truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals operates an assistance-dog program under a $500,000 grant and not only provides the trained dog but also yearly "refresher" sessions to keep the dog sharp. However, client Patricia Frieze told SF Weekly in September that the organization had asked her whether it could do the refresher course this year by telephone instead of a home visit by a trainer.

Animals Gone Wild: In July, scuba divers around San Diego were forced out of the water by the estimated 1 million human-sized Humboldt squid that infested the area. Usually deepwater dwellers, they swarmed near the shore for several weeks, flashing their "razor-sharp beaks and toothy tentacles," according to a KABC-TV report.

"Goose barnacles": A 6-foot-long log composed of hundreds of barnacles, locked together, washed ashore near Swansea, Wales, in August. Each of the barnacles uses tentacles for snatching food, and a 6-foot mass of snake-like appendages, writhing simultaneously, terrified local beachgoers. Scientists said goose barnacles usually remain on the ocean floor.

Evidence of the dexterity and usefulness of monkeys (for fetching objects for disabled people) came from the Plants & Planters store in Richardson, Texas, in July. The store owner, seeking to combat recent burglaries, installed a surveillance camera, which revealed a monkey scaling the fence, scooping up plants, flowers and accessories, and handing them to an accomplice waiting on the other side.

A 114-pound tortoise, part of the Zambini Family Circus performing in Madison, Wis., in July, escaped. He actually made good time on his dash for freedom, covering two miles in six days before being spotted.

News of the Weird's favorite animal was called "heroic" by Argentine researchers in a July issue of the journal Paleontology. Had it not been for high-performance South American scarab dung beetles, they wrote, gargantuan prehistoric mammals would have choked vast areas of the continent knee-deep in manure. The researchers found that, by burying tennis-ball-sized "food supplies" for their young, the beetles also improved surface sanitation by leaving less dung available for "disease-carrying flies."