Weird news: Girl married a dog to ward off curse

Bestiality exists in this world, and can be found on extreme porn sites; it is also illegal all over the world. So you would be surprised at a girl marrying a dog in a public function in India. Why did this happen ? This happens for the same reason that girls end up marrying a tree or other such non-human object. The idea is that this marriage will remove any curse or similar problem on the girl, after which the curse goes away and then the girl can get married to whoever she likes after this.
Once this marriage is over, and it is recognized by the locality, but not by the official administration over there, the girl can then abandon this first 'husband' and go in for a proper legally recognized marriage (link to article):

The 18-year-old, who lives in a small village in the state of Jharkland, India, recently married a stray pooch in order to ward off a curse that her fellow villagers feared would cause the death of any man who married her. "The village elders told us that we should organize the wedding as soon as we can," he told Barcroft TV. "We had to make sure that the evil spell is destroyed."

This is called a use and throw husband.

Weird news - Dog dedicated to master, stays by his grave for 6 years

They say that a dog is devoted to human, called man's best friend. There have been many cases where a dog has put in his best efforts to save the human, and other cases where a dog has senses danger (including a fire in the house) and managed to get his owner to get out of danger. A dog is also the prime leader for many blind people, leading them around safely and acting as their eyes.
This devotion to their human masters is a well deserved reputation, such as when you consider the following case where the devotion of the dog to its master went well beyond the life of the master, and it seems wonderful how the dog could detect where its master was buried, since the death took place in a hospital and the dead body was then taken to the burial ground to be buried. After this, even though the family wanted to take the dog to the house, he came back to the burial ground (link to article):

The dog called Capitan, a German Shepherd, had disappeared from his home in the small town of Villa Carlos Paz in the centre of Argentina following the death of his owner, Miguel Guzman, in March, 2006. Nobody in Guzman’s family noticed the absence of the dog for days, until the members visited Miguel’s grave at a municipal cemetery. “Damian (Guzman’s son) started to shout that it was Capitan and the dog came toward us barking, as if he were crying,” the New York Daily News quoted Guzman’s wife, Veronica Moreno, as telling the La Voz del Interior.

Weird news - Dog saves himself by calling the emergency number

Well, no one is going to say that the dog actually called the emergency number through the phone by intention, but it happened that way. It seems very weird when you read the news, but the actual fact is that the dog somehow got his neck entangled in the long wire of the landline telephone, and through the twisting while trying to get away from the wire, managed to press the emergency number (999) which is the emergency number of the United Kingdom.
This managed to get the emergency services to the home, but they were looking for some human who was injured or in an emergency condition, but it was a neighbor who came to the house and who managed to detect the dog in a choking condition and helped the dog get away from the wire (link to article):

The operator at the other end could only hear heavy breathing and gasping. Sensing an emergency situation, the operator alerted the police, who rushed to the empty home of driving instructor Steve Brown and daughter Lydia. The police team began searching for an aged or injured person in the house, located in South Hiendley, West Yorkshire.
It was only when a neighbour, Paul Walker, walked into the living room that George was found choking — with the phone wound tightly round his neck.

Weird news - Hero dog accidentally put to sleep (death)

When something like this incident happens, you wonder about how such things can happen. Imagine a dog who saved soldiers in Afghanistan by attacking a soldier bomber and preventing harm to the soldiers in such a manner. And, when finally the stray dog is adopted and brought back to the United States, and then runs away from the adoptee's house. She was found and sent to a animal shelter, where an employee of the shelter euthanized the dog, not knowing how famous the dog was (the dog had even been featured on CNN for saving around a dozen soldiers).
And now there is really nothing that can be done, given that the hero dog is now dead (with the family that adopted her being heart-broken); the only thing that could be done was that the person who did the actual deed was placed on administrative leave (link to article)

The dog, Target, was recently brought over from Afghanistan by a soldier who had returned from his tour of duty. Target was featured by CNN for heroism after saving dozens of soldiers from a suicide bomber on February 11. "She got her name because the Afghans we lived with were constantly trying to off her. She's been shot in the leg. ... The Afghans actually ran over her," Sgt. Christopher Duke said, who helped care for Target in Afghanistan and has adopted her packmate Rufus. "There's no killing this dog for sure. She's pretty much been through it all, " he said upon their reunion in July in Georgia.
Target's new owner, Army Sgt. Terry Young whose life was saved by the stray, helped bring the 2-ish-year-old from Afghanistan to her new home in Arizona. She disappeared from Young's home on Friday. Facebook postings requested help in finding her.

Jennifer Lopez sued for dog flight

It is presumed that the rich and powerful (especially celebrities) can get away with anything, but sometimes they run against people who are ready to challenge them. Especially for celebrities, the public is far more likely to accept that a celebrity has been at fault, and the story is also highlighted by the media as a juicy morsel that more people will want to read. Consider this case:

The perception may be that anything goes for private jet travelers, but as Jennifer Lopez is finding out, there are some limits to what you can get away with aboard a private jet. As first reported in the New York Daily News, NetJets flight attendant Lisa Watson filed a suit against the Latin diva seeking $5 million in damages from an alleged bite made by Lopez’s guard dog aboard a flight from Farmingdale, NY to Burbank, CA on July 3, 2006.
According to Wilson, 90 minutes into the flight, the dog attacked her and bit into her pant leg as she walked down the cabin of the Gulfstream G-IV. As she tried to get away, Wilson says she twisted and fell, injuring her back in the process. The injuries she sustained would eventually require surgery, and prevented her from being able to work since the incident.

Being a celebrity gets you many benefits, but also comes with its own problems, as Jennifer Lopez is finding out, and many other celebrities already know.

Online auctions to clone dogs

Cloning has always been a controversial subject, and the concept of human cloing has always raised the hackles of a large number of people, including politicians. As a result, most countries have shied away from approving of human cloning; further, the news that a South Korean scientist had faked his results in the area of cloning led to a further backlash against the subject. On the other hand, cloning of animals has not provoked the same kind of reaction. Cloning of pets specially, the animals who are almost part of a family has started becoming an acceptable field (or at least does not provoke politicians and conservative campaigners to take up arms against this).
A company now plans to take this up on a commercial basis, offering to do cloning of dogs, and offering this facility at an auction. It is also doing a partnership with the discredited South Korean researcher, Hwang Woo Suk:

A California company is planning a string of online auctions next month to clone five dogs, with the bidding to start at $100,000. Scientists consider dogs among the most difficult animals to clone because they have an unusual reproductive biology, more so than humans.
"I know the association with Dr Hwang is going to be controversial," Lou Hawthorne, the chief executive of BioArts, said. "One of the contradictions of Dr Hwang is that he made mistakes on his human stem-cell research, and he's the first to admit that."
But he said Hwang's dog-cloning work had been independently verified. "Our main concern is simply he's the best when it comes to dog cloning," Hawthorne said, "and for that reason it behooves us to work with him."

People get so attached to pets that those having money are willing to spend heavily to try and obtain a clone of their dogs; however, this whole business of cloning involves ethical issues and needs to be relooked.

Killing dog by putting in washing machine

Imagine being so drunk that you know not what you are doing, and being so drunk that you lose your basic humanity, the concept of right and wrong. A pet is a good friend, especially dogs, who tend to be very faithful; after all, there are many cases of pets having saved the lives of their owners. You can see this happening regularly, when you can see guide dogs leading blind or visually challenged people to safety. So, what do you say to a person who put their pet dog into a washing machine, and then made sure that the dog died inside the washing machine:

Drunken dog owner Andrew Glazzard killed his pet by putting it into a washing machine “to teach it a lesson” after it made a mess, a court heard. The dog Maisie had survived an earlier ordeal in the machine but Glazzard put her back in when he noticed her tail was still wagging. The dog died when Glazzard fell asleep before switching off the machine. He then put the animal’s body in a bag and threw it into the River Stour, the court heard.

There are many laws that apply to people behaving in such a way; and even if we treat pets at not the same level as humans, such behavior is unacceptable.