SFGate: Day in Pictures

Thursday, Jun. 07, 2012

More like Funtik the 'salivating pig,' if you ask us: Krakow has an elephant that predicts the outcomes of Euro 2012 soccer matches. Kharkiv, Ukraine, has a ferret that supposedly does the same. And not to be left out of the sports prognosticating boom, Kiev has its own Funtik the "psychic pig." He'll try to duplicate the feat of the late Paul the Octopus, who correctly chose the winners of eight matches at the World Cup in South Africa.

Are they litter-box trained? You can apparently adopt children as well as cats at the Houston SPCA.

Hello, Mom? I think I failed my driver's test: I'll let you know when the examiner gets back inside. (Wheels of Destruction show at Myrtle Beach Speedway, S.C.)

New wrinkle on parenthood: Their mother wouldn't nurse these two baby Amur tigers at a zoo in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, so Cleopatra the Shar Pei was called into duty. She gladly obliged, even though she's already caring for at least one puppy (lower left) of her own.

But I don't want to go back to the wild. It's dangerous: Caitlin Guthrie (right) points the way to Kiwi, a rescued loggerhead sea turtle who was being released back to the wild on Juno Beach, Fla. But instead of entering the water, Kiwi immediately turned around and crawled back to the staff of Loggerhead Marinelife Center, who had guided her back to health after she got hooked in the mouth and tangled in fishing line in the Intracoastal Waterway.

Snake eyes: Fourth-grader Emma Cox touches a black rat snake at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Elon and is changed forever.

Carpe carpium! (Seize the carp): A blindfolded man tries to catch fish with his bare hands during a competition near the village of Machulishchi, Belarus.

Rebel rousers: Members of Bankhead's Battery prepare to reload after firing an 1861 cannon during a Civil War Sesquicentennial ceremony at Confederate Park in Memphis, Tenn.

Dear Japan: Found your missing dock. Feel free to pick it up any time: Oregonians check out a massive floating dock that washed ashore in Agate Beach. The Japanese consulate in Portland confirmed that it is one of four docks that were washed out to sea by the March 11, 2011, tsunami.

Southpaw: Three-year-old Chase Parker winds up for the Marshmallow Shot Put in the Nursery School Olympics at Elizabeth Park in Trenton, Mich.

Hunter jumper kisser: Cami gives 13-year-old Cassie Kime a smooch after the pair competed in the Germantown (Tenn.) Charity Horse Show.

A man paraglides behind the lines of another paraglider off the Torrey Pines Gliderport in San Diego.

A monkey traverses lattice work in the compound of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.

Gassed up and ready to sell: A balloon vendor in Warsaw's Zamkowy Square is expecting a big day for the Euro 2012 soccer championships.

Fresh from the field: Five-year-old Hayley Cohen can't resist biting into one of the strawberries she picked at Thompson's Strawberry Farm in Bristol, Wis.

A Pakistani boy covers his face with a scarf during a sand storm outside Islamabad.