Video: http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/2c1f_owney_movie.html#1

Owney and an unidentified Albany, New York, letter carrier

Railway mail clerks considered the dog a good luck charm. At a time when train wrecks were all too common, no train Owney rode was ever in a wreck. The Railway mail clerks adopted Owney as their unofficial mascot, marking his travels by placing medals and tags on his collar. Each time Owney returned home to Albany, the clerks there saved the tags.

Owney poses in a mail train with his mail clerk friends

Postmaster General John Wanamaker was one of Owney’s fans. When he learned that the dog’s collar was weighed down by an ever-growing number of tags, he gave Owney a harness on which to display the “trophies.”

On April 9, 1894, a writer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that “Nearly every place he stopped Owney received an additional tag, until now he wears a big bunch. When he jogs along, they jingle like the bells on a junk wagon.”

In June, Owney boarded a mail train for Toledo, Ohio. While he was there, he was shown to a newspaper reporter by a postal clerk. Owney became ill tempered and although the exact circumstances were not satisfactorily reported, Owney died in Toledo of a bullet wound on June 11, 1897. Mail clerks raised funds to have Owney preserved, and he was given to the Post Office Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1911, the department transferred Owney to the Smithsonian Institution, where he has remained ever since. Owney can be seen on display in the National Postal Museum’s atrium, wearing his harness and surrounded by several of his tags.
Source: The National Postal Museum

He was a very special dog in Gold Canyon, loved by everyone in this beautiful community of about 16,000 people. Numerous articles in the The East Valley Tribune, The Arizona Republic, the Gold Canyon Ledger, Gold Canyon Lifestyles and other local publications and newspapers. He was also quite famous in events such as Special Olympics as a therapy dog.

Kramer died of complications from Coccidioidomycosis, commonly known as “Valley Fever”, a disease of the lungs that is common in the southwestern United States, it affects humans and animals as well. For more information please visit:

http://www.goldcanyondog.org/valleyfever.html

IN MEMORY OF KRAMER
1992 – 2005
by “Dad” Curt Fonger

I guess the best way to refer to KRAMER was that he was a “Good Will Ambassador”. He did his magic by way of gentle demeanor, wagging tail and those beautiful brown eyes with those golden eyelashes. Never bashful about going directly up to a man, woman or child which in and by itself, was nothing less than amazing in that – he was abused by people when he was a “Little boy” himself.

He won the hearts of everyone he came in contact with. He had a calming affect on the mentally challenged, the elderly, children with serious illness, and other dogs. Kramer’s canine intuition told him just what to do with and for “that” person when he was by their side. He was an absolute charmer and his “smaller than most” stature among the larger dogs was deceiving as his heart was the biggest part of him. He instantaneously won everyone over the moment they touched his silken head of reddish gold hair – people and children bonded to Kramer upon contact.

Yes… Kramer was one of those “Once in a life time” creatures to come into your life and you always went away with a smile and better for the experience. He did what many psychologists and psychiatrists practice to do and that was to: relax the mind, forgive your anger and live a little happier and why not?

In China, Tibetan Mastiffs are in demand. A local website, qingdaonews.com, says a Chinese coal magnate spent ¥10m ($1.5 million) in March for a Tibetan mastiff named Sensation (Hong Dong in Chinese).

Source: BusinessWeek

Labrador Retriever

They told me the big black Lab’s name was Reggie, as I looked at him lying in his pen. The shelter was clean, no-kill, and the people really friendly.

I’d only been in the area for six months, but everywhere I went in the small college town, people were welcoming and open. Everyone waves when you pass them on the street.

But something was still missing as I attempted to settle in to my new life here, and I thought a dog couldn’t hurt. Give me someone to talk to. And I had just seen Reggie’s advertisement on the local news.

The shelter said they had received numerous calls right after, but they said the people who had come down to see him just didn’t look like “Lab people,” whatever that meant. They must’ve thought I did.

But at first, I thought the shelter had misjudged me in giving me Reggie and his things, which consisted of a dog pad, bag of toys almost all of which were brand new tennis balls, his dishes, and a sealed letter from his previous owner.

See, Reggie and I didn’t really hit it off when we got home. We struggled for two weeks (which is how long the shelter told me to give him to adjust to his new home). Maybe it was the fact that I was trying to adjust, too. Maybe we were too much alike.

For some reason, his stuff (except for the tennis balls — he wouldn’t go anywhere without two stuffed in his mouth) got tossed in with all of my other unpacked boxes.

I guess I didn’t really think he’d need all his old stuff, that I’d get him new things once he settled in. But it became pretty clear pretty soon that he wasn’t going to.

I tried the normal commands the shelter told me he knew, ones like “sit” and “stay” and “come” and “heel,” and he’d follow them – when he felt like it.

He never really seemed to listen when I called his name — sure, he’d look in my direction after the fourth or fifth time I said it, but then he’d just go back to doing whatever. When I’d ask again, you could almost see him sigh and then grudgingly obey. This just wasn’t going to work. He chewed a couple shoes and some unpacked boxes. I was a little too stern with him and he resented it, I could tell.

The friction got so bad that I couldn’t wait for the two weeks to be up, and when it was, I was in full-on search mode for my cell phone amid all of my unpacked stuff.

I remembered leaving it on the stack of boxes for the guest room, but I also mumbled, rather cynically, that the “damn dog probably hid it on me.”

Finally I found it, but before I could punch up the shelter’s number, I also found his pad and other toys from the shelter…I tossed the pad in Reggie’s direction and he snuffed it and wagged, some of the most enthusiasm I’d seen since bringing him home.

But then I called, “Hey, Reggie, you like that? Come here and I’ll give you a treat.” Instead, he sort of glanced in my direction — maybe “glared” is more accurate — and then gave a discontented sigh and flopped down …. with his back to me.

Well, that’s not going to do it either, I thought. And I punched the shelter phone number.

But I hung up when I saw the sealed envelope.

I had completely forgotten about that, too.

“Okay, Reggie,” I said out loud,  “let’s see if your previous owner has any advice.”

To:  Whoever Gets My Dog

Well, I can’t say that I’m happy you’re reading this, a letter I told the shelter could only be opened by Reggie’s new owner.

I’m not even happy writing it.

If you’re reading this,  it means I just got back from my last car ride with my Lab  after dropping him off at the shelter.

He knew something was different.

I have packed up his pad and toys before and set them by the back door before a trip, but this time… it’s like he knew something was wrong.

And something is wrong…which is why I have to go to try to make it right.

So let me tell you about my Lab in the hopes that it  will help you bond with him and he with you.

First, he loves tennis balls. The more the merrier. Sometimes I think he’s part squirrel, the way he hordes them.

He usually always has two in his mouth, and he tries to get a third in there. Hasn’t done it yet.

Doesn’t matter where you throw them, he’ll bound after it, so be careful – really don’t do it by any roads.

I made that mistake once, and it almost cost him dearly.

Next, commands.

Maybe the shelter staff  already told you, but I’ll go over them again:

Reggie knows the obvious ones — “sit,” “stay,” “come,” “heel.”

He knows hand signals: “back” to turn around and go back when you put your hand straight up; and “over” if you put your hand out right or left. “Shake” for shaking water off, and “paw” for a high-five. He does “down” when he feels like lying down — I bet you could work on that with him some more.

He knows “ball” and “food” and “bone” and “treat” like nobody’s business.

I trained Reggie with small food treats.

Nothing opens his ears like little pieces of hot dog.

Feeding schedule: twice a day,  once about seven in the morning, and again at six in the evening.

Regular store-bought stuff; the shelter has the brand.

He’s up on his shots. Call the clinic on 9th Street and update his info with yours; they’ll make sure to send you reminders for when he’s due.

Be forewarned: Reggie hates the vet.

Good luck getting him in the car.

I don’t know how he knows when it’s time to go to the vet, but he knows.

Finally, give him some time.

I’ve never been married, so it’s only been Reggie and me for his whole life. He’s gone everywhere with me, so please include him on your daily car rides if you can.

He sits well in the backseat, and he doesn’t bark or complain. He just loves to be around people, and me most especially.

Which means that this transition is going to be hard, with him going to live with someone new.

And that’s why I need to share one more bit of info with you….

His name’s not Reggie.

I don’t know what made me do it, but  when I dropped him off at the shelter, I told them his name was Reggie.

He’s a smart dog, he’ll get used to it  and will respond to it, of that I have no doubt.

But I just couldn’t bear to give them his real name.

For me to do that, it seemed so final, that handing him over to the shelter was as good as me admitting that I’d never see him again. And if I end up coming back, getting him, and tearing up this letter, it means everything’s fine. But if someone else is reading it, well … well it means that his new owner should know his real name.

It’ll help you bond with him. Who knows, maybe you’ll even notice a change in his demeanor if he’s been giving you problems.

His real name is “Tank”.

Because that is what I drive.

Again, if you’re reading this and you’re from the area, maybe my name has been on the news.

I told the shelter that they couldn’t make “Reggie” available for adoption until they received word from my company commander.

See, my parents are gone, I have no siblings, no one I could’ve left Tank with … and it was my only real request of the Army upon my deployment to Iraq , that they make one phone call to the shelter … in the “event” … to tell them that Tank could be put up for adoption.

Luckily, my colonel is a dog guy, too, and he knew where my platoon was headed.

He said he’d do it personally. And if you’re reading this, then he made good on his word.

Well, this letter is getting downright depressing,  even though, frankly, I’m just writing it for my dog.

I couldn’t imagine if I was writing it for a wife and kids and family … but still, Tank has been my family for the last six years, almost as long as the Army has been my family.

And now I hope and pray that you make him part of your family and that he will adjust and come to love you the same way he loved me.

That unconditional love from a dog is what I take with me to Iraq as an inspiration to do something selfless, to protect innocent people from those who would do terrible things … and to keep those terrible people from coming over here.

If I have to give up Tank in order to do it, I am glad to have done so.

He is my example of service and of love.

I hope I honored him by my service to my country and comrades.

All right, that’s enough.

I deploy this evening and have to drop this letter off at the shelter.

I don’t think I’ll say another good-bye to Tank, though. I cried too much the first time.

Maybe I’ll peek in on him and see if he finally got that third tennis ball in his mouth.

Good luck with Tank. Give him a good home,  and give him an extra kiss goodnight – every night – from me.

Thank you,

Paul Mallory

I folded the letter and slipped it back in the envelope.

Sure I had heard of Paul Mallory, everyone in town knew him, even new people like me.

Local kid, killed in Iraq a few months ago and posthumously earning the Silver Star when he gave his life to save three buddies. Flags had been at half-mast all summer.

I leaned forward in my chair and rested my elbows on my knees, staring at the dog.

“Hey, Tank,” I said quietly.

The dog’s head whipped up, his ears cocked and his eyes bright.

“C’mere boy.”

He was instantly on his feet, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor.

He sat in front of me, his head tilted, searching for the name he hadn’t heard in months.

“Tank,” I whispered.

His tail swished.

I kept whispering his name, over and over, and each time, his ears lowered, his eyes softened, and his posture relaxed as a wave of contentment just seemed to flood him.

I stroked his ears, rubbed his shoulders, buried my face into his scruff and hugged him.

“It’s me now, Tank, just you and me. Your old pal gave you to me.”

Tank reached up and licked my cheek.

“So whatdaya say we play some ball?”

His ears perked again.

“Yeah? Ball? You like that? Ball?”

Tank tore from my hands and disappeared in the next room.

And when he came back, he had three tennis balls in his mouth.

via Scott Stone

A giant farm dog and a tiny piglet cuddle up as if they were family after the baby runt was dismissed by its own mother. Surrogate mum Katjinga, an eight-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback, took on motherly duties for grunter Paulinchen – a tiny pot-bellied pig – and seems to be taking the adoption in her stride. Lonely Paulinchen was luckily discovered moments from death and placed in the care of the dog who gladly accepted it as one of her own. Thankfully for the two-week old mini porker, Katjinga fell in love with her at first sight and adopted her.

The weak and struggling piglet was rescued after she was abandoned by the rest of her family one evening after she was born. He said: “The pigs run wild on our land and the sow had given birth to a litter of five in our forest. I found Paulinchen all alone and when I lifted her up she was really cold

I felt sure some local foxes would have taken the little pig that very night so I took it into my house and gave her to Katjinga. “She had just finished with a litter of her own, who are now 10 months, so I thought there was a chance she might take on the duties of looking after her. “Katjinga is the best mother you can imagine. She immediately fell in love with the piggy. Straight away she started to clean it like it was one of her own puppies. Days later she started lactating again and giving milk for the piggy. She obviously regards it now as her own baby.”

via David Wilson

Bailey spent the last 14 years of her life with Brenda Sexton and her husband Dwayne. Brenda describes the improbable path of how Bailey became a treasured member of the household:

Bailey is a case of dog adopting human. We decided some years back that since we had a large fenced yard, we would see about fostering some dogs until they found forever homes.

Bailey was our first try.

As a puppy, Bailey had been slated to be euthanized at a local shelter because she was very sick and vet funds were not available. Her first mother, charmed by her sweet nature, adopted her anyway and paid sizable vet bills to have her nursed back to health.

Then, her family had to move out of state and could not take her. They were not willing to abandon her to a shelter again and worked hard to find her a home.

But their clock ran out and we were considering being a foster home anyway, so we took her in.

She was so cute and well mannered that a taker was quickly found. However, Bailey had her own ideas. At first opportunity she ran out the door and into a nearby briar patch. The weather was horrid, yet Bailey would not come when her new family called her or tried to entice her with food or water.

Finally, they called me and I went over. She came immediately, drenched, matted, torn from thorns, stinking, and with the biggest dog grin you ever saw.

After a bath and food, I asked her new family if they still wanted her and they did. So back she went – only to escape again to the briar patch.

This time, their 7 year old daughter walked up and down the edge of the patch calling, “Bailey, its Brenda. Come out!”. Bailey would have none of it.

Once again I went over and once again a fetid, torn but ecstatic little dog came running out.

So this time, we all decided that if Bailey wanted to live with us this badly, we would let that be.

Bailey never made any attempt to leave our home and, I believe, lived a happy life in the home she chose.

We were not astute enough to know that she was supposed to be with us – but fortunately – she was.

When Surya the orangutan meets a hound dog by the river, the two carry on like long lost friends.

Unlikely Animal Friends : http://channel.nationalgeographic.com…

Link: Tails of Love – AARP Magazine – Lifestyle

Early Spring floods in 2007 had inundated the flat neighborhoods and farms around the eastern Indiana house of the Keesling family. Their home’s basement had taken on some 30,000 gallons of water, and a gasoline pump had been set up to empty it. After the family went to bed, a crack in the pump’s venting system caused carbon monoxide to pour into the home’s heat ducts.

Cathy Keesling had closed all the windows in the house, save one on the first floor where Winnie, the gray-and-black-striped cat the family had rescued from a barn years before, was sleeping. When deadly gas filled the house, Cathy’s teenage son, Michael, fell unconscious in the hallway. Cathy and her husband, Eric, were slowly sinking into unconsciousness as well. Winnie had been breathing the clear night air, so she was the only living creature in the house that could tell something was wrong. But rather than escaping through the open window, Winnie raced over to Cathy.

“Winnie was pulling my hair and yowling in my ear,” Cathy recalls of her normally mellow cat’s unusual behavior. “I would wake up and pass out again. Every time I passed out, Winnie would wake me up again.”

Cathy managed to rouse herself and dial 911, but the gas knocked her out before she could tell the operator what was going on. The dispatcher sent out a state trooper and sheriff’s deputies, who dragged the family onto the porch and into the fresh air. A firefighter found Winnie in a closet.

Everyone recovered after many hours in the hospital, where the dire nature of their situation became clear. “The deputy sheriff told me that if Winnie had waited five more minutes to get us up, we’d all be dead,” Cathy Keesling says. “I’m so proud of her.

“I guess because we saved her life, she saved ours.”

“The deputy sheriff told me that if Winnie had waited five more minutes to wake us up, we’d all be dead.”
—Cathy Keesling

For more stories: Tails of Love – AARP Magazine – Lifestyle

Four-year-old Charley, a West Highland white terrier in Atlanta, is not a search-and-rescue dog. In fact, when Charley made his lifesaving rescue last year, his owner wasn’t even aware that anyone needed help. One August day the little dog began urgently pacing and barking to be let out of the house. Owner Frances Gippert clicked Charley’s leash onto his collar and opened the front door. He dragged her away from their usual route and toward a yard three doors away, where Roy Monie lay semiconscious and badly bruised. Monie had fallen off a ladder and had suffered a brain hemorrhage. If Charley hadn’t found him—no one knows how—so that Gippert could call 911, Monie likely would have died. Since then, Monie and his family have embraced Gippert, who had lost both parents and her sister to cancer. Last year they all celebrated Christmas together. “This whole process has been very emotionally moving for me,” says Gippert, who was working from home after a difficult divorce. “It has changed my life. I just wanted to stay in my house, me and Charley,” she says. “Roy didn’t let that happen.”

A lost dog climbed onto a ferry to cross a river and return home.

Jarvis the Jack Russell vanished after chasing a rabbit during a walk at Mount Edgcumbe on the Cornish side of Plymouth Sound but knew exactly how to get home.

Owner Vivienne Oxley searched for an hour for the six-year-old pet without success before returning to her home in Stoke, Plymouth.

Within minutes the dog strolled onto the passenger ferry from Cremyll in Cornwall to Stonehouse in Plymouth on his own and then walked the half mile home.

Vivienne, aged 56, was just setting off to resume her search when she got a call saying the dog had been spotted on the ferry.

Before she could set off Jarvis turned up back at home wagging his tail and totally unharmed by his adventure.

Vivienne had taken him on the same walk several times and reckons he must have memorized the route home.

The dog must have found its own way out of the country park at Mount Edgcumbe, walked a quarter of a mile to the ferry, and hitched a ride before walking through Plymouth.

He crossed three main roads including a dual carriageway before reaching his home.

Vivienne Oxley said she had gone to the country park with Jarvis and two-year-old granddaughter Kaytie when the dog bolted off.

She said: “I searched for half and hour and contacted the warden to help me look for Jarvis.

“I was really, really upset. He had gone off a couple of times before, but just around the corner, not out of my sight. Something must have spooked him.

“Before I could get back there the warden rang to say there had been a sighting on the Cremyll ferry.

“The next thing I knew my husband Tony called to say Jarvis had turned up at home.

“I didn’t expect to see him again. I thought he would get run over. It’s lucky it was a quiet day.

A kind heart is wonderful to behold.

Jamie and her roommate Connie used Twitteri to publicize Caesar’s plight. Hoping to get maybe a quarter of the money needed for Caesar’s vet bill, they received $485 in four days! This covered the vet bill of $400 and the rest will be used for his food during his rehabilitation and foster until he finds a forever home. (Examiner.com)

Adopted from a shelter by her life-long caretaker, Philip Gonzalez, Ginny returned her good fortune by rescuing as many as 900 lost and homeless cats during her lifetime. More than just a canine oddity, Ginny’s caretaker maintains that her heroic antics were based on an inherent love for cats, a love that was enthusiastically returned by her grateful feline friends.

Ginny was only a youngster when she made her first feline rescue – a litter of five tiny kittens that were trapped inside a pipe. Although her caretaker first considered Ginny’s find a mere coincidence, she would prove him wrong by the countless cat rescues she made throughout her lifetime. Ignoring even the most dangerous of circumstances, Ginny was known to rescue cats and kittens from not only pipes but also from dumpsters, glass-laden containers and even a glove compartment or two. Ginny’s story is made all the more poignant by the fact that she had once experienced her own dire circumstances, abandoned and locked in a closet with her puppies for a week before she was rescued and taken to the shelter where Gonzalez found her.

According to her caretaker, Ginny’s love and desire to save those in need was not confined to her feline friends. On the contrary, Ginny demonstrated on at least one occasion that she was prepared to rescue humans as well. Recognizing that a blind man’s life was in peril when he attempted to step off a curb into busy traffic, Ginny jumped off the curb before him, barking incessantly until he turned back to safety. Such was the character and life of one of the most extraordinary, and now unforgettable, dogs – Ginny.

The Ginny Fund helps feed, neuter, and rescue feral cats. At the followng links, you will find stories, pictures and videos about Ginny.

via J. at more_green_things

Last week rangers spotted what they believed to be a wild dog. Friends of Sophie’s owner, Jan Griffith, learned of the sighting and encouraged Jan to contact the rangers on the slight chance that it might just be their beloved castaway. A few days ago they were joyfully reunited. According to The Sydney Morning Herald Jan said, “We called the dog and she started whimpering and banging the cage and they let her out and she just about flattened us,” Ms Griffith said.

“She wriggled around like a mad thing.”

Everyone was astounded at how healthy their domesticated dog looked after living the ‘wild dog’ life. However, Jan reports that Sophie easily adjusted to her more civilized life, complete with air conditioning.

Photo courtesy of The Sidney Morning Herald.

 Geoff and the other sanctuary staff went to work with two aims to restore the dog to full health, and to win her trust. It took several weeks, but eventually both goals were achieved.

They named her Jasmine, and they started to think about finding her an adoptive home.

But Jasmine had other ideas. No-one remembers now how it began, but she started welcoming all Animal arrivals at the sanctuary. It wouldn’t matter if it was a puppy, a fox cub, a rabbit or, any other lost or hurting Animal, Jasmine would peer into the box or cage and, where possible, deliver a welcoming lick.

Geoff relates one of the early incidents. “We had two puppies that had been abandoned by a nearby railway line. One was a Lakeland Terrier cross and another was a Jack Russell Doberman cross. They were tiny when they arrived at the centre and Jasmine approached them and grabbed one by the scruff of the neck in her mouth and put him on the settee. Then she fetched the other one and sat down with them, cuddling them.”

“But she is like that with all of our animals, even the rabbits. She takes all the stress out of them and it helps them to not only feel close to her but to settle into their new surroundings.

“She has done the same with the fox and badger cubs, she licks the rabbits and guinea pigs and even lets the birds perch on the bridge of her nose.”

Jasmine, the timid, abused, deserted waif, became the animal sanctuary’s resident surrogate mother, a role for which she might have been born. The list of orphaned and abandoned youngsters she has cared for comprises five fox cubs, four badger cubs, 15 chicks, eight guinea pigs, two stray puppies and 15 rabbits.

And one roe deer fawn. Tiny Bramble, 11 weeks old, was found semi-conscious in a field. Upon arrival at the sanctuary, Jasmine cuddled up to her to keep her warm, and then went into the full foster mum role. Jasmine the greyhound showers Bramble the Roe deer with affection and makes sure nothing is matted.

“They are inseparable,” says Geoff “Bramble walks between her legs and they keep kissing each other. They walk together round the sanctuary.

It’s a real treat to see them.”

Jasmine will continue to care for Bramble until she is old enough to be returned to woodland life. When that happens, Jasmine will not be lonely. She will be too busy showering love and affection on the next Orphan or victim of abuse.

 
 
From left, Toby, a stray Lakeland dog; Bramble, orphaned Roe deer; Buster, a stray Jack Russell; a dumped rabbit; Sky, an injured barn owl; and Jasmine with a Mothers heart doing best what a caring Mother would do… Such is the order of God’s Creation.

To make a Donation to Jasmine’s Home click here.

Link: http://www.warwickshirewildlifesanctuary.co.uk/index.htm

via David Wilson

Natasha and Max
Submitted by Candysse of Alta Loma, CA

A bearded collie named Max and Natasha, a once-feral feline, have struck up a relationship that seems to rely as much on Max’s perpetually moving tail—a great cat toy—as it does on the patience of his old soul. According to Candysse, the two unlikely companions are often caught snuggled up and grooming each other.

Walker and Coco
Submitted by Jessica of Berlin, CT

“Coco the rabbit was going to be auctioned off to a restaurant for food,” remembers Jessica. “Luckily she was saved and adopted by Walker, my 12-year-old West Highland white terrier, and me. Terriers often like to chase small animals—but Coco thinks she’s a dog, and she and Walker bonded right away. These guys are great buddies, and I am happy to have rescued them!”

Piper and Pumpkin
Submitted by Tamara of Mason, OH

Piper, a miniature pinscher, previously shared her home with a 10-year-old shar-pei who was too elderly to play. “When my shar-pei passed on, I brought Pumpkin into our home,” Tamara remembers. “At first, I thought Piper wanted to eat him! Now they are so cute together. Piper chases Pumpkin, Pumpkin chases Piper, and then they fall asleep next to each other.”