Grandpa rescues dog from alligator

Stephen Gustafson says he didn`t think twice about running to rescue his dog when she was dangling from the jaws of an alligator in Lake County. Fla. Gustafson, 66, was trimming branches on an oak tree when he heard his 13-pound West Highland Terrier, named Bounce, let out a "yelp." "She let out a really high pitched, what I call `yelp,` and I looked up and the gator had her in his mouth and was taking her far out." "I knew if I needed to react, it had to be quick." Gustafson took off running across the backyard of his Florida home for the lake and wrestled the alligator to save Bounce. More

55-year-old domestic parrot died after squawking his last word: “Cheerio”

UK – The African Grey parrot Tarbu, believed to be one of the world’s oldest domestic parrots, uttered his final farewell to Nina Morgan, 89, as she made her way to bed.
He was so weak the next morning that he couldn’t manage his usual greeting of “Hello, my darling” and dropped dead from his perch.
The parrot was known for being vocal and would shout “Cheerio, bye, see you soon” to Mrs Morgan every time she left the house.
He squawked “woof, woof” at dogs, as well as calling “miaow, miaow” at cats that passed his window.
“The night before he died I went up to bed and he said ‘cheerio’ to me from his cage. It was the last thing that he said. More

Man Lost At Sea For 15 Weeks Rescued By Shark

Pacific Ocean – A lost fisherman who drifted at sea for 15 weeks, sleeping next to his dead brother-in-law, was eventually helped to safety – by a shark.
Toakai Teitoi was stuck on a 15ft wooden boat for more than 100 days after he ran out of fuel and the vessel drifted deep into the Pacific.
Mr Teitoi said he woke in the afternoon to the sound of scratching and looked overboard to see a six-foot shark circling the boat and bumping the hull.
When the shark had his attention it swam off.
“He was guiding me to a fishing boat. I looked up and there was the stern of a ship and I could see crew with binoculars looking at me.” More

Cow rescued by fire crews after getting stuck in tree

UK – A cow had to be rescued by fire crews in Cumbria after falling 100ft down an embankment and getting stuck in a tree.
Farmer Phillip Armstrong discovered the shorthorn heifer down the steep drop of a quarry after noticing it was missing from the farm in Sheriff Park, Penrith.The cow was saved from plunging to the bottom after getting stuck on a sapling, the fire service said.
The animal was sedated by a vet and winched to safety using slings.     More

School To Force 8th Graders Into 9:45 A.M. Lunch

 One Queens middle school is facing the problem of having too many students and not enough cafeteria space. It`s a predicament that has parents up in arms over whether its lunch or brunch their children will be eating before 10 a.m. each day. At I.S. 25 in Flushing the cafeteria there is being slammed by extreme overcrowding, prompting an extraordinary response to the lunch crunch starting when school returns. In a letter to parents, the principal at I.S. 25 wrote eighth grade students will begin their brunch at 9:45 a.m. "Since they are students who rarely eat breakfast," the principal wrote, "this will prove to be a good move." More

Snake bites man, man bites snake back

A Nepali farmer exacted revenge on a cobra by biting the snake back and killing it after it had attacked him.
Mohammed Salmodin was working in his rice paddy field in a village about 125 miles south of Kathmandu when he came upon the snake.
“A snake charmer told me that if a snake bites you, bite it until it is dead and nothing will happen to you,” Salmodin explained. More

Battalion Chief Bit by Monkey at Crash Scene

A Fort Lauderdale battalion chief received an unusual injury when he was bit by a pet monkey after responding to a wreck.
Adam Bennet was riding his motorcycle with his pet Marmoset monkey in a travel bag when he crashed.
When paramedics arrived on the scene, he reportedly notified them that he had his monkey with him.
Just as Battalion Chief Stewart Ahearn was about to turn off the wrecked motorcycle, the monkey came out from under a wheel and bit the knuckle of his left pointer-finger. More

Prehistoric tiny bugs found trapped in amber

 Scientists have found three well preserved ancient insects frozen in amber — and time — in what is Earth's oldest bug trap.

The discoveries of amber-encased insects in Italy may sound like something out of "Jurassic Park" but these bugs are even older than that. They are about 230 million years old, which puts them in the Triassic time period, and about 100 million years older than what had been the previously known oldest critters trapped in fossilized tree resin, or amber.

Gooey tree resin is like sap but without water and can't be diluted.

Researchers painstakingly examined 70,000 droplets of amber found in northeastern Italy. Stuck in them were two microscopic mites and much of one fly. The mites are too small to be seen with the naked eye and the fly is a tad tinier than a fruit fly, researchers say. More

Hippo stuck in swimming pool at South Africa lodge

A hefty hippo chased away from his herd at a South African game reserve has found a refreshing place to relax: the lodge’s swimming pool. Now it’s stuck there.
The young hippopotamus plopped into the pool at the Monate Conservation Lodge north of Johannesburg.
The pool is big enough for the hippo to swim but it’s eight feet deep with no steps and “there’s no way he can come out,” lodge manager Ruby Ferreira told The Associated Press.
A game capture team will sedate the hippo and lift it out of the pool with a crane, said MuIsabel Wentzel of South Africa’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Much of the water has already been drained to make the extraction easier. A veterinarian will be present during operation hippo extraction.  Wentzel said the 4-year-old hippo’s mother gave birth recently, and more dominant males forced him from the herd. More

Royal Dog Fight

A British royal source told The Daily Telegraph Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis badly injured an 11-year-old Norfolk terrier belonging to Princess Beatrice.
The source told The Daily Telegraph the corgis were out on a walk with the terrier, Max, at Balmoral castle in Royal Deeside, Scotland, when the animals began to fight and left Max with a torn ear and several bite wounds, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The source said the dogs were with the queen’s walker and no royals were present for the attack. More

Chihuahua terrorizes Swedish neighborhood

Sweden - Swedish police responding to a report of an aggressive dog said they were surprised to learn the offending canine was a Chihuahua. Police in Malmo said they were called to a neighborhood by residents who said a loose canine was acting aggressively toward passersby and had bitten another dog, The Local.sereported Friday. Officers said they were shocked when they arrived and the neighbors described the aggressive pooch as a Chihuahua, the smallest breed of dog. "I did think it was going to be a bigger dog than that," Officer Calle Persson said. More

Robot To Throw First Pitch At Detroit Tigers Game

 A robot developed by Detroit-area high school students will toss out the ceremonial first pitch at Wednesday night’s Detroit Tigers game against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Colm Boren, an engineer and mentor for the FIRST Robotics organization, said a team of about 30 teenagers spent the summer designing the robot – Cy-ber Young – from the ground up.
“It’s a robot designed to throw out the pitch. It’s about the size of a shopping cart and uses a big scuba tank as the main source of power. So, we use that as basically a big pea shooter to blow the ball through a piece of PVC pipe.
There’s a camera that’s used and the robot actually travels out to the mound on its own. The kids are steering it with joystick controllers that you’d use with a video game and they have a laptop,” said Boren. More

Rogue Penguins Break Out of Zoo Yet Again

Tokyo, Japan - Some pesky penguins in the Japanese city of Suzaka are acting like characters in a Madagascar movie and are giving zookeepers quite the headache with their repeated attempts to break free. A pair of 3-month-old chicks from Suzaka Zoo first escaped earlier this month by jumping off a slide. Zookeepers responded by attaching boards to the foot of the slide, but two days later another chick got out by crawling under the fence, according to Japanese media reports. Keepers responded a second time, by sealing off the bottom of the fence. Early this morning, that same bird made yet another successful escape by hopping over the fence. Zookeepers spotted it swimming in a nearby pond a few hours later. More

Couple claim their home was ransacked by a giant catfish

China – A Chinese couple claim their home was ransacked by a fishy intruder – a giant catfish.
Xu Xianmin and his wife claim the fish sneaked into their home, in Changji, Xinjiang Province, when their backs were turned.
They thought their one-room home was empty when they locked up to leave for their jobs as sanitation workers at 4am.
But when they came back at 9.30am, it had been trashed. They thought they had been burgled until they saw something moving on the floor.
“I thought my home had been ransacked by thieves. The table was turned over, and stacked plastic bottles were everywhere,” said Xu.
“When I was picking up things from the other side of the table, I suddenly touched something cold and slippery, and it was moving!”
After asking neighbours for help, they found a huge catfish on the floor. More

‘Banana’ in the bathroom turned out to be boa constrictor

A woman was left shocked when she discovered that what she thought was a banana in her bathroom was actually a 4ft long boa constrictor.
Stacey Way, 28, was cleaning the bathroom floor when she noticed a yellow object next to the water pipe.
She assumed it was a banana her toddler had shoved down the side, and went to fetch her gloves to pick it up, but forgot about it.
A few days later she was bathing her two daughters and wiped the floor again when she suddenly saw the object move.
On closer inspection, she realised that the ‘banana actually had a mouth – and that it was a snake. More

Boy raised $25,000 dollars for World War II Veterans, fined by inspector

A Chewelah student who has raised more than $25,000 dollars for World War II Veterans is facing a hefty fine for his good deeds.

12-year-old Justin Peterson holds fundraisers year round for the Honor Flight Program. Last Saturday, he held another fundraiser at the Chewelah City Park.

While selling hamburgers, a health inspector stopped by Peterson’s booth and fined him $170 for not having the proper food permit.

Peterson said, “She charged us for it and I was kind of sad. I was just trying to raise money for vets.”

The Health District isn’t forgiving the fines, but board members have agreed to pay them off using their own money. More

Pet owners spend big bucks on dental work to give dogs dazzling smiles

Australia – Pet owners are spending up big on orthodontic braces, cosmetic dental work, root canal fillings, polishes and mouth washes to give their pooches dazzling, no-gap smiles and “kissable breath”.
Veterinary surgeon Kevin Cruickshank said: “There is a big shift in how pet owners look after their pets. They want them to fit in with the family, and many are treated like children.”
Image-conscious owners wanted their pets to look good – and there is nothing fun about “doggy kisses” by an animal with severe gum disease, said Dr Cruickshank, who runs the Gold Coast Vet Surgery, which has a specialist dental suite.
“I have come across pet-owners who have braces put on their dogs because the teeth are crooked, or get teeth fixed for cosmetic reasons to avoid gaps. More

Careful black bear raids Colorado candy store with no damage

A black bear went in and out of a Colorado candy store multiple times early one July morning, but he used the front door and didn't break a thing.
The bear did, however, steal some treats from the Estes Park store, including English toffee and some chocolate-chip cookies dipped in caramel and milk chocolate called "cookie bears."
Surveillance video at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory showed the bear prying open the door and grabbing some candy near the registers. He took the treats outside and ate them, then returned for more. More