Six-legged deer and Santeria: your afternoon animal news roundup

• A six-legged deer found in northern Georgia has found a home with a woman permitted to keep unique animals in captivity.
• Police officials in Miami-Dade County, Fla., said their new handbook will include a reminder to respect people's freedom to practice religion when responding to calls about ritual animal sacrifice. The decision comes a year after police in Coral Gables raided and detained people at a home where Santeria practitioners were slaughtering goats, chickens and pigeons.
• Animal services officers in the Northern California town of Boulder Creek confiscated 38 dogs and puppies from a home over the weekend after finding "more dead dogs than we could count" and dog heads hanging from trees.
• An animal activist was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for making bomb threats to disrupt animal testing at UC San Diego.
• And celebrity chef Rachael Ray has started a line of dog food based on recipes she concocted for her pit bull.

-- Tony Barboza

Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[Brien Comerford]

I don't know anything about the Santeria religion. However, I don't think that inhumanely killing goats, chickens and other creatures of God is a godly thing to do. The United States should always prosecute animal abuse.

[Ellen Hilburn]

I am happy that there are good people in the world. People who care for the unusual like the six-legged deer found in northern Georgia. Anyone who abuses an animal, should be shot on site. That is crime against innocent creatures who have no say.