Dog rental company facing resistance in Boston

The company that broke new ground last year by opening its dog renting business in New York, Los Angeles and London isn't exactly being welcomed as it tries to expand to Massachusetts.

Today, the city of Boston, where the company FlexPetz plans to open a new store this year, is considering prohibiting pet renting. A City Council committee was to discuss a potential ban Monday, the Boston Globe reports.

Earlier this month, the state of Massachusetts considered a ban on leasing dogs or cats by the hour or day in response to the company's plans to open a Boston location.

Animal welfare advocates have howled in protest, saying the service treats pets like disposable commodities and resembles Netflix but with dogs.

The company, however, has defended its treatment of its animals, saying the concept is more akin to a vacation time share or a gym membership than movie rental, preferring to call it "shared pet ownership."

-- Tony Barboza

Photo: Katie Morgan / Associated Press

Amid the flooding, a pig rescue effort

As the Midwest continues to suffer from severe flooding, many recovery efforts have focused on animals. The Associated Press reports that a rescue effort was launched Friday to save about 50 pigs stranded on a levee near Oakville, Iowa, where the Iowa River raged out of its banks. (The pig at right was trying to cross a nearby levee.)

About two dozen volunteers from four animal welfare agencies were attempting to reach the animals with feed, apples and Gatorade, said Colleen Cullen, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts-based International Fund for Animal Welfare.

That group, the American Humane Assn., Farm Sanctuary and the Animal Rescue League of Boston have been working in Illinois to help care for abandoned animals. They kept a small staff in Illinois and sent the volunteers to Iowa to help with the pig rescue. The Iowa Department of Agriculture confirmed that it asked the volunteer groups to step in and help rescue the pigs.

Today, the IFAW reported 15 pigs have been rescued and are being transported to their new home at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, N.Y.

-- Alice Short

Photo: Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

Hunt for new San Francisco Zoo director postponed

The San Francisco Zoo is not having its best year. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "the institution is in such disarray that officials have decided not to look for a new zoo director until they can get things in order."

Widely acknowledged problems at the city-owned zoo include decreased attendance after last year's tiger attack on a teenage visitor, low employee morale and a budget stretched thin from emergency repairs, chronic maintenance problems and declining revenue. The tiger, pictured here, was shot and killed after the mauling. As the Chronicle reports:

"We would like to stabilize the morale and our finances a little bit over the next few months before we dive into a national executive director search," said Nick Podell, chairman of the nonprofit San Francisco Zoological Society, which operates the zoo on the city's behalf. "I would like to clean house a bit so we don't go out and ask somebody to fix the full mess."

The zoo's director, Manuel Mollinedo, was pushed out earlier this month in part, sources said, because of the dismally low morale among keepers and other staff members. A member of the fundraising board of directors, Hewlett-Packard attorney Tanya McVeigh Peterson, has taken over as interim director. The zoo had its share of issues -- including low staff morale and deteriorating exhibits -- even before Christmas, when Tatiana the Siberian tiger escaped and fatally mauled 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. before she was shot to death by police.

Photo: Associated Press

Cygnets enjoy a cushy ride

Photo courtesy of Liminal Effects.

Hollywood fame has downside for some animals

From The Times' entertainment staff comes an appropriately entertaining photo gallery on 10 critters that hate the movies. It turns out that, for animals at least, fame on the big or small screen isn't all it's cracked up to be.

After "Finding Nemo" came out, for example, demand for clownfish spiked, depleting their ranks in the wild. Demand also rose for a certain breed of spotted dogs after "101 Dalmatians." According to a dalmatian rescue group, this was followed by an influx of dalmatians at shelters when families grew tired of the dogs.

And speaking of energetic canines, consider the Jack Russell terrier.  The charismatic Moose, above, who played Eddie on "Frasier" for almost 11 years, spawned a buying frenzy of the little dogs, even though breeders tried to warn apartment-dwellers that Jack Russells need lots of room to thrive.

-- Steve Padilla

Photo: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Great white shark released by scientists

Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium have decided that a young great white shark kept for a few days in a floating pen off Malibu is not suitable for display. As the L.A. Now blog reports, the shark was released Sunday. In its shark update, L.A. Now has all the details on the release of the shark, along with nifty information about previous great whites exhibited at the aquarium.

-- Steve Padilla

Jennifer Lopez hit with lawsuit over dog-bite incident

Those of us who work on L.A. Unleashed have just been waiting for the opportunity to type the words "Jennifer Lopez." The (New York) Daily News has provided us with the ultimate in fulfillment:

A flight attendant claims Lopez's guard dog chomped her leg on a plane trip almost two years ago, and now she wants to take a $5-million bite out of the singer's pocketbook.

Lisa Wilson, 40, filed a suit in Brooklyn Federal Court, alleging the attack caused her to fall and suffer back injuries that prevent her from working anymore.

The dog-bites-woman tale began July, 3, 2006, when NetJets, a private airline company, assigned Wilson to work a flight taking J.Lo to Burbank Airport, the suit says.

Wilson says Lopez boarded a Gulfstream IV jet at Republic Airport on Long Island, N.Y., with Floyd, a German shepherd described in the manifest as "a well-behaved guard dog." Just in case, Wilson, of Mary Esther, Fla., says in the court papers, Lopez gave her some instructions on how to act around Floyd.

But the suit alleges that 90 minutes into the flight, Wilson walked past Floyd, and he responded by "attacking her and biting her pant leg." In an attempt to get away, Wilson says she "twisted and fell," injuring her lower back so badly that she had to undergo surgery last year and can no longer work --"at great economic loss."

Photo: Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times

Grizzly attacks teen bike rider

A teenage girl riding in an all-night bicycle race in Alaska suffered severe wounds early Sunday morning when a grizzly bear attacked her on a trail in Far North Bicentennial Park, authorities said. The Chicago Tribune reports:

Police officers with shotguns escorted medics into dark woods to retrieve the girl, who was to undergo surgery at Providence Alaska Medical Center. The hospital reported she was still in surgery at 6:30 a.m. Sunday. "She was cut up and bit pretty good," said Anchorage Police Officer Jean Mills. Police declined to identify the victim. ..

Police were called at 1:35 a.m. after another bicyclist found the mauled girl down and dazed on the ground. She was among about 60 participants in a 24-hour race sponsored by the Arctic Bicycle Club. The team event began at noon Saturday and was to end at noon Sunday. Organizers canceled it after the attack and were trying to account for all the other riders.

Most likely the grizzly, which has a pair of cubs, was fishing for salmon in the creek and might not have heard the cyclist coming due to stream noise and strong winds roaring through the forest, he said.

A spokesman said this afternoon that the girl was expected to survive.

S.F. zoo denies Siberian tiger was underfed

The female Siberian tiger that fatally mauled a zoo visitor last year was not underfed, according to San Francisco Zoo officials who denied a report that Tatiana's weight loss may have heightened her aggressive behavior. Fox News reports:

The zoo officials were responding to a KCBS radio report that indicated the tiger's loss of 50 pounds since her arrival at the zoo from Denver two years earlier may have led to the fatal incident, KTVU.com reported.

After escaping from her grotto on Dec. 25, Tatiana attacked and killed zoo visitor Carlos Sousa, Jr., 17, of San Jose, and injured two others, brothers Amritpal Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23.

Roughly a year earlier, on Dec. 22, 2006, former zookeeper Lori Komejan had been clawed and bitten by Tatiana while feeding her and suffered serious injuries, KTVU.com reported.

According to the KCBS report, the tiger weighed 292 pounds when she arrived from the Denver Zoo in 2005. She weighed just 242 pounds when she was shot and killed by authorities following the deadly San Francisco mauling.

KCBS's report was "incredibly disappointing," according to a statement released by zoo officials, adding that Tatiana's necropsy report indicated she was in "good nutritional status at the time of death."

Moe the chimp escapes from wildlife facility

A well-known chimp named Moe -- whose chimp companions brutally attacked Moe's owner in 2005 -- is missing from the Devore wildlife facility where he lived, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department reports.

"I have a chimp missing. I don't know if he escaped or not," said Tom Betty, a supervisor with the Sheriff's Department. Betty told The Times on Saturday night that Moe was believed to have fled into the San Bernardino National Forest and was being sought by animal control officers.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin has more:

On Friday afternoon, the chimp featured in several news stories over the years, escaped from Jungle Exotics near Devore. On Saturday, San Bernardino County animal-control officers and volunteers were searching the heavily forested area, while a privately owned helicopter circled overhead.

Michael McCasland, who said he was a friend of the West Covina couple who raised the chimp, likened the search to looking for a missing child. "These 24 hours since he got away are crucial just like looking for a child," he said. "He has never escaped into the wild before and has no food or water out there." McCasland, who was at the scene Friday and Saturday, said Moe might have escaped into the San Bernardino National Forest after being spooked by a recent fire.