The Poodle (and Dog) Blog

A Labor Day salute to an overlooked working dog

A lot of attention is given to the dogs that sniff drugs, money, fugitives, lost and trapped humans, but not a lot of public attention goes to the cadaver dog.

Not that they care.

Like all sniffer dogs, the cadaver dog is highly trained and cares only about finding the scent and getting a reward.

After the search-and-rescue dogs are finished at disasters, sadly the cadaver dogs are brought in to recover bodies so that they can be given proper respect by the survivors.

Unlike search-and-rescue dogs, which are usually taught to bark excitedly when they sense a living human, cadaver dogs are mostly trained to sit quietly or lie down when they detect human remains.

They also are used widely in crime investigations to locate bodies or parts of bodies which may have been hidden or buried. Even if it is no longer there, dogs can detect traces which criminals have tried to conceal. They are trained to detect the difference between human and animal remains. Cadaver dogs can even detect decomposing human remains through concrete.

Working from a boat, water cadaver dogs can locate the odor of a drowning victim and assist divers in finding the body as quickly as possible. They are trained to react only at the spot where the scent is the strongest.

While cadaver dog is not the glamor job of the working dog world, their contribution is just as important and they are happy working  for praise and noms.

Baby goats rescued after two days trapped on a six-inch ledge

This makes the dog and cat rescues we’ve read about look like a stroll through the park. And I’m getting vertigo just writing about it.

In Montana two young goats somehow wandered onto a six-inch ledge of a railroad bridge and spent two days 60-feet off the ground before rescuers could get a giant cherry picker to rescue them. 

The two female goats weighing 25 and 35 pounds stayed on a narrow angled ledge for the most part, sometimes stepping onto a wider surface pillar to urinate but then returning to the narrower ledge.

Sandy Church, local humane society president, speculated that the goats may have wondered onto the ledge at night and then froze when the sun came up and they discovered where they were.

Confusion about the location delayed the rescue, but eventually mining equipment with a long enough arm to reach them was brought in.

There was fear that the goats would panic, but they seemed to be grateful to be rescued. Except for being hungry they are in good condition. Both were wearing collars around their necks, but so far the owners have not been found. The story

Here is the world’s tiniest pool hustler

Move over, Minnesota Fats, there’s a new game in town.

I don’t know which is cuter, the way Amadeus the Chihuahua paws the ball in the pockets, the way he growls at the balls or his wagging tail.

Amadeus belongs to Connie and Mike Baldwin who run Robin’s Billiards in Monroe, Washington. One day Connie put him on the table and he just started knocking the balls around.

Paper or plastic…or a massive dose of bacteria?

The California state legislators are keeping their noses out of our dogs’ genitals for the time being.

By a narrow margin there weren’t enough votes to pass AB 250, a terrible mandatory spay and neuter bill that anyone with a dog or a dog-brain can see will cause far more problems than it will solve. No respected national association supports it.

However, it is supported by PETA types so we can expect another harebrained version of the bill to come in the future.

The lawmakers ended their session last night. But not before taking on another frivolous target as if there were no serious problems.

They didn’t work on passing a two month overdue state budget which is costing taxpayers $1.5 million a day while they dither, or keeping businesses from relocating to Texas or Arizona, or solving the water or unemployment crisis or other urgent problems…

No, they spent their time declaring war on the…wait for it…
supermarket plastic bag. They are attempting to outlaw them.

Now I really hate those things for holding groceries. One sharp turn and my groceries go all over the car. But it wasn’t long ago that choosing “plastic” was saving the forests.

A ban on plastic bags will set up more state regulators and cost more money that the state does not have. It will put a whole industry out of business. The new generation of bags can be recycled and are biodegradable. They will not last for billions of years in landfills as you may have heard.

One study showed that the bags made up "…less than one percent of street litter and accounting for less than one half of one percent of landfill use..."

Yes, I know about reusable bags. But a study by the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University in California found that when we use these to transport meat or produce, they can get totally disgusting. 

"Our findings suggest a serious threat to public health, especially from coliform bacteria including E. coli, which were detected in half of the bags sampled," said Charles Gerba, a UA professor of soil, water and environmental science and co-author of the study.

"Furthermore, consumers are alarmingly unaware of these risks and the critical need to sanitize their bags on a weekly basis.

"Bacteria levels found in reusable bags were significant enough to cause a wide range of serious health problems and even death. They are a particular danger for young children, who are especially vulnerable to food-borne illnesses," Gerba said. Source

This means that we should remember to wash, bleach, and dry the bags before we remember to put them in the car when we remember to go to the marketplace. I may plan on doing this, but let’s face it, I have a short attention span and...

SQUIRREL!!!

Things that make people happy

As a class project in a writing class I once took we were to agree on a list of visuals that make people happy just to look at. We had to agree as a class on each of twelve items.

(We did have to put one douchebag dickhead class member in the cone of silence when he vetoed everything, so we had to modify to refer to “most people.”)

This was our list: 

• A lighthouse 
• The ocean
• A snowflake 
• A sailboat
• A campfire
• A perfect rose
• A ripe tomato
• A windmill
• Candlelight
• An apple
• A dolphin
• Children/kittens/puppies playing

The video below would make (almost) our whole class happy. Do you have a “visual of happy” that we didn’t list?

Thanks to Denny

Here’s how insane the world is becoming

When the owners of a foreclosed home in Los Angeles moved out, they took everything with them except their dogs. Taz was left in the garage and a puppy was left in the house.

Elisa Woods, a next door neighbor, was concerned and called for help. L.A. Animal Services came with food and water, but they didn’t enter the home.

“Possibility the people could come back and then they could turn this around and sue the city,” explained Animal Services Officer Hoang Dinh.

The city is required to give written warning to the owners before entering the home or removing dogs. But of course the owners are long gone and not to be reached.

Hans Peterson, an animal rights activist, broke into the home and rescued the six-month-old puppy. Moments later the L.A. police department arrived and arrested Peterson. The puppy was taken to an animal shelter and Peterson was taken to jail. The other dog remained in the garage.

But before we get all mad at the police, they are only upholding the law which they are sworn to do. Suing the city of Los Angeles, which doesn’t have enough money to provide needed services to its citizens anyway, has become almost a cottage industry.

As noble as Peterson’s motives are, he broke the law by breaking into a private home and stealing property.

Can a Pink Poodle be a super hero?

Oodles the talking Poodle 

from Rugrats

Krypto the Superdog

Kids love Superman. Kids love dogs. So it was only natural for those who create comics and cartoons to come up with Krypto the Superdog—Dog of Steel.

As a puppy while they were both on the planet Krypton, Krypto belonged to the toddler who would become Superman. Before the young boy was rocketed to Earth from their dying planet, his father wanted to test the rocket by sending Krypto into space.

Krypto, being a typical puppy, managed to wreak havoc with the rocket, mess everything up, and drift through space for a number of years.

Eventually Krypto’s rocket landed on Earth where he belonged for a while to a lonely young boy named Kevin. Eventually the teenage Superboy and Krypto got together to fight crime.

Because of Earth’s lower gravity and yellow sun, both Superboy and Krypto have superpowers. They both have a strong belief in truth, justice and the American way. To fight crime Krypto wears a gold collar, a miniature copy of Superman’s “S” and a dog size version of Superman’s cape.

Like Earth dogs, he has a more acute sense of smell and hearing than Superman does. Krypto has intelligence equal to humans, but in print he  expresses himself only in thought bubbles. In cartoons, however, he gives humans a space communicator so they can understand him.

So, come on. Be a kid again. Watch how Krypto came to Earth.

Miracle koala survives being hit by a car and trapped in the grill

I guess the lesson here is to stop and examine the animal you think you may have hit with your car.

I have previous posts with pictures of a dog, a deer, and a coyote who got trapped in the grill of a car after being hit, and they all survived the experience with barely a scratch.

In Australia (where else?) a driver struck a full grown male koala and was stunned to find he was very alive, wedged in the grill just under the license plate. Only his front paws and head were hanging out the front.

The driver called an after-hours veterinarian service and drove at low speed back into town. The koala had to be cut from the grill with bolt cutters, but veterinarian Lisia Sturm said:

“… he was a big boy and looked really healthy. He didn't have any injuries at all — not even a graze."

He was kept under observation for a while and then released back into his habitat. The story

Bee eating dog wins Hambone award

I’m sure you want to know who won the VIP Hambone award that I wrote about earlier.

Ellie from Santee, California took the honors. The one-year-old Labrador followed exterminators in her yard and consumed a hive of dead bees. And the insecticide that killed them.

As her owners noted, she pooped dead bees, thousands of them, but has made a full recovery.

Ellie doesn’t seem to have a discriminating palette, having previously eaten, among other delicacies, wooden train tracks and laptop computer keys.

Congratulations, Ellie. Here's hoping you don't become a role model.

Dancing Poodle

Could anyone watch this and not want to adopt this little
Ginger Rogers or Fred Astaire?