Bess had been at the shelter for ten years (Picture: Last Chance Animal Rescue / SWNS)A border collie given the title of Britain’s loneliest dog – after spending ten years in a rescue centre – has finally found a loving home.

Diefer needs a home with experienced owners and no other pets or children (Picture: RSPCA/PA)Hayley says: ‘He would suit experienced owners who have an active lifestyle with lots of time to spend helping Diefer develop his education and training further.

Red and white setters have been on the decline since Victorian times (Picture: BNPS) The red and white setter has fallen to the bottom of the Kennel Club’s vulnerable breeds list after only 39 were born last year (Picture: BNPS)Jim Cuddy, chairman of the Red and White Setter Club of Great Britain, said: ‘Having 10 new puppies does help the breed, given as there were only 39 last year.

After an online appeal, the dog has received hundreds of adoption requests (Picture: Triangle News )‘It takes her quite a while to build up a bond with someone but it’s always handy to have some treats to win her over.

The Queen is a famous fan of corgis (Picture: Rex) The Queen is devoted to her pets and travels with them (Picture: PA)The Kennel Club said the Irish red and white setter had become the most vulnerable of all Britain’s native breeds, with 39 puppy registrations in 2019 – the breed’s lowest figures in 30 years.

Lulu before her weight loss (Picture: SWNS)Lulu the nine-year-old Rottweiler could hardly move and experienced pain in her back legs when she tipped the scales at 9st 10lbs.Owner Gill Jones, a 66-year-old grandmother of six, said: ‘She was a rescue dog and was born with a problem with her genes.

“He’s so naughty!” says Gina Burnside, a 33-year-old payroll processor from Darlington, of her shorthair rescue cat, Hector.Mike offered the neighbours ownership of Bob, but changed his mind when they refused to put in a cat flap and went on holiday for a week, leaving Bob in their garden.

Symptoms include lethargy and vomiting, with dogs also likely to have lesions or ulcers on their tongues or lower limbs (Picture: Wessex News) It affects dogs of all types and ages (Picture: Wessex News)Since the disease reached Britain from America in 2012, the highest number of deaths have been in Greater Manchester, Dorset and the New Forest in Hampshire.

I read your editorial with a wry smile (Towns and cities across Britain need theatres just as much as the West End , 7 December).• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit

- Good luck: No one understands why, in Britain, black cats are still considered to be lucky; and if one walked in front of a bride and groom it was seen as a happy omen for the marriage.And a white cat was thought to bring good fortune and luck to their pet parents.

reporter, Martin Plimmer, went along to Alicia and Bill Eykyn’s Featherbed Country Club for Dogs in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire – where pets can stay for £125 a week, or £265 in today’s money (or to put it another way, four times as much as my student room cost at the time) – to find out about this piece of ‘canine heaven’.

Tally has no front legs (Picture: SWNS)A Shar Pei puppy who had her front paws chopped off by cruel thugs in Romania is now enjoying a new life in Britain.She’s incredible happy now (Picture: SWNS)Karen had previously fostered another Shar Pei for her friend Gina McCallum, who runs the rescue charity.

Black Labrador Beau gave birth to 13 puppies – one of Britain’s largest ever litters.Beau gave birth to 13 pups (Picture: SWNS) Beau’s owners helped with the delivery (Picture: KMG/SWNS) Kisses (Picture: SWNS)All of the other puppies have been named to match their own unique personalities.

Amit says it would be obvious if service animals didn’t want to do their work (Picture: Dr Amit Patel)In November animal welfare campaigner Wendy Turner-Webster told Good Morning Britain she believes using guide dogs is ‘unethical’ as they cannot consent.

“All this science goes towards the business of selling pet food,” says the narrator, Robert Webb. When Joe tastes the product – all pet food gets a human taste test, which is certainly a spectacle, particularly when you’ve seen the meat smoothie rope part – we are told it is “irrelevant”.

George weighs as much as an average British woman after munching on pasties and pies (Picture: Farlap) George will be cared for at Gables Farm in Plymouth, Devon, where the country’s two previous fattest dogs were both looked after (Picture: Farlap)Ruth Pickards, deputy manager for the farm, said she and the team were proud of the work they did to help obese animals get a better life.

Dewi Evans says the Welsh word for rabbit is very similar to its Romance counterparts; Brian Ayers says rabbit bones found in East Anglia are also proof of Roman connections.

The 4cm fragment of tibia bone was unearthed at Fishbourne Roman palace in Chichester, West Sussex in 1964 but was stored in a box at the site until 2017, when Dr Fay Worley, a zooarchaeologist with Historic England, recognised it as belonging to a rabbit.

Photograph: Natalya Vilman/Getty Images/iStockphoto “He’s a lovely cat, although he has got a little grumpy in his old age,” said Michele Heritage, from Devon, of Rubble, who celebrated his 30th birthday at a party at the vet’s last year. In 2014, a female tortoise called Tommy was thought to be Britain’s oldest pet, aged 116.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) said: “Neither Natural England nor Defra have received any credible reports of wild living or breeding big cats in Britain in recent years.