Dog bashed to death

By Kimberly Spykerman

The dog was found in the void deck of an HDB block on Wednesday. Blood covered its muzzle and the inside of its ears.

-- PHOTO: SPCA

THE bloodied body of a dog was found in the void deck of an HDB block in Sengkang on Wednesday evening.

The dog, which appeared to be a Pomeranian, is believed to have been bashed to death.

A preliminary examination by a vet called in by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) noted that the animal had head injuries consistent with trauma. Blood covered its muzzle and the inside of its ears.

Police said they had been alerted to the dog's body by a member of the public, who had spotted the dog lying motionless with its leash still attached. The floor around it was blood-spattered.

A spokesman for the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) told The Straits Times that a post-mortem is in progress, and that investigations into the identity of the owner are ongoing.

Although the dog had been microchipped, the owner had not followed up the microchipping by registering the animal with the AVA.

Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.

It's things like this that leave me speechless and lesser faith in the human race. Why must we be so cruel? I hope the person gets caught and punished severely. Acts like that shouldn't be condoned, I wonder why no one called for help. Imagine if it were a human life.

This case just happens to be one that was discovered, I can't even begin to imagine for those that go unnoticed. It's just so... sad...

Humans are funny beings. We contradict ourselves most of the time, being selfish and sometimes actually thinking we're being caring and considerate. It seems that everything that we do has an motive behind it. When will we truly understand that it really isn't just all about us... Frustration is never an excuse to bully those that are smaller and have no defenses against you.

Anglers mourn death of "marriage wrecking" giant fish

Anglers were mourning on Tuesday the death of a carp believed to be Britain's largest freshwater fish, who tipped the scales at almost five stone (32 kgs) and was nicknamed "the marriage wrecker."

Two Tone, a mirror carp who weighed 67lb 14oz, was found floating on the surface of Conningbrook Lake in Kent where it lived. It was believed to be about 45 years old and to have died from old age.

The fish, named from its skin colour, was only caught once or twice a year and no more than 50 times in its lifetime which made him a prize catch amongst anglers across the country.

"It's a unique creature. It's genetically unusual. There's no other fish ever grown to that size in this country," Conningbrook fisheries manager Chris Logsdon told Reuters Television.

"Obviously it was the pinnacle of carp angling. It was the fish that everybody wanted to catch."

It was the hours that some anglers spent trying to catch Two Tone that won the fish the nickname "the marriage wrecker."

Angler Lee Jackson wrote a book called "Just For The Record: My Quest For Two Tone" about his battle trying to snare Two Tone which he won in the end.

"It really became an obsession to catch that fish. It took me fishing it in the spring, summer and autumn most weeks, fishing it for about 50 hours per week, and it took me six years. It was a pretty difficult one to track down," said Lee Jackson.

Two Tone will be buried next to the lake next Sunday with anglers sending online tributes to the fish that got away.

source:yahoo

Dog honored for leading troopers to fire

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Buddy the German shepherd was hailed as a hero for guiding Alaska State Troopers through winding back roads to a fire at his owners' workshop.

"Buddy is an untrained dog who for some reason recognized the severity of the situation and acted valiantly in getting help for his family," Col. Audie Holloway, head of the troopers, said Friday at a ceremony for the 5-year-old dog, who stood quietly before an adoring crowd.

Buddy, whose good deed was caught on a patrol car's dashcam video, received a stainless steel dog bowl engraved with words of appreciation from troopers for his "diligence and assistance."

Buddy also received a big rawhide bone, and his human family got a framed letter documenting his efforts.

"He's my hero," owner Ben Heinrichs said, his voice breaking. "If it wasn't for him, we would have lost our house."

The dashcam video shows Buddy meeting the trooper's vehicle, then dashing to their property about 55 miles north of Anchorage on April 4.

Heinrichs said he was working on parts for his truck when a spark hit some gasoline and ignited, lighting his clothes blaze. The 23-year-old man ran outside to stomp out the flames by rolling in the snow, closing the door to keep the blaze from spreading.

Heinrichs then realized Buddy was still inside the burning building and let the dog out. Heinrichs suffered minor burns on his face and second-degree burns on his left hand, which was still heavily bandaged Friday.

Buddy was not injured.

"I just took off running," Heinrichs said. "I said we need to get help, and he just took off."

Buddy ran into the nearby woods and onto Caswell Loop Road, where the dog encountered the trooper, Terrence Shanigan, whose global positioning device had failed while responding to a call about the fire. He was working with dispatchers to find the property in an area with about 75 miles of back roads.

Shanigan was about to make a wrong turn when he saw a shadow up the road. His vehicle lights caught Buddy at an intersection, and the dog eyed the trooper and began running down a side road.

"He wasn't running from me, but was leading me," he said. "I just felt like I was being led ... it's just one of those things that we're thinking on the same page for that brief moment."

The video shows Buddy occasionally looking back at the patrol car as he raced ahead, galloping around three turns before arriving in front of the blaze, which was very close to the Heinrichs' home.

From there, the trooper guided firefighters to the scene.

The workshop was destroyed and a shed was heavily damaged, but only some window trim on the house was scorched.

The Heinrich family said they knew Buddy was smart ever since they got him six weeks after he was born to a canine-officer mother and that he was brave, twice chasing bears away while Ben Heinrichs was fishing.

But saving their home beat them all.

"Downright amazing, I would say," said Tom Heinrichs, Ben's father. "Maybe there was some divine intervention."


AP

YouTube 'cat torturer' traced by web detectives

A teenager who posted videos of himself torturing a cat on YouTube has been arrested after being traced by internet “vigilantes”.

The youth was shown throwing the animal against a wall, hitting it in the face and holding it under a running shower in the gruesome clips.

In one film titled PattyCatPattyCat he describes the cat, Dusty, as his “test subject”. Another youth can be heard laughing in the background.

The film was eventually removed by the video-sharing website and the account hosting all the clips shut down, but only after some of the 30,000 people who had been horrified by footage had begun tracking the alleged culprit.

The teenager introduced himself only as Timmy and wore a balaclava to hide his identity, but clued-up web users pieced together information from other social networking websites including Facebook, MySpace and Digg to come up with a name of a likely culprit.

They reportedly matched details in the background of one of the videos to photos of a bedroom posted on one social networking site.

Police in Lawton, Oklahoma, have arrested two youths in relation to the animal abuse after receiving information from members of the public and the animal rights group Peta. Officers are now preparing a case against the teenagers.

“It will be up to the District Attorney whether or not he files charges or not. Our job is to put the investigation together as a case and take it to the DA and that’s what we’ll do,” Sheriff Kenny Stradley told KSWO news.

Dusty is now being looked after by a local vet, and is said to be doing well.


Telegraph

Dog survives being shot in the head with nail gun

MAX the boxer might have a thick skull, but nothing that a nail gun can't penetrate.

Tim Horvat said his dog was shot in the head while he was pumping nails into backyard decking he was building.

Just a couple of planks short of finishing the job, he ordered Max to move away.

As he resumed work with the nail gun, Max lunged at it and a steel nail blasted into his head.

"At first I thought I had missed him because he ran behind me," Mr Horvat said.

"But then I saw the tip just protruding from his head and I started shaking as I realised what had happened."

Mr Horvat and his wife, Rose, took Max to a local vet after which he was transferred to the care of surgeon Simon Kudnig at the Melbourne Veterinary Specialist Centre.

Dr Kudnig said it was the first time he had seen a dog injured by a nail gun.

"I was amazed he was still conscious and alert and I kept thinking it must not have gone into his brain cavity," he said.

But stunning X-rays showed the reality: Max had missed death by little more than a hair's width.

"I kept thinking it couldn't be, but the X-rays show the nail skimmed the brain and was in the cranial cavity," Dr Kudnig said.

He knew the nail had to come out, but carefully considered the risks of the delicate surgery.

"You can't just grab the nail and pull it out," he said.

"Craniectomies to remove part of the skull are not uncommon to remove brain tumors, but it was a first to remove a nail," he said.

The operation involved removing a piece of Max's skull and then drilling around the embedded nail to loosen and finally pull it free.

News.com.au

Golden retriever in the doghouse after eating £12,000 diamond

George Kaufmann brings his pet, Sollie, to his jewellery shop, Robert Bernard Jewellers, in Rockville, Maryland, every day.

Mr Kaufmann and his business partner, Robert Rosin, were meeting a diamond dealer in late January and perusing his gems when disaster struck.

The three men were looking at a 3-carat diamond, valued at $20,000, when the stone suddenly fell to the floor - landing right next to Sollie. Before anyone could retrieve it, the dog ate the gem.

They rushed the animal to a vet, who said nature would have to take its course, so they spent three anxious days waiting to see if the gem would turn up in the dog's stool.

"When we took a walk in the morning and evening I collected and went through everything," Mr Kaufmann said.

"It wasn't glamorous, but you gotta do what you gotta do," Mr Kaufmann told Fox News.

Eventually, his patience paid off, and Mr Kaufmann found the diamond - which he cleaned and returned to the dealer.

Telegraph

Alcoholic chimpanzee to be taken to treatment clinic from zoo

Frequent "treats" by visitors of a Russian zoo made one of its resident, Zhora the chimpanzee, an alcoholic and nicotine addict, a Russian daily has said.

Zoo authorities in the Russian city of Rostov (200 km northeast of Moscow) were quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying Zhora, who had been brought to the zoo from the Tatarstan republic five years ago, was to be taken back to the republic for treatment in early March.

They said visitors at the zoo frequently gave the chimpanzee, a former circus artist, alcohol and cigarettes which eventually led to heavy addiction.

"We asked visitors not to give him [alcohol and cigarettes], but it was all in vain," the Rostov zoo deputy head was quoted by the paper as saying. Although Zhora was kept behind a three rows of fences, visitors managed to throw him bottles and cigarettes, Nadezhda Yeutushenko said.

"People laugh when they see an animal drinking [alcohol] and smoking, but vicious habits damage [the animal's] health, and many do not understand this," zoo workers said.

Ria Novosti

Dog adrift on ice saved from Baltic Sea

WARSAW (AP) — A frightened, shivering dog was rescued after floating 75 miles on an ice floe down Poland's Vistula River and into the Baltic Sea, officials said Thursday.

Now his saviors just have to figure out who really owns him.

Four people have already claimed him, but so far rescuers say there's been no wagging tail of joy from the miracle dog they nicknamed "Baltic."

The dog's frozen odyssey came as Poland suffers through a winter cold snap.Temperatures have dipped to below minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

The thick-furred male dog was found adrift Monday 15 miles out in the Baltic Sea by the crew of the Baltica, a Polish ship of ocean scientists carrying out research.

Researcher Natalia Drgas said Thursday that the rescue was difficult and at one point it seemed the dog had drowned.

"It was really a tough struggle. It kept slipping into the water and crawling back on top of the ice. At one point it vanished underwater, under the ship and we thought it was the end, but it emerged again and crawled on an ice sheet," Drgas said.

At that point, the crew lowered a pontoon down to the water and a crewmember managed to grab the dog by the scruff of his neck and pull him to safety.

Too weak to shake off the frigid water, Baltic was dried and wrapped in blankets. After he warmed up, he was massaged, fed and soon got on his feet to seek company, Drgas said.

A firefighter in Grudziadz, on the Vistula river 60 miles inland from the Bay of Gdansk, told the Associated Press the dog was spotted Saturday floating on ice through the city. Firefighters tried to save him but could not approach the dog due to shifting ice sheets, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Baltica crew, now moored in the port city of Gdynia, has been searching for the dog's owners, ship captain Jerzy Wosachlo said. So far four people have claimed him, but Baltic has not claimed any of them back, Drgas said.

The dog didn't welcome the first two people to come for him, keeping his distance and showing no recognition toward a couple on Wednesday and a woman on Thursday who both said he was theirs. Two other would-be owners were still en route to Gdynia for a possible reunion.

Once in port, the brown-and-black mongrel was taken to a veterinarian, who found him in surprisingly good condition and estimated his age at around 5 or 6 years old. Veterinarian Aleksandra Lawniczak said the 44-pound dog was clearly frightened but in strikingly good shape and had suffered no frostbite.

A dog with thick fur and a layer of fat can survive such cold conditions for as long as eight days if it has water to drink, Lawniczak said.

She described Baltic as a friendly dog who was clearly well treated before getting lost.

Wosachlo said the research team is prepared to adopt Baltic if his original owner is never found.

USA Today

Rattling dog had eaten 13 golf balls

A dog had 13 golf balls removed from his stomach after his owner noticed his stomach was rattling.

Chris Morrison noticed an unusual sound from the stomach of his black labrador, Oscar, who he regularly walks on a golf course near his home in Dunfermline.

When he took the five-year-old to a vet, he was stunned to find 13 balls were lodged in the dog's stomach, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Morrison, a planning administrator, said one of the balls had been in her stomach so long that it had turned black and was decomposing.

He said: "He finds golf balls like truffles. We're not sure how long exactly this happened over - but it must have been a fair period, several months at least.

"I felt his stomach and heard them rattling around. He normally brings a few home, but I had no idea he had eaten so many.

"It is normally around the ninth and twelfth fairways that we go around - and he just goes and searches for them wherever the golfers lose them."

The balls were removed two weeks ago in an hour-long operation conducted by Bob Hesketh, 40, a vet from Rosyth.

He said: "It was like a magic trick. I opened him up and felt what I thought was two or three golf balls. But they just kept coming until we had a bag full."

Oscar is now on the road to making a full recovery after a special post-operation diet of watered down food, but he now has to wear a muzzle during his walks.

Ananova

Dog washed out to sea has lucky escape

WARSAW (Reuters) – A dog had a lucky escape when a Polish boat rescued him from an ice floe that had carried him more than 100 miles up a river and out onto the icy waters of the Baltic Sea.

"My crew saw... a shape moving on the water and we immediately decided to get closer to check if it was a dog or maybe a seal relaxing on the ice," Jan Joachim, senior officer aboard the Baltica, told Reuters Television.

"As we got closer to the ice floe we saw that it was a dog struggling not to fall into the water."

Ship engineer Adam Buczynski managed to scoop the dog off the floe onto an inflatable dinghy and wrapped him in a blanket.

"He didn't even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes," said Buczynski.

The dog was first seen on the ice floe some 100 km (70 miles) inland to the south on the Vistula river but firemen were unable to rescue him. When the Baltica crew found him, he had already drifted some 24 km (18 miles) out to sea.

"We were in the right place at the right time," said Joachim, noting that they rescued him shortly before night fall.

The crew are now trying to locate the dog's owner.

Poland is in the grip of bitterly cold weather, with night temperatures in some areas falling as low as -34 Celsius (-31 Fahrenheit).

Reuters

Crocodiles 'taught to recognise their names'

Two British crocodiles have been taught to recognise when a keeper calls their names, The Blue Planet Aquarium.

The reptiles, Paleo and Suchus, have been taught to listen for their names being called, it was claimed.

Keepers at the centre in Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, they are even learning when to open their mouths for food.

They ssaid the type of training had worked with mammals before but hardly ever with reptiles.

"They are very intelligent and started responding to their names in just a few days," said Tom Cornwall, the aquarium's manager.

In a bid to train them, the crocodiles, which are called Cuvier's dwarf caiman, are given food as a prize if they react in the right way.

The training takes its idea from a similar scheme run at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust in India.

Once fully trained, the aquarium's zoological team will set up "enrichment activities" for the pair.

Mr Cornwall, Blue Planet Aquarium's ranger and exhibits manager, added: "As well as enabling us to approach them and inspect and treat any potential health issues it will also allow us to set up tasks and foraging exercises for them to mimic the types of behaviour they would have to use in the wild."

Found throughout South America, the Cuvier's dwarf caiman usually live in freshwater habitats like rivers, including the Amazon, flooded forests and larger lakes.

Telegraph

Chihuahua only four inches

A micro-Chihuahua has measured up as one of the world's smallest dogs, measuring only four inches.

Jean Tindall noticed her puppy Lulu was not growing like her sister and two brothers.

The 76-year-old, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who has bred Chihuahuas for five years, said: "I didn't think anything of it when her mum gave birth to the litter, she looked the same size as all the others.

"But puppies grow quickly and I soon realised that her brothers and sisters were all over taking her.

"I don't want to sell her because she will need so much extra care and attention being so small.

"She is so tiny shes only 4 inches. She can fit in my hand shes so tiny. You can't believe she's out of the same litter because the rest are twice as big as her.

Ms Tindall, who named Lulu after the Scottish singer, said the dog, part of the smallest breed in the world, makes up for her lack of size with her big personality.

The mother-of-two added: "She sleeps all day long on a hot water bottle I give her to keep her warm then when I'm ready for bed she wakes up and runs rings around me. I can barely keep up.

"Even though she's small she's got so much love to give and is a little bundle of joy. She hasn't developed a bark yet but when she does I'm sure it'll be as loud as a normal sized dog."

Ms Tindall said she even thought Lulu could be the smallest in the world as in more than 50 years of breeding she has never seen a smaller one.

"I've seen a lot of chihuahuas but I've never seen one as small as Lulu. Even among other tiny dogs she really stands out because she is so tiny.

"I've been breeding and selling chihuahuas for most of my life and I've had a few inquiries about Lulu because she's such a wonderful, cute little thing. But to me she is priceless, I would never sell her. She is a little star and loves all the attentions she gets."

Telegraph

Dog leads owner to elderly, unconscious man

PINE CITY, Minn. – Police credit a 15-year-old German Shorthaired dog with saving the life of an elderly, unconscious man in Pine City. Brett Grinde said he took Effie out for their usual walk on Monday evening, but within a couple minutes she started pulling on the leash, wanting to go in a different direction.

Effie then took off running, leading Grinde to a neighbor's house where a 94-year-old man was on face down on the driveway. The dog started licking the man's face. Grinde called 911, then started CPR.

KARE-TV reported the eldery man, William Lepsch, regained consciousness and is in serious condition at North Memorial Medical Center.

AP

Priest's parish pooch 'never barks' at Mass

BADEN, M.O. — Our Lady of the Holy Cross Catholic Church got a new priest last summer, the Rev. Don Buhr.

With Buhr came Elijah, also known in this North Side parish as the Church Dog.

Elijah is a Labrador and border collie mix who attends every Mass that Buhr celebrates.

"A dog in church — I know it doesn't sound right and doesn't seem right," Buhr said. "But this dog is a gift from God."

Elijah is slim and black with white paws and a splash of white fur on his chest in the shape of a cross that, Buhr said, marks the animal as "a real priest dog."

Buhr, 69, insists that Elijah smiles at people he likes. "But it's the stupidest smile you ever saw," he said, stretching his lips and gritting his teeth in imitation.

When Buhr came to the church, he asked the parishioners if it would be all right if Elijah attended Mass. He said he didn't want anyone's prayer to be disturbed. So far, he said, no one has complained.

Buhr's last assignment was at a country parish where Elijah was allowed to roam the fields and woods.

The dog has made a smooth transition to the inner city. He is the terror of squirrels and other animals that trespass on the parish grounds, at 1018 Baden Avenue.

Inside the church, however, Elijah is as gentle as a lamb.

During Mass, he tends to quietly meander.

He may stroll onto the altar to sit beside Buhr or server Brittany Pfaffenback, 16. At one Mass, Brittany petted Elijah with one hand and rang the bell with the other.

"I'm a dog lover so I'm glad to have him around," she said.

Elijah occasionally wanders down the aisle and sticks his nose into the pews, seeking affection.

In the summer, he prefers lounging on the cool terrazzo tiles of the high altar.

On a recent cold Sunday, he favored a spot beside a radiator to the side of the altar.

When the crowd lined up to receive Communion, he took up his regular post in front of the first pew on the left. From there, he watched as Buhr distributed the Eucharist.

"He loves that little space and plants himself there every Communion," said a parish deacon, Gerry Quinn, 63, of Affton. "We do worry sometimes that someone will trip over him, but we've all adjusted fine."

At the end of Mass, Elijah trotted ahead of the servers, deacons and priest as they filed down the main aisle.

Growing up, Buhr always had a dog. But he wasn't sure a pet would fit into the lifestyle of a priest.

Then, eight years ago, he decided to give it a try.

He had heard that border collies were supposed to be the smartest and black Labs the gentlest of dogs.

"I told a friend one day that that was the mix I wanted," he said. "The very next day, I saw an ad in the paper. A guy was moving and had to get rid of his dog — a 1-year-old border collie and black Lab mix."

Buhr named the dog Elijah because he came into his life like a whirlwind, "the same way the prophet Elijah went up to heaven," Buhr said.

Buhr knows of no other dog that attends Mass.

Elijah, in fact, had never tagged along to church with Buhr until the priest came to Our Lady of the Holy Cross.

Buhr was an associate pastor at his previous parish, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Villa Ridge.

Elijah was not allowed inside that church.

"It was not my decision to make," he said.

But at Our Lady of the Holy Cross, the congregation has embraced Elijah, said a longtime member, Charlotte Flowers.

"We have a true church dog," said Flowers, 68. "He's a joy and so well-behaved. The children especially love him. And he never barks in church."

Buhr points out that Elijah is not the only unusual element at the church.

The church, built in 1909, was designed by two architects from Cologne, Germany, in a 13th-century motif.

It has a 185-foot spire visible for miles. Renowned artist Emil Frei designed the 10 stained glass windows, each 25 feet high and 6 feet wide.

Amid the historic features is a distinctly modern touch: The processional cross bears an African-American figure of a crucified Christ.

The priest hopes that word of the Church Dog will spread and perhaps draw people to the parish.

"Maybe there are some dog lovers out there who haven't been to church in a while," Buhr said. "And they will come and meet this special dog."

USA Today

Snake saves family from fire

A Chinese man who nursed a dying snake back to health claims it saved his family by raising the alarm when their house was on fire.

Yu Feng, of Fushun, in Liaoning province, found the dying black snake outside his home, reports the Liaosheng Evening Post.

"I treated it with herbal medicines, and in 20 days it recovered," he said.

He took the snake to a nearby mountain more than a mile away to release it back into the wild - but the next morning it was back at his house.

"I then set it free another two times, but it always came back," Yu added. "People around me said the snake had come back to repay my kindness, so I kept it."

He named the snake Long Long and adopted it as a pet - then one night, he claims it saved the whole family.

Yu explained: "I was asleep when suddenly I felt something cold on my face. I opened my eyes and it was Long Long.

"He had never woken me up before but I was so sleepy I went back to sleep. But Long Long grabbed my clothes with his teeth and whipped the bed with his tail.

"Then he went to my mother's bed and whipped her bed with his tail. I woke up then and smelt something burning, and saw my mother's electric blanket was on fire so I leapt up and turned it off."

Local reptile experts say snakes don't have the intelligence to act in this way - but Yu believes Long Long acted out of kindness, to repay Feng for saving his own life.

Ananova

Man jailed for eating rare tiger

BEIJING (Reuters) – A man who killed and ate what may have been the last wild Indochinese tiger in China was sentenced to 12 years in jail, local media reported on Tuesday.

Kang Wannian, a villager from Mengla, Yunnan Province, met the tiger in February while gathering freshwater clams in a nature reserve near China's border with Laos. He claimed to have killed it in self-defense.

The only known wild Indochinese tiger in China, photographed in 2007 at the same reserve, has not been seen since Kang's meal, the Yunnan-based newspaper Life News reported earlier this month.

The paper quoted the provincial Forestry Bureau as saying there was no evidence the tiger was the last one in China.

A local court sentenced Kang to 10 years for killing a rare animal plus two years for illegal possession of firearms, the local web portal Yunnan.cn reported. Prosecutors said Kang did not need a gun to gather clams.

Four villagers who helped Kang dismember the tiger and ate its meat were also sentenced from three to four years for "covering up and concealing criminal gains," the report said.

Kang was also fined 480,000 yuan ($70,000).

The Indochinese tiger is on the brink of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 left in the forests of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.


Reuters

Pet pig's fart sparks gas leak scare

A PORTLY pig with flatulence triggered a minor emergency near Bendigo this week when smells wafting from the 120kg porker sparked fears of a potentially dangerous gas leak.

Two Country Fire Authority tankers and 15 firefighters turned out in darkness to search the source of the leak at a property at Axedale, east of Bendigo. But the likely culprit was soon sniffed out, the pet sow startled from slumber in the dead of night.

"She got very excited when two trucks and 15 firies turned up and she squealed and farted and squealed and farted," said fire chief Peter Harkins.

"I haven't heard too many pigs fart but I would describe it as very full-on."

Mr Harkins said the family had done the right thing by calling 000 to report a suspected gas leak: "It's all bottled gas up here and a leaking cylinder could pose a major fire risk.

"It was because we took it so seriously that 15 volunteers still managed to attend the call out at 10.30 on Tuesday night."

Mr Harkins said the day had been both wet and warm, as well as slightly humid.

"Smells are always exacerbated in those conditions. We got to the property and we could smell a very strong odour in the vicinity.

"It didn't take us too long to work it out because we could both smell and hear her."

The pig, a family pet, was lying low yesterday, her embarrassed owners refusing media requests for a photograph of their porker.

She is believed to be a friendly and docile animal, a much loved children's pet, possibly in need of a change of diet.

News.com.au

Farmer sees divine sign in cow

STERLING, Conn. (AP) — A holy cow in Connecticut, perhaps? Or maybe a divine bovine?

A calf with a white marking on its forehead in the approximate shape of a cross was born last week at a dairy farm in Sterling, a small rustic town on the Rhode Island border.

Owner Brad Davis tells WFSB-TV he thinks the marking may be a message from above, though he's still trying to figure out what that message might be.

The mostly brown calf is half Jersey, half Holstein. Neighborhood children have named it Moses.

The chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Dairy Science tells the Norwich Bulletin newspaper it's not unusual for a Holstein cow to have a white marking on its head. But department chairman Ric Grummer says the cross shape is unusual.

USA Today

Cow 'jumped 6ft onto roof'

A suspected burglary has been solved in Somerset - after a neighbour spotted a cow jumping on to a roof.

The householder, of Blagdon, thought she had been broken into after coming home to find her roof badly damaged.

She called in the police - but then a neighbour came forward with some surprising information, reports the Daily Telegraph.

William de Cothi, 17, had photographed the animal after he spotted it on the roof about six feet off the ground.

The Sixth Form student said: "I was looking out of my window when I saw the cow.

"At first I thought that it was an illusion and that it was in the background and not really on the roof. But after a closer look I could see it was actually on the roof.

"I have heard cows can jump quite high, so I think that is how it got up there. I got my family to come and look later and they laughed. It was absolutely amazing."

Local PC Ray Bradley said: "This was initially recorded on my figures as a burglary so I am glad I can take it off.

"If it wasn't for the door-to-door enquires and this photo we wouldn't have found out it was a cow responsible."

Ananova

Orangutan becomes hit snapper

An orangutan is making a monkey out of professional photographers after becoming one of the world's most popular snappers.

Nonja's handiwork has been viewed by tens of thousands of fans after keepers at Vienna's Schoenbrunn zoo in Austria gave her a digital camera and set up a Facebook page for her.

Snaps from the digital camera, which issues fruit treats whenever a picture is taken, are uploaded instantly over a WiFi link.

The slightly blurry images of Nonja's climbing rope, food and her companion's shaggy red-brown fur have won lots of admiring comments from fans.

"It's an attempt to see the world through her eyes and see what she thinks is important. She's very artistic," said one keeper.

Nonja turned to photography after a spell as a painter where her works often reach up to £2,000 at auction.


Ananova