I know someone who recently had an unfortunate problem with bed bugs. Seems it’s a big problem on the East coast. Too bad they didn’t have Dixie on the scene.
Dixie the bed bug finding dog (a Beagle mix) works for Western Pest Serivces in the Maryland/DC area and goes into fancy hotels, apartment buildings, hospitals, nursing homes, college dorms and houses to sniff out the bugs.
Since she’s been trained exclusively on bed bugs her entire life — she’s excellent at her job and rarely misses. She may be the only dog of her kind in the USA.
An Australian family thought they had lost their dog forever when she fell off their boat. But 4 months later, their Australian cattle dog Sophie Tucker, was found. After the dog fell overboard, she swam 5 miles to an island & survived by catching & eating the wild goats on the island. Park rangers thought she was a wild dog & captured her. The family saw a local news story & went to see if the dog was theirs. Sophie had become wild but when the family called her name, she became the sweet girl she’d always been & starting crying & whimpering to go home.
Max the dog wasn’t acting like his old self & kept sniffing his owners breath & nudging her breast & backing away unhappy. So his owner went to the doctor. Turns out she had breast cancer. Thanks to Max, the cancer was removed.
Max isn’t unusual. Many dogs can detect diseases in humans. A friends dog kept biting at her stomach & it turned out that she had a tumor right where her dog was biting. The tumor was successfully removed.
A dog in Murray, Utah was caught on camera shoplifting. He walked through the sliding doors of the Smith’s Food & Drug supermarket, walked straight to the dog food aisle & took a rawhide bone (worth $2.79). As he turned to walk out, he was confronted by the manager who told him to “drop it!” The dog ignored the manager & ran out the front door nowhere to be found.
Razor, the 14-month-old Broward County Malinois police dog is about to finish training for her new job. She is the first dog trained to find contraband cell phones in prisons in Florida.
A new law banning cell phones took effect on October 1. Razor will finish her training mid-November. If cell phones are found in inmates cells, they could face up to five additional years tacked onto their sentence and a fine of up to $5000. Where inmates are going to get $5000 is beyond me. Don’t they make like 10 cents an hour?
Razor’s name is actually a take off on the Motorola cell phone, the RAZR. She was purchased for $6500 and was paid for by the Animal Welfare Foundation of Winter Garden, Florida.
Tomorrow, Friday, June 20th is “Take Your Dog To Work Day.” On that day businesses, animal shelters and pet-care professionals from all across the country will work together to better the lives of shelter dogs everywhere and bring awareness to homeless dogs in the community. Thousands of businesses will open their doors to employees’ pets on this day.
“Take Your Dog To Work Day” was started in 1999 & was created by Pet Sitters International to celebrate how great dogs are as companions and to encourage their adoption from humane societies, animal shelters and breed rescue groups. Take Your Dog To Work Day is sponsored by Modern Dog Magazine and Comfort Zone.
With the television landscape littered with one reality show after another, we’ve got two more with dogs coming out. We already had Animal Planet’s “Pet Star” but that was for any pet. Next month on CBS the first specifically for dogs is called “Greatest American Dog” where 12 dogs & their owners compete for $250,000 for the title. This one sees how well the owners can train their dogs. The premise is the same as practically all competition based reality shows – compete, judges comment, viewers vote, elimination. Watch video of all 12 contestants here…
The other reality show about to go into production is out to find the “Baddest Dog In America.” This one centers around a British female animal psychologist who will perform the bad dog intervention, coming in to the owners homes, diagnosing the bad behavior – of the pet and its owners – then dispensing advice. Sound like a British “Dog Whisperer” to me. Look for it on your cable channel.
