- Via the Telegraph blogs, a wave of dog abandonments in Belgium: Les cahiers au feu, le chien au milieu (excerpted here). People seem to dump their dogs on the local SPCA rather than take them along on holiday. Thirty dogs were left with the SPCA in Charleroi in a single day.
- The Starsky and Hutch of West 74th Street is about Oscar and Paxil, two NYC dogs who hunt rats on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Then she elaborated about the rats. Paxil and Oscar do their hunting late at night, during their last walks of the day. They began their crusade a couple of years ago, when they met in Riverside Park and prey was abundant. Paxil is an expert at flushing rats out of their hiding places. When she does, if they're small enough, she'll grab one and shake it until its neck snaps.
But once they're dead, she has no further interest in them. If the rat is too big for her to lift off the ground, she leaves it to Oscar, whose steel-trap jaws and quickness make short work of the biggest, most intimidating rat.
- No Fido or Fluffy left behind. In the wake of Katrina, a new law in Louisiana which
requires the governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and their local counterparts to devise humane ways to evacuate and shelter cats and dogs during hurricanes. Service animals such as guide dogs are supposed to be evacuated with their owners. Household pets in carriers and cages will be allowed on public transportation if they do not endanger people.
- An actor's final passion: to end greyhound races. Actor Duane Black was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. He is spending his remaining days raising money and awareness for greyhound rescues. He is quoted by the Denver Post as saying:
Greyhounds do not ask to be born into a life of kenneling, racing and inevitable euthanasia,
said Black. They spend their short-lived lives racing their hearts out for their well-loved masters, and are rewarded with early retirement and early death. If you wish to honor my memory, stop that sport. Short of that, adopt a greyhound.
- Hair of the Dog about what triggers dogs to shed, that it is likely tied to the amount of light a dog is exposed to as well as the length of the day.
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