Free Republic

After the German shepherd Rumor won the top prize at last year's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York, she had her first litter of puppies and retired from competition, like many female show dogs. By contrast, most top male show dogs can keep competing for years, and it is no coincidence that they also win "Best in Show" in the prestigious annual competition far more often than females, breeders and handlers said as they prepared for this year's show, which opens Monday, Feb. 12 in New York.

Despite orders from the government, nearly all restaurants serving dog meat in South Korea’s Pyeongchang County, where the Winter Olympics are being held starting Friday, will continue to sell the controversial dish. Of the 12 restaurants serving dog meat dishes in the area, only two have complied with local authorities, who offered them subsidies in exchange for taking the item off the menu during the games, Channel News Asia reports.

A Michigan dog owner was surprised to find out that the state approved his German shepherd for weekly unemployment benefits. The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency sent a letter to lawyer Michael Haddock saying that a Michael Ryder was approved to receive $360 a week in unemployment, reports ABC News. The only problem is that Ryder is Haddock’s German shepherd. The letter claimed that Michael Ryder worked at a restaurant chain in Detroit, Michigan. “I’m not sure what he’s going to do with the money,” Haddock said.

As a way of “cleaning up” Sochi, Russia, prior to the Winter Olympics in 2014, city officials hired a pest control firm to kill thousands of stray dogs. Many of those dogs were former pets abandoned when their families’ houses were demolished prior to the construction of Olympics venues. The families were moved to apartments where their dogs were unwelcome. People around the world, as well as the world’s greatest athletes, were outraged. Some, like silver-medalist skier Gus Kenworthy, adopted doomed dogs to spare their lives. Humane Society International worked with local rescue groups to transport many of the dogs...

Animal rights campaigners in Russia are fighting to save the dogs (Picture: East2West) Russian animal rights campaigners are warning that stray dogs will be slaughtered en masse ahead of this summer’s World Cup. Deals worth £1.4 million have been signed in host cities for killer dogs to be deployed, according to Ekaterina Dmitrieva, director of the City Animal Protection Foundation. Judge commends hero Imam who defended Finsbury Park Mosque attacker from the crowd Dmitrieva’s claims go against the official line that dogs are going to be rehoused in temporary accommodation for the duration of the Cup. Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly...

Legislation moving through the Alabama State House would make owners of dogs who injure or kill people subject to felony charges. The bill is named after Emily Colvin, who was attacked and killed by five dogs in front of her home in Section in Jackson County in December. Colvin was 24. Five members of Colvin's family were on hand today when House and Senate committees approved the bill, which is sponsored in the House by Rep. Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville. Ledbetter said the attack on Colvin happened a few miles from his home. Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, is the Senate sponsor....

Disturbing video footage of dogs being butchered and their hair burnt off with blowtorches at markets in Indonesia has prompted howls of protest from animal rights activists. Campaigners from the Dog Meat-Free Indonesia group are urging authorities to shut down the country's live animal markets, where they say thousands of dogs and cats are bludgeoned to death each week. Video filmed by the activists at markets in Tomohon and Langowan cities on Sulawesi island shows a stomach-churning array of burnt, mutilated animals - including monkeys, cats and bats - being sold openly.

Staffordshire bull terrier Clyde befriended some commuters along the way Enter your postcode to see news and information near you A dog who escaped from his Valleys home and caught a train to Cardiff has been reunited with his owners. Staffordshire bull terrier Clyde went missing from his home in Penpedairheol, near Ystrad Mynach , at 7am last Monday – marking the start of his 21-mile adventure. The four-year-old dog walked almost two miles to Hengoed railway station - where he managed to get on a train to Cardiff.Owner Joanne Davies, 43, said her son had let their dog...

Stray dogs are being killed across Russia’s cities that will host the 2018 World Cup this summer. "We have received many appeals from animal rights activists, and just caring citizens, saying mass shooting and euthanasia of stray animals is taking place in a number of World Cup-host cities," Vladimir Burmatov, head of the Russian lower house's environmental protection committee, told newspaper Parlamentskaya Gazeta.

Humans aren't the only ones suffering from the flu this year. Canine influenza, better known as "dog flu," has been diagnosed in a number of dogs in the South Bay recently, veterinarians said. United Veterinary Specialty & Emergency Hospital in Campbell has seen about 70 dogs with symptoms and/or known exposure to the flu, according to Stephanie LaPlume, a veterinarian with the hospital. Other South Bay hospitals, including Los Gatos Dog & Cat Hospital, also report seeing dogs with flu. The virus can't be passed on to humans, but is highly contagious among dogs, a veterinarian said. Dog owners are...

These super cute animals are good enough to eat thanks to a talented mother-of-two who creates incredibly lifelike cake replicas of people's pets. Hannah Edwards, from London, uses photographs of her clients beloved pets to make the remarkable sponge sculptures which are entirely edible. The 35-year-old started baking as a way of making money after being made redundant while looking after her two young children and soon discovered her talent for realistic replicas. Hannah, who runs her own business called The Cake Illusionist, now also travels the world teaching cake sculpting.

The idea of humans being able to talk to and understand animals may soon become a reality. A researcher is working on a device that may be used as a pet language translator in the future. Using artificial intelligence, scientists learn how to translate vocalizations and facial expressions of animals into something that humans can understand. Animal behavior expert Con Slobodchikoff is one of these researchers whose work may allow pets and their owners to effectively converse with each other using a pet translator in less than ten years. Slobodchikoff, from Northern Arizona University, has studied footage of dogs engaged...

So the story goes, back in the 1960s down in Georgia, a hunting dog chased a raccoon up inside a hollow tree. The determined dog wouldn’t give up from chasing the coon farther up, so it eventually got stuck. Back to 1980 – Here's the excerpt from The Sportsmen Party Facebook page: In 1980 a "logger" found the dog after processing the log and donated it to a museum. The dog is a hunting type dog and around 4 years old. Apparently was in there for around 20 years. Scientists believe his fate was sealed when he chased something up...

CARSON (CBSLA) — A pet owner is probably telling his dog she’s an extra good girl Friday after a harrowing couple of days during which she went missing. “Man, I had a heart attack!” Daniel Ashimine told CBS2 News. “I don’t care about my car, I really love my dog!” Ashimine was reunited with Holly after she hitched a ride in his car, which was stolen as it was parked behind his restaurant Monday. “My wife and I started driving all over the place looking for the dog,” said Ashimine. “The last couple of nights I didn’t get any rest.”

Eventually the humane society matched the dog with a family in Winnsboro, TexasA Great Pyrenees mix named Cathleen has a new home in Texas after she made two 20-mile trips back to the family that surrendered her. Cathleen's original owners, living in Seminole, Oklahoma, were forced to surrender the 6-year-old dog due to health issues and a landlord that didn't allow pets. They gave her to a family in Prague, Oklahoma. During the first four months with her new family, Cathleen escaped, twice, to make the 20-mile journey back to Seminole to see her previous owners. That's when Seminole Humane...

Deborah Onsurez, 56, was found Thursday morning in Modesto, California. Authorities believe multiple stray dogs attacked her in the driveway of her home. Onsurez's injuries were severe and she was pronounced dead at the scene. ... Stray dogs everywhere, that's Stanislaus County for you ... They're a big problem in area known as South Modesto. ... dog attacks aren't uncommon. In November, a pit bull attacked at least three people in Elk Grove, a suburb of Sacramento that's about 60 miles from Modesto. And in 2014, two separate pit bull attacks in Stanislaus County - one left a man dead.

It's one of the most popular pop songs in history and has been covered by more than 300 artists over the years — and now a dog owner has captured his musical mutt singing along to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. A German Shepherd named Seamus didn't know the lyrics to the song, but he certainly had the tune down as he began howling from his kitchen floor in Sault Ste Marie, Canada. Luckily, his owner was there to capture the magic on camera to later share it with the internet.

Airports across the country increasingly are turning to therapy dogs to help relieve the stress of flustered fliers. But confusion and even conflict can result from the growing packs of pooches, after dogs used by security agents and emotional support animals traveling with passengers are factored in.

A dog was found buried alive in a dumpster last week outside a business in suburban Atlanta. Emily Goldstein told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that her neighbor found the beagle while taking out the trash at work. The neighbor and a few coworkers rummaged through the garbage to rescue the dog after he heard a whining sound coming from the dumpster, the paper reported. Goldstein told the paper she believes the beagle, which had no collar or form of identification, is between 1 and 2 years old. She and her neighbor put an online advertisement in an effort to locate the...

Bethany Lynn Stephens had been gone for about a day since she left to walk her dogs. So her father went out to look for her at the area she frequented. There, authorities say, he found her two dogs, guarding what he first thought was an animal carcass. “Much to his horror, discovered that it was not,” Goochland County Sheriff Jim Agnew told reporters at a news conference Friday. Investigators in Goochland, Va., a rural community about 30 miles outside of Richmond, say the petite, 5-foot-1 young woman, who weighed a little more than 100 pounds, was mauled to death by her dogs, which...