All dog owners will know that once a pet finds the perfect spot on your bed, they’re not willing to give it up. Nope, not even if you drop a load of cash on the fanciest dog bed you can find. They’re not budging. After months of struggle to sleep comfortably with all eight of their dogs in one bed, one couple came up with a creative solution. Chris and Mariesa Hughes are the couple behind The Mr. Mo Project, a senior dog rescue that places senior and sick dogs in foster homes. They have eight dogs of their own, and were struggling to get a proper night’s sleep with all of the dogs trying to fit in one bed. So they had a local craftsman build them a giant mega-bed, with plenty of space for themselves and all eight dogs. Chris told metro.co.uk: “When we go to bed, all of the dogs try to beat us there and take up all the space on the bed. We didn’t want to allow one dog and not the other so we would manage and often times wake up needing a hip replacement. Having this bed allows all of the dogs to not only sleep on the bed with us but to also allow us to sleep comfortably.” The couple hired Michael, who runs Michael’s Custom Interiors, to create the bed, which is fourteen feet long and seven feet wide. The bed takes two mattresses and is twice the size of your average king-size. It also features under-bed storage, plus a little set of stairs for the dogs who have trouble jumping up on to the bed. “We are sleeping very well,’ said Chris. “Each one of the dogs has his or her spot and it makes it easy now. Gremlin will sleep up at the top of the bed with us and often use one of our pillows. Stig will wait until the light goes off and then jump up with Mariesa and lay under the covers next to her. Sammy likes to sleep at the bottom of the bed under the covers until he gets too hot and then he moves on top of the covers. Money sleeps on the bottom of the bed with his paws in the air, Quinn sleeps wherever he can find a spot, Meatball sleeps as close to Chris as possible.” “Tejas is the only dog that likes his space so he usually sleeps on one of the many decorative dog beds on the floor. Mabel will start out sleeping next to Chris under the covers but because she only weighs 3 pounds we move her to a pack and play next to the bed so she doesn’t get stepped on. They love it, they love the space. They always want to close to us, and each other. They respect our space now, and we’re all able to get a good night’s sleep.”
This is great news. They really need a good night’s sleep to be able take care of the dogs. The bed is now big enough to accommodate a few new pups, if Chris and Mariesa end up adopting more.
When planning a wedding, there's a lot that has to be arranged. The flowers, the venue, the dress, the food — and for one wedding that took place recently, the puppies. Sarah Mallouk Crain works for Pitties Love Peace, a rescue organization in central Pennsylvania. She and her now husband, Matt Crain, are huge animal lovers and have three rescue dogs of their own, and often foster dogs waiting for their forever homes as well. When they decided to get married, it seemed only fitting that they should include their shared love of dogs on their big day. And so, in place of bouquets of flowers, the wedding party posed with adorable puppies. Photographer Caroline Logan photographed the wedding party with six tiny rescue puppies, each with their own unique story. "Having the puppies involved in the wedding brought so much additional joy to Matt and Sarah's day," Logan told The Dodo. "Though they weren't a part of the ceremony, they were involved in their portrait time." Martha, Abigail, Dolley, Elizabeth and Louisa (named after the first few first ladies), are a litter of boxer-coonhound puppies who were rescued when they were just under a week old. They are now 8 weeks old and thriving in their loving foster homes, and absolutely loved posing with Crain's bridesmaids. Biggie Smalls is a 9-week-old pit bull mix puppy rescued from the streets of Brooklyn, New York, and he was the lucky pup chosen to pose with the bride herself. "The puppies of course caused the photos to be extra natural, candid, and carefree — exactly what I strive for in my work," Logan said. "The wedding party was loving all the puppy snuggles."
Even the groom and his groomsmen got to get in on the fun, and there was no shortage of smiles with the puppies around.
The puppies were all on their very best behavior for the wedding, and proved without a doubt that they were definitely a better choice than flowers. If you're interested in adopting one of the wedding puppies, you can fill out an application with Pitties Love Peace to get started.
Houston, Texas - Houston Zoo guests may catch a glimpse of something odd on the back of one of the giant anteaters, but it's supposed to be there - it's a new baby. Rio, a two-week-old giant anteater pup, can be seen riding atop mom at the zoo. The anteater was born on September 3 to parents Olive and Pablo. The zoo explains giant anteaters spend the first few weeks of life clinging to their mothers and will typically hitch a ride on mom's back for almost 12 months. The zoo says Olive has been very attentive to Rio, carefully nursing and transporting the pup around their habitat. Zookeepers are waiting for Rio to grow a bit and bond with its mom before determining the baby anteater's gender.
It’s long been said that dogs, like some humans, don’t know when it’s time to stop eating when they’re full. They’ll continue to eat the food in front of them until it’s gone, be it a cup of food or 20 pounds of kibble. In fact, they just might keep on eating until they drop dead. But is there actually any truth to this? The short answer? It depends on the dog. Some dogs aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed and will eat until they get sick; there have indeed been reports of dogs getting into a bag of kibble and eating the whole thing. Sometimes it’s caught in time for the dog’s stomach to be pumped; sometimes it’s not. The vast majority of dogs, however, will stop eating once they’ve had enough. They might eat to the point of nausea, or until they throw up, but rarely, if ever, until they die. Dogs, cats, horses, and goats have all been known to eat themselves to death. But again, this only happens rarely. If you’re a good owner, a good rule to keep in mind is to feed your dog the amount recommended by the vet, twice a day, at set feeding times. Don’t leave a constant supply of food out for the dog, and don’t leave the kibble bag out where it can be found. And if your dog does find his or her way into the kibble bag, don’t worry: It might eat until it gets sick, but it’s not going to eat itself to death.
“Get them. Make it fast.” In the chaotic last days of the Second World War, Gen. George Patton’s terse command set off a remarkable secret mission to save a group of priceless stallions and brood mares kidnapped on the orders of Adolf Hitler. The directive might have appeared foolhardy and risky to an outsider but not to the small group of American and German soldiers who put their hostilities aside, desperate to save the world’s most valuable equine prisoners of war, which were being held deep inside enemy lines in occupied Czechoslovakia. Minutes after Patton’s order, Hank Reed, a Virginia horseman who was the commanding officer of the Second Cavalry in Europe, dispatched one of his soldiers, an accomplished rider from Tennessee, to team up with a Nazi veterinarian. Under cover of darkness, they trekked miles through dense forests and battle-scarred villages to capture the horses and place them under American protection — before the arrival of advancing Russian troops. The valuable Lipizzaner horses — snow-white and blue-black, many of them Olympic dressage champions — had been stolen from the countries that the Nazis occupied during the war. In addition to gold, jewelry and artwork, the Nazis seized the valuable horses from Poland, Yugoslavia, Italy and Austria. The Nazis’ goal, according to author Elizabeth Letts in her new book “The Perfect Horse” (Ballantine), was to breed the Lipizzaner with German horses in order to create an equine specimen that was worthy of the German master race. Horses were central to the Nazi propaganda effort, and Hitler was often shown as “the man who put Germany back in the saddle,” according to Letts. In fact, as soon as he ordered the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and unleashed the grisly chain of events that plunged the world into war, Hitler had important plans for the country’s horses. As Letts writes, “In the blueprint forged for its occupation, a plan was put into place for the ‘rebuilding of Poland’s horse-breeding industry’ for the ‘interest of the German nation.’ ” To read more on this story, click here:Why US troops risked their lives in WWII to rescue horses kidnapped by Nazis
How can one of the most popular chew sticks on the planet be so dangerous for your pets, you ask? I mean, most dogs chew on rawhide for hours on end, and not only does it keep them busy, but they seem to last forever. Well if you understood what it took to make this toxic “raw” leather stick, you would quickly understand what the problem is. Aside from the horror stories circulating all over social media these days, of pets needing emergency surgery after consuming rawhide, the majority of pet parents today, especially the newbies, believe that this chew is some sort of dried up meat stick. Let me debunk that myth right away! A rawhide stick is not the by-product of the beef industry nor is it made of dehydrated meat. Rather, rawhide is the by-product of the “Leather Industry”, so theoretically it is a leather chew. Sounds awesome, right? “Producing rawhide begins with the splitting of an animal hide, usually from cattle. The top grain is generally tanned and made into leather products, while the inner portion, in its “raw” state, goes to the dogs.” TheBark.com So, how does this leather, which is conveniently rolled up into pretty shapes, actually get made into those rawhide chews? Follow along my friends and I will enlighten you on how this hide travels through a leathery process where it transforms from hide to a not-so beautiful, colorful, chew stick. Here is a paraphrased tutorial that was explained by the whole dog journal several years back: To read more on this story, click here:The Most Dangerous Pet Chew Ever: Rawhide
