Bookmark this one for any time you need a happy 10 minutes (courtesy of our overlords):

Our adoptable overlords

Hurricane Sandy lost animals: a resource

There’s a group on Facebook compiling and sharing information on animals lost in Hurricane Sandy -mainly NY & NJ, but some other areas, too.

So many lost, but some of them are finding their way back to their people through citizen groups like these.

Know of other good resources?

Excellent news:

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed a law today that bans breed specific legislation.

Before pit bulls, it was rottweilers. Before rottweilers, it was dobermans. Before dobermans, it was shepherds. And it’s always, always been the people who are responsible.

Right on, Gov. Patrick.

Two on why rescue matters:

They save us.

We save them.

Cute-spam and a happy ending

Kitty-Swiffer.
(Turn down the music or be annoyed.)

Meanwhile, from the people-are-evil-but-then-people-are-occasionally-also-awesome-but-mainly-LOOK-AT-HER-FLOPPY-CUTENESS-WITH-FRUIT-BAT-EARS-NO-LESS! files:

Deformed puppy, rescued from trash, learns to walk

Not (just) Kansas anymore

Here’s a lovely story: veterinary team helps dog paralyzed in Joplin tornado to walk again (video).

Meanwhile, in Western Massachusetts (which only very rarely gets tornadoes at all, and even less frequently in populated areas), Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society and the Thomas J. O’Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center (where Gilly came from) have been performing daily heroism helping reunite animals separated from their people in the tornadoes at the beginning of June. They both have wish-lists if you want to help.

Tsunami/earthquake dogs

Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support is doing amazing work. If you are able to donate to help them, you can do so here.

These are the kinds of scenes unfolding:

The noble kindness and courage of this dog guarding her injured companion is beyond what any dog should have to do, and it’s what they do, and it’s why we love and admire them. The two dogs in the above video have been rescued.

Search and Rescue dogs have been, as always, providing incredible assistance, at great risk to themselves. There’s a photo gallery of some of them here.

This Akita swam the tsunami waters to find his person.

He’s okay, too.

Quick shot:

New technology improves biologists’ and conservationists’ ability to monitor big cats:

It will be a while before the results of the switch to the new technology are fully known. But Dr. Hunter says the test cameras have already produced great shots of everything from big cats to other wildlife and even the cats’ biggest enemies: poachers.

Link-love round-up

I tried to show this to Gilly recently:

He just muttered something (it sounded like “*!@#@%$ overachiever”), gave a put-upon sigh, turned his back and went to sleep.

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Here’s an interesting article which begins by interviewing the inventor of the Labradoodle, discussing how he feels about designer dogs (and why – though the article doesn’t even scratch the surface of the problems with modern dog breeding):

Whose bright idea was that? (How does it feel to invent something you later regret? Simon Hattenstone talks to the people who know)

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Here’s a heart-stoppingly gorgeous program called In Search of the Jaguar – a little out of date now, but very much worth watching.

It follows Alan Rabinowitz’s efforts to create a jaguar corridor throughout Central and South America to give them a chance of survival – and his own story isn’t anything to sneeze at, either.

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In related follow-up, here’s what Alan Rabinowitz and many others are working on right now:

One last chance: can we save the tiger? There are only 3,200 left in the wild. So why are conservationists boycotting the world’s first tiger summit?