick their butts, for pete's sake!
They smell other dogs butts!
They drink out of the toilet when you're not looking!
Do you really think they'll know the difference?
Do you have too much disposable income?
If you're buying bottled pet water because you have too much money & need to get rid of some - send it to me - I'll be sure to donate it to a worthy pet rescue.
There's money to be made in Randolph, Iowa, which is offering a $5 bounty for each feral feline turned in.
Mayor Vance Trively says that the southwest Iowa town of 200 people is being overrun by dozens of feral cats and needed to do something.
"You can't just let them keep multiplying in town," Trively said.
Town officials approved the bounty after receiving numerous complaints, ranging from a cat attacking a small dog to a dozen cats showing up at the bowl when a resident tried to feed his own cat.
Under the new policy, stray cats without collars will be taken to a veterinarian in the nearby town of Sidney - Randolph has no vet clinic - where they'll be kept "for a time for people to claim them," the mayor said.
If no one does, they'll be euthanized and buried.
Animal care specialists with the Humane Society of Southern Arizona are accepting and cataloging approximately 752 small dogs and 36 exotic birds in what investigators believe is a case of animal hoarding.
On the morning of March 10th, officers with Pima County Sheriff’s Dept responded to the triple-wide mobile home and found hundreds of the dogs. Some are very ill and some have already passed away. To care for the surviving dogs, HSSA is assembling pens at its shelter to house the dogs as comfortably as possible while permanent homes are found.
Some neighbors figured Billy and Wanda Jones kept about 50 dogs; others thought about 150. No one in their wildest estimate guessed more than 700.
Do you suspect a neighbor might be hoarding animals?
RECOGNIZING ANIMAL HOARDING • Area smells of ammonia • Litter dumped in yard • Hoarder seems isolated, has little contact with neighbors and family • Resident tends to deny reality, insisting sick animals are healthy and that confined animals are comfortable • Lots of animals in yard or in cages • Stray animals gravitate toward specific house • Animals have sores, overgrown toenails and hair loss around their noses, eyes, backs and hips
FAST FACTS • Most hoarders are elderly females with a history of being a caregiver. • Almost 75 percent of hoarders are single, divorced or widowed. • In 69 percent of hoarding cases, animal feces and urine were found in indoor living areas, while more that 25 percent of the hoarders' beds were soiled with feces or urine. • Cats are involved in 65 percent of hoarding cases. • Hoarders not only "collect" animals, but other things, such as plants, newspapers and plastic bags. • The Pima Animal Care Center has retrieved cats, dogs, pigeons, rabbits, pot-bellied pigs and marsupials from hoarders.
Moko the dolphin had already won over humans at Mahia Beach, where she plays with swimmers in the New Zealand surf and pushes kayaks along with her snout.
Now the friendly bottle-nosed has shown her empathy for other species, by saving two whales from almost certain death after they became stranded.
Human attempts to guide the two pygmy sperm whales through a narrow escape route from the beach had consistently failed, and all seemed lost until the dolphin intervened.
Moko, a regular visitor to Mahia Beach on the east side of North Island, appeared to communicate with the whales before guiding them to open water.
Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.
Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.
Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.
The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.
There's a quiet, little, sheltered cove in La Jolla, CA that continues to be the subject of controversy between animal protection advocates and members of the public who claim a right to access and to use the Children's Pool as a swimming beach.
Before the sea wall was built, the site was a natural beach, with a shallow water area serving as a channel between a large offshore rock and mainland bluff. In the 1930's the townspeople built the jetty to shelter the cove so their children could enjoy the calm water.
The beach is still called "The Children's Pool," but since the 1970's, the seals have moved in and taken it over.
Harbor seals are protected from harassment by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other legislation, but some local interests would like to see the seals leave so that people can resume using the beach. They say a 1931 state tidelands grant transferring ownership of the cove to San Diego gives humans priority over seals.
The latest ruling, from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a victory for the San Diego-based Animal Protection and Rescue League. They can reinstall a guideline rope to keep sightseers away from a colony of harbor seals during their pupping season through May.
I took the above photo, and the one to the left, in March of 2006. At that time, there were volunteers standing guard at the beach, explaining to visitors that they couldn't legally be kept off the sand and away from the seals, but they were encouraged to stay on the observation pier. I did see a handful of renegades who disregarded the requests and walked to within a few feet of the seals.
I've been back several times to visit the seals. A trip to San Diego is not complete without a drive to La Jolla and the seal beach. I enjoy watching the seals - they're very entertaining - and quiet. I'd rather watch them than a bunch of screaming children.
A new baby African elephant, Uzuri, was born on February 17 at Howletts Wild Animal Park in Kent. Keepers at the Park are delighted because African elephants are very difficult to breed in captivity.
At the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, keepers and veterinarians are posting a close and anxious watch over Felix, an African elephant, who is poised to deliver the first elephant ever born at the 132- year-old zoo. Their 7,490-pound patient, whom they describe as "kinda petite," is due any day now.
Villagers in Wellaveli, Sri Lanka had a difficult time recently when trying cast votes in the first local elections in 14 years as a herd of wild elephants blocked the polling booths. (Might have been a Republican tactic.)
Residents of Kwale, Kenya, have called for the Kenya Wildlife Service to act after elephants crushed farmlands and attacked villagers in recent days. Local children are staying home from school to protect them from elephant attacks. (A much better excuse than "The dog ate my homework.")
An infuriated wild elephant trampled two persons to death, when a group of people, who gathered to watch the rescue of another pachyderm that fell into an irrigation well at Muthampatti near Rayakottai, pelted stones at it. Concerned over the damage caused by the elephants to crops farmers have blamed the Forest Department for failing to take any action in chasing the elephants back into the forests.
Cha-chi, a Chihuahua with a penchant for opera, triumphed Sunday and took first place in the Crooning Canine Competition at Target Music in the Park.
The Phoenix Symphony and Target sponsored the free event at Steele Indian Park in Phoenix.
Cha-chi won for his performance of an excerpt from Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata."
There's a link here to the video - watch the dog's owner - she steals the show.
Pink it´s my new obsession Pink it´s not even a question Pink on the lips of your lover, ´cause Pink is the love you discover Pink as the bing on your cherry Pink ´cause you are so very Pink it´s the color of passion `Cause today it just goes with the fashion Pink it was love at first sight, yea Pink when I turn out the light, and Pink gets me high as a kite And I think everything is going to be all right . . .
Hundreds of dogs, many dressed as babies or clowns, were taken to celebrate mass in Masaya Nicaragua on March 9, an annual ritual where the owners pray for their pets to be cured or avoid falling ill.
A long queue of Catholics, carrying their pets or leading them on leashes, waited their turn to pass by an image of San Lazaro.
The faithful thank the saint for curing their pets or ask for the dogs to be protected from illness. The town's priest always conducts a special canine mass.
The mission of the Search Dog Foundation is to produce the most highly trained canine disaster search teams in the nation. The job of these teams is to find people buried alive in the wreckage of natural disasters and terrorist attacks.
To create these teams, SDF recruits rescued dogs from shelters and breed rescue groups, gives them professional training, and partners them with firefighters and other first responders at no cost to their departments.
Who could resist?
Especially when you can replace the ring tone with a pig snore.
The latest wacky pet accessory is this pacifier for your dog. Manufactured by Rakuten, the pacifiers come in four designs guaranteed to make your dog look totally ridiculous so that you'll be hated forever.
Lakeland, FL, resident Adrian Apgar was rescued in 2006 from the jaws of a 12-foot alligator while naked and high on crack cocaine. Police have rescued Apgar again and are holding him in protective custody after he was found standing naked in a pond. He told deputies he had been bitten by a snake while looking for an alligator.
For pet owners are appalled to find that their dogs are eating their own feces or that of other dogs or cats.
This behavior is known as coprophagy, from the Greek copro, which means "feces," and phagy, which means "eat." Coprophagy is rarely seen in cats but is quite common in dogs, especially those who are very food-motivated. Many dog owner/guardians find this a completely unacceptable habit. Overall, it's not good for the dog, either, because of the risk of ingesting parasites.
Four Paws Potty Mouth Coprophagia Prevention is a remedy to stop your pet from the horrible habit of consuming feces, also commonly known as Coprophagia. The Four Paws Potty Mouth formulation contains ingredients that will quickly stop pets from consuming feces.
Think twice before buying a real Easter bunny. People buy rabbits thinking they're great low maintenance starter pets, but as a pet, they are actually more time-consuming than dogs. They have cages that need to be cleaned, like other small animals, but they need social interaction like a dog does, at least a couple of hours out of their cage each day.
Your home needs to be carefully rabbit-proofed against chewing. The many electrical cords required by modern living are a particular hazard. Although rabbits can be affectionate, they don't like to be picked up, which is frustrating for children, and can result in injury to the rabbit when it tries to get away. Spaying and neutering is critical. Otherwise, behavioral problems start at puberty, including territorial aggression and smelly spraying. A pet rabbit can live 10 to 12 years.
Because people often don't understand what they're getting into when they buy a rabbit, and rescue organizations get at least 30 phone calls a month from people wanting to give them up, many of which were bought as gifts for children at Easter.
That problem is why the Columbus House Rabbit Society started their "Make Mine Chocolate!" campaign. The campaign encourages a better understanding of rabbits by distributing educational literature, and raises awareness of the Easter issue by selling rabbit pins that resemble chocolate bunnies.
When Gary Mikus learned that an incurable nerve disease was starting to paralyze the hind legs of his German shepherd, he immediately dismissed the idea of putting the dog to sleep. Then he spotted an ad in a pet food store: "Eddie's Wheels For Pets. Help for Handicapped Pets." Now the dog named Bear, which has been Mikus' constant companion for a decade, has a lot of living left to do — much of it in his new pet wheelchair.
