Bears are moving into cities I first saw this MSNBC story on Facebook where a friend of mine, also a dachshund owner like the woman in the article, linked to it and said she would have done the same thing. What’s the headline? “Alaska Woman Punches Bear in Face to Save her Tiny Dog.” Brooke Collins is 22 years old and lives in Juneau, Alaska. Her wildlife encounter didn’t occur when she was out camping or hiking in the wilderness, but rather in her own urban neighborhood. The Alaskan capital often sees bears prowling its streets for food, but they’ve … Continue reading →

I’m afraid you’re going to get a number of these stories here on the pets blog, every time I find one. At least I did sit on this story for a while, waiting until more time had passed until the last time I talked about an unlikely animal friendship. Human interest news website tonic.com has the tale of the recently developed friendship between a domesticated dog and a capybara. For those who don’t know, the capybara is the world’s largest rodent. It’s native to South America, particularly the wetter/more tropical eastern half. Charlie the capybara bonded with Pacho, a shepherd … Continue reading →

I’ve been a fan of debunking commonly-held feline myths, but today I’ve got a story that actually adheres to two well-known cat proverbs: curiosity killed the cat, and cats have nine lives. The two often go hand-in-hand, as it’s a cat’s never-ending curiosity that usually gets it into situations it narrowly escapes. Now the New York Post has an article about a cat in the Big Apple who worked at saving one of its lives by fighting another cat myth: that cats hate water. Nazzaning, a six-year-old Turkish Van, found herself partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury. Her owner … Continue reading →