Free Republic

Sassy, Tuffy, Wiggles — do you recognize the names? Murrieta police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the owner of a pet headstone found during the cleanup of a homeless encampment on Friday, March 7. Riverside County’s homeless outreach team, City Net, found the headstone at a homeless encampment in a creek bed near Cherry Street and Adams Avenue in Murrieta, police Lt. Miguel Garcia said. The individual who resided there is known to local outreach personnel to bring various items to the site. “We have no proof that the individual did it,” Garcia said. “The encampment isn’t...

In 1939, a robot dog was killed while chasing a car. Really. Sometimes you stumble across a piece of history that is too good not to follow up on. Sparko, the robot dog, is one such piece of history. Prepared for the World's Fair in 1939, he got out of his pen, chased a car, and was killed. No fooling. Androids may dream of electronic sheep, but people have dreamed, for decades, of electronic dogs. Robots, a threatening concept, became much less frightening when put in the form of man's best friend. This relationship turned out quite satisfying for people...

Ellen Ewing, who has two Brittany spaniels buried in the Humane Society of Lebanon County's animal cemetery behind its Myerstown headquarters, said she and other pet owners couldn't believe what they saw recently. She and others "walked around in shock" after seeing how gravestones were removed and markers covered over as the society converts the cemetery to a memorial park. "We feel very violated," Ewing said, adding it looks like someone took a backhoe and pushed the headstones to one side of the cemetery, breaking some. Tracy Stevens, president of the society's Board of Directors, has said the ground was...

<p>MANY Americans treat their pets like family, giving them gifts on holidays, letting them sleep on the bed, taking them on vacations — and organizing elaborate burial rites.</p> <p>These days, many pet owners are doing much more than just letting the veterinarian "take care of it." They are turning to the nation's nearly 700 pet cemeteries to give their animal companions a proper farewell.</p>