Rescued Dogs Deployed to Rescue Survivors of the Turkey Earthquake

As they’ve previously done in disasters around the world, dogs trained by the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) have been deployed to Turkey to search for survivors after the devastating earthquake on Feb. 6.

These dogs are truly paying it forward: they’ve all been rescued themselves from shelters and rescue groups across the United States.

“The traits that can make dogs unsuitable as family pets and land them in a shelter—intense energy and extreme drive—are exactly the qualities required in a search dog,” the SDF explains on its website. SDF is the only organization in the U.S. that rescues these dogs and trains them to become search dogs.

The rescued dogs spend nine to 10 months in training at the SDF facility in Santa Paula, Calif. They are then partnered, free of charge, with fire departments around the country.

Since the SDF was founded in 1996, it has trained 229 teams that have been deployed to over 230 disasters and missing person searches. Dogs rescued and trained by the SDF have previously helped locate survivors after major earthquakes in countries like Japan, Haiti and Nepal.

And now seven canine disaster search teams trained by SDF are currently in Turkey, working alongside human rescuers from around the world. One team, USA-1, is from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department in Virginia. The other six teams, USA-2, are from the Los Angeles County Fire Department in California.

“No technology can match a dog’s speed and accuracy in finding people trapped in the wreckage of a disaster,” the SDF notes. Their sense of smell and ability to reach areas that humans can’t are a couple of the qualities that make them so good at this.

Although you may have read on social media that search dogs have found survivors, that unfortunately isn’t true, the Associated Press reports. And some recently posted photos of search dogs were actually taken during previous disasters, not the Turkey earthquake. However, the photo above was indeed taken in Turkey earlier this week and posted on Facebook by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

As of today, over 20,000 people did not survive the earthquake. Here’s wishing these search dogs much success in finding survivors and helping to lower the heartbreaking death toll.

How to help

To help the SDF rescue and train more dogs, you can make an online donation on their website.

You can also donate to nonprofit organizations such as the following that are helping people in Turkey and Syria impacted by the earthquake:

Photo: USAID/Facebook

Cookie-Seeking Dog Sets Kitchen on Fire

A 3-year-old silver Lab named Twitch who lives in Frisco, Texas, is a very bad dog—and very lucky to be alive.

While his owner, Megan Black, was away on Christmas Day, Twitch wandered into the kitchen, seeking some yummy cookies that were sitting on a shelf.

To reach those coveted cookies, Twitch had to jump up in front of the stove. In doing so, he accidentally turned on a burner, which in turn started a kitchen fire.

Fortunately, Black received a cell phone alert that her home’s smoke detectors were activated. Black called her neighbor, Cissy Blaisure, who ran to the house. Through thick smoke, Blaisure removed Twitch and another dog, a 10-year-old Boxer named Asher. She was then able to put out the flames using a bowl of water before firefighters arrived.

The entire incident took less than seven minutes and was caught on a Ring video.

“I’m sitting there watching her in action on my camera,” Black told FOX 4. “I can’t do anything. I am just watching her save my house.”

Although the house has major smoke damage, the good news is that no one was injured, thanks to Blaisure’s speedy efforts. “Maybe it was female mom instinct. I don’t know. I was just trying,” she told FOX 4.

Dogs Causing House Fires More Common Than You Might Think

Twitch isn’t the only dog who’s started a house fire. Just six months earlier, a dog in Missouri managed to turn on a stove burner, causing a grease fire that destroyed most of the house. Fortunately, like Twitch, that dog also lived to bark about it.

“New appliances are being seen with touch controls that activate by the simple touch of a finger. An animal’s paw can also activate these types of controls,” Southern Platte Fire Protection District Division Chief Chris Denney said in a statement at the time.

To prevent fires, Denney recommended using the built-in safety devices on these stoves when they aren’t being used and can be accessed by pets and children.

Animals including pets start about 750 house fires every year, according to the National Fire Prevention Association, which has these tips for preventing this from happening in your own home.

Photo: YouTube/FOX4 Dallas-Fort Worth

Pet Owners Use Poop to Prank ‘Porch Pirates’

Here come the holidays, which means front porches are filled with packages delivered by UPS, FedEx and Amazon. These packages are prime targets for thieves known as “porch pirates.”

Some pet owners are keeping these thieves away by filling Amazon and other boxes with dog poop, and then placing them on their porches.

Leaving Las Vegas…with a Box of Dog Poop

As Eric Bardo of Las Vegas was picking up after his big dog last year, he got the idea to put the poop in a Priority Mail box and leave it on his porch. Four days later, a young thief took the B.M. bait. Surveillance cameras captured videos of a boy snatching the poop package and then running down the street with an accomplice.

Bardo decided not to report the crime to police. “I didn’t want to call them and say somebody stole a box of poop off my front porch,” he told KTNV.

Apparently Bardo was a turd trendsetter. This year another Vegas resident, Eric Snow, did the same thing after packages were being stolen in his neighborhood.

He filled a box with what he called “reprocessed dog chow” from his 95-pound German shepherd, Heidi, and put it on his front porch. A security camera showed two men pulling up in a green car and snatching the nasty package.

Great Surprise from a Great Dane

Earlier this month in Riverside, Calif., Mikey Zaremba filled a box with poop collected during his Great Dane’s birthday party with several other dogs. Just like those Vegas dog dads, he left it on his front porch.

As you can imagine, Daniel Aldama, the thief who stole the package, got a really big surprise.

“He dropped it as soon as he found out,” Ronel Newton of the Riverside Police Department told CBS Los Angeles. “He didn’t want nothing to do with it and kept on riding.” Aldama was arrested and is facing charges.

Tips for Avoiding Porch Pirates

If leaving your pet’s poop in a box on your porch doesn’t appeal to you, here are some other steps you can take to avoid having your packages stolen.

  • For FedEx deliveries, you can request a signature, schedule a delivery or have the package sent elsewhere, such as to your office or to a family member or neighbor who’s home during the day.
  • You can have items ordered from Amazon delivered to an Amazon Locker. These self-service delivery locations are available in hundreds of places across the country. You’ll get an email when your package has been delivered and will have three business days to pick it up. (Another cool tip: You can also use Amazon Locker to return items purchased on Amazon.)

Photo via YouTube

This story was originally published in December 2016.

Are Doctors Oz and Fauci Really Puppy Killers?

If you’re a dog lover, you’re probably disgusted about the allegation that Dr. Mehmet Oz killed over 300 puppies in a cruel experiment.

And speaking of cruel experiments, perhaps you were also outraged last year over the allegation that Dr. Anthony Fauci personally approved disturbing tests involving Beagles.

My inquiring mind wants to know: Are these allegations true? Here’s what I found out.

Dr. Oz

Between 1989 and 2010, Oz oversaw experiments that killed over 329 dogs, according to a story on Jezebel earlier this month. Oz, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, had “full scientific, administrative and fiscal responsibility for the conduct” of the experiments performed at the Columbia University Institute of Comparative Medicine, according to the story. Dogs weren’t the only victims: other experiments killed 31 pigs and 661 rabbits and rodents.

About 20 years ago, veterinarian Catherine Dell’Orto testified that Oz’s experiments repeatedly violated the Animal Welfare Act, which requires researchers to give animals pain-relieving drugs and not experiment over and over again on the same animal.

In one horrible experiment allegedly witnessed by a veterinary technician, expired drugs were injected into the hearts of a litter of puppies without sedation. After the puppies died, they were tossed into a trash bag along with their living littermates. However, Dell’Orto told PEOPLE on Oct. 5 that the puppies were not killed by Oz and she didn’t know if he had any involvement in that experiment.

“But there are a lot of valid things he did wrong,” Dell’Orto added. Among those things was an experiment that left dogs left paralyzed and in pain for weeks before they were finally euthanized. In another experiment, Dell’Orto said pacemakers were inserted into some dogs’ hearts and then set to “a very high rate to induce heart failure.”

Oz spokeswoman Brittany Yannick told PEOPLE that Oz “was not personally involved in these incidents and to say otherwise is a lie. His name was on some forms due to his role within the Department of Surgery.”

Although Oz wasn’t personally involved, the experiments were still his responsibility. “When someone makes the choice to use an animal in a research experiment they should be 100 percent committed to reducing any suffering that animal will experience,” Dell’Orto told PEOPLE. “And I did not see that happening with Oz. I saw the opposite.”

VERDICT: Somewhat true. Not personally a puppy killer, but responsible for horrible experiments.

Dr. Fauci

As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fauci approved funding for horrible medical testing on Beagles, at least according to 2021 blog posts on the website of the White Coat Waste Project (WCW), a Republican-led nonprofit whose mission is to end taxpayer-funded animal experiments,

“Fauci Funded $375K Beagle Torture Overseas, Too” was the headline of an Aug. 31, 2021 WCW blog post. A photo shows two drugged Beagles lying on their sides. Their heads are inside mesh cages filled with biting sand fleas, according to the caption.

Regarding this and other tests involving Beagles, the WCW insisted to PolitiFact that it was “100% confirmed that Fauci’s NIH division funded” the tests. However, the NIAID did not in fact fund the sand flea test; this was stated in error by the study’s authors. The journal that published the study later issued a correction.

Here’s another WCW headline, from an Oct. 5, 2021 blog post: “Fauci Wasted $1M+ to Poison Beagle Puppies, Cut Out Vocal Cords.” As proof, the post included a copy of a $1.68 million November 2019 order from the Drug Development and Clinical Sciences Branch of the NIAID. The order was for 44 Beagle puppies to be subjected to toxicity tests.

However, the medical news service MedPage reported that “Fauci himself did not sign off on the research contract” shown in the blog post.

Snopes reports that while it’s true that some of these studies were at least partly funded by NIAID with taxpayer dollars, “it is unclear whether such allocations were personally approved by Fauci.”

What’s interesting is that plenty of right-wing politicians were quick to jump on the #FauciLiedPuppiesDied bandwagon last year (ironically, elephant killer Donald Trump, Jr. even sold “Fauci Kills Puppies” T-shirts) — yet the WCW and all those others have been silent on the allegations about Dr. Oz killing puppies. Hmm.

VERDICT: Somewhat false. Not personally a puppy killer, and may not have approved cruel experiments.

Medical Testing on Dogs is Horrible, Period

The fact that medical testing on dogs and other animals is cruel and unnecessary is something we can all agree on, no matter our political leanings.

VERDICT: True!

Photo: Wikibongmom

14-Year-Old Lost Dog Found After 2 Months in Utah Canyon

Apparently this is “Amazingly Lucky Senior Dog Week.” A few days ago, a 13-year-old blind dog named Cesar was rescued after he wandered out of his yard — and fell into a 15-foot-deep hole at the construction site next door. Despite his ordeal, Cesar wasn’t seriously injured.

Yet another senior dog who’s losing his eyesight is also safe and sound at home this week after a very scary experience.

During a July camping trip to Payson Canyon, Utah, a 14-year-old Great Pyrenees/Collie mix named Toby wandered away from his family and seemed to disappear. His family spent the next few weeks searching for Toby. Neither search dogs, trail cameras or drones could locate the senior dog.

“Toby is old and going blind. He is likely afraid and confused,” his owner wrote on July 25 in a Utah – Lost Dogs, Cats & Pets Facebook group post. “We are so worried about him, and we just want him. He is the sweetest dog and is not aggressive at all, so he is easily approachable.”

Nearly two months after Toby’s disappearance, his family was contacted by someone who recognized his picture in that Facebook post.

“Once he went downhill and couldn’t get back up the mountain, he found a spot with shade and water and just laid around,” Toby’s unidentified owner told KUTV. That spot was about a mile and a half away from his family’s campsite.

“He did not do much traveling,” Toby’s owner added. “Laid there for two months and waited for something to happen… for someone to find him and kept himself alive.”

Toby, who weighed about 75 pounds before his disappearance, lost about 30 pounds. He was otherwise healthy — and is probably extremely happy to be back home.

Photo: Utah – Lost Dogs, Cats & Pets/Facebook

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