Animals

Russian circus trainer Sergei Prichinich is lucky to be alive after his nearly 500-lb bear costar, named Donut, recently went full attack mode during a recent live show.

In a video making the rounds online ... Sergei and Donut are entertaining a crowd of parents and children, with the brown bear riding a hoverboard near her trainer in an enclosure.

The act soon goes horribly wrong ... Donut jumps off the hoverboard and sprints after Sergei, tackling the trainer and pinning him to the ground for over a minute -- to the horror of the crowd -- aggressively whipping its head back and forth as Prichinich calmly defends himself with a baton.

A police officer in Texas has a lot of potential as a gator wrestler when he's ready to retire ... 'cause new body cam footage shows him wrangling the baby reptile.

The incident -- occurring last Friday in Fulshear, Texas -- was caught on body cam footage, showing an officer saunter up to a home to remove the gator from the property.

Watch the clip ... the officer walks up to the scaly creature pretty calmly -- saying he got a call. Instead of reaching out to animal control, he's got it handled -- since it ain't a huge gator.

Lana Del Rey’s rumored new flame, Jeremy Dufrene, ain't just charming the singer -- he’s also got a taste for gator smooches ... as seen in a video from his day job, obtained by TMZ.

The Louisiana-based alligator tour guide, Jeremy Dufrene, who works at Airboat Tours by Arthur in Des Allemands, LA -- where he first met Lana back in 2019 when she took his tour -- is seen fearlessly inviting a gator to his tour boat for a peck.

You can hear everyone on the tour freaking out ... but Jeremy's living his best life, kissing and feeding a gator that’s so eager it practically hopped on board to join the boat party.

Post Malone is in full country groove with Dwight Yoakam ... riding horses in Hollywood for his new music video, right after his country album yee-hawed its way to No. 1 on the Billboard charts!

The duo was filmed on horseback cruising past The Roxy on Sunset Blvd ... with stars like Nina Dobrev and her beau Shaun White joining the Hollywood rodeo on set.

White swapped his snowboard for a convertible, cruising around on set, and Malin Akerman also popped up in Malone's star-studded music video.

Shohei Ohtani and his wife aren't the only athletes in the family ... 'cause the Dodgers superstar's adorable dog, Decoy, stole the show with a perfect "first pitch" at Wednesday's game!!

The Japanese slugger's four-legged friend was the star of the night when L.A. hosted the Baltimore Orioles -- not only did he participate in the pre-game festivities ... but the team handed out 40,000 bobbleheads featuring Ohtani holding Decoy.

Prior to the first inning, Ohtani and Decoy -- wearing a No. 17 jersey -- went out to the field to do the ceremonial toss ... with Shohei setting him up on the mound and placing a baseball next to him before taking his position behind home plate.

The Davenport Police Department released body cam video of the Iowa police officer fatally shooting a dog in front of 2 kids, saying the cop's actions were lawful, but the pooch's owner has a very different take.

The PD released the footage Wednesday along with the shooting officer's report, which states the salivating dog aggressively confronted him, baring its teeth and repeatedly snapping at him. The video clearly shows the canine lunging toward the frightened officer, identified by Our Quad City News as Ethan Bock.

However, the dog's owner, Don Hesseltine, tells TMZ ... Bock should be criminally charged and tossed in jail for killing his beloved Myst.

The Iowa police officer who fatally shot a dog in front of the pup's owners and young kids killed another dog last month ... when he ran over the pooch with his police vehicle.

Body cam footage from the aftermath of the July 13 incident shows the officer, identified by Our Quad City News as Ethan Bock, walking over to a dog lying dead in an alleyway and admitting he ran over it with his car.

Bock utters "God dammit" and then radios in the incident, saying ... "Hey, I'm 10-2. Some frickin' dog just ran out here and I smoked it."

An Iowa police officer fatally shot a dog in front of the pet's owners and young children – but the question is whether the cop was justified to use deadly force.

The officer, identified by Our Quad City News as Ethan Bock, responded to a house in Davenport, IA, on the night of August 21 after receiving a report of 4 aggressive dogs trying to jump a fence to reach another pooch.

As Bock was investigating the call in an alley, he came upon one of the dogs dashing toward him from a yard outside the home.

This is sick ... disturbing video out of Florida appears to show a man physically abusing a dog and wielding a sharp object ... and now police are involved.

In the footage, posted to social media by Only in Dade, you see a man and a large dog on the balcony of a Miami high-rise ... and the guy appears to grab the pooch by the neck and head, shoving the poor pup's face toward the floor.

The dog here is clearly scared, and tries to get away from the man ... but he grabs the dog again, this time with what looks to be a knife in hand, and appears to strike the dog in the ribs multiple times.

Police have identified and charged a woman accused of jumping a zoo fence in an attempt to pet a tiger in a now-viral video ... and cops say she's trespassed into more than one dangerous restricted area.

ICYMI ... the Internet was sent into a tizzy after footage of a woman climbing into a tiger enclosure at the Cohanzick Zoo in Bridgeton, New Jersey made the rounds last week.

At the time, Bridgeton Police were eager to track down the culprit ... as she violated a city ordinance against climbing over or on any zoo fence -- and violated common sense too.

Lily Allen’s former pup has been rehomed and is living her best life with the new family ... TMZ has learned.

Animal Haven NYC tells TMZ ... Lily’s black Lab, Mary -- who she once shared with David Harbour -- has found a tail-wagging happy ending after the singer returned her to the rescue group months after her May 2021 adoption.

Tiffany Lacey, Executive Director of Animal Haven, tells us it's always their policy to take back animals if an adoption doesn't work out -- which is not uncommon with other pets too.

Cat owners have more than J.D. Vance to worry about now -- a deadly strain of avian bird flu is spreading to house cats, according to researchers.

The bird flu, which scientists call H5N1, had been ravaging American farm animals for the last 2.5 years -- killing 100 million birds and impacting nearly 200 dairy farm herds -- but now it's jumped to indoor cats.

Researchers say the numbers aren't huge yet, a New York Times report says at least 21 kitties have caught it, but the concern is how they're getting it. One of the cases was a cat that lived on a dairy farm ... so, that one makes sense.

Lily Allen's taking some ruff criticism online ... with people blasting her character after she admitted she ditched a rescue puppy when it chewed up her family's passports.

The actress told the story on her "Miss Me?" podcast, and revealed the dog she adopted in 2021 turned out to be a hungry pup ... chewing just about everything it could fit between its teeth.

One of those tasty forbidden treats -- her passport and her kids' passports, complete with their visas stuck inside of them ... which the little dog apparently shredded.

Lady Gaga is showing off her new cuddly partner to the world ... but it ain't her fiancé!

The singer/actress got herself another French bulldog to go along with her other 2 Frenches -- and she put the small canine on full display in a recent TikTok video.

Check it out ... Gaga was going gaga over her pug-nosed pooch, holding it up to the camera as Bruno Mars' "Die with a Smile" played in the background.

Ozzy Osbourne is mourning the loss of a beloved member of his pack, announcing the death of his longtime pet, Rocky.

The rock legend told his fans about the tragic news today ... his Pomeranian of 15 years passed away earlier this week.

He wrote ... "Two days ago I lost my good friend Rocky who has been at my side for 15 years. I’ll see you on the other side my friend. I love you always."

Dawn Olivieri's fighting back against claims she abuses horses ... suing numerous people who she claims made false statements that have negatively impacted her livelihood.

Olivieri -- a star on the hit show "Yellowstone" -- filed the lawsuit last month claiming a bunch of people have made false statements about her in order to damage her partnerships with third-party organizations and businesses.

Dawn says she had a campaign all set up with clothing giant Dickies -- posting promotional pics to social media -- when, she claims, users engaged in a coordinated effort to kill her brand deals.