Jamey Johnson, 48, was killed in a car accident, but his dog lived. She was seen running into the surrounding forest.
Lena is a German Shepherd mix. The Sheriff’s office asked for the public’s help in finding her.
On Sunday, a forest service employee found Lena in the woods near the accident. She was unharmed and healthy.
She was brought to the Sheriff’s office and then reunited with Jamey’s family. 
Source: Mercury News
I think we are all in need of feel-good stories lately, given the state of the world.
Last winter, a fire chief from Canada shared a video on Facebook of several firefighters and RCMP rescuing someone’s pet dog.
The dog had wandered onto the ice and fell in while he was walking off leash.
They brought the dog to shore by securing one of the firefighters with rope and he crawled onto the ice. The firefighter also fell through, but because of the rope he was able to grab the dog so they could both be pulled to shore.
This serves as a reminder to everyone who lives near water that freezes that ice can be dangerous. Don’t let your dogs on the ice!
From the Facebook post:
“STAY OFF THE ICE!!
Yesterday afternoon, our firefighters were busy at the creek, rescuing someone’s pet. They allowed their dog to run off leash when it ventured our onto the ice and fell through. Quick action calling the fire department helped save their pet. Please keep your pets and children away from the Creek, the ice is thin and it is NOT safe.”
https://www.facebook.com/denis.pilon.391/videos/1966490713610909/
Cora is a special dog. She is in training to be a therapy dog. As a result, she gets to travel a lot.
“She is very empathetic and in tune with my needs, yet she is so incredibly independent,” said owner Madison Palm.
Cora did something amazing while they were flying from Idaho to Alaska. On a layover in Seattle, Cora left her owners side to visit a man sitting by himself.
“Before I could even call her she was already at his feet being loved on. I asked him if she was bothering him,” Palm said. “And with a somber face and watery eyes he said, ‘No, no. I lost my dog last night.'”
Cora stayed with him for a while. He scratched her, petted her, and whispered to her.
“I truly think she has a gift. She knows who is hurting and she knows who needs her,” she said. “Once he told me that his dog passed away I looked at Cora and I thought to myself, ‘You are so amazing. How did I get so lucky?'”
In some ways it was Cora who was lucky. A co-worker told Palm about a corgi that was being given away because they wouldn’t stop eating the family’s chickens.
Palm left work to meet the dog. When she arrived, it was clear the dog was underfed and had lived outside her whole life. She’d had several litters of puppies.
“Cora had never been to a vet,” she said. “She didn’t have a cute collar or a shiny tag with her name on it. The little food that she received was her owners’ scraps, which were thrown into the yard for her.”
Palm already had one dog, and her landlord wouldn’t allow two. So she moved.
When she was taken to the vet, it was discovered that Cora’s ears were infected and her teeth were rotting. The water was black after her first bath.
“She just wants to be loved on and held all day long,” said Palm. “She is always right next to me and always keeps a close eye if she’s not. If I’m not available she’ll pick the next closest lap to sit in.”
The new home was a step up for everybody. It allowed for two dogs, and had a yard.
It had been seven months after Cora’s adoption when she comforted the man at the airport. Clearly Cora’s ability to forgive and love is greater than any of the trauma she experienced.
“I am blown away by her on a daily basis. Who knew a dog who was unloved for 7 1/2 years could have so much love to give?” Palm said. “I can’t change her past but I’m doing everything I can to make up for it.”
Source: Today
A man who had just hours to live had one wish: to see his dog one last time.
Peter Robson was suffering from fibrosis in his lungs. He didn’t have long. The hospital asked his family if there was anything that he wanted from home to comfort him. They asked if they could bring his beloved border collie, Shep.
They assumed the request would be denied. Animals of any kind aren’t usually allowed in a hospital.
Surprisingly, the hospital said yes.
Shep had been by Peter’s side ever since his wife died. “He really thought he would never see Shep again,” Robson’s granddaughter Ashley Stevens said. “It was an amazing moment to see the two of them together, and Shep was so excited to see him.”
Later, they shared the moment on Facebook. “Still in shock that the wish was granted and they went above and beyond today and made a dying man very happy.”
https://www.facebook.com/ashley.stevens.995/videos/10156367805036392/
Source: People
Austin Forman has a guardian angel, and her name is Angel. She is a golden retriever, and she saved Austin’s life.
One Saturday, Austin was attacked in his backyard by a Cougar. Angel, only 18 months old, threw herself between the cougar and Austin.
Sherri Forman, Austin’s mother, said her son was outside in the evening with Angel, gathering firewood. She explained Angel generally runs and plays around the yard, but that day she was acting differently.
“[Austin] had come in at one point to tell me how cute Angel was being because she was sticking pretty close to him in the yard, which was unusual for her,” Forman said.
In hindsight she realized the dog was protecting her son.
When the cougar attacked, Angel protected the boy.
“She intercepted the cougar,” Forman said. “Austin came into the house very upset, and I had to get him to calm down so I could understand what he was saying. Finally he said ‘there’s a cougar eating Angel.'”
The big cat and Angel fought underneath the porch while Austin’s mother called 911. An officer was in the area and was able to kill the cougar.
When they pulled the cougar’s body off of Angel, the dog sucked in a deep breath. Angel walked over to Austin to make sure he was okay, and sat.
“She had some pretty nasty injuries across the front of her head and neck” said veterinarian Jack Anvik. “If there had been enough time for the two of them together the cougar would have probably killed the dog,” he said.
Austin said “I feel very good now that we know she’s alive and the fact that she saved me and survived is amazing.”
Austin was so grateful the he went with his grandpa and bought a huge steak for angel.
Source: CNN
A Chinese family has given up their dog. Why? Because it was actually a bear.
The family live in the Yunnan province of China. They adopted a Tibetan mastiff puppy while on vacation.
What they really adopted, however, was an endangered Asiatic black bear cub. The bear has been taken into care by an animal sanctuary.
The owner, Su Mou, told the China News Service that they began to get suspicious when their “dog” did not stop growing. He was devouring an entire box of fruit and two buckets of noodles every day. He grew to be 3 feet tall and 250 pounds before they called anyone.
Black bears can stand on their back legs, and they do so much more often than dogs. Combined with the increasingly strange appearance of “Little Black,” they realized their mistake. “The more he grew, the more like a bear he looked,” said their neighbor.
Su admitted she was scared of her pet, but she was also afraid of what would happen if they just released the bear back into the wild. They reached out to local authorities for help.
The bear is now being looked after at the Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Center.
Asiatic black bears are a protected species, and considered “vulnerable” by the IUCN. In China, the bears are hunted for their body parts, which are used in traditional medicine.
This isn’t the first time someone has mistaken a bear for a puppy. In 2015, a farmer rescued an abandoned “dog” from the woods. After realizing his mistake, he still kept the bear. Eventually, local authorities found out and the bear was taken into the care of environmental officials.
Source: National Geographic
A man walks onto a stage. He claims he can make a dog speak. The audience and judges are incredulous (wouldn’t you be?). At first the dog does not cooperate.
But then the dog opens it’s mouth and speaks. Don’t believe me? Watch the video below.
The act is by ventriloquist/comedian Marc Metral and his dog Wendy. Marc Metral has been performing as a ventriloquist since 1980, but his appearance on Britain’s Got Talent brought him before a bigger audience than ever before.
For those who are worried, the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) checked out the act close up and found that Wendy was happy and well taken care of.
Aurora, a 3 year old, went missing after wandering away from her family property on a Friday night. Luckily for her, the family dog, a 17 year old Australian cattle dog named Max, followed her out into the wilderness.
Saturday morning, 100 police officers, emergency workers, and members of the public were searching for her.
Aurora’s grandmother Leisa heard her yelling, but she found Max first. Max, although deaf and mostly blind, led Leisa to Aurora.
One of the rescuers Ian Phipps said it was a wonderful outcome. “With the weather last night it’s quite lucky she is well because it was … cold and raining,” he told ABC radio.
“She’s a very hardy young lass to survive that without any ill effects and everyone, all the volunteers, are extremely happy.”
Source: ABC
Have you ever wondered how they pick puppies that become guide dogs?
Me too. The video below shows part of the process a puppy goes through in order to become a guide dog.
This is how the National Guide Dog Center for the Blind (located in the U.K.) select their dogs.
They begin at Puppy Assessment with a PPA. PPA stands for Puppy Profile Assessment, and consists of 8 tests. Every test is scored on a scale of 1-7, 4 being ideal.
1. Follow
The first test measures if the puppy will follow and stay with a person, an important trait if they are to lead someone around.
2. Retrieve
The next test measures if they are able to retrieve a toy without getting too distracted. This makes sure they can be obedient and that they can focus.
3. Restraint
Next, they will hold the puppy and not allow it to move. This tests patience and obedience.
4. Noise
A guide dog needs to be able to hear everything around them, but not react strongly to every noise. This test makes sure that they can hear but not get scared by new noises.
5. Stroking
The most relaxing of the tests. The dog is pet to ensure they can accept human contact.
6. Squirrel
The puppy is called while a furry rag is dragged across the floor. They should notice the “squirrel” without chasing it down and still going to the person who called.
7. Tunnel
A guide dog should be able to enter unfamiliar or scary places in order to help a blind person through the world. This would include subways, so a puppy is led to a tunnel to see if they will go through it.
8. Ramp
This is the same as above, except with a ramp.
If a puppy successfully passes all of these tests, they will begin the long process of training to become a guide dog.
It’s an age old question: are dogs smarter than cats? Dogs can be trained to do a variety of tricks very well, cats are much harder to train. Yet cats are extremely skilled natural hunters with unlimited curiosity.
A neuroscientist, a dog cognition expert, and a cat behavior researcher got together to answer the question. When brain cells are counted, one animal clearly has more. Still, recent studies challenge our ideas of what it means to be smart.
Suzana Herculano-Houzel (the neuroscientist) studies animal intelligence by looking at their brains. She found that dogs have twice as many brain cells as cats.
“Then the logical implication is that, yes, dogs are much more capable than cats,” Herculano-Houzel said.
Brian Hare, the dog cognition expert, is hesitant to compare intelligence across species. Hare says intelligence in animals is usually put in human terms.
“Asking which species is smarter is like asking if a hammer is a better tool than a screwdriver,” Hare says. “Each tool is designed for a specific problem, so of course it depends on the problem we are trying to solve.”
Every animal has been shaped by evolution to solve the most important problems they face in the wild. So judging cats against dogs is problematic, since they come from different environments with different challenges.
So how should we study animal intelligence?
“A lot of what we already know about intelligence in other species falls on a gradient or a spectrum,” said Kristyn Vitale Shreve, a cat cognition and behavior research fellow at Oregon State University.
Consider hunting skills, for example. Cats are one of the most skilled, dogs are in the middle, and humans around the bottom. But if we test math, humans are on top and both animals are at the bottom.
One of the problems is that we don’t have the right methods to investigate dogs and cats side by side to get meaningful data. So, at least right now, it’s unfair to make too many comparisons.
“There’s this perception of cats being untrainable or maybe hard to work with,” Vitale Shreve said. “Cats display a lot of individual variation and have distinct personalities, which make it hard for researchers to understand them.”
Basically, there is no definitive answer on which is more intelligent, and it really depends on what you need a dog or a cat for.
The important thing is that we all love our pets as much as we can.
Source: PBS News Hour