According to the media pit bulls are savage and vicious killers who have no problem sinking their teeth into innocent children and animals whenever they get the chance.

But according to these two tiny guinea pigs pit bulls are straight up lovers, and make for great cuddle buddies.

When Kristy Gamayo adopted Moki the pit bull she was told to keep him away from her little guinea pigs Frida and Pandora, but the three unlikely friends immediately began bonding and have since become best friends:

'The piggies are always crawling up to Moki - smelling her - and Moki in return licks them as she lies down with them.

'To this day, Moki and the piggies cuddle together and Moki likes to give them kisses.'

Now Kristy has set up an Instagram account @piggiesandpitty so people around the world can bask in the glory of their crazy critter love!

-Via Daily Mail

The roads are deep with snow, and you gotta take the dogs out anyway. You might as well have a little fun doing it!

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Stephen Mann gathered his dogs Cabot and Barney, their leashes, his snowboard, and a selfie stick for a romp that's just as much fun for him as for the dogs! I'm not completely sure, but I think this is in New Jersey. They got up to ten inches of snow last weekend. -via Digg

Many cat owners wish they could take their kitty with them wherever they go, so felines and humans can explore the world together like true friends, but cats usually don't dig strutting around town on a leash.

So what's the alternative?

This kooky looking cat carrier backpack called the U-Pet has earned rave reviews from feline fanciers who felt bad that their indoor cats were stuck indoors day in and day out.

Now their kitties can explore the world like little astronauts while hanging around in this space age backpack, which features a viewing dome and a bunch of air vents on the front and side so kitty doesn't suffocate.

The U-Pet looks like great fun for humans to wear, but judging by the photos cats are not impressed by this backpack-shaped kitty pod.

In fact, a few of those angry kittehs look like they would have preferred to stay home!

See Genius Cat-Pack Lets Your Pet Travel Like A Little Astronaut here

They're strange looking relatives of sharks and rays, they're elusive and live 2600 meters or more below the surface, and they have retractable sex organs on their foreheads.

They're Chimaeras, or ghost sharks or pointy-nosed blue ratfish, and they've never been captured on video before 2016, when a remotely operated vehicle deployed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute caught this swim-by on camera.

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Chimaeras are normally thought to inhabit the waters around New Zealand and Australia, but the remote vehicle captured the Chimaera swimming in the Northern Hemisphere, which researchers found interesting.

What you might find interesting are these strange physical traits of the Ghost Sharks, via National Geographic:

A pattern of open channels on their heads and faces, called lateral line canals, contain sensory cells that sense movement in the water and help the ghost sharks locate lunch.

And perhaps most fascinating, male chimaeras sport retractable sex organs on their foreheads.

-Via Boing Boing

In the hills of Austria you can find magical moments unfolding as a child discovers how to speak to the animals, in this case marmots, and relate to them on their level.

Whether he knows exactly what they're saying or not is anyone's guess, but his special rapport with the normally shy marmots is truly something special, and their connection makes for some magical photo-ops.

12-year-old Matteo Walch became pals with the alpine marmots at an early age, when his mom Michaela introduced him to the joy of nature and he had the good fortune of meeting a colony of marmots.

They've come back to Grossglockner for two weeks a year ever since, where Michaela takes some great shots that truly capture the unusual yet heartwarming bond between Matteo and the marmots.

Alex first posted about Matteo and the marmots back in 2012, and it's interesting to see that even though Matteo is now a tween the marmots still see him as their little buddy!

See Adorable Photos Of A Young Austrian Boy Enjoys A Special Friendship With Shy Marmots here

Debbie Barber's horse Kruzah is a comedian. Here he is, out in the pasture, practicing his routine for his next standup gig. He has a rubber chicken, and he knows how to use it!

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I hope you get a few horse laughs out of this. -via Tastefully Offensive 

Photographer Marcel Heijnen became charmed with the many cats who live in the retail shops of Hong Kong. He's taken portraits of many of them, collected in his new book Hong Kong Shop Cats. 

Heijnen regards the small stores where the cats lounge and doze as “beautiful photogenic subjects in their own right.” They are places where, says Heijnen, “time seems to have stood still, devoid of branding and all the other modern-day retail trickery we’ve grown accustomed to”.

See a selection of Heijnen's images from the book at Atlas Obscura and more shop cats at his Instagram gallery Chinese Whiskers.

Erin McCutcheon's cat Juno escaped from a pet carrier and jumped out of a moving car on the upper deck of I-93S in Boston on Christmas Day. McCutcheon couldn't find the cat, so she distributed posters and put out a call for help on Facebook. On January 3, a group of electricians spotted Juno 80 feet above the lower deck, perched on the support girders under the upper deck. Juno had been there for nine days! The crew couldn't catch Juno, who was frightened, but eventually lured her out with canned cat food. Juno, hungry and thirsty, went home with electrician Jay Frazier, and will be reunited with the McCutcheons soon. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jay Dondero)

Cats know exactly what your weakness is. After all, you adopted them, so you must be a cat lover. They manipulate your sense of "awww" and give you that adorable look, and they can get away with the most atrocious behavior. They know. Cats are diabolical that way. This is the latest from Sarah Andersen at Sarah's Scribbles.

Not only does this ad remind you of local cable access commercials, it's full of jokes, memes, bad puns, and the occasional breaking of the fourth wall. Oh, and it's full of cute cats, too.

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Furkids Animal Rescue and Shelters in Georgia resorted to making a parody of bad local TV ads in order to draw attention to their many cats (and dogs) who needs homes. You can be assured that your local shelter is in the same fix. -via Uproxx  

Can you tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? How about a leopard and a cheetah? Do you know if the animal above is a llama or an alpaca? This Buzzfeed quiz tests your animal knowledge by asking you to do exactly those things. I'm a pretty big animal nerd and I only got 7 out of 10, so don't expect the test to be easy.

So test your animal identification skills here.

It's hard to say no to a stray dog begging for food on the city streets, and even though people can come up with all kinds of reasons why they shouldn't give a buck to a homeless person they can't deny a stray dog if they're animal lovers.

And, as the guy who shot this video in Bangkok, Thailand discovered, sometimes donating food to a stray means you're helping feed her family of pups as well, which we can all agree is a win-win-winwinwinwin situation!

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-Via Daily Mail

Cats love catnip, and we love to watch cats react to catnip. It has no lasting effect on them, and they aren't operating heavy machinery anyway, so what's the harm? Simon Whistler from Today I Found Out takes a deeper look into what catnip does.

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The key ingredient is nepetalactone. That's a new one on me. It's a kind of cat pheromone, which only makes you appreciate how nature has given a gift to cats in plant form. -via Laughing Squid

Freddy was the runt of the litter when he was born, but he's certainly grown up since then. In fact, now he's the world's tallest dog -when he stands up on his back legs, he measures a whopping 7'5" tall! Guinness announced their new record holder in late December.

Anyone interested in keeping tabs on the pooch can now follow him on his Instagram page. 

Via Huffington Post

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Some people believe their dogs understand everything they say, while others claim dogs only understand facial expressions and emotional responses, but most animal behaviorists agree the truth is a combination of the two.

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Dogs can understand words their humans say to them repeatedly, and they begin to associate things like mealtime, praise and admonishment with those words, the most popular being the praise "good dog".

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Redditor JavaReallySucks posted a pic of his adorable dog before and after being called a good boy, to illustrate the way his dog's face lights up after being praised by his master.

The photographic exercise seemed like fun so others took to shooting before and after praise pics of their pets, which worked really well with the dogs while the cats continued to not give a crap one way or the other.

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See People Are Posting Pics Of Their Animals Before & After Being Called A Good Boy here