A Japanese company is launching a new range of noodles for dogs. Seimenya produces Sanuki Udon thick wheatflour noodles, noted for their square shape and flat edges, and mainly eaten in broth. The company has now cooked up a low-salt variety dubbed "Inu senyou", ("especially for dogs"), reports My Navi website.

The noodles are additive-free and easy for dogs to digest, the firm says, plausibly claiming to have created the "first Sanuki udon dog food in the entire world". My Navi notes the relatively high price of 324 yen (US$3; £1.80) for a 150g noodle-and-broth packet, while the Kotaku website brims with sceptism: "The meal is more a niche, novelty product than anything else, because typical dogs in Japan eat, well, typical dog food."

Readers' comments on the Kotaku page range from wondering whether dogs will be interested in noodles at all to discussing their pets' low tolerance for salt. The consensus is that dogs are "hardly gourmets" and, "whether Tibetan mastiffs or Pekingese", generally "wolf food down as quickly as possible".

When workers from Aqualia, a water treatment plant in Morón de la Frontera, Spain, spotted a medium size, white and black dog, trapped in one of the water tanks, the first thing they did was called firefighters for help. Thanks to local firefighters and plant employees, the trapped dog is alive today.

On the morning of September 26, 2014, plant employees realized that a terrified dog was clinging to his life inside one of the facility’s water processing tanks. It is not known how the dog ended up falling in the tank, but it somehow swam across it and reached a middle platform where he waited for rescue.

The platform the dog sat on serves as support for the tank’s motor. If the dog had not reached safety, he would have died because he could have been swept under the water by the powerful motor

Aqualia employees called firefighters around 9:45 a.m. and the hero rescuers showed up prepared for a water rescue.

Using an inflatable boat, two firefighters entered the water tank and reached the platform where the scared dog was patiently waiting. Rescuers secured the pet, placed him inside the boat and transported him back to safety.

A couple has held their wedding ceremony at a Greyhound racing track in the fifteen minute gap between races two and three.

On Saturday, greyhound trainers Sonia and Warren Kempshall married in a surprise ceremony at Grafton Greyhound Track on the New South Wales' North Coast, which was organised in four weeks by one of their ten children, 17-year-old Caitlan.

The couple, who have 30 greyhounds, only knew when and where the ceremoney was taking place.

They chose the Grafton Greyhound racing track as it is where they couple met and where Warren proposed.

On a manicured 10-acre site behind an office block and a Ferrari dealership sits one the strangest cemeteries in the world.

The first clue to its nature comes from the chewed-up tennis balls and multi-coloured toy windmills which nestle among the flowers and statues of Christ.

The second comes from the names on the gravestones: Batman, Madonna, Rocky, Scooby Doo, Snoopy and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Then there’s Samson and Delilah (buried together), Satan (‘Forever in our hearts”), Montgomery, Churchill... even Rooney.

We are in American’s best known pet cemetery, the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park.

It’s the last resting place of more than 40,000 animals including film stars (Cheeta from the Tarzan films, the MGM lion, Hopalong Cassidy’s horse) and pets owned by Diana Ross, Rudolph Valentino, Steven Spielberg, Humphrey Bogart and Mae West to name just a few.


Cats and dogs make up about 90% of the burials, but there are also lizards, salamanders, birds, ferrets, goats, pigs, chimpanzees, horses – and Tawny, that Metro Goldwyn Meyer lion.

The life histories of some of the animals buried in special areas such as Angel’s Corner, Starlight Corner, Forever Yours and Garden of Devotion are often more fascinating than any human obituary.

Kabar was a Doberman Pinscher given to silent movie heart-throb Rudolph Valentino by a Belgian diplomat.

When his master died he is said to have walked across America looking for him before eventually returning to Valentino’s Falcon Crest estate and expiring from a broken heart.

The 1938 funeral of Jiggs, who had played Tarzan’s chimpanzee Cheetah, was attended by stars including Dorothy Lamour, Ray Milland, and Bing Crosby.
Jiggs was so famous he was paid 100 dollars a day (about £1,000 today), had a social security card, and was “a member in good standing” of the Screen Actors Guild of America.

It would be easy to dismiss the Pet Memorial Park as just another example of Hollywood kitsch.

Pro-democracy rallies in Hong Kong have been given an added bite by demonstrators who bring their pet dogs to protest venues, it appears. Known as "democracy dogs", many of them sport yellow ribbons adopted as a protest symbol by their owners demanding the resignation of Beijing-backed Chief Executive CY Leung.

One of the dogs, a French bulldog called Meimei, was equipped with goggles and a mask after police used tear gas against the protesters. Her owner couldn't vouch for Meimei's precise political views. But he told the South China Morning Post, an influential local newspaper, that "she is definitely pro-democracy".

As well as energising the protests, the dogs draw large crowds of onlookers hoping for a photo-opportunity, the South China Morning Post reported.

Dogs are not the only animals at the demonstrations. Hong Kong's most famous stuffed toy, Lufsig, was spotted adorning a provisions tent for protesters, the newspaper said. The toy wolf became a symbol of anti-government sentiments after someone threw it at Leung in December 2013.

Even though Hong Kong is famous for its intense pace of urban living, its residents are known for their love of animals. Earlier in 2014, dog-friendly buses were launched in the megalopolis. In August, more than 100 distraught animal lovers converged at the headquarters of a railway company to protest against station staff allowing a train to run over a stray dog.

Now, we don't want to judge. But we don't think this Yorkshire terrier is the sharpest knife in the proverbial drawer.


Because he thinks this clearly open door is closed. And he steadfastly refuses to enter the house until somebody 'opens' it for him. (And presumably, in the meantime, he can't understand why his humans are laughing at him.)

Bless his little furry socks!

The very thought of going to the airport today brings up a feeling of dread in most of us—the stress of preparing for a trip, the inconvenience of going through security, the uncertainty of when your plane will actually leave if there are delays.

In addition, there is the emotional stress of good-byes. Many travelers—including many of our military personnel—are leaving behind loved ones, making a departure a very tearful time.

Therapy dogs are being used in many different environments, and now a few airports are beginning to experiment with using them in the air terminals. San Jose began program right after 9-11, Miami added a program about two years ago.

Now the newest program, one at LAX (Los Angeles World Airport), is also the biggest. “Pets Unstressing Passengers” began on April 15, 2013, and they already have thirty teams of volunteers and dogs who are assigned to make visits to various terminals. Greeting arriving military who come into the Bob Hope USO headquarters at the airport is also an important aspect of their job.

Heidi Huebner, Director of Volunteers at LAX, is the person responsible for pulling together the program. “Our executive director at LAX had seen the dog therapy program being used in San Jose and suggested we explore bringing it here,” she says.

Therapy Dog, Inc. is the organization selected to work with LAX. The animals are tested and observed in a working environment to be certain that all qualifications of a therapy team are met by both dog and volunteer. In addition, LAX requires that all teams have been working as a team for at least one year before working at the airport.

The human volunteers also must have background checks since they are working within the circle of airport security. (They still go through screening just as airline personnel do each time they arrive to volunteer.)

All types of dogs are part of the program. To name a few: an Irish wolfhound, a Doberman, a poodle, a pit bull mix as well as some other mixed mutts, a Rottweiler and a long-haired Dalmatian.

The dogs wear red vests that say “Pet me;” the volunteers wear red vests with the PUP logo.

Because the program is new, people sometimes think the dogs might be bomb-sniffing dogs, but the “Pet me” vests distinguish that these pets are there to interact with passengers.