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AP Photo/Gail Burton

21-year-old American Air Force Private First Class William A. Wynne, stationed in New Guinea during World War II, met and fell in love with with Smoky, a Yorkshire Terrier pup.

The story told in Yorkie Doodle Dandy is the history of their experiences together in war, being smuggled through customs, military discharge, their return to America, Will’s wedding, two inter-coastal automobile trips, performing in show business and much more.

Smoky is actually a renowned WWII hero who strung telephone lines through an eight-inch drainage pipe under an airstrip in a combat area - a three day job which was accomplished in two minutes by the seven inch tall, four pound, Smoky.

Stories about Smoky appear in over 50 books and magazine articles Including Volumes I and II of the History of the Fifth Air Force. Smoky was YANK magazine’s “Champion Mascot of the SWPA” in 1944.

Yorkie Doodle Dandy is a great cream puff of a book - an excellent way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Feral cats — nearly invisible and often reviled — have prowled into the spotlight.

The free-roamers with an aversion to humans have grabbed headlines this spring because of a bounty on their heads in Iowa, a threatened roundup and disposal in Fairfax County, Va., and other elimination plans across the country.

But the cats also are receiving attention of a different sort.

Grass-roots groups and animal-welfare organizations are directing money and energy toward helping the tens of millions of feral cats that skulk about college campuses, cluster around back-alley trash bins, swarm among the rocks at beach communities and colonize the nether-reaches of suburban parks, military installations and abandoned barns and fields.

According to Neighborhood Cats, a “feral” cat is one who has reverted in some degree to a wild state. They originate from former domestic cats who were lost or abandoned and then learned to live outdoors or in environments involving little human contact.

TNR (trap/neuter/return) respects a feral cat’s wild state. The neutering of the ferals prevents tremendous suffering and shields the cats from the hostility their behavior might otherwise draw from human neighbors. But the return of them to their own territory and the providing of adequate food and shelter gives them the opportunity to live among their own, to be free and to answer to their own unique natures.

This method thwarts future litters and reduces the yowling, spraying and fighting that annoy humans. In the process, the cats usually are vaccinated, treated for minor problems and given a notch in the ear to identify they are sterile. Over time, the colony will grow smaller through attrition.

For a list of organizations with programs to benefit feral cats, see the USA Today article, Compassion often eludes feral cats; groups out to save them, by Sharon L. Peters.

Photo: Joan Fairman Kanes for USA TODAY

Molly is a gray speckled pony who was abandoned by her owners when Katrina hit southern Louisiana, USA.

She spent weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken to a farm where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a pit bull terrier, and almost died.

Her gnawed right front leg became infected and her vet went to LSU for help. But LSU was overwhelmed, and this pony was a welfare case. But after surgeon Rustin Moore met Molly, he changed his mind. He saw how the pony was careful to lie down on different sides so she didn’t seem to get sores, and how she allowed people to handle her.

Moore agreed to remove her leg below the knee and a temporary artificial limb was built. Molly walked out of the clinic and her story really begins there.

Molly happened to be a one-in-a-million patient. She’s tough as nails, but sweet, and she was willing to cope with pain. The other important factor is having a truly committed owner who is dedicated to providing the daily care required over the lifetime of the horse.

Molly’s story turns into a parable for life in post-Katrina Louisiana . The little pony gained weight, her mane felt a comb. A human prosthesis designer built her a leg.

The prosthetic has given Molly a whole new life, Allison Barca DVM, Molly’s regular vet, reports.

(via reddit)

When sonar surveys spotted a vast pile of rubble in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam late last winter, officials suddenly worried part of the dam structure was eroding into the river.

What they found below the spillways in February was not a giant pile of rock at all, but a humongous pile of thousands upon thousands of sturgeon - some of them 14 feet long or longer - lounging together in frigid water at the bottom of the river.

The mountain of white sturgeon contained around 60,000 fish, according to a crude estimate by Michael Parsley, a research fisheries biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Columbia River Research Laboratory in Cook, Wash. He described that estimate as “probably conservative.”

It was an aquatic phenomenon nobody had ever seen at such a monstrous scale, offering a startling glimpse into the life of the Columbia’s largest and most ancient fish.

Source: Oregon Live
Photo: Columbia River Trophy Sturgeon Fishing

Did you ever wonder what your pet does all day while you’re not home?

Now, with the Pet’s Eye View Camera, you can take a photo at intervals of 1, 5 or 15 minutes just by attaching the gadget to your pet’s collar.

$47.95 from Discover This

Tired of your pet scratching the door to come in? Want to teach your dog or cat to tell you when it needs to go out? Then you’re ready for the Pet Age Magazine product of the year: Pet Chimeâ„¢.

The Pet Chime is a wireless doorbell that allows your pet to tell you when it wants to go out or come in to the house. Two piece device: a paw-shaped remote control transmitter and a receiver chime. Both components are FCC approved.

Doorbell works with both dogs and cats.

To activate a chime, pets simply step on or push the paw with its nose. Select from two chime sounds: a dog bark or traditional ding-dong.

$24.99 at Comfort House
via Trendhunter

There’s a new addition to the preemie ward at Cypress Gardens, and keepers are giving it around-the-clock care. An albino wallaby named Bela gave birth to an albino baby about four months ago.

In and of itself, the birth is pretty amazing — albino wallabies are rare. Fewer than 10 have been born in the United States.

The new baby girl was supposed to stay in her mom’s pouch until next winter, where she could nurse, grow fur, and get stronger. But fate stepped in.

About a week and a half ago, a park employee found the new baby outside the pouch. Gardens officials are not sure what happened. They suspect that Bela may have been spooked, and threw the baby out. That’s what wallaby moms do in the wild to save their own skins when they’re threatened.

Since the baby is not even old enough to stand, it couldn’t climb back in. Keepers tried to put it back in, but Bela would have no part of it.

“The mother growled at us. She didn’t want anything to do with her,” said Jessica Bond, an animal manager. “So it was in the baby’s best interest to pull her and hand-raise her.”

That’s easier said than done. The baby, who hasn’t been named yet, eats a few tablespoons of a special formula every three hours. Keepers, who take turns bringing the little one home, are up in the middle of the night feeding her.

Every other feeding they have to grease the baby with Vaseline, which simulates the mom licking her.

Gradually, the feedings will taper off. But she won’t be fully weaned for another year.

Source: MyFox, Tampa Bay