Dexter has lived in three places this month, but Sunday’s move to his new home could be his last.
The 99-pound pooch was one of more than 50 animals taken from a house on the 12800 block of Sioux in Redford Township earlier this month.
Mutts & Mutts Rescue League received 12 of the dogs, and Dexter is the first to leave its care.
The 10-year-old lab moved Sunday to his new house in Dearborn Heights, where he’ll have a fenced yard and the run of a four-season porch.
Dawn Scanlon is fostering the dog. After the poor conditions the animal already has been through, she wanted to provide a sanctuary for Dexter. She accepted him sight unseen.
A judge on Thursday tossed out a felony charge against a former Miami-Dade police sergeant on trial for allegedly killing his police dog, but allowed a misdemeanor animal cruelty charge to go forward.
Allen Cockfield is accused of viciously kicking his K-9 partner, Duke, during a training session in June 2006, killing the Belgian Malinois.
He was charged with a felony count of killing a police dog, and a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty.
Prosecutors rested their case Thursday, after presenting two days of testimony from eyewitnesses and medical experts who said that Duke died from a disruption to the heart caused by the kick.
But Cockfield’s defense lawyer, Douglas Hartman, argued Thursday afternoon for an acquittal on the felony charge because the state did not prove that the longtime canine handler intended to kill the dog.
He said the charge required proof of intent.
“This was a training accident,” said Hartman, who contends that Cockfield was trying to protect himself from Duke’s attacks.
Miami-Dade prosecutor Isis Perez, after researching the issue, agreed, and Circuit Judge Antonio Arzola threw out the charge.
But Arzola declined to issue an acquittal on the misdemeanor charge, meaning jurors will decide Cockfield’s fate.
Cockfield is charged with a first-degree misdemeanor.
The charge is punishable by up to one year in jail.
The trial will likely finish late Thursday or Friday.
Duke was a young, rambunctious Miami-Dade police K-9 felled by a series of vicious kicks from his frustrated human partner during an ill-fated training session, according to prosecutors.
“Duke was unjustly killed,” Miami-Dade prosecutor Isis Perez told jurors Tuesday. “And that kick is what caused his death.”
But the defense painted Duke, a Belgian Malinois, as a troubled and aggressive 70-pound canine who attacked police Sgt. Allen Cockfield, an experienced handler who felt threatened.
“He was simply trying to save himself,” defense attorney Douglas Hartman said.
The lawyers offered their versions of events in the opening of Cockfield’s trial for the June 2006 death of Duke, a 2 ½-year-old rookie police dog.
Charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty and a felony count of killing a police dog, Cockfield could face jail or prison time, plus the loss of his state police certification, if he is convicted.
Three or four sightings in the same area on the same day has given those searching for Copper, a missing dog mistaken for a coyote, hope she might still be in the area.
Since it was announced that Copper was mistakenly released, many in the community have been actively searching the area around Jones Lane in Franklin County.
There was one report of a dog matching the description seen playing with a group of children, but the owner Lori Goodlett, says by the time she got to the area the dog was no where to be found.
Goodlett says it’s been a roller coaster ride of getting word of a sighting, but come up empty handed.
Others say the sighting are giving them hope the dog is still in the area, even those like Larry Estep who have never met or seen the dog before.
Estep says, “I’m not really interested in the reward or anything. I just want to find the dog and bring it home.”
Animal Activist Trudi Johnson feels the same, she says the sighting are giving her hope a reunion soon.
The search for a Franklin County dog is garnering national attention. Ten year old “Copper” was lost on July 3rd, then found the same day by police. But officials at the Franklin County Humane Society mistook her for a coyote and told police to release her back into the wild. Now some animal lovers are taking their frustration to the people who help fund the Franklin County Humane Society.
At the Frankfort City Commissioners meeting on Monday night, a Franklin County Humane Society board member apologized to Copper’s owner for what’s been called a terrible mistake. Copper’s owner has gotten calls from all over the country, even substantial money for a reward from PETA.
Animal advocates asked the Board of Commissioners to revoke their funding of the Franklin County Humane Society. They requested that the Board provide more oversight of the Humane Society’s training, policies and procedures.
Several Frankfort City Commissioners said they’d like to see changes made at the Humane Society before the city’s contract with them is up for renewal.
Franklin County Humane Society Board Member Paul Brooker said the organization’s board is reviewing the incident, and will likely make policy changes at their next meeting. That is scheduled for Saturday, August 24 at 9 a.m.
Copper was last spotted about a week ago in the Jones Lane area of Franklin County. If you see her, call her owner at (502) 226-2580. There is $1750 reward for her return.
A dog owner waits and worries after her beloved pet was accidentally released into the wild.
The Frankfort Humane Society reportedly confused her Sheba Inu, a rare breed of dog, for a coyote, and it was released into the woods. Ever since Lori Goodlett started looking for her dog, Copper, she’s received calls and signs of hope, but so far… “It hasn’t been her yet,” Goodlett said.
It all began when a Frankfort police officer found Copper on the loose. The officer brought her to the Frankfort Humane Society, which initially took Copper, but soon called back police saying they wouldn’t keep her because they believed she was a coyote and therefore a nuisance animal. “The Humane Society is a private organization run by their own board of directors,” Frankfort Police Major Fred Deaton said, “and they’re there to take them in, but if they tell us they won’t house the animal, then we have to look for other options.”
Police consulted with experts who told them if the animal is a coyote, then their only options are to kill it or return it to its natural habitat. Not wanting to see the animal euthanized, police brought what the Frankfort Humane Society insisted was a coyote to an open field and released her into the wild.
More than 70 puppies and dogs are recovering at local animal shelters after being rescued Friday from cramped, feces-infested environments in Norman and Oklahoma City, officials said.
The animals were seized, and the owner was arrested on animal cruelty complaints after an undercover investigation by Norman police. The animals, which included Maltese, Chihuahuas and Yorkies, are receiving care and medical attention at the Norman and Oklahoma City Animal Shelters.
Animal welfare officials said Aurelia Snow, the dogs’ owner, was breeding the dogs at a building she leased behind a home at 18617 SE 134 in Oklahoma City and selling the puppies on the Internet from her home at 13780 Mesquite Road in Norman.
Animal welfare officers pulled 51 dogs, ages 7 and older, from the mill in Oklahoma City, and removed 27 dogs and puppies from the home in Norman.
Animal crush videos are back and, next week, The HSUS will release details about their resurgence on the Web. By all appearances, this lurid and sickening commercial activity re-emerged from the shadows after two federal courts, most recently the U.S. Supreme Court in April, struck down as unconstitutional the 1999 federal law criminalizing the sale of these videos.
Today, the U.S. House voted 416-3 in favor of a new, more narrowly tailored law to crack down on the commercial trade in these videos. The bill, H.R. 5566 and known as the Prevention of Interstate Commerce in Animal Crush Videos Act, was introduced by Reps. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.). Gallegly was the author of the original 1999 law and has been an especially tenacious foe of animal cruelty and the crush video industry. The House Judiciary Committee conducted a hearing on the topic, taking testimony from scholars on the First Amendment who argued that a more carefully crafted measure could survive a legal challenge and suggested what the contours of such legislation should be. Gallegly and Peters introduced a bill that took the witnesses’ recommendations into account, and it quickly gained 263 cosponsors, including Democratic and Republican leaders. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and the full committee’s Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) worked with all parties to produce a strong bill, which responds to the concerns expressed by the court.
The House action today is a reminder of the near universal view among the American people that individuals who commit malicious and obscene acts of cruelty for commercial gain should not have license to peddle and profit from videos showing these acts. By banning the sale of the videos, the federal government can deter these people from making the videos in the first place. Because it is so hard to catch people in the act of making them, the only practical way to crack down on the activity is to stop the sale of these obscene videos.
Sprung on the Fourth of July weekend, dozens of beagles were rescued from a bankrupt testing lab in New Jersey. Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, helped care for 88 of the dogs. St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center in Madison, N.J., helped 30.
They had lived the most sterile, regimented lives imaginable.
Day after day, month after month, year after year, they were confined to plexiglass crates, fed and watered on precise schedules, kept clean. But with no opportunity to leave their solitary little boxes and spend time with others like themselves, with nothing but the most antiseptic contact with humans and no time outside the gleaming, climate-controlled facility, the 118 beagles — lab dogs used to test drugs and chemicals—displayed nothing of the much-acclaimed breed characteristics: joyful, noisy and curious.
Imagine the amazement these floppy-eared creatures felt when, suddenly, they were whisked from their isolated existence and deposited into the welcoming arms of rescuers ready to introduce them to the ways of regular-dog life.
It happened on Fourth of July weekend after a bunch of animal-loving groups had pushed hard for quick resolution; they had learned weeks earlier that Aniclin, the New Jersey research facility where the dogs lived, had gone bankrupt and locked its doors. (The animals’ caretakers had reportedly climbed fences to provide food and water until more solid arrangements were made.) After legal machinations, St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Madison, N.J., ultimately got 30 of the dogs to prepare for adoption; Pets Alive Animal Sanctuary in Middletown, N.Y., got 88 of them.
BOULDER, Colo. — A Colorado woman convicted of taping her boyfriend’s dog to a refrigerator has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years’ probation.
Twenty-one-year-old Abby Toll was sentenced Friday after she was convicted of felony animal cruelty in April. She could have faced up to 18 months in prison.
Prosecutors say Toll used hair ties and packing tape to bind the snout and legs of her boyfriend’s 2-year-old Shiba Inu (SHEE’-bah EE’-noo) named Rex, then taped the dog upside-down to the refrigerator.
Police say Toll told them she was getting back at her boyfriend, Brian Beck, for paying more attention to the dog than to her.
Beck pleaded guilty to misdemeanor attempted animal cruelty and was given a one-year deferred sentence.
Another family has adopted the dog.
A chocolate Labrador had to take matters into his own paws near Allantown, PA.
When left in a hot car, 11-year-old Max began honking the horn for help, local TV station WFMZ reported.
After taking Max for a drive while she did errands, Donna Gardner said she returned home and went in the house, forgetting man’s best friend was in the car with her.
About an hour later, she heard a car horn and she went outside. She didn’t see anyone, so she went back inside.
Then the horn blew again and Gardner went outside to see her beloved pet at her car’s steering wheel.
“I rushed over and got him out real fast and he was panting like crazy,” she told the television station. They called a vet who said Max would be fine after some water and cool towels.
Officials in Iraq have released a report today, which says the number of stray dogs that have been killed since 2008, in an attempt to stop a series of attacks within and around the city of Baghdad, RAW reports.
The killings are a part of a campaign that started in 2008, after increasing reports of dog attacks began to come in from local citizens and soldiers.
With Baghdad slowly returning to normal, and open markets becoming more common, there is more food left around the city.
There is also more food left in garbage heaps outside of the capital. This means better meals for stray dogs, which leads to them gaining health and having larger litters.
This has had a marked effect on the amount of strays around Baghdad, with tens of thousands causing havoc all over the city.
The campaign is carried out by security teams made of veterinarians and police officers, who correlate with other security forces in the area.
They sweep the city in the early morning, using poisoned meet to lure and kill stray dogs, warning civilians to stay away from the food left for the animals.
This is similar to the shootings that occurred under Saddam Hussein’s reign, which was mandatory part of security in Iraq.
Donations toward the cost of Von Dutch’s surgery are still being accepted through Paypal to rogerskennels@gmail.com or by mail to Von Dutch Fund, c/o Rogers Kennels, 250 Road 30, Lake View, SC 29563.
Last week, Scottsdale police issued a citation for animal neglect to Dan Harkins, owner of Harkins Theatres after he left his dog in a hot car for more than an hour in triple digit heat.
Below is his apology. Let’s hope he is committed to doing the right things for dogs.
– Kenn Bell
A couple of days ago I had a regrettable lapse in judgment and made two inexcusable decisions involving my dog and best friend, Tanga. For this, I am truly sorry.
I apologize to everyone and especially to those who have rightfully criticized my actions. There is no excuse for parking in a handicapped space and no circumstance that justifies leaving an animal in a car, especially in Arizona. I promise you, this will never happen again.
As an animal lover who has consistently committed time and resources to animal welfare my entire life, this situation has proven to me that even the most dedicated of animal lovers can misjudge a situation involving a pet.
But I know apologies are not enough. This lesson also gives me an opportunity to raise further awareness about animal protection, and I am committed to immediately put my words into action.
I have already begun working with Arizona Animal Welfare League, the Arizona Humane Society and other animal welfare organizations to collaborate on a new campaign to communicate this message to as many people as possible. I have started with a commitment of $200,000 in funding toward this new effort.
In the coming weeks you will see this begin with public-service announcements in all Harkins Theatres, a sponsorship of the Humane Society’s Pet Telethon and other community initiatives.
As I begin making amends, I thank you for allowing me this forum to express my deep regret and hope that you will accept my apologies.
