Yet Another Scary Reason Not to Take Your Dog on an Escalator

As I wrote in A Very Scary Reason Why You Shouldn’t Take Your Dog on an Escalator back in February 2018, a small dog riding an escalator with his owner at Los Angeles International Airport nearly lost a paw when it got caught in the grate at the top of the escalator. Luckily a passerby who witnessed what happened quickly pressed the emergency shut-off button to stop the escalator. LAX police officers were able to unscrew the grate’s teeth and free the dog’s paw.

A year before that, the exact same thing happened to another small dog riding the escalator at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. That dog was also safely freed, but bit his owners in the process.

Fast forward three years, and the exact same thing has happened yet again to another dog. On Wednesday afternoon, a Pomeranian named Scott got his back left paw stuck in an escalator at the Journal Square PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) rapid transit system station in New Jersey.

The cries of Scott and his owner were heard by Port Authority police officers Anthony Manfredini and Matthew Maiello, who raced to the escalator and pushed the emergency shut-off button. They then summoned help.

“I spent my life training and caretaking for dogs in the Marine Corps as a K9 handler and in my personal life,” Manfredini told The Jersey Journal. “I didn’t have a second thought when it came to cries for help.”

As Manfredini held and comforted Scott (aw!), Emergency Service Unit officers Mark Legic, Andrew Vignapiano and Eric Block were able to unbolt the escalator’s claw plate and free the dog’s paw, NBC New York reports.

Scott’s paw was badly injured, with cuts and puncture wounds. Angel Lopez, a kind-hearted Port Authority police sergeant, paid the taxi fare for the dog’s owner to take Scott to an animal hospital. Scott is expected to make a complete recovery, and his owner will hopefully have learned a painful lesson.

It is never, ever a good idea to let dogs, especially small ones like Scott, ride on escalators. Unless you’re able to carry your dog, always take the stairs or elevator instead.

“Many pet owners do not understand the danger escalators and moving walkways pose to pets, who do not know that they need to lift their feet at the top to avoid being trapped by the ‘combs,’” MSPCA-Angell warned in 2012, after a Pomeranian mix named Mace lost two toes after getting his paw stuck on an escalator in a Boston subway station.

Each year, MSPCA-Angell veterinarians perform surgery on an average of two to three dogs whose paws were mangled after they were stuck in escalator combs.

“This is a very serious issue; most of us don’t think twice when stepping onto an escalator, but it’s crucial for all of us to understand that dogs have no sense of the danger awaiting them at the top,” stated Dr. Ashley Davis, one of the veterinarians who treated Mace. “If anything positive can come from Mace’s ordeal, it’s the awareness that his story will generate.”

If you can’t carry your dog and must ride an escalator, bring booties for him to wear, suggested Jeannine Berger, DVM. “Just make sure they fit snugly, without superfluous material that can catch in the moving escalator parts,” she warned.

Photo: @PANYNJ/Twitter

Watch a Hero Dog Stop Traffic When Her Owner Has a Seizure

It’s not uncommon for trained seizure detection dogs to spring into action to help their owners during medical emergencies, but what an untrained, one-year-old Maremma mix named Clover did this week was pretty doggone amazing.

As Haley Moore was walking Clover in their Ottawa neighborhood Tuesday, Moore suddenly had a seizure and fell to the ground. After checking Moore, the big white dog removed her leash from her dog mom’s hand and then ran into the street to stop a passing driver.

“It was really impressive, the dog actually blocked my way,” the driver, Dryden Oatway, told CTV. “The whole time she was backing down the street she had eyes on Hailey; didn’t look away from her. She kept her distance from me but made sure her owner was okay and that was amazing,”

As Oatway tried to help Moore, Clover got the attention of another driver, Danielle Pilon, who also stopped to help.

“You could tell she didn’t want to leave her even when we were with her, but I think it just came to her that she was like, ‘I need to go home to let them know she needs help,'” Pilon told CTV.

As Oatway and Pilon tended to her dog mom, Clover ran home and barked frantically at Moore’s dad, Randall Moore.

Thanks to Clover and the good Samaritans who stopped to help, Moore was taken to a hospital and has recovered from her seizure. “All I remember is waking up in the ambulance and being really confused, just like, ‘What is going on?'” she told CTV.

Moore doesn’t know what caused her to have a seizure. “If this ends up happening again, I feel 10 times safer and I know she will be there for me,” she told CTV.

As a reward — and I’m betting there will be official hero dog honors for Clover in the near future — Clover was treated to a delicious dinner.

“[My wife] Diane comes home with a couple of big steaks and I thought, ‘Wow, this is great, I’m getting a big steak,’ and she said, ‘No, it’s for Clover for doing such a great job,'” Randall Moore told CTV.

Clover’s heroics were captured by a security video camera. Really good girl, Clover!

Photo: CTV News/YouTube

GRRR: TikTok Pet Hot Sauce Challenge is the Worst Ever

It was bad enough a few years ago when some people subjected their poor dogs to the otherwise worthy Ice Bucket Challenge that raised over $220 million dollars to fight ALS, aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

But the latest social media craze is downright crazy. And all it raises awareness of is just how cruel to animals some people can be.

The purpose of the TikTok Hot Sauce Challenge is apparently to show how brave you are by eating this spicy stuff. Unfortunately, losers who should never own pets are posting videos of their dogs being fed chicken coated with hot sauce.

Not only is this a terribly mean thing to do, but, as you can imagine, it can make dogs very sick.

“Well, this little guy got chicken with hot sauce on it,” says veterinary technician Peter in a video with over 300,000 likes posted March 2 on the popular Peter & Jaycee TikTok account. He’s scratching the head of a small dog in an animal hospital. “And then he got another piece of chicken with hot sauce on it. They just kept giving him more and more because I guess his reaction was just so funny but now he’s in the hospital with pancreatitis. So, stop doing trends with pets.”

@vet_techs_pjSome trends can be fun with pets, but let’s remember safety first. #vet #trend #vettech #fyp #fy #pet #pets #chicken #dogsoftiktok #dog♬ Married Life (From “Up”) – Sergy el Som

Amen! Feeding a dog hot sauce or spicy foods can cause everything from heartburn to ulcers, Dr. Mary Altomare, the head veterinarian at New Jersey’s Mount Pleasant Animal Shelter, told Insider. “Once it passes through the stomach, pets are likely to experience intestinal cramping and diarrhea,” she said. “Depending on how sensitive of a stomach your pet has, you may also see some vomiting and subsequent dehydration.”

Fortunately, this godawful trend appears to be short-lived. In response to the growing backlash, most of the disturbing videos have been removed from TikTok. Here’s hoping the idiots who posted them won’t subject their dogs to any future cruel challenges.

Photo: Pezibear (This photo is not from a TikTok hot sauce challenge!)

Doggone It: Major and Champ Biden (Temporarily) Evicted from White House

MARCH 24, 2021 UPDATE: Well, that was quick! After getting some training, Major and Champ have returned to the White House. 

Back in December, pound pup lovers were delighted with the news that for the first time in United States history, a shelter dog would be making his home in the White House. That historic hound was Major Biden, a 3-year-old German Shepherd adopted two years ago by Joe and Jill Biden.

There even was a virtual “Indoguration” in January to honor Major and raise funds for the Delaware Humane Association, the shelter from which Major was first fostered by the Bidens in 2018 and then adopted.

But just two months later, Major and the Bidens’ other dog, a 13-year-old German Shepherd named Champ, have been temporarily booted from the White House and sent back to the family’s home in Delaware.

According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Major “was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to the individual,” CNN reports. Sources told CNN that Major had previously displayed agitated behavior such as barking and “charging” at White House staff members.

Psaki also noted that the dogs’ trip home to Delaware had been planned before the incident. They usually stay at that home when Jill Biden is traveling. Major and Champ are being cared for by family friends (and hopefully Major is enjoying some sessions with a good dog trainer).

During an interview on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” last month, Jill Biden told Clarkson she’d been “getting obsessed with getting our dogs settled because we have an old dog and we have a very young dog. They have to take the elevator, they’re not used to that, and they have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them. So that’s what I’ve been obsessed with, getting everybody settled and calm.”

The good news is that Psaki said Major and Champ will be returning to the White House “soon.”

Major is getting plenty of support on social media. Kate Bennett, who reported the CNN story, tweeted, “All dogs are very good dogs though.” True!

This is also a very good idea:

And the Oval Pawffice, a fan page for the Bidens’ pets, issued a “paws release” stating, “Yelp! I am innocent.”

Hopefully this incident won’t discourage people from adopting shelter pets. After all, even dogs from breeders can get aggressive. In fact, a previous first dog, the Obamas’ Portuguese Water Dog Sunny, reportedly bit the face of a teenage visitor to the White House.

Photo: @DrBiden/Twitter

Nearly 1,700 Pets Have Reportedly Died After Wearing Seresto Flea and Tick Collars

Since they were first introduced in 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received more than 75,000 complaints about popular Seresto-brand flea and tick collars. According to those complaints, 1,698 cats and dogs may have died after wearing the collars. At least 1,000 humans became ill after handling the collars.

These scary statistics are from a report by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, an independent, nonprofit newsroom. The report was co-published yesterday in USA TODAY.

The information is based on thousands of federal documents from the EPA, which is responsible for regulating these and other products that contain pesticides. Despite the disturbing number of pets reportedly killed or sickened, the EPA has never issued a warning about Seresto flea collars.

“The EPA appears to be turning a blind eye to this problem, and after seven years of an increasing number of incidents, they are telling the public that they are continuing to monitor the situation,” Karen McCormack, a retired EPA employee, says in the report. “But I think this is a significant problem that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.”

McCormack said these collars have the most reported incidents of any pesticide pet product she’s ever seen.  Yet the company that makes them, Elanco Animal Health, insists their flea and tick collars are safe.

“There is no established link between death and exposure to the active ingredients contained in Seresto,” an Elanco spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. “We take the safety of our products very seriously, and thoroughly investigate potential concerns related to their use.”

Seresto flea collars are top sellers on Amazon, but the online retailer has not removed them even though many reviewers have complained that their pets developed everything from skin rashes to neurological issues after wearing them.

Two Toxic Pesticides in Seresto Collars

Seresto flea and tick collars are intended to be worn by pets for eight months. They contain these two pesticides:

  • Imidcloprid, an insecticide that’s often used on crops — and is connected to the massive killings of bees and butterflies. Because of this, it’s banned for outdoor use in the European Union but is still allowed in flea collars.
  • Flumethrin, a pesticide that’s used only in Seresto flea collars, according to the report.

Bayer, the company that created the Seresto collars and has since been bought by Elanco, stated in a 2012 study that the combination of imidacloprid and flumethrin may have a “synergistic effect.” This means it makes them much more toxic for fleas and ticks—and perhaps for dogs and cats as well.

“You don’t even see these kinds of numbers with many agricultural chemicals,” Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, says in the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting report. “For whatever reason, this combination is just really nasty.” He said the nearly 1,700 pet deaths are likely “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Safe Alternatives to Flea Collars

Instead of putting a pesticide-filled collar around your dog’s neck, there are safer ways to help get rid of fleas without harming your pet in the process.

If you don’t want to use any chemicals, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental group, recommends doing the following:

  • Bathe your pet regularly, since soap and water will kill adult fleas. Just be aware that flea and tick shampoos often contain many of the same chemicals as topical treatments.
  • Use a fine-tooth flea comb to brush your dog’s fur. Dunk any fleas in soapy water.
  • Wash your pet’s bedding every week using hot water.
  • Every day, vacuum or wipe down any furniture or surfaces that your pet’s been in contact with.

Some of the following chemicals may be safer to use than others:

  • Oral flea prevention pills that contain lufenuron, nitenpyram or spinosad “can be a better option, for both animals and humans, than treatments that leave residue on fur that might get on hands or furniture,” the NRDC says.
  • For topical products, the NRDC recommends those containing s-methoprene or pyriproxyfen, “which are less toxic ingredients—but read the labels carefully because some products use them with other, more harmful pesticides.”

Not surprisingly, the NRDC warns about using flea collars, which “can contain some of the most dangerous insecticides, including tetrachlorvinphos, carbaryl and propoxur.”

What to Do If Your Pet Gets Sick

If your pet becomes ill after wearing a Seresto flea collar or being treated with another flea and tick product, see your veterinarian. Report the illness by following these EPA guidelines.

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