Bat and Ball Dog Ejected From Game By Umpire

A quick potty break got Master Yogi Berra, pictured, thrown off his baseball team’s field during a game last Tuesday. (Photo Courtesy of the Greensboro Grasshoppers)

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Greensboro Grasshoppers weren’t the only ones that took a major hit during last Tuesday’s 6-9 loss to the Asheville Tourists.

The baseball team’s mascot, Master Yogi Berra, a bat and ball fetching dog, was ejected off the field during the fourth inning. The male mutt was reportedly shamed after he relieved himself on the field.

“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” Donald Moore, the Grasshopers’ general manager, told the Greensboro News and Record. Trouble started when Yogi was fetching a ball launched to center field in between innings. When he was running back to homeplate, he stopped and squatted. Homeplate umpire Jason Hutchings reportedly did not look lightly on the incident.

Yogi is thought to be the first dog ever ejected from a professional game. He made his first appearance at NewBridge Bank Park in June 2008, at the ripe age of 8-weeks-old. An active interest in baseball apparently runs in the family — Yogi is the little brother of Miss Babe Ruth, another Grasshoppers’ canine mascot.

Though Yogi has been scorned by some, Moore expressed sympathy for the embarrassed dog.

“Yogi’s had a tough start to his season and I hope this doesn’t get him down,” said Moore, who also owns the team. “He clearly couldn’t control himself out there. He’s such a competitor and he wanted to do his duties as he’s been trained.

“We all hope Yogi feels better soon and he returns to us ready to entertain our fans. You know, he’s volunteering his time out there, so I hope he doesn’t get fined too much … Let’s hope this is an isolated incident and Yogi can learn from this experience.”

Moore also jokingly said that Yogi had been feeling under the weather last week, which could have accounted for his momentary lapse of bladder control. Yogi is now being listed as day-to-day on the team’s injury report.

Source:   ZooToo/Greensboro News and Record and The Wall Street Journal

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Elephant Orphanage

(CBS)  This story originally aired on April 9, 2006.

Bob Simon pays a visit to a very special orphanage in Africa. It’s not for kids, but for baby elephants whose mothers were killed by poachers.  Video: | Share/Embed

Stories about an orphanage are bound to yank at your heartstrings. The one 60 Minutes is going to tell you about is no exception — even though many alumni of the orphanage have gone on to lead full and happy lives. 

All these orphans are from East Africa. They were all abandoned when they were very young, less than two years old — and they’re all elephants. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, this orphanage is in Kenya, near Nairobi. It has been around almost 30 years. It’s a large place. It would have to be.

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It has just about everything you would want in an orphanage: dormitories — each orphan has a private room. There is a communal bath, a playground, and a dining area. There are as many as 14 orphans here at any one time and they stay a number of years before going back to the bush. The regimen at the orphanage is anything but Dickensian. Unlike Oliver Twist, when one of these orphans asks for more, that’s what he gets. More.

 

The principal, headmistress, head nurse and CEO of the orphanage is Dame Daphne Sheldrick. She founded the place and has been working with elephants for 50 years.

What is the most extraordinary thing she has learned about elephants? 

“Their tremendous capacity for caring is I think perhaps the most amazing thing about them,” says Dame Daphne. “Even at a very, very young age. Their sort of forgiveness, unselfishness — they have all the best attributes of us humans and not very many of the bad.”

Just about the best people you’ve ever met are the gentle men who work here. 

They are called keepers, and they have extraordinary jobs. There is one keeper per elephant; he spends 24 hours a day with his charge, seven days a week. A keeper feeds his elephant every three hours, day and night, just like mom would. 

He keeps his elephant warm, not like mom would, but with a blanket. When it’s sleep time, the keeper beds down right next to his elephant. If he leaves, if ever so briefly, the baby wakes up and broadcasts his displeasure. The keepers are rotated now and then so that no elephant gets too terribly attached to any one of them.

At dawn, the elephants are taken from their dorms out to the bush. They hang out for a while and even play some games — soccer is a favorite. The elephants decide when it’s halftime by trotting off the field for a break.

The days are pretty much the same here. But on Fridays, the orphanage becomes a spa, when the keepers give the elephants a coconut oil massage. 

“We can’t do exactly what the mother can do, but we do something close to that,” explains Edwin Lusichi, the head of the keepers.

Meeting an elephant for the first time requires a proper introduction, as Simon learned when he visited the orphanage. There is a protocol to meeting an elephant. He will offer up his trunk, and he expects you to blow in it. That way, he will remember your scent forever. You will never be strangers again. 

The orphanage gets distress calls from all over Kenya — and from all over East Africa — that a baby elephant is on his own, often because his mother has been killed by a poacher. It is then a matter of great urgency: An orphaned elephant can only survive a few days without his mother. 

The baby elephant is loaded onto a plane and flown back to Daphne Sheldrick’s orphanage outside Nairobi, where he’ll stay until he’s strong enough to go back into the bush. 

Dame Daphne, who was just named a dame by Queen Elizabeth II, has been running the orphanage for almost 30 years. She was born and raised in Kenya and married David Sheldrick, Africa’s leading crusader against poaching.

When he died in 1977, she founded the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Back then, there were about 100,000 elephants in Kenya. Now there are about a quarter as many — largely due to poachers. Then, as now, the ivory from their tusks is a very valuable commodity. From the beginning, Daphne saw her mission as saving as many elephants as possible.

“It’s really lovely to see them now and then to think back how they were when they came in. It makes it all so worthwhile,” says Daphne.

But her mission hasn’t always gone smoothly. Twelve years ago, she was badly injured by a wild elephant and couldn’t walk for 15 months.

Asked if during those 15 months she ever thought that maybe she should do something else, Dame Daphne says, “Oh, no. I mean, I still had all the elephants. Never occurred to me at all. You know, you can’t just walk away from it.”

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Tinkerbell the Flying Chihuahua

It’s a story right out of “The Wizard of Oz” except the setting is Michigan, not Kansas. Bystanders at a Detroit-area flea market were stunned this weekend when high winds from a passing storm picked up a Dorothy and Lavern Utley’s chihuahua and blew it out of sight.

Tinkerbell was found two days later, nearly a mile away.

(Mark Hicks/The Detroit News)

Bystanders at a Detroit-area flea market were stunned this weekend when high winds from a passing storm picked up a couple’s Chihuahua puppy and blew her out of sight.

After two days of searching and consulting with a pet psychic, Tinkerbell was found almost a mile away in the woods dirty but unharmed. Her owner’s name? Dorothy. “We were shocked when we found her,” Dorothy Utley, 72, told The Detroit News. “You don’t know how happy we were. We love her so much.” Joe Goldberg, manager of the Dixieland Flea Market in Waterford Township, where the Utleys are regular vendors, said he saw Tinkerbell, weighing about 6 pounds, blow away when he went outside to survey the damage wrought by the hurricane-force wind gusts.

Can Dogs Smell Cancer?

ScienceDaily (Jan. 6, 2006) — In a society where lung and breast cancers are leading causes of cancer death worldwide, early detection of the disease is highly desirable. In a new scientific study, researchers present astonishing new evidence that man’s best friend, the dog, may have the capacity to contribute to the process of early cancer detection.

In this study which will be published in the March 2006 issue of the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies published by SAGE Publications, researchers reveal scientific evidence that a dog’s extraordinary scenting ability can distinguish people with both early and late stage lung and breast cancers from healthy controls. The research, which was performed in California, was recently documented by the BBC in the United Kingdom, and is soon to be aired in the United States.

Other scientific studies have documented the abilities of dogs to identify chemicals that are diluted as low as parts per trillion. The clinical implications of canine olfaction first came to light in the case report of a dog alerting its owner to the presence of a melanoma by constantly sniffing the skin lesion. Subsequent studies published in major medical journals confirmed the ability of trained dogs to detect both melanomas and bladder cancers. The new study, led by Michael McCulloch of the Pine Street Foundation in San Anselmo, California, and Tadeusz Jezierski of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding, is the first to test whether dogs can detect cancers only by sniffing the exhaled breath of cancer patients.

In this study, five household dogs were trained within a short 3-week period to detect lung or breast cancer by sniffing the breath of cancer participants. The trial itself consisted of 86 cancer patients (55 with lung cancer and 31 with breast cancer) and a control sample of 83 healthy patients. All cancer patients had recently been diagnosed with cancer through biopsy-confirmed conventional methods such as a mammogram, or CAT scan and had not yet undergone any chemotherapy treatment. During the study, the dogs were presented with breath samples from the cancer patients and the controls, captured in a special tube. Dogs were trained to give a positive identification of a cancer patient by sitting or lying down directly in front of a test station containing a cancer patient sample, while ignoring control samples. Standard, humane methods of dog training employing food rewards and a clicker, as well as assessment of the dog’s behavior by observers blinded to the identity of the cancer patient and control samples, were used in the experiment.

The results of the study showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers. Moreover, the study also confirmed that the trained dogs could even detect the early stages of lung cancer, as well as early breast cancer. The researchers concluded that breath analysis has the potential to provide a substantial reduction in the uncertainty currently seen in cancer diagnosis, once further work has been carried out to standardize and expand this methodology.

This study was supported by the MACH Foundation (Fairfax, CA), Guide Dogs for the Blind (San Rafael, CA) and Frank and Carol Rosemayr (Kentfield, CA).

Adapted from materials provided by SAGE Publications, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Posted:  Just One More Pet – 04.27.09

Priceless…

The look on this dog’s face is priceless…

I’m not smellin’ those!

Mardi Paws Event – This Weekend

Mardi Paws – Animal Rescue Event

Sunday April 25th – Southern California

Casino Night & Silent Auction

at the Bell Tower Community Center

22232 El Paseo in Rancho Santa Margarita

7:30pm – 10:30pm

http://www.greatpets.org  –  RSVP at 949.348.8057

~~Raffle Tickets Available at Website~~

 

Doomed Dogs Get On The Rescue Wagon to Other Shelters

Thousands of death-row dogs are getting reprieves every week, plucked from crowded, high-kill shelters and transported — often hundreds of miles — to places where there are open cages in shelters and open hearts in the community.

Shelter-animal relocations, known as “transfers,” have been quietly going on for years on a fairly small scale. But the numbers are escalating as growing legions of devoted rescuers organize ever-larger convoys; high-kill shelters initiate partnerships with faraway shelters that have space to accept out-of-luck animals; and large pet-advocacy groups develop strategies to increase the number of pets that are moved and saved every month.

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“It’s a growing and increasingly important area in the animal protection field,” says Cory Smith of the Humane Society of the United States, which has developed guidelines to help transporters.

Road to a second chance

PetSmart Charities’ Rescue Waggin’ is the volume leader in moving pets from shelters where there’s no chance they’ll be adopted to shelters where they’re almost certain to get new homes quickly.

Its four transport trucks carry dogs and puppies from shelters mostly in the Midwest and South (92,000 animals are euthanized annually in Louisiana shelters alone, Smith says) to shelters primarily in the North and Northeast, where pet owners have long sterilized their pets and overpopulation has largely been brought under control.

In four years, Rescue Waggin’ has transported more than 25,000 dogs for placement in new homes; officials expect to cover 400,000 miles this year and move 8,000 to 10,000 dogs and puppies. “They’re generally adopted within three days of reaching the receiving shelter,” says Kimberly Noetzel of PetSmart Charities.

In Los Angeles, Pup My Ride has, in less than two years, saved more than 1,000 small dogs that were “red-tagged,” or scheduled to be put down. Animal lovers looked across state lines and took advantage of a supply-and-demand reality.

“There is a big surplus of small dogs in L.A.,” says Elizabeth Oreck of Best Friends Animal Society, which runs the volunteer transport program. “They’re killing them by the thousands. But not very far away, there are communities where shelters have waiting lists for small dogs of every age, color, breed and mix.”

So every 10 to 14 days, 20 to 40 lucky dogs that weigh 30 pounds or less are driven to shelters in Arizona or Utah that have a demand for small dogs. “They are adopted in a matter of days,” Oreck says.

On the opposite coast, Mitchell County Animal Rescue in North Carolina and the Potter League for Animals in Middletown, R.I., formed a partnership in 2004 similar to many that are now cropping up.

The Rhode Island shelter, which often has a waiting list of up to 75 for puppies and small dogs, has received 502 dogs and puppies from the overcrowded shelter nearly 900 miles away. Because of the program, says Potter League’s Christie Smith, the community can “get great puppies here” rather than “fueling puppy mills” by buying them at pet stores.

Still, though transfers are saving some of the estimated 4 million animals euthanized in shelters every year, they’re not without controversy. Some people worry that high-kill communities have less motivation to consider spay/neuter programs if pets are exported and the specter of an 85% kill rate no longer hovers. They also worry that the receiving shelters, in their zeal to help, may lessen adoption chances for pets from their own communities.

Strict parameters necessary

“Transfers aren’t a be-all-end-all,” Smith acknowledges. They’re a reasonable adjunct to other programs such as sterilization, she says, adding that many experts believe such initiatives aren’t undermined by exporting unwanted pets if the “messaging to the community” is done properly. Also, she says, officials at both ends must establish strict parameters.

Transfer proponents say it’s unfair to make animals suffer simply because some areas haven’t fully addressed overpopulation. “If someone is drowning, you don’t just stand there and criticize their inability to swim,” says JoAnne Yohannan of North Shore Animal League America in Port Washington, N.Y., a pet-transfer pioneer that began receiving animals in the 1990s through partnerships with high-kill groups, most of them in the South. “There are animals that are dying, and there are families here who want them.”

North Shore will receive about 7,500 dogs and puppies this year from other states.

By Sharon L. Peters, Special for USA TODAY

The North Shore Animal League America van sits at the Indianapolis Animal Care & Control during a Tour For Life (TFL) adoption event.

North Shore, the no-kill shelter in Port Washington, N.Y., helps hundreds of pets get new homes every spring with its one-month TFL.

Two mobile units have visited 23 cities from Redding, Calif., to Parma, Ohio, in the past four weeks during a 25-stop, long-haul tour that wraps up Saturday.

No animals are transported from one state to another. Instead, huge, festive local pet adoption events are organized around the arrival of the hard-to-miss units that “carry the message of adoption,” says North Shore’s Joanne Yohannan.

The TFL program was launched in 2001 with four shelters and 50 adoptions. It has evolved to two vehicles that ply two different routes during March and April, attracting thousands at some stops.

In San Antonio this month, 21 rescue groups converged for TFL day and 70 pets were adopted, most of them with special needs, Yohannan says. In Nashville, six groups found homes for 145 animals, and organizers there so cherish TFL’s annual visits that they presented the unit driver a guitar autographed by country star George Strait.

When the two $200,000 units that allow pets to be showcased in a walk-though environment return to New York, they will have covered more than 11,000 miles and incurred more than $16,000 in expenses (covered by sponsor Purina). About 800 shelter pets will have gone to new homes.

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Shelters all over the country, but especially in states with high foreclosures and high unemployment, are bursting at the seams.  So if you have the room in your home and the love in your heart… adopt just one more pet and save a life.

Do I Go Home Today?
by Sandi Thompson

My family brought me home
cradled in their arms.
They cuddled me and smiled at me,
and said I was full of charm.

They played with me and laughed with me.
They showered me with toys.
I sure do love my family,
especially the girls and boys.

The children loved to feed me,
they gave me special treats.
They even let me sleep with them — 
all snuggled in the sheets.

I used to go for walks,
often several times a day.
They even fought to hold the leash, 
I’m very proud to say.

They used to laugh and praise me,
when I played with that old shoe.
But I didn’t know the difference
between the old ones and the new.

The kids and I would grab a rag,
for hours we would tug.
So I thought I did the right thing
when I chewed the bedroom rug.

They said that I was out of control,
and would have to live outside.
This I did not understand,
although I tried and tried.

The walks stopped, one by one;
they said they hadn’t time.
I wish that I could change things,
I wish I knew my crime.

My life became so lonely,
in the backyard on a chain.
I barked and barked all day long,
to keep from going insane.

So they brought me to the shelter,
but were embarrassed to say why.
They said I caused an allergy,
and then kissed me goodbye.

If I’d only had some classes,
as a little pup.
I wouldn’t have been so hard to handle
when I was all grown up.

“You only have one day left,”
I heard the worker say.
Does this mean a second chance?
Do I go home today?

New Pet Airline – Airline Just For Pets Takes Off

Two Florida pet owners have started their own pet-only airline after experiencing difficulty traveling with their own pets via major carriers.

According to the American Animal Hospital Association, approximately 76 million cats and dogs travel with their owners each year, but relatively few travel by air. Many airlines allow small pets to travel with their owners, stowed under the seat, but most airlines will only accept one or two pets per flight. Pets that are too big to fit under the seat are relegated to cargo. Recently, several airlines have announced they will no longer accept pets on board their aircraft at all. In addition, airlines that do accept pets as cargo will not accept them when outside temperatures are below 45 degrees or above 85 degrees, or in other words, during the most popular winter holiday or summer vacation months.

A study by the San Francisco SPCA, found that of the two million animals transported in the cargo holds of commercial airliners per year, approximately 5,000 are injured in transit. And according to the Animal, Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS), “virtually every major airline has been cited and fined for repeatedly mishandling animals”.

Starting on July 14th 2009, Pet Airways will initially server New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, but has plans to expand nationwide with pet-friendly check-in lounges across the nation. Pet owners can make reservations online and can track their pet’s progress online.

According to Dan Wiesel, President/CEO of Pet Airways, “Currently, most pets traveling by air are transported in the cargo hold and are handled as baggage. The experience is frightening to the pets, and can cause severe emotional and physical harm, even death. This is not what most pet owners want to subject their pets to, but they have had no other choice, until now. From the moment a pet is dropped off at a Pet Lounge, the pet is always under the care of trained Pet Attendants. Monitored by Pet Attendants, pets will fly in planes that are fully-lit, climate-controlled and have the proper level of fresh air circulation that pets require.”

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Posted:  Just One More Pet

Honda Dog Friendly Element reveal from the Ny Auto Show – Gets Humane Society Approval

Honda’s recent release of its “Dog Friendly” Element concept introduced built-in facilities to aid canine transport. A finalized version of the model is scheduled to debut this fall. But do the added components represent anything more than gimmicks?

 View Accompanying Video

Major components of the new concept include a a cushioned pet bed in the cargo area with an elevated platform; second row and cargo area pet restraint systems and an extendable cargo area load-in ramp. Other components include a 12V DC rear ventilation fan, seat covers, rubber floor mats and a spill-resistant water bowl.

The equipment has been engineered specifically for the Element and the restraint was designed by one of the world’s leading automotive safety systems suppliers. Honda says that the restraint concepts are intended to complement the potential of the vehicle’s existing restraint systems by helping to protect the dog and helping to prevent injuries to other vehicle occupants due to an unrestrained dog impacting them in a collision.

“In-vehicle pet restraints should be part of every dog owner’s safe travel practices,” said Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States. “The expanded availability of manufacturer-based restraints and features can help elevate pet comfort and convenience for owners. Good ventilation and access to water on longer trips should also be primary concerns.”

While many of the components of the “Dog Friendly&trade” Element could be added to any SUV – for example a non-spill bowl – Honda is probably setting the pace for American car manufacturers by fitting restraints specifically designed for dogs.

By Daphne Reid – Pet People’s Place

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Posted:  Just One More Pet

Disneynature’s Earth Opened for Earth Day – Buy a Ticket and Plant a Tree

Disneynature’s Earth opened for Earth Day

The Story of  Polar Bears, Humpbacked Whales, and Elephants