In a bizarre display of love, a Polish veterinary student recently stitched the words ‘I Love You’ on to the skin of a dog that he operated on. The fourth year student at the University of Warmia and Mazury, in Olsztyn, then posted the image on to his girlfriend’s Facebook wall, so she could admire his handiwork. The grisly picture was immediately criticized by the couple’s friends and college mates for being grotesque and unethical.

The girlfriend, who is a member of the student council at the same university, defended the photograph: “What’s so unethical about it? He learnt to sew in order to help and is just showing his skill.” Read More »

Doris Carvalho, an entrepreneur from Tampa, has come up with an original way of combining her two greatest passions – veterinary science and fashion. She recycles dog hair that’s left over from grooming, converting it into high-end designer purses.

Doris loves her new job so much that she hopes to convert it into a business – she’s currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise $15,000 toward that exact purpose. That’s just enough money to make her first line of 30 purses and pay for marketing.

“These handbags prove that high-end can be made eco-friendly from your pet for you,” she pointed out. “I turn this groomed dog fur that would be garbage anywhere else in the world into these handbags. I sterilize and I use them to make the thread, the yarn. It’s reused, recycled.”

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Devastated by his pet rat’s death, 13-year-old Pepeijn Bruins decided to do something really special for his furry friend. So he turned to Dutch inventors Arjen Beltman and Bart Jansen for help. Soon, Ratjetoe the rat was stuffed and converted into the world’s first radio-controlled ‘ratcopter’.

Bart and Arjen have a special talent for making dead animals fly; previously, we’d written about how they converted a dead ostrich and a cat into weird helicopters. Their last project was a flying jet powered shark. And they’ve done it again, this time helping a young boy overcome his grief over losing his best friend.

“I loved him very much,” said Pepeijn, who had to have the cancer-stricken rat put down. “He always liked to be cuddled and he would run up my clothes and hide. When I learned he had cancer and the vet had to put him to sleep I was very upset. I had seen Bart and Arjen and their flying cat, and I asked my dad if it would be possible to have the rat fly.”

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Martin Tatta, from Argentina, is a self-trained ‘horse whisperer’. The 33-year-old ‘gaucho’ – the Argentinian version of the cowboy -has a remarkable gift for understanding horses – he can get the four-legged beauties to do his bidding with a delicate touch, friendly coaxing, cuddles, and kisses.

“It is something that comes natural to me,” he said. “Nobody taught me, it just came out. There is no struggle with the animal. This is a very soft job, very, very soft.” In fact, Martin is so tender with horses that many people have been reduced to tears while watching him.

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Greg Krueger, from St. James, Minnesota, has spent over 20 years renovating his home – not for his own comfort, but for that of his cats! He’s converted his home into a giant feline playground, with $10,000 worth of elaborate tunnels, platforms, and overhead catwalks.

“I just love trails and paths, and cats, of course,” said 50-year-old Krueger. “And so I’ve just linked those passions together.” His unique home improvement project began years ago, when he made a place for his four pet cats to sit on top of a China cabinet, because they liked to be high up.

Next, he built a kitty-sized staircase to help them get up to the cabinet. And his cats loved it so much that Krueger just decided to keep going. Soon, he had put up over 100 yards of catwalks and bridges through every room in the house, and set it all up so that his cats never have to touch the floor.

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Even though a lot of restaurants are now pet friendly, there aren’t too many places that actually have a separate menu for dogs. So Filipino chef and dog lover Giannina Gonzalez decided to fix that with her unique Whole Pet Kitchen – a small café that caters to dogs as well as humans.

Located in San Juan city, Whole Pet Kitchen is the first pet bakery and dog café in the Philippines. Gonzalez, 29, said that she wanted a job where she knew what went into her dog’s food, and she also wanted a place where she could share a table with her four-legged pet. She started the place in 2011, and it’s been doing pretty ever since.

“We wanted to reach out to a niche market; that’s why the place is small,” she revealed. “When Whole Pet Kitchen was opened, there were so many dog lovers who checked out the place, and now, the café has its own set of regulars who hang out and spend bonding moments with their pets.” The café has two sets of menus – one for pets and one for humans.

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When Indian teenager Bhaskar Shri passed away in a car accident, his loyal dog Tommy refused to leave his graveside for two whole weeks. The sweet old canine reportedly went without food the entire time, guarding the grave in the outskirts of Chennai city through 15 hot days and freezing nights.

Bhaskar was a construction worker who loved dogs dearly – he had adopted Tommy five years ago and the pair of them quickly became inseparable. When Bhaskar became victim to a terrible road collision, Tommy was heartbroken. The dog simply refused to part with his master and mourned by his graveside for 15 days.

Emaciated Tommy was finally rescued a fortnight later by Dawn Williams, an animal rescue officer at the non-profit Blue Cross of India. “I first spotted the brown dog sitting on a fresh grave one evening as I happened to walk past in the first week of August, but at the time I didn’t think anything of it,” she said.

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A Tasmanian farmer-couple recently discovered what might just be the world’s woolliest sheep. They’ve named the super-fluffy creature ‘Shaun’, after popular cartoon character Shaun the Sheep from the British comedy series Wallace and Gromit.

As it turns out, Shaun has never had his coat cut, and it is at least half-a-meter thick now. In fact he appears to have been on the run ever since he escaped the shearers at his former farm on Tasmania’s east coast, at least 25 miles away. It is estimated that Shaun has been wandering across the island for the past six years!

Peter Hazel said that he and his wife Netty found Shaun wandering in scrubland on their property last Sunday. He was actually quite easy to catch, what with 20 kilograms of extra fleece weighing him down. His wool was just all over the place, even falling over his eyes and obstructing his vision.

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Most people aren’t aware of this, but an alarmingly large number of cats die of leukemia every year. To raise awareness about the plight of these suffering cats, Maria Torero has converted her own two-story, eight-room apartment into a feline hospice. The 45-year-old nurse from Lima, Peru, currently has 175 patients residing with her, and spends over $1,500 a month just to care for them.

Maria has been caring for the diseased cats for the past five years now – she brings unwanted strays into her home and nurses them as they slowly succumb to their deadly illness. The mother-of-three doesn’t distinguish between her own children and her cat-patients. In fact, she says that she considers it her duty as a nurse to take in creatures that no one else wants to care for.

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A Belarusian family from the village of Zacherevye, 250 kilometers north of Minsk, is raising an entire family of wolves as pets. It’s been five years since the Selekhs took in a group of young wild wolves, and they’ve got the beasts completely domesticated now. In fact, the pet wolves’ behavior is quite opposite to what people normally expect from them.

Wolves are supposed to be instinctively wild, and follow a strict code of hierarchy within the pack – they are led by an alpha couple. But the Selekh wolves display none of these characteristics. They are quite a joyful lot instead, playing games and entertaining 10-year-old Alisa Selekh. They even take turns giving the girl piggyback rides through the Selekhs’ front garden.

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22-year-old British taxidermist Elle Kaye has a pretty unusual eating habit, even by taxidermy standards – she actually consumes the meat of the subjects she stuffs for her art. Kaye mostly uses roadkill or animals that have died of natural causes, and she tries to eat as much of them as possible, as long as the meat is fresh.

The attractive young woman who studied art at Loughborough University said that she decided to eat her subjects because she wanted to recycle and minimize waste. “For me, it’s a lifestyle choice,” she says. “Doing what I do ensures I recycle a deceased animal, as a meat eater, there is no logic in wasting perfectly edible meat. It’s important to me, because it upholds all of the notions that underpin taxidermy, and it means that I do the animal justice in recycling all of it.”

“I’m a big meat eater and I believe strongly in the idea of recycling,” she says. “It doesn’t make sense for me to preserve the specimen then throw the meat away. If I can determine that it’s fresh, I wouldn’t hesitate to eat it. I’m very careful.” Read More »

Kanzawa Sensei, a renowned Japanese Chi Master, claims that he has the power to make animals fall asleep. He says that his mind is so powerful that it can take control of multiple animals at a time. His superhuman mind control has been featured on various TV shows, and while it appears he can truly put animals to sleep, there are those who think he’s nothing but a fraud.

Chi, or Qi, is an ancient Chinese concept that translates as ‘life energy’ – an energy that permeates the whole universe. By using their bodies to tap into this energy, Chi Masters are able to perform marvellous feats that are otherwise impossible for normal human beings. That’s why it’s entirely plausible that Kanzawa Sensei might just be telling the truth about his powers.

Kanzawa claims that he uses another kind of Chi to control animals. “I exchange energy with the animals and then they go to sleep,” he said. “I can use my Chi to make them fall asleep. I put my fingers together and then there’s an exchange of Chi between the palm of my hand and the animal. The strength of the energy grows and eventually the animal relaxes and goes to sleep. Every animal is different, but yes, I can make any animal go to sleep.”

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Tonawanda Island, a small patch of land located just off the city of North Tonawanda, in Niagara County, New York, is currently suffering from a serious case of cats. Hundreds of abandoned felines freely roam the 85-acre island, and they’re multiplying at an alarming rate. Believe it or not, there are already more cats than people on the island!

“This is a small island with a big cat problem,” said islander Danielle Cooligan. Most of these cats are forgotten or unwanted pets who were left to fend for themselves. “They’re just everywhere,” said Wayne Howard of North Tonawanda. “People drop them off. I’ve caught people dumping them on the road; they just unload them on the island.”

While most of the island’s human residents are seasonal, the cats live there all year round. Most of them hide during the day and come out at night. “The messes they make, especially the feces around the island and where people walk, it’s disgusting,” Howard added. “I’ve caught them on my boat a few times and they made messes; they’re just a problem.”

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Starting this fall, a Texas company called Celestis Inc, is offering a new, one-of-a-kind pet funeral service – they will send the cremated remains of people’s pets into outer space. The new initiative is called ‘Celestis Pets’, and according to the company, it’s all about helping owners ‘celebrate the life of their pet’.

Since 1997, Celestis Inc. has been in the business of taking human remains into outer space and bringing them back, including the ashes of ‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry. This is the first time they’re extending their services to pets, in collaboration with San Diego-based ‘Into the Sunset Pet Transition Center’ to handle the remains.

“I think we’re also creating some new cultural norms,” said Steve Eisele, Director of Houston-based Celestis Pets. “Humanity has a lot of different rituals. We think we take our rituals with us when we end up traveling to different places whether they’re on this planet or off the planet,” he explained.

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Dogs are amazing creatures and Lilica, a Brazilian stray, is a perfect example of that. She lives in a junkyard, hangs out with a motley crew, and she makes sure her friends never go hungry. Every night, Lilica walks four miles in the dark, braving the rush hour traffic, just to bring food back to the other animals in her ‘family’ – a dog, a cat, a few chickens and a mule.

Lilica was abandoned at a junkyard in San Carlos, Brazil, when she was just a puppy. Neile Vaina Antonio, the junkyard caretaker, took her in and cared for her. As she grew, she became friends with all the other animals in the junkyard. It appears that they offer each other warmth, companionship and solidarity.

Three years ago, Lilica was pregnant and had eight puppies. As her responsibilities grew, she knew she had to find a way to provide food for her cubs, as there was little to be found at the junkyard. That’s when she started going out at night, walking for miles, in search of scraps. During one of her nightly travels, Lilica was lucky enough to meet dog-lover Lucia, who took pity on her.

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