The fierce blaze had completely gutted the home of Terisa Acevedo and, although there was no trace of her beloved pet in the aftermath, she never quite gave up hope.

A month on from the fire, 24-year-old Miss Acevedo was called to the house by her neighbour, as her car alarm had been triggered.

As she was disabling the alarm, she heard a scratching from behind the front door of her ravaged home.

After breaking down the door, she was staggered to find the plucky little pooch starving and dirty, but very much alive.

Lola was rushed to the emergency unit of the Angell Animal Medical Centre, which proclaimed her to be a very lucky dog. Dr Megan Whelan said:

“A lot of people were looking for her, her owner had been asking everyone around town, never gave up and really got rewarded for her effort.”

“She’s a young dog and she was probably eating something in there – probably nothing nutritious.”

“But there’s some mineral-like material on her x-rays. So she might have been getting into something in the house.”

It is thought that Lola managed to find some food and water on the property to sustain her through the sub-zero night-time temperatures that had hit the area. Vets are awaiting the results of x-rays on her lungs, but they expect Lola to be able to go to her new home within the next week.

One chap would – Sergey Gorbunov, a professional scuba diver from Russia. Sergey’s Dachshund, named Boniface, goes scuba diving with his owner and even has his own specially made ‘doggie dry suit’ and full helmet to wear while he’s under the water. Sergey insists that his dog really enjoys going scuba diving with him, and prefers it to watching while his owner goes it alone.

Sergey admitted that Boniface was nervous the first time he tried scuba diving, and didn’t seem to like his dog dry suit or his helmet. However, as the dog began to descend into the pool where he practiced, he began to enjoy it. Now Boniface goes scuba diving regularly in the sea with his owner, as ITN News reports here.

While out for a walk, Lucy darted off from her owners and found herself stuck down a badger’s sett, some eight feet under the ground. Lucy’s owners, John and Janet West, found Lucy’s mother sat next to the badger’s set wondering where her pup had gone. After trying to find Lucy in the forest, they realised that the Dachshund must have found her way down the hole in the ground.

The dog owners, from Burnley, tried everything they could to get the dog out of the hole with no luck. The RSPCA and the Forestry Commission were alerted, and then the fire department joined the hunt for Lucy. Using a snake eye camera they attempted to find the dog in the underground tunnels, but again to no avail.

Eventually it was John West who found his dog, when he heard a whimpering under the ground. John explained:

The whimper kept repeating itself. At first I thought I was imagining it but then I realised it was for real. It was such a relief.

The fire department had to request special permission to dig into the badger’s sett in order to free Lucy. Using special earth moving equipment, the rescue team dug down the eight feet to find the dog, safe and well.

Jane West spoke of how relieved she was to find her dog:

I couldn’t believe it. I saw this little nose pop out then she shook her head and crawled out of the hole.

She squealed at us and her tail started wagging straight away. We were overjoyed. The efforts of the rescue team were simply amazing.

Lucy has now lost a little fur on her head due to the friction in the hole, but she has been declared fit and well.

An article in the Telegraph stated the study is due to be published in the journal Science where scientists studied DNA from 835 dogs, 95 of which had short legs.

This new scientific discovery gives clues about the basic of evolution and how species have different physical attributes. It is hope it may even lead to new discoveries and understanding of diseases such as cancer and human dwarfism.

Reportedly, in short legged dog breeds, the growth of their limb bones is stunted thanks to the calcification of growth plates, meaning they have a long body and yet short legs with the bow-legged, curved appearance that their dog breeders admire.

This particular trait is not the same as when a dog is simply small naturally, as is the case with a toy poodle, and is known as chrondodysplasia or disproportional dwarfism.

From the study, there were over 40,000 markers studied from the DNA and all the short-legged breeds like the Basset, corgi and daschund had a unique variant in their genes. Unlike the other dog breeds, the short legged breeds have a ‘retrogene’. In their case, it was:

“an extra copy of a gene that controls a growth-promoting protein called fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGF4)”

This retrogene means that the FGF4 protein is over-produced. The scientists believe this might cause particular growth receptors to ‘turn on’ at the wrong time during the development of the foetus.

As mentioned on a BBC documentary last August (see Martin Clunes: A Man and his Dogs), every dog today descended from the same ancestors as domestic dogs were bred from wolves. Using computer analysis, the National Human Genome Reasearch Institute team calculated that all dogs with this particular gene variant can be traced to a mutation in a shared ancestor’s genes.

Lead researcher on the project Dr Elaine Ostrander said:

“Every species, including canine and human, carries an amazing record of evolution scripted genomes that can teach us about the mechanisms at work in biology, as well as about human health and disease.”

Colleague Dr Hedi Parker said: “Our findings suggest retrogenes play a larger role in evolution than has been previously thought, especially as a source of diversity within species. We were surprised to find that just one retrogene inserted at one point during the evolution of a species could yield such a dramatic physical trait has been conserved over time.”