FunnyNews.today · September 3, 2026

Rico Gets a TAILgate, and Baltimore’s Shelter Gets a Hand

BARCS begins a four-day adoption-fee waiver with a very good dog in the event title.

Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter’s September 3–6 adoption-fee waiver has the kind of title that practically comes with a wag: Ronnie & Rico’s TAILgate for BARCS. BARCS says the waiver is sponsored by Ravens tackle Ronnie Stanley and Rico, his BARCS pup, for all animals adopted during the four-day window.

Rico is a real BARCS rescue dog whose adoption history gives the pun its heart. The Ravens reported that Stanley adopted Rico after first adopting Lola from BARCS in 2016. That makes the name on the adoption drive a small, real rescue-history loop: a shelter dog who found a home is now lending that home’s name to an effort intended to help other animals find theirs.

The announcement keeps the football jokes light while making the practical part unusually simple: during the stated September 3–6 window, BARCS says adoption fees are waived for all animals. Prospective adopters should check the shelter’s current adoption information before visiting.

Source check

• BARCS adoption-events listing — September 3–6 waiver and the Ronnie & Rico TAILgate name.
• Baltimore Ravens — Stanley’s BARCS connection and Rico’s adoption history.

Tonight around the network

• Hilarious News: Steamtown’s railroad costume contest
• Smile News: Ocmulgee’s September homecoming
• Weird News: Long Island’s Big Duck building
• FunnyNews.lol: “The Library Door With a Minor Theater Degree” — satire

Today’s lead: Saskatoon has reserved a pool for the guests least likely to remember their towel.

The City of Saskatoon’s annual Dog Day of Summer is set for Tuesday, August 18, at Mayfair Outdoor Pool. The post-season swim begins with a session for service and therapy dogs, then moves through hour-long slots for other registered dogs. The evening finishes with a separate small-dog session for pups under 40 centimetres at the shoulder and under nine kilograms.

Each general session is limited to 60 dogs, the city says, and the August 16 registration deadline has passed—so today’s pool schedule is more a carefully planned canine splash than an open swim. The Saskatoon SPCA is also holding a fundraiser barbecue. One rule is especially clear: this is the dogs’ day; human swimming is not part of it.

It is a very tidy late-summer arrangement: the seasonal pool closure turns into a day of paddling, people stay on dry-land duty, and the smallest swimmers get their own late slot. That is logistical fairness, with considerably more shaking off.

Elsewhere in the network

• Hilarious.news: An Everglades scavenger hunt lets adults earn Junior Ranger badges too — a separate, upcoming Florida refuge activity.
• Smile.news: At Bighorn Canyon, a piece of driftwood becomes a family story — a forthcoming art session and shoreline cleanup.
• WeirdNews.org: The 18th-century automaton that wrote with a quill — a strange-history explainer.

Source

• City of Saskatoon: Dog Day of Summer event page
• City of Saskatoon: Dog Day of Summer event returns to Mayfair Outdoor Pool on August 18, 2026
• Saskatoon SPCA calendar: Dog Day of Summer

Today’s lead: At Weston-super-Mare’s Beach Lawns, the morning schedule has a wonderfully direct premise: bring a dog if you have one, then set off along the seafront.

ProDog Beach Fest lists its Fun Run and Canicross for the morning of August 16, before the main festival opens. Registration begins at 7 a.m., followed by a safety briefing and an 8 a.m. start; the routes are 1 km, 3 km, and 5 km. The organizer says runners are welcome with or without a dog, which gives the event a rare kind of competitive flexibility: a runner can be there for the pace, the company, or the chance to be overtaken by somebody’s very motivated spaniel.

The two-day festival is also listed by the RSPCA’s North Somerset branch. ProDog says the event’s activities and fundraising support the branch and Holly Hedge Animal Sanctuary. Those are the verifiable facts; which dog regarded the route as a personal victory lap is happily outside the official record.

Elsewhere in the network

• Hilarious.news: Yosemite’s Poetry Festival Gives the High Sierra Its Most Punctuated Weekend — a same-day cultural dispatch from Tuolumne Meadows.
• Smile.news: Ivy the turtle’s second-generation release — a conservation story with a community celebration at its center.
• WeirdNews.org: the diving-bell spider’s underwater air room — the science desk explains the bubble house.
• FunnyNews.lol: The Weather Desk — satire, clearly labeled.

Sources

• ProDog Beach Fest: Fun Run and Canicross Event
• ProDog Beach Fest 2026
• RSPCA North Somerset Branch events

Today’s lead: Long Beach, Washington, begins a week in which looking up is not merely encouraged but practically the local operating system.

The Washington State International Kite Festival opens August 17 for its 45th year, according to the World Kite Museum, which produces the event. The festival runs through August 23 and brings kite flying, demonstrations, competitions, workshops, hands-on activities, and mass ascensions to the beach. The Washington Kitefliers Association’s event listing describes seven days of flying and notes that visitors can launch their own kites too.

That combination makes the opening-day proposition unusually generous: international fliers and elaborate displays are part of the show, but a family with a kite can also join the sky. For one week, the beach has a very visible reminder that even wind can be organized—at least until somebody’s string gets philosophical.

Elsewhere in the network

• Hilarious.news: The Chief Snuggle Officer Vote Is Open — a separate pet-contest story, not this edition’s kite-festival lead.
• Smile.news: a safer route to Root Glacier — local volunteers helped restore access.
• WeirdNews.org: why Antarctica’s Blood Falls looks rusty — a science explainer.
• FunnyNews.lol: The Neighborhood Suggestion Box — satire, clearly labeled.

Sources

• World Kite Museum: 2026 festival dates and overview
• Washington Kitefliers Association: Washington State International Kite Festival listing
• Washington State International Kite Festival

FunnyNews.today Daily Edition — July 18, 2026

Congham, Norfolk, has found a sporting pace everyone can follow. The World Snail Racing Championships are scheduled for today, July 18, at Grimston Cricket Club, where registration begins at noon and competitors may bring a racer or hire one from the event’s “stables.” The starter’s traditional command is not “go,” but the much more species-appropriate “Ready, steady, slow.”

Today’s lead: the world’s most deliberate dash

The official race site says the contest takes place on a damp circular course: snails begin near the middle and head for an outer ring 13 inches away. The setup turns a garden-scale commute into a championship event, complete with heats, owners, a “Snail Master” and a world record measured in minutes rather than milliseconds.

This year’s championship is part of the free Summer Big Bash, alongside a family fun day, a memorial cricket match and live music. An independent listing from Town & Around confirms the July 18 date, Congham location and the event’s place in the larger community program.

The competition’s roots go back to the 1960s, according to both the organizers and Visit Norfolk. The official history says founder Tom Elwes brought the idea home after seeing snail racing in France. The standing record belongs to Archie, who covered the 13-inch course in two minutes in 1995. That is a pace of roughly one inch every nine seconds—blistering, provided one is a snail.

The organizers say the course is kept wet because snails prefer damp conditions, ordinary garden snails can compete, and giant foreign snails are not allowed. The official site also publishes handling guidance and says its care plan has been checked with a veterinary specialist. Today’s winner will be determined by what happens on the course; this edition is a preview, not a result.

Image note: The featured artwork is an original editorial illustration. It does not depict the actual 2026 entrants, spectators or result.

Elsewhere on the funny-news network

A spider with a remarkably cheerful wardrobe

Hilarious.news reports on a Himalayan spider whose markings can resemble a happy face and whose species comes in dozens of color forms. It is the night’s full Hilarious News feature, not this edition’s lead event.

A pangopup takes the high road

Smile.news introduces Brookfield Zoo’s second pangolin pup of 2026, already practicing the time-honored pangopup travel system: riding on mom’s tail.

Nine drops in nearly a century

WeirdNews.org checks in on the Pitch Drop Experiment, which has been running since 1927 and has produced nine recorded drops. Snail racing suddenly looks like a sprint.

Satire desk: take the scenic route

Satire: FunnyNews.lol’s original comic, “The Scenic Route,” is fictional humor. It is included as a clearly labeled network comic, not factual reporting.

Sources

• World Snail Racing Championships — official event site
• Visit Norfolk — quirky Norfolk events
• Town & Around — July 18 event listing

Today’s lead: The San Diego Zoo Safari Park has two baby echidnas from the same mother and the same breeding season, which sounds exactly like the start of a twin announcement. The zoo’s own July 16 report includes one important correction: the puggles are not twins. They are, however, an unprecedented double helping for the North American population in human care.

Two puggles, one very useful asterisk

In “Double the Puggle,” published July 16, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance says short-beaked echidna Kathryn surprised the Safari Park team with two puggles in her pouch. Both hatched from eggs laid by the same mother during the same mating season, but the Alliance explicitly says they are not twins.

That distinction has not prevented the story from being adorable enough to require its own vocabulary lesson. A baby echidna is called a puggle. An adult echidna is one of the few egg-laying mammals on Earth. And two puggles sharing a mother and a season are apparently best described as “double the puggle,” a phrase that sounds less like zoology and more like a highly specialized bakery order.

UPI’s same-day report says one puggle is being raised by Kathryn in an underground burrow while the smaller youngster is receiving hands-on care at the Safari Park’s Harter Veterinary Care Center. The care team has used stomach ultrasounds to learn how quickly the youngster digests formula and to refine its feeding schedule.

Half a marshmallow, all mammal

The Alliance explains that an echidna egg incubates in the mother’s pouch and hatches after about ten days. A newly hatched puggle weighs roughly half as much as a miniature marshmallow and has neither spines nor fur. It remains in the pouch for about two months, and at around 40 days the mother begins preparing an underground nursery burrow.

The veterinary work has a purpose beyond one unusually crowded pouch. The Alliance says its teams collaborate with Australian partners and other echidna specialists, and that the ultrasound-based feeding insight will influence care in San Diego and across its Australian Forest Conservation Hub. The headline is “two tiny mammals.” The longer story is “better information for caring for a species that still keeps plenty of secrets.”

A quick lap around tonight’s news network

• Hilarious News: In Arizona, tiny cone ants have been documented grooming much larger harvester ants. Read “Arizona’s Ant Spa Puts Tiny Groomers on the Big Shift.”
• Smile News: Cleveland Metroparks Zoo welcomed its first Amur leopard cub in the zoo’s 144-year history. Meet the history-making cub.
• Weird News: Oxford’s electric bell has been ringing since 1840 while its exact power source remains sealed inside. Explore the long-running mystery.
• Satire from FunnyNews.lol: “Exact Change of Plans” is an original fictional comic, not factual reporting. Read the comic strip.

Sources

• San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, July 16, 2026 — primary account of Kathryn’s two puggles, echidna development, and the care program’s research.
• UPI, July 16, 2026 — independent report on the two puggles and the smaller youngster’s veterinary care.