"LONDON - A guard dog has ripped apart a collection of rare teddy bears, including one once owned by Elvis Presley, during a rampage at a children's museum.

"He just went berserk," said Daniel Medley, general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England, where hundreds of bears were chewed up Tuesday night by the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.

Barney ripped the head off a brown stuffed bear once owned by the young Presley during the attack, leaving fluffy stuffing and bits of bears' limbs and heads on the museum floor. The bear, named Mabel, was made in 1909 by the German manufacturer Steiff.

The collection, valued at more than $900,000, included a red bear made by Farnell in 1910 and a Bobby Bruin made by Merrythought in 1936.

The bear with Elvis connections was owned by English aristocrat Benjamin Slade, who bought it at an Elvis memorabilia auction in Memphis, Tenn., and had loaned it to the museum.

"I've spoken to the bear's owner and he is not very pleased at all," Medley said.

A security guard at the museum, Greg West, said he spent several minutes chasing Barney before wrestling the dog to the ground."

Best thing about this story besides the fact that someone had to chase the dog and wrestle it to the ground:

The dog's handler- "Hey, Mike! You gotta take a picture of this for me. Unbelievable. Better yet, lemme squat down next to Barney and put my shades on. A'right, Barney, look at the camera. Hey, make sure you got all the destruction in the background, dude..."

Continue reading... "how this freaky site works..."

mercurynews.com

Here's an excerpt from a San Jose newspaper about silly little obsessive/compulsive behaviors that dogs have. I love this one;

"Since we first got her, Seren has slept on a dog bed in our bedroom. Linda knitted her a blanket which, when folded, fits exactly on her bed.

To our astonishment the dog demands that the blanket be free of wrinkles. When we are ready for bed ourselves, she examines the blanket carefully. If it has a wrinkle anywhere on it she refuses to use it!

Instead, she will settle down next to our bed and make whining sounds until we smooth out the blanket. When she lies down, she carefully settles down so as not to wrinkle the blanket."

Listen, nothing would please me more than to have all you internetting people send me real life documentation of these types of behaviors in your own dogs. So, if you have silly stories, even photography or video of your dog doing something totally ridiculous, PLEASE SEND IT TO m@dropthatsock.com, or use the comment link to post your two cents. It is what makes me wake up every morning and have the strength to fight off the entire world. Help me to live. Send in your experiences!

squirrel article here...

A crazy wild animal rehabilitator woman found this baby squirrel at a few days old under a tree with his mother who had already died. She didn't know if he'd survive even with her help, but she continued to feed him on regular shifts and then somehow her papillon took over and started allowing the baby squirrel to take milk from her, along with her own litter of puppies. One of those totally weird things that never happens but once in a long-long while and it somehow makes the news and everybody knows about it for a day and then it's forgotten. So I'm resurrecting it for you and your dog obsession. I think it's rather special. Enjoy it!

Awhile back, I posted an entry about Neuticles. I was first introduced to the word by my kind-of-uncle, Steve, who had a set put into his boxer when he got the ol' gonadectomy procedure done. He said they swelled to a human sized set at first, but then went down to normal size and my kind-of-aunt let me know that they were cold to the touch. Last year I bought him the Neuticles baseball cap, which says, "Neuticles. It's like nothing ever changed.". Needless to say, he loved it.

Now, I bring you the fantastic news that the creator of the Neuticle has won an award for his brilliant invention. The Ig Nobel prize is given at Harvard and celebrates the humorous, creative, and odd side of science. Other winners include a team of researchers who, since 1927, have been tracking a blob of tar as it drips through a funnel at a rate of one drop every 9 years, and two researchers in England, who have been monitoring the brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie "Star Wars". My favorite, though, is this one: an experiment at the University of Minesota was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup than in water. Congratulations on this free press, dude. Take it and run.

September 13, 2005 

somebody's using dog food cans to connect to the internet...

bbc news...

"A businessman in Derbyshire has come up with a low-tech solution to a hi-tech problem.
David Taylor has used dog food cans to connect his home through the airwaves to the internet.

The cans work as an antenna, boosting the internet radio signal and bouncing it from his office to his home.

Mr Taylor, information technology manager with Derbyshire-based consultancy Equation, was fed up with being cut off from the broadband revolution.

So he set out to find a neighbour in an area where you can get broadband willing to help him with the initial connection.

"People were a little suspicious at first but it didn't take long to find a willing household," he told Computing magazine.

When he found a good neighbour, he set up a connection through a wireless transmitter to send the internet signal the two and a half kilometres to his office.

Mr Taylor was so impressed with the new super fast connection that he decided to boost the signal even further to beam it to his home at a nearby Travelodge hotel.

At first he tried using a milk powder tin as a transmitter but found that it was not waterproof.

Other tin trials also ended in disaster as the metal could not withstand the elements of the Derbyshire weather.

Eventually he hit upon the idea of dog food cans to send the internet signal to his home.

"Other tins ended up rusting but the dog food tin has worked very well," he said.

"Now not only do the 20 staff in the office have internet connectivity, but I also have full access from my home even with the entire area lying off the broadband grid," he added."

email this

August 24, 2005 

THIS is an awesome dog story...

listen up, all you-

Dog licking saves limb

A man's leg was saved from amputation after his dog managed to lick it better.

Mitch Bonham, 45, was diagnosed with Sudeks Atrophy, which doctors told him would require him to have his leg amputated.

His leg had turned black following an accident involving an anchor chain while he was in the Royal Navy.

However, his pet dog, a Jack Russell called Milo, either enjoyed the taste of his condition or refused to give up on his owner and started licking the leg for four hours every day.

When Mr Bonham returned home to south Wales, his doctor told him his limb had been saved as Milo's tongue had stimulated the nerves and allowed oxygen to get to the leg.

The ecstatic dog owner said: "We had a celebration that night even though I had a long way to go. Milo had a big juicy bone as a thank you for what he had done."

dehaviland.co.uk

email this

| home | next page |