When a group of soldiers tried to leave the Iraq area, a dog followed them - for 70 miles! Charlie, the border collie mix has caught the fancy of American soldiers fighting in Iraq and they petitioned to be able to bring him home with them. SPCA International stepped in and Charlie is the first beneficiary of the organization’s effort to rescue pets from the war zones: Operation Baghdad Pups.
Charlie eventually will live in Phoenix with one of his caretaker soldiers.
Read more about Charlie & some of the other pets who will be rescued here…
Right next door in Iran, it is illegal to own dogs - Islamic law considers them unclean. And a 70 year old man was given 30 lashes and thrown in jail for 4 months for walking his dog.
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February 23, 2008 - 2:47 pm
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Cynthia
A firm in South Korea, RNL Bio is going to clone an American woman’s dead pitbull named Booger - for $50,000. Since this is the first cloning, the California woman will get a $100,000 discount (from the normal price of $150,000.) The cloning will be done at Seoul National University. This is the first commercial cloning of a pet. (A non-commercial cloning was done of an Afghan dog, Snuppy, in 2005.)
Booger’s owner saved tissue from his ear and the cells are being implanted into 8 female dogs.
Many Westerners are willing to clone their pets even at the high price.
SNU researchers expect to receive orders for specialist dogs such as drug and bomb sniffer dogs. As a matter of fact, last summer they signed an initial deal with the customs service to clone drug-sniffing dogs. They hope that the capacity will be increased in the hope that 100 “companion dogs” can be cloned from next year, and eventually 500 dogs annually. Could people be far off?
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February 19, 2008 - 12:15 pm
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Cynthia
A dog named Oscar in Manchester, England missed his constant companion, Arthur the cat. Problem was, Arthur died.
Oscar watched his owner bury Arthur in a grave in the garden. So Oscar, missing his buddy, squeezed through the cat door & dug him up. The owners awoke in the morning to find Oscar & Arthur curled up together in the dogs basket.
Surprisingly, Arthur the cat had a clean coat - no dirt whatsoever. The owners believe Oscar licked Arthur clean before falling asleep with him. Now that’s love.
Arthur is now reburied in a secure grave. And Oscar has a new playmate, a kitten called Limpet. 
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January 10, 2008 - 8:56 am
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Cynthia
A man in India has vowed to protect a dog for life… so he married it. It’s not as magnanimous as it may sound. It was mainly to ward off a curse he felt was upon him when he killed a pair of dogs 15 years earlier.
His astrologer suggested the marriage after it was revealed that the man had clubbed a pair of mating dogs to death & hung them from a tree when he was a teenager. After the incident bad karma struck: he suffered a stroke, couldn’t move his left arm and legs and also turned deaf.
The man claimed an astrologer advised him that all his problems will be solved once he did the penance by marrying a female dog. Karma is a bitch! 
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November 13, 2007 - 8:14 am
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Cynthia
A new website, www.dogsindanger.com gives people looking for a dog a way to adopt one - this site promotes dogs that are about to be put to death. It’s a way to save a condemned dog.
Dogs featured on the first page of the site have the shortest time left.
You can search by breed, time until put to death, location, even right down to a radius of your zip code. There is a ticker counter on the site that shows how many dogs have been killed since you went to the website.
Not a happy site to be sure.
Read more about it here…
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September 27, 2007 - 8:07 am
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Cynthia
A 10 year old Jacksonville, FL Chihuahua named Mimi has adopted a group of baby squirrels. The squirrels were found in a nest in a tree limb that had been cut down by a tree cutting service.
Mimi cried to be with the baby squirrels and turned into a great mother, even though her last litter was 4 years ago.
Speaking of mothering other animals…
A dog named Huihu in China has adopted a young pig. The dog came home one night with a little black piglet following her. The dog has been nursing the pig as if it were her own ever since.
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September 13, 2007 - 7:56 am
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Cynthia
There was an old song that went, “how much is that doggie in the window?” Many people buy the cute dog because their emotion overtakes them, but they don’t think about matching their new dog with their personality and lifestyle. For example, my neighbor (an older lady) has a Jack Russell terrier. That dog is way too active for her and pulls her on the short walks she takes him on.
100 animal shelters nationwide are doing “Meet Your Match Canine-ality and Puppy-ality dog matching programs” between new owner and dog. They are matching dogs with the prospective owners lifestyles.
They’ve found that this dog matching program also reduces returning dogs back to the animal shelter.
Read all about it here…
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September 3, 2007 - 12:08 pm
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Cynthia
A new social networking site for dogs has sprung up in the U.K., DoggySnaps. It is run by a charity that helps stray and abandoned dogs find homes. And they operate 17 no-kill shelters.
DoggySnaps has pictures of nearly 24,000 dogs and counting. You can upload a picture (or several pictures) of your own dog to the site. There are doggy profiles, forums (including breed specific ones) where you can talk about all things dog. And maybe you can find a boyfriend or girlfriend for your pooch.
Check it out here…
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August 20, 2007 - 7:18 am
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Cynthia
A beloved dog in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu has passed away. The 70+ year old owner, who said the dog was his only companion showed his gratitude by arranging a lavish funeral. No expense was spared. The dog had a coffin, a funeral service, a Cadillac hearse to take him to his final resting place and a burial plot.
The staff at the funeral home at first refused to accomodate the request, but were touched by the man’s story.
All told, he spent over $13,000 USD.
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July 24, 2007 - 7:55 am
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Cynthia
A baby panther born in the Belgrade Zoo in Serbia about 2 weeks ago was nearly killed by its mother. It seems that the mother panther has killed all of her babies since 1999. The newborn was turned over to a Rhodesian Ridgeback who had just given birth herself. So the transition was a smooth one. Mama dog grooms the panther just like she does her own puppies.
See the video here…
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July 17, 2007 - 6:46 am
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Cynthia
