October is Adopt A Shelter Dog Month

October is 'Adopt-a-shelter dog month' many dogs are adopted this month throughout the Magic Valley.  Ralitsa Carter recently brought home three-month-old Rio; he's a lab, husky mix.  In the past, she always bought dogs from breeders. This time, she decided to go in a different direction.  "With my husband we've been discussing for a very longtime to whether or not to get a dog or not. We decided to get one and we thought the best thing for both us and one of those lucky dogs to just come home with us. That's why we decided to adopt” said Ralitsa Carter, adopted a dog. 

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The Original LOL Cats

Think our fascination with quirky pictures of cats began with the Internet? In their new book, “The Photographed Cat: Picturing Human-Feline Ties, 1890-1940” (Syracuse University Press), authors Arnold Arluke and Lauren Rolfe show how we’ve been embarrassing our furry friends since the birth of photography. Here, Tiger, the mascot of a VFW post in Long Beach, Calif., poses after World War I.

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Elephants 'Understand Human Gesture'

African elephants have demonstrated what appears to be an instinctive understanding of human gestures, according to UK scientists.  In a series of tests, researcher Ann Smet, of the University of St Andrews, offered the animals a choice between two identical buckets, then pointed at the one containing a hidden treat.  From the first trial, the elephants chose the correct bucket.  The results are published in the journal Current Biology.

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Tales of Unlikely Animal Adoptions

Stories of interspecies friendships are always adorable, but they’re truly heartwarming when they involve animals adopting young outside their species and caring for them as their own. Lisa Rogak collected more than 40 such tales in her new book, "One Big Happy Family: Heartwarming Stories of Animals Caring for One Another."

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Seal Survives By a Nose

This lucky seal avoided a grisly death in the jaws of a great white shark — by a nose.  The marine mammal was swimming with a pod of pals off the coast of South Africa when the killer fish tried turning it into lunch.  But the massive predator missed its mark as it breached the surface, nailing the seal with its snout — instead of row after row of razor-sharp teeth.  

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Five Animals That Hold Key to Immortality

While death's cold, bony fingers will inevitably reach all creatures, Mother Nature has imbued a few of her quirkier children with resilient biology seemingly predisposed to keep mortality at bay. Tapping into their secrets has long been a quest for scientists, not least because the thought of our minds flickering out one day continues to bother most people. 

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How Pets Grieve When Their Furry Friends Die

When Adam Marsh lost his 6-year-old Pomeranian, Astor, to lung disease in June, he wasn’t the only one in their downtown apartment devastated by the death. Marsh’s other dog, Cooper, a 2-year-old, 6-pound Chihuahua- dachshund mix, seemed to be grieving as well.

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Dogs Are People, Too

For the past two years, my colleagues and I have been training dogs to go in an M.R.I. scanner — completely awake and unrestrained. Our goal has been to determine how dogs’ brains work and, even more important, what they think of us humans.

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What People Get All Wrong About Their Cats

We may think we know our furry feline friends, but they’re often misunderstood, says anthrozoologist John Bradshaw, author of the new book “Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet.”

http://tinyurl.com/n28jh4f

What Government Shutdown Means for Animals?

Congressional Democrats and Republicans failed to reach agreement last night on continued funding of the federal government, and Washington this morning began the process of temporarily mothballing its programs and services.   In a shutdown, "non-essential" federal workers are furloughed, while some "essential" operations continue. 

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