Scared Little Dog Gets Second Chance: Heartwarming Video
January 31, 2011 in Dog Safety, Heroics, News
Every dog deserves a second chance to live a happy life.
You are browsing the archive for 2011 January.
by Melody Chen
by Kenn Bell
Cutest Dog In The Whole Wide World? You Decide: Video
January 31, 2011 in Fun Videos, News
This is one cute pup named Boo. Almost looks like a teddy bear or a cartoon character. I mean, Boo is so cute it’s almost hurts!
by Kenn Bell
Woman Saves Her Mini-Dachshund From Hungry Hawk
January 31, 2011 in Dog Safety, Endangerment, Heroics, News
By Rick Portier For WAFB.com
SLAUGHTER, LA (WAFB) – A woman is spending more time looking up to the sky after she had to wrestle her pet dachshund from a bird that tried to carry it off recently.
Living in the country is supposed to be peaceful. There are advantages like open spaces, clean air and maybe even sleeping with the windows open. However, Pat Bringol, a grandmother and avid dog lover, is now questioning just how good life is in the country following her fight to fend off a hawk.
It was a Wednesday afternoon in Slaughter, LA and Bringol had just let little “Hannah Marie” out to play in her backyard like she’s done almost every day for the past two years, but even in rural East Feliciana Parish, her stalker found the 10-pound miniature dachshund.
“He’s been in the trees and around our property,” said Bringol. “And, he’s been around the neighborhood. Our neighbors have seen him. He’s even been on our carport. And, that’s…scary.”
For the past week, Bringol has been keeping an eye out for the hawk, but in an instant it “just swooped down above her” as Hannah was sunning in her favorite spot. The hawk snatched up and tried to carry her off. Pat chased the predator and caught it just before it lifted Hannah into the sky.
“I had to reach on my tippy-toes and grab her hind legs. And, it took everything I had to pull her. I said, ‘You’re not getting my dog!’ I was so mad I was shaking,” she explained.
Bringol was able to wrestle a frightened Hannah free, unscathed. Hannah’s favorite pink jacket wasn’t so lucky. The hawk’s talons ripped three gashes in it. Bristol said she’s just happy Hannah is still around.
Her daughter bought a stuffed puppy to act as a decoy of sorts to use until the hawk finally decides to leave, but now Bringol doesn’t let Hannah out alone. When Hannah goes for her walk, it’s never for long and Bringol always keeps an eye on the sky because you can never be sure who’s watching.
by Kenn Bell
100 Sled Dogs Killed “Execution-Style” In British Columbia Due To Slump In Tourism
January 31, 2011 in Endangerment, Inhumane Practices, News, Sports, Working Dogs, World
By Joanna Zelman For The Huffington Post
The heinous slaughter of 100 dogs in British Columbia has revealed a “dirty secret” of the dog sled industry, according to CKNW.
Following the 2010 Olympic Games, there was a slump in business at Outdoor Adventures Whistler. CBC News reports that an employee was ordered to kill 100 dogs from a pack of 300. The dogs were repeatedly shot and had their throats slashed before being dumped into a mass grave.
The employee describes one dog whose “eye was hanging off, and it was still running around.” Another dog was dumped into the grave while still alive, and the Outdoor Adventures Whistler employee watched as the dog tried to climb out. The employee has been reportedly compensated for experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder after conducting the killings.
It is unclear if the company will actually face criminal charges. According to Marcie Moriarty, general manager for cruelty investigations with the BC SPCA, it is actually legal to shoot an animal if it dies instantly. But the report seems to demonstrate that these dogs did not instantly die, and thus SPCA plans to now dig up the mass grave to determine if there is substantial evidence for a criminal investigation.
These 100 dogs were used for human entertainment, and were then murdered when humans were no longer entertained by them. While this story is horrific, similar events happen regularly – many race horses are slaughtered once past their prime, and up to 4 million pets are killed in shelters each year, often due to bored or unprepared owners abandoning them.
by Kenn Bell
Was Fox, Not Dog, Man’s First Best Friend?
January 31, 2011 in History, News, World
From FoxNews.com
Dogs may be man’s best friend now — but the fox may have been his first boon companion.
Archaeologists digging in Jordan may have shed new light on human-animal relationships, with the discovery of a fox buried beside a human about 16,500 years ago — some 4,000 years before the earliest known human-dog burial.
Led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, the group claim that their findings indicates a time when foxes were kept as pets, in this case one buried beside his master to accompany him to the afterlife.
“The burial site provides intriguing evidence of a relationship between humans and foxes, which predates any comparable example of animal domestication,” said Dr. Lisa Maher from the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge.
“What we appear to have found is a case where a fox was killed and buried with its owner. Later, the grave was reopened for some reason and the human’s body was moved. But because the link between the fox and human had been significant, the fox was moved as well, so that the person, or people, would still be accompanied by it in the afterlife,” Maher said.
The research focused on the contents of two particular graves at Uyun-al-Hammam, situated on an ancient river terrace in the small river valley of Wadi Ziqlab in Jordan. The site has been one of major interest for archaeologists since the first graves were opened in 2005, providing a rich source of information about the so-called early Epipalaeolithic period, 16,500 years ago.
The relationship between men and fox was probably short-lived, the researchers wrote in online science journal PLoS One. The paper also says it is unlikely that foxes were ever domesticated in full, and despite their early head start, their recruitment as a friendly household pet fell by the wayside in later millennia as their human masters took to the more companionable dog instead.
by Kenn Bell
Behind The Scenes Of Commercial Featuring Jesse The Jack Russell Terrier
January 30, 2011 in Fun Videos, News, Training
This little guy, Jesse is amazing and so is his owner and trainer, Heather. Together, Jesse and Heather show what true friendship between a human and a dog can accomplish! It’s a love affair between the two of them and they both flourish because of it.
by Kenn Bell
Protecting Your Dogs From Coyotes
January 30, 2011 in Dog Safety, Endangerment, News
By Valerie Blaine For the DailyHerald.com
It’s time for the proverbial Paul Revere to race through town crying, “The coyotes are coming! The coyotes are coming!”
The citizenry of suburbia will soon be up in arms, public officials will be a tizzy, and the media will have a heyday with news about vicious maulings by these purportedly ruthless varmints.
But I’m going to head it Revere at the pass. Coyote’s are not just coming, their here. And they’ve been here since the last public panic a year ago. The much-maligned coyotes are a reality in suburbia and knowing a bit about their behavior and ecology will help dispel unnecessary alarm.
First, let’s look at when and why most concerns about coyotes are raised.
Mating season
The coyotes that have been living at the perimeter of your subdivision, at the edge of the cornfield and behind the strip mall are more visible come
February because it’s courtship and mating season. These wild dogs are searching the canine equivalent of match.com. Coyotes take the dating game very seriously and will cover a lot of territory to find a match. That territory may well include your neighborhood.
As with human dating, coyote courtship is an expensive endeavor. Instead of cash, however, it’s calories that coyotes need.
As they pair up, they need calories in order to find and fashion suitable dens. An abandoned badger borrow may be a fixer-upper for a den, or Mr. and Mrs. Coyote may redesign a brush pile out back, or they may remodel the woodchuck hole under your garage.
Newly pregnant females also require extra caloric input. Both males and females hunt, but the males take over most of the grocery shopping when mom is great with pup. She will take whatever form of prenatal vitamins, snacks and sustenance she can get.
It doesn’t matter whether the calories come in the form of Pekingese or possum, Maltese or mouse, Bichon or bunny. Coyote is not a respecter of food. Is this malicious maleficence or the ecological reality of the complex food web?
The gestation period for coyotes is roughly 60 days. The female will give birth to four to nine blind and helpless pups in late April or May. As the pups are weaned, hunting is intensified for all the new mouths to feed. It will take five to six weeks for the pups to grow and develop enough to venture outside the den. Here they enter coyote kindergarten, the beginning of a lifetime of survival education.
by Kenn Bell
Heroic Pit Bull Takes Bullets To Save Owner
January 30, 2011 in Heroics, News
From thestar.com
Sure, your dog keeps the letter wielding postman from attacking, but would he take a bullet on your behalf?
Dog owner Osmar Persisco of Garibaldi, Brazil, knows the answer is “yes” after his pet Max leapt to defend him from armed robbers, taking three bullets along the way.
Persisco was parking his truck near Max’s favourite field when two armed robbers approached him and demanded the keys to his vehicle.
Persisco resisted and the thieves opened fire, drawing blood after grazing the 47-year-old’s forehead with a bullet.
That’s when Max lost his cool.
“He saw the blood and was furious,” Persisco told Brazilian newspaper Globo. “He left like a rocket to attack the thieves. One of them ran away, but Max dominated the other one. To defend himself, the thief ended up shooting the dog. Max thwarted the assault and saved my life.”
Max was hit twice in his chest and once in his leg, but by then he had scared off the potential thieves.
Persisco rushed the heroic pet he had adopted three years earlier to his local vet. Max is expected to make a full recovery.
“If I didn’t have my dog around, they would have killed me,” Persisco told the paper. “He’s my hero.”
