Dogs in the News, and a Super Cute Clip

In the news, Kabang--a dog who lost her snout protecting two children from a motorcycle crash--has arrived at UC Davis to get life-saving treatment, and a new prosthetic snout. This was a long trip from Kabang's native Philippines! She is lucky to have so many people around the globe rallying for her, contributing to transportation and medical costs. This special soul definitely deserves her fame.

A pair of London Street Artists have created a cool new art project-- dog jackets that were all individually made by various street artists around the globe. The art installment is called "For Dogs Sake," and all the pieces are for sale, with proceeds to benefit dog-friendly charities.

When a pair of golden retrievers got lost in the woods at Cape Cod for two weeks, nobody really expected them to come back. When one returned after that length of time, his owner was glad to have found one of the animals, and did not expect what happened next. The pooch led her straight to the second dog, reuniting the entire family. What an amazing animal!

This is a cool long article summing up the science behind what our dogs are thinking. Going from math to language, it shows a lot about what we have learned about the canine brain. For example, most dogs have a vocabulary of about 165 words, though some can learn up to 250. Dogs can read human gestures and body language better than chimpanzees (our closest cousins) can.

A pup who was adopted from a shelter in Connecticut repaid his new family in an amazing way-- he alerted them to the fact that their nine-month-old child had stopped breathing in her sleep. With his prompting, his owners checked on the baby and were able to call paramedics and revive the little girl.

In this radio program, NPR traces the origin of the phrase "the dog ate  my homework." This is really funny!

From the daycare today, I caught this great clip of tiny boy Kalohe romping with Bogie (who won't be bigger than the little Bulldog pup for long!). These two make a really cute pair.

Enjoy your weekend!

-Hope

P.S.-- Here's some info on a pet food recall-- Nature's Recipe is instituting a voluntary recall of some of its products due to the possibility of salmonella contamination. If you use this brand, please check to make certain that you do not have any products from these production runs.

Kumpi still has never needed to be subject to a recall--the rigorous testing of ingredients and final products (all held to human baking standards) ensures that this will remain a very unlikely scenario.