A Modesto California Police Animal Control Officer has arrested a couple for keeping a horse and seven dogs inside their home.

Joe Silva and Nichole Surkala were also accused of endangering a 12-year-old child after officers found the floor covered in animal feces and rotting produce.

A 42-year-old woman narrowly escaped her husband's wrath after he shot at her with .22-calibre rifle when she failed to renew his driver's license.

Gary Alan Hemsted, a truck driver, has now been sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting his wife, Lisa, in 2005. Hemsted pleaded no contest earlier this month to attempted voluntary manslaughter, using a firearm and causing great bodily injury in the wounding of his wife.

When a drunk German man, identified only as Wolfgang H, found no parking place for his horse, he used a bank's automatic teller machine for that purpose.

The horse's owner apparently drank a bit too the night before and decided to sleep it off inside the bank's heated foyer. Talking to the Bild newspaper, the 40-year-old machinist said he had "a few beers" with a friend in Wiesenburg, southwest of Berlin.

It took a backhoe and a team of rescuers to dig out Champ, the 1,200-pound horse from the mud on Thursday, where he had gone to quench his thrust but started sinking into it.

Champ, who has been sucked up to his belly by the time his owners discovered him in the morning, was completely tired from his efforts to get out. AP quotes Champ's owner Jeff Radabaugh as saying, "It was like quicksand out here. We dug until we couldn't dig anymore."

Police on Sand Mountain, Nevada arrested a woman who went for a horseback ride through town at midnight and allegedly used the horse to ram a police car. Melissa Byrum York was charged with driving under the influence and drug offenses.

The 40-year-old woman, who said she had crystal methamphetamine, a small amount of marijuana, pills and a small pipe, trotted the horse on DeKalb County road 1-94 in the town of Sylvania around midnight on Sunday.