When a woman was packing her suitcase earlier this week, she didn’t notice that her 7-year-old Chihuahua had hopped inside it.
As U.S. security agents were inspecting checked baggage for an American Airlines flight from New York’s La Guardia Airport Tuesday, an alarm went off. They expected to uncover something like a gun, knife or perhaps a gas-filled chainsaw (it’s happened).
Instead, they found the Chihuahua, alive and well, and staring up at them.
“TSA worked with the airline to identify the owner, and the two were happily reunited,” reads the caption of a photo posted by the Transportation Security Administration on Instagram, with the appropriate hashtag #TSAGoodCatch.
When TSA contacted the Chihuahua’s dog mom, “she was just as surprised as the TSA officer who found it,” spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said in a statement today.
While pets are sometimes allowed in the cargo hold of airplanes, they need to be in airline-approved crates — not in hard-sided suitcases with no breathing holes.
As the TSA noted in the photo caption, “It’s always important to double check your bags before traveling, especially to make sure your Chihuahua hasn’t stowed away inside one of them.”
The Chihuahua’s dog mom called her husband, who came and got the little stowaway, and took him home.
APRIL 20, 2015 UPDATE: Ike has lost his battle with cancer, according to Dr. Marty Becker. Risa Feldman told him Ike crossed the Rainbow Bridge on April 14. “I laid him down to sleep, over the ocean on a hilltop,” she said, “among some special friends at sunset. He was so content, but ready to go.”
Ernesto Moran and Justin Wadman truly deserve Home Depot Employees of the Year awards.
When Risa Feldman went to the Home Depot in Hawthorne, Calif., and asked Moran for advice on how to improve the cart for her 15-year-old dog, Ike, who has difficulty walking due to bone cancer in a rear leg, Moran didn’t just explain what to do. He and Wadman voluntarily built a new “Ike’s Trike” wagon themselves.
“I showed him the cart that I was trying to use and I asked him, ‘What can I do to change this cart and build it so that it’s longer or his size?'” Feldman told KABC. “He just shook his head and said, ‘Let me give it some thought and I’ll call you later.'”
Feldman has had Ike ever since he was 3 years old. He may only have a few months left to live, so Feldman is making his final days as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. She said he especially enjoys people watching at Manhattan Beach, where they live.
“It’s his favorite thing to do,” Feldman told ABC News. “He’ll lay there in the sun.”
Ike still enjoys walks along the beach, with the help of a harness or cart. Unlike his previous cart, Ike’s Trike was built to the dog’s size, and one end unfolds into a ramp to make it easy for him to get on board.
Moran and Wadman also built a ramp to make it easier for Ike to climb into Feldman’s car.
Ike was presented with his Ike’s Trike yesterday.
“I offered to build this for her and let her know that it’s something that Home Depot offers — giving back to our customers,” Moran told KABC.
Feldman said Ike immediately felt right at home in his pawesome new ride.
“I just wanted people to know that there are still people out there who do good things,” she told KABC.
It’s a sad fact that dogs (and cats) with black fur are less likely to be adopted than those whose fur is lighter colored. There’s even a name for it: “Black Dog Syndrome.” The reasons vary from superstitions, to negative portrayals in the media, to poor lighting in animal shelters and photos.
But the results of a new study could help put an end to Black Dog Syndrome. It found that dogs and other animals with black fur live longer than lighter-colored ones.
The study, published in the Feb. 19 issue of the scientific journal PLOS Genetics, looked at “how the balance between natural selection and genetic drift shapes the evolution of appearance and form,” according to the author summary.
A team of researchers from the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala., identified the genetic mutations that produce black fur (melanism) in three closely related South American wild cats.
“Our results demonstrate that some ‘black cats’ are black not by chance, but by selection for a mutation that provides increased fitness,” the study’s author summary states.
It’s still unknown exactly how black fur increases an animal’s life span.
“Factors such as foliage, humidity, temperature and/or infectious agents are all possibilities, and could affect camouflage, resistance to heat or thermoregulation, or resistance to infections,” Dr. Gregory Barsh, one of the researchers, told Discovery News.
In a previous study, Dr. Barsh said it was discovered that “black wolves may have increased fitness in some environments due to a melanism mutation in a different gene from the ones studied here.”
He said some dogs may also enjoy the benefits of darker fur, “although breeding by humans now influences the process.”
Just minutes before it would hit a Pit Bull mix that had been shot and tied to the railroad tracks, Nick Wilson and Sgt. R. Mills (in the photo above) of the Tampa, Fla., police department were able to stop a train and free the dog.
The officers found the dog last night as they were responding to multiple 911 calls about a shooting in the area. They rushed her to the Tampa Bay Veterinary Emergency Center.
Despite being shot twice in her neck and once in her right shoulder, the dog, who’s believed to be a year or two old, is expected to survive. Her front right leg will need to be amputated, however.
Dr. Jamie Davidson treated the dog and named her Cabela. She told CNN Cabela’s rehabilitation will take only a week.
“Dogs rebound quick,” Dr. Davidson said. “Really, after everything that this dog has gone through … she’s the sweetest. I mean she’s not angry with people. She’s not growling. She’s been really, really good.”
According to the Tampa Police Department’s Facebook page, Cabela — who’s also being called “R&R” — is scheduled for surgery later today.
Tampa Bay Veterinary Emergency Center is covering the cost of Cabela’s care, which is expected to be several thousand dollars. To make a donation, contact the hospital.
Dr. Davidson said that once Cabela is healthy, spayed and vaccinated, she will be ready to be adopted by a “good family.”
The Tampa police department is asking anyone with information about this case to call 813-231-6130 or 800-873-TIPS, or submit a tip via Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay.
Last Saturday night, non-brainiac Andrew Mayer of Toms River, N.J., thought it would be a great idea to drive his truck out to the middle of the town’s frozen river and do donuts (drive around in tight circles). He brought along his dog Rolo, a 2-year-old Boxer/Lab mix.
When his truck crashed through the ice, Mayer managed to get out, but could not get Rolo out of the cab. After local police, the New Jersey State Police and the U.S. Coast Guard spent 10 hours — and hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money — searching for the truck, they finally found it Sunday morning, with Rolo’s body inside the cab.
Hee-larious? Sgt. Thomas Yannacone of the Seaside Heights Police Dept., about seven miles east of Toms River, apparently thought so.
“Why didn’t the dog do the Doggie Paddle?” the police officer wrote in a Facebook comment. “And was he listening to Van Halen’s ‘Diver Down’ just before going thru the ice? These are the questions I want answered !!!”
Wait, there’s more:
“Truck plunging thru the ice with a dog inside brings a whole new meaning to FROZEN WEINER or DIRTY WATER DOG,” Yannacone wrote in another post. “What, to [sic] soon, calm down u animal loving freaks…just be glad it wasn’t a cat because that would have been one WET PU….!!!!!!”
Sgt. Thomas Yannacone, ladies and gentlemen!
Because of these comments, Yaccacone is now being investigated — not for his unfunny, offensive jokes, but for violating the department’s policy regarding social media posts.
“In accordance with our procedure for handling citizen complaints, we have opened an administrative internal affairs investigation,” Chief Thomas Boyd said in a statement today, according to NJ.com. “We are required to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and we anticipate that it will take the next few weeks to do so.”
The policy stipulates that “while employees have a right to maintain personal web pages and websites, their status as a member of the Seaside Heights Police Department requires that the content of those web pages and websites not be in violation of existing agency policy or directives or create a potential conflict of interest.”
Yaccacone will remain on duty during the investigation.
Mayer, who until now has held the title of Loser of the Week, insists he did his best to get Rolo out of the truck.
“He did almost kill himself trying to save his dog,” his cousin’s fiancée, Helecia Morris, told NJ.com yesterday. “He’s completely devastated. His truck, his dog — everything is in this bay.”
Rolo was one of a litter of puppies Mayer’s cousin’s dog gave birth to shortly before Hurricane Sandy in 2012. (Apparently smarts don’t run in this family — spay and neuter your pets, people!)
Mayer was charged yesterday with criminal mischief, careless driving and pollution, according to NJ.com. The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NJSPCA) is currently investigating Rolo’s death, and animal cruelty charges are pending.
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