One lucky one used up two of his in one day. From the Mercury News (CA):
A dog survived a plunge from an oceanside cliff and his owner had to be rescued when he got stuck searching for the animal.Pepe, a Jack Russell terrier, darted over the cliff's edge in the upscale Pacific Palisades area while chasing a squirrel on Tuesday. He landed next to Pacific Coast Highway, where he narrowly avoided being struck by a big rig.
Motorist Jenny-Lyn Marais stopped and coaxed the dog into her Range Rover.
"I leaned across and opened the door and whistled for him to come," said Marais, who works in a Santa Monica dental lab. "He was so gentle and so grateful. He jumped right over on my lap and started licking me."
Meanwhile, Pepe's owner Brandon McMillan drove down to the base of the cliff and began climbing back up in search of his pet, but got stuck about 15 feet from the top when the ground began to give way.
Firefighters rescued McMillan, and a man who had been on the beach below told him that someone had stopped to pick up a dog.
Marais had dropped Pepe off at veterinary hospital. By chance, a friend of McMillan's who is an animal rescue volunteer stopped at the hospital to distribute a flyer about Pepe.
A few phone calls later, man and beast were reunited.
Americans are pampering their pets more than ever. From Scripps Howard News:
Sammy is a glossy brown bird-hunting dog. Last month, his "pet parent" paid $170 for a party at Adventure Hounds' private park.Welcome to the great American pet-pampering machine.
As the number of childless couples grows and young professionals delay child rearing, pets have become cherished surrogate children. They sleep in their owners' beds, they eat special food, they go to day care and, yes, they have birthday parties.
Americans will spend $38.4 billion on their pets this year, including $2.7 billion on "other services" such as boarding and grooming. Businesses that offer luxurious dog day care, dog parties and dog boarding are thriving.
"Whatever makes people happy is a good thing," said Connie Wilson, founder of Modern Dog magazine.
Dogs provide love, they help owners get out and walk, and they help people meet new friends.
"People spoil their children all the time," Wilson added. "Nobody writes newspaper articles about it."
But even Allyson Taylor admits it's "a little embarrassing" how she pampers Sammy.
"He has a down comforter. He prefers Egyptian cotton sheets," Taylor said with a self-conscious laugh. "Trust me, this dog wants for nothing."
The growth potential of doggie day care is "huge," said Heidi Flammang, founder of Boulder franchiser Camp Bow Wow. "People don't cut back at all when it comes to their pets. Especially on dog care."
Proof: Camp Bow Wow franchises, costing $50,000 each, broke even in the first year, she said. The number of franchisees tripled to 140 last year, and Flammang expects her business to double again this year.
I've been bitten more than a few times in my life. Fortunately, none were that serious except for when Kimo went a bit nuts -- though that was my own fault. Anyway, I had no idea there were so many people bitten each year. From Yahoo news:
An estimated two million Americans are bitten by a domestic animal each year and 50 percent of Americans will be bitten in their lifetimes, posing a potential major public health issue. According to a study published in the March 2006 issue of The Journal of Hand Surgery, dog and cat bites to the hand can result in serious injury, sometimes requiring hospital admission and surgery. Many of these injuries, however, can be lessened or prevented through early treatment and more careful animal handling.The old adage, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you," apparently does not apply to man's four-legged friends: In more than 80 percent of domestic bite incidents, the victim knows the animal. Of the nearly 4.7 million dog bites that occur each year -- accounting for approximately 80 percent to 90 percent of domestic animal bites -- about 2 percent of these bites require hospitalization, constituting 1 percent of all U.S. emergency room visits.
They're so enlightened in Denmark, aren't they?
THE royal families of Europe have traditionally been dog lovers, pampering their corgis, labradors and wolfhounds. Prince Henrik of Denmark, however, loves dogs in a rather different way: delicately sliced, lightly fried and served on a plate.“Dog meat tastes like rabbit,” he said in an interview published yesterday in the lifestyle magazine Ud & Se . “Like dried baby goat. Or perhaps — I know! — like veal. Like the veal of a baby suckling calf, only drier.”
But the culinary tastes of the 72-year-old Prince have caused concern on two counts. First, he is the husband of Queen Margrethe and, as Prince Consort, one of the official voices of Denmark, a country committed to ending animal cruelty. Secondly, he is honorary president of the Danish Dachshund Club.
And it's About Time that one of them did. From the LA Times:
A convicted felon who was overheard laughing as he beat his dog received a rare three-year prison sentence Tuesday for animal cruelty that prosecutors described as torture.Enrique George Hernandez, a 39-year-old Mexican national living in San Diego, pleaded guilty in March to one count of felony animal cruelty for punching his pit bull terrier, Ozzie, at least 10 times.
Prosecutors argued before San Diego County Superior Court Judge Howard H. Shore that Hernandez deserved jail time for a long rap sheet that included time in federal prison for illegally entering the United States. Dist. Atty. Bonnie M. Dumanis said prison was appropriate "considering the torture that the defendant inflicted on this poor animal."
Animal control officers took custody of Ozzie in August 2005 after a neighbor called to report the dog was being abused. Neighbors told investigators they had heard Hernandez laughing as he beat the 55-pound animal in the yard.
Ozzie was suffering from internal bleeding, a broken leg, broken ribs and had a mark consistent with a cigarette burn on his forehead, said Dawn Danielson, the director of the county Department of Animal Services.