Animal Rescues

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Missing horse rescued from well
A horse which disappeared from a West Yorkshire riding stables was rescued three days later after being found at the bottom of a 10ft well.
Eight-year-old Steffi was pulled out of the hole in the Shibden Valley near Halifax in a three-hour operation involving firemen, the RSPCA and a vet.
Stable girl Katie Clegg, 16, raised the alarm last Saturday when she could not find the horse in its field.
The mare was found on Tuesday by a dog walker, having suffered no injuries.
It is believed that a covering of plants which had hidden the well opening in the field was washed away in recent heavy rains and Steffi fell 10ft into the hole.





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Firefighters help scared pot belly pig down stairs
PINELLAS COUNTY -- Firefighters know a thing or two about getting a cat out of a tree, but this morning St. Petersburg firefighters added a new talent under their belts: rescuing a pot belly pig.
The Vietnamese pot belly pig named Dudley followed his nose into some trouble. His owner, Cynthia Taylor, says normally Dudley eats four ounces of food a day.
But one day workmen who were at Taylor's house moved some pig food and then left it where Dudley could get into it.
"The night they left the bag on the floor, he had 16 pounds of food overnight," Taylor said.
Because of all the food Dudley had, Taylor didn't give him any food Sunday. So when Taylor was walking around with Dudley's food dish Monday, the pig was keeping close to her -- a little too close.
As Taylor was walking upstairs she didn't realize Dudley was following behind her -- something the pig had never done before. Then Dudley took one look down the steep stairs and refused to go back down.
"He's never been upstairs. He's afraid of the stairs," Taylor said. "So he wouldn't come down, and I had to call the fire department."
St. Petersburg firefighter Brad Weshphal said he doesn't blame the pig for not wanting to go down the steep stairs.
Westphal, along with two other firefighters, answered the call for help.
"We've gotten cats out of trees, dogs, ferrets out of walls, snakes; but this is the first pig," Westphal said.
Fortunately, the firefighters didn't have to do much to convince Dudley down the stairs.
"We just herded him to the stairwell, and then I grabbed him around his waist and helped him down the stairs," Westphal said. "And he was squealing the whole time."
Taylor said she is thankful for the firefighters and will be getting a small gate to block the stairs.
"I think they were absolutely terrific. They had a great sense of humor," Taylor said. "They were very sweet to come help me."
Slideshow
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First-Time Mom Gives Birth to Quintuplets in New York

NEW YORK — They're first-time parents — five times over.
A set of quintuplets was born Saturday at Staten Island University Hospital, spokesman Christian Preston said. He said the four girls, one boy and their mother were doing well.
Preston declined to give the family's name, but Tony Scherillo told the Staten Island Advance the parents are his daughter and son-in-law, Jamie and Kevin Ferrante.
"Everybody was ecstatic" on learning that the new parents were expecting five babies, said Scherillo, 67. "Nobody could believe it."
The babies — all delivered within 6 minutes by Caesarean section — ranged in weight from 1 pound, 8 ounces, to about 2 pounds, 4 ounces, the newspaper said. It gave their names as Allesia Louise, Amanda Frances, Ella Lilliana, Emily Ann and Matthew Sabatino.
Fertility treatments have made multiple births more common in recent decades, but quintuplets remain rare. The federal government's National Center for Health Statistics tallied 68 quintuplet and higher-order births in 2005, compared to more than 400 quadruplets, 133,000 twins and 4.1 million births overall.
Hospitals in Houston, Phoenix and Annapolis, Md., also reported quintuplet births this year.
Saturday's quintuplet birth was a first for the Staten Island hospital, Preston said.
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Did You Know.......

Q. At a military funeral, the flag is folded with 13 folds for the original 13 states. Each fold also represents something. What are they?

A. When the flag-folding ceremony started, there was no meaning to each fold. Since then, though, some people have attributed patriotic or religious meanings to each fold:
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First fold: a symbol of life.
Second: a symbol of belief in eternal life.
Third: in honor of veterans who died on duty.
Fourth: represents mankind’s weaker nature and need to trust in God.
Fifth: a tribute to the United States.
Sixth: for where Americans’ hearts lie.
Seventh: a tribute to the American armed forces.
Eighth: a "tribute to the one who entered in to the valley of the shadow of death," and to honor mothers.
Ninth: a tribute to womanhood.
10th: a tribute to fathers.
11th: For Jewish citizens, to represent the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon
12th: for Christian citizens, to glorify the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost.
13th: When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost, to remind people of the national motto, "In God We Trust."
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FAILED !!!

Takeru Kobayashi fails to break fruitcake record.

Takeru Kobayashi tried to break world fruitcake eating championship

Friday but bit off more than he could chew.
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Water Garden In The Dark

Product That Nobody Really Needs: Lighted Garden Nozzle.
Universal-fit pistol-grip sprayer with rain spray and LED bulb.
Requires two AA batteries (not included).

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In the News

Woman Finds $10G in Box of Crackers
Debra Rogoff of Irvine, California bought a box of Crackerjacks from the grocery store had some crackerjack in it — an envelope stuffed with $10,000.
Yet the Irvine woman was more curious than ecstatic about her daughter's find. After all, who would leave money in such a place?
"We just thought, 'This is someone's money,"' she said. "We would never feel good about spending it."
Rather than go on a shopping spree, the family called police and was initially told the money could be part of a drug drop.
Police later heard from store managers at Whole Foods in Tustin that an elderly woman had come in a few days earlier, hysterical because she had mistakenly returned a box of crackers with her life savings inside. In a mix-up the store restocked the box rather than composting it.
The Lake Forest woman, whose identity was not released, had lost faith in her bank and decided the box would be a safer place for the money.
Luckily for her, the box of Annie's Sour Cream and Onion Cheddar Bunny crackers were bought by the Rogoffs, who discovered the crisp $100 bills in an unmarked white envelope on Oct. 10.
The Rogoffs never heard from the woman and didn't receive a reward.
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Troopers use classic TV getaway car to nab speeders
The Dodge Charger -- the same Detroit muscle car the Dukes of Hazzard used to get away from the law -- is now in the hands of the colleagues of Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane
The Florida Highway Patrol's got 50 of 'em -- unmarked -- ready to sneak up on the unsuspectin'.
Their ride is silver with dark tinted windows and blue-and-red lights cleverly concealed around the window edges.
"Gets 22 miles to the gallon,'' says State Trooper John Sessa. "This car's got 350-360 horsepower. Zero to 100 in a half-mile."
So, like any good Duke boy, does he have to climb into his Charger through the window?
"No, I use the door handles like a normal car," he said.
What about a bright paint job with maybe a Florida state flag on the roof?
"I don't think the Patrol will let us do that."
In this real-life drama, the dukes don't get away when they hear sirens and step on the gas.
Sessa gets to say one of his favorite lines -- "I need to see your license, registration, and proof of insurance, please" -- twice in just twenty minutes.
Them bad guys are in a heap o' trouble!
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'Robber' reports bank heist
Forget calling an 800 number for customer service. One Bolingbrook man simply dialed 911.
Police say John A. Pighee Jr., 58, of 610 Preston Drive was unhappy with the service he received at a Bank of America branch.
So, shortly before noon Monday, he picked up his cell phone, called police and reported a robbery at the bank, 111 Lily Cache Lane, while he was there.
"As odd as it sounds, we took a bank robbery (call) from the bank robber," Lt. Ken Teppel said.
Teppel said the man had attempted withdrawing some money that the bank had a hold on. When the bank wouldn't release the funds, "he stated he was going to shut the bank down."
"He picked up his cell phone, called 911 and reported that the bank was being robbed," Teppel said. "He never relayed to the employees he was going to rob the bank, and he never showed a weapon."
After about 15 to 20 minutes of talking by phone with the branch's employees from the parking lot, police determined the bank was not, in fact, being robbed. They promptly entered the building and arrested Pighee.
He was charged with felony disorderly conduct, Teppel said.
"It was one of the most unusual calls we have received," he said
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One of a kind bicycles

BIG, BIG Wheel

Family bike that steers from the back seat.

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Jack Russell in 'Lassie-style' mission to raise alarm of burglary

A Jack Russell fled from a house that was being burgled, and embarked on a "Lassie-style" mission to raise the alarm, crossing a busy dual carriageway and travelling over a mile to the home of his owner's relatives, where he began barking for help.

Jack Russell's are considered by some to be the most intelligent breed of dog

By the time Cody's owners managed to get back to the house, it was too late as the place had been ransacked and thousands of pounds worth of Christmas presents stolen.
Carli and Andy Jones, both 29, from Coseley, West Midlands, lost a wedding ring, an engagement ring, and a 50-inch TV but praised Cody for his actions which the family believe may have acted as a deterrent for the burglars.
The mother of one said thieves got away with £14,000 worth of their belongings and £2,500 worth of Christmas presents.
Cody left the house on Thursday afternoon and ended up at the home of Mr Jones's parents Malcolm and Jackie, one mile away.
Assuming something was wrong, they then phoned Carli who was out Christmas shopping but by the time she had got back home she found the front door kicked in and their prized possessions gone.
Mrs Jones said: "It was amazing what Cody did. He made it across the Birmingham New Road from the grass bank by our house, he didn't stop for traffic and I can't believe he made it.
"You worry about anybody crossing that road, and the dog is family.
"We wouldn't have even known we had been burgled if it wasn't for him."
She added: "He's a very clever dog, Jack Russell's are the most intelligent dog anyway, but he's very bright and he is a very loving dog as well.
"I was more upset by him crossing the busy road than anything else, because if I had returned home and the dog had gone I would never have got over that."
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All he wanted for Christmas was a bone.

Murray, Utah -- Some people just can't wait to open their Christmas presents. That apparently was the case with a short and very fast thief who went to a store in Murray, grabbed a present and made a clean getaway on all fours.
At Smith's Food & Drug in Murray, a popular place these days is the manager's office, where they have the surveillance video. "You had to see to believe it, but it happened. So, it's crazy," said Tracy Jacobson, with Smith's Food & Drug.
A suspicious character entered through the front door. "I've never seen him shop in here before; brand new customer, didn't even have his Fresh Value card," store manager Roger Adamson said.
What happened next is already becoming legend. "I mean, how likely is that? For a dog to walk into a store, go down the pet aisle, get his bone and walk out?" Jacobson said.
Let's reconstruct the crime a step at a time: Entering at the checkout area, the dog approached a young girl. "He just kind of sniffed the customer up, and then headed down the aisle," Adamson said.
At that point, he had a decision to make: Left? No dog food. Right? Dog food. He turned right and went straight to aisle 16, the dog food aisle.
There are so many fun Christmas presents he could have picked, but he seemed to know exactly what he was after. He grabbed a rawhide bone and headed down the aisle, only to be confronted by the manager.
"I looked at him. I said, ‘Drop it!'" Adamson said. "I decided I wanted to keep all my fingers, so I didn't try to take it from him. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he ran for the door and away he went, right out the front door."
Marshall Tanner with Alpha Dog Training says the culprit's sense of smell is 100,000 times better than the typical crook.
"[He] smelled the rawhide bone, grabbed it and walked out of the store, thereby being a shoplifting dog!" Tanner said.
At last word, the dog was still at large, presumably enjoying his Christmas gift. "He's enjoying the heck out of it," Tanner said.
The value of that bone is $2.79. Merry Christmas, Balto, wherever you are!
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Dog Shoplifts [Caught on Camera]

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Cheetah Cub and Puppy Play-Cincinnati Zoo

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