Big-Hearted Veterinarian Enjoys a Meal with Scared Dog in Cage [Video]

Just as CJ the German Shorthaired Pointer won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show last night, Dr. Andy Mathis, of Granite Hills Animal Care in Elberton, Ga., should win a Best in Veterinarians award.

When Mathis saw Graycie, an abandoned Pit Bull mix, cowering in the corner of her cage, refusing to eat, the vet joined her.

In a touching video he made Feb. 13 that’s gone viral — and that’s led to many adoption offers — Mathis climbs inside Graycie’s cage and sits beside her, eating and offering the dog her own dish. Eventually Graycie starts eating, too.

“We’ve had dogs in the past that took up to six weeks to feel comfortable getting outside, and then they love to play, they love other dogs and they love me,” Mathis told ABC News. “It doesn’t make me sad to see [dogs] broken and withdrawn because with time, I know what’s possible.”

Graycie, who’s about 2 years old, was brought to the animal hospital on Jan. 29 by someone who found her dumped on a little-traveled dirt road.

“Emaciated, starved (20 lbs.), dehydrated, hypothermic (temp of 95), anemic and with a vaginal prolapse,” Mathis wrote on the hospital’s Facebook page. “Practical Me says I should put her to sleep, but Veterinarian Me wants to try and give her a chance.”

Mathis decided to give Graycie a chance. He took her to the University of Georgia (UGA) Veterinary Teaching Hospital, where specialists were able to reduce her prolapse, get her temperature back up and rehydrate her. Mathis took her back to Granite Hills Animal Care, and she’s been making a slow but sure recovery.

“She had a collar, so she was owned by somebody at some point,” Mathis told ABC News. “Whoever was feeding her wasn’t feeding her enough. She was 20 pounds when we found her and probably should have weighed 30 to 35 pounds.”

With Mathis by her side, Graycie has gained five pounds. He sometimes hand-feeds her.

“She’s still quite timid around me,” he said. “I’m spending time with her so she’s not scared of me.”

Graycie will be ready for a loving new forever home in a few weeks. In the meantime, as Mathis pointed out, there are plenty of other dogs across the country waiting to be adopted.

“By sharing her story, it brings awareness to other pets who need homes,” he told ABC News.

To make a donation to help Dr. Mathis and Granite Hills Animal Care save more pets, click here.

Photo credit: Dr. Andy Mathis

Arftung! German Shorthaired Pointer Wins Westminster Best in Show Title

Congratulations to CJ, this year’s recipient of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show’s Best in Show title. CJ is the third German Shorthaired Pointer (GSP) to win the title in the show’s 140-year history.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” his happy handler, Valerie Nunes-Atkinson, told the New York Times. “For us in the sport, this is the pinnacle. This is what we strive for, what we shed tears over. The best dogs come here. This is the show to win.”

Nunes-Atkinson acknowledged that CJ wasn’t considered a front-runner for the title. She said that while you couldn’t go wrong with any of the other group winners, “I believe in my dog 100 percent.”

One of the crowd favorites was Annabelle, an almost 4-year-old Bulldog who won the Non-sporting Group.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” her handler, Jean Hetherington, told the New York Times last night, referring to the first time she saw Annabelle years ago, when she judged the Bulldog at another dog show.

The crowd also roared for Rumor, a 4-year-old German Shepherd who won the Herding Group. When asked by USA TODAY what she liked best about Rumor, co-owner Pamela Buckles replied, “Her heart. The love and affection she shows me. I just think she’s beautiful.”

Other group winners were Lucy, a Borzoi (Hound), who was named the reserve (runner-up) winner; Panda, a Shih Tzu (Toy); Bogey, a Samoyed (Working); and Charlie, a Skye Terrier (Terrier).

As for CJ, he’ll be appearing on “Good Morning America” Wednesday, then visiting the Empire State Building, and then having lunch at Sardi’s.

“He was born an old soul,” his owner, Valerie Atkinson, told reporters after the show. “He’s never done anything wrong.”

By the way, if you were wondering why 10-year-old Uno the Beagle, who took the 2008 Best in Show title and is one of the most popular winners ever, did not appear on last night’s telecast as advertised, he was barred from the event by Westminster officials because he hadn’t been registered to attend. Uno, who’d been driven from his home in Texas to attend the show, “was requested to leave the premises,” Westminster spokeswoman Gail Miller Bisher told the Times. The Associated Press compared this diss to Derek Jeter being tossed out of Yankee Stadium. Boo!

If CJ has you thinking about getting a GSP, please consider adopting one — there are plenty of what the American Kennel Club describes as “friendly, smart and willing to please” dogs available in shelters and through rescue organizations such as National German Shorthaired Pointer Rescue and New Beginnings German Shorthaired Pointer Rescue.

Photo via Twitter

New ‘Fetch’ App Identifies the Breed of Your Dog — and You

If you’ve ever wondered what’s the main breed of your lovable mutt, but don’t want to spend lots of cash on a DNA test with dubious results, Microsoft has just launched Fetch!, a new, free app that may answer your question.

And if you’ve always wondered what breed of dog you happen to look like, the app does that for you, too.

Fetch!, released to coincide with the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show next week, uses artificial intelligence to determine the breed based on a photograph. It also provides information about dog breeds.

“We wanted to bring artificial intelligence to the canine world. We wanted to show that object recognition is something anyone could understand and interact with,” said Mitch Goldberg, a development director at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, U.K., where his team created Fetch!.

“There was an interest in creating a framework that would allow you to take a domain – in our case, dogs – and recognize numerous classes, such as breeds. We were interested in enabling an app to allow you to make object recognition extraordinary, fun and surprising.”

It’s surprising, for sure. It identified my Pit Bull mix Ella as an Italian Greyhound in one photo, and a Staffordshire Bull Terrier in another.

And it identified my former dog Ginger (R.I.P.) as an Old English Sheepdog when she was, in fact, a 10-pound Maltipoo — although, okay, I can see a slight resemblance in her facial features.

Fetch! did a slightly better job with my dog Leroy, which it identified as an American Staffordshire Terrier. He’s more of an American Bulldog/Mastiff combo, but at least the app didn’t say he was a Pug.

If the dog’s breed is unknown, Fetch! displays a percentage of the closest breed, and you can tap it to display the top five breeds that could be in the dog.

Should you use a photo of, say, a cat or an inanimate object, the app will respond with the message “No dogs found!” and will even try to identify the non-dog with a question such as, “Hmm … this looks more like … flower?”

But if you take or upload a photo of a person, the app “will kick in to its hidden fun mode,” Goldberg said. “And in a playful way, it’ll communicate to you not only what type of dog it thinks you are, but also why. It’s fun to see if the app knows it’s not a dog. A lot of the time, it’ll tell you what that image is. When there’s not a dog, you still want to use it.”

I tried using a selfie, and apparently Fetch! thinks I’m a Chihuahua: “Quick-witted, loving, wary of strangers & other dogs.” Except for the “wary of other dogs” part, I guess this is pretty spot on.

Fetch! features the same artificial intelligence used by other Microsoft Project Oxford-powered apps, including How-Old.net, which guessed my age as 39. These apps really are amazing!

The free Fetch! app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store. If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, you can try Fetch! online at What-dog.net.

Watch a Guide Dog in Training Get Schooled by Pluto at Disneyland

Ace, a young pup being trained to be a guide dog, got an obedience lesson from a very famous dog during a December visit to Disneyland.

In a viral video with nearly 10.7 million views as of this afternoon, Ace can be seen assuming the down position at Pluto’s command.

 

“We went to Disneyland for a few hours as a socialization experience,” Sandy Steinblums, who raised Ace as a volunteer with Guide Dogs of America, wrote on Facebook. “What you didn’t see AFTER the 14-15 second video where he settled in a DOWN was his DOWN/STAY for a few minutes while Pluto tried to break his stay.”

Steinblums was too far away from Ace “to do a proper correction, but golly-be….he responded anyway,” she wrote.

Ace began his formal training at the end of January. It will take six to nine months of working with licensed trainers before he’s ready to graduate and become someone’s guide dog.

“That is my boy and I am proud of him, and love the Disney characters for being so kind and helpful!” Steinblums wrote.

Photo via Facebook

These 3 Super Bowl 50 Commercials Are Doggone Good

Like me, I’m sure a lot viewers watch the Super Bowl for the commercials more than for the game itself. Last year, the best and worst of those commercials all happened to feature dogs. Could this be repeated with Super Bowl 50?

Well, unfortunately, some beloved dogs from previous years will not be appearing in Super Bowl 50 commercials.

Because they didn’t increase beer sales, Budweiser commercials will no longer feature cute puppies. And Subaru is not a sponsor this year, so we won’t be seeing any adorably hilarious dogs driving cars — but the good news is that Subaru will instead be airing brand-new commercials during my favorite game this Sunday, Puppy Bowl XII.

Although the Budweiser puppy and Subaru pooches will not be with us during Super Bowl 50, the following three ads airing during the game feature dogs, and will likely show up at the top of most “Best Super Bowl 50 Commercials” lists. Here’s a sneak peek.

Heinz Ketchup’s ‘Weiner Stampede’

The most talked-about commercial for Super Bowl 50 is this spot that features dozens of Dachshunds in hot dog costumes racing in slo-mo across a field to people (“The Ketchups”) dressed as Heinz products, as Harry Nilsson’s mournful “Without You” plays.

As the weiner dogs leap into the arms of the humans, covering them with kisses, a voice-over says, “It’s hard to resist great taste.”

“It’s a really simple idea that pairs two things that people really love to see,” Michelle St. Jacques, vice president of marketing for condiments and sauces at Kraft Heinz, told TODAY. “One, which is a stampede of wiener dogs, and two, the Heinz brand, which consumers feel a lot of love for.”

While it’s a little disturbing to present dogs as food products, this commercial will likely be considered one of the best of the best.

Doritos’ ‘Doritos Dogs’

FEB. 8, 2016 UPDATE: Congratulations to Jacob Chase — “Doritos Dogs” was the $1 million prize winner in Doritos’ final “Crash the Super Bowl” commercial contest.

This contender in the final Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” commercial contest stars three rescue dogs, Miz, Bolt and Logan. After a few failed attempts to enter a store and snatch some Doritos, the trio comes up with a disguise that somehow fools the store manager.

Jacob Chase, the writer and director of “Doritos Dogs,” had to call several stores in the Los Angeles area before he found one — Gerrards Market in Redlands — willing to participate in filming the commercial.

The specialty supermarket’s owner, Tom Reingrover, “was so very generous and accommodating,” Chase told The Press Enterprise. “He loves dogs and was already aware of the Crash the Super Bowl commercial contest. It was such a lovely place to film.”

Honda’s ‘A New Truck to Love’

You might get “Babe” flashbacks watching this Honda commercial that stars a flock of sheep.

But instead of chanting “Baa-ram-ewe,” these sheep begin singing Queen’s “Somebody to Love” after a rancher and his dog drop them off in a field and then drive off in the Honda Ridgeline pickup truck that brought them there — with the song playing on the audio system.

So, why are the sheep singing? Because their mode of transportation is the “only truck available with a truck bed audio system,” the dog explains at the end of the spot. “A new truck to love.”

Photo via YouTube

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