Walt Disney World is going after pet owners who might feel better about vacationing at the resort if they know their dogs will be coddled with bedtime stories or their cats treated to snacks such as tuna on Ritz crackers.

“We will be able to provide wonderful experiences for pets,” said Dennis Dolan, president and chief executive officer of Best Friends Pet Care Inc.

His Norwalk, Conn., company just got a contract from Disney to operate the resort’s five existing kennels — and to build a state-of-the-art boarding center where dogs and cats can board in two-room suites with patios and get all the pampering they have come to expect.

Walks? Sure. Runs on an obstacle course? If they wish, as shown on the right, at a Best Friends facility in New York. Ice cream snacks. Bottled water. Supervised socializing with other pets. Elevated beds with lamb’s-wool bedding. If special bedding is desired — even orthopedic beds — those, too, will be available.

For dogs used to curling up on a child’s bed and drifting off to sleep as a parent reads a bedtime story, bedtime stories will be available. For those conditioned to nap in front of a TV, televisions can be provided. And they won’t be playing just any TV shows; they’ll have dog movies, like Milo and Otis or Homeward Bound.

“A lot of people leave their televisions or radios on at home during the day to keep their pets company. This is really an idea that came to us from our clients who wanted a more homelike setting for their pets,” said Best Friends spokeswoman Debra Bennetts. “What we provide is luxury suites. . . . It’s really for that person who wants to make sure that their pet is being pampered the way they get pampered at home.”

Cats will get a different kind of pampering. Their “condos” will come with lofts. Their TVs will play videos of birds. They can have aquariums to watch.

Dolan said luxury boarding for pets has been emerging for years, and he considers his company to be one of the innovators. Best Friends has 44 other boarding centers nationwide. Most of the luxury features are available at most of them.

Note: an earlier version stated misleading rates for Disney’s kennels.

At those other Best Friends facilities, basic boarding fees for dogs range from less than $25 to more than $40 a day, depending on the local market and the size of the dog. Luxury features, such as 10 minutes of cuddle time, can be purchased separately for $2 to $12 per feature or in packages that add $12 to $38 a day to the cost.

The company has not yet set its Disney World luxury rates. Current Disney fees run from $10 to $15 a night, depending on the pet. Those basic rates will go up after Best Friends starts taking over operations in January — perhaps up to $20 a night, though the level of service will increase, too, Disney spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez said.

Kids are motivated by the darndest things.

For students at Cameron Elementary School, it was the prospect of seeing their principal, William Mannion, kiss a farm animal that motivated them to raise more than $1,000 for victims of the recent Southland fires.

On Wednesday, the students’ efforts paid off.

Led out by members of Covina High School’s agriculture department, a 7-month-old steer named Little One was greeted by hundreds of excited students, all of them cheering “Kiss it, kiss it!”

“Mr. Mannion will kiss the cow,” school librarian Vicki White said to the crowd. “And then, because you doubled it and got to $1,000, I will do it.”

The crowd erupted with each kiss gently placed on Little One’s nose.

“It was kinda weird to see Mr. Mannion do that,” commented Daniel Alvardo, 10. “He’s pretty cool because he keeps everything he says.”

Even Pamela Fowlkes, the office manager at Cameron Elementary, ended up kissing the cow.

“I’m just so proud to be able to kiss a cow because of everything that’s been done,” said Mannion. “It demonstrates what we do here at Cameron, because we really do care about our community. This is just about the best place I’ve ever seen.”

The event and school-wide fundraiser was conceived by White after realizing a need among the thousands of displaced residents following the fires surrounding Los Angeles and San Diego.

“When the fires started we wanted something to donate to locally,” White said. “We told the students that their coins would benefit the kids who lost their books and toys.”

White knew, however, that children respond well to reward.

After a short negotiation with Mannion concerning what might be an apt payoff, a compromise was agreed upon: If $500 was raised, Mannion would kiss a surprise farm animal during a special assembly.

So, for the first two weeks in November, buckets donated by the local Dollar Tree store were stationed in each classroom.

A total of $1,295.78 was raised during those two weeks, far overshooting the $500 goal.

Representatives from the Community Foundation serving Riverside and San Bernardino counties were on hand to receive the check. The money will be put toward the foundation’s Fire Victim’s Relief Fund.

“This donation means that citizens outside of our two county areas are concerned enough to dig deep into their pockets and provide assistance to those who are in need,” said Paula Myles, controller for the foundation.

Members of an elephant family may be out of sight but they are always in the minds of the herd’s matriarchs, reseachers have found.

Tests have found that female elephants are able to remember the whereabouts of at least 17 family members simultaneously and perhaps as many as 30. They can keep mental tabs on which of their relations are ahead of them when the herd searches for food, which of them are lagging behind and which are travelling in separate groups.

Professor Richard Byrne, of the University of St Andrews, said that the elephants performed an impressive feat of memory by being able to recall where each of their relatives was in a constantly changing environment. “It’s hard enough for us to keep track of two or three children in a busy shopping centre. Imagine trying to do it with 30 or so,” he said.

Researchers tested the ability of African elephants to remember where each family member had got to by watching their behaviour while sniffing urine. Elephants have poor eyesight but an excellent sense of smell and are able to identify one another from traces of urine on the ground.

To test the memories of the elephants samples of urine-soaked earth were collected by researchers and placed in positions where a herd was about to pass. Observations showed that the animals exhibited surprise when they could detect the odour of a family member they knew was behind them. Interest was shown when the urine was that of a close relative travelling in the same group or in a separate herd, but samples left by unknown individuals were ignored.

Professor Byrne said that the study cast light on the way that elephants used their memories, especially as powers of long-term recall were likely to be of limited use to them.

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that elephants have good long-term memories but the study, in the Amboseli National Park, in Kenya, suggested that the ability to remember where a female relative could be found was much more important to them.

“Very long-term memory may not be all that important to animals except on rare occasions,” Professor Byrne said. “But keeping track of a constantly changing situation would be.

“Elephants are keeping track of whether a member of the family is in the group they are in and whether they are in front or behind. That’s quite a challenge for any of us when you are talking about 20 to 30 individuals.”

The experiments were carried out by researchers from the University of St Andrews and the Amboseli Trust for Elephants in Kenya. More than 1,400 elephants from eight clans live in the park, in 58 family units.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the journal Biology Letters, concluded: “It seems that female elephants have a general interest in monitoring family members with whom they are travelling. Elephants’ order of travelling often changes and ‘overtaking’ is common, suggesting that elephants must frequently update their expectation of where others are in relation to themselves.

“As a highly social species, elephants would benefit from knowing which individuals were near by.”

When it’s monkey verse man who do you think will win?

The answer may surprise you.

Researchers in Japan pitted 5 year old chimpanzees against human adults in a memory test.

Both groups sat in front of video screens with numbers one through nine scattered on them.

One by one the chimps touched the numbers… in the right order.

In more difficult tests the numbers disappeared after the first one was touched.

The chimps remembered where the numbers were and in the right order.

And humans? Not so much.

The research shows when it comes to short-term memory chimps may be higher on the evolutionary chain.

There’s no mistaking it when Vic starts to work. He ignores everybody. He rarely speaks. He’s all business.

Granted, such spurts only last a half-hour to 45 minutes. Then it’s time for a nap.

Vic, who turned 3 in September, is an explosives-detection canine trained by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to detect more than 18,000 different substances, from gunpowder to peroxide-based explosives. His handler is Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy Doreen Genosky.

They’re on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week and go wherever they’re needed, whether it’s in Ramsey County or not. They were at the scene of the I-35W bridge collapse in August to help rule out explosives. Before the State Fair opened, they scoured every building.

Most days, Genosky and Vic’s office is the Ramsey County Courthouse in downtown St. Paul. Sometimes they’re assigned to a specific case. Other times they search the courtrooms being used that day. Vic is sniffing for guns, bullets, spent shells or any other type of explosive.

Nothing has been found at the courthouse, at least not in the year that Vic and Genosky have patrolled it together.

Some days ago, Vic’s star-shaped badge tinked as he stopped at Courtroom 840 on his regular rounds, where he greeted his fellow deputies (Vic isn’t actually a sworn deputy), a couple of reporters and members of slain St. Paul police Sgt. Gerald Vick’s family, including his mom, Maggie Vick, there for a hearing.

“What’s his name?” they asked.

“Vic,” Genosky said.

That elicited smiles all around. No, Vic is not named for the fallen officer. He’s a New York-bred dog and was named there.

Vic and Genosky’s skills are in demand away from the courthouse, too. They often go along when a narcotics unit or a gang strike force searches a home.

They were called when St. Paul police impounded a car believed to have been used in a drive-by shooting. Vic found the exact spot in the car where a gun had been fired. “He alerted to the residue from the weapon,” Genosky said.

She brought her canine partner to an empty courtroom a few weeks ago to talk to a reporter and photographer. Vic wandered the room, sniffing the corners, in and around the jury box, the witness stand, the judge’s bench, the benches in the gallery. Finished, he decided this was as good a time as any to nap at his partner’s feet.

Ten minutes later, he stood, barked — a bark even larger than the 70-pound dog — warbled, pawed at Genosky and jumped up to put his paws on her shoulders.

“He wants to work right now,” she said. “He’s telling me, ‘Let’s do something.’”

Genosky hid her ammunition clip in a desk in front of the judge’s bench and gave Vic a one-word command: “Seek.”

Vic’s muscles tightened. His nose rose to catch the scent, then dropped to the floor, and off he went. It took him about 45 seconds to find the clip. He put his nose to it, then sat and stared at Genosky.

“His alert is called a passive response,” she said. “He just sits and makes eye contact with me because we don’t want him disturbing anything he might find, in case it is an explosive.”

Vic got a treat for finding the ammunition clip. He returned to it and again sat and stared. And again, and again.

“That’s enough,” Genosky told him.

Genosky trains Vic at least an hour every day. If he doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat.

“Most of the patrol dogs, they work for a ball or a toy,” Genosky said. “Vic won’t work for toys. When he’s working, I normally have a food pouch on me. He finds an explosive and I … give him a handful of food.”

Vic was being trained to guide blind people when he was acquired by the ATF. He was trained for six weeks. After Genosky got the handler job, she went to the ATF canine training facility in Front Royal, Va., to train with Vic for another 10 weeks. At that point, the ATF estimated it had invested about $50,000 in the dog, Genosky said. Genosky agreed to a five-year commitment when she took the handler’s job.

Vic is one of seven ATF-trained dogs in the state; most other law-enforcement canines are multipurpose dogs, apprehending suspects and sniffing out drugs and/or explosives.

The ATF-trained dogs are imprinted on minuscule amounts — gunpowder residue might be smeared on a door handle, for instance — and trained on everything from gunpowder to peroxide-based explosives.

“It’s kind of like having a high school diploma vs. getting a Ph.D.,” said David Gottschalk, an investigator and explosives specialist with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office who formerly worked for the ATF.

The ATF’s “five-family theory” is that all explosives are in some way related to one of five odors. If a dog is trained, or “imprinted” on one odor, it can detect anything in that family.

When the University of Minnesota received a bomb threat last May, Genosky and Vic worked hourlong shifts with seven other dog-and-handler teams, searching every building floor by floor.

“When they’re searching, they’re giving 150 percent,” Genosky said of Vic and the other dogs. “They’re pretty spent at 45 minutes. An hour was a really long time for him to be searching. He kept searching, but he was hanging his head and was tired.”

A quick nap in the car and Vic was ready to go again.

Genosky and Vic were sent to the Grand Prix auto race in Detroit over Labor Day weekend. Genosky hopes they can go to the Super Bowl this coming winter. “Heading to Arizona in January would be awesome,” she said. They’re almost certain to work at the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities next September.

At the courthouse, almost everybody knows Vic and greets him with a smile. But he’s the one who decides whether he lingers long enough for a scratch or a sniff.

“It’s on his own terms if he wants to be distracted,” Genosky said. “If he’s working, he ignores everybody.”

Vic lives with Genosky in a Ramsey County suburb. When his badge comes off, he knows he’s off-duty. “At work, Vic is an angel,” Genosky said. “At home he turns into a little monster. He’s a bed hog. He likes to take my things. He’ll take my phone and move it. He thinks it looks better over, uh, here.

“He’s a dog and every once in a while he’ll act like one.”

Two miniature horses. Two very different worlds. The one they call Mini Horse is a TV celebrity. The one they call Wonder Girl toils in anonymity.
Mini Horse lives in California’s Hollywood Hills. Wonder Girl sleeps in a stable.
Mini Horse gets all the laughs. Wonder Girl gets all the tears.

While Mini Horse is busy doing photo shoots for the MTV hit “Rob and Big,” a reality show about the antics of a pro skateboarder, his beefy bodyguard/pal and their pets, Wonder Girl works in the shadows, visiting Orange County, Calif.’s ailing with little fanfare; the Mother Theresa of mini horses.

But here’s the shocking thing: These very different horses have one thing in common (besides being extremely small): Both were raised side by side on the same farm by Kelsey Webber. The Irvine, Calif., teen traded in traditional high school to dedicate her days to breeding miniature horses.

Kelsey found her calling at the age of 8. She returned home one day after lunch with her grandpa with a message for her mom: Grandpa bought me a horse and you have to pay him half.

As expected, this did not go over well with her mom Kelly. But as often happens when moms see their child smile, her vow of revenge faded.

Kelsey couldn’t very well keep an appaloosa in her Irvine backyard. So Shadow went to live with her grandparents, who had recently bought a ranch on an acre and a half of land in Norco, Calif.

Kelsey’s gramma, hounded by debilitating back problems, must ride a cart to get around the ranch. So grandpa bought a miniature horse named Misty that she could tend to while he took care of Shadow. Gramma wasn’t the only one who fell in love.

At Kelsey’s urging, the family bought a few more minis to begin breeding and they renamed the ranch Vandy’s Miniature Horse Farm (after Gramma and Grandpa VanDyke).

When she turned 13, Kelsey began attending Spirit Academy, a prep school in Tustin, Calif., that only required her to show up two days a week, so she could be at
the ranch the rest of the time.

The minis multiplied. And when she turned 14, Kelsey did some soul searching and asked her mom if maybe it was time to share their tiny treasures.

“We felt that we are blessed with a lot and we wanted to give back,” Kelsey says. She turned to Wonder Girl.

At 36 inches, Wonder Girl is the tallest mini on the farm. She is also
the mellowest. A national champion in cart pulling and jumping (she can jump three feet), she is now 10 years old.

Kelsey and Wonder Girl spent months training so that they could visit people in hospitals. To make sure Wonder Girl wouldn’t spook, they argued in front of her, dropped things behind her, trotted dogs up to her, rushed her and put her in elevators. Nothing fazed her.

After getting certified, Kelsey offered Wonder Girl’s services to Hospice Care of the West. Based in Foothill Ranch, Calif., the hospice service puts a lot of heart into finding ways to brighten their patients’ last few months on earth. They have an opera singer, dogs and cats. Wonder Girl, though, is their most requested visitor.

On a recent morning, Kelsey and her mom walk Wonder Girl into Care House, a Santa Ana, Calif., nursing home, where rows of wheelchairs fill an activity room. Men and women, some asleep in their chairs, others holding blankets or baby dolls, are listening to a staff member read current events. They’ve just finished hearing about the Emmys and are about to learn about an earthquake in Indonesia when Wonder Girl walks in, with her giant glassy cartoon eyes and adorably fuzzy ears.

“Oh, look at that,” shouts Carma Wallace, 85. “Let her sit by me, will ya?”

Wonder walks patiently from one wheelchair to the next, stopping to let
each person to nuzzle her, kiss her, pat her and ask her questions. Many of the folks in the room speak different languages. But it seems everyone speaks miniature horse.

“Will it cost me much?” a woman in a pink striped housecoat wants to know.

“No, it’s not gonna cost you anything. She just wants to make you smile,” says Donna Miller, volunteer coordinator for Hospice of the West.

“Oh, bless your heart,” the woman says, kissing Miller’s hand.

A few wheelchairs away, a woman with a white puff of hair and rosy cheeks begins to sob. Her one hand is frozen in a sling. Wonder Girl inches up to her and gently rests her head in the woman’s lap until Kelsey leads her to the next wheelchair where Virginia Knudson is waiting.

“He’s not a dog? He’s a horse?” asks Knudson, 89. “Oh boy!”

It was in 2006, a year after Kelsey and Wonder began visiting hospice
patients, that Vandy’s farm got a call from pro skateboarder Rob Dyrdek’s camp.

He and his oversized bodyguard/pal are the stars of the comedy reality show “Rob and Big.” Their bulldog Meaty had started peeing in the house, convincing the boys he was feeling neglected and in need of a friend.

Rob turned to the Internet where he stumbled onto vandysminihorses.com. The show, which was then in season 2, follows Rob and Big as they visit Vandy’s farm where Kelsey shows them around. Rob falls for a 20-inch foal named Sky and renames him Mini Horse.

“We’re about to go on a long journey together, Mini Horse,” Rob tells his new pet after learning it could live 35 years.

Mini Horse has since made it into all but one episode of the show, which has just been picked up for a third season, and the pet’s naughty antics are a favorite subject of “Rob and Big” fan bloggers.

“Mini Horse … should have his own publicist,” says Jeff Abraham, publicist for the show. “When we do a photo shoot they say, ‘Oh, and by the way, we want Mini Horse in the shoot.’ He’s as much a part of the show as Big or Rob.”

The Webbers have gotten a few hate emails from people in the horse community who think they shouldn’t have sold to Rob and Big (Mini Horse spends a lot of time in the house and the backseat of the car, unlike your average horse), but they say they are confident he is well taken care of.

Kelsey and her mom watch the show every week and give advice over the phone. When Rob wanted to know how to get Mini Horse up and down the three flights of stairs to the front door, the Webbers told them: you don’t. So Rob had switchbacks carved into his hillside.

This year, the minis at Vandy’s farm gave birth to 10 foals, most delivered by Kelsey, who trains with an equine vet. The farm has 41 mini horses now and 14 more on the way this spring.

The question is: Is this town big enough for another mini horse?

Ask your feathered friends over to dine this winter.

Birds are easy guests. Set the table with a feeder full of seed at a place in your yard where you can watch from a window. Finish off the table setting with a birdbath full of water nearby.

Before too long, the birds will recognize your hospitality and know they have dinner reservations at your home whenever they show up. In turn, they will be your season tickets to a winter-long show.

Reading at the table is not rude when you ask the birds to dinner. Keep a bird identification book nearby and you will begin to know who your guests are as time goes by. “Birds of Virginia Field Guide” is a good for beginners and children because the birds are grouped by color. If you see a bird that is red, you look under red birds in the book. It’s as simple as that.

Since they always add some color to the day when the weather is dreary, we have prepared some tips for you, the host, to make sure your dinner is for the birds. We also have come up with a list of 10 common yard birds you are apt to see this winter, along with a few unusual visitors

A Cedar Rapids woman is crediting her cat with possibly saving her life from exposure to carbon monoxide.

For the last week, or longer, Jeanie Probst says her black and white cat named Oreo made a screeching racket every time the furnace in her apartment kicked on. The cat would also constantly look at the heating registers while making odd sounds. She says she couldn’t figure out the problem…until she finally called MidAmerican Energy to test for poisonous CO fumes.

Probst tells TV9 that she and her boyfriend had headaches and slight flu-like symptoms during the same period of time. Those are some of the signs of mild CO poisoning. But she wasn’t sure something was really wrong.

Still, the constant agitation of her cat that convinced her to call for a furnace check. Probst said when the technician came to her apartment to check for the odorless, colorless gas she told him how her cat was acting.

“He didn’t believe me at first, he wanted me to run the furnace with the front off. That’s when Oreo got back on the chair, nose to the vent and did his noise again,” Probst said.

Probst said the technician kept checking and eventually discovered a blocked flue. Carbon monoxide gas was getting back into the apartment instead of properly venting outside. Probst said one other odd thing is she has another dog and cat. Neither of those animals reacted in a strange way during this last week.

One feline behavior expert tells TV9 cats have a much keener sense of smell than people. However, dogs are much more sensitive than cats.

Dr. Bonnie Beaver, a veterinarian at Texas A&M University, said there is another possible explanation for Oreo’s agitation. Dr. Beaver said “this cat may be one that’s more susceptible to a headache and because it didn’t feel good it started meowing because it was not comfortable.”

Whatever the explanation, Oreo’s getting extra treats…but he won’t be expected to have to do the job alone again. Probst said she is getting a carbon monoxide detector.

The Texas A&M professor contacted by TV9 said there’s no scientific way to prove a cat was acting “heroically.” Dr. Beaver said she hears such stories occasionally.

Mid-American Energy said the technician who found the carbon monoxide leak also heard the cat’s visible reaction when the leaky furnace was running. The technician said he had never seen anything like it.

Tigers and pigs living together? It sounds unusual, but in Thailand a 6-year old tiger is taking care of some piglets as if they were her own.

Saimai lives at a zoo near Bangkok. She has watched the little pigs since she was 2-years old. The tiger, herself, was brought up by a sow.

The piglets are dressed up in tiger outfits for fun, but don’t normally wear the costumes. At the same zoo, a sow nurses her own piglets and two cubs!

Officials at the zoo insist that in Thailand it is common for tigers to nurse pigs and vice versa.

For cat lovers with exotic tastes and deep pockets a California biotech company has created a hybrid breed that resembles a mini leopard and sells for $22,000.

The Ashera is a mix between an African serval, an Asian leopard and a domesticated cat that can weigh up to 13.6 kilos.

A hypoallergenic version is also available with a price tag starting at $28,000.

“It’s exotic, but under the skin. It’s a domestic house cat, very easy to take care of and extremely friendly,” said Simon Brodie, the founder of Lifestyle Pets that developed the breed.

“Everybody has thought at one time, wouldn’t it be great to have a leopard at home, or a tiger. Obviously you can’t and this is about the nearest thing to it,” he added in an interview.

The Ashera is not as aloof as some cats, is very vocal and can open doors and walk on a leash, according to the company.

“They’re more dog-like than anything,” Brodie said.

Many customers are first-time cat owners or dog lovers who are attracted to the canine-qualities and the relatively self-sufficient nature of cats. Most of the 100 Ashera cats sold this year by the company have been to customers in Russia and China.

The Ashera is just one of a growing breed of designer cats.

Other hybrid varieties include the Toyger, which is a cross of a Bengal and a domestic cat, the Chausie, a mix of jungle and domestic cats, and the Savannah, which resulted from breeding an African serval and a house cat.

Brodie admitted there were similarities between the Savannah and Ashera but said consistency in size and temperament were key differentiating factors.

“Anybody can throw the ingredients in, but unless you know what ingredients are the best ingredients in the best percentages, you’re not going to produce the same final product,” he explained.

The Savannah is classified as an African serval bred with any domestic cat, according to the International Cat Association. The Ashera’s domestic cat component is a specific one that Brodie said won’t be revealed.

“Is it a status symbol? I guess to an extent it is. But so are million-dollar racehorses,” said Brodie.