PEOPLE Pets | Sit. Stay. Play!

Horrifying news out of Lithuania: Internet footage posted by a young man, believed to be 22-year-old Svajunas Beniukas, caused such outrage that a grassroots manhunt ensued, and Beniukas eventually turned himself in to police. Why the anger? According to the Daily Mail, Beniukas threw a wiry-haired dog named Pipiras ("Pepper") off a bridge and onto a busy road, and joked before the toss that "dogs can fly."

The footage (which PEOPLEPets.com has decided not to show) includes a shot of fallen Pipiras, howling in pain. Amazingly, the dog (pictured above) survived the fall, and is expected to live. The Daily Mail reports that he is being treated for fractures and internal injuries. Beniukas, meanwhile, turned himself into police after learning that viewers of the video worked with local authorities to find the bridge's location and identify the man. He has been charged with animal cruelty, and could face a year in jail.

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Barney the Dalmation once weighed more than many people do. No thanks to an owner who fed him fatty treats and chocolate bars, he tipped the scales at a whopping 154-lbs. Barney's condition was so severe that the obese dog could barely move, and in June, the RSPCA in England raided his owner John Green's home, taking custody of the 8-year-old pup. Good news: Barney has now slimmed down to 88 lbs. with diet and exercise, and is ready to be placed in a new home.

Green pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering by failing to address the cause of his dog's chronic obesity, and on Wednesday, a British court banned him from keeping animals for 10 years. Green was also ordered to pay nearly $1,300 and to perform 200 hours of unpaid work.

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Last year, Yvonne Bartram's vet told her that two breeding mares on her farm in England were barren, unlikely to ever conceive again. Luckily, he was wrong, twice! Six weeks ago, the 13-year-old mare named Sofie gave birth to twins, and the other, a 19-year-old named Elbe, is expecting for the second time since the diagnosis.

When Bartram, 47, was told her mares were barren, she thought she might sell Sofie as a riding horse —the mare had been an international show jumper before she began breeding. But one day, Bartram's farrior pointed out that the horse "looked a bit heavy." A different vet performed a scan and confirmed that the mare was seven months in foal.

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Was there a full moon in Delaware Saturday night? One innocent deer suffered through quite the ordeal, but luckily lived to tell the tale (well, if he could talk). It all started around 9 p.m., as New Castle, Del., resident Bonnie Flowers and her companion were driving along Route 9. The duo's Oldsmobile collided with a deer, and immediately, they assumed it was under their car.

But then, Flowers saw ears peeking above the hood, and realized the deer was actually stuck in the car's grill. "I was in tears," she told Philadelphia's Action News 6. "I was like, 'We have to do something. We have to save this little guy.' "

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Since he was crowned the new World's Tallest Dog last week, Titan, a 4-year-old white Great Dane, has gotten so much attention that his Web site crashed! The Guinness World Record holder stands 42.25 inches tall to his shoulder and weighs 190 lbs. Rescued from a breeder in 2005, he's also deaf, mostly blind, and until two years ago, endured epileptic seizures, but none of these challenges are slowing this big guy down.

"The issues that he has don't affect the dog one bit," owner Diana Taylor tells PEOPLEPets.com. "I don't look at him as a sickly, ailing dog. He actually is, to me, in many ways, at an advantage. He's so calm, and his world is so peaceful."

Titan (a.k.a. Tite-Tite) lives in dog-friendly San Diego with Taylor and his canine siblings, 5-year-old Great Dane Ari (also deaf) and 9-year-old German shepherd Diego. The family enjoys their active lifestyle, and they are always out at the dog beach, the dog park or dog restaurants. When it came time to take Titan's official measurement for Guinness, Taylor threw a "big old party" for other dogs and friends at a local day spa. "Everything I do has to be a party!"

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Looks like these guys are ready for their moment in the spotlight! Photographer David Schultz snapped this sweet shot of three penguins standing around his camera tripod in Antarctica, where he hiked to an Emperor penguin rookery, according the U.K.'s Telegraph.

"I remember one of the birds stayed behind the camera as the others moved to the front," Schultz said. "With their heads stretched out, constantly bobbing, it seriously seemed as if they were posing. And then the one behind the camera changed position so it appeared as if it was looking right through the view finder."

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The lions in Out of Africa. The vipers in Snakes on a Plane. The maggots on every franchise of CSI. They were all handled by Jules Sylvester, an animal trainer and snake wrangler who is Hollywood's go-to man for things scary, dangerous and, as he would put it, "creepy-crawly." He has been working in Hollywood for 44 years, and in all that time, Sylvester has never been bitten!

"A far as I know, in my business, I'm the only one that hasn't been nailed yet by a venomous snake," Sylvester tells PEOPLEPets.com. "When you're paying an actor $20 million, they're not going to want to deal with someone that's been bitten all the time. That's like a race car driver that smashes his car every time he goes around."

Sylvester's extensive resume began with a stint a snake park in Nairobi, Kenya, where he grew up. There was no TV around on the family farm, just animals, and from his childhood, Sylvester — who turns 59 on Friday — cultivated a respect and understanding of them.

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