Leather Dog Sofa

This grand Leather Dog Sofa gives your four-legged friend the ultimate in sophisticated luxury. Now you won't have to share your sofa with your big collie or lab — here's his own deluxe version.

• Crafted of heavy-duty furniture-grade construction
• Sits on elegant hardwood feet
• Upholstered in rich chocolate brown leather
• Cushioned seat interior removes for washing

Large size = $699.00

Velour Sweatsuit for Dogs

Dress your posh pooch in trendsetting J.Lo + Madonna style with our fabulous Velour Sweatsuit.

Jog a Dog - For lazy Humans

Revolutionary Exercise System for Dogs

For the really, really lazy pet owner!

The new JOG A DOG model DC7 is the most impressive dog treadmill to date. The incredible 84” x 24” running surface will accommodate all breeds while allowing large dogs ample room to reach and extend while exercising. Ridged reinforced steel decking provides a secure foundation for breeds exceeding 300 pounds.

Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007

Enter the competition

The search for the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007 has began. All the information about the 2007 competition can be found here.

Closing date

Friday 30 March 2007 for online submission. Friday 23 March for postal submission.

New for 2007

£10,000 prize for the overall winner - Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
New categories, One Earth Award and Wild Choice.

2006 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year - Overall Winner

Building a Stairway to Paradise, for Your Beloved Pet

The sky can be the limit when it comes to options for owners who want to give pets a proper send-off. There are more than 1,000 pet cemeteries across the United States, and many provide most everything from funeral services and customized burial sites to cremations and bereavement counseling. They also offer an array of items like urns, coffins, vaults and grave markers.

“We’ve always had strong affection for our pets, but in the past five to seven years marketers have really picked up on this,” said David Lummis, lead pet market analyst at Packaged Facts, a market research publisher based in New York. “They’ve taken the ball and run with it. What we’re seeing now — in all these humanized products, many of which have premium prices — is the sanctioning of treating pets like family.”

In 2005, revenue in the pet care service industry reached $18.2 billion (of which $13.2 billion was for veterinarian services alone) and is predicted to reach $25.3 billion by 2010, according to a report by Mr. Lummis.

Make the Most of a Dog's World

While the nation bitterly debates Iraq troop levels, medical care for the indigent and the need for college football playoffs, there is one thing everyone agrees on: We love our dogs and cats beyond all reason and will pamper them in sickness and in health.

No longer do most dogs get old hambones or bags of kibble in their bowls in the backyard. Today they have come under the scrutiny of big-time marketers who see them as monetizable targets akin to cute little kids. On television and Web sites and in splashy direct-mail campaigns, households are encouraged to lavish pets with organic meat, resort vacations, designer clothes and cosmetics, psychotherapy and specially formulated water. It's goodbye Fido, hello Fidollarbill.

The apotheosis of pets for financial purposes has been going on for some time, of course, but only recently has it launched into the stratosphere as an accelerating multibillion-dollar business. Americans spent $36 billion on food, shelter, health care and luxuries for their pets last year, which is about twice the GDP of Costa Rica.

The pet industry is one of the fastest-growing subsectors in the entire U.S. economy, growing by as much as 6% a year.

Talking Fish: Wide Variety of Sounds Discovered

Increasingly scientists are discovering unusual mechanisms by which fish make and hear secret whispers, grunts and thumps to attract mates and ward off the enemy.

In just one bizarre instance, seahorses create clicks by tossing their heads. They snap the rear edge of their skulls against their star-shaped bony crests.

This and other discoveries made in recent years come as the focus on the sounds that fish make is growing beyond "really loud sounds that last a long time," fish behaviorist Timothy Tricas at the University of Hawaii at Manoa told LiveScience. "Seahorse clicks are brief, only about five to 20 milliseconds," he said.

Firefighters' latest gear: pet oxygen masks

Fire helmet? Check. Gloves? Check. Axe? Check. Pet oxygen masks? Check.

Increasingly, little oxygen masks for pets are becoming standard equipment for firefighters. Hoping to save cats, dogs and other pets caught in house fires, animal advocacy groups and pet-products suppliers are equipping departments all over the country with them.

The cone-shaped plastic masks, which come in three sizes and fit snugly on snouts, can resuscitate animals suffering from smoke inhalation. They can be used on dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs, even birds.

"In the past, we used regular air masks like the firefighters use. In a pinch, it works," said Norman Flanders, fire chief in this small Vermont town, which was given a set of pet masks by a local animal welfare group Tuesday. "But these masks are designed specifically to fit over the muzzle of a cat or a dog."

Radio tags track wasp behaviour

Wasps fitted with minuscule radio tags have helped scientists shed light on the insects' behaviour.

Rather than just tending their home colonies, the worker wasps also buzzed into nearby relative-holding nests, helping raise the young, the team said.

The researchers believed the insects were boosting their chances of propagating their genes by nurturing relatives in multiple nests.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) study is published in Current Biology.

"Nest drifting, which is where individual insects move between different nests, has been described in a few different species of social insects, but it has always been a puzzle as to why they have done this," explained lead author Seirian Sumner of ZSL.

"It has also been very difficult to quantify - the standard way is to mark the wasps with paint and then carry out nest censuses - so we developed a new method."
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Video: Brookfield Zoo shows off newest Chicago bear

The Brookfield Zoo's tiny polar bear, born Dec. 14, has remained in a maternity den with its mother, Arki, since birth.

The baby was about 1 1/2 pounds at birth. It's now up to 10 pounds and is a little larger than a football.

Penguin a living 'piggy bank'

A Humboldt penguin at the Denver Zoo was getting ready to be shipped to another zoo, but the transfer was held up when veterinarians found coins in the bird's stomach.

Zoo officials said well-wishers toss coins into the penguin pond for good luck, but it's bad luck for the birds that can't differentiate a shiny coin from a shiny scaled fish and ingest them, causing stomach problems.

The adult female Humboldt, who was undergoing a wellness exam, had a blood test that indicated she had a dangerously high level of zinc in her system. Veterinarians had to remove the coins using an endoscope with a small net attached to ''scoop'' the coins from the bird's stomach.

Veterinarians successfully recovered 71 cents and pieces of a partially digested penny from the penguin's stomach. They said despite the inherent risks of any procedure involving anesthesia, the bird recovered fully and the levels of zinc in her blood have dropped back to normal.
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Video: Dog Slide

He's having fun!

Pit bull found starving on Thanksgiving is now ready to be adopted

Tampa, Florida - Hillsborough County Animal Services says they have nursed a pit bull back to health and he is ready to be adopted.

Workers say they discovered the dog moments from death in the back yard of a Cherry Street home on Thanksgiving day. They have named him Pilgrim.

Officials say the dog was chained to the backyard fence and had not had food or water for several weeks.

Animal Abuse Investigator Corporal Angela Snyder was on holiday duty when Tampa Police called about the "skin and bones tied out back on Cherry Street." She arrived on scene and observed a dog-tethered, lateral, and motionless. Snyder contemplated arrangements to remove the lifeless body, but as she moved in closer, so did the dog's tail.

She rushed the dog to Hillsborough County Animal Services.

Rare "Prehistoric" Shark Photographed Alive

Flaring the gills that give the species its name, a frilled shark swims at Japan's Awashima Marine Park on Sunday, January 21, 2007. Sightings of living frilled sharks are rare, because the fish generally remain thousands of feet beneath the water's surface.

Spotted by a fisher on January 21, this 5.3-foot (160-centimeter) shark was transferred to the marine park, where it was placed in a seawater pool.

"We think it may have come to the surface because it was sick, or else it was weakened because it was in shallow waters," a park official told the Reuters news service. But the truth may never be known, since the "living fossil" died hours after it was caught.

Cute Knut

First Polar Bear Born in Berlin Zoo in 30 Years

Berlin Zoo is delighted at the birth of Knut, the first polar bear to be born in the animal park in over 30 years. The cub spent his first 44 days in an incubator after being rejected by his mother. Now he's being raised on a bottle.

Knut was born on Dec. 5, 2006, the first polar bear cub to be born in Berlin Zoo in 30 years, but was rejected by his mother, the 20-year-old polar bear Tosca. His twin brother died four days after the birth.

Little Knut spent the first 44 days of his life in an incubator. Thanks to the loving care of the zoo staff, he prospered and now has "a good chance of survival," according to his keeper Thomas Dörflein. The dedicated Dörflein has slept in the zoo since the birth of the bear in order to provide round-the-clock care to the cub, and feeds Knut milk six times a day with a bottle.

Knut weighed only 810 grams (1.8 pounds) when he was born but now tips the scales at 3.9 kilograms (8.6 pounds). He still has a long way to go though -- adult male polar bears can weigh up to 800 kilograms.

More Polar Bears Giving Birth on Land

Pregnant polar bears in Alaska, which spend most of their lives on sea ice, are increasingly giving birth on land, according to researchers who say global warming is probably to blame.

The study by three scientists for the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the state's bear population could be harmed if the climate continues to grow warmer. Though bears are powerful swimmers, at some point they might have to cross vast stretches of open water to reach habitat on shore suitable for building dens in which to give birth.

From 1985 to 1994, 62 percent of the female polar bears studied dug dens in snow on sea ice. From 1998 to 2004, just 37 percent made dens on ice. The rest dug snow dens on land, according to the study.

What has been happening to polar bears in recent decades?

Polar bears have long captured the attention of the general public but probably at no time in the past have they been more in the forefront of the public's imagination than today. Today's heightened interest in polar bears may be due in part to an enhanced understanding of the ecology of polar bears, their environment, and an increased interest in Arctic issues brought on by concerns for climate change.

Sea Lion Found in Cow Barn

A 200-pound sea lion is headed back to the wild after winding up inside a cow barn in the small Delta town of Banta [CA], near Tracy yesterday.

Kisst Dairy was the temporary home of the animal, dubbed Happy by the man who found him. John Kisst discovered the sea lion during his weekly vet check of his milk cows.

"He scuttled through the field apparently and into what we call a free stall barn, which is where our milk cows are housed. He came into the barn, found himself a free stall or a bed where the cows lay down and Happy decided to sit there," said Kisst.

He said Happy seemed fine, describing the animal at attentive and calm. "The cows were curious, and some of them would put their nose up close to him, but not want to get too close to him. The sea lion kind of just looked at them and didn't bother them so the cows didn't bother him."

Boy's screaming kills chickens?

Hundreds of chickens have been found dead in east China -- and a court has ruled that the cause of death was the screaming of a four-year-old boy who in turn had been scared by a barking dog, state media reported on Wednesday.

The bizarre sequence events began when the boy arrived at a village home in the eastern province of Jiangsu in the summer with his father who was delivering bottles of gas, the Nanjing Morning Post reported.

A villager was quoted as saying the little boy bent over the henhouse window, screaming for a long time, after being scared by the dog.

"One neighbor told police that he had heard the boy's crying that afternoon and another villager confirmed the boy screaming by the henhouse window," the newspaper said.

A court ruled the boy's screaming was "the only unexpected abnormal sound" and that 443 chickens trampled each other to death in fear.
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Blue Jellyfish Invade Australia Beaches

It's summer down under, and at many Australian beaches the sands have turned as blue as the water.

Huge armadas of toxic bluebottle jellyfish are swamping Australia's east coast in record numbers, putting the sting on peak beach season.

More than 30,000 people were stung by the translucent blue jellies on this coast last year—more than twice the number of incidents in 2005—according to Australia's lifeguard group, Surf Life Saving (SLS).

And in a single weekend earlier this month, beachgoers reported more than 1,200 stings, several requiring hospitalization.

The recent influx is the result of a wind shift that has pushed flotillas of the invertebrates ashore, scientists say. But the overall trend suggests that the 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-long) jellyfish are growing in number due to warming ocean waters.

Art by Lukáš Kándl

Sentinelle d'une Panthere

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Giant lions and kangaroos once roamed Australia

Marsupial lions, kangaroos as tall as trucks and wombats the size of a rhinoceros roamed Australia's outback before being killed off by fires lit by arriving humans, scientists said on Thursday.

The giant animals lived in the arid Nullarbor Desert around 400,000 years ago, but died out around 50,000 years ago, relatively shortly after the arrival of human settlers, according to new fossil skeletons found in caves.

Fossilised remains were uncovered almost intact in a series of three deep caves in the centre of the Nullarbor desert -- east of the west coast city of Perth -- in October 2002. "Three subsequent expeditions produced hundreds of fossils so well-preserved that they constitute a veritable "Rosetta Stone for Ice-Age Australia", expedition leader Gavin Prideaux said of the find, detailed in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

The team discovered 69 species of mammals, birds and reptiles, including eight new species of kangaroo, some standing up to 3 metres (9 feet) tall.

Protected from wind and rain, and undisturbed due to their remote location, the remains of the mega-beasts are in near-perfect condition, including the first-ever complete skeleton of a marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex.

Virgin Komodo Dragon Gives Birth

A British zoo on Wednesday announced the virgin birth of five Komodo dragons, giving scientists new hope for the captive breeding of the endangered species.

In an evolutionary twist, the newborns' 8-year-old mother, Flora, shocked staff at Chester Zoo in northern England when she became pregnant without ever having a male partner or even being exposed to the opposite sex.

"Flora is oblivious to the excitement she has caused but we are delighted to say she is now a mum and dad," said a delighted Kevin Buley, the zoo's curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates.

"When the first of the babies hatched, we didn't know whether to make her a cup of tea or pass her the cigars."

World's first rhino conceived by artificial insemination is born

The world's first rhino conceived by artificial insemination has been born at Budapest Zoo, officials said in a statement on Wednesday.

The female baby rhino, born at 5:55 p.m. on Tuesday, weighed in at 128 lbs. "The little one seemed active and vital. An hour after being born it stood up on its own legs," the statement said.

The baby rhino has yet to be named, said zoo spokesman Zoltan Hanga, who added the zoo hoped to find a sponsor for her.

The mother, 26-year-old Lulu, had failed to conceive naturally, even when put with a male rhino named Easyboy. A group of international veterinarians from Germany, Austria and Hungary started in-vitro fertilization and she finally became pregnant in 2005.

Scientists Can't Get Sloth to Move

Scientists in the eastern German city of Jena said Wednesday they have finally given up after three years of failed attempts to entice a sloth into budging as part of an experiment in animal movement.

The sloth, named Mats, was remanded to a zoo after consistently refusing to climb up and then back down a pole, as part of an experiment conducted by scientists at the University of Jena's Institute of Systematic Zoology and Evolutionary Biology.

Neither pounds of cucumbers nor plates of homemade spaghetti were appetizing enough to make Mats move.

"Mats obviously wanted absolutely nothing to do with furthering science," said Axel Burchardt, a university spokesman.

Mats' new home is the zoo in the northwestern city of Duisburg where, according to all reports, he is very comfortable.

Life in the Doghouse is not so bad

The $80,000 home for Rose (below) and five other chow chows is informally called called the Chow Mahal. The 900-square-foot guesthouse built by Charlene and Johnny Grayson of Blossom Valley holds individual kennels with doggy doors that lead to grassy, fenced runs; countless chow knickknacks cover the shelves and walls. "I know it's a little extreme," she said.

Charlene and Johnny Grayson really love their chow chows.

The couple even built them their own place. And it's no doghouse.

The 900-square-foot doggy domicile is done up in earth tones and animal prints. Images of the lion-faced dog gaze out from walls, drink coasters and magazines. A flat-screen TV is tuned to Animal Planet.

The $80,000 house, adjacent to the Graysons' hilltop home east of Lakeside, was christened the Chow Mahal years ago by one of their incredulous friends.

Fluffy cat is a refugee from Mideast violence

It’s hard to think of Stone as a war casualty.

Yet only a few months ago Stone, who is deaf and sports one blue eye and one green eye, was left homeless when his shelter was bombed in Beirut, Lebanon.

Stone and other cats were part of an unprecedented airlift of almost 300 animals left abandoned or wounded in war-torn Beirut. The animals were flown to the Best Friends’ 1,200-acre sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. From there, the four-footed victims of war were on their way to finding new families.

Massive Yellow Jacket Nest Forms on Couple's Property

Most of us have reached for the can of bug spray to put down wasps or bees around the house. But a Bulloch County couple has a bigger problem than that.

Rising up out of the water, it looks like another tree stump from a distance. But a closer look is enough to take your attention, and maybe your breath.

Hundreds of thousands of yellow jackets swarm in and around their nest on Shelley and Tony Roberts' pond. They can't believe it got so big so quick.

"I reckon it was a couple of months ago," said Shelley. "All it was was a little stump and we noticed what looked like mushrooms growing up."

It looks to be about six feet tall and three feet wide. No one's gotten close enough to measure.

Peru's hairless dogs saved at ancient ruins

About the size of an English pointer, Peru's hairless dogs are part of the historic scenery here, but the canine breed almost became history several years back.

"Now we can say they are safe, saved by this project, but a few years ago the Peruvian Hairless Dog was under threat of extinction in Peru," said Pedro Vargas, coordinator of the Huaca Pucllana archaeological project excavating an ancient temple site of the Lima civilisation dating back to 500.

The breed normally has hair resembling a mohawk on the head and a tail brush, but otherwise has naked dark, very warm skin. Its history is long and rather sad, especially after the Spanish conquest starting in 1532.
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Gay animals out of the closet?

From male killer whales that ride the dorsal fin of another male to female bonobos that rub their genitals together, the animal kingdom tolerates all kinds of lifestyles.

A first-ever museum display, "Against Nature?," which opened last month at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum in Norway, presents 51 species of animals exhibiting homosexuality.

"Homosexuality has been observed in more than 1,500 species, and the phenomenon has been well described for 500 of them," said Petter Bockman, project coordinator of the exhibition.

The idea, however, is rarely discussed in the scientific community and is often dismissed as unnatural because it doesn't appear to benefit the larger cause of species continuation.

However, species continuation may not always be the ultimate goal, as many animals, including humans, engage in sexual activities more than is necessary for reproduction.

Sea Turtles Rescued From Chilly Waters

At least three dozen juvenile sea turtles have been rescued from an arctic blast that caused the water temperature in an arm of the Gulf of Mexico to fall 18 degrees in 48 hours.

The turtles, which are cold-blooded, were left comatose by the rapid temperature drop this week in the shallow bay where they feed. Animal rescuers feared that the cold would kill the turtles or make them so sluggish that they would be vulnerable to sharks.

Volunteers and others scooped them up from the surf, bundled them in blankets and towels and took them to the privately run Sea Turtle Inc. rescue center and a University of Texas marine laboratory.

Cold Duck Survives 2 Days In Fridge

A duck that was shot and stuck in a refrigerator for two days survived and now has a new lease on life.

Shot by a Tallahassee, Fla hunter, the duck was destined for the dinner table and placed inside a refrigerator for two days.

But when the hunter's wife opened the fridge, the duck lifted its head.

The hunter and his family decided to spare the duck's life, sending the animal to a wildlife sanctuary.

Spiders prefer malaria-infested mosquitoes

Scientists say East African spiders could help control lethal disease

A jumping spider in East Africa is known to crave mosquitoes engorged with blood. Now scientists find the spider prefers a particular type of them—mosquitoes infested with the deadly malaria parasite.

These predatory spiders could help control the lethal disease, scientists say. Malaria leads to more than one million deaths per year worldwide, mostly children.

"My dream would be that people could be educated to recognize this little animal and not kill it when found inside houses, as it often is, apparently in search of food," behavioral ecologist Ximena Nelson at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, told LiveScience. "If these spiders are left in these houses, they may diminish the number of blood-fed mosquitoes leaving the house, and thus prevent someone else from becoming infected."

Fly three miles? I'll go by boat, thanks

A pair of turnstones, birds that fly thousands of miles across oceans, are taking the ferry to save themselves a three-mile commute.

They catch the 8.30am boat from Falmouth to St Mawes, where they are served a breakfast of breadcrumbs by the skipper. They land after 20 minutes then spend the day feeding, before catching the 4.15pm back across the River Fal.

The birds, known as Fred and Freda, have been hitching rides on the Cornish ferry every winter for the past six years. So fond are they of the skipper, John Brown, that if he is captaining another boat they will often fly off to find him.
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Video: Cute tiger cub

It meows, it purrs, it sleeps, it's CUTE!

Video: Cara and the Door Stop

Cara the fox terrier just hates that door stop!

Swordfish and jellyfish thrive in warm N. Atlantic

Parts of the North Atlantic are setting winter heat records, allowing species ranging from swordfish to jellyfish to thrive beyond their normal ranges in a shift linked by many scientists to global warming.

Temperatures in Arctic waters off northern Europe at the tail end of the Gulf Stream, for example, are about 6.7 Celsius (44.06 Fahrenheit), the highest for early January since records began in the 1930s, according to Norway's Institute of Marine Research.

The world's oceans are already in a warming trend that could alter fish stocks, perhaps damaging coral reefs that are vital nurseries for tropical species while boosting northern stocks of cod or herring.

"The global oceans have been warming since the middle 1970s and several studies have shown that the warming can be attributed to a human-produced signal," said James Hurrell of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Off New York this week, rescuers guided eight dolphins into open water after they became stranded in a shallow cove, apparently because unusually warm waters meant fish on which they feed were staying closer to the coast.

A type of Black Sea jellyfish seems to have become established off Scandinavia, perhaps flushed out of the ballast tanks of visiting ships and now able to survive because of less chilly waters in winter.

It Takes A Village: Female Ducks Negotiate Joint Rearing Of Ducklings

Female eider ducks are well known to team up and share the work of rearing ducklings, but it now appears that they also negotiate not only how much effort each puts into the partnership, but also profit-sharing. An international group of scientists used a long-running study of the eider population in a Finnish archipelago to test predictions about how each hen seeks to maximize her benefits from the partnership without making it so unattractive that other hens withdraw their participation.

As hens arrive at the rearing-area with their ducklings, a period of intense socializing ensues. The hens then sort themselves into cliques -- pairs, trios, or quartets -- with each hen in a group assuming a distinct role.

Flying Moo Cow

It won't fly over the moon, but it'll go over 50 feet! Launch this flying, moo-ing cow into the air and you'll be sure to get a reaction. As an added bonus, every time you shoot him, he lets out a loud loud Moo!
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World's only known albino leaf-nosed bat born in Moscow zoo

An albino leaf-nosed bat, the only one known in the world, was born in the Moscow Zoo, the press service said Thursday.

"A leaf-nosed spectacled albino bat has been born in our zoo," the press service said. "Albino species are very rare in the bat family, and this is the first such case ever for this kind of bat."

The newly-born bat has been named Angela.

(photo credit)

Cat Found On United Plane After Weeks Of Travel

A cat was recovering at the Alameda East Animal Hospital Wednesday after spending 3 weeks in the cargo hold of a United Airlines airplane. The tired, hungry and dirty animal was found Wednesday by workers at Denver International Airport.

The cat, named Pumpkin, was lost on Dec. 28, 2006 when her owner arrived in Washington, D.C.

The jet she was found living on had made trips to Germany, Asia and crisscrossed the United States in the time since then.

Veterinarians said Pumpkin was recovering and appeared to be in pretty good shape considering the 3 weeks she'd been trapped on the plane.

"I'm not sure what she's managed to survive on," said Andrea Barlow, the cat's owner, by telephone. "I'm not really sure what she's been eating or drinking but she's managed to survive which is great news."

Law changed so dog can return to barbershop

Franklin, a four-year-old basset hound, relaxes in his usual spot as Matt Schwendiman gives a haircut to Billy Boles at Matt's Barber Shop in Canal Fulton, Ohio, recently. Franklin was exiled from the shop 10 months ago when an inspector for the Ohio State Barber Board said that animals are not allowed. Franklin is back on his favorite sofa after the board last year crafted rules that allow one animal if certain precautions are met.