Karin Brulliard –

Santa Curtis keeps his eye on the photographer as Chief, a 2-year-old French Bulldog, keeps an eye on Santa at a Dec. 16, 2019, holiday photo session at Tysons Galleria in McLean, Va. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Michael S. Williamson

‘Have you been a very good boy?’ Santa now asks dogs, cats, parrots and pythons

December 20, 2019 at 10:37 a.m.

Polls show Americans increasingly view their pets as family, and today's Christmas cards leave little doubt about that. More than ever, they include animals. And more than ever, Santas long...

Betty, with Chicago lawyer Tom Harriman, on the Mall in Washington.

Animal attractions get new scrutiny from travel companies

November 22, 2019 at 12:17 p.m.

In many cases, the companies are shunning certain kinds of animal tourism altogether - such as elephant rides and marine mammal shows - and sparking anxiety and resistance at some...

Big-cat trainer Alexander Lacey performs with tigers at one of the final Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus shows in May.

The strange and deadly saga of 15 Ringling Bros. circus cats’ final week in America

August 22, 2019 at 1:12 a.m.

It was still dark as Billy Farley turned his delivery truck off Interstate 75 onto the Jodeco Road exit south of Atlanta. His headlights caught a figure striding down the...

Authorities, Better Business Bureau warn of puppy website scams

June 2, 2018 at 5:48 a.m.

Bae is a 19-week-old Siberian husky with tawny brown markings and cerulean eyes. She's available for $1,500 on the website of Theresa Rosales, a breeder who is licensed by the...

"Abigail" a Jack Russell therapy dog, at Children's Hospital dog parade and Halloween celebration in Washington, D.C., in 2012.

Therapy animals are everywhere, but proof that they help is not

June 3, 2018 at 11:07 a.m.

A therapy-animal trend grips the United States. The San Francisco airport now deploys a pig to calm frazzled travelers. Universities nationwide bring dogs (and a donkey) onto campus to soothe...

A female panther crossed a Florida river and may help her species survive

August 21, 2019 at 8:57 p.m.

Why did the panther cross the river? No one knows, but the big cat's mini-migration has generated mega-excitement among conservationists.The panther in question lives in Florida, and her species is...

Efforts are underway in North America and Europe to find an industrial-scale method to determine the gender of a chicken egg before it's hatched.

New technique may prevent the gruesome deaths of billions of male chicks

August 21, 2019 at 8:42 p.m.

Amid the recent, growing opposition to tightly caged hens, another practice in the poultry industry has drawn less notice: All male chicks born at egg farm hatcheries are slaughtered the...

On Monday, one of the world's largest food service suppliers, Paris-based Sodexo, upped the ante, saying it would switch to cage-free eggs in all its global operations by 2025.

Movement to free hens from cages may be going global

June 10, 2018 at 10:54 a.m.

Dozens of American restaurant chains, supermarket chains and dining service companies have committed in the last two years to ending their use or sales of eggs laid by caged hens....

Do wild animals that attack people need to die? It depends

August 21, 2019 at 6:51 p.m.

A marathon runner who was mauled by a bear in New Mexico on Saturday thought quickly, played dead and escaped injured, but alive. The female bear, which wildlife officials said...

Letter carrier John Bachman walks between high snow banks after delivering mail to a house in Hull, Mass., in February.

Dogs really do bite mail carriers — thousands of them

June 10, 2018 at 3:23 p.m.

Dogs really do bite mail carriers — a lot of them. According to the U.S. Postal Service, which on Wednesday released its annual report on the topic, 6,549 postal workers...

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