The Poodle (and Dog) Blog

Dog survives six hour house fire by submerging herself in a bathtub

While a Greenville, South Carolina family was out to dinner, their house caught on fire. But Mia, their 1-year-old Belgian Malinois knew what to do to survive.

Incredibly she found her way to a bathtub on the lowest level of the house where she waited while firefighters soaked the home with water.

As the water ran down to the basement, it filled the tub and soaked Mia keeping her safe from the raging flames.

It took six hours to bring the fire under control because of the intense flames and the size of the house.

Mia's owner, Chris Brumby, was amazed at how the dog survived, but said he knew she was smart. "She acts like a human for most things," Brumby said. "And that kind of showed it. She knew where to go and hide."

Mia had learned how to open doors all through the house. To get to the basement she had to open four doors.

When firefighters brought her out of the house, she was wet, dazed and covered in soot. She literally had steam coming off her, Brumby said.

The Belgian Malinois is often used as a police K-9 officer. I think we can see why.

MSNBC Greenville

Dogs survive plane crash and tornado in recent news

Two days after finding a pilot killed in his Cessna in Yolo National Park, park employees, Chris Gooliaff and J.P. Kors, returned to the scene to find his dog alive and happy to see them.

While recovering the body of Ed Fedaji on Wednesday, they spotted blood and dog footprints leaving the site, but they were not able to return until Friday.

Armed with dog biscuits and hope, they traveled by snowmobile and skis to the site of the crash, hoping to find Rusty the Border Collie. But it was more like Rusty found them. Before they reached the site, they could hear him barking, and when they called his name he came bounding toward them.

"To actually find something living and very friendly makes you feel a little better but our condolences go out to a family who lost a treasured member.

"He followed us all the way back," said Gooliaff, adding the dog eagerly piled onto his co-worker's lap for the snowmobile ride down to a parking lot.

The dog appeared in good health and spirits, but was taken to a vet before being returned to Fedaj's family. Source

A recent tornado in Girard, Illinois demolished houses and uprooted trees.

The Rhodes family and four of their dogs rode out the storm in the basement of their farmhouse, but Patch their 14-year-old Sheepdog mix had other ideas about where he wanted to spend his time.

After the tornado passed they found that all of the fencing was gone, all 100 trees were down, part of the roof and siding were missing, outbuildings were flattened and Patch was no place in sight. They spent the rest of the evening walking through the debris calling Patch.

The next morning Mrs. Rhodes alerted their veterinarian in case anyone brought in an injured pet. Not long after, she was notified that Patch had been found four miles from their home by a neighbor who farms the land next to their property.

Remarkably, even though the old dog had been swept up by the tornado and carried miles away, he was not injured.

Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure—a review

From Disney studios Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure is a direct to video film in the tradition of High School Musical. I was sent a DVD to review.

After wowing the home town crowd with her performance at a charity event, our heroine Sharpay is approached by a Broadway producer who seems to be offering her a chance to audition.

Sharpay convinces her father to let her go to New York (and pay rent on a penthouse). She and her little Yorkshire Terrier Boi are off to Broadway with the stipulation that if her plans don’t work out, she has to return home.

Nothing goes right, however, as she is kicked out of the penthouse because they don’t allow dogs. She finds out that the producer was offering Boi a chance to audition, not Sharpay. Determined to stay in New York, Sharpay has Boi audition for the role. His rival is Duchess, a sexy little Cocker Spaniel, owned by a pint sized Machiavelli who does everything to make Boi look inept.

The only bright spot for Sharpay is Peyton, a young film student she meets who helps her find an apartment and lends support.

The star of the show is teen idol, Amber Lee Adams who seems to be everything Sharpay wants to be. She convinces Sharpay to be her lackey, even to the extent of cleaning her toilet.

Disney movies need a villain, and Amber Lee proves to be nasty and conniving. When Sharpay realizes what kind of person Amber is, she and Peyton expose her in front of a large audience of adoring fans. After Amber has a hissy fit and leaves the show, it looks as if the entire production will have to be shut down.

But wait.

Peyton has filmed Sharpay singing the production numbers to perfection and the show is saved with Sharpay as the star. Unselfishly she insists that Duchess and Boi share the dog role in the show.

 

Damon, my 11-year-old fellow film critic, gave it a thumb sideways. Although he was visibly entertained, it was a little too “pink” for his emerging macho-ness.

 

I gave it a thumbs up because it does exactly what it is meant to do: entertain young girls. The show is fast paced with lots of scenes with cute dogs doing cute things.

While Sharpay may be somewhat self-involved in the beginning, she is spirited, ambitious and determined, all qualities which should be encouraged in young girls.

Sharpey’s Fabulous Adventure is now available in a combo pack of DVD and Blu-Ray.

The post in which I apologize to China--is your blog still censored?

During the early five+ year history of this blog, I had some regular readers from China. Then they stopped appearing on my map.

I heard some internet rumors that the powers that be were blocking certain websites. So I found a test site and found that I was being blocked. At that time I was in good company with Facebook, You Tube, and Wikipedia. There was a rumor that all dog blogs were blocked.

As I remember, most of the bloggers who read my post complaining about the lack of internet freedom were also censored. There eventually were so many censored blogs that the test site topped testing.

After my recent post with yet another complaint about censorship, I went to the test site and voila! it is again testing. The Poodle (and dog) blog is again getting through to the five servers it tests. So, China, please accept my apology.

Is your blog censored in China?

I tested some sites. Khyra’s mom has a brother in China and he still won’t be able to read what Khyra writes. Yellowdog Granny, one of the funniest blogs ever, might be too …uh, earthy for the Chi Coms because she is banned. Northview Diary, a charming blog about the joys and hardships on a family farm, is censored. These are all Blogspot blogs. It may be that all Blogspot blogs are blocked.

The incomparable Dennis the Viszla (Wordpress) gets through, but I can’t imagine that the Chinese have any idea of what that blog is about.

I tried to test the tasteless Somewhat R rated dog blog (Typepad) of my evil twin Skippy, but kept getting an error message.

Facebook is censored on four out of the five servers, but I understand the people of China are quite resourceful in getting around certain tribulations on the internet.

Here’s the link: Great Wall of China. Paste your URL and test.

Is your blog censored in China?

A bit of fun with the Royal Wedding

Thanks to Pam

Commemorating the Royal Wedding with an oops

 

Yes, I know this is Harry.

But a Chinese firm, Guandong Enterprises, has produced a number of limited edition commemorative mugs with pictures of Kate next to her soon to be red headed brother-in-law, Harry.

According to their website titled “The Fairytale Romantic Union Of All The Centuries,” the mugs are:

“Crafted in the finest bone china, it features an exquisite design of the happy couple with ornate gold detailing to honour this great moment in history.

“Please be our guests to own this esteemed, limited edition heirloom to celebrate with your work associates, friends, family and loved ones on 29th April 2011.” £9.99 plus postage and packaging

They do have a disclaimer to the effect that the commemorative mugs have not been supplied to, or approved by, Prince William of Wales, Catherine Middleton, the Queen, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles, Camilla, Prince Harry, the Corgis or any member of the royal family.

ooo

Could it be that to the Chinese all western royals look alike?

Could it be that this sort of post is one of the reasons my blog is banned in China?

Does the First Amendment cover the right to bark at a police dog or protest at military funerals?

In a recent post chronicling some moronic behavior of humans I mentioned the case of Ohio man, Ryan Stevens, 25, who was arrested for putting his face a couple of inches from a police car window and barking at the police dog inside because “the dog started it.”

Now it seems that he has found a lawyer, James Hardin, who is making the case that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to bark at a police dog.

Barking, Hardin said, may not be seen as intelligent speech but it is still speech. Laws that prohibit this form of free speech are unconstitutional. He’s waiting for a court date to make his argument to a judge.

This shows what we’ve always known: you can’t legislate stupidity.

Courts have been reluctant to curtail instances of free speech even when the speech has been stupid or offensive. Just because a majority may disagree with something doesn’t mean it should be prohibited.

We may  not like it, but even the most wacko lunatics have the right to peaceful expression.

Last month by an 8-1 decision the Supreme Court  sided with the Kansas based Westboro Baptist* “Church” led by Fred Phelps.

His group, including their very young children, routinely goes to military funerals around the country holding up signs like "Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God makes the IED’s” and "God hates America."

Some cities have organized counter peaceful protests to these peaceful protests, but that just gets more media attention which is what these nutcases want.

However, according to sources which may not want to be subpoened for possible future court action...

Recently they showed up in Brandon, Mississippi to protest at the funeral of a local hero, Staff Sgt. Jason Rogers, who was killed in Afghanistan and this is what is being reported:

One Westboro protestor was exercising his right to free speech at a local gas station and there was an ensuing altercation. When the police arrived no one in the crowd that had gathered could remember anything about what had happened.

Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over.

Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out.

A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business. Source

No lawyers. No courts. No protestors. No counter protestors. No TV.

No doubt there will be a lot of people getting their panties in a bunch and maybe lawsuits over this, but I expect the people in Brandon, Mississippi will proudly remember the funeral and have short memories about anything else.

They can always claim it was just a misunderstanding.

*The WBC is not affiliated with any other church or organization

The Shiba Inu puppycam is back

Kika, the world’s most famous internet doggie mother has given birth to six chubby little brown “bears” for her final litter of puppies, and the whole world is invited to watch them grow up.

For those new to the puppycam scene, Kika gave birth to her first litter in October, 2008. Her owners, a couple from San Francisco, had a puppycam set up on Ustream so that they could make sure all was going well with this first litter while they were at work.

Word spreads quickly on the internet and millions of fans from 74 countries tuned in to watch the growing cuteness. We watched the A-team (all names beginning with A) sleeping, breathing, eating, sleeping, twitching, sleeping, playing, sleeping…

There wasn’t a lot of action in the beginning, but something kept drawing us back to watch them. At the risk of sounding like a total doofus, we even emailed each other to announce that the puppies were awake.

Quickly they learned to walk, play, wrestle and develop personalities. And then sadly they went off to their own homes and the puppycam went dark.

Then on January 16, 2010, Kika gave birth to the B team, all names beginning with B, and millions more watched the changing environment as the puppies grew up and went to their forever homes.

The C team, the boys (Chozen, Chame, and Chikara) and the girls (Chisaki, Chiyoko, and Charlotte) were born  last week. There still isn’t much action yet. They won't open their eyes for a while. As the puppies develop, the owners will put different color collars on them so that you can see the emerging personalities.

There is a live feed during the times the owners are at work. During maintenance time you may get a recording of the current day's activities. (A litter of puppies is a lot of work.)

All of the puppies have forever homes waiting for them. This will be Kika’s last litter, according to her owners.

The puppycam is addictive. You’ve been warned. However you will be able to feel your blood pressure go down and your serenity level go up.

As Bertrand Russell said, "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

Happy Easter

 

 

 

From the Poodles, the dogs, Jan,
and Vladimir Putin, defender of animals and ruthless leader

“The gover’ment oughta do something!”

They didn’t live next door to us for long. But life was never dull while they were here.

They moved down from the foothills bringing two brown hound dogs which they kept in the backyard. The dogs obviously longed for human attention. Every time we went out, they whimpered at the fence and when we climbed up to look over, they did a little dance of joy.

Around that time, I found two ticks on my dogs. Bloodsucking ticks I am convinced are the most evil creatures on the planet…bar none.

I had seen ticks before—lots of them—but never one that was engorged with blood. When I found the first one, I panicked. That sucker was huge! I rushed the dog to the veterinarian and I may have made a hysterical scene in the reception area.

The veterinarian assured me that it was “just a tick” and showed me the way to remove them with tweezers so that no part of it remained in the dog’s skin.

The second one I found a few days later was almost as frightening, even though it was quite tiny. I pulled it out and put it on a tissue while I put antiseptic on the dog. When I turned back, the tick was gone! It was crawling across the table. It had survived a death tug.

Zombie tick!

Aaaargh!

I talked to my friend who owns a nursery about what to use to get rid of them. He had never heard of ticks being a problem in Central Valley yards, but they were a growing problem in the foothills.

Click. Neighbors moving in from foothills with dogs=ticks. Not a coincidence.

He suggested I spray the concrete walkway by the fence and keep the dogs away from the area. I shouldn’t have to spray my whole yard, but if the neighbors’ dogs have ticks, they will keep migrating over.

I asked the neighbor if she had noticed any ticks on their dogs.

“Oh, yes!! We pull ticks off of them all the time. They probably come down from these big old trees out here. The city oughta come out and spray these trees. I don’t know why we even pay taxes.”

Huh?

She went on to detail the problem her mother was having up in the foothills with rats in her yard. She was feeding the cats outside and rats were coming in at night to eat the food. Her mother had spent two days on the phone trying to get someone from the city or county or state to come out and get rid of the rats, but they kept sending her from one department to the next. She didn’t know why we even pay taxes.

Obviously there was no use in giving her a civics lesson. After she agreed to keep the dogs in the garage for a while, I sprayed their yard while she watched Oprah.

I did frequent tick checks on my dogs and kept them away from the fence. Soon no more ticks.

Then a short time later she came over to tell me that someone had broken into their house from the alley and stolen their TV set and Nintendo. “And they took the dogs.”

Normally that would be a sad thing, but I flashed on those sweet lonely dogs greeting the thieves with a happy dance and following them to their car.

“There are too many criminals running around today,” she said. “The gover’ment oughta do something.”

The police had come out to take a report. She was quite pissy that they didn’t seem to be too interested in treating this as a high priority crime: one TV set, a Nintendo, and two unlicensed dogs were missing. She didn’t know why we even pay taxes.

I suggested she might want to check the shelter to see if anyone had turned in the dogs, but she didn’t seem interested in learning this new skill.

They moved away a short time later. I hope they have found a place to live where the government takes care of her.