Deaf Dog Learns Sign Language While Waiting For Someone To Love Him

Gordon's world is a silent one.  Totally deaf and abandoned on the streets of London, Gordon would have reason to withdraw from the world around him.  For Gordon, who has been looking for a forever home since last year, being deaf has hurt his chances of being adopted.  Still, Gordon is an incredibly sweet individual, and people at the shelter Gordon currently calls home are not quick to give up on finding him a real home, and a way to communicate — through sign language. "Our staff are teaching him sign and rewarding him with treats," Raffy Hamid, of The Mayhew Animal Home, told The Dodo.

http://tinyurl.com/qzjuu2y

An Evolving View of Animals

The portrait has a blunt simplicity. A chimpanzee sits with his back facing the camera. His gently lit body is nearly hairless from alopecia, and only a few strands of gray hair remain on his sandpapery scalp. A spotlight on his head reveals a reddish scar that has yet to fully heal.  Tim Flach, a London-based photographer who has been documenting exotic animals for the past two decades, said he deliberately captured the back of the chimp’s body to provoke his viewers to question the striking similarities — and differences — between their own bodies and the chimp’s.

http://tinyurl.com/ntetj28

-Igor Purlantov

Man Wakes Up to a Fox In His Bed

Hide your girlfriend! Hide your down comforter! There's a furry and bizarre bed intruder on the loose. According to The Mirror, a half-asleep man rolled over in bed expecting to find his girlfriend, but discovered a fox instead.

http://tinyurl.com/np7atz8

Olympic Horse Used Stem Cell Therapy

Ravel, a horse competing at the 2012 London Olympics, underwent stem cell therapy treatment that helped heal a possibly career-ending injury to one of his legs, according to the Helen Woodward Animal Center in California. Ravel, a regular client of Rodrigo Vazquez of Equine Surgical Services at the center, is believed to be the first Olympian to benefit from a stem cell-based treatment. Ravel is now the highest scoring horse on Team USA at the Olympics.

http://tinyurl.com/97h4jts

London Zoo's Annual Stocktake Sees Penguins, Chimps And Cubs Counted

Counting sheep is fairly commonplace, but what about counting penguins, lions, tigers and bears? London Zookeepers have the tricky but essential task of counting every animal in their care, in order to keep their zoo licence for the coming year.  Dodging meerkats and going cross-eyed over grasshoppers, the annual stocktake is made doubly difficult by the enclosures' careful camouflage created by London zoo for its much-loved inhabitants.

http://tinyurl.com/74b4d2f

Chocoholic Fish Weaned off Kit Kat Diet

Staff at a London aquarium have managed to wean a chocoholic fish raised on Kit Kats onto a healthier diet, Sky News reported.

http://tinyurl.com/3klqkrg