A middle-aged Russian man suffering from diabetes and poor blood clotting tragically lost his life after being scratched on the leg by his pet cat.

On November 22, Dmitry Ukhin, a 55-year-old man from the Kirishi district, in Russia’s Leningrad region, went looking for his pet cat Styopka around the neighborhood. The feline had an independent streak and liked nothing more than to walk around the neighborhood freely. Eyewitnesses later told police that Ukhin found his beloved pet and took it home with him, but couldn’t really explain why or how the cat scratched his leg so badly that he bled to death in a matter of minutes.

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A New Zealand woman was sentenced to two months behind bars for overfeeding her pet dog Nuggi to the point where he could hardly walk 10 meters without needing a break.

When Nuggi was resued from his Auckland owner in October of 2021, he weighed a whopping 53.7kg and his small legs struggled to support his enormous body. SPCA officers said that he needed to pause three times to catch his breath walking just 10m from where he was kept to the rescue car. He had so much fat under his skin that doctors could barely detect a heartbeat when they performed a checkup. Nuggi also suffered from conjunctivitis and had wounds on his elbows and belly, most likely due to the time he spent lying on his stomach because he couldn’t move. His owner fed him eight to ten pieces of chicken a day, plus plenty of doggy biscuits, seemingly ignorant to the fact that he was killing the poor animal.

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Photos and videos of unmanned vending machines selling live animals like cats, small dogs, and rodents installed in various Chinese cities have been going viral and sparking outrage among the general public.

The significant technological developments of the last decade have created a fast-growing “unmanned economy” that continues to spread into almost every sector of the global economy. However, there are still some industries that are incompatible with unmanned, self-service devices. The pet-selling sector has so far been considered incompatible, but things are apparently very different in China, as more and more unmanned vending machines selling live pets are being spotted all around the country. One such video showing a pet vending machine in a busy part of Beijing recently went viral on Chinese social media, sparking a heated debate around the ethics of this controversial business model.

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A 68-year-old French woman diagnosed with Noah’s Syndrome has been given a one-year suspended sentence for keeping 159 cats and 7 dogs in her 80sqm (861sqft) apartment.

The unnamed woman and her 52-year-old male partner got into a dispute with neighbors in their Nice apartment building because of the mess and filth caused by their dozens of pets. Police were eventually called and the state of the woman’s apartment shocked them. There was animal excrement everywhere, over 150 cats and seven dogs, as well as at least two dead cats and two dogs in the bathroom. Many of the animals were dehydrated, suffering from malnutrition, or infected with parasites, and some of them subsequently died because of their health problems. The elderly woman admitted that she had “screwed up” while trying to take care of her many pets, but described the animals as “the love of her life”.

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Rope Daddy is an exceptional specimen of Big Rope, one of the most sought-after varieties of French Bulldog, whose enviable genetic traits allegedly make him worth around $120,000.

According to a study by the American Kennel Club (AKC), the global number of French bulldogs has increased by over 1,000% in the last decade, helping the canine breed dethrone the Golden Retriever as the world’s most popular dog breed. However, this overnight popularity has caused the degradation of the breed’s genetic structure, resulting in thinner, longer, and taller dogs, all of which are considered undesired traits. The Big Rope variety is characterized by a small, compact, and muscular body, and a large, square head, making it among the most coveted among French bulldog fans. But even among other Big Rope specimens, one pooch stands out as exceptional thanks to its excellent genetic material. His name is Rope Daddy and he is probably the world’s most expensive French bulldog.

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Tiffany and Grégory, a couple from Belgium’s Wallonia region, have been sharing their home with Oscar, a rescued wild boar, for more than a year now.

It all started about a year ago, during a hunting trip, when Grégory Guiot brought home a 700-gram boar cub that his dogs had found. It was December 6th, Saint Nicholas Day, and Gregory didn’t have the heart to just leave the helpless animal in the wild, where it would have likely perished on its own Instead, he took hit home to his partner, Tiffany Pierre. Neither of them even entertained the idea of keeping the boar at first, instead focusing on caring for it until they found another arrangement. However, Tiffany and Grégory found themselves becoming more and more attached to the little bundle of joy with each passing day, so when they finally decided to take little Oscar to an educational farm where he would be well taken care of, they both had tears in their eyes…

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An elderly Chinese woman has decided to leave her 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) fortune to her pet cats and dogs, claiming that they were always there for her, unlike her three children.

The woman, made her first will some years back, splitting all her possessions among her three children, but she recently had a change of heart after being neglected by her human offspring. She claims that her children never visited or at least arranged for her to be taken care of when she was ill, and they hardly ever contact her, so she has decided to leave all her assets to the only creatures that have always been by her side – her pet cats and dogs. The Shanghai-based woman has already changed her will to reflect her wishes that all her money be used to care for her pets and their offspring after her passing.

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Chinese media reports that a growing number of pet owners are putting their animals through painful cosmetic procedures in order to give them rounded ears inspired by Mickey Mouse.

Most cats and dogs have naturally pointy or droopy ears, but a new disturbing trend sweeping through China these days has pet owners ignoring common sense and their animals’ physical and mental well-being for the promise of stylish ‘Mickey Ears’. Apparently, some shady pet clinics will slice part of the animal’s ears off to achieve the Mickey Mouse look, but there are also a variety of special clamps available online for pet owners disturbed enough to perform the procedure themselves. Recent coverage of this bizarre trend sparked controversy online, with most of the general public urging authorities to ban the ‘Mickey Ears’ procedure and punish those who would torture defenseless animals purely for cosmetic purposes.

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A Chinese farmer who had recently relocated from his rural home to an urban apartment building in Sichuan Province shocked his new neighbors when he started raising seven calves on his balcony.

Imagine living on the upper floors of an urban residential complex and waking up one morning to the mooing of bovines and the smell of manure. That was the shocking experience of hundreds of people in Sichuan Province who were shocked to find that a new neighbor had started raising cattle on his small 5th-floor apartment balcony. The man had recently relocated from a village and had brought seven bovine calves, weighing between 10 and 20 kilograms, with him to raise as pets. Annoyed by the constant mooing and foul smell of the young bovines, many of the residents called the authorities, and the animals were forcefully removed on the first day in their new home.

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The ‘Chicken Orb” is a sphere made of metallic wire that allows chickens to move around and forage freely while preventing them from jumping onto flower beds and other places they’re not supposed to go into.

The Chicken Orb has been around for at least a couple of years, but it only recently started getting attention after photos and videos of it in action started going viral online. It all started from the misconception that the metallic wire orb was actually a sort of chicken armor designed to provide protection from predators while still allowing the domestic bird the freedom to forage and move around in peace. That got the debate going among chicken owners, many of whom criticized the device as useless, as it only acted as “to-go food packaging” for birds of prey, and did nothing to stop cunning predators like foxes or ferrets.

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Created by Brazilian flip-flop brand Brizza, in collaboration with Pedigree and advertising agency Mirum Brazil, the world’s first unchewable flip-flops are made with the most bitter substance known to man.

Dogs’ love for chewing footwear is well documented. Pups do it to release pain as their teeth grow, other dogs do it out of boredom or some form of stress, and some just like chewing stuff. While most times we see humorous depictions of pooches ruining their owners’ shoes, the reality is that this habit puts them at risk of very serious gastrointestinal problems. Data shows that in a third of gastrointestinal surgery procedures to foreign objects from the intestines of dogs, the ingested substance is footwear rubber, mostly from flip-flops. Seeing as this can cause life-threatening problems for the poor animals., flip-flop brand Brizza decided to create the world’s first unchewable flip-flops.

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A Vietnamese man has become famous in his home province of An Giang for taking care of thousands of wild river fish who visit his house every day for food.

Muoi Phuc’s house in Long Kien, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, is a popular attraction for both locals and tourists. People routinely stop by to watch the man feed a school of wild fish that visits him daily. When the 52-year-old man started feeding the fish, it was just a handful of pangasius, but over the last two years, their number grew at a steady pace, and now thousands of fish stop by his riverside home every day for a bite to eat. The fish are free to come and go as they please, and others have tried attracting them by throwing food into the river, but for some reason, they only stop at Muoi Phuc’s house.

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The “Inuden” (Dog Den), a $150,000 architectural wonder built exclusively by hand by a Japanese palace carpenter, is probably the ultimate dog house money can buy.

Cultural Property Structural Plan Co., Ltd. is an Osaka-based company that specializes in the preservation and repair of cultural property buildings and seismic reinforcement design. It employs experts in traditional architecture who use centuries-old shrine and temple-building techniques. Recently, the Japanese company announced a new project, codename ‘Inuden’, which involves building an exclusive dog house out of high-quality natural materials, using the same traditional techniques used on Japanese shrines, temples and castles.

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A woman in Shanghai, China, made her pet rooster somewhat of an overnight internet sensation after doing its manicure and posting photos of it online.

Yi Yi, a chicken owner from Shanghai recently decided that her beloved pet’s nails needed some attention, so she took ithe bird to a nail salon.  However, the staff there refused to do its nails for fear that it would affect the image of the salon among human clients, so the woman ended up doing the chicken’s nails herself. It took more than an hour, but at least the bird’s feet ended up looking fabulous.

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A Peruvian family whose pet dog started chasing and eating neighbors’ chickens and ducks were shocked to learn that their 3-month-old Husky was actually an Andean fox.

Maribel Sotelo, a woman from the city of Comas, in Peru, had no choice but to call the Forest and Wildlife Service and ask for assistance with her pet dog, Run Run, after neighbors started complaining that he was the reason that their poultry and guinea pigs – which are edible in Peru, by the way – were going missing. Sotelo had also noticed the three-month-old “Husky dog” chasing other animals around, but now her neighbors were asking to pay for the damages, so she notified the authorities.

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