OLDSMAR, Fla. - And some people get jittery about mice in the kitchen.
Sandra Frosti, a 69-year-old central Floridian, found an 8-foot long alligator prowling in her kitchen late Monday night, authorities said.
Frosti said the gator must have pushed through the back porch screen door and then went inside through an open sliding glass door at […]

LOS ANGELES - Snickers the Sea Dog is barely more than a pup, but he’s already an old salt.
The 8-month-old pooch spent three months adrift in the Pacific with his owners and a parrot until their 48-foot sailboat ran aground in December on tiny Fanning Island, 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. Snickers and Gulliver had […]

BUCHAREST, Romania - A news agency says a man was rearing a lion in his back garden in Romania until neighbors decided they had heard enough roaring and called police.
Rompres state news agency says police found a caged 3-year-old lioness, as well as two deer, a stag and two peacocks roaming the garden of the […]

CLEVELAND - Researchers from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo have discovered a rare giant turtle in northern Vietnam — a find that carries great scientific and cultural significance. Swinhoe’s soft-shell turtle was previously thought to be extinct in the wild. Three other turtles of the species are in captivity, said experts from the Zoo’s Asian turtle […]

ROCKAWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J. - The Army is suspending outdoor weapons testing at a northern New Jersey base after a wayward artillery shell fragment crashed through the roof of a home miles away, fatally injuring a pet cat, the base’s commanding officer said Saturday.
Picatinny Arsenal officials will investigate how a 2-pound piece of an artillery […]

BOSTON - A widow is suing Petsmart Inc, saying that her husband died after a liver transplant that was contaminated by a sick hamster sold by the largest U.S. specialty pet retailer to the organ donor.
The suit, filed in Massachusetts Superior Court in February, seeking unspecified damages, moved up to U.S. District Court in Boston […]

An investigation is ongoing after more than 60 cats — 41 dead and 20 alive — were taken from a downtown home on Saturday.
Police arrived at the house at 111th Avenue and 96th Street around 4 p.m. to respond to a report of a break-and-enter, said EPS Sgt. Guy Kinney.
Once inside, officers made a gruesome […]

Ponoka (Alberta, Canada) RCMP are looking for the public’s help after someone hung a cat from a light post on a busy downtown street.
On Saturday, the manager of the Fields store in Ponoka called police at about 10:30 a.m. after a customer spotted the tabby cat hanging by its neck from a light post nearby.
RCMP […]

WELLINGTON, Fla. - The owner of a wildlife sanctuary was attacked by two cheetahs and hospitalized with about 40 puncture wounds to her extremities and back, authorities said.
Judy Berens was airlifted Saturday to Delray Medical Center, but it appears her injuries are not life-threatening, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.
Berens owns and […]

NAHA, Japan - At a Zen Buddhist temple in southern Japan, even the dog prays.
Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha’s Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar.
It took him only […]