2 DAYS AGO - Labradors are known for being greedy dogs, and now scientists have come up with a theory about the genetic factors that might be behind their behaviour. Science correspondent and labrador owner Nicola Davis visits Cambridge University to meet Dr Eleanor Raffan and Prof Giles Yeo to find out how understanding this pathway could help us treat the obesity crisis in humans Continue reading... Collapse

5 DAYS AGO - From snails to chickens, the organisation aims to stop suffering wherever it is foundThe RSPCA is 200 years old, founded in 1824 by a group of revolutionaries, including the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce, determined to change the world. Our charity sparked an animal welfare movement that spread around the globe and has made the protection of animals an accepted and welcome part of our society. In short, we’ve changed lives – both for animals and people.We were ahead of our time in recognising what needed to change in society, bringing communities, business and government with us. So when we launched our first brand in 50 years last week, with our For Every Kind campaign, it was no surprise that we were accused of being “wildly woke” by some of our longstanding critics. Continue reading... Collapse

17/04/2024 - The shelter where I work took in 694 animals last year. Every day, we face animal cruelty – and communicating the crisis can feel impossibleThis piece was commissioned with the support of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. It contains descriptions of animal abuseMonday mornings at the Mendocino Coast Humane Society, the northern California animal shelter where I work part-time, are chaotic.The frenzied beeping of anesthesia monitoring equipment echoes as I dodge Coco, one of the resident shelter cats with a penchant for ankles, and tiptoe down a freshly mopped hallway with a bleachy smell that makes my eyes water. Continue reading... Collapse

13/04/2024 - Whether by striking workers, poets or Pussy Riot, our feline friends have long been used as a symbol of resistance – radical by nature, they refuse to be tamedIn the 60 years since Julie Andrews sang about the cheering possibilities of whiskers on kittens, the fetishisation of the feline form has only grown stronger. Earlier this year, Somerset House even opened a Hello Kitty cafe as part of its Cute exhibition. By way of balance there is, of course, a jokey online culture about the unspeakable evilness of cats. These are the ones who deliberately sabotage your printer, or post video diaries commenting on the futility of your dating life. But beyond this binary, there is a more nuanced narrative of the cat as a figure that makes a virtue out of complexity and ambivalence. So perhaps we would do better to think of the cat as dissident, oblique, even radical.Rudyard Kipling caught this attitude best in his Just So Stories of 1902, a series of whimsical origin Collapse

09/04/2024 - Clues at Argentina site raise possibility mammal was buried with human owners about 1,500 years agoThe remains of a fox unearthed at a human burial site in Argentina dating back 1,500 years has raised the possibility the animal may have been kept as a pet, research suggests.Experts say the remains predate the arrival of domestic dogs in Patagonia, which occurred about 700–900 years ago, with a number of clues suggesting the fox was seen as valuable, and may even have been a companion to the hunter-gatherers it lived with. Continue reading... Collapse

08/04/2024 - No duck nest was safe when Oscar was on the prowl. But one of his raids had an unexpectedly happy endingWhen I first saw Oscar he seemed the most chilled puppy ever, five months old, a black labrador/something cross, lying placidly on a sofa in a foster home in Sussex. I already had a German shepherd, Phoebe, and wanted a playmate for her after losing our Hungarian puli to old age. I took Phoebe into the room to see how they might get on. Oscar lifted an eyelid as if to say “Whatever” and closed it again …But when we took Oscar home, he panicked in the car and threw up. We later learned that he had been found wandering the streets of Havant in Hampshire, and we guessed perhaps he had been thrown out of a car. As a patron of the RSPCA, I am passionate about rescuing animals in need. This particular experience taught me the importance of knowing the history of the animal you are adopting so you can adapt to their needs. Continue reading... Collapse

01/04/2024 - He was the perfect childhood companion, until he grew weary of wearing Al Capone and Lawrence of Arabia costumes. Then he went missing ... I grew up on a bleak and windy smallholding in Cornwall, deep in the Methodist farming hinterland between the Lizard and Land’s End. We had pigs, cows, geese and hens, dogs and cats, 13 acres and no money. Aged eight, I was told I could have my own kitten, and was taken to a tumble-down granite barn belonging to the sister of one of our neighbours. There I fell for a grey-green tabby. Taking him home that Saturday morning, I was the happiest girl in the world.During lunch a rat-a-tat-tat of potential names gunned out of my mouth in hope of my parents’ approval. Fluffy? Toffee? Each met with gagging noises. Later I played with him as my parents watched the Ascot races on our tiny black-and-white TV. In the mix, running the Coventry Stakes, was a handsome bay called Tachypous (meaning “swift-foot” in Greek). My parents, lovers of Greek and Roman Collapse

30/03/2024 - From dachshunds to pugs, our canine friends are bred to better serve as emotional crutches or status symbolsYou may have missed a recent international incident. Last week, we Brits got wind of a very worrying development across the Channel. “Sausage Dogs to be banned in Germany,” ran alarmed headlines in the UK press. The Germans, for their part, were so baffled by this response that they reported on it themselves. “Brits Fear for the German Sausage Dog”, ran a puzzled article in Bild, the country’s best-selling newspaper.“There will always be sausage dogs,” a spokesman told the BBC, which was in turn reporting on the Bild story. “We will just never see any with legs one centimetre long.” They were not banning the breed, they explained, just proposing a law that could stop breeders making dachshunds more and more indistinguishable from actual sausages, thus worsening their knee, hip and back problems.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to Collapse

28/03/2024 - Steven Miles says environment department ready to provide training to Instagram-famous magpie’s ‘devastated’ carers Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastThe Queensland premier has revealed a magpie could be returned to a Gold Coast family weeks after the bird was separated from its carers and their pet bull terrier.Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen adopted Molly the magpie in 2020 after it fell from the nest.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading... Collapse