In Philadelphia, a woman's dog survived getting shot with an arrow.  She hopes that it was an accident, I do too.

Via Fark.

The Santa Fe (New Mexico) Animal Shelter reported that a woman brought her dead frozen mixed breed dog to the shelter to exchange for a new dog.  The woman and her family left the dog outside to freeze when they went for a trip.

The shelter workers did not allow her adopt a new dog, and she may be facing charges of cruelty and neglect.  The case has been turned over to Santa Fe Animal Control.

Via Crimenews2000.com:

At least Vinnie didn't die, and his previous caretaker and abuser has admitted to his horrible behavior.  William Essex pled guilty to felony animal cruelty, was given probation, has to pay for Vinnie's vet bills, pay child support for a child of his living in Dinosaur (what a name for a town!--and people make jokes about Cut And Shoot), get anger management counseling, and do 200 hours of community service.  Vinnie is in a new home.

In Bellmead, firefighters and a vet had to extract a Boston Terrier from a tire.  The 10 month old puppy stuck her head through the center of a tire rim that was in her back yard. 

The firefighters had to use the Jaws of Life to cut the center of rim from the tire, and the vet used lots of lubricant and muscle relaxants to get the dog out of the remaining metal.

Wonder what the dog was after when she stuck her head through....

I think it is cool that the Downtown Aquarium has white tigers.  This may not be PC, but I like white tigers.  We used to be members of the Houston Zoo when they still had white tigers, and I have always wondered what happened to them.  It turns out, because they don't often show up in the wild, zoos don't want them anymore.  (I gave up going to the Houston Zoo when it became impossible to get a parking place close, and I can't walk very far without resting.  No, I don't want a handicap sticker--I don't need to be hassled by people who think I am not disabled because I can walk.)

That's sort of sad.  It also seems to be a form of discrimination against something just because it is beautiful--and different.  I have a great deal of love of animals just the way they are, but I really like seeing the differences that nature can come up with on its own.  And that is what white tigers are--a natural mutation.  True, it was perpetuated by humans, but the mutation took place on its own, without human interference.  Apparently zoo administrators have decided that since humans bred the wild white that was found, to continue to breed whites is like exploiting the animals. 

When I was a kid, we bred Australian shepherds (now called Australian Cattle Dogs) and would get a white every once in awhile (and then we would stop breeding the parents).  They usually could see, but not hear. (No, we didn't automatically put them down.  They were great dogs. Even as an adult, one of the great danes we had was a white--and Baron was brilliant, though deaf.) This isn't a problem with the white tigers; they don't have that kind of damaging trait--at least, not yet. 

The biggest problems for white tigers is that people who should know better have turned their backs on the breeding of these beautiful animals.  The zoos have left the breeding to for-profit wild cat breeders who often don't care what the bloodlines are, as long as they can pump out more cats.  (Think of the horrible problems dogs from puppy mills have). Without a good, standardized, carefully selected studbook, unfortunate inbreeding problems will occur. 

The owner of the white tigers at the Downtown Aquarium says that these animals will never be bred, they are not siblings, and they are from good stock.  Good for him; too bad places like the Houston Zoo can't see the white tigers for the animals they are, and not as a symbol of exploitation of wild animals.