After 20 Years, Town Allows Pets to Poop Again

In Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, it is against the law for a pet animal to poop within the city limits, anywhere, even on private property, apparently even indoors. About 20 years ago, the city council passed a law making it a crime for an animal to defecate anywhere in the city. Violators are subject to a $100 fine.

The council finally rescinded the law a few months ago, and pets that have been holding it for the last twenty years can finally go. Actually, it turns out that no one was obeying the law anyway. In a mass, collective act of civil disobedience, animals had been pooping in the city the entire time, and the authorities never knew about it.

Taiwanese Pets Stolen to Supply Chinese Demand

For years, pet ownership was outlawed in China because it was considered a sign of bourgeois living, but recent changes have lead to a more tolerant attitude. In the past decade, increased acceptance of capitalism has brought increased affluence among many city dwelling Chinese, and the new status symbol is a pet. Breeders in China and Taiwan cannot keep up with demand. Dogs don’t come cheap in China; a purebred dog costs between $600 and $6000 in a Peking pet store, and the government charges a $600 registration fee, plus an annual $240 renewal fee. And still demand remains high.

On Taiwan, dogs and cats are being stolen and smuggled across the Taiwan Strait on fishing boats, to be sold to waiting mainlanders. When a pet is suddenly missing, Taiwanese owners do the same things we do here to try to locate it, but deep down they know where it went.

Water Dog                  

Dog survives for month in empty beach house; house not so lucky

In Taupo, New Zealand, a stray dog managed to get locked inside a beach house, and was not discovered for a month. In its attempts to find a way out, it apparently opened a faucet in the sink in an upstairs kitchen. Possibly at the same time it also knocked a box of tissues into the sink.

Neighbors had heard a dog whining, but did not think to look in the house, which they knew had not been used in weeks. Finally a neighbor saw the dog sitting at a window and called animal control. When they entered the house they found it flooded. The upstairs was awash, The ceiling of the first floor had collapsed, water had run down the walls and the carpet was saturated.

The local vet examined the dog and found it to be in pretty good shape for having gone a month with no food. He pointed out that it was fortunate for the dog, if not for the house, that it had turned on the faucet, as it could not have survived that long without water.

The family that owns the house think that the dog must have slipped in when they were doing their last minute walk-around to see if anything had been left outside, and was not seen before they locked up. There are three children in the family, and they are determined to keep the dog, if no owner turns up. Keep the water dish filled.