Source: LATimes.com, une 22, 2009
Dog lovers, meet Cute and Bambi, who have been dubbed “dog-kangaroos” by those who have encountered the pair in Quezon City, Philippines.
Cute and Bambi were apparently both born with only their two rear legs and are the pets of Lope Tulipas, a Quezon City street vendor. Many passersby are understandably taken by the pair — some have even offered to buy them, but Tulipas has turned down all offers.
Source: DuluthNewsTribune.com, June 19, 2009
Jada is a 15-pound hero. The eight-year-old dachshund hurled herself at a wolf June 9 to save a fellow canine, Lana.
As the dogs’ owner, Dana Lundeen, tells it, she was sitting on the front porch of her South Range home that afternoon when first Lana, then Jada, ran barking around the house. Suddenly, she heard an awful bark. Rounding the corner of the house, she saw a wolf about 75 yards away.
As Lundeen watched, it kicked aside the one-year-old Lana and grabbed Jada in its mouth. She ran toward them, yelling.
“I was screaming my lungs out, hoping he would drop her and he did,” Lundeen said.
As the wounded dog ran back toward the house, she said, the wolf took a few steps in Lundeen’s direction, than padded away.
“It happened so fast,” she said. “I was more worried about my dog than anything.”
Lundeen wrapped the bleeding dog in a blanket and called her 17-year-old son, Devin, home from Northwestern High School to help.
“I didn’t know if I’d have to shoot her,” Lundeen said. “I mean, her stomach’s hanging out. [Devin] says ‘Well, Mom, is she alive?’ Well, yeah. He said, ‘Well, then there’s hope.’ ”
They drove to Superior Animal Hospital, where the dachshund spent 3½ hours in surgery.
“They are awesome people there,” Lundeen said.
The wounds were similar to those seen when a larger dog attacks a smaller one, said veterinarian Bob McClellan. “The internal wounds are 10 times worse than what it looks like from the outside.”
Jada suffered crushed ribs, a spleen split in two, a collapsed lung and a left kidney that had been pulled away from the abdominal wall, he said. But the veterinarian was able to repair her, inside and out. After that, it was up to the dachshund.
“The dog’s a tough little dog,” McClellan said. “She hung in there.”
Sunday, she returned home to South Range.
“She’s full of many, many staples,” Lundeen said, affectionately calling the dog “Frankenweinie.”
Lana was uninjured.
Born and raised in South Range and living on Lundeen Road off County Highway V since October, Lundeen said she’s seen deer, coyotes, foxes, geese and more animals cross the 64-acre property regularly. Still, the wolf came as a surprise.
A winter 2008 survey by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources puts the number of wolves in the state between 626 to 662, nearly 100 more than the previous year. Most of them live in the north.
“Douglas County has some of the highest density of wolf populations in the state,” said Adrian Wydevan, a DNR mammal ecologist based out of Park Falls
“They are mostly shy, living out their lives in the forest,” he said.
But sometimes not. “Last year, we had seven cases of dogs attacked near people’s homes,” he said. One died, the others were only injured. That was mostly due to owners who were close enough to scare the wolves away.
McClellan noted that the amount of damage the wolf did to Jada with one bite was incredible.
“If the wolf had had a second bite, the dog would have been done,” he said. “Fortunately, Dana was there when it happened.”
Source: Associated Press, June 17, 2009
A Las Vegas-based company and its owners have pleaded guilty to distributing a tainted ingredient used to make pet food that killed potentially thousands of dogs and cats.
Sally Qing Miller, 43, and her husband, Stephen S. Miller, 56, along with their company, Chemnutra Inc., pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of selling adulterated food and one count of selling misbranded food, both misdemeanors.
They initially were charged with 13 counts of introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce, 13 counts of introduction of misbranded food into interstate commerce and one felony count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The charges were contained in a February 2008 federal indictment that alleged the Millers and ChemNutra, along with two Chinese companies, brought wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine into the U.S. It was then sold to pet-food makers, and thousands of cats and dogs reportedly became sickened or died.
In 2007, the case resulted in a nationwide recall of more than 150 brands of pet food.
“The conduct of these defendants in violating federal health and safety standards caused the deaths and illness of thousands of family pets, as well as anxiety among dog and cat owners across the country and economic harm to many pet food manufacturers,” Acting U.S. Attorney Matt J. Whitworth said in a news release.
The sentencing hearing has not been scheduled. The Millers face up to two years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $200,000 and an order of restitution. ChemNutra is subject to a fine up to $400,000 and an order of restitution.
But Robert J. Becerra, an attorney who represented Sally Qing Miller, who is a Chinese national, and Chemnutra, said the company, the Millers and the government agreed that probation and a fine were an appropriate sentence.
“The Millers and ChemNutra look forward to putting both this case and this tragic matter behind them and hope that today’s enhanced awareness of food safety issues will prevent this from ever happening again,” Becerra said.
Lance Sandage, defense attorney for Stephen Miller, the owner and chief executive officer of Chemnutra, did not immediately return phone calls Tuesday seeking comment.
Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. and Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial Products Arts and Crafts I/E Co. were indicted with 13 felony counts of introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce and 13 felony counts of introduction of misbranded food into interstate commerce.
The indictment also names Mao Linzhun, Xuzhou’s owner, and Zhen Hao Chen, Suzhou’s president.
The indictment also alleged that Suzhou Textiles, an export broker, mislabeled 800 metric tons of tainted wheat gluten manufactured by Xuzhou to avoid inspection in China. Suzhou then did not properly declare the contaminated product it shipped to the U.S., the indictment said.
It also said the shipment was falsely declared to the Chinese government in a way that would avoid a mandatory inspection of the company’s plants.
According to the indictment, ChemNutra picked up the melamine-tainted product at a port of entry in Kansas City, then sold it to makers of various brands of pet foods. The indictment alleges that Xuzhou added the melamine to artificially boost the protein content of the gluten to meet the requirements specified in Suzhou’s contract with ChemNutra.
Prosecutors said adding the melamine, which would allow it to pass chemical inspections for protein content, was cheaper than adding protein to the gluten.
Chinese authorities shut down Xuzhou Anying and revoked its license in 2007.
Source: NJ.com, June 16, 2009
Cumberland County SPCA officials are seeking out two men in connection with an incident over the weekend in which a dog was tied to a truck and dragged, suffering severe injuries.
Omar Davis, of Elmer Road, and Kenneth Robinson, whose address is unknown, are being sought as “persons of interest” relating to the case, according to Bev Greco, SPCA executive director.
The chocolate mixed-breed female dog, named Reese, was turned over to Davis about two weeks ago by a previous owner, who originally acquired the animal from Davis about two years ago.
Robinson was named by those questioned about the incident as having possibly had the dog in his possession as well.
Anyone with information can call the SPCA at (856) 691-1500 or the Vineland Police Department at (856) 794-4000.
Reese needed surgery to close the wounds suffered in the incident, but is expected to fully recover and will be made available for adoption through the SPCA.
Source: BaltimoreSun.com
If you don’t have a job but you do have a dog, the website Dog News Daily wants to help.
The company is announcing today the launch of its Help Find A Dog Owner A Job program.
The goal is to help unemployed people find jobs in the pet industry.
The website is donating $1 million worth of advertising space to allow unemployed dog owners to either post a one-page resume on the site for free or review and respond — also for free — to job openings that have been posted there by companies in the pet industry.
To have their resume published, all a dog owner has to do is go to BlogDogNewsDaily.com,, click on the “Post a Resume” tab, and follow the instructions.
Once a job seeker’s resume is approved, it will immediately be made available to prospective employers.
“There are an estimated 4 million unemployed dog owners in the US many of whom visit Dog News Daily,” says Alan Siskind, publisher of the site. “Unfortunately, a growing number of them are finding it increasingly more difficult to care for their pets. If our program finds even one dog owner a job so that they don’t have to give up their pet, we will consider this program to be a huge success.”
Dog News Daily says it will neither accept nor post job listings from breeders, puppy mills, or retail stores that sell dogs.
Source: MyFox.com, June 13, 2009
A newborn baby owes his life to a Wheaton, Ill., man and his nosy dog.
Joe Logan went out to get the morning paper Friday when his mixed-breed dog named Redbelly would not shut up. “I heard a little whimper, a tiny whimper,” Logan said, and when he followed Redbelly the dog led him to a shivering naked infant, umbilical cord still attached.
“He looked like a newborn,” Logan said. “He was very dirty, twigs and leaves around him, it was overwhelming.”
Police think the baby had spent the night in the cold and rain, and he was taken to the Central DuPage Hospital in critical condition. Within hours his mother would join him there. Police searched the apartment complex immediately adjacent to Logan’s home and found a 24-year-old woman who had given birth without the benefit of medical care. Neighbors said police removed several bags of evidence from the apartment.
The suspected mother is reportedly a recent immigrant from Myanmar. She now faces felony charges. Police said under Illinois’ safe haven law, she could have just dropped off the child at any police station, firehouse or hospital and criminal charges would not be filed.
Source: UPI.com, June 13, 2009
A New York researcher says dogs that appear guilty when being scolded by their owners can be innocent and simply responding to owners’ verbal attacks.
Researchers such as Barnard College assistant professor Alexandra Horowitz insist they found that dogs appear to have a “guilty look” after being accused of misbehaving due to being scolded and not always due to actual guilt, The Daily Telegraph (Britain) said Saturday.
The study involved researchers informing participating dog owners their animal had misbehaved despite the fact the canines were completely innocent.
The researchers said informed owners claimed to notice a look of guilt in their animals while reprimanding the dogs, the Telegraph reported.
Horowitz, whose study was published in Behavioral Processes journal, said such an act represented owners projecting their values onto the innocent dogs.
“Merely uttering a dog’s name with a rising, accusatory tone is often enough to elicit pre-emptive submissive behavior,” Horowitz said.
“The results indicate that the so-called guilty look is a response to owner scolding; it is not expressed more often when actually guilty.”
Source: SeattleTimes.com, June 11, 2009
A $2,500 reward is being offered for information leading to the conviction of whoever is responsible for shooting a dog and leaving it to die on a Forest Service road in the North Bend area on May 31.
The black-and-rust colored 4-year-old Rottweiler survived the initial attack, and was found wearing a pinch collar and tied to a log 20 feet down an embankment at a recreational shooting area.
A group of citizens notified King County Animal Care and Control officers. The dog was taken to an Eastside veterinarian for treatment. But because the dog was paralyzed and unable to recover from injuries after several days, it was euthanized.
King County Animal Care and Control interim manager Nancy McKenney called the death a horrendous and intentional case of animal abuse. Intentionally shooting a dog and leaving it to suffer is a class C felony.
The reward has been put up by the Humane Society. Anyone with information should call King County Animal Care and Control’s tip line at 206-296-3939.
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