ISTANBUL (AP) — When President Obama visited Turkey last year, he paused to stroke a tabby cat at the former Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan looked on with a smile. The cat, one of half a dozen living at the ancient site, seemed unfazed by the VIP attention. Many ...

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — When you hear the story of Francisco, you know he shouldn't be here. He's a dog, after all, a stray dog from a country with an estimated 400,000 stray dogs who fight every day for survival. But the story of Francisco and how he got to Greeley, how he adopted an American, is ...

MIAMI (AP) — The man sitting with his dying wife in a Broward Vitas Hospice room at first told Jana Thomas and her Shetland sheepdog Pogo not to come in. But when Thomas put Pogo in bed beside the woman, she wrapped her arms around the dog, stroked his fur and began to grin. "She hasn't been ...

SIKESTON, Mo. (AP) — A local animal rescue organization has found a way to put homeless animals in the hands of those who want them — even if those hands are hundreds of miles away. Pilots N Paws is a website that provides a forum used by animal rescues and animal-loving pilots to arrange and coordinate ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — At first glance, teaming at-risk teenage boys with untrained dogs might seem a little, well, risky. Don't tell that to Josue Vasquez, 17, Luis Ramirez, 14, or Alejandro Flores, 16. The teens are part of Sycamore Canyon Academy, a residential program for troubled boys — most between the ages of 13 and 17 ...