LYONS – While two miniature donkeys were grazing in the early hours of Dec. 21, someone driving along Blue Mountain Road near Lyons, stopped took out a high powered rifle and shot the female donkey, Kaitlin, in the neck and in the chest, killing the small animal. Kaitlin’s brother, Tucker, ran back to the barn, frightened by the noise.

The two donkeys, owned by Bobbie and Tim Watson, were 6 years old. They were pets.

BOULDER – If you are thinking of getting your pet clipped for relief from the summer heat, save the fur. You can be part of a gigantic plan headed up by the Camp Bow Wow outlets across the country, which are collecting all types of fur and even human hair to stuff into nylon stockings and be fastened together to form something called a boom. These booms will be floated out into the Gulf of Mexico to help mop up the oil spill.

LONGMONT – As a pet owner, you may have concerns about your pet undergoing anesthesia. However, measures are taken to make general anesthesia as safe as possible. Anesthesia related mortality (death) is very unlikely: in a study performed by Dr. James Gaynor, a board certified anesthesiologist, less than 0.5 percent of the animals suffered a fatal complication from anesthesia.

LONGMONT – This week Greenwood opened its doors like any other day with an unexpected guest: a two-week old red fox kit. It’s a bit early in the season for baby foxes to be born, but it is with delight that we take this little girl under our wing (pun intended) with intentions of raising her into an adult to be released back into the wild.

Valentine is a sweet little girl who would love to go to a nice quiet home where she can lounge around and take nice log naps. She is declawed in the front so she needs to be a indoor kitty only. Won’t you make this sweetheart your very own?

Arthroscopy (also called arthroscopic surgery) is a fairly new surgical procedure to veterinary medicine that allows evaluation and sometimes treatment of the inside of a joint in a minimally invasive fashion. The surgical procedure uses a tiny viewing instrument called an arthroscope that acts as a camera, and arthroscopic instruments (if treatment is needed). The surgical instruments used are much smaller than traditional instruments and instead of looking at the joint directly; the joint area is viewed on a video monitor.