Wildlife

Santana Kennels owner Ian McIver arrived at work in time to see the building ablaze, and immediately set out to free 51 dogs and 11 cats, the Winnipeg man is recovering from second degree burns. No animals died but one Pomeranian was singed. Foster homes are needed for the rescued animals

Gerbils, hamsters and guinea pigs will be able to go on holiday almost anywhere in Europe after the EU extended pet passports to most domestic animals

Sarah Matteson, a Medical College of Georgia student, and Michelle Goree, a veterinary medicine student at Auburn University, have received a federal innovation award for having dogs and their owners undergo health screenings at the same time

I finally got a story onto Slashdot.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a report of a bizarre sea creature that has washed up on the coast of Chile. The creature is grey, lumpy, and the size of a school bus. Scientists have ruled out the possibility that it may be a whale — the creature is an invertebrate, and perhaps even a new species.

The Guardian clears the confusion around a culturally critical and chronically misused word — ironic

The New Scientist‘s Last Word column always offers a great collection of answers and anecdotes to bizarre questions. A recent column provided the answer to why cats are better able to survive falls than humans, as well as an interesting solution for a perpetual energy device.

lucie recently sent me a link to the Cat Users’ Manual, a look at moggy ownership through techie eyes. They also offer the equally amusing Dog Users’ Manual.

Under a thick cover of fog, cattle duffers have stolen more than $600,000 worth of rare livestock in what has been described as one of the biggest cattle thefts in Victorian history

Photos of my new kitten Jasper in a purple bag.

I’ve been wondering if male dogs are all missing the gene that prevents them rolling off things.

If they are lying on a raised surface — bed, lounge, back seat of the car — their preferred position is to lie with their back to the edge. And sooner or later the urge to roll over means they hit the floor with a thump.

The first time Husky showed this lack of spatial awareness, he scared the hell out of me. He was in such a deep sleep that he didn’t wake on impact and I rushed over to check he was still alive. He was fine, of course, just a little confused at being woken by a concerned human.

Oddly enough he doesn’t learn from his falls. I’m always catching him lying in strange places and have to shove him back before he succumbs to the laws of gravity again.

Malamute never drops off the furniture. Neither do the other two female malamutes in the clan. This behaviour is limited to the male dogs in the family but, admittedly, I am working with a very small pool of two out of five dogs.

It’s all very peculiar.

Just had a flurry of dog activity in the house.

My husky, closely followed by the malamute, went hooning around the dining table before crashing into and getting tangling in the vertical blinds by the back door. By the time I got there to untangle him, he’d buggered off to the depths of his kennel with whatever prize he’d managed to thieve.

The loose feathers and a small amount of blood at the scene of the crime, pretty much told me what his prize was. But it’s a tough call to identify bird remains at the back of the kennel when there’s a husky drooling on them and a malamute standing in the entrance blocking your view.

I had to wait half an hour until the little guy brought his bird out to the backyard. He laid beside it to tease the malamute. Turns out he’d scored another starling, which sets his tally at three starlings, a sparrow and a rather stupid noisy miner.

I’ve heard the sound of starling doom in the past. He waits until they leave their nest via the guttering, then he launches himself off the kennel roof and takes them out in mid air.

He must have stunned his latest victim and was forced to subdue it inside. Or, possibly, the malamute was laying in wait to claim his fluttery new toy and he was forced to evade her.

The sparrow was unfortunate enough to fly inside and get cornered in the kitchen. While the house humans were trying to open the kitchen window to shoo it outside, my husky solved the problem by catching and taking it outside himself.

The sparrow didn’t survive his rescue attempt.

The noisy miner was a fledgling. I was walking the little guy past a tree full of noisy miners. I spotted the fledgling sitting on a limb about a metre off the ground. I figured that all of the adult birds were telling it to get the hell out the way, but as the fledgling was going, Huh? What dog?, it was too late. My dog had grabbed it and walked off. He was a lead at the time too.

The dogs are always entertaining, but I could have done without having to clean bird bits off the vertical blinds.

Lawrence Anthony, trustee of the Thula Thula Private Game Reserve in Zululand and interim head of the Baghdad Zoo, appealed this week to zoo and animal welfare groups to help raise $1 million for the once-splendid facility, which was badly damaged and had many of its animals stolen during the US-led war against Iraq

Lions once kept in a private zoo by the son of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein will be moved out of Baghdad to start a new life in the South African bush