What's going on with our four-legged friends? Well -- Oakland's passed a law making it illegal to own more than three animals in one house. You can petition to have more, but only if you can show that all the animals are registered and spayed/neutered. People who already have more than three pets are grandfathered in, but for those animals only (so you can't swap out Fluffy for Bane later or anything). This will supposedly make it easier to take legal action against the dreaded animal hoarders. We like the euphemism they use on Animal Precinct -- you're not a hoarder, you're just "overwhelmed." Across the bay, a San Francisco cop shot a pit bull charging at him as he investigated reports of squatters in the Portola District. No human injuries were suffered. In other animal-human encounters, two "terrified" campers fled their campsite on Mount Tam as two mountain lions, um, propragated their species. And the SF SPCA has just received a $13 million gift, which is the largest gift in the organization's history. They'll use the money to build a new animal hospital. The hospital will be called the Leanne Roberts Animal Care Center, in honor of a former board member of the SPCA who died in 2003 (and whose husband ponied up the cash). The hospital will be finished around 2007 -- just in time for the third season of Animal Cops SF! more ›

Awright! The Chronicle breaks the story that the next season of Animal Planet's Animal Cops will be filming in the great city by the Bay! The show, for those of you without Animal Planet on your cable package, follows ASPCA officers on a variety of animal care and control situations. There's complaints about noise to be handled, animal cruelty cases to be solved, emergency trips to the city vet, colorful anecdotes of clashes with owners, neighbors, and other police officers - it's like NYPD Blue, except with dogs. more ›