Furality for 2026 has completed its strongest year yet. Their attendance continued to grow by gaining 1,000 more attendees at 27,943. This growth has tempered, likely due to headwinds primarily caused by a new requirement of verifying age through electronic tools required to attend starting this year. They raised $116,121 according to the latest announcement for Resilient Hearts animal sanctuary, a LGBTQ+ run animal rescue.

The theme for this year was “Ultra”, a gaming theme where you visit the virtual world of the fictional console of the Ultravox Prism that is set to shut down at the end of the weekend. Many of the references were to the consoles of the mid-2000s that included loading intros and health warnings of overplaying that preceded many games of the era to invoke nostalgia toward that era of gaming long past.

The format of this gathering is seeming to become established and with that being the polish of the worlds is better than they ever have been. This article will go over the improvements found, but this year will primarily focus on the Dealer’s Mall in later sections. For a more larger view of Furality it is recommended reading our premiere article covering Furality Umbra from 2024. [2025 Furality Somna also available]

Hey! This episode you can win this awesome limited edition ALS themed trading card from Royalty Card Game, more information later in the video after a wonderful interview with the driving force behind this wonderful initiative!

Welcome to the 5th episode of Digging Up Positivity video of this year! This episode is packed with animation news but oooh so much charities because the furries have been BUSY!

Sorry this is late - my job has been super busy in the last two weeks (in a good way), and May was a pretty quiet month for newsbytes on Flayrah.

dronon: horsegiirL is going on tour later this year.

dronon: Laika drops a trailer for Wildwood! Aiming for a late October release. [Tip: Dav]

dronon: In the UK, the highest 100 grossing films in the last three years are four times as likely to have a talking animal as a lead character than a human woman over age 60. And six films' leads were named Chris.

I was vaguely aware, browsing bookstores and libraries, that there was an odd group of murder mysteries with cats on the cover illustration (and cat puns in the title of course), but for many years was not entirely sure that this wasn't just one prolific author writing one ongoing series to a niche but dedicated readership of cat detective fans. Despite being a fan of anthropomorphic animals in stories, and generally liking detective fiction, they just seemed a little bit too specific for even me. The only example of one of these novels I've ever read featured foxes rather than cats, and it was unfortunately terrible enough that it killed what little spark of enthusiasm for the genre I had. My lack of interest in the sub-genre seems to be mirrored by the furry fandom at large (we tend to like our cat detectives a bit more bipedal, among other traits).

Recently, this little genre has slipped off the written page and onto the big screen. The Sheep Detectives adapts one of these novels, Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, which the observant reader may have already deduced features sheep detectives rather than cats. Directed by Kyle Balda, this movie tells the story of George Hardy, an Irish shepherd played by Hugh Jackman, who enjoys reading detective stories out loud to his flock, never believing for a second they are actually paying attention to the stories and learning sleuthing skills second hand from these readings. When George suddenly dies one night, the sheep begin to suspect foul play, and decide to solve the crime themselves.