A 19-year-old Oklahoma woman fought off a shark attack while swimming with her family in Galveston, Texas. Damiana Humphrey was on vacation with her family and swimming in waist-deep water when a shark – about four or five feet long – latched on to her hand. She started punching it. Damiana said the shark released its grip and swam away after she punched it, and she and her siblings quickly got out of the water. Damiana went to a local hospital where doctors operated on her hand. She suffered four severed tendons, and will take several weeks to heal. Galveston Beach Patrol Chief Peter Davis said he’s seen a few shark incidents and the ones he’s seen were shark bites, not attacks, where it’s a case of mistaken identity where they latched onto a human and swam away. Says Chief Davis, “It sounds like this may have been similar to that.”
* “But we won’t know until we actually talk to the shark.”
* No, honey, you weren’t ATTACKED, you were just BITTEN. Big difference.
* Good thing it didn’t latch on to her PUNCHING hand.
* Mistaken identity? Are we supposed to go swimming with a photo ID?

Approximately 100 wild chickens descended on Snettisham, England, a small inland town near the Norfolk coast. Residents said the birds wandered in from a nearby wood and have since unleashed “hell” – they’ve torn up gardens and residents are kept up at night by the endless clucking. Worse yet, some people have been feeding the chickens, and the food has attracted lots of rats. The town council is talking to specialists about what to do about the chickens.
* Yes: what to do, and what kind of seasoning to use.
* Seriously, a town-wide barbecue would clear this right up.
* Sure, they’re annoying, but aren’t the free eggs worth it?
* It’s like the funny version of the Hitchcock movie “The Birds.”
* They’ll just have to wing it.

A 26-year-old female veterinarian posted this story on Reddit: “A puppy arrived very sick, we did an X-ray, found something obstructing, did surgery, and it comes out to be a thong. We put it to the side. The woman owner eventually shows up. We explained what we found and then she says, ‘a thong?! I don’t have a thong! I never had thongs!’, and then called her husband screaming at him. Turns out he’s been cheating on her and it’s his secret mistress’s thong. That was my first day of my job.”
* Imagine the husband searching the house for the missing thong all this time.
* “Where’s that thong, doggone it?” “Yes.”
* The wife’s yelling at him on the phone while he’s trying to give her a thong and dance.
* “I can’t believe the dog got into that! I put it aside for your anniversary present!”
* Guess he’s … in the doghouse.

Remember that guy who tried to take his emotional support alligator to a Phillies game last year? Well, it’s missing, after the owner took it on vacation to Georgia. Joie Henney says Wally, his emotional support alligator, can be petted like a dog or hugged like a teddy bear. Now Henney is distraught after Wally vanished while accompanying him on an April vacation to Brunswick, Georgia, a port city south of Savannah. He said he suspects someone stole Wally from the fenced, outdoor enclosure where Wally spent the night on April 21 and left Wally outside the home of someone who called authorities, resulting in his alligator being trapped and released into the wild. “We need all the help we can get to bring my baby back,” Henney said in a tearful video posted on TikTok. “Please, we need your help.”
* Was he crying crocodile tears?
* Help how? Should we all form search teams and head for the Georgia swamps?
* So if you see an alligator, try to pick it up and pet it. If you still have your arm, that’s probably Wally.
* Two words, pal: Tracking chip.
* You know, he did try getting an emotional support dog, like a normal person. But Wally ate it.
* Meanwhile, Wally’s thinking, “I can’t believe I got away from that creep! So handsy!”

A pet kitty survived a week without food or water after being accidentally shipped off in an Amazon return box by its owners. Utah resident Carrie Clark first noticed Galena had gone missing on April 10, prompting a frantic search of the neighborhood for any sign of the missing animal. A week later, an Amazon warehouse worker in California named Brandy was startled when she opened a returned package and out popped a cat. The box was a ‘try before you buy’ and filled with steel-toed work boots. The worker took the cat to a vet, who read the cat’s microchip and identified the owner in Utah. Clark was stunned when she received a call from the vet in California saying that Galena was brought in to the clinic. She and her husband flew to California to retrieve Galena the following day, delighted to meet Brandy and thank her for finding and caring for their cat.
* Galena wasn’t so delighted – she likes California way more than Utah.
* Pretty soon, somebody somewhere is going to receive a pair of work boots from Amazon and say, “Why do these smell like cat pee?”
* Did they ship the box Purr-cel Post? Har har!
* Now, when Carrie Clark and her husband are doing something with a cardboard box … Galena jumps right in it. Cats are morons.

In Kansas, Karen, a 5-year-old female ostrich at the Topeka Zoo, recently died after grabbing and swallowing a staff member’s keys. Zoo officials say Karen reached beyond her exhibit fence to grab the keys of a staff member, and immediately swallowed them. Zoo staff members consulted with experts across the country about what surgical and non-surgical steps could could be taken to help Karen. Unfortunately, these efforts were unsuccessful. The Topeka Zoo said they will be reviewing and enhancing their protocols to further strengthen the safety measures in place for all its residents.
* To start with, how about everybody keep their keys in their pockets?
* They wanted to recover the keys, but no one had arms long enough.
* Did they try a horseshoe magnet on a long string?
* In happier news, the public is invited to the zoo’s big chicken barbecue this Saturday.

A staff member at the Akron, Ohio Zoo was attacked by a Komodo dragon in the Komodo Kingdom employee service area. The worker suffered multiple bite wounds inflicted by Padar, one of the zoo’s two Komodo dragons. Komodo dragons use sharp, curved teeth and claws to slash and tear at their prey, and can also cause wounds to become septic from venom and bacteria. Komodo dragons can reach up to 10 feet in length and can weigh up to 300 pounds.
* …They like honest conversation, hiking, romantic dinners and simple, surprising gestures that make them feel cherished.
* They DON’T like humans in their service area, weekends that go by way too fast, and negativity.
* The lesson here is NEVER touch the Komodo dragon’s food in the employee fridge.
* How do you cure dragon wounds? Summon the wizard?
* Someone needs to brush up on “How to Train Your Dragon.”

A pet DNA testing company called DNA My Dog claims to provide its customers with the “highest possible accuracy” in determining a dog’s breed. The DNA testing kits cost between $79.99 and $199.99 and are analyzed at the company’s office in Toronto. An investigative team at WBZ News, in Boston, Mass., decided to put DNA My Dog to the test. Instead of sending in a cheek swab from a dog, they submitted DNA taken from the cheek of their reporter, Christina Hager. DNA My Dog determined that Hager was 40 per cent Alaskan Malamute, 35 per cent Shar-Pei and 25 per cent Labrador.
* So she has great hair, a wrinkly neck and she loves chasing a good story.
* “Nice job on that report, Christina. Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl? YOU are! Yes you are!”
* The weird part – this is also what Ancestry dot com told her.
* Oh, come on. Dogs have 78 chromosomes, humans have 46. Easy mistake.
* Maybe this is why you shouldn’t kiss your dog on the mouth.
* Sounds like DNA My Dog is boned.

A butcher in Perth, Australia, is under fire for advertising that its goat meat comes from the baby goats at a petting zoo. Swansea Street Family Butcher wrote on Facebook post that their baby goats come “straight from the petting farm into our back door.” The post shows a photo of a live goat next to a rack of skinned goat carcasses, and the line, “Ever been at a petting farm and wondered what these animals you’re feeding taste like? Well now’s your chance, straight from the petting farm into our back door, bottle-fed baby goats all around 10kg only $15/kg. While stocks last. See if love and endless cuddles does make your food taste better.”
* It’s goat meat. How good CAN it taste?
* If you were ever a kid and you went to a petting zoo and got attacked by the goats after those food pellets in your hands, I don’t think you would mind this too much.
* Kinda makes you wonder why petting zoos don’t have snack bars. Eliminate the middleman.
* Does this butcher take requests? I’ve got a neighbor with four dogs that just won’t stop barking.

The latest craze in Japan: The pig café. Like a cat café, visitors can sit on the floor and play and cuddle with the “micro pigs” – miniature pigs, about the size of a corgi dog. The experience costs about $15 for the first 30 minutes. The first one opened in 2019, and now there are currently about ten minipig cafés throughout the country, with more in the works. The pig café is the latest in a series of animal coffee shops that have popped up in Japan, including ones that feature owls, hedgehogs, birds and even snakes.
* Their slogan is “Enjoy your visit, and watch your step.”
* These pigs sound like attention hogs.
* Funny they don’t mention what they serve in the café part of the Pig Café.
* Is a “micro pig” a pig that can fit in the microwave?
* Dang. Now I’m hungry for ribs.