The parents of fallen soldier Justin Rollins adopted the dog that spent his final days with him in Iraq.

A dog known as ‘Yeti’ nurses adopted piglets in Camaguey, Cuba. Yeti has been pulling double-duty nursing not just her own young but also the 14 swine.

Source: Time magazine

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

A compilation of amazing dog videos

via Chris Anderson

How much exercise is this dog getting???

via Roy Stone