Fridays are made for catching up on the week's animal-related news, about everything from kitten rescue to elephant retirement to horse porn.
We've rounded up the essential links below:
NYPD officers rescued one kitten and adopted another.
Police officers rescued a black kitten from a car engine in Queens Thursday. Another officer adopted one of the seven kittens she helped rescue from a suitcase in Williamsburg in March. [DNAinfo, DNAinfo]
In sadder news, another officer shot and killed a pit bull mauling a shih-tzu to death.
An Inwood man was walking his friend's shih-tzu when a loose pit bull pounced on the smaller dog. One of the two officers who rushed over to help shot the pit bull once and a second time when it wouldn't release its victim. [New York Daily News]
A therapeutic horse program is coming to the Lindenwood stables in Queens.
GallopNYC will offer its popular rehabilitative treatment for riders at the Gemini Fields and Cedar Lane Stables in Lindenwood after it finalizes a contract with the Parks Department. The group says the waitlist for its services is more than double the number of riders it currently works with at five locations across the city. [DNAinfo]
An alligator was caught on camera trying to climb the front door of a house in South Carolina.
The reptiles are known to lurk in residential areas, but they don't try to ring doorbells every day. [WGNO]
Brooklyn's first permanent cat cafe opened Friday.
Operated by the Brooklyn Bridge Animal Welfare Coalition, the Brooklyn Cat Cafe at 149 Atlantic Ave. invites cat lovers to reserve a time to hang out with adoptable felines for $5 per half hour. [DNAinfo]
The elephants at Ringling Bros. performed their final show Sunday in Rhode Island.
The pachyderms that had danced for years in Ringling Bros. shows — treatment over which several animal rights groups repeatedly picketed and sued the circus —headed for retirement at a Florida conservation center. [CNN]
It's bird-watching season.
New Yorkers should be able to spot the rare Swainson's Warbler, hermit thrushes and four other species of species in Central Park. [DNAinfo]
There's a genetic reason why your Labrador is fat.
A new study has found that a deletion of an obesity-related gene is more common in heavier Labrador retrievers than slim ones. That genetic variation may keep dogs from feeling satiated after eating. Surveys in the U.S. and other countries have reported that more than half of Labs are overweight or obese. [Washington Post]
The goats hired to clear out weeds from Prospect Park are getting their own party.
The Prospect Park Alliance announced Monday it's celebrating the goats' arrival from Rhinbeck, N.Y. on May 19 with a reception featuring wine and, naturally, goat cheese. [DNAinfo]
PETA isn't happy about that horse sex scene on Sunday's episode of "Silicon Valley."
The animal-rights group condemned the practice of thoroughbred mating, captured explicitly and without human interference on the HBO show, as "arranged rape." TV executives, however, apparently loved the horseplay. [Yahoo]
A mother duck led her ducklings on an annual parade through a Michigan elementary school.
For the past 13 years, Vanessa the Village Elementary School momma duck has returned to the school to lay her eggs in the courtyard and waddle through the school with her hatched babies in tow. [Livingston Daily]
