In a Kansas zoo a Golden Retriever has some big shoes to fill.  She’s playing surrogate mom for three abandoned tiger cubs.

CANEY, Kan. - A dog at a southeast Kansas zoo has adopted three tiger cubs abandoned by their mother. Safari Zoological Park owner Tom Harvey said the tiger cubs were born Sunday, but the mother had problems with them.

I wonder if these cubs notice one of these things is not like the other?

Harvey said it’s unusual for dogs to care for tiger cubs, but it does happen. He said he has seen reports of pigs nursing cubs in China, and he actually got the golden retriever after his wife saw television accounts of dogs caring for tiger cubs.

At least they didn’t ask her to nurse piglets.

Puppies take about the same amount of time as tiger cubs to develop, and Harvey said the adoptive mother just recently weaned her own puppies.

Mom doesn’t see to know the difference.  Harvey stated “He said the adopted mother licks, cleans and feeds the cubs.”

Bo’s friend Zoe sent over this message about the Suncoast Animal League.  This shelter, located in Florida,  was one of the shelters that received puppies from the Tarpon Springs puppy mill raid.

Volunteers and their fosters, telling their story and pictures of the thriving dogs that were rescued 04/07/08 in Tarpon Springs. See how well they are doing and applaude the efforts the volunteers are making in these dog’s lives.

It’s thanks to the efforts of the volunteers  that these beautiful dogs are starting to come around. Take a minute to read these wonderful stories and see how dedication, care, and love can change a dog’s life.

In Salt Lake City (UT),  Michael Ray Howard was convicted for killing 14 puppies, and received a sentence of 13 years handed down by Judge Roger Dutson.

In December a bag containing 14 puppies was found in a dumpster outside a Salt Lake City, UT, Hancock Fabric store. Only one one of the puppies survived and has since been adopted by Rita Woodward, an employee of Hancock Fabrics and one of the women who found the puppies.

It is high time that the courts take animal abuse seriously and that prosecutors are able to seek charges that are suitable for the crime.

He was charged with 14 counts of animal cruelty and one third-degree felony. Initially, Howard pleaded not guilty even though he did admit he stuffed the tiny, 3-5 week old Jack Russell mix puppies, in a heavy trash bag to suffocate, left them outside overnight and the next day figuring he’d accomplished killing them all, threw the bag of puppies in a Riverdale dumpster. He changed his plea to guilty the following day.

Prosecutors were able to use a new law, Henry’s Law, that was passed earlier in the year to charge him with a felony.

Prosecutors said the crime was committed with “extreme depravity” and noted it was a touchstone for the passage of Henry’s Law, which increased the penalty for extreme cases of animal cruelty to a felony. That bill was passed by the Legislature earlier this year.

While  Judge Dutson did issue the sentence to run concurrently, I do applaud him for handing out the maximum sentence on the aggravated animal cruelty charge.

Howard, also convicted of illegal possession of a controlled substance and an admitted methamphetamine user/addict was sentenced to serve to serve 13 years in prison for the class A misdemeanor counts of aggravated animal cruelty, six months in prison for a class B misdemeanor animal cruelty charge, and up to five years in prison for the drug charge. All sentence will run together which in reality means about a 5 year sentence and probably even less time will actually be served.

Let’s hope, at the earliest, we don’t see Michael Ray Howard on the street until 2013.

Our guest blogger is Tracie Hotchner, radio host and author of The Dog Bible. Tracie is writing a series of daily dog tips for Dogster which you can receive by email. To sign up, just check the box in your newsletter preferences.

Purebred dogs who are expected to have stumps instead of tails have their tails docked days after birth. Approximately 60% of the tail is taken in most breeds, leaving a stump of varying lengths. With Corgis, Old English Sheepdogs and Rottweilers, there is seldom more than a nubbin remaining.

The historical reason for docking in some guarding breeds—Boxers, Dobermans and Rottweilers—was supposedly so intruders had nothing to grab onto. Some hunting dogs were docked presumably for their own safety so their tails would not get hit or possibly broken against fences and thickets. A special circumstance related to Old English Sheepdogs, which were docked because in Old England a working dog was exempt from tax.

Despite a great deal of protest from some English breeders about “breed standards” and “historical precedent,” Great Britain is now amongst the 13 European countries that have made tail docking and ear cropping illegal.

Opponents of tail docking assert that an important aspect of a dog’s ability to express himself is lost when he cannot wag his tail. Tail docking is done only a few days after birth, so if you wanted to have a dog with its full, natural tail you would have to work it out ahead of time with the breeder. Most breeders would resist that adamantly because they would not want a long tail on a docked breed from their kennel.

Newborn puppies are believed to have little pain sensation so presumably docking is not painful. However, it used to be thought that newborn human babies have reduced pain sensation, too—so circumcisions and other procedures were done in the misguided belief that the infants were not suffering. The same may be true of puppies, but it’s unlikely we will find this out in our lifetimes! It is reported with puppies that they “wriggle and squeal a bit” upon having their tails snipped off but “they recover within a few minutes.” This was the same rationalization for circumcision, by the way, although no studies seemed to question whether the screaming infant who then fell deeply asleep was doing so out of the shock/trauma/etc.

Today’s docking and cropping is done simply to “please the eye” because it is what our eye has become accustomed to seeing in a breed for decades. Since our eye is just as pleased by hundreds of breeds that are permitted to keep their tails, it seems archaic—bordering on the barbaric—to be mutilating the end of an animal’s spinal column so it cannot “wag” our teacups off the table.

I say this as someone who has had a Cocker Spaniel, five Weimeraners and a Rottweiler, so I have first-hand experience of living with dogs who have to wiggle their whole butts to communicate a simple wag.

Who thinks it might be time for a change?