CatDogBlog

In Wellington, New Zealand, a drunken woman unleashed pitbulls on two New Zealand policemen responding to a domestic dispute, sending them scrambling to their patrol car where she bashed in their windshield with her feet, police said.

Gunshots and pepper spray couldn’t deter the pair of angry hounds, which hurled themselves at the car’s windows, said Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Grimstone in the northern city of Auckland. The “intoxicated and aggressive female,” meanwhile, “jumped up onto the bonnet of the car and smashed the patrol vehicle’s windscreen with her feet,” he said in a statement.

Back-up officers arrived and tried to negotiate with the woman, but to no avail. One of the dogs charged and was shot and wounded. The woman also assailed officers and was arrested, he said.

Grimstone said the shooting still didn’t deter either dog, with the wounded one again turning on police and getting shot a second time. “The dog has, only after being shot twice, then run off,” he said. Both animals were later impounded and were to be put to sleep.

The woman, aged 27 but not identified by police, faced charges of assault with a weapon, intentional damage, disorderly behavior and resisting police. Grimstone said more serious charges were likely. “There is no question that this woman is totally responsible for the demise of these animals. Drunken, violent, aggressive and confrontational behavior like this will not be tolerated,” he said. Ugh, don’t you just hate neglecting pet owners?

Cats were domesticated 6,000 years ago. Modern cats have their roots in Asia 11 million years ago, according to a DNA study of wild and domestic cats. The ancient ancestors of the 37 species alive today migrated across the globe, eventually settling in all continents except Antarctica, say scientists.

Eight major lineages emerged, including lions, ocelots and domestic cats. The moggy is most closely related to the African and European wild cat and the Chinese desert cat, an international team reports in Science. Warren Johnson of the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, US, led the study. He said they were able to trace the ancestry of all living cat species back to South East Asia some 11 million years ago. He says “We have a much better understanding of what makes a domestic cat a cat.”

In a relatively small number of migrations, cats spread across the world, as land bridges sprang up between continents. It turns out that the domestic cat is most closely related to the wild cats of Africa, Europe and China.

“You can take a look at your cat, that you share so much of your life with, and imagine that in the relatively recent evolutionary past, it was connected and related to species such as the European wild cat,” Dr Johnson said. “We now have a much better idea of where the domestic cat fits in with all of the 36 wild species and what ecological and geographical events led to the development of each one of these species. Through that we have a much better understanding of what makes a domestic cat a cat and what evolutionary event distinguished the domestic cat from its ancestor and what it retains today.” he added.

The family history of the cat has been notoriously murky in the past, in part because the few discovered cat fossils are very difficult to tell apart. Lions and other ‘roaring cats’ diverged first. The international team took a different approach by sampling DNA from living cats. They looked at both mitochondrial DNA (the scrap of DNA within the parts of the cell that generate energy and are passed along the maternal line) and DNA from the X and Y sex chromosomes.

A picture has emerged of a feline ancestor that wandered all over the world, becoming one of the most successful carnivore families. The Panthera lineage, which includes the lion, jaguar, cloud leopard and tiger, emerged first. This was followed rapidly by a group of three Asian species - the bay cat, Asian golden cat and marbled cat, three African Species (caracal, African golden cat and serval) and the path that led to the New World ocelot.

More recently, four further lines branched off - the pathways to the lynx, puma, leopard cat and domestic cat. The scientists believe the common ancestor of modern cats migrated to Africa from Asia six to eight million years ago, giving rise to the Caracal lineage. Cats then crossed the Bering land bridge to North America about eight million years ago, later moving into South America by the Panamanian land bridge.

In Florida -USA- Nicole Salvatore saw something she’d never seen before when she walked to her neighbor’s house Wednesday in Interlachen. A 13-foot-long Burmese python was eating her friend’s black cat. The cats name was Burrito.

“I’ve never seen a snake like that,” Salvatore exclaims. The 130-pound albino snake, which is yellow, had slithered from a house a few blocks away. Salvatore says the snake tried to eat the cat head first, but couldn’t do it. “So it moved around and started eating the cat tail first,” she describes.

She says the snake had already killed the cat by the time her friend, Dianne Turner, came home from work around five o’clock. According to Wikipedia, Burmese pythons kill by constriction. Their prey dies by suffocation rather than crushing. The kitty, Burrito, was Turner’s favorite cat, according to Salvatore.

Turner called the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, and deputies along with investigators from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, responded to the scene. Salvatore says authorities had told Turner she could not kill the snake. “So all we could do was stand there and watch that snake eat the cat,” Salvatore says.

So how did the snake get loose in the first place? Steve Cook owns Bernie, the female python. Bernie lives in a cage, or pen, in Cook’s back yard. Cook says he had fed Bernie two rabbits. However, while Bernie was eating the first rabbit, the second rabbit decided to make a run for it. The rabbit dug a hole under the cage fence and escaped. Cook says the snake followed the rabbit and also escaped through the hole.

He says the snake had been on the loose in the neighborhood for two days. It’s not the first time the snake has gotten loose. Cook says Bernie broke out of the pen about a month ago for a day. He soon found her and re-enforced the cage. Salvatore says the snake should not have been loose at all.

She says it could’ve been a threat to small children, like her niece. The big yellow python is now back in her pen. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has given Cook a warning. Cook says an investigator with the agency has also inspected the pen and said it is acceptable. As for Turner, she’s lost her cherished furry friend. “She loved that cat,” Salvatore says, “she really did.”

In a new study, a professor of geriatrics reports that nursing home residents would rather hang out with just a dog than a dog and other residents. The study, led by William A. Banks of the Saint Louis University School of Medicine, included 37 residents who scored high on a loneliness scale and desired half-hour dog visits once a week.

Half of the group spent the time alone with the dog. The others participated in group visits with one to three other residents and the pooch. Those who had the one-on-one time with the dog “experienced a much more significant decrease in loneliness after five to six weeks of visits.” From a press release:

“It was a strange finding,” said Banks, who also is a staff physician at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Louis. “We had thought that the dog acts as a social lubricant and increases the interaction between the residents. We expected the group dog visits were going to work better, but they didn’t. “The residents found a little quiet time with the pooch is a lot nicer than spending time with a dog and other people,” he said.

Ohoi -America- In a lawsuit filed by a convicted drug dealer, one of the defendants has more than two legs to stand on. He has four. Andi, a dog used by the Athens County Sheriff’s Department, is listed as one of the defendants in a lawsuit filed by Wayne Francis Green, 46, who sued Nov. 18.

Green, who is representing himself, alleges that a search of his furniture business in 2003 was illegal. The search turned up 50 pounds of marijuana, and last month Green was convicted of possession and trafficking in the drug. He claims officers also went into an adjoining building that he owned without a warrant, but police deny it. Green also said that he felt endangered by Andi’s presence. “They’ve got a mean ol’ dog, you know what I’m saying? I take that pretty serious,” Green said, adding, “I’m a dog lover, but that’s the limit.”

Green’s lawsuit, which seeks $450,000 in damages, also was filed against police investigators, Athens County Sheriff Vern Castle and the trial judge. Last Thursday, Andi the German shepherd was informed that he’s being sued — sort of. With a paw print, the dog “signed” the paper indicating he had been formally served with the complaint.