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 […]

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 […]

SHELBURNE FALLS, Mass. - When Gary Mikus learned that an incurable nerve disease was starting to paralyze the hind legs of his German shepherd, he immediately dismissed the idea of putting the dog to sleep.
Then he spotted an ad in a pet food store: “Eddie’s Wheels For Pets. Help for Handicapped Pets.” Now the dog […]

Shocking but true: Earlier this week, 800 small dogs were seized from a filthy triple-wide trailer in Tucson, Ariz., where the elderly residents were overwhelmed trying to care for the animals. Also this week, Kentucky police found 117 starving and diseased dogs during a raid of a local animal shelter.
What explains behavior like this? […]

(AP) — People struggling to get rid of recurrent staph infections might want to consider an often-overlooked source: the family pet.
A German woman repeatedly battled the same strain of drug-resistant superbug MRSA until her cat was tested and treated.
It’s one of the few documented cases of transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus between a person […]

By Melissa Dahl, MSNBC
It’s not like Pamela Gregg was a stranger to helping out the underdog. She thought she knew what kinds of pooches linger the longest in animal shelters: Older dogs, abused dogs, sick or injured dogs — dogs like George Bailey, the hound mix she’d rescued after he’d been struck by a car. […]

AZUSA, California - Doggone it, my truck’s gone!
Police said Charles McCowan parked his pickup in front of a mini-mart Wednesday, leaving his 80-pound Boxer Max in the passenger seat. When he came out, the truck and Max were gone.
McCowan called police, assuming the truck had been stolen. When officers arrived, they found the pickup across […]

(WCCO) More than 80 million Americans are pet owners. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, we spent nearly $25 billion on veterinary care for our pets in 2006. Just for vet care!
At one point, animals served a largely utilitarian purpose. People had a horse to pull the cart, dogs protected the farm and […]

(WCCO) A Minneapolis woman is awaiting trial, accused of severely injuring a 5-week-old puppy. Court papers say she threw it at the wall outside the house.
The pup, now named Parker, broke his leg in two places and suffered a severe brain injury. Minnesota’s stiffer laws for deliberately hurting animals are now holding abusers accountable. […]

NEW YORK (AP) - America has a new Snoop doggie.
Barking and baying up a storm, Uno lived up to his name Tuesday night by becoming the first beagle to win best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club.
The nation’s new top dog was clearly the crowd favorite, and drew a standing ovation from the sold-out […]