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Born Gary Matthews, the retired technology worker and a self-confessed "nerd" thinks he is a dog. The 48-year-old wears a dog collar, eats dog food from a bowl — his favorite is Pedigree – and loves milk bones and dog cookies. "I don't eat dog food every day," Matthews told ABCNews.com "It's a special thing for me to do once in awhile to get closer to feeling like a canine. I eat the canned kind. It's not bad -- it tastes OK. I eat regular human food, too, like pizza." But he has the most fun wearing his dog suit,...

This is the best canine love story you will read today – or possibly ever! If you thought dogs don’t have feelings, get ready to change your mind. Ben, a 4 1/2-year-old mixed breed (above left), and Jade, a 1-year-old German Shepherd mix (above right), were two strays who met on the streets of Terre Haute, Indiana, and fell in love. (Yes, dogs can fall in love.) The pair was well known and cared for in the local community, but when Jade became pregnant last summer, the Terre Haute Humane Society (THHS) brought them to their shelter. The couple were...

An Ohio woman who lived much of her life as an animal lover may have died a dog killer. Sandra Lertzman, 62, was found dead along with 31 of her dogs, many of them puppies, in a running car in the garage of her Moreland Hills home on Monday. Investigators told WOIO that they found a suicide note in the house and several prescription vials in the vehicle. It wasn’t clear how she and the pups died. One of the dogs managed to survive by finding a small opening in the garage where it could breathe, authorities said. Lertzman was...

A Georgia police officer shot and killed a tiny Jack Russell Terrier that he claims threatened him during a routine probationary checkup on Monday. The officer, Antoine Jones, is over six feet tall and weighs nearly 300 pounds. Patches, the dog he killed, weighs just 12 pounds, according to a local news channel. Jones visited the Albany residence of Cherrie Shelton earlier this week to check on her son, who is serving probation. Upon Jones’s arrival, two-year-old Patches approached the officer and began barking. Shelton claims she told Jones that Patches was no threat, but the officer drew his weapon...

An Atlanta woman is grieving the death of her dog after police shot it while responding to an accidental 911 call. Kelley Rodriguez said her niece made the call by mistake. When officers knocked on the door, her pit bull mix "Jane" ran outside her home on Grant Terrace in southeast Atlanta. Police said the dog tried to jump on one officer and he shot it in the head. Rodriguez said her dog was not trying to attack the officer. “They shot her and then they were pointing the gun at my 14-week-old puppy. And I ran down in the...

A Columbus woman says she wants answers after a Columbus Police officer allegedly shot her dog in the face Saturday night. Pam Groom says she called CPD's non-emergency number on Saturday night asking for an officer to come to her home on Wager Street because a suspicious person was in her backyard. According to Groom CPD did dispatch a first set of officers to her home whom Groom describes as very nice. However, later that evening Groom says the suspicious person returned and so did police. According to Groom her dog was shot in its backyard while on a chain....

Outside the U.S. Capitol, Gus impatiently sat at the ready in the Senate parking lot, eyeing the tennis ball in his handler’s right hand. The chance to play with K-9 Tech Charles McGuire enticed the 5-year-old black Labrador retriever, but work comes before play for this member of the U.S. Capitol Police canine unit. “You ready? I’ve got the ball, you have to get ready,” McGuire scolded before he launched Gus into action one recent afternoon. In a matter of minutes, the pair swept around a row of parked cars — a red Ford Focus, a silver Saab sedan and...

Most of us see a wagging dog’s tail and think it’s got to be a good sign. Wagging = welcome, right? Especially if it’s the kind of wag that’s knocking over small items. But it turns out that not all wags are equal, and some are a lot more welcoming than others. When I walked into my college biology course freshman year, we started out with a discussion of symmetry. Most animal are built with some symmetry, either radial or bilateral — radial like a starfish, bilateral like a human. Symmetry means things, like health or attractiveness. But it turns...

A stroll in an English park has a dog hailed a hero, and quite possibly saved the life of a baby. According to the Birmingham Mail newspaper, a German shepherd named Jade was walking with its owner when the dog ran and laid down next to a bag discarded in shrubs. When the owner inspected what his pet had found, he discovered a newborn baby girl. He ran to a friend's home to call the authorities, saying he didn't touch the bag so he wouldn't contaminate any evidence. According to reports, the hospital where the baby was taken has nicknamed...

A hiker was rescued after surviving a bear attack and spending three months, exposed to snow and freezing temperatures, in a remote corner of northern Canada, police said. Police located Marco Lavoie, 44, in the wilderness near Waskaganish, Quebec, on Wednesday, 10 days after his family reported him missing and nearly a month after the experienced outdoorsman was expected to return from a two month hiking expedition. Police believe Lavoie survived the bear attack uninjured, sometime in August, when his German shepherd got in between the man and the bear, Sgt. Ronald McInnis, spokesman for the Quebec Provincial Police told...

A retiree was walking his German Shepherd, Jade, in a park in Birmingham, England, on Thursday afternoon when she suddenly ran toward the bushes, laid down next to a bag that had been left behind, and refused to move. When owner Roger Wilday got closer, he realized that the bag was a carrier - with a baby inside. Wilday ran to a friend's house nearby to call the police.

On a Sunday afternoon in October of this year, Gabrielle Stropkai’s dog was shot by a police officer investigating a burglary nearby. The dog “was walking by and went ‘ruff ruff’ — just a couple of little ruffs,” a neighbor of the Stropkais’ told local television in Boise, Idado. But “she didn’t jump at him or anything.” In response, the owner remembers, the officer “pulled his weapon, asked whose dog it was, and shot her in the back of the head.” The dog died instantly. The Stropkais are not alone in their grief. A Google search for “dog shot by...

The day before Halloween in 2012, Donnie Fowler, a lobbyist from a little-known tech start-up called PredPol, e-mailed a confidential login and password to the San Francisco Police Department's chief information officer, Susan Merritt. The password allowed Merritt to log into an online mapping tool that, according to Fowler and his business partners, was already predicting where crimes are likely to happen across San Francisco. Fowler was, if his company is to be believed, giving the SFPD the keys to the next generation of crime-fighting, a program that draws from the past to help police, presumably, change the future. PredPol...

<p>Two puppies rescued after nearly being used as living firebombs by Muslim Brotherhood.</p> <p>Two puppies from Egypt were rescued just moments before they were to be used by the Muslim Brotherhood in their protests as "puppy bombs" dipped in gasoline and set on fire.</p>

Stand outside the huge gates to Doris Day’s fortress-like home in California’s beautiful Carmel Valley and you can sometimes hear the sound of the canine companions who share the Hollywood star’s life. It’s been some years since Day, now 91 and so reclusive many may be surprised to learn she is still alive, used to steal through the streets of the nearby town of Carmel in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Locals would watch in surprise as she rounded up stray dogs and emaciated cats, bundling them in her car to take home and look after...

The world has lost a gentle giant. Giant George, verified as the world’s tallest dog by Guinness World Records, died last Thursday, one month before his eighth birthday. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce Giant George died on Thursday, October 17, 2013,” his owners, David and Christine Nasser, posted on GiantGeorge.com. “George passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones … We appreciate the love and support you have given Giant George over the last several years.”

**SNIP** But in spite of running more than 1,000 tests and visiting multiple manufacturers, the FDA still isn’t sure what it is in the chicken, duck, and sweet potato jerky that is making the animals sick. “To date, testing for contaminants in jerky treats has not revealed a cause for the illnesses,” said deputy director for the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine Martine Hartogensis.

Federal health officials are warning pet owners to be cautious about feeding their dogs jerky treats as they continue to investigate a treat-related illnesses that has left nearly 600 dogs dead and sickened more than 3,000 others. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday issued an alert to consumers about the illnesses and deaths tied to jerky treats from China. Officials say the exact cause of the illnesses remains unknown. "This is one of the most elusive and mysterious outbreaks we've encountered," Bernadette Dunham, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said in a statement. "Our beloved four-legged companions...

Federal health officials are warning pet owners to be cautious about feeding their dogs jerky treats as they continue to investigate a treat-related illnesses that has left nearly 600 dogs dead and sickened more than 3,000 others. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday issued an alert to consumers about the illnesses and deaths tied to jerky treats from China. Officials say the exact cause of the illnesses remains unknown. "This is one of the most elusive and mysterious outbreaks we've encountered," Bernadette Dunham, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said in a statement. "Our beloved four-legged companions...

Syria’s civil war has become so dire that some Islamic clerics are telling starving Syrians to eat cats and dogs. A bad humanitarian situation has turned worse as Syrian President Bashar Assad has escalated a war against rebels, including some with ties to al Qaeda, even as progress has been made on the destruction of the regime’s stockpiles of chemical weapons. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/16/clerics-permit-hungry-syrians-eat-dogs-and-cats/#ixzz2i6IaE1Rg