Starting today, eight Bay Area shelters are offering free spaying/neutering to pit bull owners. Although a few shelters, such as the East Bay SPCA offer the free service year-round, the organizers of Bay Area Pit Fix Week are hoping that by offering spaying/neutering this week, the lives of thousands of pit bulls (and the people they otherwise might maul if not for being fixed) will be spared. Thousands of pit bulls are euthanized in the......

Remember the case we told you about last Friday, about the guy who killed someone with a mechanical robot dog? Well, the judge in the case (at left) got hit by a light-rail outside the San Jose federal courthouse yesterday around lunchtime. The judge was taken to the hospital but is reported to be okay enough to keep presiding over the trial. There's a strange situation involving the Peninsula Humane Society. A man's black lab......

The hunter becomes the hunted, when an investigator for the Peninsula Humane Society is herself investigated for running an illegal dog breeding farm and keeping illegal livestock at her Colma house. She claims it's all a setup, that all those golden retrievers and goats are her pets, and that people are invading her privacy. Darn varmits! A man trying to shoot a raccoon in his San Jose backyard at 11 p.m. Tuesday night not only......

--No one objected to the Peninsula Humane Society moving after all. --Civic Center Mike ran into both Chris Daly and SFist Eve! That's a good day! --Cal and Stanford kids don't know anything about civics or history. --Faster computer chips in time for Christmas. --There's a march and rally for the Bay View today. --A SJSU professor shows that drinkers make more money. --Don't worry, the Ferry Building famers' market will stay put. --Would you......

We're breaking with our Blotter tradition of SF crime movie clip art because, well, we can't find two other animal-related stories to post an Animal Roundup and -- would you look at how cute that marmoset is??? The Peninsula Humane Society responded to a call from an engineering student in East Palo Alto who saw a monkey running on a neighborhood fence, which turned out to be a member of the species known as the......

Six orphaned ducklings are in foster care at the Walnut Creek Lindsay Wildlife Museum, after an errant left-turner failed to make way for their mother as she was crossing North Main and Parkside. It's very sad, yes, but this article is also kind of hilarious (and it spells "quack" without the c, which we think is kind of controversial). Also, we learned that If you're trying to attract ducks to your backyard pool, you should take out those inflatable swans and motorized boats, which scare them away. From small water creatures to large -- remember our buddy the angry sea lion in Berkeley? He's back! ....and a man in Redwood City had an odd stoplight experience -- just as he pulled up to the intersection of Whipple and Elwood, a 40 foot tree fell on his convertible. "The car was so full of branches we couldn't see him," said the Redwood City battalion fire chief. Making matters weirder, when the fire department got there, they found a nest of baby raccoons at the bottom of the tree. They extracted convertible man, and had the Peninsula Humane Society deal with the babies. The man wasn't injured. Picture of ducklings from ABC 7...

Saturday: It's POMO 2006, which means all sorts of Filipino stage performances at YBCA. Our POMO pick is "Bronze Lit: FilipinoAmerican Voices in Literature", at 2 p.m. today, in which writers including Jaime Jacinto, Jason Bayani, Jason Perez, Jean Vengua, Leny Strobel, Marianne Villanueva and Barbara Jane Reyes read from their works. And it's free! Sunday: If you haven't already, go see Awesome; I F**kin' Shot That! at The Bridge. Never mind the mixed......

Aw, SFist Eve -- look at the little bunny rabbit! The Oakland Animal Shelter is looking for people to help foster the 30 baby bunnies they found being illegally sold at an East Bay flea market, where they found 6-8 bunnies all crammed into a tiny box. The bunnies are too young to be spayed/neutered or to be adopted, but the shelter is running out of space for 'em. No, you may not pick one up to give as a holiday present either; the shelter won't allow it. From the small to the large -- divers raced out to free a humpback whale that had gotten entangled in crab pot lines near the Farallones Islands, just off the San Francisco coast. The whale had somehow managed to get wrapped around four times in lines weighing about 90 pounds total, which were cutting into its blubber and dragging its blowhole under water. When they freed the whale, it reportedly gave them all a quick nuzzle before swimming away (presumably as fast as possible). And starting today, the Peninsula Humane Society will begin adopting out the animals rescued from the Gulf Coast. The national Humane Society asked local shelters to wait until Dec. 15 to allow hurricane victims as long as possible to reunite with their pets. Before adopting, do note -- you may be asked to surrender it if its original owner shows up. ...

So what happened with all those stories we've been telling you about all week? Fret no more! Here's your answers! *Madison Nguyen beat Linda Nguyen, 62% to 37%, for the District 7 San Jose city council seat. (Apparently people liked Madison's prior political experience, and may have been turned off by the flyers accusing Madison of having affairs with married men.) *Barry Bonds hit an almost-home run in his first game back, which was ruled a ground-rule double due to fan interference. He hit a single last night. No Old Navy splashdowns yet -- but only five games back from first in the division. *A second shipment of animals from Louisiana arrived yesterday, and will be housed in Marin and the Peninsula Humane Society. Awwww. *And it's day two of the Sutter healthcare workers' strike at Cal Pacific. Picture of Madison Nguyen from her campaign website...

KRON 4 viewers are the best! After seeing a heartwrenching news clip on KRON 4 about a kitten stuck in a pipe for two days, a KRON 4 watcher who works as an excavator was moved to go down to the pipe and help find Smoky the cat. Thanks to his help, the rescuers were able to locate Smoky in the pipe and get her out. She's doing fine, thanks for asking! The only other animal news around here is pit bull-related. So the Peninsula Humane Society is offering $10 to anyone who brings in a pit bull to be spayed or neutered. And two pit bulls who attacked two people and three dogs at the end of May in McLaren Park were found to be "vicious and dangerous" by Animal Cops SF hero and Dog Court Judge Officer Bill Herndon, and will be euthanized. One of the dogs had mangled the hand of a guy trying to break up the fight, and the other had disemboweled (yikes!) another dog (which survived!). ...

As we mentioned, SFist will be Docing around the clock at the fourth San Francisco Documentary Film Festival. There are so many fascinating films playing that you really owe it to yourself to catch a couple this week or next. If you're looking for a more abbreviated festival, The Bridge plays host to the 2nd Annual Pleiades International Film Festival. Benefitting the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA, the festival of international short films runs......