If you’re a regular reader, you know I try to meet and take a picture of dogs I meet when I travel. Well, this weekend I was visiting my mom in Hamilton, Ohio, and got to meet Max in the parking lot of the Bob Evans there.
Max’s family told me that their neighbor had moved out & left Max behind, apparently to fend for himself, so they had adopted him. Apparently, they’re taking good care of him, as he has gained 10 pounds since they’ve had him.
Looking good, Max! (And my apologies to your family – I promised them I’d have this posted on Sunday, but life intervened.)
Ranger, a member of the K9 unit with Officer Matt Poletto in training at a NYC subway station. Photo: Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Police dogs in New York now have a new gadget in their crime-fighting arsenal: Infrared cameras.
A camera is strapped to the dog’s back with real-time images transmitted to the handler’s wrist-mounted display, allowing the officer to see into dark spaces he wouldn’t be able to get into himself.
A recent training mission had two-year-old Apache, a German Shepherd, tracking a “suspect” (actually a human officer) in the underground subway system. Apache and his fellow trainees are the first group of NYPD dogs to get infrared cameras, which are the same kind the Navy Seals used in the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound last year.
Other new high-tech equipment includes a canine GPS tracking system to help follow dogs on a scent trail, dog collars that emit light, and two custom-built mobile air-conditioned kennel trucks with food storage and rest areas so K9 officers can take a break, have a meal, or escape the summer heat. The trucks can store up to a month of food so they could be used in disaster zones if needed.
Blackie the Doberman, canine star of Martin Scorsese-directed movie Hugo, is expected to get a nomination at this year’s Golden Collar Awards thanks to the director’s campaigning efforts.
Blackie the Doberman stars as a train station attack dog in the movie Hugo.
Blackie was initially snubbed from the nominations, but Scorsese wrote a letter to the LA Times encouraging people to contact the award show’s organizers to request Blackie be added to the nomination list. Scorsese felt that Blackie should have been nominated in the “best dog in a theatrical film” category.
Blackie starred in the Oscar-nominated film Hugo as an attack dog owned by a train station officer. Scorsese suggested that Blackie didn’t originally secure a nomination due to the role she played, pointing out that a cute little Jack Russell Terrier received nominations for two films because the Jack Russell “plays a nice little mascot who does tricks and saves his master’s life in one of the films, while Blackie gives an uncompromising performance as a ferocious guard dog who terrorizes children.”
Dog Daily News, the Golden Collar Awards organizer, agreed to add Blackie to the nomination list if it received 500 write-in nominations via their Facebook page.
In an effort to cut the state’s budget, Governor Jerry Brown has proposed stripping several important provisions from Hayden’s Law. Passed in 1998, Hayden’s Law put California at the head of the class as far as protecting shelter animals. Continue reading California Readers: Protect Your Shelter Animals→
New research shows that we have had a relationship with dogs since prehistoric times. It seems our caveman ancestors domesticated dogs at least 33,000 years ago as a canine skull found in Siberia shows. This interesting find represents some of the oldest evidence of dog domestication. The Siberian dog skull’s snout and teeth show that it was a domesticated animal and not a wolf.
Not only is dog “Man’s Best Friend”, but he was “Caveman’s Best Friend” too! Read the full story.
The 33,000 year old skull found in Siberia shows the short snout and crowded teeth that identify it as a domestic dog.
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If you’re a regular reader, you know I try to meet and take a picture of dogs I meet when I travel. Well, this weekend I was visiting my mom in Hamilton, Ohio, and got to meet Max in the parking lot of the Bob Evans there.
