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Otto Jones, a Dachshund terrier cross from Shropshire, may be the oldest dog in the world at 20 years and eight month - but he still knows how to play. He has been recognised as the oldest living dog by Guinness World Records and, despite his age, still enjoys playing ball with neighbours' children. His owners Lynn and Peter Jones, from Shrewsbury, said he was a "loveable, affectionate rogue".

I had to put-down Schmeckel Kitty today. He was a remarkably sweet friend to me for 13 years. He had tough luck. We found him nearly starved to death in 1997 at a roadside stand. He looked like a kitten, all bones. We brought him home, cleaned him up, and he became the sweetest, most loving kitty. He had a lot of bumps along the way. His bowel was removed in 2000. We saved him. He was hit by a car in 2006 and lost a rear leg plus got a herniated diaphragm. We saved him. Early this year he...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG-TV) - The City of Memphis Animal Shelter was the scene of a early morning raid by Shelby County deputies Tuesday morning. Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons and Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell say deputies with the Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant at the shelter located at 3456 Tchulahoma Road and temporarily secured the facility as part of an investigation into alleged animal abuse and cruelty.

When you see their faces, it's hard to imagine who could have treated two puppies like trash, throwing theminto a dumpster. It happened in Monterey County over the weekend just a short drive from a local shelter. The puppies were found Sunday afternoon in a Dumpster next to a Wells Fargo Bank at the Stone Creek Village Shopping Center in Del Rey Oaks. A man heard whimpering coming from inside the trash receptacle, found the puppies inside and brought them to the SPCA on state Highway 68 at about 3 p.m., SPCA Lt. Danielle Scheid said. The puppies, 7-week-old mixed...

The fossilised skull of a colossal "sea monster" has been unearthed along the UK's Jurassic Coast. The ferocious predator, which is called a pliosaur, terrorised the oceans 150 million years ago. The skull is 2.4m long, and experts say it could belong to one of the largest pliosaurs ever found: measuring up 16m in length. The fossil, which was found by a local collector, has been purchased by Dorset County Council. It was bought with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and it will now be scientifically analysed, prepared and then put on public display at Dorset County Museum. Palaeontologist...

Is This Haunting Picture Proof That Chimps Really DO Grieve? MICHAEL HANLON 27th October 2009 [Pic in URL] United in what appears to be deep and profound grief, a phalanx of more than a dozen chimpanzees stood in silence watching from behind the wire of their enclosure as the body of one of their own was wheeled past. This extraordinary scene took place recently at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon, West Africa. When a chimp called Dorothy, who was in her late 40s, died of heart failure, her fellow apes seemed to be stricken by sorrow. Enlarge Chimpanzees...

Daniel East and his sister, Tevyn, were driving at night along Interstate 80 near the Nevada-Utah earlier this month, when their car slammed into a coyote that scurried in their path, reported Rex Features. Believing there was no way the wild animal could survive the 75 mph collision, the pair kept driving for eight more hours to their destination, where they finally inspected the damage to their car.

Overall Winner "The Storybook Wolf" This nighttime shot of a wolf leaping into a farm in northern Spain has been named overall winner of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 competition. The picture, by Spanish photographer Josi Luis Rodrmguez, was selected from more than 43,000 entries. Iberian wolves--a subspecies of the gray wolf--are extremely wary of humans after centuries of persecution. Rodrmguez captured the photograph using motion sensors and an infrared barrier to operate the camera. "This wolf jumping over the farmer's enclosure with the supposed intent of killing his livestock speaks for itself--thousands of years of...

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. – What's bigger than a picnic basket and even better than one in the eyes of black bears that live in Yosemite National Park? A study published this month in the Journal of Mammalogy says it's minivans driven by families with children who leave behind a trail of spilled juice boxes, Cheerios and coolers carrying other snacks. Park scientists have found that the bears tore up minivans more frequently than other types of vehicles....

Snakes Smuggled On A Plane: Customs Officials Catch Man With 24 Illegal Pythons And Geckos Taped To His Body [Pics in URL] By Daily Mail Reporter 26th October 2009 Norwegian authorities have arrested a 22-year-old man for smuggling pythons by taping them to his body. The Norwegian man, who was arrested in Oslo yesterday, smuggled the reptiles in underneath his clothes. Customs officials became suspicious when the man, who arrived on a passenger ferry from Denmark, was stopped for a spot check. Real-life 'trousersnake': The man was arrested for smuggling pythons and lizards strapped to his body When they found...

Meet the newest odd couple of the animal kingdom: the giant female and tiny male of the largest web-spinning spider known to science: Nephila komaci. The female of the species has a leg span of up to 5 inches (12 centimeters), while the male—which spends much of its time clambering on its partner's back—barely reaches an inch (2.5 centimeters), a new study says.Part of a well-known group of golden orb-weaver spiders—which can spin webs up to three feet (one meter) wide—N. komaci was first identified in a South African museum collection in 2000. But it wasn't until a 2007 field...

CUSTOMS officials in Norway say they had arrested a man who tried to illegally import 14 snakes and 10 lizards into the country by taping the reptiles to his body. The snakes, king pythons that are large in size but not venomous, were rolled up in socks and taped to the man's torso, while the geckos were found in small boxes taped to his legs. The unusual load was discovered during a body search after customs officials found a tarantula in the man's luggage.

If you are dumb enough to mess with these bulls, you deserve to get hurt. This has got to be the largest collection of "dumb a*#*#" ever! 2 videos of people with a hurt wish. And the BULLS are willing to hurt'em!!

With an estimated 1,645 gray wolves now on the landscape in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, their recovery is heralded by many government officials as an amazing success story. Yet it hasn't come cheap. Americans have spent more than $35 million to protect, reintroduce and manage gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains since they were first put on the list of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act in 1974. And since gray wolves are no longer a federally protected species in Montana and Idaho, those states are now in charge of managing them - and footing the bill for...

LANSING, Mich. - A Michigan pet store employee got himself a mouthful of cockroaches -- on purpose. The Lansing State Journal reported Sean Murphy on Friday stuffed 16 Madagascar hissing cockroaches into his mouth. He was trying to set a new Guinness World Records mark and said the old record was 11. Murphy initially got 12 squirming cockroaches into his mouth, but then kept adding them until he got to 16. He says it was a "big surprise" since he's never fit that many in his mouth before "in one try."

October 25, 2009, 12:00PM FLINT, Michigan — Little Brooklyn’s head was in the pitbull’s mouth when Keith Sampson, 13, grabbed the dog by the neck, forcing it to gasp for air and let the 3-year-old go. Then, after Keith lost his hold on the dog it went on to attack next-door neighbor Kristine Keaton, 37, who came to help, biting her arm to the bone. “It was a nightmare, and we feel like we’re just waking up from it,” said Keith’s mom, Jennifer Burcar, 33, of Flint about last Sunday’s events. The day was supposed to be spent celebrating Brooklyn’s...

The tiniest dinosaur in North America weighed less than a teacup Chihuahua, a new study says. Seen above as an artist's reconstruction in front of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California, the agile Fruitadens haagarorum was just 28 inches (70 centimeters) long and weighed less than two pounds (one kilogram). The diminutive dinosaur likely darted among the legs of larger plant-eaters such as Brachiosaurus and predators such as Allosaurus about 150 million years ago, during the late Jurassic period. Parts of the skulls, vertebrae, arms, and legs from four F. haagarorum...

BUENOS AIRES N.W.R., Arizona | Michael M. Hawkes, manager of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, reaches across his desk and pulls out a homemade blue-and-red bumper sticker that reads, "Littering is always a crime." It turns out that here on the U.S.-Mexico border, even that is a controversial statement — because it's aimed at the humanitarian groups that drop gallon jugs of water on public lands to help illegal immigrants crossing the rugged borderlands.

When Dylan Lynch captures a winning shot, it usually involves a hockey game, not a yawning cat. But it was the photo of his tired, three-year-old tabby, Ben, that won him top spot in our Kitty City photo contest. Lynch, a photographer and editor for the Edmonton Oilers and Oil Kings, likes to try out his new equipment on his three feline roommates. “I don’t always have a hockey game going on at my house, so I’ve got to test them on something,” he jokes.

Move over, Liberace. Give your keyboard fingers a rest, Billy Joel. The latest cool cat to wow millions for piano-playing prowess happens to be a gray shelter rescued feline named Nora. Nora’s piano-playing talents propelled her to become a YouTube phenomenon. Her keyboard concertos have been viewed 15,645,582 times – and counting – on YouTube and ranked among the Top 10 most memorable YouTube videos in 2007. Heck, a Lithuanian composer has been so fascinated by this feline pianist that he is busy arrange a symphony in her honor. The 5-year-old hops on the piano bench and begins to play...

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.- A Missouri woman whose monkey was denied status as a service animal said having to leave the pet at home will restrict her activities. Debby Rose of Springfield said a federal judge rejected her lawsuit against the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, CoxHealth and Wal-Mart East for failing to recognize her Bonnet Macaque monkey, Richard, as a service animal, The (Springfield, Mo.) News-Leader reported Friday. "It's devastating; it's devastating," said Rose, who purchased the monkey in 2004. "I feel like I'm discriminated against in Greene County. What can I say?" Rose said in her suit that she suffers from...

A debate continues to rage between Wisconsin hunters and the Department of Natural Resources over the true number of deer in the state. Hunters have repeatedly argued the deer population is dropping. The DNR counters saying there are too many deer in Wisconsin and the agency is studying a plan to extend the deer hunting season. Now, hunters say they have the proof they need, a study that reportedly shows car-deer crashes in Wisconsin has dropped and has been dropping for years. Joe Terrien of MJ Collision Center in Bellevue has seen the numbers drop first hand. "Six years ago,...

It is the greatest animal battle on the planet, and it has finally been caught on camera. A BBC natural history crew has filmed the "humpback whale heat run", where 15m long, 40 tonne male whales fight it out to mate with even larger females. During the first complete sequence of this behaviour ever captured, the male humpbacks swim at high speed behind the female, violently jostling for access. The collisions between the males can be violent enough to kill.

<p>WEST VALLEY CITY — A 5-year-old boy suffered severe facial injuries Friday afternoon after he was attacked by a pit bull.</p> <p>"He yelled, 'The dog bit my face off and I think I'm going to die,'" said Greg Johansen, who was one of the first to help the boy.</p>

This has nothing to do with medicine – well maybe tangentially. I will now illustrate the different thought processes between men, women, and dogs.Dog pukes on kitchen floor. Dog: Damn! Man: Damn! Woman: Damn!Dog sniffs around area and begins to lick up vomit from floor. Dog: Hey! A warm meal! Man: Good boy! Woman: Don’t do THAT! BAD dog! Somebody put him outside! NO! DON’T use a wash cloth to clean it up! Paper towels. PAPER towels! Don’t throw the wash cloth in the washing machine now. Just throw it in the garbage. Eeeewwww. It didn’t touch any of the...

Authorities: Calif. Toddler Mauled to Death by Pit Bull Friday, October 23, 2009 MADERA, Calif. —  Authorities say a 17-month old boy has died after being mauled by a pit bull. Merced County authorities say the attack occurred Friday, and the boy died after being airlifted to a hospital.

In this Oct. 15, 2009 photo, Scott O'Konek, a Minnesota bowhunter displays a 32-point buck he took during a hunt at Camp Ripley, Minn. The buck might have the largest non-typical or asymmetrical rack taken by archery in Minnesota. The buck scored a preliminary antler score of 228. The current record is 225 set in 1989, according to the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. The deer was an estimated 5 years old and field-dressed at 192 pounds. (AP Photo/Minn. Dept. of Nat. Resources, Beau Liddell)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia,- An Internet campaign has been started to help a 75-year-old Canadian man burned out of his home to get his dog back from a foster home. Earl Shadbolt lost his house in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, to a fire in April, and the apartment he took while repairs were made wouldn't allow him to keep his terrier-mix dog Willie, The (Halifax) Chronicle-Herald reported Friday. Shadbolt made arrangements with fellow church member Laura Naugler to board the dog until he could move back in, but things turned nasty in August when he moved back home and asked for...

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A bear on ice skates attacked two people during rehearsals at a circus in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, killing one of them, Kyrgyz officials said Friday.

A picture of a hunting wolf has won the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award. Jose Luis Rodriguez captured the imaginations of the judges with a picture that he had planned for years, and even sketched out on a piece of paper. "I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting - or predation - but without blood," he told BBC News. "I didn't want a cruel image." With a great deal of patience and careful observation of the wolves' movements, he succeeded in taking the award-winning...

Carole Bigwood sewed the white wedding dress, baked the wedding cake, and beamed as her little baby girl walked down the aisle to meet her tuxedoed groom as "Here Comes the Bride" strained through the speakers. So what made this wedding different from your average nuptials? It was her two dogs getting hitched — all in the name of fun! Dog nuptials – as silly as they might seem — are growing in popularity, as owners look for ways to create lasting memories with the animals they consider part of the family. "People do these events because they’re joyful," pet...

There's no doubt about the love we have for our dogs and cats. But, when push comes to shove, just how far would you go if your best friend was in a health crisis? Let's get to the point. Your pet is injured and needs lifesaving air.Question is, could you bring yourself to put your mouth to his snout? 58-percent of people surveyed by the Associated Press and Petside.com would be at least SOMEWHAT likely to perform CPR on their animal in a medical emergency. The survey showed women were more likely to deliver those rescue breaths than the men....

The deceptively named “Cancer Project” animal-rights group is at it again. This time its target isn’t hot dog makers, but grilled-chicken servers. The group, a branch of the PETA-linked Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), filed a lawsuit in Connecticut yesterday against three restaurant chains demanding warnings about a supposed link between grilled chicken and cancer. As we told the media, PCRM is nothing more than an animal rights front for pushing vegan activism, which is funded primarily by a single rich donor. Since 2003, PCRM and the Cancer Project have derived 60 percent of their budgets from a...

An ice-skating bear with a visiting Russian circus turned on its trainers on Wednesday, killing the circus director and seriously wounding another man during a rehearsal in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Kurmangazy Isanayev, the director of the arena in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, said workers with the visiting Russian troupe managed to drag the two men away from the bear and closed the exits until rescue workers arrived. Police shot the bear dead, Isanayev said. The circus's 25-year-old director, Dmitry Potapov, was reportedly dragged across the ice rink during the rehearsal by the bear before a 29-year-old...

Females of the Australian redback spider, one of the world's most poisonous spiders and a close relative to the black widow, demand 100 minutes of courting or else they usually cannibalize their male suitors, research finds. Proving that bigger isn't always better in the mating game, the tiniest of males sometimes approach female redbacks after offering the critical 100 minutes of wooing and successfully mate without being eaten, according to the paper in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The study shows that puny males of this species can win at love without exerting much effort and begins...

WELD COUNTY, Colo. - A fight over pit bulls may have led to a double shooting in Weld County that killed a man and injured a woman. It happened northeast of Fort Lupton at about 9:00 Wednesday night. Weld County Sheriff's investigators say there was a dispute between neighbors about a pit bull that was removed Sunday on grounds that it was a dangerous dog. They say the shooting victims owned the dog, and that the victims' dogs had either killed chickens or bothered horses on the suspects' property. The victims were shot in their front yard. The Sheriff's Office...

Scott O'Konek shoots his bow 300 days a year, dreaming that someday in the woods somewhere in Minnesota a white-tailed buck of memorable proportions will stride beneath his tree stand. For O'Konek, 29, dream and reality blurred last week at Camp Ripley when a 32-point buck -- bearing perhaps the largest non-typical rack ever taken by archery in Minnesota -- ambled toward him. Forty-four yards from O'Konek's perch, the statuesque whitetail stood a moment, shaking snow from its back as leaden skies drizzled rain. This was about 9 a.m. during the first of two special Camp Ripley archery hunts.

The Journal Gazette A Pierceton woman visiting her son was attacked by a pit bull Tuesday, and the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department said the woman might lose her arm. Deputies said they were called to 9735 East County Road 150 South, north of Pierceton, shortly before 5 p.m. after an off-duty Warsaw police officer who lives nearby was able to get the dog off Janet Hartman, 63. Hartman was at the home of her son, Kevin, got out of her van and approached the residence, the sheriff's department said in a statement. The family dog ran from the porch area...

Resident Says It's The 2nd RV Lost To Fire. A fire destroyed two recreational vehicles two months apart, according to Nassau County fire officials. Fire officials said the RV was used as a permanent home and was destroyed by the fire. Fire investigator Frank Elkins said, "This was the second RV fire at this property in as many months, both from the use of a burning candle. The tenant said there were nine dogs housed in a nearby doublewide ..." "I moved into this RV after my other one burned two months ago," Moore said. "I lit a candle this...

Metro Vancouver dog owners have forgotten Fido, rejected Rover and pretty much scrapped Rags. Since the turn of the century, your furry friend has a better chance of having a human name than a traditional canine moniker. Enter Max, Charlie, Molly, Lucy, Sam and Abby. Max is widely reported to be the most popular dog name on the planet and The Vancouver Sun's 100,000-entry dog-name database shows that local dog owners are true to the trend. There are 1,347 dogs named Max registered in the 15 municipalities that contributed data to the project, good for first overall. The global dominance...

Two out of the six around here, the other ones hide when they see a camera. The tabby is my special buddy, she guards my corner of the house, and her snacks!

YAKIMA, Wash. -- With two wolf packs totaling about a dozen animals and more expected in the coming years, Washington state is grappling with a proposed wolf management plan. Authors of the plan called the process that produced it wrenching and polarizing. In short: a flashpoint issue.When it comes to attitudes about wolves, there seems to be no middle ground.Hunters are afraid wolves will decimate elk and deer populations. Ranchers fear the state’s newest alpha predator will wreak havoc on their livestock. Conservationists worry that hunters and ranchers will shoot the wolves despite state or federal protections.A recently released draft...

Which is a greater threat to your pets at Halloween: ritual satanic sacrifice, or your kids' trick or treat bag? Yes, it's that time of year when the flood of cult cat sacrifice stories start piling up in the inbox, with that breathless "forward this to everyone you know!" tag line. (Note to my readers: Pet related or not, there has never been a message that should be forwarded to everyone you know. Trust me on this.) Which means it's also that time of year when I wish that the people who worry about cat sacrifices would instead worry about...

We're All-White Mum! Trio Of Rare Lion Cubs Unveiled In British Zoo By Kirsty Ross 20th October 2009 AS if giving birth to triplets isn't hard enough - try a lifetime of raising three 'mischievous yet enchanting' girls. Such is the predicament of new mother, Natasha, who gave birth to a pride (and joy) of rare white lion cubs at a safari park near Birmingham. [Pics in URL] To make things even more challenging, the gorgeous girls with 'snow white fur' - among only about 130 white lions left in the world - all have been given names beginning with...

Pictures of Dexter Cattle calves. They are hearty, small and ever so cute.

A FISHERMAN spent a nervous night perched in a mangrove tree as two crocodiles menaced him from below after his boat sank on a remote Kimberley river in Western Australia. Stan Martell told Wyndham police his boat dragged its anchor on Friday night and became wedged under a tree branch as he slept during a fishing trip ... The 7.2m craft was then swamped by the incoming tide ... two crocodiles surfaced near the sinking boat as he scrambled up the tree were he spent the night "sitting there like a Koala bear".

By Cheryl Mercedes - bio | email GONZALES, LA (WAFB) - Gonzales Police want to talk to a man they say left a prized stallion tied to a stake next to a cage of pit bulls. Detectives say the pit bulls somehow got out and attacked the defenseless horse. Police say the horse and the pit bulls were on the same property. The dogs' owner was put in charge of caring for his uncle's horse, Prince, when he passed away. But on Saturday, police say the pit bulls somehow broke free and went after the horse. When the veterinarian got...

Information could be used to understand the evolution of biology and physiology of ruminants, develop healthier and more efficient cattle, find ancient relatives and understand human diseaseCOLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— Pairing a new approach to prepare ancient DNA with a new scientific technique developed specifically to genotype a cow, an MU animal scientist, along with a team of international researchers, created a very accurate and widespread "family tree" for cows and other ruminants, going back as far as 29 million years. This genetic information could allow scientists to understand the evolution of cattle, ruminants and other animals. This same technique also...

ANDOVER, Massachusetts — A Boston suburb has some new landscapers that will work for food — a half-dozen goats clearing and maintaining an overgrown public meadow.

Officials haven't seen sea cow since FridayThe South Florida manatee who made news for his 1,200 mile trip from the Keys to NYC is missing in the waters off New Jersey, and officials are worried he may be in trouble. Ilya the manatee was spotted in New York harbor late last week after a month-long trip that began in Key West with stops in Maryland and Massachusetts. Ilya, who was first tagged by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 10 years ago, had found a warm place to stay near a refinery in Linden, N.J., and officials were hoping he'd...