Chinese officials are set to ban the sale of dog meat at the notorious Yulin festival, activists have claimed.  Thousands of animals are slaughtered every year at the event, which was founded by traders in 2010 hoping to boost sales. But a new Communist party official wants to change image of the city and turn into a cultural hub, activists told The Independent. 

Molly is the world’s first trained cat detection dog. Her job is to rescue missing moggies. We had been looking for a dog with a particular temperament and intelligence to join our team of pet detectives for 18 months. We had scouts out and had spoken to the country’s top breeders. We needed a quick learner; one small enough to fit into the nooks and crannies cats hide in. Mostly, we needed a dog with no desire whatsoever to chase cats.

Genetic map showing how dog breeds are related provides a wealth of information about their origins.

Move is a four-letter word. (So is “pack” by the way, but that whole issue is subsumed within the horror of the move.) It’s not just you who hates moving—everybody does. The misery associated with it affects our dogs, too. There’s no way you can avoid some of the unpleasantness of moving, but there are ways that you can ease your dog’s transition to a new home.

We heard about an intriguing (and alarming) Bloomberg story over the weekend on NPR’s Marketplace Money program. When asked about predictions for what the guests are “long or short" on, reporter Gillian White said that she was “long” on the financial sector behind “dog leasing.” She was reporting on a piece from Bloomberg about dubious loan scheme operations, such as leasing a dog.

The shooting of a trainee bomb-detecting puppy at the Auckland, New Zealand, airport provoked surprise and outage Friday. Animal rights activists and other dog lovers condemned the actions of police after Grizz, a 10-month-old border collie and German shorthair pointer cross, was shot and killed Thursday morning when he escaped his handler, Noel Thorburn, and roamed airport runways for three hours. Sixteen flights were delayed Friday as airport employees attempted to capture him.

Trust their instinct!

People who say that money is the biggest source of conflict in most marriages are clearly unfamiliar with the clashes over whether or not to let the dogs up on the furniture. These epic battles regularly find their way into my private consultations, where I am repeatedly asked who is right—the person who says dogs should stay on the floor or the one who wants them up on the couch and on the bed. I always handle these mediations with the same four basic steps.

A wave of corporatization is hitting the veterinary industry, but does a one-size-fits-all approach work?

The canine seen in TMZ's disturbing video posted earlier on Wednesday came from Birds & Animals Unlimited, says the animal rights' group.

Dogs also share their food, albeit mainly with four-legged friends rather than strangers. A new study has now confirmed this prosocial behavior among canines. The more complex methodology of the study, however, showed that the experimental set-up has an impact on the dogs' behavior and that even the mere presence of another dog makes the animals more generous.

A newborn puppy can be a full-time job, that's why beer maker BrewDog — a Scottish brewery set to open up an Ohio location later this year — now offers a week of paid leave for employees with new puppies or rescued dogs. The company said it's the first company in the United States, and the first brewery in the United Kingdom, to offer the "paw-ternity" benefit. BrewDog, in an announcement made earlier this week, said the benefit will be offered to all of its nearly 1,000 employees across the world, including those at its soon-to-be brewery near Columbus, Ohio, which is set to open in the spring.

“Dogs have more genetic diseases than any other species on the planet.” David Ishee told me this early in our conversation. His claim makes sense: there’s no other animal that humans have purposefully bred with an emphasis on form over function—aesthetics over health—for so long. Centuries of inbreeding have left many dog breeds with a severely limited gene pool, and this lack of genetic diversity is to blame for disorders like brachycephaly in bulldogs, hyperuricemia in dalmations, and cardiomyopathy in boxers.

THE pit bull cross which “saved” a boy whose mother allegedly tried to drown him in the Murray River has been spared. NSW Police has advised the Murray River Council that the animal was responding to “extreme circumstances” and likely acting in a “reasonable defence” of the boy who remains in hospital in Melbourne. Earlier, a petition had been started to protect the dog, named Buddy, following the drowning tragedy that left the nine-year-old in hospital and his brother, 5, dead.

You may recognise Maddie the dog, she became famous as the rescue dog with an ability to balance on things. For those of you that aren’t so familiar with Maddie, here she is absolutely bossing it on the playground, what a legend. Maddie isn’t just all about the balancing act, though, she is hardened traveller …

When Paola Anderson and Sarah Godfrey's dog Momo was at death's door, they gave him a pill. Just look at him now.

Farley, a golden retriever puppy, is part of a trend among hospitals to offer pet therapy to staff and patients.

The best techie April Fool's joke I found was this charming one from Amazon. Petlexa.

At time of posting, 20% say no, 80% say yes. What do you think?

Thanks to recent advances in neuroscience, we now know what’s going on in the brain of a dog.

Six years ago, Eric weighed 340 pounds and was diagnosed with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and Type II Diabetes. His doctor told him he had 5 years to live. Then he met Peety—and everything changed.

A dog who fell off a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean and had been "presumed dead" more than a month ago has now been found alive by Navy officials on an island 80 miles off the coast of San Diego, California. The 1-year-old German Shepherd, named Luna, was first reported missing the morning of Feb. 10 about 2 miles off of San Clemente Island by her owner -- Nick Hayworth, a fisherman -- according to Sandy DeMunnik, public affairs officer for the US Navy's Naval Base Coronado.

Two years after a Wisconsin man lost the dog he says helped him through some of the worst times of his life, the universe found a way to return his stolen pal. Identified only by his first name, Jose said he hit bottom two years ago. He was homeless, divorced and living in his car when he decided to get a puppy, who he would later name Chaos. The name fit the dog, who was brimming with energy and grew quickly.

Getting child crime victims to open up is never easy for investigators and asking them to tell their stories to a jury can be brutally traumatizing. To help these kids overcome their fears, some courtrooms across the country are employing comfort dogs, canine companions who take the stand alongside them to calm and bolster their spirits. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports.

Held every year, the Yulin Dog Meat Festival results in the slaughter of thousands of dogs, which are then served in some of the restaurants in this city in south China. An international campaign to halt the killing keeps growing each year. Millions in Canada, the U.K. and the United States have signed petitions calling for China to end the festival, which is scheduled to start this year on June 21. Yet it not just foreign activists who are working to stop China's dog meat trade. There are now millions of pet owners in the world's most populous country.

Juju the English Bulldog rolling down the hill

"By some estimates, at least 40 percent of dogs experience noise anxiety, which is most pronounced in the summer. Animal shelters report that their busiest day for taking in runaway dogs is July 5."

A North Texas family was reunited with their dog almost seven years after he went missing. Corky left the Montez family's Decatur-area home in mid-2009. The family searched for him for six months before they had to move to Fort Worth, KXAS-TV (NBC5) reported. "We knew he was microchipped and he had a collar, so we were just waiting for one day he would come home," Kimberly Montez told NBC5.

An upsetting new analysis now shows that these stocky, wrinkly-faced dogs lack the genetic diversity required to improve the breed.

Fifteen years ago, scientists knew next to nothing about one of the Amazon’s most mysterious residents: the short-eared dog. Although the species was first described in 1883 and is considered the sole representative of the Atelocynus genus, biologists spent over a century largely in the dark about an animal that seemed almost a myth.

A dog named Maddie is back with its owner after a group of boaters spotted her swimming all alone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. According to NECN, a ferry off the coast of Falmouth, Massachusetts, was on its way to Martha’s Vineyard when passengers spotted a dog desperately paddling toward their boat. "Everyone on the boat was like, ‘Oh my God! We have to help him,'" Carol Potier told NECN.

Pet dogs are getting smaller because owners are living in more compact homes than ever before, new research suggests.

The Darwin’s Dogs citizen science project is collecting canine DNA to better understand dog genetics and behavior.