ohmidog!

An animal control officer in South Carolina responded to a call about a barking dog behind a Home Depot, and was touched when she discovered what all the noise was about.

“This is one example of why I love my job,” officer Michelle Smith said in her report.

A stray dog was nursing a kitten along North Pointe Creek in Anderson.

On Monday, a caller to animal control reported a dog had been barking in the area along the creek since Saturday, Fox Carolina reported

Smith followed the noise and found the dog and kitten at the bottom of a steep embankment.

She took them both to Anderson County P.A.W.S.

Smith said the dog is taking care of the kitten, cleaning and feeding it.

Animal control is hoping either the dog’s owner or whoever adopts her will agree to bring the cat home, too.

Natura Pet Products is recalling its dry foods for dogs and cats because of concerns they may be contaminated with salmonella bacteria.

The recall includes all dry pet food products with expiration dates prior to and including March 24, 2013. The brands include California Natural, EVO, Healthwise, Innova, and Karma.

Based in Fremont, Neb., Natura Pet is a maker of “natural” and “holistic” pet foods, according to a company statement.

The recall is an expansion of one that had been announced by the company last month, according to a Food and Drug Administration press release.

The affected products were sold through veterinary clinics and select pet specialty retailers throughout the United States and in Canada, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Costa Rica. The products were also sold online.

No canned wet foods or biscuits are included in the recall.

Pets infected with salmonella can appear tired, and have diarrhea and vomiting. Some pets may not show obvious symptoms, but experience decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. Pets can spread the bacteria to other animals, including humans.

Natura Pet said people who have purchased the products should discard them. If their pets have consumed the recalled product and are showing symptoms, they should contact their veterinarian.

Actor James Cromwell interrupted a Board of Regents meeting at the University of Wisconsin today, shouting and displaying a larger than life photo of a cat that, as part of a university experiment, had a metal post inserted in its head.

“This is not science! This is torture! Shame on you!” he shouted.

Cromwell, an Academy Award nominee and longtime PETA supporter, was arrested by campus police, as was a PETA staff member accompanying him, PETA reported.

Members of the University of Wisconsin (UW) System Board of Regents sat stunned when Cromwell entered their meeting holding this photo above his head:

PETA said the cat in the photo is named Double Trouble and that she is one of many cats who had been  killed in UW-Madison’s brain and ear experiments.

Experimenters screwed a steel post to her skull so that they could immobilize her head and planted electrical devices deep inside her ears. Her head wound to become severely infected, and, according to PETA, researchers stop feeding her. Finally, calling the experiment a failure, they killed and decapitated her, PETA said.

Cromwell said experiments underway at the university are “cruel and wasteful … As many as 30 cats a year have had holes drilled into their skulls, metal poles implanted into their eyes, been starved for days at a time and have been decapitated.”

PETA has repeatedly asked UW-Madison to end its experiments, but says it has received no response.

A Florida sheriff’s deputy plans to adopt the dog he helped rescue after her owner slashed her throat and stabbed her.

The dog, a 70-pound collie-Labrador mix named Amber, was attacked Sunday night, according to the Jacksonville Times-Union.

St. Johns County Deputy Dan Sorrells arrested her owner and then joined an animal control officer in a search for the dog, following a trail of blood and finding her in a thicket of grass, with her throat slashed and stab wounds to her sides.

When he called her name, she came, he said. “She walked right over to me. She showed no  aggression.”

Amber was taken to Atlantic Veterinary Hospital in Jacksonville. Sorrells plans to pay Amber’s medical and take her home in about a week.

Her owner, Randal Bryen Hart, 28, has been charged with animal  cruelty. Hart, who was being held in St. Johns County jail agreed to relinquish ownership of the dog.

He told deputies the dog needed to be “put down” because she attacked a kitten.

According to Hart’s two roomates, who reported the incident, he became angry when he thought the dog had harmed the cat.

“He called the dog over to him and stabbed it several times,” they told Sorrells. “Then he cut its throat.”

One of the roommates said he tried to help the wounded dog, but that Hart told him to ”back off.”

The kitten, as it turned out, was not harmed.

Amber is believed to be about 4 years old. Sorrells visited her Tuesday and  Wednesday. His family has two other rescue dogs.

“This dog will fit in perfectly with them,” he  said.

(Top photo: Amber, far left, visits the vet with Sorrells, far right; by Bruce Lipsky / The Times-Union)

When Terfel started losing his eyesight because of cataracts, he crawled into his bed and pretty much stayed there.

Then a cat came into his home in the UK, and was soon helping him find his way around.

Pwditat showed up as a stray and was taken in by the eight-year-old dog’s owner, a North Wales resident named Judy Godfrey-Brown.

Pwditat not only coaxed him out of his basket but helped him find his way around the house and garden, using her paws to guide him in the right direction, Godfrey-Brown told the Sun.

Godfrey-Brown, a retired civil servant, became unable to care for the pair, and they were taken in by Anne Cragg, who appears in this video.

Ace and the cat next door have become steadfast friends, hanging out together most days in the backyard. But their relationship has clearly evolved, as I guess most do.

Ace still seems thrilled every time he sees Tom. They still play chase. They still engage in their form of wrestling — Ace poking Tom with his nose, Tom swatting Ace in the head with his paws.

But Ace no longer is totally obsessed with the cat, no longer smothering him with attention, no longer constantly in Tom’s face. Ace used to follow Tom wherever he went. But as Tom has become less elusive, Ace has become less fascinated. As the months have gone by, it’s Tom who’s now more likely to follow Ace, and instigate the play. Tom still seems to send a message that says “chase me,” but Ace doesn’t always play along, sometimes preferring to just watch, or scratch himself, or look for something he might deem edible.

Over the weekend though, Tom revealed a new skill — tree climbing — and Ace was immediately totally smitten with the kitten again.

On Sunday Ace was minding own business in the shared yard behind my apartment, chewing on a bully stick. Thomas slowly approached and circled him, nuzzled him a few times and swung his tail into his face.

Ace looked up, but kept chewing. Seeming to sense Ace’s disinterest, Tom went his own way, disappearing for a time.

Ace, focused on his treat, seemed to forget about him — until, 10 minutes later, he spotted him in the distance, under my parked car. Read more »

A cat hacked to pieces, a terrier beaten by youths with a cricket bat and a dog whose owner inserted a caribiner through its neck all made the Royal New Zealand SPCA’s 2012 “List of Shame.”

The list of inhumane acts toward animals is compiled annually by the SPCA and shared with the public — partly to increase public awareness, and partly as a warning.

“Violence towards animals both co-occurs and is a predictor of violence towards humans,” said Robyn Kippenberger, national chief executive of the Royal New Zealand SPCA.

“The sheer level of violence meted out on animals by some of the perpetrators in the cases in this year’s List of Shame is shocking, and underlying of wider issues in New Zealand.”

Incidents that made this year’s list included a tethered goat stabbed to death in Greymouth, a dog left to starve on the side of a road, and “a  family cat deliberately cut up in Timaru.”

The lists recounts 30 acts of abuse and neglect, and their outcomes.

In Rotorua, a dog owner put a metal caribiner, such as used in climbing, through the skin of his Shar Pei mix’s neck and used it to connect a leash. An infection resulted and the dog had to be euthanized. The owner was prosecuted, fined and banned from owning a dog for a year.

In Te Atatu, Auckland a 3 year old cat was found outside an archery club with an arrow in his head. Further investigation showed he’d also been shot with pellets. The SPCA is still investigating.

In Waitara, a man trapped cats in his backyard, then put them in sacks and drowned them. He was banned from owning an animal for five years.

In July, two men who were prosecuted for shooting 33 dogs and puppies during a feud between neighbors in Wellsford, received  sentences of 6 months home detention and 6 months community detention, 300 hours community work and reparation.

“The SPCA’s work is made less effective by the low level of sentencing being awarded in animal welfare cases,” Kippenberger said. “ The sentencing in most of these cases is appallingly inadequate, and is no way indicative of the range of penalties that can be handed down under the Animal Welfare Amendment Act.”

“Considering the close links between violence towards humans and animal cruelty, courts should be recognising these crimes as significant in a continuum of violent behaviour. If these crimes are not punished significantly, an opportunity is lost to send a message that no violence is acceptable.”

The Royal New Zealand SPCA, in partnership with Women’s Refuge, recently released a study into the  link between animal cruelty and domestic and family violence in New Zealand.

In the study, “Pets as Pawns,” 50 per cent of women interviewed had witnessed animal cruelty as part of their experience of domestic violence and 25 per cent said their children had witnessed violence against animals.

(Photo: One of the 33 dogs shot in Wellsford; New Zealand Herald)

Booger — the heart, soul and sturdy foundation of a streetside act that brought together dog, cat and rat for performances that amused millions (if you count online) — has died.

The 13-year-old dog — a Rottweiler-Labrador mix – died Monday night from kidney and liver failure at a veterinary clinic in her hometown of Telluride, said her owner, Greg Pike.

Pike brought together Booger, a cat named Kitty and a rat named Mousie, taught them to arrange themselves in a pyramid and showed that animals can buck their stereotypes and view each other as more than predator and prey.

The hopeful message behind the act — in which Mousie stood atop Kitty, who stood atop Booger, most often on the west end of Pearl Street in Boulder — was that maybe we humans could do a better job of getting along, too.

It all started off on a bet, though.

Pike began putting the act together soon after he was given Booger as a puppy, according to the Boulder Daily Camera:

One day in a Telluride park, Pike and some others were discussing the limits of what’s possible, and he bet that he could get a dog, cat and rat to get along.

After finding Kitty and her littermates in a box under a house, Pike said he introduced the cat to Booger. They hit it off immediately and were inseparable from that point. Over the years, several different rodents have been used in the act.

Pike didn’t limit his entertaining to Colorado. To counter the sadness he saw in people after 9/11, Pike took the animals across the U.S. He said he enjoyed seeing the smiles on people’s faces when they saw the animals walking around, stacked on one another.

“Everywhere I brought them, they made people smile, and it just made me feel really good inside,” Pike said.

The act appeared on the Animal Planet series “Must Love Cats” and a YouTube video of them has been viewed more than 9.75 million times.

Pike said Booger will be cremated, and in the spring he will climb to the top of Gold Hill in Telluride to spread her ashes.

“I think my eyes are drained. It really hurts,” Pike said Tuesday. “She didn’t die in pain at all. She passed away in comfort in Telluride, where she loved to be.”

Kitty seems to be missing Booger as much as he is, Pike noted.

“I’ve never seen her curl up to me this much.”

(Photo: Bestpeacesign.com)

After collecting $3,500 from the insurance company of a woman whose car rear-ended him, a Washington man apparently decided to return to the well — this time informing her insurer that his cat died in the accident, too.

Although more than two years had passed, he asked for $20,000 for the death of his beloved cat, Tom, and, when requested, he sent the insurance company some photos.

As it turned out, the only place he’d spent anytime with the cat, who he claimed to love “like a son,” was on Wikipedia.

Yevgeniy Samsonov, 29, was charged with insurance fraud and attempted theft, according to the Seattle Times.

According to the charges filed in Pierce County,  Samsonov didn’t have a cat, and the photos he submitted to bolster his claim had both been copied from the Internet.

“We’ve handled some pretty unusual cases, but this is one of the stranger ones,” state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said in a news release.

In his initial claim, Samsonov said he required chiropractic treatment after his car was rear-ended in March 2009 while stopped at a traffic light in Tacoma. The other driver told her insurance company, Pemco, that her foot had slipped off the brake.

Two years later, Samsonov asked Pemco for more money to compensate him for his lost cat. The insurer sent Samsonov a check for $50, but Samsonov said, given the cat’s intense sentimental value, that didn’t begin to cover his loss.

When Pemco agents asked Samsonov for photos of the cat , he submitted two, which he claimed to have taken himself, according to court documents. Then a Pemco employee did a Google search and turned up the same images Samsonov had submitted, according to the insurer.  The two pictures turned out to be of different cats, one from Wikipedia, and one from another website.

They refused to pay him any more money, and revoked the $50  check. Samsonov appealed to the state insurance commissioner’s office.

That led to an investigation and the filing of charges against him.

An eccentric Czech scientist says a single-celled parasite that can be passed on through contact with cat feces can lead people to behave in strange and destructive ways.

And Jaroslav Flegr has more than studies to back up his theory. He has the parasite — Toxoplasma gondii (or Toxo for short).

Flegr and his work are profiled in a fascinating (and scary) article this month in The Atlantic, which describes the 63-year-old evolutionary biologist as a “sloppy dresser … with the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought” and “frizzy red hair that encircles his head like a ring of fire.”

Flegr, the article says, has pursued his theory for decades in relative obscurity — partly because he’s not much of a conversationalist and rarely goes to scientific conferences, partly, he says, because people just don’t want to hear it.

“There is strong psychological resistance to the possibility that human behavior can be influenced by some stupid parasite,” he says. “Nobody likes to feel like a puppet.”

His theory is gaining credence, though, The Atlantic reports.

That parasites can be passed on through cat feces is nothing new, as the article notes:

Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death … (It’s) the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom.

Flegr thinks that, even in its latent stage, the parasite may be messing with the connections between our neurons, affecting our response to frightening situations, our outgoingness, our trust of others and our preference for certain scents.

He thinks the organism is a factor in car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. All tolled, he says, it might be, in an indirect kind of way, killing a million people a year.

Flegr had long wondered about his own behavior. Sometimes, he didn’t move out of the way of oncoming traffic, and exhibited other behaviors that might be described as self-destructive. He began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was manipulating his personality.

In 1990, he joined the biology faculty of Charles University, which was a leader in documenting the health effects of T. gondii and in developing methods for detecting the parasite.

Colleagues searching for infected individuals on whom to test their improved diagnostic kits asked him to volunteer, and that’s when he confirmed he had the parasite.

Read more »