World’s Happiest Dog On Christmas Morning? You Decide: Video
December 26, 2010 in Fun Videos, Holidays, News
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by Kenn Bell
by Kenn Bell
Caring Paws On Christmas
December 26, 2010 in Inspirational, News, Service Dogs
By CATHARINE SCHAIDLE For Journal Star
There are better places to be on Christmas Day than in a hospital.
But Morgan Conklin, 16, of Normal, who was transferred from BroMenn Medical Center because of unusual bacteria in her blood, hugged dogs and made the best of her situation.
That’s right, dogs.
There are 31 therapy dogs in the Paws 4 Healing program whose owners devote time to visit patients at the Children’s Hospital of Illinois on a volunteer basis. Christmas morning was the first time the dogs have been able to visit pediatric patients in their rooms because they are private rooms.
On Saturday, several members of the Paws 4 Healing group were delighted to bring their pets into the hospital to bring some cheer to the patients.
Therapy dog Phoenix moved around in a special dog stroller because she has a heart murmur and cannot exercise too much.
“Oh, poor baby,” Conklin cooed as another blanket was brought so Phoenix could sit on her bed.
The dogs – ranging from Gusto, a golden retriever, to Ashley, a Sheltie, and Tonks, a Rhodesian ridgeback – were dressed for the occasion sporting antler ears, Christmas bells and holiday vests.
Research has shown that trained animals such as these provide motivational, educational and recreational interactions that enhance people’s quality of life.
“I know my kids (patients) love it and all the kids have fun when they bring these dogs in to see them,” said Dr. Sean Hill.
Dressed as a Christmas tree with presents attached to the feet of her costume, Dawn Tucker’s expression was difficult to see as 13-month-old Emma hesitantly petted a dog at Children’s Hospital of Illinois.
As Emma became more playful with Auggie Doggie, a French poodle, Tucker gave a broad grin.
Each reaction between patient and therapy dog is emotional for the Germantown Hills woman.
“My late husband was a cancer patient and before he died he had been unresponsive for three days,” Tucker explained. “Then Shelly (Cunningham) and a couple of other friends brought our dogs, whom he loved, to see him. Joe actually moved his hands and touched the dogs, and the dogs jumped onto his bed and licked his face.”
Cunningham, a registered nurse in surgery at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, said it was a defining moment. “It was overwhelming, we just broke down and cried.”
Having witnessed the impact the dogs had on a patient in his final hours, Cunningham approached the hospital’s administration. After much research and leg work, she now is coordinator of the approximately two-year-old animal assisted therapy program at the hospital.
Twelve-year-old Jack, of Sheffied, was glued to his computer until one of the dogs came into his room and offered him a paw.
He took it and rubbed his thumb gently back and forth as the dog looked at him. They must have been communicating because Jack said he’d like to take the dog home.
by Kenn Bell
Mae, 3-year-old Yellow Lab Helps Fire Officials Determine Arson
December 26, 2010 in Law Enforcement, News, Working Dogs
By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun
Like many dogs, Mae likes a good couch, long walks and a scoop or two of her Purina Pro Plan.
But unlike others, the six-year-old yellow lab can be called away from her warm futon to help fire investigators search charred debris for flammable liquids, helping to determine whether arson might be the cause of the blaze.
Mae is one a half-dozen “accelerant” detection dogs in the state called out to fire scenes as far away as Cumberland or the nation’s capital — sometimes as additional alarms are called to a structure fire and sometimes weeks after the debris has been soaked in heavy rains.
“At home she’s a regular dog,” said Lt. Dean Mulvihill, her handler and a fire investigator with the Howard County fire department. Although she is specially trained, she still disobeys occasionally, attempting to sneak people food at home. But her “headstrong” personality makes good at the job, Mulvihill said.
Together, the two report to about 50 to 60 fires a year in various jurisdictions. Each fire department differs on when they choose to use a dog, but they typically Mae is called when there is a fatality, a large amount of damage or some other reason to suspect arson.
by Kenn Bell
Real Ace Ventura: Detective Tails Dog Walkers
December 26, 2010 in Endangerment, Law Enforcement, News
By CANDICE M. GIOVE For The New York Post
The mystified Manhattan dog owner noticed something was terribly wrong when her white border terrier began preferring the apartment’s bathroom to a fire hydrant. And she knew there was only one man who could crack the case:
Brock Schwartz, dog-walker inspector.
So the 29-year-old pooch private eye set up a palm-size hidden camera in the bathroom with remote Web access. Before long, the lens captured the dog’s dastardly walker leading the terrier to do his business in the bathtub — so that he didn’t have to take the dog out.
“He would clean the tub,” Schwartz said. “We saw it all on the cam.”
Just another day keeping paw and order.
Schwartz sniffs out lazy or larcenous dog walkers for well-heeled clients — mostly from the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Chelsea and the Flatiron District. He says he has a list of more than 20 steady clients.
Often, new dog owners hire him for a one-time $50 inspection. Other times, owners solicit his services after observing that their best friend’s behavior is off.
“They notice something is going on,” Schwartz said. “The dog is lethargic on certain days, not eating, something specific like that.”
He also periodically spies on walkers during strolls. And he installs doggy cams — which work just like nanny cams — for $150.
The pet detective is a former dog walker himself, and he started his security business in 2008 after working for an “unethical” company. Schwartz said the now-defunct service had him walk two dogs at once, even though, unbeknownst to him, one of the pets’ owners had paid for a solo session with another walker.
The Post recently tagged along with the real-life Ace Ventura while he monitored dog walkers in Madison Square Park.
“I’ve been very careful,” said the secret agent, who obscured his face with a baseball cap and large sunglasses for the mission. “They don’t know.”
Schwartz blends into the cityscape, waiting for walkers to leave ritzy apartment buildings and following at a distance with notebook in hand. He has never blown his cover during a stakeout.
“It’s so beyond the scope of what a dog walker would think would be happening to them that it doesn’t even cross their mind that they’re being inspected,” he said.
The most common canine caper, he said, involves walkers spending less time walking the dog than they should.
Walkers charge $20 to $60 for hourlong walks. Recently, an Upper West Side woman hired Schwartz to tail her husky and his walker along Riverside Drive.
“She was paying for the hour,” he said. “She only got 40 minutes.”
The second most frequent offense is passing off the dog-walking duty to someone else.
“People are being subbed in on different days,” Schwartz said. “The chances of [an owner] finding out are so astronomically impossible.”
In one case, he caught a walker feeding a pit bull Halloween candy.
“I thought, ‘Why?’ ” he said. “It was an idiotic thing to do.”
by Kenn Bell
Willis, The Clumber Spaniel, Reunited With Owner After One Year
December 26, 2010 in Adoption News, Holidays, Inspirational, News
Willis, a 7-year-old Clumber spaniel, strayed from his home in Portsmouth, Va., just before Christmas last year and wound up in an animal shelter in Maryland. He's now back with his owner, Karen Martin, who now lives in Williamsburg. (Jay Paul)
From The Washington Post
Willis, the long-lost Clumber spaniel, was in just about the worst pickle a dog could be in: Lost, hundreds of miles from home, he had been put on the equivalent of death row at the Tri County Animal Shelter in Hughesville, Md.
Picked up by animal control officers in Charles County on Nov. 20, he was taken to the shelter, where unclaimed strays are euthanized. Shelter workers scanned Willis for an identification chip, but the one that had been implanted beneath his skin was not detected. So a photograph of the haggard 7-year-old was put on the facility’s “at-risk” list, which means a lethal injection could be imminent.
What happened next to Willis might strike some as just a series of improbable coincidences, or merely another example of the power of the Internet. Karen Martin thinks it was much more.
“The perfect timing, having so many people in the right place at the right time, people willing to go all out to help a stranger and her dog, is beyond comprehension,” Martin told me. “It’s nothing short of a miracle, as far as I’m concerned.”
Willis was her dog. Four days before Christmas last year, the pooch went missing from her back yard in Portsmouth, Va., turning her holiday into a nightmare. She spent nearly a year intensely searching – reporting Willis stolen, posting “lost dog” fliers throughout the neighborhood, visiting shelters, contacting animal rescue organizations. She had all but given up hope of seeing him again.
by Kenn Bell
Man Dies Trying To Save His Dog
December 26, 2010 in News, Tragedy
By Eva Ruth Moravec For express-news.net
East Bexar County, Texas — A man died in an East Bexar County fire Christmas morning when he went back into a burning trailer home trying to save his favorite dog, officials said.
The man was identified by relatives as Frank “Poncho†Kruse, 62. He lived with his wife, Tina, in a double-wide in the 5100 block of Stanislaus.
After flames engulfed the home about 3:30 a.m., volunteers from China Grove, St. Hedwig and Lone Oak battled the blaze.
Bexar County sheriff’s Detective Frank Stubbs said there didn’t seem to be anything suspicious about the fire.
Laura Jesse, spokeswoman for the Bexar County fire marshal’s office, said the cause of the fire was undetermined, but the home was ruled a total loss. Kruse’s mother-in-law saw flames from her trailer next door and alerted his brother-in-law, Bob Sims.
Sims said he rapped on the couple’s bedroom window. Kruse got out and helped his wife and adult niece escape through the window, Sims said, but then went back inside once more.
“He went back in to get his dog,†Sims said, “and he didn’t come back out.â€
Firefighters found Kruse’s body in the kitchen, said Stubbs, adding: “It’s a sad Christmas for this family.â€
Kruse’s beloved 13-year-old Labrador, Sugar, died in the fire along with the couple’s second dog, Stubbs said.
A retired plumber, Kruse was well known in the neighborhood, where he always was seen with his canine counterpart.
“That dog was his pride and joy,†said Daniel Casey, Kruse’s son-in-law. “He didn’t go anywhere without it.â€
Casey said the members of the large family typically spend Christmas morning together, eating breakfast and opening presents. This year, they congregated at crime scene tape outside the charred remains of the Kruse home.
“We’re extremely close,†Casey said. “Last night, we were all over here for a Christmas party, and everything was fine. It’s terrible — he was a good man.â€
by Kenn Bell
Man Pays $10,000 As Reward For His Stolen Dog
December 26, 2010 in Dog Safety, Lifestyle News, News
By Brian Chasnoff For Express-news.net
San Antonio, TEXAS — For Christmas this year, Chris Cooley gave a stranger a generous gift in exchange for something he considers priceless.
When someone called him on Christmas Eve and said he’d found his missing golden retriever, the Cotulla rancher promptly handed over the $10,000 he’d sworn as reward money for whomever returned his dog, Jim Bowie. The dog was stolen last week along with Cooley’s pickup and trailer from the Bass Pro
Shop parking lot off of Interstate 10.
Home again for the holidays, Jim Bowie tore through Cooley’s North Side home Saturday, a boisterous reunion that proved more than a Christmas gift — Dec.
25 is both Cooley’s and the dog’s birthday. J.B. turned 1 and Cooley 46.
The reward’s recipient, Nathan Ramos, told Cooley he was walking his own dog, a Chihuahua, near the Medical Center on Friday when the retriever bounded toward them in the street.
Ramos, 37, had seen Cooley’s offer on television. But he was “in shock†when the relieved rancher actually wrote him a check for $10,000, Cooley said.
“Pretty good present for both of us,†Cooley said. “It was a sacrifice, but it was the only way I could reach everywhere, including Mexico.â€
After the Ford F-250′s disappearance Tuesday, Cooley feared the thieves had crossed the Texas-Mexico border with his dog in tow. The pickup and trailer wer still missing Saturday, along with six cattle gates and reams of financial paperwork inside the cab.
But Cooley said he’d retrieved the most valuable cargo.
“Just imagine your child,†Cooley said.
Ramos did not return messages left Saturday. Cooley said Ramos told him the $10,000 would help relieve medical debts incurred for his late father’s liver transplant.
The rancher is not above concerns that his dog’s return was somehow related to the theft. But he put suspicions aside to retrieve Jim Bowie, showing up at the caller’s apartment with three friends and a television news crew.
Ramos met them in the courtyard, Cooley said, and seemed displeased with the cameras.
“I went on television pledging the $10,000, and I wasn’t going to turn around and not have integrity about it,†Cooley said. “I hope it’s legitimate.â€
Cooley had slept and eaten little in the days since the theft, feeling as if a member of his family had been kidnapped.
J.B. is among a long line of field and hunting trial champion golden retrievers bred by Cooley for friends and family. Cooley keeps Jim Bowie’s mother, father, and brother at his house.
“These dogs have been integrated in my family and with my friends for 25 years,†Cooley said. “They are the family. I don’t have any children. I take them everywhere.â€
After the theft, Cooley and his brother, Mark, mulled the question: What are we willing to sacrifice? The first sum was $5,000, but Cooley doubled that to ensure a reunion.
Mark fronted his brother the figure from his bank account; otherwise Cooley would have had to dip into his retirement fund.
“It’s a hit, for sure,†Cooley said. “I’m not poor, but popping that out: That’s not easy.â€
by Kenn Bell
Surrendered Beagles Reunited With Owner 6 Years Later
December 26, 2010 in Adoption News, Inspirational, News
Penny Eims For Dog News Examiner
Spokane, WA – Fate intervened on behalf of a military veteran and his two dogs this past week. On Thursday, Raymond Behrens, 24, took possession of 2 dogs – Beagles named Trigger and Bullet – that he had surrendered 6 years prior.
The dogs were given up for adoption by Behrens when he enlisted in the Navy in 2004. The Beagles had been a part of Behrens life since he was 16 yrs old.
Behrens spent time serving in Japan, Iraq and Afghanistan. He has finished his time with the miliary and has since married and became a father.
Settling down led Behrens to the decision to get a dog again. While searching online adoption ads, Behrens came across photos of two adoptable Beagles.
