Pedigrees are being bred to have a range of unusually coloured fur, including lilac, silver, charcoal and even tiger stripes – as well as a host of health problems
Name: Lilac dogs.
Age: About 30 years.
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‘It was quite overwhelming’: how it feels to have your business thrive in a pandemic
From virtual puppy school to home bubble-tea subscriptions, lockdowns in Australia have created unlikely winners, but victory as an outlier is sometimes bittersweet
It’s no secret that on the work front, the Covid narrative has predominantly been a negative one, with two-thirds of Australian businesses reporting a hit to revenue in 2020 and underemployment hitting a historic high of 13.8%, impacting 1.8 million people.
Despite this, lockdowns have brought growth to certain sectors, with Australians spending big in areas such as beauty, hobbies and home furnishings. This increased desire for little luxuries is sometimes called the lipstick index. So what does it feel like to be an outlier in a downturn? We asked four business owners to share their experiences.
Continue reading...Owners offload dogs bought in lockdown by pretending they are strays
Rescue centres say they are seeing more and more pets their owners are now too busy to look after
People are pretending that dogs they acquired during lockdown are strays so that rescue centres take them in, after failing to sell them online, animal rescue charities and shelters have warned.
Figures from March revealed that more than 3.2m pets were bought by UK households during lockdown. Since Covid restrictions were lifted and people have started to return to the office, charities have reported a growing trend of people abandoning their pandemic pets as they no longer have as much time for them.
Continue reading...‘Genius dogs’ can learn names of more than 100 toys, study finds
Six canines, all border collies, have proved some possess a remarkable grasp of human language
Your dog might follow commands such as “sit”, or become uncontrollably excited at the mention of the word “walkies”, but when it comes to remembering the names of toys and other everyday items, most seem pretty absent-minded.
Now a study of six “genius dogs” has advanced our understanding of dogs’ memories, suggesting some of them possess a remarkable grasp of the human language.
Continue reading...‘Oh my gosh, the kittens!’ How the pandemic unleashed bedlam in veterinary clinics
Staff attrition, high demand for appointments and enraged human clients have strained vet practices across the US
Early in the pandemic, Dr Monica Mansfield, a veterinarian based in Medway, Massachusetts, became haunted by a recurring nightmare.
“There were these vulnerable kittens in my basement, and I forgot to feed them,” Mansfield recalls. “I’d wake up, terrified. ‘Oh my gosh, the kittens! Where are they?’ I felt like I was missing details and forgetting things that were critical to a case – that were critical to an animal’s life.”
Continue reading...Puppy smuggling: UK plans crackdown with curbs on dog imports
Proposals would ban imports of dogs aged under six months, and those with cropped ears or docked tails
The importing to the UK of puppies aged under six months could be banned under tight new welfare standards proposed by the government.
The pushback against the “grim trade” of puppy smuggling will prevent puppies from being separated from their mothers too early, which puts them at increased risk of illness and death, said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They can currently be imported from 15 weeks old.
Continue reading...UK dog owners warned about thieves staking out parks and luring puppies
Blue Cross cautions about black market for popular breeds as government reportedly considers new offence of pet abduction
Stalking parks in affluent areas and luring puppies out of gardens with treats are among the methods dog thieves are using, campaigners have said, amid suggestions the government is preparing to clamp down on pet abductions.
Criminals mug dog-walkers for their pets and raid boarding kennels in an effort to steal in-demand breeds, whose price tags have soared during the pandemic. They are also on the look out for pets that have not been neutered or spayed and are capable of breeding.
Continue reading...‘World turned upside down’: therapy dog stolen from boy, five
Mother of Oscar in Derbyshire says her son and his cockapoo were ‘like peas in a pod’
When five-year-old Oscar was introduced to his puppy, Elvis, his life changed.
Oscar is on the autistic spectrum and had previously struggled to maintain friendships but his cockapoo therapy dog filled that gap, said his mother, Natallie Cobden.
Continue reading...A dog’s inner life: what a robot pet taught me about consciousness
The creators of the Aibo robot dog say it has ‘real emotions and instinct’. This may seem over the top, but is it? In today’s AI universe, all the eternal questions have become engineering problems
The package arrived on a Thursday. I came home from a walk and found it sitting near the mailboxes in the front hall of my building, a box so large and imposing I was embarrassed to discover my name on the label. It took all my strength to drag it up the stairs.
I paused once on the landing, considered abandoning it there, then continued hauling it up to my apartment on the third floor, where I used my keys to cut it open. Inside the box, beneath lavish folds of bubble wrap, was a sleek plastic pod. I opened the clasp: inside, lying prone, was a small white dog.
Continue reading...Toxic cat food fear as UK vets struggle with mysterious illness
As cases of blood condition pancytopenia persist, investigators suggest food fungi could be to blame
Cats are still dying in significant numbers from a mystery illness that investigators believe may be linked to widely sold cat food brands, prompting concern that not enough is being done to warn owners about a nationwide product recall.
Vets around the UK are understood to have been swamped by cases of pancytopenia, a condition in which the number of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets decreases rapidly, causing serious illness.
Continue reading...‘They had a date to kill the cow. So I stole her’: how vegan activists are saving Spain’s farm animals
Spain may be famous for its love of meat – but sanctuaries across the country are coming to the rescue of its doomed cows, bulls, pigs, sheep and geese
In the north-east Spanish region of Catalonia, an enormous bull called Pedro is poking his head over a barn door to look at some sheep. He’ll stay there for two hours if the sanctuary volunteers let him; he’ll have to be tempted away with treats so that the sheep can be let out to graze. Pedro knows the routine; he’s been here since he was a calf, when he was bottle-fed by volunteers. He lives a charmed life – he is fed, he roams, he watches sheep, he sleeps; and when he dies, it will be of natural causes.
“He’s enormous!” I say to Olivia Gómez de Zamora, a veterinary assistant from Madrid who spends a lot of time coaxing Pedro from the barn.
Continue reading...The hidden world of cats: what our feline friends are doing when we’re not looking
In Britain, most pet cats are free to roam, but where do they go and what do they get up to? We fitted six cats with GPS trackers and found out
As I prepared to write this piece, my three-year-old cat, Larry, had been missing for 24 hours. I had checked under the bins, posted in a community Facebook group and Googled variations of “Lost cat how long normal before come home?” all day.
Larry was a house cat when we took him in, but my boyfriend and I had recently moved to a house with a garden so had started letting him out. Just like that, our adorable, loving, docile cat turned into the neighbourhood bruiser. He stopped snuggling with us in the morning, instead impatiently pawing at the door even before we had put down his breakfast.
Continue reading...A moment that changed me: meeting the rescue dog who comforted me through unfathomable loss | Shirley Manson
When I first held my dog Veela in my arms, I was grappling with my mother’s dementia, which was followed much too soon by her death. The teachings of my little red dog helped me survive
The first time I rescued an animal was almost 15 years ago, while I was on hiatus from my band, Garbage, in 2007. Shuffling around Los Angeles with little to occupy my time and my catastrophic imagination, my husband suggested we might consider adopting a rescue dog from one of the local shelters. I was a little hesitant at first. It struck me as a massive undertaking (I was not wrong) and I was unsure I had the emotional capacity to engage in the love of a small, defenceless, living thing.
My mother had just been diagnosed with Pick’s disease, a criminally aggressive form of dementia that can take a person, as it did my mother, out of the game in less than two years from the day of diagnosis. I was deeply disturbed by the course her disease was taking and finding it hard to connect with life in any joyful, meaningful way.
Continue reading...Chien film festival: Tilda Swinton’s dogs win canine award at Cannes
Actor starred with springer spaniels Snowbear, Dora and Rosy in The Souvenir Part II
It is one of the most sought-after prizes in the movie world; not the celebrated Cannes Palme d’Or for best film, awarded on Saturday night to French entry Titane, but its animal alternative the Palm Dog.
This year’s coveted leather collar award conferred for the best canine performance on screen was given to Tilda Swinton’s three springer spaniels as the prize celebrated its 20th anniversary – its 103rd in dog years.
Continue reading...Dog DNA tests: putrid dog poo strews the world’s streets. Does Tel Aviv have the answer?
Each month, 500kg of excrement is dumped on the streets of the Israeli city. If its new scheme works, every owner will be tracked down
Name: Dog DNA.
Age: Dogs were first domesticated between 14,000 and 29,000 years ago.
Continue reading...Yappy dogs, moody cats… why lockdown owners are full of ‘pet regret’
Charities are warning of a surge in people struggling to cope
with animals bought last year
Animal behaviourists and charities are warning of a surge in lockdown pet regret as owners struggle to cope with pets bought during the last year.
“We have a lot of new, very inexperienced owners – people who either haven’t had pets before or had them in childhood,” said Linda Cantle from Wood Green, The Animals Charity. She said Wood Green’s free pet behaviour helpline now receives 66% more calls each month, on average, than it did last June.
Continue reading...‘Alice the rat was so special’: readers on their brilliant, beloved pet tattoos
During the pandemic, every pet became an emotional support animal – and many people decided they wanted to commemorate them indelibly and incredibly
Alice was a double rex rat we adopted from the local RSPCA. She was such a special girl and we had a great bond, so she was the natural choice for my first tattoo. Sadly, Alice died earlier this year, so I’m getting a second tattoo in tribute in a couple of weeks, on the spot where she loved to sit.
Sarah, student, Greater Manchester
Snoring, slugs and sarcoptic mange: is it safe for cats and dogs to sleep on our beds?
Dogs can carry bacteria and parasites, while cats smuggle in gory ‘presents’. So is it best to lock them out of the bedroom?
Vomiting on the bed. Snoring. The shedding of hair. The stealing of sheets. The passing of wind. Night-time face-licking. A higher-than-average chance of catching sarcoptic mange …
If I could sit my dog down and quietly explain the risks associated with him sharing the bed with us, this is the list I would read to him. But I know he wouldn’t listen. Oz, our young lurcher, would only warmly reimagine that scene he recently saw. When, on my birthday, the family let him come upstairs and on to the bed to wake me up. When he saw, for the first time, Upstairs Land. And then widdled with joy.
Continue reading...‘He grabbed the lead and said: give me the dog’: can pet detectives stop the rise in animal theft?
Dogs are more valuable than ever – which is why so many are being snatched. But some owners and pet detectives are fighting back
The village of Partridge Green in West Sussex on a gorgeous spring morning. The early mist has burnt off; a wood pigeon coos; a flurry of pink snow falls from a showy cherry tree; outside the butcher’s, an orderly, socially distanced queue has formed; a chap out for a morning spin motors along the high street in his vintage MG. It is, as my companion, Colin Butcher, says, a scene straight out of Midsomer Murders.
There are no murders today in Partridge Green, but it is a crime scene, and the crime is one that appears to be sweeping the nation. Butcher – ex-police (you can tell), then private investigator, now company director and chief investigator of The UK Pet Detectives – is on the case. He steps from his Range Rover wearing a fleece with an official-looking badge and “UKPD” emblazoned across the back; a twist on NYPD, except PD stands for Pet Detective. “I know the impact of seeing that UKPD – it’s such an international sign,” he says later, putting the jacket on before knocking at an address linked to his main suspect.
Continue reading...Down boy: why grumpy dogs are more intelligent than happy-go-lucky hounds
Worried that your canine companion is disobedient, territorial and quick to bark? Research suggests it’s probably a clever clogs
Name: Grumpy dogs.
Appearance: Just adorable.
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