Dog's throat slashed with knife

A dog needed 56 stitches in a neck wound after its throat was slashed by a group of children in Cambridgeshire.

The owner let the animal out in her garden in Ribson Way, Cambridge, on Friday morning.

A police spokesman said she heard a number of children call the dog over and then heard it yelping.

The spokeswoman added that when the women checked the dog she found its throat had been cut and the children were laughing.

The owner took her dog to the vet where it received 56 stitches to a neck wound.

The woman told police the dog's throat had been cut with a knife. Source: BBC News

Sniffer Dogs search rubble in New York for Survivors

Rescuers with sniffer dogs and heat-sensing cameras are searching rubble in New York for survivors and victims of a crane collapse.
Four construction workers were killed when the giant crane toppled in Manhattan's affluent East Side.

At least 17 were injured in what Mayor Michael Bloomberg called one of the city's worst construction accidents.

It destroyed a four-storey townhouse and demolished parts of five other buildings.

On Sunday construction crews positioned a second crane to help remove pieces of the toppled crane, and begin removing piles of bricks and debris from the street.

The crane, which stood 19 storeys high, was being used in the construction of a new high-rise apartment building.

'Freak accident'

Saturday afternoon's accident happened during an attempt to extend the crane to allow workers to start work on a new level of the building, said one of the owners of the company managing the construction site.

Stephen Kaplan, of the Reliance Construction Group, said a piece of steel had fallen and cut one of the ties holding the crane to the building, causing it to detach itself and fall.

We're going to sue the hell out of them, of course

John LaGreco
Owner of wrecked bar

"It was an absolute freak accident," he said. "All the piece of steel had to do was fall slightly left or right, and nothing would have happened."

He added that his company had sub-contracted the work to different companies, and was not in charge of the crane.

'Big crash'

Residents of the devastated townhouse said they were relieved that the accident had happened at the weekend, when fewer people were in the area.

John LaGreco, owner of the Fubar tavern on the building's ground floor, said an employee and a second person in the bar, which was closed, had been rescued.

"It's unbelievable that this happened," the Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying. "We're going to sue the hell out of them, of course." Source: BBC News

Potty Training for your Puppy

House training is one of the first tasks that every new dog owner must undertake as soon as he brings a puppy home. Housetraining a puppy requires a lot of your time, efforts, constant vigilance and supervision, a high level of patience, complete dedication and commitment.

Establish a routine to leash your puppy and take it outside and be very consistent in sticking to the schedule. Remember that your puppy will need to eliminate soon after eating, after waking up from a nap, or after playing. Demarcate a specific location within the premises of your home or outside your home as the bathroom spot and encourage your puppy to use the spot for elimination. Be very particular that the distance of the bathroom spot from your door is not too much.

Remember to reward your puppy (immediately after is has finished eliminating) with a "good dog" pat, friendly squeeze or some dog treat to encourage him to continue with the newly formed habit. However, if the puppy happens to eliminate inside the home, then do not yell at him for the accident. Patiently clean up the soiled area with a paper towel and carry this soiled paper towel to the bathroom spot and leave it there temporarily to make the puppy realize that this is the place where it is supposed to eliminate.

Resort to using small commands like "outside" when you want to take your puppy out to relieve itself, and "go potty" while the fellow is eliminating.

Establish a regular feeding schedule depending on the age of the puppy. Feeding your puppy at a specific time each day will make it more likely that he eliminates at certain specific timings each day. This immensely reduces the chances of accidents.

Many people resort to using papers at different spots inside the home to encourage the puppy to eliminate upon. However, studies indicate that it prolongs the house training process by more than two weeks. The best strategy is to constantly observe the puppy and whenever he displays any signs of starting the "pre-potty pattern," such as walking around and sniffing the floor, then immediately take him outside to the bathroom spot. Alternatively, you can also begin the crate training which helps your puppy develop control over its urge to eliminate.

Photographing Your Pets

Pets are more stalwart photographic subjects than kids, or grownups for that matter. They don't groan "Oh, no, not again!" when you raise the camera to your eye. They don't make funny faces or deliberately stick their tongues out to thwart your photographic endeavors. (Dogs pant, of course.) While they can be just as active as kids — and as much of a photographic challenge when they speed around — they also actually like to take naps. Nap time is a good time to get pet pictures.

Otherwise, though, many of the same photographic techniques that apply to taking photos of kids work with pets, too. Be sure to get down to their eye level. Unless you have a pet llama or a horse, pets are even lower to the ground than kids.

With cats and dogs, you can get easier eye-level pictures by snapping them when they perch on a window sill or, if allowed, a favorite chair.


Your pet no doubt has some distinctive behavior, often comical, that make for prime picture-taking opportunities. Perhaps your old family dog likes to study ants, nose to the ground, head cocked to one side for a one-eyed microscopic view. (This is a perfect opportunity for a ground-level shot.) Maybe your new cat likes to lie flat on her back on your bedroom carpet with her legs straight up in the air, staring at the world upside down. Photographing interesting and amusing pet behaviors is a kind of substitute for the fact that animals don't have a child's range of facial expression, at least to human eyes. Pet pictures may otherwise have a certain sameness to them. Their context — environments, behaviors, settings, and so on — becomes especially important.

For the same reason, you should show pets interacting with family members. They are, after all, a part of the family. These pictures can, of course, be candid: playing fetch, chasing a string, getting a tummy rub. Or they can be more posed — a pet in your arms or on your lap.

Making eye contact with pets is important. Call out to them when you're ready to take the shot. With pets, expression is almost entirely in the eyes. Indeed, a true dog or cat person will tell you that the eyes are the window to a pet's soul.


Unfortunately, that soul may seem to come from the dark side when flash turns those eyes red — or green, as often happens with pets. Red-eye and green-eye are a special problem with pets. With cats in particular, the large area of their eyes relative to their faces compounds the problem. You can use your camera's red-eye reduction system to lessen the effect. But depending on your particular system, there's a long delay between when you press the shutter button and when the picture is actually taken. This delay can cause you to lose the moment you wanted to capture. And pets aren't in the habit of waiting around. Dog news

Compare Cats or Dogs

Debate rages on, sides stand pat
Is the best pet a dog or a cat?
The dog's built for action,
The cat? Satisfaction.
Are esteemed, pro and con, tit for tat.

Not just entries in some catalog
Of taxonomy, your pet's not mere clog
The dog's built for action,
The cat? Satisfaction
Dogs are digital, cats analog.

Would You Like To Be Chained For Life

I read this article and I just had to bring it to the attention of my readers here at Dogcents so you all can try and understand what Im trying to do as well with the fund drive Im having to Save the Dogs please open your hearts and give a small donation to this cause I cannot do it alone I need your help..Is it to much to ask you to a few dollars .. Would you for one second choose to live the life of these dogs? No matter what reason is given, the bottom line is that it is NOT ok to chain a dog for life. Dogs should not have to live chained or penned as prisoners, yearning for a place in a family, craving acknowledgement, respect, and love. They DESERVE BETTER, and we as caretakers have the obligation to provide it for them.

Please consider today how you can help the dogs in your neighborhood. If you see a chained dog or a penned dog daily, it is time to take action. Please join Dogs Deserve Better today in taking a stand against this mistreatment of dogs.

Volunteer your time or start a branch of Dogs Deserve Better in your area. Become a member and help us prove there is strength in numbers. Help with community awareness by hanging posters, showing the chained dog video, wearing one of our colorful t-shirts, or applying a sticker or magnet to your window/car to educate and provoke thought in those around you. Place brochures and doorhangers throughout the community. Donate to our cause through the donations link or via snail mail.

Take a stand when you see dogs living chained or penned. Speak gently to the caretakers, sharing your convictions and information about Dogs Deserve Better and ways they can improve life for their companion. Print out this chained dog flyer or .pdf letter in which we request that they rethink their decision. (please, do NOT put letters directly in mailboxes, it is a violation of US Postal Code. Instead, check out our door hangers which can be hung over mailbox flags...) (Now available for penned dogs, and in Spanish as a Spanish flyer and Spanish letter...thanks to Jill Natowitz!).

If you are not comfortable approaching caretakers of chained dogs or penned dogs, use the doorhangers or send us the names and addresses of the caretakers and we will send information in the mail. You will remain anonymous.

If you are here because you currently keep your dog chained or penned, we applaud your efforts to give him/her a better life. Browse the articles section for tips on housetraining and fencing. If you need help, contact us at info@dogsdeservebetter.org. We will help you.

Start changing the way you and your community think about the chaining and penning of dogs today. Source : Dogs deserve better

Pet First Aid

Anytime a cat or dog vomits three or more times a day form more then one day, you should seek medical consultation. Continuous vomiting requires immediate medical attention. Causes: Diet.....Excitement...Food poisoning......Eating grass............ Danger signals include: High fever...Abdominal pain or bloat (emergency) Blood in vomit....." Coffee grounds" in vomit (indicatees bleeding) .......Dehydration...... Action: Remove feeding dish.... Give water sparingly.......Offer ice...... Feed cooked rice, or rice pablulum (bland diet)..for 24 hours- small frequent meals.....Monitor animal for any danger signals.

Texas Mayor resigns due to scandal about a dog

ALICE, Texas - A small-town mayor accused of secretly keeping her neighbors' dog after telling them the pet died has resigned, and a judge is set to decide custody of the Shih Tzu.

Grace Saenz-Lopez apologized Friday to Alice residents and said she believed her actions were in the dog's best interest.

"I am sorry for the division that the events of these last few weeks have caused," Saenz-Lopez wrote in her resignation letter. "It was never my intention to bring any negative exposure to our city."

A custody hearing Monday is expected to decide who gets Puddles, who Saenz-Lopez renamed "Panchito" after taking the dog last summer.

A neighboring family accuses Saenz-Lopez of refusing to return the dog after leaving it in her care while they went on vacation. A day after her neighbors left, Saenz-Lopez called to tell them Puddles had died.

Three months later, a relative of the neighbors saw the pet at a dog groomer. When Saenz-Lopez refused to return the dog, the family filed a criminal complaint and a civil lawsuit against her.

Homero Canales, who represents Saenz-Lopez, has said his client believed the dog would die if returned to her neighbors.

Saenz-Lopez, the city's mayor since 2003, was indicted Jan. 18 on two felony counts of tampering with evidence and concealing evidence.

Those charges came after Saenz-Lopez filed a police report claiming the dog was missing. The dog was later spotted at the home of Saenz-Lopez's twin sister, in Ben Bolt, about 10 miles from Alice.

City commissioners voted unanimously last week for a resolution urging Saenz-Lopez to resign. Mayor Pro-Tem Juan Rodriguez will take over mayoral duties.

Alice is about 45 miles west of Corpus Christi. Source: Texas News

New Computer can translate a dog's bark

Posted on Friday, 18 January, 2008 | 5:07 | Comments: 6
What would a dog say if it could talk? "Stranger", "fight", "walk", "alone", "ball" and "play", according to scientists who have developed a computer programme to translate dog barks. The special programme analysed more than 6,000 barks from 14 Hungarian sheepdogs in six different situations. In a series of tests the team of scientists, from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary led by Csaba Molnár, discovered that a computer could recognise whether a dog was in a stranger, fight, walk, alone, ball or play scenario. Computer can tell what kind of situation a dog is in by how it barks The barks were tape recorded and then digitized on a computer, which used software to study their differences. The computer correctly identified the different situations 43 per cent of the time. Although it was not a high success rate it was far better than human recognition, the researchers said. The computer was most accurate in identifying the "fight" and "stranger" contexts, and was least effective at matching the "play" bark. The results appear in the journal Animal Cognition, and suggest that dogs have acoustically different barks depending on their emotional state. The researchers also performed a second test, in which the computer identified individual dogs by their bark.

The software correctly identified the dogs 52 per cent of the time, again much better than the human result, suggesting there are individual differences in barks even though humans are not able to recognize them. The team also plans to compare the barks of different breeds to discover what they have in common.

Source: Web news

Why do I bother

Why do I bother to blog Dog news or Post funny pictures or jokes abut dogs? Because I love dogs. Dog also have causes and we as people can help! Save the dogs is such a cause, and this is why I write about whats going on in the world of dog news and how dogs are mistreated. I also write about how dogs bring us so much happiness into our lives. This is why they are called mans best friend and this is why I have this fund drive going on in order to help the dogs and I ask you to open you hearts and donate whatever you can into the CHIP IN BOX I have placed on my blogs page. Just donate a few dollars, every little bit counts and will help to buy food, and heartworm treatments and give shelter. You can make a difference in these dogs lives. You can make it better. Do not wait until tomorrow to think about it.. Give to the CHIP IN BOX now and help Save the dogs and know your doing something good and feel good about yourself for helping out.