It’s komkommertijd here in the Netherlands, or cucumber time for those of you who don’t speak Dutch. It’s journo speak for the fact that stories are thin on the ground at this time of year, when politicians and business types are taking their summer breaks.

Traditionally this ‘silly season’ means a drought for journalists looking to fill their column inches, air time or web pages.  More often than not it means stories that would normally be thrown to the bin in editorial meetings are given a little bit more space to breathe.

For some reason, animals and their antics seem to fill the gap and find themselves making headlines that would normally elude them. So, to keep you up to date with the stories that are, but maybe shouldn’t be, making the headlines, here’s a digest of some this week's komkommertijd front runners:

Russia: Notes from underground

Scientists in Moscow have discovered that stray dogs have been taking the underground to find food in the city centre. According to the Russian website rupor.org, biology professor Andrew Poyarkov claims to have seen several stray hounds travelling unaccompanied on the city’s underground network.

Food is more easily accessible in the city centre, he says, and the dogs travel there to forage food before returning to where they live, often on the outskirts, once they have fulfilled their appetites.

“They do not just go to the subway station, they actually board the trains. They seem to have learnt how long they need to stay on the train to leave at the right station.”

The scientist believes the canines have learned their habits from copying humans and is now investigating the phenomenon, according to ananova.com

America: Monkey see, monkey do, monkey win friends and influence monkey

Staying on an imitation theme, researchers in Chicago have found that capuchin monkeys have a soft spot for those who copy their behaviour.

U.S. and Italian behavioural psychologists have reported that a monkey would actively choose to spend more time with researchers who imitated their behaviour and would also choose a mimic over a researcher who did not copy them.

According to Annika Paukner of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the findings indicate that copying can act as a social glue, a phenomenon shared by human and non-human primates.

Reuters reports that a series of tasks with a lightweight plastic ball were performed by researchers who copied, or didn’t copy the capuchin monkeys’ behaviour, and once the balls were put away, the monkeys would favour those researchers who had imitated them.

Kenya: Going for a song…or some cows

Ananova reports that a Kenyan man has offered former US president Bill Clinton 20 cows and 40 goats in exchange for his daughter Chelsea’s hand in marriage.

39 year old Godwin Chepkurgor told the East African Standard it was the second time he had made the offer.

His request was prompted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Kenya during which she promised to tell her daughter about his offer while addressing a public forum at the University of Nairobi.

Mr Chepkurgor, a former councillor from Nairobi, first wrote declaring his interest in Chelsea Clinton in 2000 – but never received a reply.

Austria: Bovines get hot under the collar

Normally mellow cows in the Austrian state of Carinthia have been taking locals by surprise by becoming more than a little unpredictable..

There have been several reported cases of bovines loosing their cool in recent weeks, most notably when a 52 year old woman was hiking in North Rhine-Westphalian and her dog disturbed some grazing cows.

Jittery, the cows stampeded in the direction of the dog and the hiker was trampled by one of the cows, suffering a broken finger and several broken ribs, reports Deutsche Welle.

Another incident in Lower Saxony saw a 20 year old woman forced to stop her car on a country road because five free ranging cows were blocking the way. The woman tried to shoo away the cows, who had escaped from their field, but they charged the car, clambered over the roof causing serious damage in the process.

Germany: Drunk badger a traffic hazard
 
A badger in Germany got so drunk on over-ripe cherries that it staggered into the middle of a road and refused to budge. Reuters reports a German motorist called police near the central town of Goslar to report a dead badger.

Officers raced to the scene only to discover the animal alive and well, but drunk. The nocturnal beast had eaten cherries from a nearby tree which had turned to alcohol and given the badger diarrhoea.

Having failed to scare the animal away, officers eventually chased it from the road with a broom.