News

Some dogs just love to be with their owners, no matter what they’re doing. Dogs are happy sitting on the sofa while you watch TV, sitting on your feet under the table while you eat and sitting in the car while you drive; so long as they’re with their owners, they’re happy.

One dog in Norway, a Belgian Shepherd, has taken this theory a little too far when he went on a parachute jump with his owner, but at least they are both in the army – the Austrian special forces to be precise. The dog is a special sniffer dog, trained to detect explosives and save lives, and his owner is a paratrooper who is training with the British Royal Marines.

The soldier jumped out of a transporter plane, some 10,000 foot up in the air, with the brave dog strapped securely too him. The dog was even muzzled so that he [read more]

The nation’s elite dog breeders were given a fright at Crufts this weekend when the Birmingham dog show was invaded by a nude scouser. Liverpudlian Mark Roberts brought a halt to the judging when he invaded the floor, dressed only in his boots and a cat mask covering his modesty.

Mark was pretty lucky that the dogs at Crufts were all so well behaved, as he could have found his stunt proving very costly indeed. Mark was chased around the arena by a laughing guard, before being escorted away.

This wasn’t the first time Mark had removed his clothing in aid of, well, nothing really as he has a reputation for streaking. Mark first shot to fame by invading the weather map on This Morning, when he leapt at a startled Fred Talbot. Since then Mark has [read more]

This year’s Crufts dog show will have what is probably its oldest ever dog on show. The dog, named Hatch, is from the 16th century and is believed to have died in 1545 when her ship, the Mary Rose, sank in the Solent Channel near the Isle of White.

Hatch’s skeleton will be on show at Crufts this year, before returning to the south coast where she will be displayed in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. Hatch was believed to have been responsible for catching rats aboard the Mary Rose. It was common at the time for crews to use dogs, instead of cats, because cats were believed to bring bad luck upon the ships.

Although Hatch didn’t do much for the crew of the Mary Rose.

She has been named Hatch because of where she was found on board the ship, near a hatch door that led to the carpenter’s cabin. Hatch’s skeleton has taken many years to reconstruct and it is now [read more]

Blue Peter is well known for its pets, dogs in particular. Shep may be long gone, but one of the current crop of Blue Peter dogs, Mabel, has been performing for viewers for the last 14 years. Those days are coming to an end however, as Mabel has announced (presumably through an interpreter) that she is going to retire at the end of month.

Mabel, pictured with Lucy

Mabel’s last ever appearance on Blue Peter will be on the 30th March.

One of the current Blue Peter presenters, Joel Defries, announced [read more]

Following a spate of complaints from concerned dog lovers, the BBC was forced to issue a statement on behalf of its flagship program, EastEnders, announcing that it doesn’t condone the killing of dogs.

The furore exploded after EastEnders character Lucas Johnson, played by Don Gilet, made a remark that he may have killed the dog belonging to his son after it was sniffing around the burial site of his previous victim, Owen Turner. The remark clearly offended some dog loving viewers as it prompted over 100 complaints. The BBC then issued the following statement:

EastEnders does not condone the killing of dogs, just as it does not condone killing people.

Following the storyline, actor Don Gilet (who also doesn’t condone the killing of dogs) has claimed he’s scared to [read more]

When the first Jamaican bobsled team competed at the Winter Olympics in 1998 it became the subject of a famous Hollywood movie, entitled ‘Cool Runnings’. We hope Hollywood is taking note because the Jamaicans are at it again, this time with dogs in Canada.

It’s also not the comparative safety of the Canadian Winter Olympic that the Jamaicans are entering, but the very dangerous dogsled race known as the Iditarod, which is a 1,15o mile race through Alaska. We wrote about the race last year, and many of the dog teams suffered tragedy on the way.

The race takes place later this month, and 28 year old Jamaican Newton Marshall will be [read more]

A chicken named Mabel has taken its love of extreme sports to the max, and has adopted a litter of Rottweiler puppies. This it did after losing a fight with a horse that resulted in it injuring its foot, causing its owners to allow it to sleep inside the house – where it found the puppies.

Mabel, and her puppies, live on a farm in Shrewsbury. Mabel keeps her new charges warm by ‘sitting’ on them while they are asleep in her basket. Mabel is dicing with death because the puppies aren’t actually orphans; they have a mother named Nettle. Mable waits for Nettle to leave them before entering their basket and sitting on them.

The owners of the courageous chicken, and the Rottweiler puppies, are Ros and Edward Tate.

Edward Tate explains the bizarre situation:

Mabel was hatched here about a year ago. She would have gone onto someone’s dinner plate but we saved her and brought her into the house.

Unfortunately, she got into an accident with a horse, which accidentally trod on her foot. Because of that, she gets terribly cold during the winter so we decided to bring her into the house.

And then we had puppies about three weeks ago. Mabel observed Nettle’s behaviour and, as soon as there was a chance, she [read more]

‘The dog ate it’ is a well known excuse for a great many things, usually offered by schoolboys as to the reason they haven’t completed their homework. However, sometimes the dog actually has eaten it, and when the ‘it’ in question is a pair of tickets to a dog training show, you have to wonder about the real intelligence of some dogs.

Mike and Morag Evans, a couple from East Lothian, in Scotland, had purchased tickets for a show in Nottingham from Cesar Millan; his ‘Dog Whisperer’ tour. The show covers many aspects of dog training, something that the couple’s dog ‘Islay’ wasn’t too keen on experiencing.

The dog whisperer tickets cost £40, but that didn’t stop the couple’s Labrador from setting about them in a blatant attempt to avoid the show altogether. Mike was concerned that because the tickets had been badly chewed up, including damage to the barcode, that they would be refused entry. Something which didn’t seem to concern Islay.

When Mike contacted the Nottingham Arena they [read more]

The rollercoaster marriage between Chelsea and England footballer Ashley Cole, and his pop star wife Cheryl Cole, seems to be heading to the dogs – quite literally. After Ashley’s much publicised extra marital activities, Cheryl has finally done what many thought she should have done long ago and said adios to Ashley. This has left one problem however, who gets the dogs?

Girls Aloud singer and X-Factor judge Cheryl Cole has repeatedly stated in interviews recently that the most important things in her life are her two pet Chihuahuas, Buster and Coco. The problem is that Ashley also loves the two little dogs, meaning the couple could have a struggle on their hands deciding who gets to keep the dogs.

According to a close source however, the couple have [read more]