Remember when everyone was dumping ice water on their heads for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? That was so yesterday. (And so successful, yay.)
Now the latest challenge going viral is “Kissed by a Pit.” Here’s how it works: On social media, you post a picture or video of yourself being smooched by a Pit Bull, with the hashtag #kissedbyapit. Then you donate $5 (or more!) to your favorite animal rescue organization or shelter.
Pawesome idea, right? It was thought up by Dog Park Publishing, whose mission is to “showcase and celebrate the Pit Bull, through our calendars and other products, as a majestic, affectionate and intelligent breed that is sorely misunderstood,” according to its website.
“We are thrilled with the response we have already received,” company co-founders Alisa Weberman and Jonathan Korzen told the Huffington Post in late August. “It means we are showing Pit Bulls in a positive light, and raising money for rescues and shelters across the world.”
The latest celebrity participant is Kevin Bacon, dog dad of a rescued Pit Bull named Lilly. You may recognize her from a video Bacon posted in July 2012 of the two of them jumping in tandem into a swimming pool. (Bacon’s wife, Kyra Sedgwick, talked fondly about Lilly on “The Late Show” a few years back. Semi-jokingly, David Letterman said, “Pit Bulls are dangerous, and they will kill you.” Sedgwick laughed and defended the breed very gracefully, but I really wished she’d responded, “Talk show hosts are cheaters, and they will have affairs with their interns.”)
In the caption for his video, Bacon wrote, “Dogparkpublishing.com #kissedbyapit challenge just made my donation to #AnimalHaven NYC who’s next?”
He didn’t nominate any celebrities, but I’d love to see Jon Stewart, dog dad of a three-legged Pit Bull, take up the challenge.
Dog Park Publishing is also donating $5 per order to animal rescues and charities this month. You can check out Bacon’s video and more Kissed by a Pit Bull challenge participants (and add your photo or video) on the Pit Bulls and Itty Pitties Facebook page.
Thirteen years ago, a 2-year-old Golden Retriever worked tirelessly alongside nearly 100 other search-and-rescue dogs, digging through the rubble of the World Trade Center towers in hopes of finding survivors.
For the first time since the attacks, Bretagne (French for “Brittany”) and her handler/dog mom, Denise Corliss of Cypress, Texas, returned to Ground Zero this week.
“Seeing this kind of took my breath away a bit,” Corliss, who was interviewed by Tom Brokaw on NBC’s “TODAY” this morning, told TODAY.com yesterday.
“It’s so calm and peaceful now, unlike the chaos of before. After 9/11, everybody — all of us — felt such sadness. We all wanted to help. I just felt so honored that we were able to respond.”
Corliss has had Bretagne since 1999, when the Golden Retriever was just a puppy. After she found out that civilians and their dogs can join federal emergency response teams to help out after a disaster, she and Bretagne began taking training classes together. She told TODAY.com that she spent 20 to 30 hours a week training with Bretagne.
In 2000, she and Bretagne were accepted into Texas Task Force 1. Less than a year later, their very first deployment was to Ground Zero.
Bretagne worked 12-hour shifts for nearly two weeks. Along with the other search-and-rescue dogs, she became depressed when she found only human remains. To cheer the dogs, some workers buried themselves in the rubble so the dogs could discover someone alive.
The human responders, of course, were as upset as the dogs. At one point Bretagne left Corliss’ side and went to a firefighter who was sitting on the ground. Corliss called for her dog to come back, but Bretagne ignored her.
“I was surprised that she wasn’t listening to me — it was like she was flipping me the paw,” Corliss told TODAY.com. “She went right to that firefighter and laid down next to him, and put her head on his lap.”
When Brokaw asked Corliss about her most memorable experience at Ground Zero, she replied that it didn’t occur while searching through the debris, but as she and Bretagne waited in the staging area.
“Searchers would come by to pet her and to thank her, and would tell us their stories,” Corliss said. “So it became an unexpected role of therapy dog. That’s what, among the other things, sticks out to me the most.”
Veterinarian Cindy Otto, who treated Ground Zero’s search dogs, told TODAY.com they frequently brought smiles to weary firefighters.
“Those dogs brought the power of hope,” she said. “They removed the gloom for just an instant — and that was huge, because it was a pretty dismal place to be.”
Many animal lovers were concerned about the long-term health of the dogs working at Ground Zero. However, Dr. Otto, who in 2007 established the Penn Vet Working Dog Center to train and study search-and-rescue dogs, made a surprising discovery. After years of studying these dogs, she found they actually outlived dogs who didn’t work at Ground Zero. (In addition to Bretagne, there is one other surviving 9/11 search-and-rescue dog: Morgan, a 15-year-old English Springer Spaniel who was deployed to Staten Island after the attacks.)
After Ground Zero, Corliss and Bretagne worked at several other major disaster sites, including New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Bretagne officially retired when she was 9.
Even though she’s now at the age when most dogs enjoy lots of long naps, she continues to work. She’s a service dog at an elementary school, helping students with learning disabilities by being their audience as they read aloud to her.
“She still has this attitude of putting her paw up and saying, ‘Put me in, coach!’” Corliss told TODAY.com. “She absolutely loves it.”
From California to New York, cases of the mosquito-borne and potentially fatal West Nile virus are on the rise. Record-high cases are being reported in Houston, New York and other cities across the country.
In Orange County, Calif., 94 residents have become infected and three have died so far this year, according to Orange County Public Health Services. The city of Santa Ana, where 65 dead birds were found to be infected, is planning to spray four areas with pesticides. (Robert Cummings, laboratory director of the Orange County Vector Control District, told KPCC that while no pesticides are entirely risk free, the one to be sprayed in Santa Ana contains an extremely low amount of toxins and is not “adverse to human health or to pets and other wildlife.”)
While most people infected with West Nile virus won’t even know it, 20 percent of them will experience flu-like symptoms, such as fever, body aches and nausea. Approximately 1 in 150 infected people suffer serious illnesses, including neurological problems and, potentially, coma and death.
Obviously West Nile virus affects people and birds — but what about dogs?
“Dogs and cats are susceptible to infection, but considerably more resistant to disease than horses, humans and some species of birds,” according to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine website.
Just as with people, very young and old dogs, as well as dogs with weakened immune systems, are the most susceptible to contracting West Nile virus.
“Signs of a possible infection include weakness, fever and muscle spasms, although blood tests are needed to confirm a diagnosis,” UC Davis notes. “Treatment is consistent with standard veterinary practices for viral infections, and recovery is likely. If you suspect that your animal may be infected, seek the advice of your regular veterinarian.”
Also, just as with people, dogs become infected via mosquito bites. According to UC Davis, while it’s possible, there have been no reported cases of dogs becoming ill after eating infected birds.
Use an insect repellent when you go outdoors (here’s a list of less toxic alternatives to DEET from the U.S. Dept. of the Interior). However, do not use repellents made for humans on your dog — especially those containing DEET — as they may be poisonous. Ask your vet to recommend a safe repellent.
Weather permitting, wear long sleeves, pants and socks outdoors.
Avoid going outside at sunrise and sunset, when mosquitoes are the most active.
Install or repair screens on your windows and doors, and make sure there are no gaps.
Regularly empty out standing water from pet water dishes, flowerpots, gutters, buckets, birdbaths, etc.
If you live in an area that’s being sprayed with pesticides, the Orange County Vector Control District recommends you do the following:
Cover pet food and water bowls, as well as fishponds. (It’s probably even a better idea to bring the bowls inside.)
During the spraying and for 30 minutes afterward, stay indoors with your pets. Keep your doors and windows closed, and turn off non-recirculating air conditioners.
“The Drop” — in which James Gandolfini makes his final film appearance — was originally titled “Animal Rescue,” since the crime drama deals with a lonely Brooklyn bartender (Tom Hardy) who takes in a Pit Bull puppy that was beaten and left for dead in a trash can.
Gandolfini plays the main character’s cousin, who owned the bar until Chechen mobsters took it over. The film offers “an inside look at organized crime’s use of local New York City bars as money-laundering ‘drops,'” according to its official website (which also mentions that 1.4 million dogs are adopted each year).
“The Drop,” which premiered Friday at the Toronto Film Festival, opens in theaters Sept.12. It’s based on the short story “Animal Rescue” by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote “Mystic River” and “Shutter Island.”
So far, most of the reviews have been positive.
“It’s hard to remember the last time a canine was made so shamelessly pivotal a character in a mainstream movie (‘Marley & Me,’ perhaps), but ‘The Drop’ is at once upfront and highly effective in its manipulations, tugging at our heartstrings even as it flicks away at our nerves,” wrote Variety film critic Justin Chang.
In a featurette about Rocco (portrayed, as he grows, by three different Pit Bull puppies), producer Jenno Topping said it was hard to be around the four-legged actors “without smooshing and kissing” them.
“Our filmmaker felt very strongly that there was a thematic connection between a breed that was so traditionally misunderstood and our main character, who is both enigmatic and hugely misunderstood,” she said.
Gandolfini may have been attracted to this film since off screen, he himself was the devoted dog dad of a rescued Pit Bull named Duke. The two were often spotted near their home in New York City.
“I would see him getting coffee with his dog,” Sara Mattler told WNYC after Gandolfini’s death in June 2013. “He was always so sweet with his dog, and made sure the dog had water while he ran in on a hot day.”
Gandolfini was also the dog dad of a Puggle, a Pug/Beagle mix. (As much as he loved ducks and racehorses, can you imagine Tony Soprano cuddling a Puggle? Fuhgedaboutit.)
Here’s hoping one of Gandolfini’s legacies is that his final film helped change people’s minds about Pit Bulls.
And here’s hoping “The Drop” has a happier ending than “Marley & Me.” If you want to know the movie’s outcome before you see it, the website Does the Dog Die? is an excellent resource. (“The Drop” is not yet listed there — I checked.)
An Oregon family is probably being a whole lot more careful about where they leave their socks.
After their 3-year-old Great Dane began vomiting last February, they took him to DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital in Portland, where X-rays revealed the cause of the problem.
“We opened up his stomach and kept removing sock after sock of all different shapes and sizes,” Dr. Ashley Magee, a veterinary surgeon, told KGW.
The Great Dane had been brought to the vet previously for eating socks — but just one or two of them, not nearly four dozen.
“It could be an anxiety thing,” Dr. Magee told KGW. She explained that when dogs are left home alone, they may look for comfort in items with their owners’ scent — like smelly socks. “Dogs get nervous and their natural instinct is to chew,” she said.
The Great Dane (his name wasn’t mentioned, but I really hope it’s Socks) was released from the animal hospital the day after his surgery and is doing fine.
And now, more than six months later, he’s in the news as a winner of Veterinary Practice News’ 2014 They Ate WHAT? X-ray contest.
The annual contest, which is pretty self-explanatory, is sponsored by pet insurance provider Trupanion and provides cash awards “to support the uncompensated care these hospitals provide pets,” according to Veterinary Practice News.
DoveLewis Animal Hospital entered the Great Dane’s stomach X-ray in the contest this year, and it won the third-place $500 prize.
The second-place prize of $1,000 went to Gulf Breeze Animal Hospital in Florida, which also submitted an X-ray of a dog’s unusual stomach contents. In their case it was a shish kabab skewer that was somehow swallowed by a German Shorthaired Pointer named Marley. (Ouch!) The skewer was removed and Marley is doing fine.
The winner of the contest’s first-place, $1,500 prize was Paws & Claws Animal Hospital of Plano, Texas. Its entry was an X-ray of an exotic frog who swallowed 30 ornamental rocks.
Really? Sorry, but if I had been on the They Ate WHAT? judging panel, 43.5 socks would have definitely beat 30 ornamental rocks. WHAT?!
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. You can opt-out if you wish.Got it!RejectPrivacy Policy
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
