CatDogBlog

New Delhi - A seven-year-old girl wed a stray dog as part of a ritual to ward off the “evil eye” on her and her family in eastern India, a news agency reported on Wednesday.

Shivam Munda’s upper teeth appeared before her lower teeth - considered a bad omen by members of the Santhal ethnic group to which she belongs, the Press Trust of India said in a report from Dhanbad, a coal mining town in the eastern state of Bihar.

Kundan Munda, a coal mine worker, said his daughter married the dog only to “remove the evil eye”, a superstitious belief that some misfortune could befall her and the family, and that she would be free to marry a man later.

Friends and family participated in three days of traditional ceremonies and festivities that are part of a Santhal tribal marriage, Munda said, according to the report.

San Francisco -USA- A leader in urban recycling, is preparing to enlist its canine population for a first in the United States: converting dog poop into energy.

Norcal Waste Systems Inc., the city’s garbage company, plans to test collection carts and biodegradable bags in a city-center park popular with dog walkers.

A city study found that almost 4% of all the garbage picked up at San Francisco homes was from animal waste destined for the city’s landfill, Norcal Waste spokesman Robert Reid said. San Francisco has an estimated 120,000 dogs.

“The city asked us to start thinking about a pilot program to recycle the dog poop in order to cut back adding more waste in landfills,” Reid said.

Dog feces could be scooped into a methane digester, a device that uses bugs and microorganisms to gobble up the material and emit methane, which would be trapped and burned to power a turbine to make electricity or to heat homes.

Dogs and cats in the United States produce about 10 million tonnes of waste a year, Will Brinton, an environmental scientist and owner-director of Woods End Laboratories in Maine, said.

European cities such as Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna are operating biomass programs to turn waste into gas, he said.

A dog trainer who did volunteer work at a prison ran off with a convicted killer after helping him escape in a dog crate loaded into the back of her van, authorities say.

Toby Young, a 48-year-old married mother of two grown sons, was the founder of a program that rescued dogs from animal shelters and worked with inmates to train the pets and make them suitable for adoption.

Authorities at the state prison at Lansing said seven inmates apparently helped pull off the escape Sunday by putting 27-year-old prisoner John Manard into the crate, then hoisting it into her vehicle.

Two guards who were supposed to check the van before it left the prison did not do so, perhaps because they recognized and trusted Young, authorities said.

Young was “well-known and well-liked by everyone,” Corrections Department spokesman Bill Miskell said. “It appears that her familiarity with the staff may have played a part.”

Miskell refused to speculate on Young’s possible motivation. Authorities have declined to say whether Young and the inmate were romantically involved.

In preparation for the escape, Young gathered more than $10,000 in cash, took two guns from her home, bought a vehicle, rented a storage area and bought hair dye and an electric razor that could be used to alter her appearance or Manard’s, investigators said.

The state offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to Manard’s arrest, but investigators acknowledged the two could be anywhere in the world by now.

Young was known as the “Dog Lady” to inmates at the prison about 25 miles from Kansas City, Mo. In numerous news stories about her Safe Harbor Prison Dog program, Young spoke passionately about her desire to help both the dogs and the inmates improve their lives.

Manard, who was serving a life sentence for murdering a man during a carjacking in 1996, was one of the inmates who helped train the dogs, and he was frequently quoted as praising the program.

Young’s family, including her firefighter husband, Pat, refused requests for an interview. On Wednesday, her father read a statement saying family members “simply don’t have any ideas why or how this happened.” They assured Young they loved her and pleaded with her to come home.

People who worked with Young on the dog program refused to talk to The Associated Press, with one saying they are too overwhelmed to discuss her disappearance.

Before working at the prison, Young received training in which the boundaries between volunteers and inmates were made “extremely clear,” Miskell said.

“Our training emphasizes to volunteers what they should and should not do for the inmates,” he said. “There is no doubt that she knew the boundaries.”

Miskell said prison officials hope the dog program can continue. He said it has proved valuable in getting inmates to behave behind bars.

Administrators at Avenal State Prison said they will have to kill more than 100 cats that have sneaked in and reproduced inside the facility.

The felines have become a health nuisance for the prison. The state has cited the prison for unsafe working conditions because of cat urine and feces. Prison officials said they do not know how the animals got in.

Over the weekend, volunteers removed about 50 cats, taking most to a Central Valley ranch. Volunteers spayed and neutered and the animals, and gave some veterinary care.

There are still about 100 more roaming the facility, prison officials said. Prison workers are trying to trap the animals.

A California (USA) biotechnology company has started taking orders for a hypoallergenic cat for pet lovers prone to allergies. The genetically engineered feline, which is expected to be available from 2007, is the first in a planned series of lifestyle pets, Los Angeles-based Allerca said in a press release.

Allerca hopes to attract customers among the millions of people worldwide who suffer from cat allergies. Up to 10 percent of the U.S. population alone are believed to be prone to symptoms that can affect the eyes, nose, ears, throat, lungs and skin.

Many cat lovers ignore medical advice and discomfort and choose to keep the animals as pets, or use expensive medications to cope with their allergies. Cat allergen is also one of the main causes of childhood allergies, asthma and other respiratory diseases such as bronchitis.

Cat allergies are caused by a potent protein secreted by the cat’s skin and salivary glands. The allergen is so small it can remain airborne for months. Using “gene silencing” technology, Allerca is able to suppress the production of the protein.

The first breed of hypoallergenic cats will be British Shorthairs, which are considered to be ideal pets with friendly, playful and affectionate personalities. Allerca expects the first kittens to be born in early 2007 and is already accepting $250 deposits from interested customers.

Allerca president Simon Brodie told The Associated Press that he ultimately hopes to sell 200,000 of the cats annually at $3,500 each in the United States. Brodie said the cats would be spayed and neutered to prevent breeding with naturally born animals.

He also said he didn’t expect to have any problems with federal regulators after neither the U.S. Department of Agriculture nor the Food and Drug Administration objected to the creation of a genetically-engineered pet fish because it wasn’t meant for human consumption.

The GloFish, which went on sale in pet stores earlier this year, is a zebra fish implanted with a fluorescent sea anemone gene. “As long as people don’t start eating cats and they don’t enter the food chain, then we should be handled like the GloFish,” Brodie told the AP.

The genetic-engineered cat is the latest attempt to apply biotechnology to the lucrative pet industry. In August 2004, Genetic Savings & Clone — another Californian company — announced that it had successfully cloned two kittens from a one-year-old female Bengal cat and said it could clone anyone’s pet for around $50,000.

Two passenger planes of Macedonia’s national carrier MAT were stacked above Skopje airport until a pack of stray dogs could be cleared from the runway to let them land safely, officials said Thursday.

A flight from Vienna and another from Zurich were ordered to circle the airfield Wednesday after security noticed the dogs “playing around” on the airfield’s only runway. The plane coming from Zurich was less than one kilometer from landing when the pilot was told to abort and pull up.

“Passengers were upset when they heard the roar from the engines as I pulled up,” chief pilot Blagoja Kukulovski told local media. “We were flying in bad weather. To calm everyone down we had to explain what was the reason.”

The two planes circled for 30 minutes around the capital until the dogs were driven off. Airport authorities were checking for any holes in the airport fences.

According to figures recently released by the American Kennel Club, the sweetly slobbering Labrador retriever remains America’s top dog for the 16th consecutive year, and the golden retriever hangs in at No. 2. However, the yippy Yorkshire terrier unexpectedly nips at their hind paws in the No. 3 spot–its highest national ranking since it entered the AKC in 1885–having made kibble out of the German shepherd and the beagle. The Yorkie well could snatch the top slot next year, according to Lainie Cantrell, director of public relations at the AKC.

“I’m not surprised,” said Jaime Bishop, a New York marketing executive, walking Madison, a 4-year-old Yorkie wearing a faux mink coat. “They’re very much like a child. They have a lot of energy, but they’re always looking for love and affection. And she’s so small, I take her everywhere,” said Bishop, showing off Madison’s candy-pink dog tote decorated with a plush pink bone. In New York, Yorkies are the fourth-most popular dog and come in sixth in Chicago.

Popularity shifts wildly. But, since humans domesticated dogs some 15,000 years ago, the popularity of breeds has shifted wildly according to the needs of civilized society and fickle fashion. Working dogs once protected campsites for Neanderthals, pulled carts in medieval Europe, herded sheep in Scotland and guarded fire engines in New York. These days, dogs primarily serve as companions and protectors in a 21st Century America where doggie day-care centers abound and canine couture runs all the way from bow-wow booties to Burberry raincoats and Hermes collars.

But dogs are not always well-served by humans. Shelters annually take in between 6 million and 8 million dogs, a quarter of which are purebreds, estimates The Humane Society of the United States. Registered purebreds represent a tiny drop in the water bowl of the some 73 million dogs owned in the U.S. 46 percent of which are mixed-breed mutts, according to the 2005-2006 National Pet Owners Survey by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.

America’s most popular dog breeds are: …
Read the rest of this entry »

He came from the streets of Brooklyn, a cool customer on four legs, the perfect bait for a sting on a fake veterinarian. Meet Fred, undercover kitten. Authorities (U.S.) on Wednesday introduced the 8-month-old former stray cat that posed as a would-be patient while police investigated a college student accused of treating pets without a license.

At a news conference, Fred sported a tiny badge on his collar as he posed for photos with owner Carol Moran, a prosecutor. “He’s pretty easygoing, a real Brooklyn guy,” Moran said. Fred shared the spotlight with Burt the Boston terrier, an alleged victim of Steven Vassall, 28, who was arrested last week and released on $2,500 bail.

Burt’s owner, Raymond Reid, contacted authorities after the dog survived a botched operation. In hindsight, he said, he should have been suspicious of a veterinarian who only made house calls and treated animals at an undisclosed location. Vassall “seemed like a genuinely nice guy,” Reid said. “I’m glad they caught him, but at the same time I feel sorry for him.”

Last week, an investigator posing as Fred’s owner summoned Vassall to an apartment rigged with a hidden camera. Authorities played a videotape at the news conference showing the defendant saying the kitten could be neutered for $135. Vassall was arrested as he left the apartment carrying Fred in a box and cash for the operation. Investigators later recovered a price list for vaccinations and other procedures, including surgeries.

It was unclear how long Vassall - a college student who once worked as a laboratory assistant in a vet’s office - allegedly scammed pet owners before Fred helped put him out of business. Joyce Clemmons of the nonprofit Animal Care and Control, which rescued Fred, predicted the kitten had a future in law enforcement. “He’s going to be the detective for the animal world,” she said.

In the Ukraine it’s very cold right now, this cool cat is looking outside through the partially frozen window of a house in a mining settlement. Is he saying “Meow, I wanna play in the snow!”?

A two year old dog has been hailed a hero after raising the alarm when fire spread through kennels in Dalkeith. Seven animals were killed when the blaze ripped through the Dalkeith Cattery on Lauder Road. But owner Evelyn Smail was saved from the blaze after being awoken by her Pomeranian dog Cleo. Staff at the cattery say that the actions of the dog saved the lives of the owner and 19 other animals.

Cleo is one of 20 showdogs owned by Ms Smail, who was awoken by the sound of the dog’s barking in the early hours of yesterday morning. As a result of the noise, she discovered the blaze, which was tearing through a new extension to the cattery and approaching her own home. She then risked her own safety by saving five of the seven cats that were boarding at the cattery.

Firefighters told her that the blaze appeared to have been burning for some time and was within 15 minutes of spreading to the roof of her home. Although Ms Smail was too upset to talk today, Sheila Grey, a volunteer at the cattery, said: “She was awoken when one of the show dogs started barking madly.

Ms Smail got out of bed at 1.55AM, thinking the dog needed to go to the toilet. “She looked out her back window to find that the building was acutely ablaze and immediately called the fire brigade.”