Image via Facebook

A sick tiger named Tacoma, exercising with the help of a harness. (Tacoma isn't suffering from distemper, but has hip dysplasia and arthritis.)

The trouble started innocently enough, back in early May, when Cairo the tiger had a snotty nose. Vicky Keahey, the president of In-Sync Exotics, the Wylie rescue society where Cairo and several dozen other big cats live, wrote down the nose leakage in the cat's logbook on May 5.

"I didn't really think anything of it, because he's had a snotty nose in previous years," she said this morning. She started him on antibiotics, but didn't see any improvement in a week. So she switched antibiotics, and another week went by, and the tiger still didn't seem to be feeling any better. Then, suddenly, he had a seizure. Keahey was terrified. Cairo is the second tiger the former vet tech ever rescued, and the two are especially close.

"He's every breath that I breathe," she says, tearing up.

But soon after the seizure, Keahey realized what the problem must be. "I was like, 'Shit," she says. "What about canine distemper, because of all the friggin' raccoons that we've had around here?"

More »

Edwon Julian

Edwon Julian's case didn't get much attention when he was arrested in Richardson last July. Now that his trial is under way, the the Metroplex Animal Coalition and Dallas County District Attorney's Office are working to spread the word. Because Julian allegedly threw his girlfriend's cat out the window of a second-floor apartment.

That summary of events is accurate enough, but it hardly does Julian justice. According to police, the girlfriend had picked him up from the place he was staying in Mesquite on the morning of July 31 and drove him to her Richardson apartment to hang out for a couple of days and see if they could patch things up.

Turns out, they couldn't. They started arguing almost as soon as they arrived at the apartment. Julian worked himself into a violent rage, one he directed first at the fan that was sitting in the bedroom, which he kicked across the room, then at the girlfriend, whom he pelted with broken fan pieces. Then, he lowered his shoulder and charged her, paying no heed to his girlfriend's degenerative spinal condition and resulting frailty.

More »

Via.

That can't be comfortable.

As inventive as human beings can be, we've never come up with a solid way to keep dogs from mournfully licking their unhealed junk after being neutered. The ubiquitous Elizabethan collar or Cone of Shame, if you will, does the trick but inevitably destroys a pet's self-esteem in the process. Alternatives (See: the BooBooLoon) have their own issues.

Enter a Dallas-area cockatoo named Hagar. Several years ago, the bird began obsessively plucking its feathers. A veterinarian decided it best to put Hagar in one of the ridiculous cones to keep the bird from injuring itself.

Hagar was not impressed.

"They had to put him under to get it on. It lasted about 15 seconds," the bird's owner, Els Bowen told UT Dallas' news service. "As soon as he woke up, he got hold of the corner of it with his beak and it was gone."

More »

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

A sharpshooter with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department guns down some of the Anderton Whitetail Ranch in 2010.

For eight hours, rifle reports echoed across the Anderton Whitetail Ranch in Hunt County. In the larger paddocks, a wildlife biologist standing in the bed of a white Texas Parks and Wildlife truck picked them off with a scoped .22- or .17-caliber rifle mounted to a tripod. Another shot them in the smaller pens, where the deer couldn't run far. The kills weren't always clean. Some lurched away until another well-placed bullet finally brought them down. In all, the agency killed 71 bucks, does and yearlings on Dec. 6, 2010.

They took brain stems for testing, and left the headless deer behind. The Anderton men, though, weren't there to see the awful deed done. James and Jimmie were sitting in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of wildlife trafficking and transporting stolen property in 2009. That was why the ranch was strewn with dead deer. Texas Parks and Wildlife said that the Andertons couldn't provide evidence of the state of origin for every animal, and so they all had to be wiped out to prevent the Texas incursion of a highly transmissible, neurodegenerative killer of deer known as chronic wasting disease.

The men said the deer had been bought in Arkansas, a state with no documented cases of the disease so far. But because it can be diagnosed only through autopsy, the agency said there was only one way to be sure. Of the six animals tested, none were infected. Five months later, the agency returned to destroy seven more animals.

More »

If you haven't already, meet Norman. He's the French herding dog (a Briard to be exact) who's achieved Internet stardom by riding a scooter, bike, skateboard, surfboard. You may or may not care to know that he's from Arlington.

Norman is now taking his talents to the baseball diamond. The Rangers announced this week that he will be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at tonight's White Sox game. Jump for Norman's videos, if you're into that sort of thing.

More »

DFW Urban Wildlife

A feral hog near the Joppa neighborhood of southern Dallas.

In recent years, as North Texas' feral hog population has exploded, Arlington, Irving and other suburbs have taken to rounding up the swine and selling them for bacon.

Now, it's Dallas' turn.

Robert Wilonsky brings news this morning that the city is looking for someone to harvest its feral hogs.

More »

Facebook

Missing. Last seen on March 30.

Update at 1:19 p.m.: No, the peacocks are not being removed. That's the word from city spokesman Frank Librio, whose full explanation follows after the jump.

Original post: Last weekend, someone called 911 to report "loose fowl of various kinds running freely in the street in an area very close to the Dallas Zoo," as Dallas police put it. Animal control quickly rounded up the birds and found their owner on Lakeview Drive, who agreed to surrender them in order to get a handle on their living condition. Case closed, right?

Not quite. Residents of Beckley Club Estates are -- wait for it -- crying foul, claiming that the city has cast too wide a net in its crackdown on exotic birds, rounding up a flock of peacocks that have freely roamed the neighborhood for decades.

A Change.org petition, and its sister Save the OC Peacocks Facebook page say the city "is planning to forcefully remove the peacocks" from the neighborhood.

More »

neimanmarcus.com

This Stuart Weitzman ballet flat has a pom-pom of dyed rabbit, not of faux fur, as the retailer originally claimed.

The Federal Trade Commission, among its other duties, is charged with enforcing what is known as the Fur Products Labeling Act. That law, passed by Congress in 1951, requires that fur garments be accurately labeled with the species of animal and country of origin so customers don't get fooled by cheap, inferior knockoffs.

But Dallas' hometown luxury retailer, Neiman Marcus, has taken a different approach to bamboozling consumers, according to the FTC. The New York Times describes it well:

More »

An embodiment of grace and beauty, at least until he starts crapping on your lawn

Two summers ago, more or less out of the blue, a couple of thousand egrets descended upon a neighborhood off Josey Lane in Carrollton, just north of Frankford Road. It was an ideal spot for the birds: They liked the dense tree canopy and sizable pond, and there no predators to speak of.

It was less ideal for the people whose front lawns were suddenly thronged with mating birds and associated debris. "When we got out there, many egrets were well-established and nesting, and there were heavy accumulation of bird droppings, both fecal material and regurgitation," said Carrollton's environmental director, Scott Hudson. Standing in the neighborhood, one could hear the regular plip plop of viscous liquid striking the ground.

There was no rain to speak of that summer, so the droppings simply accumulated on sidewalks and in front yards, and with the heat came the penetrating smell of ammonia. Hudson said that homeowners couldn't so much as walk outside and retrieve their mail without donning an umbrella and designated shit-wading shoes.

More »

Image via Facebook

Titus County's Most Wanted: Belle

Titus County is a little spot on the far northeastern part of the map, comprising some 32,000 people total. Belle is a infirm, chocolate-colored, 16-year-old dachshund. She also lives in Titus, and it appears that she's made an enemy.

Belle's person is named John Mark Cobern; he also happens to be the county attorney for Titus. Five days ago, in a scandal that's apparently rocked the entire county, Belle was removed from Cobern's office, where she likes to hang out. Belle's removal was the result of a vote from the Titus County Commissioners, who decided to ban animals from inside the courthouse, where the county attorney's office is located, with the exception of trained service animals and those belonging to law enforcement. Now, Cobern is appealing to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for help.

Belle's been coming to work with Cobern for years, starting back when he was in private practice, according to the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune. He was elected to the county attorney position back in 2008, and Bell has occupied a corner of Cobern's first-floor office ever since. In a statement to the attorney general, Cobern writes that he brings Belle to work to provide "a safer work environment."

More »