This week's pet and animal related links

Forbidden furniture...its SOOOOOO good.

US Winter Olympian Gus Kenworthy is winning hearts and twitter followers around the world by drawing attention to the stray dog problem in Sochi - and doing something about it: not only is he bending the ears and cameras of any journo who wants to listen, the skier is also planning to adopt some. Clearly there will be some quarantine issues to sort out, but we're impressed with his personal committment. 

There has been much debate, as there should be, about the culling of "surplus" giraffe Marius at Copenhagen Zoo. Sydney Uni Human Animal Research Network (HARN) associate Dr Matthew Chrulew did some interviews last week on the topic. He has done some important research on the culture and practice of zoos and wrote a chapter in Animal Death on the topic. You can read and listen to his interviews with the Sydney Morning Herald here and on Sunrise here. (Its a shame that the latter interview cuts off when the host asks a great big philosophical question at the end...I was left hanging on the edge of my seat!).

Speaking of HARN, you can watch the recent presentations in the comfort of your own home on the HARN vimeo channel which has just been updated. Check it out here. Its a great way to stay current with some excellent research in the animal studies area.

Visit Lili Chin at http://doggiedrawings.net/

Artist Lili Chin and Design Lab Creative Studio created this fantastic poster on the World's Most Dangerous Foods for Dogs. You can download it here. They've done a great job summarising some of the key food hazards (I have to tell clients every day to avoid feeding grapes to their dogs. For some reason, dogs do love them...but they can cause severe toxicity and death, so it isn't worth the risk).

This clip, released a couple of years ago now, is hard not to re-watch. It combines two of our favourite things: ABBA and enthusiastic, positive animal lovers. I don't know how many takes they did, but it was worth it.