Doctors Say Family Dog Saved Lost Toddler, MO May 15, 2009
Source: KSPR.com, May 10, 2009
A Missouri toddler, who wandered away from his home last week, has been released from the hospital, just in time for Motherâs Day. Three-year old Joshua Childers was all smiles this weekend as he left the hospital in Crystal City. Doctors say he had hypothermia, scratches and bug bites from his âhikeâ in the Mark Twain National Forest. They now think the 120-pound family dog helped keep the boy safe and warm.
âOne of our initial concerns was how could a 35-pound child could stay alive in forty degree weather in the rain for two nights and three days,â said Steven Crawford, Childerâs doctor. âThat may be the answer, and he was telling about being with the dog at night.â
The family dog is a Great Pyrenees, and doctors say the fluffy dog kept Joshua alive through his 52-hour ordeal.
Oregon airport uses dog to chase birds off runway
Source: VictoriaAdvocate.com, May 9, 2009
NORTH BEND, Ore. (AP) â A small airport on the Oregon coast is taking care of its bird problems with a border collie named Filly.
Southwest Oregon Regional Airport sends the dog after the pesky Canada geese that can pose a hazard to aviation.
âSheâs chased flocks of geese into the water,â said Bob Hood, the airportâs wildlife manager. âSheâs really good at her job and she really likes her job.â
Filly is the third dog â officially called wildlife management canine â that Hood has trained to work at the airport.
Hood and the operations crew had used propane cannons, cracker shells, whistles and horns as scare tactics to shoo away intruders before a commercial flight struck some geese.
âThere was damage to the nose of the aircraft. They smashed into the radar dome,â Hood said. âI remember seeing a goose was inside the dome.â
Nobody was hurt, but Hood said it prompted the airport executive director to ask him to look into the U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife management program.
Hood started training with the American Society of Canine Trainers in 1994 and by 1997 had become a certified trainer.
Since then he has trained dogs for the North Bend Police Department and Coos County Search&Rescue, as well as for law enforcement agencies in Florence and in Jackson County.
The Federal Aviation Administration requires most airports to have a wildlife management program in place to be certified for commercial passenger traffic.
Once a year, Hood attends a training seminar given by the USDA, U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife or the FAA. He meets people from all over the country with different types of animals theyâre dealing with.
âI met a guy in Florida where there were alligator strikes,â Hood said.
The FAA and USDA have reported that from 1990 to 2003, there have been more than 50,000 aircraft damaged by wildlife strikes, with 124 people injured and eight killed.
Since the airport joined the wildlife management program, the number of wildlife strikes in North Bend dropped from several annually to one or two a year, Hood said.
âThe birds are so dangerous to airplanes, you have to do something,â he said.
Four new pet heroes honored in Canada May 8, 2009
Source: UPI.com, May 4, 2009
TORONTO, May 4 (UPI) â Three dogs and a cat were honored as human-lifesaving heroes at the Purina Animal Hall of Fame in Toronto Monday.
The inductees included a young Bijon Frise dog named Sophie from Olds, Alberta, Sophie awoke her owner and alerted her that the womanâs daughter had slipped into a diabetic coma in her bedroom.
The second dog inducted was an 8-year-old Chow Chow named Jarod from Genelle, British Columbia. Jarod distracted a charging black bear and allowed its owner and another dog to flee to safety before escaping from the bear.
The only cat inducted was a 21-pound male domestic shorthair named Nemo, which made persistent efforts to awaken a Toronto woman and alert her that her husband had stopped breathing beside her in bed. The man survived.
Purina also honored Ace, a Dutch-Shepherd mix adopted by a police officer in Hamilton, Ontario, who trained him as a search and rescue service dog. In December, Ace located a woman missing for three days during a major snowstorm. She was buried in snow, but recovered.
Since the inception of the Hall of Fame in 1968, 117 dogs, 24 cats and a horse have been named as heroes for their life-saving deeds, Purina said in a release.
Dog program helps kids to read, AZ April 29, 2009
Source: ArizonaRepublic.com, April 26, 2009
Dogs may be manâs best friend, but now thanks to a unique reading program in Flagstaff, dogs are also a studentâs best friend. Paws to Read lets students practice reading aloud by reading to a therapy dog. The goal of the program is to promote literacy and the love of reading to children.
Often children have difficulties when reading aloud. Since the dogs listen and donât tease or judge the child, confidence levels increase. Paws to Read creates a positive, non-threatening, fun environment for children in both classrooms and public-library settings.
âWhen I read, I stutter a little bit, and when I read to the dog, it didnât make fun of me,â student Beatriz Flores said.
Paws to Read pairs Delta Society-registered therapy dogs and their handlers with young readers. Warm brown eyes and doggy grins make all the difference in childrenâs reading experiences.
âIt has been observed, over and over again, that childrenâs reading abilities improve as they gain confidence reading to dogs,â said Pat Policastro, program coordinator.
Flagstaff Medical Center is the lead agency for the program. It provides the pet therapy teams, program expertise and coordination, and continued financial support. Flagstaff Unified School District provides the space and child participants. Currently, there are Paws to Read teams in Flagstaff public schools, local charter schools and summer-reading programs at the public libraries.
The program works through a coordinated effort between the school, classroom teacher and Paws to Read. Dogs are introduced in a classroom after behavioral expectations have been discussed with the students and the teacher. Sessions last 15 to 30 minutes a week.
An additional benefit is the greater self-esteem that students gain by improving their reading skills. Teachers reported an increase in students volunteering to read aloud in class and an increase in students checking books out of the library.
âWeâve been impressed with the results of Paws to Read,â Flagstaff Superintendent Kevin Brown said. âItâs another way of bringing volunteers into our schools to directly benefit our students.â
Mean dogs stand guard at Idaho prison March 25, 2009
Source: Associated Press, March 25, 2009
Nobody has broken out of the Idaho State Correctional Institution in more than 20 years. Prison officials like to think a hard-bitten corps of sentries with names like Cookie, Bongo and Chi Chi has had something to do with that.
The institution is the only state prison in the U.S. to use snarling, snapping sentry dogs to patrol its perimeter.
In a program begun in 1986, 24 mean dogs â mostly German shepherds, rottweilers and Belgian malinois, with a few boxers and pit bulls â roam the space between the inner and outer chain-link fences 24 hours a day, ferociously defending their territory.
Get too close to the fence and they will bare their teeth, bark and lunge. Set foot in their space and they will attack.
The animals themselves are former death row inmates â dogs that were deemed too dangerous to be pets and would have been destroyed at the local pound if they had not been given a reprieve and assigned to prison duty.
âWeâre basically giving them a second chance at a good, healthy life,â said Corrections Officer Michael Amos, who heads the sentry dog program. âThose same instincts that make them a bad pet make them good sentries.â
Prison officials say the canines save on manpower and are more reliable during power outages than electrical security systems and more effective in the fog and the dark than the humans posted in the lookout towers. They also seem to have a powerful deterrent effect.
No one has escaped from the 1,500-inmate medium-security prison since the dogs were brought in. No one has even tried to get past the fences since the early 1990s.
âThe average offender has no problem engaging in a fight with a correctional officer â theyâre used to fighting with humans. But they donât want to mess with a 100-pound rottweiler who has an attitude and who wants to bite the snot out of them for climbing that fence,â said James Closson, a dog trainer in Boise who arranged the donation of some overaggressive dogs to the prison when the sentry program was new.
Over the years, the dogs have bitten handlers, badly mauling a staff member who in the late 1990s entered the kennel without first making sure all the animals were caged. But no inmates locked up at the prison have been bitten, authorities said.
Dogs were once widely used as sentries in the U.S., particularly after World War II, when canines that had been trained by the military were pressed into civilian service. The practice fell out of favor during the civil rights era as police dogs became associated with racist and repressive law enforcement, said Chris Byrne, owner of Stonehill Kennel and Unlimited Dogs, which provides police dogs to the New York Police Department.
Many prisons continue to use dogs for tracking escaped inmates or sniffing out drugs or other contraband, but not as sentries.
âMost facilities have gone to electronic motion detectors or electrical fencing,â said Jay Christensen, deputy warden of security at the Idaho prison. âBut technology can be circumvented. We had a guy at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution get through a motion detector system a few years backâ by moving so slowly that the sensors didnât pick him up.
âThe dogs are much more dependable and the cost is really low,â he said.
In the early 1990s, three inmates at ISCI tried to escape through the one portion of the fence that wasnât guarded by dogs at the time, Christensen said. The guards in the towers could not see them in the dark, but a dog along a nearby section of the fence sounded the alarm by barking.
The ruckus alerted the nearest tower guard, who fired a shot, hitting one of the convicts, Christensen said. The two others were so frightened by the shot that they gave up, and all three were recaptured, he said.
Officials promptly reconfigured the fence so that there were no sections without dogs, he said.
Angus Love, executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, an inmate advocacy group, said he knows of no complaints about the use of prison sentry dogs.
The dogs work two days on and one day off. On their days off, they are returned to their kennel, where their handlers groom them, play ball and tug-of-war with them, or, in the summer, let them splash in a plastic kiddie pool. The handlers have to be alert at all times because of the danger of getting bitten.
Adam Goldfarb, a spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States, said that the Idaho prison appeared to be handling the dogs well, but that he had mixed feelings about the program.
âWe love the thoughts behind it, of taking dogs who would otherwise be euthanized and finding a way to work with them and give them a kind of purpose to their life,â Goldfarb said. âBut weâd have concerns of the dogs being harmed in some way, if an inmate could throw or poke something through the fence that could harm the dogs. And Iâm not sure what kind of life that is for a dog. When people have dogs in their home, we would certainly discourage them from leaving the dog on a chain or in a pen for most of their life.â
The program, with 36 dogs in all, costs less than $ 100,000 a year, including food and veterinary care, Christensen said. He worries that one day, officials will come up with the $ 300,000 or more he estimated it would cost to replace the animals with electric fences or motion detectors.
âIs this K-9 program going to survive for ever and ever? Probably not,â he said. âBut I tell you, I do not want to be the deputy warden of security who takes these dogs off the perimeter. I consider that a risk to the public.â
Search Dog Foundation gets $ 1 million, CA January 27, 2009
Source: Ventura County Star, By Gareth W. Dodd, Correspondent, Monday, January 26, 2009
The Ojai-based National Disaster Search Dog Foundation has received a $ 1 million grant from the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation to help create a national training center on 125 acres of land in Santa Paula.
The grant comes on the heels of a $ 1.6 million award from the Frank McGrath Jr. family, which was used to make a down payment on the ranch site in Santa Paula. During the next three years, the Search Dog Foundation hopes to raise $ 14 million more to take ownership of the land, build a training center and establish an endowment fund for its maintenance.
The foundation pairs dogs â usually Labradors, golden retrievers or border collies found in animal shelters â with firefighters to create skilled search teams. The dogs are trained to find victims during natural or man-made disasters.
The groupâs âproven ability to deliver highly trained teams at no cost to fire departments is especially important as emergency service budgets are cut and resources are strained to their limit,â Lauren Dachs, the Bechtel foundation president, wrote in a statement. âThe economic crisis in our country challenges grant makers to fund projects which will have an important, lasting impact on society â and the creation of a national training center will help achieve that goal.â
Capt. Matt Garrett of the Ventura County Fire Department said establishing a training center in Santa Paula would save him time and money. He travels once a month to the groupâs current training center in Gilroy, where he puts Gabby, a 2-year-old black Labrador, through her paces for two days.
The team also trains twice a week at several facilities in Southern California, said Garrett, who bears the expense of training, housing and feeding Gabby.
âItâs amazing what these dogs will do with positive reinforcement,â said Garrett. âSheâs a working dog; she has a job. Sheâs not a pet that lounges around the house.â
The dogs are trained to find a scent and locate a victim under piles of rubble, no matter how long it takes.
âTheir job is to make sure no one is left behind,â said Garrett.
âThey find a scent, trace it to its source and get rewarded with love and play. Their payday is play day. Weâve been together since August, and sheâs progressing well.â
Once used primarily for wilderness or avalanche searches, the dogs became more popular following their use to sniff out victims of the 1996 Oklahoma City bombing. The need took on a new urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The search teams have been deployed to Hurricane Katrina, La Conchita mudslide and the Chatsworth Metrolink train crash last year, said Janet Reineck, the groupâs development director.
Reineck said the United States needs more than 400 canine-firefighter search teams to handle all the disasters. Currently it has about 200, and teams are retiring every year.
The group has trained 85 search teams since its founding in 1996, including 61 that are currently active. It receives no government funding, relying on support from individuals, private foundations and companies, officials said.
Rescue dog will sniff out cancer, England January 4, 2009
Source: BBC News, Jan 4, 2009
A rescue dog from Oxfordshire is being trained by a medical charity to sniff out cancer.
Spaniel puppy Casper had been living in the Blue Cross animal centre in Burford for months but was continually passed over because of his boundless energy.
This made him perfect for scientists looking for dogs for their project.
Now Casper is being taught to recognise the scent of cancer from urine samples. It is hoped this will lead to earlier diagnosis and save more lives.
Claire Guest chief executive of Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs said: âChances are lower for dogs like Casper to find a home as he has a very high drive and is incredibly energetic and bouncy.
âIt can make them disruptive in the home but it makes Casper perfect for us.â
Itâs like trying to recognise a certain ingredient in a soup Claire Guest, Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs |
Dogs have already been known to be able to smell cancer cells.
A north Oxfordshire man credited his pet Rottweiller with sniffing out his skin cancer in November last year. But the the scenting skills of cancer dogs are even more delicate.
The dogs are trained to recognise cancer cells in urine samples but the researchers say the training regime is very complicated.
Ms Guest said âItâs like trying to recognise a certain ingredient in a soup. There are lots and lots of soups, some have them have it, some of them donât.â
It is estimated that Casper will be a working cancer dog within four months.
Beamish the Rottweiler was credited with sniffing out his owners skin cancer |
The ultimate aim of the project is to introduce a medical test where people can go into a doctor and get a full medical from a urine test and a breath test.
The Cancer Dogs charity said there is already an electronic nose device that aims to identify cancer from urine samples but they are way behind the dogs âsimply because their sense of smell is so advancedâ and they are making âgreat leaps all the timeâ, Ms Guest said.
Researchers said they want to see how the dogs work and upgrade their technology accordingly so people can have a simple non-invasive test to give them the earliest possible warning if they have cancer.
Ms Guest added: âWe actually want to reduce some fear of cancer diagnosis -you hear so many people say â âif I had it I wouldnât want to knowâ, because they think their chance of survival is low but now with great advances in medication early diagnosis is the key to survival and cancer doesnât have to turn into a terrible tragedy.
âItâs the people who donât know theyâve got it who donât stand a chance â thatâs the tragedy.â
Diabetic says special dog has been a lifesaver November 23, 2008
Source: mercury News, by Lunda Goldston, Nov 21, 2008
Devin Grayson no longer has to wonder alone when her blood sugar gets low. Her service dog, Cody, looks out for that.
Devin had struggled with diabetes for more than 20 years and was starting to live a pretty isolated life when she heard about Dogs for Diabetics in Concord, a non-profit organization that provides dogs at no cost to insulin-dependent diabetics in California.
Cody is so good at his job âheâs saved my life at least three times a month and saves me from being really ill about three times a week,â said Devin, who lives in San Leandro and takes Cody to work with her in San Francisco.
With her type of diabetes, Devin had âstarted to lose the ability to sense anything was wrong. You start to get confused, and itâs an acute condition that can result in a coma in 20 minutes.â
No more. Cody is on the job.
Cody and other D4D dogs (Dogs for Diabetics) are trained to respond to the smell of the chemicals released by the body at the onset of hypoglycemia. Researchers are still trying to determine exactly what the canines notice when a person experiences a low blood sugar.
People who have insulin-dependent diabetes use a glucose scan to check their blood sugar, âbut youâre not checking every single minute or every hour, and you have to go to bed at some point,â Devin said.
Cody sleeps beside her bed. If something starts to go wrong, the 3-year-old dog jumps up on Devinâs bed and will try to make eye contact with her. If he canât get her attention, he will put his nose on her hand â itâs called âa bumpâ â and then nudge the hand for her to âopen it up and give him the treat.âThe training is reward-based, and Cody loves getting those treats. If the situation calls for it and Devin gets really ill, Cody is trained to go get another person and bring them back to her.
âI call it the Lassie effect,â Devin said. âHeâll usually go find my boyfriend or my boss and literally lead them back to me.â
The golden retriever has given Devin the confidence to go anywhere she wants, especially since Cody, as a service dog, gets to go everywhere with her âwearing his cute little vest.â
When she takes off Codyâs vest, âheâs a young active golden retriever,â she said. He loves to play with Devin and catch a ball, but heâs never really off duty.
For more information about Dogs for Diabetics, go to www.dogs4diabetics.com. The private, nonprofit organization relies on donations and grants to survive. It has placed 70 dogs in the past four years and has 49 more in training.
Cody could be in line for another honor: official Milk-Bone spokesdog. From thousands of entries, Cody and Devin are among the 100 finalists. The title will come with a $ 100,000 contract to serve as spokesdog for a year, and the dogâs photo will be featured on a Milk-Bone box.
Another finalist is Warren Skrifvars of Hayward and his German shorthair, Stonewall, named after Gen. Thomas J. âStonewallâ Jackson because Warren is a Civil War buff.
âMy wife entered us in the contest and didnât tell us about it,â said Warren, who is a firefighter with Cal Fire. âThen I get this big âofficialâ envelope in the mail.â
Warrenâs wife, Laurie, had wanted a golden retriever but has taken to the 75-pound Stonewall, who turned 4 in October.
Warren said he woke up early one morning and âI heard this running around in my living room. I open up the door and my wife is chasing the dog, saying âIâm going to get you.â â
Laurie and Stonewall are getting along quite well, although Warren knows his hunting buddies are going to crack up over the chasing story.
âHeâs a great dog,â Warren said. âMy wife knows everyone in the neighborhood because of that guy.â
Good luck to Devin, Cody, Warren and Stonewall. The winner will be announced in January.
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