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Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team … Adopting a dog is becoming more fashionable than buying a new puppy, particularly among the famous, according to K9 magazine – although they do seem to be going for pedigree pets. In an age when recycling and reusing have become buzz words, and buying second hand on the internet is considered chic, it only seems natural that adoption of rescued dogs should follow suit, says the magazine. Recent reports have speculated that adoption is on the increase as more people visit centres before contacting breeders. For organisations like the RSPCA, which looks after some 9,000 animals a year, this is encouraging news. Perhaps the most famous example of a celebrity rescuing a dog is former Spice Girl Gerri Halliwell whose pet Harry, acquired in 1999, has attracted almost as much publicity as Geri herself. Bob Geldof and Catherine Tate are also reported to have adopted.

Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team… A dog has saved the life of an abandoned baby in Argentina by placing him safely alongside her own new puppies. Dubbed the miracle baby by the country’s press, he was born prematurely to a 14-years-old girl in a shanty town outside the capital Buenos Aires. She is said to have panicked and abandoned the boy in a field surrounded by wooden boxes and rubbish. Then along came the dog called La China and managed to pick up the baby and carried him to be alongside her own puppies. The dog’s owner reported hearing a baby cry and found him covered with a rag. The baby, weighing 8lb 13oz, had some slight injuries, but no bite marks. The child is being looked after by the authorities, although the mother did appear shortly after her baby as found. La China is so worried about her new-found fame that she fears for her puppies and is refusing to eat.

Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team… Police have returned a puppy to its owner after a DNA test established which litter it came from. Moss, a newborn collie puppy, was stolen from a farm outbuilding where it was sleeping with five other puppies from the litter. The owner, Graeme Eusden, a farmer from Albury, Surrey, had his suspicions who might have taken the dog. He called the police who took the dog to a local kennels while waiting for the results of a DNA test on the pup and its parents. The tests proved he was the missing animal. A man and woman were arrested but police decided that there was not enough evidence for a prosecution. Mr Eusden said: “I think they saw the puppy and wanted it – it was very pretty.”

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Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team … A mystery Scandinavian billionaire had offered a reward of £8,000 for the return of a stolen dog. “To steal a poor defenceless dog, that’s really low,” he told a local newspaper. “With this money the robbers can buy lots of dogs.” The dog, called Bamse, is a seven-years-old cross and was stolen from its owners Maina and Lars Ullstrand in Norrkoeping, eastern Sweden. The couple have searched for their beloved pet night and day and are desperate to have him returned.  “We are in total despair, he was like a child to us,” Mr Ullstrand told the newspaper when he first reported the dognapping. The couple were overjoyed to hear of the anonymous reward. “It is nice to know that someone out there cares about us, it makes me want to cry,” said his wife.

Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team… Street dogs in India are being rounded up to serve in a crack unit of the country’s military. The move is aimed at saving the cost of trained sniffer dogs which can reach as high as £1,600, while the mongrels cost just a few pence and can be trained to a high level. The elite Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC) last year picked up four mongrels with the hope of training them into a crack unit of explosive-detecting sniffer dogs. They all passed a nine-month training course with flying colours. According to the head of the college: “They may have been a little temperamental at times, but they seldom need a vet. The never fall asleep on duty and their endurance over jungle terrain is formidable. They are, after all, locals and will not let you down.”

Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team… The headline in The Times said it all – “Cool cats bid farewell to a landmark that has gone to the dogs.” It referred to the closure after 75 years of the dog track Walthamstow Stadium in northeast London as excitement and sadness went neck and neck in the packed stands on the final night. After the last race several hundred fans ran on to the track taking snapshots and souvenirs. Long before the gates opened on that last night hundreds of punters had queued outside the Art Deco frontage, known as the Stow, to fill the track to its maximum 7,000 capacity. The local greyhound owners’ association is trying hard to rehouse the retired dogs. The Stow was built in 1933 by William Chandler, a street corner bookmaker, and was in the family’s hands until being sold to property developers and a housing association for an undisclosed sum. The closure leaves 29 registered tracks in the country and just one in London. All sorts of fans attended the last night, from dog men to cool cats – with loudspeakers complaining of illegally parked Lamborghinis and Mercedes. 

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Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team …The farming industry and vets should cut down on its use of drug prescriptions as the over use of antibiotics is helping potentially lethal human infections become more resistant to drugs. New strains of  MRSA and E-coli are already seen in animals and could transfer to humans, according to Richard Young, policy adviser to the Soil Association writing in the Food Magazine. Mr Young, who is an organic farmer, said new guidelines should be issued to farmers similar to those sent to GPs, who have been told to reduce how many drugs they prescribe.

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Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team… A young orphan deer abandoned by his mother has formed a surprising relationship with a pack of fox hounds who have adopted him. According to the Daily Telegraph people watched in disbelief when the 10-week old called Bam Bam trots along with huntsman Adrian Thompson and his pack of 60 hounds on their daily walk. He said: “Now Bam Bam thinks he is a foxhound because they all treat him like one of their own.” The pack, from the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray hunt in West Sussex, accepted the deer when it was found shivering by the Thompson’s’ gate an hour after being born. Karen Thompson said: “He is about the same size so he fits in perfectly and walks along with the pack.”
 

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Latest from the Buddies Pet Insurance news team… The woman who had her pet dog cloned by South Korean scientists has denied that she jumped bail after being accused of kidnapping a Mormon missionary more than 30 years ago in Surrey, according to the Times. Rumours had been circulating about the true identity of Bernann McKinney who has just appeared in Seoul with her five cloned pit bull puppies. She and her dogs have featured in publications around the world since the ground-breaking procedure was announced. Miss McKinney who said she lived in Hollywood, California, denied to the newspaper that she was Joyce McKinney who was charged at Epsom magistrates with false imprisonment. The story of Joyce McKinney is larger than life. She was accused of kidnapping and assaulting the 17-stone Kirk Anderson, a Mormon missionary who had become the object of her passionate affections. This story is likely to remain headline news in the UK and the USA for some time.

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