Category: Awww

Golden Retriever Runs Away to Doggie Daycare

Riley, a 5-year-old Golden Retriever from Belmont, N.C., was determined to go to his doggie daycare center — even if his dog mom, Tonia Mosteller, didn’t take him there herself.

When Mosteller drove Riley past the Happy Dog Cafe and Daycare last Saturday, Riley started whimpering when he saw a group of dogs being walked by a staff member. Mosteller told him it wasn’t his day to visit the daycare he’s been going to most of his life.

After dropping Riley off at home before she took off to run errands, Mosteller told WBTV that as he lay on the backyard deck, the dog “was watching me carefully as I left, but I didn’t think too much about it.”

Within an hour, Riley managed to escape from the yard and walk more than a mile to the front door of Happy Dog.

“I walked outside to see if Tonia was right behind him, and she wasn’t,” the daycare’s owner, Teresa McCarter, told WBTV. “He knows the way up here because they walk him all the time, and he just decided to put himself in daycare that day.”

Riley ran inside and went directly to the area where his pals were playing.

McCarter called Mosteller to let her know of Riley’s whereabouts — and told her he could spend the day there.

“He got a free day of daycare and he worked really hard for that day,” McCarter told WBTV.

Mosteller plans to make her fence escape-proof and take Riley to Happy Dog Cafe and Daycare more often. She told WBTV his escape was “a true testimony to how much he loves Happy Dog and the staff there.”

A post on its Facebook page says the daycare “is extremely grateful that Riley made his adventure safely to your Happy Dog Cafe. We LOVE dogs and Riley’s story is proof.”

The clever WBTV news report shows Riley’s escape from a dog’s-eye view.

Photo via Facebook

Yearbooks Go to the (Service) Dogs

Over the past few years, some service dogs who accompany students and teachers to school have rightfully gotten their own photos in the yearbook, and I really hope this commendable trend continues.

This year a photo of Presley, a 5-year-old Goldendoodle, appears next to that of Seph Ware in the 2016 yearbook for Good Hope Middle School in West Monroe, La.

Ware, 14, has had Duchenne muscular dystrophy since he was 3 years old and is confined to a wheelchair. For the past four years, Presley has helped him by picking up things he drops, turning on lights, opening drawers and performing other tasks, both at home and at school.

School officials came up with the idea of including Presley’s photo in the yearbook.

“Seph says that it took about 10 minutes to get Presley to look at the camera — and who knows how many shots,” his mom, Lori Ware, told AL.com.

After Presley’s yearbook photo was shared on Facebook this week, it went viral.

“We’re kind of stunned at all the attention,” Lori Ware told FoxNews.com today. “It’s humbling. I’m glad Presley is making the world happy.”

Last year, the hundreds of photos in the 2015 yearbook for Minnesota’s Blaine High School included those of Caramel Thomas and Dakota Comancho.

Caramel is a service dog belonging to Rebecca Thomas, who is hearing impaired and teaches American sign language at Blaine High. For the past 10 years, Caramel has joined her in class.

Dakota, a certified therapy dog, belongs to Vicky Camancho, who teaches a special education class at the school and brings in Dakota once a week.

“The students love seeing the service dogs in the yearbook,” Thomas told Yahoo Canada.

Including the two dogs in the yearbook started a couple of years ago, when Dakota’s photo was taken for an identification badge on class picture day.

“When we got the disc of student and staff photos, we automatically flowed the pictures into the yearbook page sections,” Faculty Adviser Jill Farrell told the Star Tribune. “The editors and I giggled like mad when we saw that a picture of Dakota was included in the images.”

Lynn Florman, head of the special education department, told Yahoo Canada the photos send a positive message.

“Sometimes the unique services they provide are not understood or valued by others, so seeing them recognized in such a public and memorable way as a yearbook sends a strong message to all that they are an integral part of the team that supports our students,” Florman said.

Photos via Facebook; Twitter

Tissue (Box) Alert! Man Reunited with Dog After 2 Years Apart

In 2014, a Wisconsin man named Jose went through some tough times. After a divorce, he lost his house and was living in his car with Chaos, the dog he’d had since he was a puppy.

“Chaos helped me through so much in my life,” Jose said, according to the Winnebago County Animal Services Facebook page. “I took him everywhere with me.”

To improve his dog’s life — Chaos got his name from being big and full of energy — a friend of a friend took Chaos in until Jose could find a better living situation.

But when Jose was ready to reclaim Chaos three months later, the friend’s friend refused to give him the dog. Jose didn’t think he would ever see his beloved Chaos again.

Fast forward two years. On April 27, an employee of Winnebago County Animal Services found a stray dog on her driveway. He was brought to the shelter and checked for a microchip. Lo and behold, he indeed had a tag with a 2014 identification number.

Someone from the shelter called the contact phone number, and Jose answered.

“I couldn’t get to the shelter fast enough. I couldn’t wait for it to open to see Chaos,” Jose said.

Chaos was a little scared and apprehensive at first when he was reunited with his original dog dad, but after shyly approaching him and sniffing his hand, his fear quickly disappeared — as you can see in the heart-tugging video.

“I couldn’t be any happier. I feel amazing!” Jose said. After their joyous reunion, he drove Chaos home, about 90 minutes away. At first Chaos kept trying to climb into Jose’s lap. Then he settled down, and rested his head on his dog dad’s shoulder for the entire trip.

At home, Jose introduced Chaos to another dog he had adopted.

“As soon as they met, they started playing and running around, acting like they have been together since they were puppies,” Jose said.

Chaos could be a poster dog for microchipping your pets.

“Pay the microchip fee!” Jose said. “That fee versus never seeing your animal again is totally worth it.”

Photo via Facebook

Dog Detects Diabetic Girl’s Blood Sugar Drop from 5 Miles Away

A diabetes detection dog with the appropriate name of Hero can sense when the blood sugar level of 4-year-old Sadie is dangerously low or high.

If it’s too low, the Labrador Retriever whines, and nudges or paws Sadie’s parents’ left hands. If it’s too high, he does the same to their right hands.

One day last December, Hero started pawing the left hand of Sadie’s mom, Michelle. But at the time, Sadie, who has Type 1 diabetes and Down syndrome, was attending a special-needs class at an elementary school five miles away from their home in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

“He’s normally a very quiet dog,” Michelle told KUTV. “Whining is not in his protocol. But he just started whining and he would not stop.”

Michelle called the school and was told Sadie was fine. But within half an hour, the girl’s blood sugar level plummeted.

“The lows are more dangerous immediately,” Michelle told KUTV. “(With) lows, she could go into a diabetic coma right away, and she could die, if we kept her low too long.”

Caroline Knadler, the school principal, told KUTV Hero’s long-distance detection blew her mind. Knadler, who also has Type 1 diabetes, said Hero once detected her own blood sugar level drop during a parent-teacher meeting.

KC Owens, owner of Tattle Tale Scent Dogs in Utah, where dogs like Hero are trained to be diabetic alert dogs, told KUTV these dogs can use their hundreds of millions of scent receptors to pick up odors from a mile or two away. But five miles?

It might not have been Hero’s amazing sense of smell that let him know something was wrong with Sadie.

“How do dogs know when their owners are coming home?” Owens asked. “There’s another piece of it that I call, ‘God only knows.'”

Michelle told KUTV she thought it was something similar to a mother’s intuition. “These dogs have abilities and senses beyond our understanding,” she said.

On the Sadie’s Hero Facebook page, Michelle wrote that she didn’t want to give the impression that all diabetic alert dogs can detect from miles away as Hero seemed to do.

“They don’t,” she wrote, adding that many of Owens’ teams “have experienced this too many times to be coincidence, but it doesn’t happen with every low or with every dog. So while we can’t and won’t even try to explain how this happens, we feel blessed. Even without the long-distance alerts, he is amazing.”

Sadie’s dad told KUTV, “I’ve always called Sadie our little angel, and I think Hero was a little angel sent into our lives to watch over her.”

Photo via Facebook

Watch This CHP ‘High-Speed’ Pursuit…of a Chihuahua

APRIL 8, 2016 UPDATE: No one claimed Ponch, so he is now in a foster home and will be available for adoption soon. Stay tuned for details!

California Highway Patrol officers in San Francisco became involved in a chase this morning on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

But it wasn’t someone in a vehicle the CHPs were after. It was a little Chihuahua running at full speed across the bridge. The dash cam on a patrol car captured the exciting pursuit.

“High speed pursuit of [dog] this morning on the #BayBridge!” CHP San Francisco tweeted. “Suspect taken into custody. All are safe! #onlyinSF.”

Someone on Twitter asked if the Chihuahua got a ticket. “No, we just gave him a verbal warning,” CHP San Francisco responded. “It went something like this, ‘Woof, woof, WOOF!'”

The black Chihuahua was “jailed” at San Francisco Animal Care & Control, where he’s been named Ponch after the Erik Estrada character on the TV classic, “CHPs.”

His owners are asked to come bail him out.

“The little Bay Bridge dog is resting comfortably after his exciting morning and high-speed chase,” tweeted SF Animal Care this afternoon. “Thank you, CHP.”

Photos via Twitter

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