‘Home-fluid’ house- and pet-sitters get their animal fix, and some adventure too

As Patricia Doiron talks on the phone, there’s a persistent squeaking noise in the background. She explains that it’s Luma, a 3-year-old fox terrier, playing with a toy. Doiron is from Prince Edward Island but is currently living with Luma and 12-year-old mini pinscher Pennylane in Truro, NS She started house- and pet-sitting after she retired. “I wanted to exercise my courage so that I could do more different, bigger things — adventures and what not. And I also wanted to do some writing as well,” she said. Doiron loves animals, but says she can’t have a pet right now.…

Pet cat crushed by train at Montparnasse station, leading to a legal challenge for SNCF

An animal rights group is suing French national rail operator SNCF for allowing a train to leave when staff knew a pet paint was on the tracks. The cat was afterward run over and died. The incident, which occurred at Montparnasse station in Paris earlier this month, left the animal’s owners in shock. “It’s hard to get over it,” the cat’s owner, Georgia, told 30 Millions d’Amis (30 Million Friends) – the foundation suing the train operator. How did a pet cat get run over by a Paris train? Georgia was traveling with her 15-year-old daughter Melaïna when their cat…

Christina Hall Takes Her French Bulldog to an Animal Empath

Christina Hall’s beloved French bulldog, Cash, hasn’t seemed like herself lately. To figure out what’s going on, the HGTV star took him to see an animal empath—and ended up getting a heartbreaking assessment that her family is determined to remedy. During a new episode of Christina on the Coast, Christina and her husband, Josh Hall, discuss the behaviors of Cash—whom Christina welcomed into her life as a puppy in 2017—and their other dog, Stella, a cancer survivor who has been in Josh’s life for around nine years. Since blending their dog family, the couple has noticed that Cash barks a…

Dogs attacked more than 5,300 mail workers last year, the Postal Service says : NPR

A postal worker delivers mail on October 1, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption toggle captions Scott Olson/Getty Images A postal worker delivers mail on October 1, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott Olson/Getty Images It sounds like an old-fashioned stereotype, the dog chasing after the mailman. But for thousands of postal workers last year, man’s best friend turned out to be a major hazard of the job. In 2022, dogs attacked more than 5,300 employees who were delivering the mail, according to the US Postal Service. It was a slight drop from the previous year, when more…

Are Pets Allowed at Greece’s Archaeological Sites? | Smart News

Dogs sunbathing at the Acropolis Michael Condouris via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0 Under the watchful eyes of their owners, pets will soon be allowed to roam in more than 120 of Greece’s archaeological sites, the country’s culture ministry announced. Previously, only service animals accompanying visitors with disabilities were permitted, according to the Greek Reporter‘s Tasos Kokkinidis. The new policy is a “first, but important, step” toward a “framework of accessibility to monuments and archaeological sites on the model of other European countries,” said Culture Minister Lina Mendoni in a statement, per Google Translate. The new rules require dogs…

The pet I’ll never forget: every night I would sing to Cackles the goose. Then tragedy struck | Life and style

Cackles was not technically a pet, I suppose, and certainly not the border collie I desperately craved, but she was my favorite goose. She was physically difficult to pet, but I tried my best, stroking her long, muscular neck. I sang to her nightly while she sat there quacking along. Or quacking in protest. It was hard to know the difference. I was very proud of her. No one else I knew had geese, except for the Ballantine’s distillery down the road, which had about 100 guards the whiskey. But no one from Ballantine’s went to my school, so that…

Frustrated Pet Owners Turn to Private Jets to Fly Their Animals

Last year, seven pets died during flights, according to Transportation Department data. Of these fatalities, six occurred on Hawaiian Airlines flights. Five of these animals were short-faced dogs shipped in cargo, said Marissa Villegas, a Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman. Ms. Villegas said that before traveling to Hawaiian, passengers traveling with pets had to acknowledge and accept the risks. Private carriers step in Meanwhile, private jet companies have stepped in, offering air travel for pets inside the plane without having them spend hours trapped in crates or carriers. Some, like NetJets and VistaJet, have dedicated pet programs. On VistaJet flights, pets are…

One person, pet dead after townhouse fire in Oakville

One person and a pet died after a fire in Oakville on Saturday evening. Crews were called to a townhouse on the Sixth Line, south of Upper Middle Road, just before 6:30 pm When they arrived, the firefighters were met with heavy fire and smoke. “Through a fast attack, our crews were able to contain the fire to the unit of origin,” Oakville Fire Chief Paul Boissonneault said in an email to CP24. He confirmed that one person and a pet were found dead inside the unit. Another person was transported to the hospital for assessment and expected to be…