“Our little girl crawls for the first time on video, but what happened next melted our hearts,” wrote Don Swift, of Atlanta, in regard to a video he posted on YouTube Oct. 21 that’s going viral.
Watch the baby and big, black Labrador Retriever’s very first meet-up below.
“Labs are the best family dog ever!” wrote proud baby/dog daddy Swift.
After a Toy Poodle named Muffin began losing his vision due to cataracts — and took a spill down some stairs — his dog mom, Silvie Bordeaux, decided to do something to help him safely get around.
Bordeaux invented the Muffin’s Halo Guide for Blind Dogs, a lightweight, three-piece device that includes a harness, copper tubing “halo” and wing-shaped padding on the back. It stops vision-impaired pups of all sizes from bumping into walls and furniture, or worse.
“They can eat and sleep and play and run with it on,” Bordeaux told the Associated Press. “It’s like their superpowers.”
Dr. Christin Fahrer, of Eye Care for Animals in Culver City, Calif., told the AP that if the halo hits the wall before the dog does, it will slow him down and help prevent injury to his face.
“We are the ones who struggle with the concept of our pets being blind,” Dr. Fahrer said, noting that dogs can adapt fairly easily to losing their sight. “We struggle with what it would be like for us. Our pets don’t drive or read, but we use our vision every moment of every day. It’s a different world for them.”
On the Muffin’s Halo website, Bordeaux wrote, “Muffin now knows his home again and can travel with me to any hotel or friend’s house and gets to familiarize any new surroundings, quickly. He just loves this aid and is back to his peppy confident self!”
Bordeaux wrote that she was “stunned” over how many dogs are abandoned or euthanized when they lose their eyesight. To help these pups, she started the non-profit Second Chances For Blind Dogs, which donates Muffin’s Halos to blind dogs in shelters.
Like the dogs wearing the device she created, Bordeaux has earned her angel wings. (Muffin’s Halo is also available in butterfly and quarterback shapes.) For information about ordering it, visit the website.
Photo via Facebook
A 9-week-old German Shepherd named Batman became an Internet sensation today, and for a very worthy cause.
Batman is in training to become a member of the Boston Police Department’s K-9 unit. In this photo by Jonathan Kozowyk, the little pup is wearing a vest that’s just a wee bit too large for him.
The hand and legs in the photo belong to Officer Troy Caisey, the head trainer of the K-9 unit.
The photo is included in the 2015 Massachusetts Vest-a-Dog Calendar, on sale now for only $10 (plus shipping and handling). Massachusetts Vest-a-Dog is a volunteer-run nonprofit whose goal is to ensure that every police dog in that state has a bulletproof vest.
“All Massachusetts Vest-a-Dog calendar proceeds will be used to support Massachusetts police dogs, helping provide vests, essential equipment, training and dogs,” according to the organization’s Facebook page.
Photo via Facebook
After he survived being hit by a car, and then was dumped at an animal shelter in Ozark, Ala., because his owner had to move away, a 4-year-old Shepherd mix woke up after being put to sleep.
Animal control officer Wanda Snell, who witnessed the dog being euthanized last month, told the Associated Press (AP) that after a veterinarian injected him with the lethal chemicals, the dog moved a little, as if he was resisting it, but then he was still.
According to Sonya King of Two by Two Animal Rescue, the vet heard a faint heartbeat, so he gave the dog another injection. “He rechecked his heartbeat and signed off on the records that the 4-year-old black Shepherd mix was dead,” King wrote on the rescue’s Facebook page.
But when Snell arrived for work at the shelter the next morning, the dog was standing up, drinking some water.
“He was back up and breathing, and going right about business like it’s nothing,” Ozark Police Capt. Bobby Blankenship, the shelter’s supervisor, told the AP.
The miracle dog remained wobbly for a few days. He was taken in by King, who named him Lazarus after the man who, according to the Bible, was raised from the dead by Jesus.
One month later, Lazarus is recovering from the euthanasia attempt as well as the leg injury he suffered earlier when he was struck by a car. He is being fostered by Jane Holston of Helena, Ala., and will hopefully enjoy a long (third?) life in a new forever home.
“He’s not skittish, he’s not afraid of anything, anybody, any sounds,” Holston told the AP. “I mean, it’s just amazing what all he has been through.”
Although it’s rare for a dog to survive a euthanasia attempt, it does occasionally happen. Dr. Robert Lofton, of the veterinary clinic at Auburn University, told the AP that Lazarus may have been given an improper dose of the drug, or perhaps the needle missed his vein.
One of the most famous cases of a miracle survivor dog also occurred in Alabama. In October 2011, a stray Beagle named Daniel walked out of a shelter’s gas chamber in Florence after being exposed to carbon monoxide for 17 minutes. He was adopted by an East Coast family and inspired “Daniel’s Law,” which prohibits the state of Pennsylvania from using gas chambers in animal shelters.
Because of pet overpopulation, about 2.7 healthy dogs and cats are euthanized every year in U.S. shelters, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
“Thousands of great animals are killed each week in your local community,” King wrote on Two by Two Animal Rescue’s Facebook page. “As you fume with anger, let me remind us all that if our communities regulated spay and neutering, then our shelters would not be overloaded. The shelters have a horrible job of killing the animals that should have never been born.”
For more information about Two by Two Animal Rescue, visit its website.
Photo via Facebook
The stray pup had somehow managed to fall into a pool of hot tar at a construction site in Udaipur.
“A passerby saw him struggling and called our helpline,” wrote Animal Aid Unlimited in the caption for a video of the rescue posted Sept. 27 on YouTube.
Using vegetable oil and a lot of elbow grease, the team of rescuers was able to successfully scrub enough of the tar off of the dog so he was no longer stuck to the ground. He was taken to an animal shelter, where it took a few more days to completely remove all the tar.
When the dog, who they called Tar Baby, arrived at the shelter, “he was petrified and breathing heavily,” Claire Abrams, of Animal Aid Unlimited, told CNN. Based on the video, the lucky dog has been completely transformed, and not just in looks.
Here’s the video…talk about an extreme makeover!
Photo via YouTube
