July 8, 2009

(ZT Pet News Photo Courtesy of IVestADog.org)

NEW YORK -- The past couple days have been filled with interesting pet and animal news. Here is a brief overview on a couple of these stories.

Eds. Note: Answering a community's request for daily news broadcasts, Zootoo Pet News has delivered. Above is the video broadcast covering four of the most interesting animal news stories happening around the world.

K9s Get Vests

On Monday and Tuesday, a dozen bullet- and stab-proof vests were given to police K9s, thanks to the Illinois-Vest-a-Dog Program. Delivered by Lee and Xavier Harrison, the nonprofit has provided vests to more than 335 police dogs in just six years.

With each vest costing $825, the program survives on fundraisers and donations. Part of the latest delivered vests were due to a donation.

"We got an anonymous donation for the exact amount of four vests costs," Lee Harrison told ZT Pet News about part of the vest deliveries. "And they asked for those vest to be given to the Fairview Heights Police Dept."

Lee says they will keep on working until every police dog in the state has been "vested." Part of getting every police dog vested comes down to the officers themselves.

"The only thing we ask of the officers is for them to agree to a photo being taken with their dog, and for them to give us the names of K9s who don't have a vest yet," explained Lee, who established the nonprofit after a career with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service showed her the value of service dogs.

This weekend will kick off a couple fundraisers where the husband and wife team hope to raise enough money for a handful of more vests.

According to Lee, Illinois is one of 11 states with programs to provide vests for K9s. For more information, visit iVestADog.org.

A Tiger Without Stripes?

Fareeda is a 6-month-old Bengal tiger cub, who is a rarity in this world. In fact, her keepers say she is one of 20 all-white tigers, although 99 percent of tigers do have stripes.

Born Christmas Day at the Cango Wildlife Ranch near Capetown, South Africa, the young female's lack of stripes is caused by a genetic variation where she inherited two copies of the recessive gene from her parents.

A Church for All Folks, er, Species

In Austin, Texas, a new church is holding services in a bar on Sunday mornings. But the oddity doesn't end there -- about 10 dogs are also regular attendees of The City Community Church's weekly services held at La Zona Rosa, a popular music venue.

"It's not a gimmick, it's just an organic natural thing that happened," Pastor Robby Forsythe told ZT Pet News.

The non-denominational church, which opened its doors in April, choose the downtown nightclub because they wanted to "have a light footprint. We didn't want to build, so if we could rent and be a benefit to a club, then it was a win-win."

As for how the dogs came about, Forsythe explains that the church's location had "a lot of foot traffic there and we wanted to be a benefit to the city of Austin, so we decided to have a table on the curb with breakfast tacos and dog treats."

According to Forsythe, some of the interested passerbys were walking their dogs, but wanted to go inside to check out the church's bar scene, "so we let them come in."

And the rest is history as nearly a dozen dogs now attend weekly services in the Texas town, which is very pet-friendly, according to the pastor.

Model Agency Goes to the Dogs

Five-year-old Rusty just was signed to the BoHo Modeling Agency in Newcastle, England. Nothing unusual here -- except that Rusty is a Cocker Spaniel and the first canine to be signed to a human talent agency in all of northern England.

Owned by 18-year-old Rebecca Ashworth, Rusty began his life training with Rebecca's father, a K9 handler. But Rusty ended up failing his drugs dog test and just became the family pet, taking obedience and agility training. Now, his unusual coloring, and show-biz temperament, has him on the catwalk.

Robin Wallace is the editor for Zootoo Pet News and can be reached at rwallace@zootoo.com.

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