Gulspor, a small football club from one of Turkey’s lowest divisions, recently sold 18 of its players in order to buy 10 goats and generate extra income from milk and meat sales.

The club’s president, Kenan Büyükleblebi, told Turkish media that the unusual decision was dictated by lack of funds, as there are virtually no sponsorships or government investments for teams performing in lower leagues. Gulspor sold 18 of its youth players for around 15,000 Turkish lira ($2,600), which was enough to buy 10 goats. It may not seem like a great business decision, but Büyükleblebi claims the club is estimated to generate a yearly profit of 4,000-5,000 lira from the sale of milk and meat. In fact, it plans to build a herd of 140 goats in the next few years.

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A video of a deformed-looking male goat has been doing the round online for over a month, with many referring to the animal as a ‘goat monster’. It turns out he’s actually just a Damascus Goat.

It’s true that the male in this viral video has some exaggerated facial features – disproportionately giant head, freakishly long neck, vaulted skull and weird underbite – but to be fair, the whole of the Damascus breed of goat looks like it should only exist in sci-fi or horror films. Not saying we should judge an animal by its looks alone – in fact Damascus goats are in many ways superior to most of the common-looking breeds – but there’s no arguing the fact that these guys look like they ran face first into a wall at full speed.

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A Long Island family is fighting for the right to keep their pet Golden Retriever Max, after a lending company threatened to have it repossessed unless they make a considerable final payment.

Danielle Cittadino and her family bought Max from the Shake-A-Paw pet store, in Lynbrook , New York, a couple of years ago. The adorable puppy cost $1,200, but the Cittadinos couldn’t afford to pay all of it upfront, so they were offered a financing option from a company called Wags Lending. They checked Danielle’s credit and after she was approved, the Baldwin woman had to fill out a bunch of paperwork, which she admits she didn’t go through thoroughly. She assumed that she was getting a loan, but in reality the contract specified that she wasn’t actually buying Max, but renting him until she paid all the required installments. Now the company is threatening to reposes the dog.

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When you see pictures of this massive cat, you may be forgiven for thinking that the images have been photoshopped. At 33 pounds, Bronson is more than double the weight of the average cat, he looks like a real life version of Garfield, but there’s nothing funny about it. 

Bronson’s size shocked everyone when he was dropped off at the West Michigan Humane Society, after his original owner had died. How had he gotten so big? Staff at the humane society believe that he was fed high-carb kibble multiple times throughout the day, for a long period of time.

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Sombra, a drug-detection dog with the Colombian National Police has been causing such problems for drug cartels that they’ve recently started putting bounties on her head, forcing authorities to move her to a safer airport and have more officers accompanying her on her rounds.

The 6-year-old German shepherd has been a thorn in drug traffickers’ side for quite a while now. Over the past few years, her strong sense of smell has helped Colombian police make over 200 arrests and seize around nine tons of illegal drugs. Sombra, which translates as ‘shadow’ has become somewhat of a hero of the fight against drug cartels, but for the criminals losing money because of her radar-like nose, she is a threat that needs to be eliminated. To that end, the Urabeños, also known as the Gulf Clan, have reportedly put a prize on Sombra’s head, with reports on the reward for killing her varying between 20 and 200 million Colombian pesos ($7,000 and $70,000).

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In cultures all across the globe, animals are revered, and even worshipped. In Hinduism, for example, cows are valued for their gentle nature. But not every sacred animal is quite so harmless; crocodiles were worshipped in Ancient Egypt, as they were believed to be living representations of the god Sobek. You may be surprised to learn that the deification of crocodiles is far from ancient history.

In Burkina Faso, just 30 kilometers away from the capital of Ouagadougou, there is a small village of Bazoule, where its people — descendents of Mossis warriors — have chosen the Crocodylus suchus as its totem. Although Bazoule is located in a landlocked country, it does have its own pond, where 150 of these unusually docile creatures reside. Despite the fearsome reputation of crocodiles, the villagers have no problem living alongside them. In fact, the Mossi boldly approach the crocodiles to play; they even sit on and lie next to them.

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Most dog owners who lose their beloved pets try to convey just how much they want the returned in the flyers they post, but one Chinese man just let everyone know that if they find his runaway Husky, they can just keep him, because he’s tired of chasing after him.

Last Sunday, Wang Wei, a property agent from Chongqing, was walking his pet dog named Huazhu when the animal spotted another dog, slipped out of its leash and ran after the other canine. Wang ran after his pet, but lost sight of him at one point and just couldn’t find him after that. So he went home and drafted some unusual flyers that he later posted around the area where he lost Huazhu. They basically said that the dog was sort of a canine escape artist and that he was tired of having to constantly run after him, so whoever found him was welcome to keep him.

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Wallace the Great, an 11-year-old rescued mule from Gloucestershire, recently made history by becoming the first ever mule to win an official horse dressage competition in Britain.

Wallace and his trainer, Christie Mclean, had been turned down from official dressage events several times on grounds that he wasn’t a true horse, but a cross between a horse and a donkey, which technically makes him a totally different species, with different chromosomes. However, earlier this month, British Dressage finally ruled in favor of allowing mules to compete in official dressage competitions alongside horses and ponies, as a testament “to inclusion and diversity in dressage, making the sport more accessible to all.” Wallace the Great finally had a chance to prove that when it came to dressage, mules could be just as good, if not better than purebred horses, and on July 22nd he did just that, winning his first British Dressage competition.

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A new zoo in Cairo’s International Garden municipal park has come under fire for trying to deceive visitors by painting a donkey black and white to make it look like a zebra.

On July 21st, Mahmoud A. Sarhani, a Cairo student who had recently visited the recently opened zoo posted a photo of a strange-looking zebra on his Facebook page. Not only did the animal have usually-long ears, but it also had some strange paint smudges on the side of its head. A closer inspection reveals that this zebra also lacks the characteristic mane of its species, which extends forward past the ears. Apparently, zoo staff painted a common donkey white with black stripes, trimmed its mane to make it look pointy and tried to pass it off as a zebra. Unfortunately, the hot weather caused the paint to smudge which attracted unwanted attention.

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A vegan pet owner from the Gold Coast, in Australia, has been criticized for putting his cat on a diet that matches his beliefs and claiming that she’s actually thriving after switching to veganism.

53-year-old Harry Bolman has been a vegan for the lat 38 years, and after adopting Uma, a five-year-old cat, last year, he decided that the same vegan diet would be perfect for her as well. Bolman has been feeding her vegetables and special vegan cat food, and despite accusations that he is “abusing” and “killing” the feline, he claims that plant-based food is the “healthiest” for cats.

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After falling from an airplane and roaming through the Atacama Desert for 6 days, “Gaspar the miracle dog” was recently rescued and reunited with his owner.

Surviving the harsh Atacame Desert for almost a week is a challenge for any human, let alone a scared dachsund that happened to have fallen out of an airplane at landing. So it’s no wonder that 2-year-old Gaspar has been dubbed a “miracle dog” for defying the odds and making it out alive out of the driest desert on Earth.

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Miracle Milly, a six-year-old Chihuahua from Puerto Rico, was awarded the title of World’s Most Cloned Dog, by the Guinness Book of Records, after scientists in South Korea created a whopping 49 genetically-identical copies of her.

The controversial Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in Seoul, South Korea, has been creating pet clones since 2006, and last year they approached Vanesa Semler, Milly’s owner about the possibility of creating clones of the adorable pooch to try and solve the genetic mystery that made her special. You see, Mily is no ordinary Chihuahua. She’s held the Guinness record for World’s Smallest Living Dog since 2012, and scientists have been wanting to know exactly what made her so tiny. So in August 2017, Sooam researchers started making clones of Miracle Milly, the number of which has currently reached 49.

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A cafe in Istanbul, Turkey, has been accused of animal cruelty after a video of a young lion nervously pacing back and forth in a narrow glass box inside the venue went viral online.

The owner of Mevzoo, an animal cafe in Istanbul’s Beykoz district has been accused of animal cruelty and abuse after videos of Khaleesi, a one-year-old lion, pacing through a glass box built in the center of the cafe and chasing after a small girl were shared on social media. People were outraged that an endangered wild animal was confined to a space less than a meter wide, which was barely enough for it to turn around, and used as entertainment. And feedback kept getting worse after it was revealed that Mevzoo also uses parrots and other rare birds, caged crocodiles and horses to attract customers.

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Coby has only been on Instagram for three years, but he already has over 1.2 million followers. Those are A-list celebrity numbers, but Coby isn’t even human, he’s a cat.

Rebecca Schefkind, Coby’s owner, created his Instagram page in June 2015, as a joke. It didn’t take long for people to notice his beautiful blue eyes, and after his follower count reached 150,000 in just a few months and companies began offering free her free cat food for promotion, Schfkind started taking Coby’s Instagram success seriously. Today, he’s probably the most successful cat on the social network, and according to his fans, the most beautiful as well.

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Every year, more than a million pigeons die while competing in Taiwan’s controversial pigeon sea races, a series of grueling events in which young birds are shipped far out to sea, released in the middle of nowhere and forced to fly home. According to several reports from animal rights organizations, less than 1% of them make it back to land.

The small island of Taiwan hosts more pigeon racing events than any other country in the world. A reported 500,000 Taiwanese race pigeons every year, competing for billions of New Taiwan dollars in prize money. Pigeon racing is such a big business that the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology once introduced an optional course on it, which proved very popular with both young and old pigeon racers. However, important notions taught during this course, like injury prevention and the use of performance enhancing drugs fly out the window during Taiwan’s seasonal sea races.

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