Canine Heroics

A dog takes a bullet to save his human family and somehow survives:

 

Link to the story is here.

News

This story from a few days ago was quite something: A puppy only about 7 or 8 weeks old found himself stuck on a railroad track with his fur being frozen on it, and miraculously somebody rescued him.

Miscellaneous

I always love a dog story:

Dominic drove toward home. The abandoned dog with nothing but troubles in the world reminded him of a biblical figure: Job, the poster boy for remaining faithful in the face of misery.

Dominic named the dog with a variation on the spelling: Jobe.

“Job remained loyal,” Dominic said. “Jobe’s been through tough times. So why not?”
The boy had no idea how steadfast a friend the mangy creature would become. He headed home to talk his parents, Teresa and Mark Wiederin, into letting him keep the dog.
It was not an easy sell.

The family’s northwest Omaha home already was bustling with six children, all but one younger than Dominic, and a pint-size canine dictator named Gunther. The little white Maltese-Papillon alpha dog believes he runs the house. He’s not afraid to bite bigger dogs to show them who’s boss.

Dominic was busy, too. He was a junior at Roncalli High School. He played football. He had a construction job.

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I went to the Nevada Museum of Art's exhibition of Rembrandt's etchings, which are from the collection of the Museum of Art, Boston. It's quite an impressive collection.

I guess during his lifetime, his etchings were more celebrated. Now it's his paintings.

link
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It was fifty years ago today the Clutter family of Kansas was brutally murdered, and their case was later memorialized by Truman Capote in his book In Cold Blood.

The murders were quite sensational for the time; of course society was a lot more stable then than now, and murders of this type were rare.
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Miscellaneous Stories

I like this tale of a dog missing for 10 years who finally showed up in Oklahoma, some 1,300 miles away from his home in Virginia.

Tristan Rohde, 8, her family found Brindle under a bush in their Lawton, Okla., neighborhood a couple of weeks ago -- more than 1,300 miles from where he disappeared. The Rohdes thought Brindle was dead, but when he lifted his head, Tristan decided to take him in.

"If I didn't, then he would just be sitting there right now with no family, no friends, no nothing," she said.

The Rohdes took Brindle, who was near death, to a veterinarian who found a microchip with tracking information under Brindle's skin.

According to his owner, Brindle could open doors. One day in 1999 he opened the door, left, and never returned.

He is expected to be reunited with his owner next week.
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A descendant of Triple Crown winners Seattle Slew and Secretariat experienced equine hell until he was rescued:

An SPCA vet diagnosed Freedom's Flight with severe "rain rot," which made him lose most of his hair, bites, wounds, severe rashes, abscesses under his hooves, detoxing from steroids, a fractured right cannon — shin — bone, and strangles, a potentially deadly, highly contagious bacterial infection.

Yet sick as he was, "there was something about him," Waggoner said. "I didn't want to leave that horse there. He was still so trusting of people."

She offered Coto $200. He declined the money and allowed her to isolate the horse on his land until she could make other arrangements. Freedom's Flight spent the next five weeks in quarantine, getting treatment for strangles and, finally, his broken leg.

About a week into the horse's recuperation, Couto, the SPCA board member, checked the underside of his upper lip and saw the tattoo: I35289. The Jockey Club thoroughbred registry in Kentucky matched the number to Freedom's Flight.

"I adopted him two weeks after we seized him," Cuoto said. "By that time, I'd really bonded with him."

He says he's spent about $30,000 on vet care.

Today, Freedom's Flight cavorts in a lush pasture, his coat an iridescent copper — 1,300 pounds of rippling muscle and coltish curiosity.

Tomorrow marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of Secretariat. Disney is producing a film about his life.

Dyno Was One Lucky Puppy

Video:

Miscellaneous News

Buck the one-eyed blue heeler has been found and returned to his owners. He belongs to a man who will be serving in Iraq.

Miscellaneous.

Thanks to the action of some paramedics, Zeus and Rusty are a couple of lucky dogs.
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