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Her husband called neighbors and friends who searched the area. They were unable to locate her and call 911. Sheriff’s deputies and search and rescue were sent to the scene. Within hours she was discovered deceased on the side of an unused road within the development. An investigation was conducted with the assistance of the Medical Examiner’s Office, NC Wildlife Resources Commission and Animal Control. The investigation revealed she had been attacked by dogs. Law enforcement searched the neighborhood and located two pit bull dogs with physical evidence reflecting the dog’s involvement.

If you’ve managed to make it this far in life without quite figuring out what demographic boxes to tick on the Census form, a recent working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research might have some clues for you. According to the Washington Post, University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica “taught machines to guess a person’s income, political ideology, race, education, and gender based on either their media habits, their consumer behavior, their social and political beliefs, and even how they spent their time.” The results are, at times, surprisingly granular and seemingly nonsensical: Owning...

Own property and been renting it out in Florida for three years now. I'm sure we have freepers that have done this for decades and even some that got out of it. 1) We see the renter that asks? Do you accept Section 8? Aside from what that might allow, does section 8 allow for payment of last month rent. Is the security deposit in anyway dictated by that govt program? 2) We see potential tenants tell us about 'service animals' that we must take and allow in. We read that at least in Florida the statute does not allow...

Many dogs have been victims of breed-specific legislation (BSL) in the past, and no breed knows this better than the Staffordshire bull terrier breed. Purebreds, mixes or dogs with “block heads” get labeled as pit bulls, and media stories have sensationalized the supposed dangers of these dogs. Their owners have been fighting back for years and continue to advocate for them. Despite these reportedly “dangerous” dogs, there are many of them contradicting the hype by being ambassadors of the breed through their work. Here we look at some of the pit bulls giving the breed a good name.

released this statement Friday, August 10. On Thursday, August 9, 2018, a resident of a Lake Tillery development on the western side of Montgomery County went missing while taking her daily walk. After several hours the 66 year old female did not return home. Her husband called neighbors and friends who searched the area. They were unable to locate her and call 911. Sheriff’s deputies and search and rescue were sent to the scene. Within hours she was discovered deceased on the side of an unused road within the development. An investigation was conducted with the assistance of the Medical...

LONDON — If you think pets are the pits, you may not be living to your potential. A new survey finds that people who own pets are happier, earn more money, and exercise more frequently than those who don’t. In a poll of 1,000 British dog and cat owners over 55 and 1,000 people in the same age group who don’t have any pets, researchers calculated that pet owners were twice as likely to consider themselves a success. In fact, 9 in 10 owners agreed that their furry family members were good for their health and well-being. The belief makes...

The domestic dog and the red fox are closely related species that only diverged about 10 million years ago within the family Canidae. However, these two species occupy very different ecological niches. ..." “In our previous work, we tried to identify regions of the fox genome responsible for tame and aggressive behavior, but these studies required a reference genome and all we could use was the dog genome. For us, the fox genome provides a much better resource for genetic analysis of behavior.” After sequencing and assembling the fox genome, Dr. Kukekova and colleagues sequenced a group of foxes from...

"Ray was one of the former Michael Vick dogs — a Vicktory dog, as this troupe is known. And like so many of the dogs rescued out of the horrific Bad Newz Kennels in 2007, Ray went from the worst kind of cruelty to the sort of bliss only known to spoiled dogs who get to sleep in their indulgent humans’ beds. Ray died last weekend, after surgery to have his spleen removed."...

An 18-month-old girl suffered serious wounds to her face when she was mauled by her grandmother’s pit bull — the second time the same dog attacked a child, officials said Sunday. The toddler was hospitalized, and may have also suffered an injury to one of her eyes in the attack. The dog had attacked a child two years ago, and was released under strict conditions to its owner, the grandmother. This time, she ordered the dog killed. The attack was at 7:40 p.m. Friday at a Riverside home on Fern Avenue in the Casa Blanca neighborhood, said Riverside County Department...

Snorts — non-vocal signals produced by the air expiration through the nostrils — are associated with more positive contexts and states in horses, according to a new study published online in the journal PLoS ONE. Assessing positive emotions is important for improving animal welfare, but it has been challenging to identify reliable indicators.Physiological markers often give contradictory results, and many behavioral signals are ambiguous.Anecdotal reports have indicated that horses frequently produce snorts in positive situations.Following up on this evidence, Université de Rennes researcher Mathilde Stomp and co-authors evaluated snort production by horses that lived either in restricted or naturalistic conditions.“We...

n the first large-scale study of ancient feline DNA, the results reveal how our inscrutable friends were domesticated in the Near East and Egypt some 15,000 years ago, before spreading across the globe and into our hearts. The study was presented at the International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Oxford, UK back in 2016, and sequenced DNA from 209 cats that lived between 15,000 and 3,700 years ago - so from just before the advent of agriculture right up to the 18th century. Found in more than 30 archaeological sites in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, these ancient feline...

The herded became the herders Monday when a woman fleeing police through a pasture was chased down by more than a dozen cows, leading her straight to officers and arrest, according to the Sanford Police Department. Then, video shows, police got an animal assist. "Actually, a large group of cows is following her for a good visual. It looks like they may attack her," the helicopter team can be heard saying. "She’s pretty far into the field now. If you see the large group of cows, they’re literally following her and chasing her."

First-ever election win for pit bull advocates SPRINGFIELD, Missouri––Out-spending voices for animal and human safety by a margin perhaps as high as $10,000 to $1.00, pit bull advocates on August 7, 2018 celebrated their first-ever defeat of a pit bull ban in a municipal general election. Reversing the outcome of earlier attempts to repeal pit bull bans in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and Aurora, Colorado, pit bull advocates in Springfield, Missouri polled at least 21,142 votes, or 68% of the votes cast, against 9,772 votes (32%) for the ban. Older breed-specific ordinance remains in effect Opened Question 1 on the Springfield...

Makenzie Noland celebrated her upcoming college graduation by posing in her cap and stole with her good friend "Big Tex" — a nearly 14-foot-long alligator that lives in a wildlife sanctuary in Beaumont, Texas. The soon-to-be Texas A&M University grad has been living at Gator Country for the past three months as she interns with the organization. During her time at the wildlife rescue, Noland has bonded with many of the 370 alligators on site, specifically Tex. Over the past several months, Noland has been training with Tex — under the careful supervision of alligator experts. "Tex is the one...

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On Saturday night, Kathy Harrigan fed and brushed Harley, a deaf tabby cat who she had been taking care of for the past two years. Leaving him in the heated outdoor cat house that she had built him, she went to bed. The next morning when she woke up, she told Q13 Fox News in Tacoma, Harley wasn’t waiting for her by the door as usual. It didn’t take long before the police showed up with bad news. Harley had been found mutilated on a neighbor’s lawn, they told her - making the semi-feral 20-year-old tabby’s death the seventh in...

Two more little critters entered the world today. They were long anticipated, but at last they're here. They are my Tucson Banded Gecko babies. A tiny nocturnal species, TBGs have wide variation in their markings, but are generally a vanilla yellowish background color with chocolate colored transverse bands and chocolate colored spots. They are up to 5 inches in total length, of which up to half may be tail. Their range includes Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of northern Mexico. Their scales are so tiny that you really can't make them out farther than a couple inches, giving the lizard...

Beachgoers playing volleyball on a small island at the mouth of Mobile Bay perpetrated a horrific crime in recent weeks, likely killing hundreds of tiny least terns. The volleyballers even stacked dozens of eggs stolen from nests in a pile to bake in the sun. Birmingham Audubon, which discovered the tragedy, hopes to use it as a teaching moment and further the group's effort to help Alabama's coastal birds rebound from the BP oil spill. Least terns are the smallest of the terns, weighing 1.4 ounces as adults. They are about half the size of a cardinal, with snowy white...

First time for a proposed pit bull ban to go before voters prior to taking effect SPRINGFIELD, Missouri––Opens Question 1 on the August 7, 2018 primary election ballot for the City of Springfield, Missouri: “Shall the City of Springfield establish a future ban upon the possession of new pit bull dogs within the City limits by prohibiting acceptance of any new pit bull registrations and only allowing renewals of existing current pit bull dog registrations?” The language of the proposed Springfield pit bull ban was approved by the city council, voting 5-4, in November 2017. Backlash “The backlash was immediate,”...

CHICAGO (CBS) — A 57-year-old woman is killed after being attacked by a pit bull on Chicago’s far South Side. It happened near 101st and South Calhoun around noon Saturday. Police said when officers arrived at the scene, the dog charged at them. Both officers fired their guns killing the dog. The victim was taken to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. The dog bit her throughout her body, including her neck. Police are still investigating. It’s unclear where the dog’s owner was. CBS 2 has confirmed the woman’s name is Karen Brown. Her nickname was “Punchie.” pw South...