Pip: Lucky Bustar is a site where pets do science and commit crimes, sometimes in the same week.

Mara: This episode comes from luckybustar, and we’re covering two genuinely different corners of the pet world — gene editing that could change what it means to be allergic to dogs, and one orange cat’s personal legal philosophy around sausage theft.

Pip: Let’s start with the science.

Hypoallergenic Beagles and the CRISPR Switch

Mara: The question this research answers is a simple one that millions of people have carried their whole lives: can you have a dog if dogs make you sick?

Pip: And the setup here is almost too neat to be real. The scientist leading the project is himself allergic to dogs. The paper came out in The CRISPR Journal, and the key line from the researcher is this: “This type of genetic change occurs naturally in dogs. All we did was direct it at this specific site.”

Mara: So the upshot is they didn’t engineer a new species. They found a mutation nature already makes and aimed at it deliberately. The target was Can f 1, the single protein responsible for triggering dog allergies in most people, and they switched off the gene that produces it.

Pip: The method was CRISPR — the Nobel Prize-winning gene-editing tool — applied to skin cells from a beagle, which were then cloned and used to create embryos. Two pups, Alfie and Bailey, were born in September 2024.

Mara: Lab tests found no trace of the allergen in either dog’s saliva or fur. Walker then ran a skin-prick allergy test on himself using samples from both beagles. No reaction. The same test using samples from a poodle and a goldendoodle — breeds commonly marketed as hypoallergenic — did trigger a reaction.

Pip: So the breeds people have been paying a premium for don’t actually clear the bar, and the ones that do aren’t for sale yet.

Mara: Right — neither dog is available to the public. Researchers still need to monitor long-term health and bring down the cost of the process. But roughly one in seven people worldwide has a dog allergy, and this is the first time the approach has worked in a dog at all.

Pip: From a lifetime of sneezing to a beagle named Bailey sleeping in your lap in Central Park. That’s a meaningful distance to close.

Mara: Which brings us somewhere much lower-stakes — a plate of pancakes, one missing sausage, and a cat with a very specific theory of invisibility.

One Cat’s Personal Legal Theory

Pip: The post covering the orange cat sausage heist is doing something the gene-editing story isn’t — it’s documenting a crime, with video evidence, committed by a suspect who apparently believed his alibi was airtight.

Mara: The clip was shared with the caption “POV: You look away from your plate for a second but you have a gluttonous orange cat!” and it shows him grab the sausage while his owner’s attention is elsewhere. The detail that made it go wide: “His eyes are closed the entire time.”

Pip: Not blinking. Not squinting. Fully shut. His working hypothesis, arrived at independently, seems to be that unseeing equals undoing.

Mara: Commenters confirmed the read immediately. One wrote: “I love when cats know they’re doing something wrong, so they put on their safety squints.” Another offered the cleaner version: “His eyes are closed so he’s automatically invisible.” The sausage was never recovered.

Pip: A landmark case in feline jurisprudence. The defense rests.

Mara: One story about removing a barrier millions of people thought was permanent. One story about a cat who invented his own legal system.

Pip: Same site, same week. More pets doing things next time.

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