dog

Hig (Jacob Elordi) may be the most perfect guy alive, not that he’s got much competition. In Ridley Scott’s simple-minded sociological study “The Dog Stars,” an influenza epidemic wiped out the majority of our squabblesome species sometime during the last decade. The LCD screens outside the Denver Nuggets basketball arena continue to flicker, although weeds and wolves have overrun the fast-food joints in a bit of postapocalyptic product placement.

A former mechanic and construction worker, Hig lives 25 miles north of the city on what appears to be a combination high school football field/rural airport. Periodically, the soft-spoken and generous man flies his Cessna into town to scavenge soda pop for a dozen or so cherubic Mennonite children on a nearby homestead. Those wholesome visits seem to cheer him up a little, what with the kids’ minder (Benedict Wong) striding around in a straw hat and overalls like something out of Norman Rockwell, and the youngsters thanking Hig with crayoned portraits of his doting German shepard, Jasper. Still, he’s bummed out about his dead wife (Sai Bennett), who, like most dead movie wives, appears in flashbacks as beatific, mute and adoring.

The script by Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”) wants us to fret that Hig may succumb to suicide but whiffs that idea by trying to get it across in a scene where Hig shuts off the Cessna’s engine mid-flight with Jasper happily riding shotgun. Even if we were willing to accept that Hig might deliberately crash his plane, we can’t buy for a second that he’d hurt his sweet pup. Nevertheless, the film’s dystopian beats are so familiar, you’ve probably guessed by now that you shouldn’t get too attached to the dog.

Hig has bunkered down with a grouchy companion, Bangley (Josh Brolin), who thrives in this harsh world. To Bangley, the four essentials of life are “power, food, water and weapons.” Their armory is formidable; their cash supply, a source of comic relief. At night, Hig and Bangley play poker with stacks of $5,000 bills that they throw around as casually as nickels. Patrolling their two-man compound, Bangley insists on killing all outsiders before they might cause any trouble. Adding insult to headshot, he calls his casualties “cockroaches.”

Soon, Hig will meet a freckled widow named Cima (Margaret Qualley) and her suspicious father, Pops (Guy Pearce). The young pair make eyes at each other. Yet these survivors are so hard-wired to be fearful of their neighbors that Hig and Cima’s rusty, tentative flirtation takes place under the gaze of her daddy’s gun, a heck of a chaperone. The most they get up to is heavy spooning.

This is an uncomplicated yarn about a man prying open his heart and nudging other hard nuts to do the same. There’s little tension or drive, just shaggy scenes about paranoia, trust and hope. The characters seem to endure only to get to their next traumatic memory reveal.

At once plain-spoken and vague, the story lacks a firm grip on facts like the distance between places and how long this mess has been going on. It snatches at our attention with no more finesse than a losing fighter fumbling for a weapon. Hig’s Cessna works fine until it’s narratively convenient that it doesn’t. Then when needed, it works again. Meanwhile, Brolin’s Bangley oscillates in personality from miserable bastard to laugh factory.

At 88, Scott remains the cinema’s uneasy philosopher, continually fretting about the technological and societal tools we’ve developed to destroy ourselves. He’s made one genuinely optimistic film, 2015’s “The Martian,” which also happens to be his biggest box office success. Other than that, he’s never seemed confident that the future will turn out all right, although he’s kept on working out his worries onscreen, forever hunting for flakes of hope in the rubble. (If you take Scott’s IMDb as gospel, he’s got seven upcoming features in various stages of preproduction, more than George Lucas has ever made.)

“The Dog Stars” is based on Peter Heller’s 2012 novel of the same name, which, in those naive, pre-COVID times, was received as a rosier take on Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” Scott’s version of“The Dog Stars” borrows its title, premise and a handful of proper names. Otherwise, it’s loud where the book was quiet and subtle where the book got sweaty. A barrage of newly concocted action sequences in the second half makes the pacing so off-balance that the film feels like a heron trying to fly with one blinged-out wing.

I’m only half-complaining — those giddy, bloody scenes are the best parts of the movie. But we in the audience could have used some of that pizzazz at the beginning, too, before we spent nearly an hour settling into the idea that we’ve seen all of this before.

The attackers to come are a bizarre grab bag of baddies. One gang wears football pads as armor and comes galloping in on horses, whooping like the Apaches in a John Ford movie. Another horde, the Reapers, runs around shirtless to show off their thick black tattoos. The Reapers look awesome through cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt’s night-vision binoculars that make their skin glow an alien shade of green. Neither group comes across like human beings. The film handles them more like zombies or rabid raccoons, and since these extras are the only characters of color, I won’t fault anyone who finds their treatment morally queasy.

Late in the film, we also meet a third group headed by Allison Janney doing a cap-tip to Nurse Ratched as the soundtrack cues the mind-numbing waltz from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Otherwise, Harry Gregson-Williams’ meddlesome score tells us everything that’s about to happen 30 seconds before it does. Besides Janney and Qualley’s plucky Cima (what in the made-up name is that?), few grown women seem to be left alive for reasons probably better left unsaid. (A goon in the book wears a necklace made of dried labia. Scott sagely omits that detail.)

Elordi nearly shoulders the running time but plays his Hig a bit too humbly. I’ve rarely seen Elordi wearing his lanky, handsome screen presence comfortably; something about the actor usually seems to be apologizing for his own existence. His recessive Hig needs more charisma so we can care about him as a character, not just an idealized hero. But you like him anyway. How can you not when Hig is giving his dog a good scratch?

Having lived through a seismic pandemic himself, it makes sense that Scott would be drawn to the original novel’s blend of patience and poetry. Yet, it’s odd how little of it he’s kept. To hold my own interest, I imagined myself as a hunter-explorer trying to figure out why Scott had bothered to adapt it at all, and turned up a line where Brolin’s Bangley looks back on his old life and admits that he couldn’t understand what he had until it was gone. A lovely moment, although I don’t believe it’s in the book either.

That’s the theme of this rote exercise. But I preferred a minor beat a few minutes later when a character puts down their gun and picks up a guitar. Bad as this world feels, there’s still pleasure in making art. Which is why Scott keeps at it, too — and while I don’t think much of this one, I’m awful glad he does.

TELLY star Myleene Klass looked sensational in a sheer dress as she was joined at The Dog Stars premiere on Thursday night by her two lookalike daughters.

The stunning Hear’Say star was spotted posing with her girls – Ava, 19, and 15-year-old Hero.

Myleene opted for a sleeveless white dress that flashed her legs and bum.

Meanwhile, her daughters went for polar opposite vibes with Hero donning a full length black gown and Ava in a backless cream number.

They cuddled up to their famous mum on the carpet last night and were seen smiling for the cameras.

Myleene shares the girls with her ex-husband Graham Quinn, whom she split from back in 2012.

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The 48-year-old later went on to have son Apollo, three, with her now fiancée Simon Motson.

Myleene met Simon in 2015 after being set up on a blind date by her pal.

They got engaged six years ago but are still yet to tie the knot.

Her daughter Ava is currently studying at University after winning a place at the Royal Academy of Music.

Myleene previously said: “She [Ava] has done the piano for eight hours a day, she went to the Royal Academy of Music, she had to audition, they didn’t just say ‘Myleene Klass‘s daughter is showing up, give her a place’, she had to audition, and that’s the point.

“You could call my children nepo babies all day long but they can play Rachmaninoff concertos like the best of them.”

Myleene confessed last year that both her daughter have weekend jobs as she was keen to instill in them the importance of earning their own money.

The former Hear’Say singer added that she knows her kids are now equipped with the necessary skills to make their own way as adults.

Almost three decades ago, Joe Timko and Randy Neece were wandering through Disneyland, saw Goofy trailing around the gardens and made the connection.

This, but for dogs?

A Disneyland-inspired wonderland for their canine counterparts is what they were thinking. Timko, who Neece describes as “the most impulsive person in the world,” had no hesitation.

“That’s what we should do!” he says.

Dogs run around at the Wonderland yard.

That offhand vision has since expanded into Canyon View Ranch, a five-acre luxury retreat tucked into the hills of Topanga that its clients refer to as Disneyland for canines. Designed by married couple Timko and Neece, who worked as a trainer and TV game show director, respectively, this dog boarding retreat is like no other. Think multiple bone-shaped pools, a chauffeured shuttle service, behavioral and weight loss programs, 35 feet of underground tunnels and dedicated lands à la Disneyland, including Adventureland for the bigger hounds and Munchkinland for the little ones and older sports.

Dogs here wake promptly at 5 a.m. for morning exercise, eat breakfast at 6, take scheduled naps at 8, enjoy a “biscuit break” at 5:30 p.m. and are finally tucked in for “lights out” at 8. Ranch activities include hurtling through agility courses, swimming beneath a massive artificial waterfall and roaming sprawling fantasy playgrounds built expressly for their entertainment.

A map of the ranch drawn by Nina Rae Vaughn, the same artist who illustrates Disneyland’s official park maps.

(Canyon View Ranch)

Dog owners say that as soon as they pull into the driveway, their pups realize exactly where they’re headed and “start going bonkers,” says Neece. When they’re let loose, they enter Canyon View Ranch with the abandon of children running down Main Street, U.S.A.

Getting to the ranch requires a journey up winding hills, past signs that read “Please Be Kind,” on roads flanked by cacti, chaparral and coastal sage scrub. It looks nothing like the city.

Today, Canyon View Ranch boards around 60 dogs at once, often with a waiting list stretching six months or longer. There is no limitation on how long they can stay, and many of the dogs I meet today have been here for several weeks, totaling thousands with the ranch’s $100 nightly rate. Dogs travel from all over to get here, from Las Vegas to Dubai. Their owners include schoolteachers and secretaries alongside some of Los Angeles’ wealthiest families.

“We could be watching over all the jewelry in their safe,” Neece says, “and it wouldn’t matter as much as their dog.”

On this Wednesday morning, Neece and Timko lead the way through the property. Neece is calmly and casually kind, like a faithful bloodhound without jowls. Timko is sprightly, a live-wire Chihuahua. The two of them live on-site in what looks like a family home straight out of a 1990s Disney film, a white colonial home with blue shutters. There are 20 staff on-site. For Neece and Timko, the job is 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Munchinkland is for smaller and less energetic dogs at Canyon View Ranch.

Dogs follow animal care specialist John Highland.

“I have the best job in the world,” says John Highland, former veterinary technician and now one of the ranch’s animal care specialists, as the dogs stream into Adventureland.

A great many dogs run up to me, tails wagging, tongues lolling. Neece and Timko lead me eastward of Adventureland toward the dandelion-headed alpacas, Stumbelina and Sparkle. Other animals on-site include a stable full of horses and Cowboy the tortoise, who is about the size of a lawnmower and whose head protrudes from what looks like a Venus flytrap made of bone.

“They help bring the flavor of fun, and that’s exactly what we want to do here,” Neece says. “We want it to be an escape, just like Disneyland.”

Neece was raised 15 minutes away from Disneyland and developed an obsession with it early on. “I’ve read every book imaginable,” he says. “I have this really deep appreciation for Walt Disney’s vision.”

Every detail of Canyon View Ranch evokes the legendary Anaheim theme park. The property has its own illustrated map, drawn by Nina Rae Vaughn, the same artist who illustrates Disneyland’s official park maps. The dogs’ sleeping quarters are modeled after the park’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride, with its fort-like corridors made of sun-dried brick, the walls strewn with overgrown jungle vines. At Christmas, snow machines cover the grounds while lights are strung through the trees and holiday music plays all day.

The Disney vision has now come full circle. Several members of the Disney family are clients: Roy P. Disney and his wife, Sheri. His sister, Susan Disney Lord, is also a client, along with her children.

Canyon View Ranch even has what Neece describes as its own “Mickey Mouse”: Max the Tibetan terrier. A statue of him sits out front, honoring the first dog Timko and Neece owned together. “Usually, Tibetan terriers come in black and white, but we wanted Max, who came in earth tones, because he matched the furniture,” says Neece. The terrier, it turned out, was a champion, and the owner wouldn’t sell him unless the couple promised to show him. They agreed, and in 1997, Max won best of breed at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. “All of this started because we made the decision to buy that dog,” says Timko.

Randy Neece, left, and Joe Timko spent years creating a “doggie Disneyland.”

Neece and Timko gaze over the canyon view from which inspired the ranch’s name. After 26 years, they’ve watched three generations of dogs come and go. “One of the things we didn’t count on when we started this was the emotional toll,” says Neece. “Yeah,” Timko adds, “every loss hurts.”

“When Max died, Joe struggled for weeks,” says Neece. “I later realized that a lot of it translated into him worrying about losing me next.”

In the late 1980s, while still working on TV sets, Neece learned he was HIV positive. “It was a death sentence then,” he says.

Larger dogs play in the Wonderland yard.

He survived, one of a comparatively small number of his generation who did. He returned to television briefly, working on two more game shows, one of which included one of his biggest paychecks. (“‘Match Game’ built Canyon View Ranch,” he laughs.)

But something had shifted. “When you go through something like that,” he says, “you really start taking inventory of your life. There’s something about that that frees you up to take a risk. I was ready to reinvent myself.”

The couple sold their house in Laurel Canyon and bought the Topanga property in the late ’90s from Melissa Sue Anderson, who had played Mary Ingalls on “Little House on the Prairie.” Slowly, year after year, they planted every tree alongside ranch foreman David Barrios, dug every tunnel, built every waterfall and themed land, until the place began to resemble the idea they’d first imagined while watching children crowd around Goofy.

Now, late in this hot August afternoon, dogs of every size race through underground tunnels and emerge from the other side even more manically happy than when they entered. The Pomeranian munchkins in Munchkinland skitter around, sniffing wagging butts. A Labrador sprays his friends with water soaked into his fur from the bone-shaped pool. If there is such a thing as the Rainbow Bridge, Canyon View Ranch must be what it looks like on the other side.

Dogs dip in a pool and follow John Highland at Canyon View Ranch.

BIG screen star Jacob Elordi booked a hotel’s £60,000-a-night penthouse to impress girlfriend Kendall Jenner.

The Wuthering Heights Heathcliff actor splashed out on the Claridge’s suite so she could “see the stars” sources said.

Reality TV star Kendall, 30, joined Jacob, 29, for his whistlestop London visit as he promotes Ridley Scott’s new post apocalyptic thriller, The Dog Stars.

The pair were pictured out with his dad John at posh Italian restaurant Cipriani in London on Wednesday night.

Insiders said Australian Jacob secured the Mayfair suite, billed as the most expensive in London, for Kendall while he worked.

A source said: “Jacob is a proper romantic and he wanted Kendall to have that amazing view over London where you can see the stars.

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“It costs £60,000 a night to stay there.

“But upgrading was worth the money.”

The couple arrived yesterday ahead of last night’s premiere in Leicester Square.

They started dating in February and have since been seen on a number of double dates with Kendall’s sister, Kylie, and her boyfriend, film star Timothee Chalamet.

Jacob was photographed at the premiere with co-stars, including Josh Brolin and Margaret Qualley.

The Dog Stars is released next Friday.

LITTLE Mix star Perrie Edwards has revealed that her beloved dog has died after 14 years.

The singer, 33, took to her Instagram to pay tribute to her sweet “fury baby” Hatchi that she adopted back in 2012 with ex Zayn Malik.

Perrie shared a number of sweet snaps of herself and the adorable Pomeranian as she confessed that her heart was “completely broken”.

The pooch helped her through some of the “hardest moments”, celebrated “every milestone” with her and even went on tour with the Little Mix girls.

Perrie wrote: “My Hatchi. 14 years with you, and somehow it still could never have been enough.

“You weren’t just my dog. You were my fur baby, my little shadow, my companion and one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given.

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“You were there beside me through every chapter and every milestone of my life.

“Through the happiest moments and the hardest ones. You licked away my tears when I cried, made me laugh when I needed it most, and every morning you would look at me with that little smile that made me feel like I was your whole world.

“And you were such a huge part of mine.

“We lived so much life together. You came on tour with Little Mix, travelled the world with me, came on our holidays to Portugal, sat in the best restaurants eating steak like the little prince you were.

“Wherever life took me, you were part of it.

“I hope you knew how loved you were, Hatchi.

“I hope you knew that everything I ever did for you was because I wanted to give you the happiest, fullest, most beautiful life I possibly could.

“You gave me 14 years of unconditional love, loyalty and memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

“My heart is completely broken knowing I won’t see your little face in the morning, hear your footsteps, cuddle you or have you following me around anymore.

“The house and my heart already feel emptier without you.

“Thank you for growing up with me. Thank you for being there for every version of me.

“Thank you for licking my tears, for making me smile, for loving me so completely and for being my best little friend for 14 years.

“I would choose you in every lifetime.

“Sleep peacefully my beautiful boy. I hope wherever you are, there’s endless steak waiting for you.

“I will love you and miss you forever, Hatchi. My first baby, my fur baby, my little companion. A piece of my heart went with you.”

Many rushed to the comments section to share their loving thoughts with Perrie.

Little Mix star Jade Thirlwall said: “Oh Hatchi.”

Love Island’s Chris Hughes wrote: “ahhhh man so sad, rest up Hatchi.”

Comedian Alan Carr added: “So sorry!!”

Perrie has owned a number of pets over the years.

She adopted Travis the French Bulldog in lockdown, and she also owns a Golden Retriever called Polo.

Some of her other pets include Prada the cat, Benji the cat and Teddy the Teacup Yorkshire Terrier.

Fifth in a series of stories profiling top high school football players by position. Today, Vincent Shields, Murrieta Valley offensive lineman.

For those who love dogs, offensive tackle Vincent Shields of Murrieta Valley High needs to be on your must-invite list. His mother and father run a dog training business. There are five dogs living at their home. All the female dogs are named after Disney characters. Vincent swears dogs can be trained to do anything, like open the refrigerator.

He just got a golden retriever puppy named Nala, the wife of Simba from “The Lion King.” The question is will Shields train her to rush the passer so he can practice his blocking techniques against someone with agility and a hunger to do anything for biscuits?

“That would be a good challenge,” he said.

The football journey of the 6-foot-6, 285-pound junior involves a change of positions, a change in eating habits and a recognition he has found his calling.

“He’s a freak athlete,” former Murrieta Valley offensive line coach Alex Rosenblum said. “That kid has had an amazing offseason.”

Teammates share a laugh with Vincent Shields as he engages in a power lifting exercise.

(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)

By the end of the summer, Shields was nearing 20 scholarship offers after just one season as an offensive lineman. That’s what happens when college recruiters discover someone with size, good footwork and the ability to improve.

He started at right tackle last season for a school that has been producing outstanding linemen.

“We love to run the ball,” Shields said.

He was a defensive end as a freshman before Rosenblum convinced him to become a blocker. It opened a path that Shields has embraced.

“He told me at the end of my freshman year, ‘You’re going to start and if you make a mistake, it’s OK. Everything is a learning experience.’ I made mistakes and he was supportive,” Shields said.

He has been receiving private instruction to understand his role of blocking specific defenders and adjusting when linebackers blitz. All that was thrown at him as a sophomore, so it was no surprise he had some offside penalties. A year later, there’s no telling how dominant he can become.

“It takes a different person to play O-line,” he said. “It’s violent and that takes a special person. Not everyone is meant for the mental part and physical part. Are you going to take another man against his will and drive him down the field?”

Murrieta Valley offensive tackle Vincent Shields, center, does exercises during practice.

(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)

Shields said he has been playing tackle football since he was 11. He was primarily a linebacker to take advantage of his athleticism. Then he started to grow and eat and eat.

Those were the days he loved French fries, chips, hamburgers and anything fried. He once ordered three 4×4 burgers from In-N-Out, which is four beef patties and four slices of cheese. He used to order from Chick-fil-A two chicken sandwiches, four chicken strips and 10 chicken nuggets.

Then he learned about nutrition and choices. He’s been eating steak and grilled chicken lately.

“I’ve done a good job shedding the bad weight,” he said.

His father, a former Marine, likes to cook, so everyone is watching Shields’ eating habits. He’s 17 with an appetite like a dog.

And speaking of dogs, the family has Shields’ golden retriever, a Rottweiler named Fancy, a giant schnauzer named Goose and two Belgian Malinois named Hero and Baymax.

That’s enough dogs to form a starting offensive line. But one of them has to beat out Shields, who intends to cause a whole lot of trouble blocking opponents over the next two seasons.

“I can’t wait,” he said. “You’re going to see a jump and a lot of people are going to wonder how it happened.”

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Offensive linemen to watch

Austin Attalah, Orange Lutheran, 6-8, 270, Jr.: His size alone makes him a can’t-miss prospect

Amaziah Siale, Mission Viejo, 6-7, 360, Sr.: Louisiana State commit can take on sumo wrestlers

Lance Ciechanowski, Sierra Canyon, 6-6, 275, Jr.: Let’s see who gets by him on pass plays

Drew Fielder, Servite, 6-6, 270, Sr.: USC commit is a former tight end who should dominate

Jackson Hill, Chaminade, 6-6, 300, Sr.: Notre Dame commit keeps getting bigger and stronger

Vincent Shields, Murrieta Valley, 6-6, 285, Jr.: Moves to left tackle as his blocking skills progress rapidly

Lex Mailangi, Mater Dei, 6-3, 350, Sr.: Oregon commit was a much-desired college recruit

Elisha Mueller, St. John Bosco, 6-4, 295, Jr.: Braves’ best blocker since Wyatt Davis

Lucas Rhoa, Orange Lutheran, 6-5, 305, Sr.: Texas commit has been a standout since his sophomore year

Jack Schein, JSerra, 6-6, 290, Sr.: Colorado State commit comes from a program that develops linemen

The Repair Shop viewers learnt the tragic tale of rescue dog Pepper who helped search for survivors in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing disaster.

The Repair Shop viewers saw one man share the touching story of his late border collie rescue dog, Pepper.

During the BBC show, which first broadcast last year, experts Dominic Chinea and Suzie Fletcher spoke to a man called Neil Powell.

The man had an old dog collar and a tattered rescue jacket with him, keen to get it restored in tribute to ‘one of the best’ dogs he’d had.

Explaining more about Pepper, The Repair Shop guest shared that he qualified to become a search and rescue at 18 months and was involved with helping to find a young German boy who was missing in bad weather conditions for 36 hours.

However, one of the more poignant searches Neil and Pepper were involved with was the 1988 Lockerbie Pan Am disaster, where they were called in to try and find survivors, reports the Daily Record.

Recalling the ‘dreadful’ smell of the aviation fuel, Neil highlighted that Pepper had discovered a suitcase during their time there, which was significant as it had scorch marks on, suggesting that the plane crash had been a bomb.

During the horrific tragedy, 270 perished in the Lockerbie bombing, amongst them 11 residents of the Scottish town.

Sadly, Pepper, along with the other dogs involved, developed tumours in their noses and windpipes while in the crater searching for human remains.

Admitting they weren’t sure it was caused by the aviation fuel, Neil confessed to being heartbroken over Pepper’s death, adding, ‘it was really awful.”

While Dom issued an apology over the loss of his cherished companion as Neil emphasised how significant the jacket was to him that he wore during mountain rescues.

One touching moment during the restoration saw textile conservator Rebecca Bissonnet make an unexpected discovery, Pepper’s name on the jacket, which had been hidden for years.

Calling her find ‘really moving’, Rebecca recreted her name to make it a permanent fixture on the jacket.

Ultimately, the duo succeeded in restoring both the jacket and the collar as they mounted it to a wooden board.

When Neil returned to the barn to witness the final result, he became visibly emotional as he fought back tears, calling it ‘perfect’ before praising the ‘talented people’ in the barn.

Spotting Peppers’s name, he confessed to being ‘overwhelmed’ by the sweet gesture before sharing that the display would go up at the base of their Mountain Rescue Centre.

The Repair Shop is available to watch on BBC iPlayer

Dog Man is one of those cultural phenomena restricted to certain ages – if you’ve had a primary school kid in the past 10 years you’ll know the graphic novels, if you haven’t you won’t. 

But trust me, it’s massive – the funny series by Dav Pilkey, about an American cop with a dog’s head and human body has sold more than 70 million copies worldwide, and even had its own box office hit movie last year. 

And now… it has its own theatre show.

Dog Man: The Musical is touring the UK for the next year, kicking off at London’s Southbank Centre, where it had its opening night this week. 

The show features best friends George and Harold – who also feature as fictional writers and illustrators in Pilkey’s other famous comic book series, ‘Captain Underpants.’

Together, they create their Dog Man character and dream up his adventures with Petey the evil cat and loveable offspring Lil Petey, alongside the police chief and Flippy the cyborg fish. 

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It has to be said that you need to have read the books to make sense of the stage show – it’s chaotic and relies on the audience knowing the plotline and the characters. 

But that’s ok as we had – it’s precisely why we were there. And if you don’t know the plotline, there are plenty of other shows out there for you and your child. 

While aimed at kids, they’ve designed a decent chunk of the gags to be funny for adults too, so I laughed along with my seven year old son throughout the 1hr15min-long production.

The musical numbers are impressive and funny – I chuckled along with the opening number, which just went into detail about what an opening number should be.

A number of the cast have excellent, West End-calibre voices too – especially the actors who play Petey the evil cat and Flippy the cyborg fish.

Yes, the show is chaotic and quite disjointed, and at times nonsensical… but so are the books and that is exactly why kids love them. If your child loves Dog Man books, they’ll love this too. 

I’d add that after kids hit 6 years of age, there are distinctly less stage shows targeted at them. 

Unlike the preschoolers and reception kids, who have scores of Julia Donaldson adaptations to pick from. 

This is a really nice, quite low-budget, piece of theatre that is a great way to get your child interested in theatre – especially if, like mine, Dog Man was already responsible for getting them interested in books. 

Dog Man: The Musical is aimed at ages 5+ and showing at London’s Southbank, with a UK tour afterwards. Find out more at www.dogman.live

“The Exorcist” star Linda Blair had her property searched by law enforcement officers who were investigating and inspecting her kennel operation with more than 100 dogs.

Friday’s operation was carried out by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control and the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, according to a statement shared with People.

“The goal is to inspect this property for buildings and structures associated with a kennel operation reported to have more than 100 dogs,” the department said in the statement.

Blair, whose IMDb site lists dozens of movies and television shows dating back to 1968, founded the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation in 2003 to rehabilitate and rescue abandoned and abused animals.

Blair’s kennel facility’s permits expired in 2023, and she allegedly didn’t respond to attempts by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control to contact her, People reported.

“The warrant allows us to lawfully access the property and verify compliance with County codes,” the department said. The operation is intended to evaluate “animal care, safety conditions, and overall welfare of the dogs housed on the property.”

County officials could not immediately be reached to comment about the findings of the inspection.

“Our priority is the safety and well-being of both the animals on the property and the people who may be working or residing here,” the department said in the statement. “This inspection will help us determine whether conditions meet required standards.”

Blair wrote about the incident in an July 31 Instagram post, saying that the animals were “good in lieu of our surprise visit in 105° heat.”

“Turns out we just have some paperwork to do and some diagrams but as everybody knows, I’m looking to move so I can be more educational and help more animals,” Blair wrote. “I’d rather move forward.”

FREDDY Brazier’s dog Pablo will not be destroyed after it attacked him and his nan Jackiey Budden.

Pals said Freddy, 21, was elated after fearing pocket bully Pablo would be put down after the incidents, which left him needing hospital treatment.

The Sun understands 18-month-old Pablo had a urine infection at the time of the three attacks earlier this month, which vets believe may have affected his behaviour.

Freddy was left with a 3cm hole in his right arm after Pablo attacked him, just hours after the dog wounded Jackiey, 68, for the second time last Wednesday.

Just days prior, on July 16, neighbours had raised the alarm after hearing Jackiey’s screams after she was attacked by the crossbreed.

A friend said: “Freddy had seven days to make a case to save Pablo from death and find him somewhere to stay.

face off

Katie Price and Peter Andre to come face to face for first time in 16 YEARS

HIGH ROAD

Olivia Attwood says why she failed to post screenshots ‘exposing’ ex Brad

“He has done that and he has now been assured that the dog won’t be destroyed.

“What happened was shocking and very sad, but Freddy knows Pablo isn’t a bad dog.

“He was told a urine infection could have altered his behaviour, and he has not been violent before.

“For now, Freddy has arranged to have Pablo taken by a specialist trainer who will care for him and get him back to his best before they work out what to do next.

“Freddy is absolutely elated.”

On Sunday Freddy made an emotional plea in The Sun On Sunday and admitted he was fearing for Pablo’s life after the police seized him after the attack.

The incident happened last week, with Freddy leaving his dad Jeff’s home in Essex to get to Bermondsey to support Jackiey, who had dialled 999 saying Pablo had attacked her.

Freddy went to take the dog away from Jackiey’s but it then turned on him in the street.

Freddy said of the incident: “I’ve taken him out of the house. I’ve calmed him down. I’m going: ‘Sorry boy I know it’s been so long. I love you. I’ve missed you.’

“I’m scratching his back, but then he hooked on to my arm. The dog was hanging off me.

“I couldn’t feel anything in my right arm. But then I saw blood coming out of my tracksuit.”

He went on to receive treatment at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel.

Freddy said: “I have never seen him as my dog — he’s like my son.”

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham told Laura Kuenssberg his dog Axel will be staying in Greater Manchester and will not be moving to No 10 Downing Street.

Burnham revealed he does not think his poodle-mix would get along with Larry the cat, who has lived at the residence for 15 years.

Watch Panorama Andy Burnham: The Laura Kuenssberg Interview on iPlayer from 06:00BST, and on BBC One at 20:00BST on Mon 27 Jul 2026.

FREDDY Brazier’s ex-girlfriend Holly Swinburn has issued a statement after his dog mauled him – claiming the canine was “mistreated” before the attack.

Freddy, 21, spoke exclusively to The Sun on Sunday about his terror after pocket bully Pablo attacked him and ripped a hole in his arm.

His gran Jackiey, 68, was also savagely attacked by Pablo twice in four days before the dog turned on Freddy.

On Sunday, Holly – who shares daughter Isla with Freddy – took to Instagram and penned an emotional message.

Sharing a photo of the pocket bully, she captioned: “This is Pablo.

“I had to give him to someone as I was struggling with a baby and a dog, he has been mistreated there and attacked them to protect himself.

Read more on Freddy Brazier

‘HE’S LIKE MY SON’

Emotional Freddy Brazier breaks silence after being mauled by his dog

dog days

Freddy Brazier’s nan Jackiey struggles to control her own dog after being attacked

“He’s the nicest dog and this is totally out of character for him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Freddy previously revealed he had received a formal letter from the police that his dog would be put down after seven days if he could not find a suitable place for it to live. He has until Tuesday to do that.

With this in mind, Holly added: “Please if anyone has a good home for Pablo message me!

“I don’t want to see him being put down and I can’t look after him and a baby by myself :(.”

The alarm was first raised during an attack on July 16 by a concerned neighbour who heard screams of agony as Pablo gripped onto Jackiey, leaving her requiring medical treatment.

In addition to this, Freddy spent around eight hours in hospital getting stitches after he collected the dog from Jackiey’s property following the attack.

He later told The Sun on Sunday about the mauling, saying: “I’m scratching his back, but then he hooked on to my arm. The dog was hanging off me.

“I couldn’t feel anything in my right arm. But then I saw blood coming out of my tracksuit.

“I opened it to see a 3cm hole in my arm. It was terrifying.”

Pablo was living with Jackiey’s two female dogs — an Italian spinone and a pitbull crossed with an XL bully, called Echo, at her home in Bermondsey, South London.

Freddy said: “He’s always had a good relationship with the other two dogs. I’ve never known Pablo to attack.”

The Sun has reached out to Freddy’s reps for comment relating to Holly’s post.

FREDDY Brazier’s grandma Jackiey Budden was spotted struggling to keep control of her dog days after his dog attacked the both of them.

Jackiey — who is the mum of late Big Brother star Jade Goody — was seen in south east London with her Pitbull cross XL Bully called Echo.

She wore a red vest and green top as the large dog dragged her down the street and at one point Echo was seen barking aggressively at another dog on the walk.

Jackiey appeared to be struggling to keep the dog under control just days after the dog of Jade’s son, Freddy, went on a rampage and bit her.

Freddy spent around eight hours in hospital on Monday getting stitches after his dog attacked Jackiey twice in four days.

The alarm was first raised during an attack on July 16 by a concerned neighbour who heard screams of agony as the Pocket Bully, Pablo, gripped onto Jackiey, 68, leaving her requiring medical treatment. The fire brigade was also called out.

ON THE MEND

Freddy Brazier’s nan seen for first time since being bitten by his pocket bully

BRAZIER GRAN MAULED

Freddy Brazier’s pocket bully attacked gran twice days before him

But just four days later the dog struck again, in a more severe attack. Freddy had returned to help his frantic gran before he, too, was launched upon by Pablo.

Troubled Freddy has now moved back in with Jackiey at her flat in Bermondsey, London, following a string of family disputes including a fiery war with his father, TV presenter Jeff Brazier.

He got the dog last summer, and the pup went on to cause him and his now ex- girlfriend problems.

Freddy reportedly dumped his ex Holly Swinburn, 22, after their on-and-off relationship ended in a row involving his dog.

He is said to have called it quits with the blonde before she “tried to take his dog from him” in a furious argument.

Freddy and Holly welcomed a baby daughter in March.

Mary Steenburgen moved to California to work with Jack Nicholson.

It was 1977, and Steenburgen — an Arkansas native — had been waiting tables in New York at night while studying acting with Sandy Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse during the day. She’d been pounding the pavement for about seven years, she says, when her “overnight moment came” and she was called in to read for a film Nicholson was both directing and starring in called “Goin’ South.”

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

Getting the role, Steenburgen says, changed her life in every way. “I flew out [to film] and had an amazing introduction to the town,” she explains. “I lived at the Chateau Marmont and went to Paramount Studios every day, where [Nicholson] would screen movies for me and then come in at the end to give me a little film-slash-acting lecture about each one. It really helped me get ready to dive into the big leagues.”

Though she spent some years in an old Ojai farmhouse in the 1980s raising her kids with former husband Malcolm McDowell, she’s always had a base of operations here in L.A. She shares her L.A. abode now with husband Ted Danson, whom she married in 1995 and with whom she’s starred in numerous projects, including the Netflix series “A Man on the Inside.” L.A. is also where she filmed her latest movie, “The Dink,” an Apple TV comedy centered on one of her favorite pastimes: pickleball.

Here’s how Steenburgen would spend her perfect, pickleball-filled Sunday in Los Angeles.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

5:30 a.m.: Early morning meditation and mental exercise

We always wake up early. After so many years of going to work at 5 in the morning, we always wake up between 5 and 6 now.

We’re morning meditators, or we try to be since our dog [Blue] just sits on our laps and stares at us until he’s been fed. Then we have to do all the New York Times games, and then I’ll try and find a pickleball game. We love Spelling Bee. We have to get to Genius, at least. Occasionally we’ll get to Queen Bee, but if we don’t get to at least Genius, then my day is ruined.

If my husband and I are working that week, whoever’s not working will have to run lines with the one who is. So we’ll generally spend a few hours doing that in the morning, too.

8:30 a.m.: Light gardening

I love my garden. A lot of it was hand-planted by me. Not the big trees — someone else planted those — but everything else, like the ground cover and smaller plants, I did. So I’ll spend a little time out there, too.

I like to go to Armstrong Garden Centers. They hire very knowledgeable people there. When I first started planting my garden — I live on a hill and it was all dirt back there and not everything grows well that way so I was looking for ground cover that would grow quickly but also didn’t mind a hillside. The people at Armstrong knew the answer, and they were great.

10 a.m.: Pickleball-palooza

I try to play pickleball for at least two hours a day, if I can. I try to find a game with friends, or I’ll go and play in different parks.

This morning, I played at a friend’s house. She has a beautiful tennis court and they put tape down on it so we can use it for pickleball, too. I played with her daughter and her friend.

I also have a pickleball coach and sometimes we’ll go play at this place called Pickle Pop that’s on the Third Street Promenade. Other times, I’ll play at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center.

My son just brought eight members over from [one of] London’s biggest pickleball club[s], Lemon Pickleball, and they all stayed with me. We played all over the place and we had so much fun. They loved Southern California, and seeing it through their eyes made me love it even more.

On their last night here, I called a wonderful family I know that cooks fantastic Mexican food, because I knew [the Brits] hadn’t ever really experienced great Mexican food. I met them because they’re set up every weekend in the parking lot at Rustic Coffee [in Santa Monica]. They’re lovely folks. So they came over and cooked, and we had a wonderful night for the Brits, putting up all kinds of lights and decorations too.

12:30 p.m.: Magical brunch with the grandkids

We go to Kreation a lot for lunch, just because it’s nice and it’s very healthy. I was just there yesterday with my granddaughters, after we all played Pickleball.

Actually, this weekend we all went to the Magic Castle together, too. I hadn’t been for decades and two of my five grandkids were here, and they’d never been either. Mostly it’s no kids at the Magic Castle but on weekends they do a brunch where kids can come so we went to that. The last magician in the show even called my granddaughter up on stage to be a sort of assistant, and it was very cute.

3 p.m.: Hiking with the dog

Because we work a lot and our days often belong to someone else from early in the morning until pretty late at night, weekends are more laid back.

We like to go on hikes and walks around Santa Monica. We have this big Australian Shepherd and we take him for long, slow walks. They’re slow because he has to say hello to every dog and person along the way — especially babies, who are his absolute favorite.

There’s something magical about my dog, I think. People will say, “Oh, my dog hates all dogs” and then my dog pulls me over and the dog that hates all dogs just melts. It’s like he calms other dogs. He even calms people that think they don’t like dogs. I know I’m very prejudiced, but I’m also very proud.

6 p.m.: Breakfast (or Goop) for dinner

We’re big on breakfast for dinner, so maybe we’d have some poached eggs on toast or poached eggs on creamed spinach.

If we order in, we might get food from Goop Kitchen. They have so many healthy, fantastic choices. Even their pizzas are pretty healthy.

8:30 p.m.: TV in bed

Sometimes I read a book at night, but we also have a show we absolutely love to go to sleep to, even if you’re not supposed to do that. It’s this British game show called “Would I Lie to You?” and unfailingly it makes me laugh. I’ve seen every single episode — some of them twice — and I like to go to sleep laughing.

I also just said to Ted that I think we’re going to have to start “Cheers” again soon. We just lost our friend Jimmy Burrows, who was a magnificent human and so important to Ted’s whole career, and one of the great things about watching “Cheers” is, if you know Jimmy’s laugh, you can actually pick it out multiple times during each episode.

It’s been a long time since we’ve watched “Cheers,” and it honestly never gets old. I first watched it in Ojai when I was married and had young children. We would watch it with our best friends on Thursday nights, like everybody would go down to their house in their pajamas and we’d watch “Cheers” and then I’d come home to put the kids to bed. Then, when I was going through my divorce I would watch it at 10 o’clock at night because I was very lonely and it was the thing that cheered me up at the end of the day during a hard time in my life. Little did I know that one day I’d be sleeping with Sam Malone.

July 3 (UPI) — The 2026 Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest introduced this year’s slate of competitors, including 17-time champion Joey Chestnut, at a weigh-in ceremony Friday.

The Friday ceremony at the flagship Nathan’s Famous location in Coney Island, Brooklyn, introduced the 14 men and 10 women who will compete to see who can eat the most hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes at Saturday’s annual Fourth of July contest.

Chestnut, a 17-time champion and the current holder of the coveted Mustard Belt, predicted he will emerge victorious again this year.

“I’m hungry, and I’m going to dominate,” Chestnut, who downed 70.5 hot dogs in last year’s contest, said at the weigh-in.

Miki Sudo, the reigning women’s champion with 11 titles to her name, also predicted a repeat of her 2025 performance, where she finished 33 hot dogs and buns.

“It’s hot, but I’m bringing the heat,” she said. “I was born for this.”

The field of competitors this year features eaters from across the United States, as well as eaters from Britain, Australia and the Czech Republic.

Ken Marino loves living in L.A.

Living here has certainly been good for his acting career. Though he broke into the business as a member of NYC-turned-MTV sketch comedy group the State in 1994, he moved to L.A. in the fall of 1997 when he landed a role in the second season of “Men Behaving Badly,” an NBC sitcom. Marino shot just 13 episodes before the show was canceled. Still, he stayed in L.A., landing roles in much-loved shows like “Veronica Mars,” “Party Down,” “The Residence” and “Running Point.” He’s also co-written a few things, including “Role Models” and “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” out July 10, which was filmed in and around Los Angeles.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

“Working around L.A. and running around to jobs is how I got to understand L.A.,” Marino says. “It’s just a very comfortable city to live in. I just think it’s fun to be able to bounce around and do anything you feel like doing.”

Here’s how Marino would spend his perfect, carefree Sunday in Los Angeles.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

6 a.m.: Dog walking, coffee and flowers

We have two dogs. They need to go outside in the morning and eat, and they are very vocal about it. For a while, every morning at 5:58 my one dog, Dot, would start whining and moving around until I’d go “yeah, OK, let’s feed you.”

In our family, I’m the one who feeds the dogs and takes them out, because I’m a morning person. I enjoy it when it’s not fully light out, maybe making myself a coffee or taking a walk to this place called Project Bloom Coffee. It’s a little mom and pop kind of place and they have terrific coffee and breakfast sandwiches. They’re also a florist. Sometimes they even use this cool paper holder with a handle where, on one side you put the coffee and then on the other side you put your beautiful flower display. So then you get to walk home with your coffee and your flowers together and it’s something I’ve never seen anywhere else.

7:30 a.m.: Online chess

After I go get my coffee and walk the dogs, I’ll still be the only person up so I’ll get on my computer and get a couple of games of chess in. I play people from around the world online on Chess.com, and I usually either get frustrated or feel like I’m the best chess player in the world. Anyway, I’m getting my rating up on the app and I’m very excited about it. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of chess tutorials on TikTok and YouTube that teach me how to play better.

9 a.m.: More coffee and “911”

If I go to Project Bloom, I’ll bring my wife a coffee and some flowers but if not, we have a little espresso and cappuccino maker so I’ll use that to make her a cappuccino, which I’ll bring to her in bed. She’s always very happy about that and then I’ll go try to wake my [16-year-old] daughter up, which usually takes about two or three tries until I take her phone, set the timer for five minutes, and then put it on the other side of her room so she has to get out of her bed to turn it off when it sounds.

She and I have been religiously watching “911” recently. We started with Season 1 and now we’re about six or seven seasons in so I’ll make her breakfast — maybe a Nutella crepe with some little cherry tomatoes on the side, which is weird but she likes it or maybe some oatmeal — and then we’ll watch “911” and talk about our favorite characters, like Buck, Chimney and Bobby.

Noon: Lunch on the Westside

We have a little apartment in Marina Del Rey that’s right by the beach so sometimes I’ll go out there with the dogs, just to sit for a while and enjoy. I usually walk between the Venice pier and Washington Street, but sometimes I’ll go further north and walk along Venice Beach if I want to hang out with some freaky deakies.

When I’m over on that side of town, there’s a couple of places that I might go for food, like this Italian restaurant called Ospi that’s in Venice. They’re incredible. They make their own homemade pasta and it’s delicious. There’s also this chain called Guisados, and I love their tacos so sometimes I’ll do that too. Venice Ramen is good too, and they do these things called jumbo gyoza that are absolutely delicious. They’re like 2.5 times bigger than a normal gyoza, like palm-sized, and I really like them.

2 p.m.: Play practice and a pint

My daughter is in two plays right now at this place called the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica, so it’s my responsibility to take her over there and drop her off for practice. When I do that, if it’s a Sunday, I might want to grab a Guinness somewhere and watch basketball. There’s a bar called Weary Livers down the street that has a lot of board games and it feels like you’re in somebody’s basement, which is good. It’s also right next to the Brixton, which is another nice bar that I’ll go to from time to time if I’m waiting for my daughter to finish rehearsal because it’s a lot of driving otherwise.

4 p.m.: Garage band practice

Typically on Sunday, we’ll also have a rehearsal for the Middle Aged Dad Jam Band. [Editor’s note: Marino co-founded the group with David Wain, whom he’s known since “The State” and who co-wrote “Wet Hot American Summer.”) We’ll play for a couple of hours in David’s garage, trying out new songs and working out what we’re going to do at our next live show.

6 p.m.: Guerilla promotion

Right now, David [Wain] and I are trying to figure out different promotional things we can do for our movie, “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” so maybe we’d do some more of that. It’s a really funny movie and we sold it at Sundance.

Anyway, two Sundays ago we walked around with our friend Frank Barrera, who is also one of the camera operators on “Gail Daughtry.” We went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and we shot promos for the movie where we were talking to different people and pretending that the Gail Daughtry cinematic universe is vast and has been around for decades, like we were asking people what their favorite Gail Daughtry movie is. It confused a lot of them, but every once in a while somebody would say something so we’re using those for promo spots.

I also spent some time just running up and down the street being very overly enthusiastic and screaming “the new Gail Daughtry movie is coming out!” and then we shot people’s reactions, which were typically “confusion” and “not caring.” Like, “Stop yelling at me, weirdo.”

7:30 p.m.: Thai takeout

On weekends, my wife and I like to order from a specific Thai place that’s won many awards. It’s called Luv 2 Eat Thai Bistro and it’s absolutely fantastic. The crab curry is so delicious and they do these street food sausages that we crave. They come with ginger and peanuts and garlic, plus a big slab of raw cabbage and some hot peppers and we’ll eat them like popcorn, just throwing them in our mouths while we catch up on “Survivor.” The flavor is just insane, and we think about how good they are all the time.

9:30 p.m.: Checkmate

After we watch “Survivor,” usually what happens next is that we’ll end up going, “Should we watch a movie?” Then we’ll look around for a movie for a while and then my daughter will be like, “Hey, Mom! Come in here and watch this YouTube show with me” so my wife will get pulled away, and I’ll immediately pick up my computer and start playing chess again. I like to bookend my day with a quiet chess game in the morning and another quiet game at night. It’s a nice way to wind down.

I’ll typically play a minimum of about three games before my eyes start to close because they’re trying to fall asleep. That’s when I’ll quit because I’ll be making stupid moves and it affects my rating, like “Oh, I just lost that game because I fell asleep while my computer was on,” so that’s how I know when I’m done.

A civil jury says R&B star Chris Brown must face the music for the vicious dog attack that in 2020 left one of the two housekeepers working at his Tarzana home hospitalized with injuries to her face, arm and leg.

The Los Angeles jury on Tuesday found the 37-year-old Grammy winner liable in the years-long case and determined he must pay nearly $13 million to Maria Avila, whose sister Patricia Avila sued Brown and his Black Pyramid Co. in April 2021. Court documents reviewed by The Times on Wednesday show that Brown owes Maria Avila $12.9 million in damages including emotional distress and medical expenses. Brown must also pay $885,000 in damages to Patricia Avila, who was present during the dog attack on her sister, and $50,000 in damages to Maria’s husband.

Patricia Avila’s attorney Michael C. Murphy Jr. told The Times in a statement his team was “thrilled” by the outcome. “We are so happy for her and her family after everything they went through on that horrible day,” he said. “It was an honor to represent her.”

A legal representative for Brown did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment on Wednesday.

Patricia Avila filed her civil suit against Brown in Los Angeles County Superior Court five years ago, suing the singer for premises liability, negligent infliction of emotional distress and strict liability. At the time, she was seeking an unspecified amount of damages including loss of wages, medical expenses and legal fees.

Avila alleged in her lawsuit that she and sister Maria Avila were hired in November 2020 as housekeepers at Brown’s home in Tarzana. The suit says the sisters were aware the singer owned dogs at the property and understood he kept the pets locked up in a different part of the home. According to the complaint, the incident occurred in December 2020 when Maria went to the home’s backyard to empty out a vacuum. There, she encountered the singer’s Caucasian shepherd, which “proceeded to viciously attack Maria,” the lawsuit said.

“Plaintiff [Patricia] fully recognized that the screams were coming from her own sister, knew that her sister went outside to empty a vacuum, and could hear that a dog was violently attacking her sister,” the lawsuit said. “The screams were so bad that it caused Plaintiff to immediately run outside, where she found her sister covered in blood while she was screaming and crying for help. Mr. Brown proceeded to call 911.”

The lawsuit said the dog attacked Maria around her eye, her left arm and had bitten into her leg. Paramedics responded to Brown’s home and transported the woman to a hospital, where she remained for multiple days and underwent two surgeries. Patricia Avila said in the complaint that she suffered emotional distress and had been unable to work as a result of the incident.

The jury reached its decision after a two-week trial in Van Nuys.

As one legal saga appears to be coming to an end, another awaits Brown. The singer and his friend Omololu Akinlolu, a musician who performs as HoodyBaby), are set to stand trial in October for allegedly attacking music producer Amadou “Abe” Diaw in February 2023 at a London nightclub.
The singer, who notably assaulted ex-girlfriend and Fenty beauty mogul Rihanna the night before the 2009 Grammy Awards, pleaded not guilty last year in the Diaw case. He pleaded not guilty to one count of attempting to unlawfully and maliciously cause grievous bodily harm with intent, assault causing actual bodily harm and having an offensive weapon.

Brown is performing with Usher on their joint North American stadium tour. The singers will take over Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium on Sept. 25 and 26.

KATIE Price has furiously hit back after Meg Matthews branded her “utterly irresponsible” for buying a £2,000 dog with husband Lee Andrews in Dubai. 

The 48-year-old announced yesterday how she and Lee, 43, had dropped the huge sum of cash on a male pomsky, which is a mix between a Siberian Husky and a Pomeranian.

Following the news, Meg, 60, took to Instagram to slam Katie, writing: “Why buy a puppy when you don’t live in Dubai?

“This is utterly ridiculous, irresponsible… a husky mix in Dubai, heat training takes time [and] commitment.

“Do they have a house and garden/yard? Just heartbreaking, sends the wrong message.”

Katie wasted no time in responding to Meg’s words, commenting on her post:  “Am I missing something Meg?

slip up?

Katie Price appears to wish Princess happy birthday on wrong day – but had reason

New arrival

Katie Price & Lee say ‘we’re having a baby boy’ as they buy £2k puppy in Dubai

“Go back through your messages to me, how nice you have always been, asking me for help and now this?

“You don’t know me personally so calm down. And Lee lives in Dubai, my husband.”

Katie and Lee excited announced their newest addition yesterday, with her telling fans: “Just like we signed for our marriage, we’ve signed for our baby.

Lee added: “We’re new owners of this baby boy.”

Katie jumped in, explaining: “We’ve got no kids but this is our baby boy.”

“He’s our first baby together,” she later added as she introduced the puppy to fans.

The couple have chosen to call the blue-eyed dog Dubaii – with an extra ‘i’ – as a nod to where he’s from.

It comes days after the death of one of Katie’s Sphynx cats and disappearance of two others – Eilleen and Doris.

Announcing the sad news on Cameo, Lee told a fan: “I love dogs, I love cats, I love animals. So does Kate, so we share that empathy. She’s got five Sphynxes actually. One has just passed away.

“Sorry, eight Sphynxes, five dogs. Eight Sphynxes, now seven, one passed away.”

Guests on Channel 4 programme Four in a Bed were horrified by what they found.

Welsh Four in a Bed contestants have voiced their frustration after receiving less than the full amount on the Channel 4 show after their guests were left horrified.

In a repeat episode broadcast on Saturday, June 27, the proprietors of Tin Can Retreat in Ceredigion, Stuart and Amy, found themselves on the defensive against their rivals.

The married pair had hoped to offer their guests a taste of vintage Americana at their distinctive property, but faced criticism over cleanliness concerns.

Shortly after settling in for the night, Newquay hotel owners Oleg and Emma, Devon glampsite owners Mandy and Elly, and Devon country pub owners Steve and Mandy raised their objections.

They uncovered what appeared to be mould in the fridge, “minging” dirt, dead flies behind the sink, and even “dog hair in the fridge”. Guests also found dust and water along the windowsills, while the toilets had been left uncleaned, reports Wales Online.

Consequently, Stuart and Amy received poor scores for the cleanliness of Tin Can Retreat, prompting him to remark: “Dagger to the heart, that is.”

On payment day, Stuart and Amy faced their critics, and discovered they had been underpaid by all three other teams.

They first heard from Mandy and Elly, who complained about a smell from the diesel heater, leaving them “complaining of a headache and feeling nauseous”.

Stuart insisted the accommodation had been fitted with a carbon monoxide detector, defending: “I just have to disagree with you… I’m not wrong.”

They then heard from Steve and Mandy, after receiving a “massively disappointing” score of four for cleanliness from them.

“We did find a lot of uncleanliness, we opened up the fridge and there was lots of mould in the seal, and the window sills had a lot of dirt and mould in them,” Mandy explained. “In our bedroom, there was water, the whole place felt quite grubby.”

Emma stepped in to add: “Mandy said grubby but to me it was a little bit beyond that, it was not of a standard that I would be comfortable to ever charge people.”

She went on: “I lifted the lid on the toilet seat and there was lots of crusty residue, it’s not something that’s just been missed. There was actual dirt in lots and lots of places.”

Mother-daughter duo Mandy and Elly added: “For us unfortunately, much the same. There was quite a lot of dog hair left around, our fridge was mouldy in the seals and the side.”

Stuart replied: “That’s obviously very difficult for us to hear and we are quite shocked by it. We’re not a new business, we’ve been operating for over two years and this is new news coming to light. We need to go back and work out where it’s going wrong. We needed that reality check on the cleanliness.”

He later added to the camera: “This afternoon for us was hard to take but we’re going to go away now, collate all those comments and we’ll absolutely be implementing fixes for everything that was found.”

The couple discovered they had been underpaid a total of £74 by the three teams, due to the issues raised on payment day.

And though they accepted all three payments, they admitted the money they received from Steve and Mandy was “harsh”.

“We thought the £50 underpayment from Mandy and Steve was harsh,” Stuart admitted. “We offer great value for money, although there were some cleanliness issues, I don’t think they found anything major.”

Mandy meanwhile admitted she knew the result would come as a “shock” but insisted it was “justified”.

After the feedback, and a result which saw Stuart and Amy’s Tin Can Retreat come in last place, Stuart shared: “We’re gutted we came in fourth position, I think we knew it was coming.

“We’ve obviously got some issues we need to immediately address which we will do, and then let’s see what the future holds, maybe some more sites.”

Four in a Bed is available to watch on Channel 4.

Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) can swill an entire sorority’s supply of booze. As a Kryptonian, her hangovers are instantly cured by a yellow sun. And so director Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl” follows a trail of empty beer bottles to find Superman’s lonely younger cousin marking her birthday on a solo interstellar bender, pounding shots alongside her dog, Krypto.

Unlike sweet-natured Kal-El (David Corenswet), a.k.a. Clark Kent, who escaped Krypton as a baby, this traumatized 20-something bore witness to their home planet’s long and painful extinction. Playing grief like the sandblasted absence of emotion, Alcock’s Supergirl isn’t in the mood for Metropolis do-gooding. She prefers slumming it at extraterrestrial honky-tonks with suitors who look like armadillo-plated slugs. She’s most visibly depressed when she tries to convince herself she’s having fun.

Who doesn’t want to go on a “Star Wars” cantina crawl? The opening stretch of “Supergirl” is great — Alcock even passes out on a toilet with aplomb. Briefly we hope that Gillespie and screenwriter Ana Nogueira are shaking up the superhero format like a bottle of gas-station champagne. I’d love to see Alcock’s heroine in a grotty, silly “Animal House”-style comedy, out-drinking a galaxy of alien squids. But the limits of Hollywood’s imagination squeeze Supergirl to stop partying and start doing some regular old rescuing. Sigh. Someone’s gotta save franchise movies from themselves.

As usual, there’s a tyke in trouble: 13-year-old Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a fellow orphan with a ramrod disposition and a tidy brunet braid that gives away that her character is modeled on Hailee Steinfeld’s vengeful teenager in “True Grit.” Ruthye wants to hunt and kill the creep who murdered her family. Unlike Supergirl, the child thinks it’s healthier to exorcise — not imbibe — one’s heartache. The duo visit an Epstein-island-like planet of kidnapped breeding women where, in one of the script’s subtler sick horrors, the locals imply that pubescent Ruthye is more valuable than aged 23-year-old Supergirl. (Although some of the caged extras appear to be as ancient as 30.) It’s yet another swiped idea, this one from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” for a minor story beat that’s unnecessary. Still, Alcock reacts with exactly the right note of disdain: “Cool,” she croaks. ‘Nuff said.

They’ve come to this cesspool to find the villainous Krem, an unrecognizably vile Matthias Schoenaerts with a mug that’s been pierced all over like he face-planted into a pile of thumbtacks. His biker-scumbag-times-infinity prosthetic design is fantastic, but what makes it genius is that the makeup team allowed a couple of metal studs to fall off Krem’s forehead before his first close-up. You know, for that lived-in barbarian sex trafficker look.

As Ruthye, Ridley’s crisp British elocution is the cleanest thing in the movie, which is shot by Rob Hardy in shades of mustard smog and latrine brown. Neither Supergirl as a babysitter nor Gillespie as a storyteller let the kid carry her share of the action, but I suspect Ridley has the talent for it. She seizes her small opportunities to impress in the film’s second half. Spitting on a baddie, her righteous loogie stings like a moral disinfectant.

Meanwhile, Jason Momoa swaggers into the fray from the cover of an ’80s hard-rock album with Kiss’ makeup, Manowar’s muscles and Meatloaf’s motorcycle. His character, a blue-skinned bounty hunter, only tangentially slots into the plot. Really, Momoa’s massive presence is here to prove that James Gunn was serious when he announced he was hard-resetting DC Comics’ film canon up to 2023’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” Momoa as Aquaman is dead. Long live Momoa as Whoever This Guy Is.

Gillespie likes to champion difficult women, from Tonya Harding in “I, Tonya” to the Dalmatian-skinning Disney villain of “Cruella.” Yet as his budgets have mounted, so has the pressure to make his problematic ladies popular with a mass audience. “Supergirl” feels anxious to entertain. The jokes all have the same sense of snarky humor, no matter what species is cracking them. One scene even has a comic slow clap that, in my theater, didn’t get a reaction. The camera and cutting pace refuse to relax. Major set-piece action shots are impossible to follow. You can’t squint past the distracting lens flares.

Alcock’s wildling Supergirl is the one reason to see the film. As in her too-brief role on the “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” and her rollicking cameo at the end of 2025’s “Superman,” the Australian actor is a striking combination of grounded conviction and otherworldly essence, the ideal one-two for a character who plays anti-gravity fetch with her dog. Floating weightless in the stars, her hair unbrushed and bathrobe-like jacket shrugged on, she makes the impossible look casual. (Supergirl’s iconic red-and-blue minidress is so not her style.)

Alas, Krypto the pup is sidelined early on with a whimper, both from him and us. Maybe he’ll get more screen time when the digital animators figure out how to make him look more realistic. (Between the mutt’s anime eyes and that gawky-phony deer in “Disclosure Day,” are CGI creatures getting worse?)

Grief tethers Supergirl to Ruthye, even though they disagree on how to handle it, and it also seems to repel her from Corenswet’s dopey, innocent Clark Kent. There’s rich irony in the personality contrast between the cousins. Her Kryptonian parents raised her to help humanity; his parents intended their son to rule it. But due to twists of fate, she’s the miserable, maladjusted one. The movie has no time to mine the psychology underneath their clash, let alone summon a sniffle for the other pitiful characters who die during this escapade. Perhaps it’s holding that tension back for a sequel, but I’d rather invest in the characters now.

A flashback to Supergirl’s first touchdown on Earth has the awkwardness of a study-abroad student realizing she doesn’t like her host country at all. Despite our planet seeming to have enforced its monoculture on outer space — an extraterrestrial dive bar band even does “The Girl From Ipanema” — Supergirl appreciates little of it besides some product-placement dog treats and, in a forced touch, the pop music on her headphones as well as crammed into the soundtrack next to Claudia Sarne’s gravelly score. I’ll accept this degenerate Supergirl sporting a retro Blondie shirt, but not her willingly choosing to listen to mopey contemporary Earth jams like Rilo Kiley and a twee cover of Jimmy Eat World over, say, Kryptonian death metal.

Still, the production design has imaginatively askew takes on the mundane: gridded jail cells, plodding space buses, clumsy oxygen suits that shimmy on with a satisfying squeak. When Supergirl makes a pit stop at a celestial convenience store, she samples a snack that I’m forced to call poop-corn. If “Supergirl” sells enough of it, hopefully Alcock can rampage again in a more confident sequel that truly cuts loose.

“When Calls the Heart” co-stars Erin Krakow and Ben Rosenbaum celebrated one year of marriage by publicly introducing the latest member of their growing family.

Krakow, 41, and Rosenbaum, 39, revealed via People on Tuesday that they welcomed a baby girl — their first child together — in April. In a joint Instagram post with the outlet, the Hallmark co-stars shared tender photos from an intimate shoot of themselves cuddling their baby girl and posing with their dog, Willoughby. The couple did not dish additional details about their child’s birth.

“Our daughter has been the greatest gift, and we are loving getting to know her better with each passing day,” Krakow and Rosenbaum told People via email.

Krakow and Rosenbaum have starred in the hit Hallmark period drama since its premiere in 2014. “When Calls the Heart” is set in the early 20th century and follows Krakow’s schoolteacher Elizabeth Thatcher as she makes a life for herself in Hope Valley, a small town in western Canada. Rosenbaum stars as Hope Valley resident Mike Hickam.

The new parents first generated dating rumors in 2023 when Krakow revealed she and Rosenbaum had become dog parents. Months later, Rosenbaum confirmed their romance in a Valentine’s Day post. The pair tied the knot last June and revealed in November that they were expecting.

“When Calls the Heart” wrapped up its 13th season in March and will return for production on Season 14 in 2027.

Football fever is sweeping the nation, but one TV vet says the excitement of World Cup matches could be having an unexpected impact on pets

As football fans soak up every goal, near miss and dramatic result, many may be overlooking one beloved member of the household. According to one TV vet, the noise and excitement surrounding World Cup matches could be causing hidden stress for dogs.

Dr Scott Miller issued the warning during an appearance on ITV’s This Morning over the weekend. He explained that while humans may enjoy the thrills and spills of tournament football, dogs can find the experience far more overwhelming.

“It’s so exciting having the World Cup and people get excited, overexcited, and there’s a lot of high-pitched shrill noises that emanate from our beings,” he said. “They’re the sounds that our dogs are particularly sensitive to.”

The vet explained that dogs have far more sensitive hearing than humans. According to Dr Miller, a dog can hear sounds from around four times further away than a person.

“So if you can hear something from 20 metres away, they can hear it from 80 metres away,” he said. “You can imagine when you have your family, who are normally calm and lovely, suddenly screaming away beside them.”

Dr Miller compared the sudden outbursts during matches to the effect fireworks can have on pets. He said unexpected cheers, shouting and celebrations can be frightening because animals receive no warning before the noise occurs.

“It’s just these high-pitched sounds that happen out of nowhere,” he explained. “They don’t get any warning for them.”

The warning comes as millions of football fans prepare to watch matches throughout the tournament. Research from Dogs Trust suggests many dogs can experience anxiety when exposed to loud or unfamiliar noises, with fireworks, thunderstorms and shouting among the most common triggers.

Animal welfare charity Blue Cross claims signs of stress in dogs can include trembling, panting, pacing, hiding, excessive barking and attempts to escape from noisy environments. Some dogs may also become withdrawn or unusually clingy when feeling anxious.

Fortunately, Dr Miller says there are several steps owners can take to help. One of the most important is ensuring pets have access to a quiet space away from the excitement.

“Have somewhere that your dog can slink away to, or your cat as well, away from the noise and the hubbub of the game,” he advised. He also suggested tiring pets out before kick-off. A walk, interactive play session or mentally stimulating activity can help encourage relaxation later in the day.

“Making sure they’re nicely tuckered out, maybe play an interactive game with them, stimulate their minds as well as their body, and then feed them as well,” he said. “So they’ve got that sort of Sunday afternoon feeling. They are a bit sleepy and a little bit relaxed.”

For households expecting particularly loud celebrations, Dr Miller recommended drawing the curtains and playing low-level background music. These measures can help mask sudden noises from both inside and outside the home.

While football fans may be focused on the action on screen, experts say it’s worth keeping an eye on pets too. A little preparation could help ensure that both owners and their dogs enjoy a more comfortable tournament.