You may think it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but I know one canine who definitely disagrees. Well, at least he looks like he does anyway, as Anuko, a five-year-old Siberian Husky has one of the grumpiest faces I’ve ever since on a canine.

Anuko first rose to internet stardom in 2015, when his owner, 22-year-old Jasmine Milton, from the UK, started posting photos of his  thoroughly unimpressed mug on social media, where they quickly went viral. He has been entertaining online audiences worldwide ever since, and has managed to build up quite a following on Facebook and Instagram. His fans are always on the lookout for new photos, but Anuko’s popularity always peaks around the Holiday Season, because his face simply doesn’t match the cheery atmosphere. We may have lost Grumpy Cat this year (RIP!), but his legacy is in good paws.

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It’s not every day that you see pigeons with cowboy hats on their tiny heads walking or flying around. Unless you live in Las Vegas, where cowboy-hat-wearing pigeons are actually a a thing these days.

It all started on December 5, when a Las Vegas resident named Bobby Lee noticed two funny-looking birds pecking the ground near a dumpster. The pigeons drew his attention because they were wearing these tiny cowboy hats – one red and one grey – so he whipped out his smartphone and started filming them, later uploading the video to Facebook, where it quickly went viral. The next day, everyone was talking about Las Vegas’ cowboy-hat-wearing pigeons, and Lee was getting phone calls from agencies trying to license his video.

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Footage of a full-grown polar bear with “T-34” spray-painted in black on its side has left wildlife experts in Russia scratching their heads as to who or why branded the animal this way.

The T-34 was a legendary Soviet tank that played a crucial role in Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War 2, which has led some experts to believe that the text spray-painted on the polar bear spotted in Arctic Russia was nothing more than a poor military-themed joke. As to who would stoop so low as to spray-paint a polar bear and thus affect its ability to hunt for prey by virtually making it impossible for it to blend with its environment, that’s even harder to answer. On the one hand, it’s hard to believe that scientists would ever do such a thing, and on the other, whoever did it must have tranquilized is beforehand.

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A Mexican family recently discovered that their pet cat had been leading a double life, meaning he had a second home, a different name and another family just a few blocks away.

Cats like to be independent, so whenever her cat Pixi went away for longer than usual, Mary Lore Barra assumed that he was out chasing birds on rooftops and going on all sorts of feline adventures through the streets of Tamaulipas, in Mexico. The one thing she never imagined was that Pixi was actually spending time with another human family, who in turn thought they were the cat’s sole owners. But Pixi’s double life was accidentally revealed last month, when he came home to the Barra residence wearing a new collar around his neck.

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Desperate to reclaim his farmland from a gang of invading monkeys, a farmer in Karnataka, India decided to pain his dog to look like a tiger in the hopes that it would scare the monkeys away.

Srikant Gowda, a farmer from Karnataka’s Shivamogga region, recently made international news headlines after it was reported that he used hair dye to paint his watchdog in the characteristic stripes of a tiger. The pooch already had a reddish hair color, so all he had to do was add the black stripes and some white to give it the tiger look. It wasn’t that Gowda had always wanted to own a tiger, but that he hoped the disguise would help the dog drive away the monkeys ravaging his crops.

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You know how some people say they wish their puppies would stay small and cute forever? Well, for one dog owner in Phoenix, Arizona, that turned out to be a reality, as her 2-year-old German Shepherd still looks like a couple-of-months-old pup.

Looking at Ranger, you could never tell he is an adult German Shepherd, but that’s only because he suffers from a rare condition called Pituitary Dwarfism. He was diagnosed after an infection caused by a parasite called Giardia, and even though he has had to deal with several side effects, like shedding fur and flaky skin, he managed to get the right treatment and leads a normal life. Plus, being stuck in puppy-hood forever does have its perks, like thousands of adoring fans on social media and constant attention from passers-by. Ranger captures the hearts of most people that take a look at him, and judging by the photos below, is there any question why?

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In an attempt to reduce cows’ anxiety and hopefully increase their dairy production, a cattle farm in Moscow’s Ramensky district has equipped its herd with specially-designed virtual reality headsets.

Research has shown that there is a link between a cow’s emotional state and it’s daily milk yield. In the past, we’ve heard of dairy farms playing soothing classical music for their cows in order to lower their stress level and increase productivity, but as technology advances, new mood-altering solutions are introduced. For example, the RusMoloko farm in Moscow recently equipped its cattle with VR systems adapted for the “structural features of cow heads”.

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He may not have Ace Ventura’s charm or his iconic hairdo, but Sun Jinren is a real-life pet detective in all the ways that matter. When he takes on a lost pet case, he pours all his effort as well as thousands of dollars in expensive equipment in order to find them.

Dubbed China’s first pet detective by the country’s media, Sun Jinren launched his business seven years ago and has since reunited about 1,000 lost pets with their owners. He has a success rate of around 70%, and despite charging a whopping 8,000 yuan ($1,130) per case, clients know his services are worth it. He now has an entire team working for his company and uses all sorts of high-tech gadgets to increase his chances of finding lost pets, including heat detectors, thermal imaging cameras and even an endoscope.

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Betty, a five-month-old puppy found on the outskirts of Bratsk, in Russia, and placed in the care of a local shelter, was initially rejected by families looking to adopt a dog, because of her unusual look.

When caretakers at the Dobrie Ruki (Kind Hands) shelter, in the Russian city of Bratsk, saw Betty’s black eyebrows for the first time they were convinced that someone had played a cruel joke on the poor animal and painted them on. They gave her a good wash, but the eyebrows didn’t go anywhere, and they realized that the white pooch had been born with them. It was a case of natural pigmentation, but a really unique one.

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Kallima inachus, a species of nymphalid butterfly found in India and Japan, is known as the orange oakleaf or dead leaf butterfly for a very good reason – with its wings closed, this butterfly closely resembles a dried tree leaf.

It’s been said that the kallima inachus butterfly mimics a dead leaf better than an actual dead leaf, and as crazy as that sounds, it actually makes some sense. Somehow, this tiny creatures managed to raise its camouflage to such an extreme level that its wings feature a pointed leaf apex at the front tip, and a leaf stalk on the hindside, as well as a characteristic vein pattern, multiple shades of brown and orange, and even tiny imperfections like black spots or small tears. It’s a perfect camouflage artist.

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Mac’s Mission, a Missouri-based dog rescue, is used to taking in special dogs, but even for the staff here a puppy with a tail growing from his forehead was a pretty unusual sight.

Named Narwhal, in honor of his unusual appendage, the 10-week-old pup has become an internet sensation ever since photos of him were first posted on social media. He was brought in to the rescue because of his unusual look, as Mac’s Mission is known for taking in canines in need of special attention, such as blind and deaf dogs, dogs with three or five limbs, as well as dogs with cleft palates. The staff here thought they had seen it all, and then Narwhal came in and their jaws fell to the floor.

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Chinese researchers have come under fire for using live, immature pigs as test dummies in high-speed crash simulations that killed seven of them immediately.

Animal rights activists around the world accused the researchers of unnecessary cruelty, after it was reported that they had used fifteen live pigs as crash test dummies for a study. The animals were allegedly denied food 24 hours before the gruesome tests, then strapped in for high-speed simulations that caused them various injuries, including bleeding, laceration, fractures, abrasions and internal bruising. Seven of the pigs were killed instantly, while the rest survived for another six hours. Scientists then carried out meticulous autopsies to find out how the pigs were injured and killed.

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When Sasha Pesic rescued a litter of abandoned puppies in 2008, he had no idea that in little over a decade he would have rescued about 1,200 canines and still be caring for over 750 of them.

Sasha Pesic became known to the world in 2015, when a video of him acrobatically dropping down to the foot of a bridge to rescue a stranded puppy went viral on social media, getting over 63 million views on Facebook alone. No one outside of Serbia, or more precisely outside his home city of Nis, really knew who he was, or that he had hundreds of dogs in his care. Ever since rescuing a few abandoned puppies more than a decade ago, Pesic has dedicated his life to taking in abandoned dogs and looking after them. He has taken around 1,200 canines off the streets of Nis, over 400 of which have been adopted by people all over the world, but he still has over 750 of them in his care, and he needs all the help he can get.

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A 650-kilogram bull that managed to escape from a Croatian slaughterhouse last Friday managed to get the attention and support of an entire nation as he continues to elude his owner, police and veterinarians.

The elusive animal, nicknamed Jerry, after the famous mouse in the “Tom&Jerry” cartoon, has been evading his would-be captors and roaming the Croatian coast, outside the town of Split, since last Friday. His owner had sold him to a slaughterhouse, but shortly before being put down, Jerry managed to escape a corral where cattle intended for slaughter were kept and vanish into the nearby woods. Slaughterhouse staff can’t explain exactly how Jerry escaped, but apparently this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.

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They say crows have great memory and never forget those who have wronged them, and the story of an Indian tractor driver who claims to have been constantly attacked by crows ever since they saw him pick up some of their hatchlings, a year and a half ago.

Mohanan, a tractor driver from Ambalavayal, a town in India’s Kerala state, has been carrying a stick and an umbrella to work every day, for over a year. It’s not that he fears getting attacked by dogs or that he hates rain, but that he needs to defend himself against the crows that always attack him whenever he approaches a bus station where he once picked up two crow hatchlings from under his tractor and placed them on the side of the road. As Mohan recalls, the following day, he and his colleagues found a small puppy covered in tar and washed it clean with kerosene, and he assumes the crow must have seen him and confused the puppy for the hatchlings that he had handled the previous day. The crows have been on his case ever since, harassing and attacking him whenever they see him.

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