Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…Border Collies are renown for their ability to cope with tough conditions, but when Sonya and William Mckerron’s 17-year-old collie, Lucy, was still missing after five months they must have feared the worst. So imagine the owner’s surprise when they learnt that Lucy had been found safe and well some 550 miles away. The Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home was happy to report that they had found a microchip with a Cornish phone number and were delighted to reunite the pet with her owners. How Lucy managed to end up in Edinburgh is still a mystery however.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…a US pet cloning company, specialising in pet dogs, has chosen the winner of its ‘Golden Clone Giveaway’ for the world’s most ‘clone worthy’ dog. The publicity stunt prize, worth an estimated £100,000, has resulted in five new dogs cloned from 9/11 hero, Trakr. The German Shepherd search and rescue dog, died in April, having won the admiration of many people for working a full 48-hour shift searching for survivors of the New York Twin Tower terrorist outrage. He located the last survivor found in the rubble of the buildings. The cloned offspring were presented to Trakr’s handler, James Symington, who went onto to tell reporters that one of the puppies was an exact replica of the canine hero, not only in looks, but in character too.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…string theory foxes cats, concludes psychologist Britta Osthaus, after setting up an experiment to test feline’s ability to work out a knotty problem. The experiment involved pulling a string tied to a piece of bait. Not surprisingly, the cats soon caught onto to the idea that by pulling the string they would get a treat. Things then got slightly trickier when two parallel strings were used in the same task. Crossing the strings made things even harder. Apparently dogs completed this task with ease. What can we conclude from this? Well, the scientist explained that it was a valid way to test the limits of intelligence. Cat lovers will tell you that their cats can complete far more complicated tasks and dogs will no doubt feel quite smug.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…Lionel’s visit to the Honeybourne Veterinary Centre has landed the surgery in a spot of bother. The cat, who was brought in after being hit by a car, has disappeared. One of the duty nurses took him home to recover while the clinic was closed for the weekend. Unfortunately for Lionel’s owner, Jodie Dawkins, the nurse decided to leave the cat unsupervised in her garden shed, from which he made good his escape. The vet, Mr Adkin, described the events as the worst thing to have happened in his 14-year career. He has promised an internal investigation and spent around £700 door dropping leaflets in the local area, as well as putting up posters in the hope that Lionel can be found and returned.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…Michael and Carol Olcot were in for a shock, when passengers waiting for a bus flagged down their car. Fortunately for the couple’s Jack Russell Terrier, Jack, his owners pulled over to find that they had been towing the unfortunate dog for more than a mile. In the rush to set off, Jack, despite being tied to the front seat of the car by lead, had managed to jump through the passenger door without the other passengers, including the Olcot’s other dog, Jessica, noticing that he had disappeared. The local vet, Henry Hartley, who treated Jack for a broken leg and bruises, suggested that the tough and compact body was the main reason Jack survived the horrific ordeal.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…new research published in the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour, Clinical Applications and Research will have TV dog pundits in a spin. Programmes based on the theory that a dog’s behaviour is all based on hierarchy and a need to create a position within a pack, have been disputed by researchers at the University of Bristol’s Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences. The university team spent six months at a Dog Trust centre, observing the way feral dogs interacted with each other. The conclusion they arrived at, was that behaviour was the result of experience, rather than a desire to dominate and create a pecking order. The academics then went on to question popular training methods aimed at dominance reduction, arguing that in some cases this could lead to increased anxiety, potentially aggravating the problems rather than improving them.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…a New York window cleaning team, that happened to have a camera handy, captured the death defying leap of a cat as he fell 26 floors. Lucky the cat, had caught the eye of the amateur camera crew as he perched on a narrow window ledge, having managed to squeeze though a six inch gap left open by his owner. The crew watched on in horror, as Lucky suddenly fell and then miraculously landed on a neighbour’s balcony. Fortunately for the acrobatic feline, he flew in feet first and was relatively unharmed. A local veterinary hospital checked him thoroughly and he was able to return home after just a brief stay. Owner, Keri Hostetler has vowed never to leave a window open again.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…a leading low-cost US airline has decided to welcome pets on board to share the journey with their owners. Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas Texas, will allow owners to bring small cats and dogs into the cabin for a ‘pet fare’ of around £50 each way. The dogs must be small enough to fit into a carrier that slots neatly under the aircraft seat. Pet carriers will be treated as hand luggage. The new service starts on June 17.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…it’s good to know that while the rest of us are suffering at the hands of the credit crunch, government departments are still spending money like water. Oxford University has been the lucky recipient of a £300,000 grant to establish whether ducks really like water. Three years later and we have the answer – they don’t mind ponds, but prefer to stand under a shower. Scientists gave a flock of ducks the choice of a pond, a water trough and a shower. The shower came out as the top spot for spending some leisure time. The folk behind the study have been quick to defend the grant. Mariam Stamp Dawkins, professor of animal behaviour at Oxford, claimed the work will help duck farms to create more environmentally responsible facilities.
Latest from the Buddies pet insurance news team…2009 is turning out to be a tough year for pet owners, with one in five cutting back on the amount they spend at the vets. The YouGov survey goes on to reveal even more worrying news – more than half claim that lack of money is the key reason that pet owners have decided not to vaccinate their pets. The results back up further worrying data from another important source, the Fort Dodge Index (FDI). This show transaction volumes at vet surgeries is down, with client numbers shrinking by three per cent.
