ohmidog!

Concerned that cases of a highly contagious dog flu might be on the rise in Virginia, the Norfolk SPCA has vaccinated its shelter residents and is offering the two-shot vaccine series to local dogs for $45.

The H3N8 influenza virus is fatal to about 5 percent of dogs that catch it, the SPCA said in a news release. Symptoms include persistent sneezing and sniffling, coughing with a yellow discharge, and unusual fatigue.

The SPCA said suspected cases have been reported in Williamsburg and at the Norfolk Animal Care Center, the city’s animal shelter.

“If a dog sneezes and another dog walks by, he can catch it – that’s how contagious it is,” said Michelle Williams, SPCA director of donor and community relations.

All 70 dogs housed at the SPCA’s shelter have been given the vaccine, according to the Virginian-Pilot.

Barbara Hays, manager of the Animal Care Center, told the newspaper that tests haven’t come back yet on a dog in its care that died after being adopted. Although no other dogs have gotten sick, the shelter limited contact with outside dogs for about a week but isn’t vaccinating dogs, she said.

H3N8 is a type A influenza that is suspected to have started at a Florida greyhound track and has spread to 30 states. As of last year, 1,079 cases had been confirmed, Tampa Bay Online recently reported.

Virtually all dogs exposed to the virus become infected, though only about 80 percent will develop symptoms, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

The AVMA recommends that people who work with dogs in shelters, kennels and dog day care centers wash their hands when they arrive, and before and after handing any dogs.

For an AVMA fact sheet about canine influenza, click here.

Nearly 100 dogs, mostly pit bulls, were seized in a raid of a house in East Dublin, Georgia, whose owner is suspected of raising dogs for dogfighting.

The Sheriff’s Office in Laurens County, based on an investigation triggered by information received on a telephone tip line, executed a search warrant at the property — and CNN was there to watch it unfold.

Private investigators with Norred and Associates Inc. worked alongside sheriff’s deputies and volunteers from the Dublin-Laurens County Humane Society. Greg Norred has been donating his firm’s time and expertise and his own money to rescuing dogs for the past two years, helping to save almost 300 dogs in at least 16 raids.

A proposal to limit the use of electric shock collars for dog training is being rewritten and the new version will totally ban use of the devices in Wales.

Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones said more than half the responses received during a period of public comment favored a total ban, according to the BBC.

Jones called for the ban on electric shock collars, mats and leads because of concerns that pets were suffering. Manufacturers have said they were “puzzled and disappointed” by the decision.

In a statement, Jones said those commenting on the proposal included dog trainers, vets, manufacturers of the devices and members of the public.

It’s expected to take about three months for the ban to take effect.

 
It was the sort of scene I can’t walk past: A muttly looking dog, a white-bearded homeless guy and a handmade cardboard sign offering: “Dog Tricks 1$.”

On the sidewalk along Franklin Street — the main drag in Chapel Hill — Mark Williams, after offering me some room on his bench, said he and his dog, Two Beans, have been homeless for about a year. “Work’s kind of slow now” in the construction /handyman/odd jobs field, he explained.

The dog trick — Two Beans knows only one — helps rake in enough money for meals.

I’d gone to Chapel Hill for a meeting of the Board of Advisers of the University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, an esteemed panel on which I still serve, despite having left my most recent newspaper job a year ago, and despite – other than doing some revisions on the book I left the business to write, and writing this website — being unemployed.

Twice a year at UNC, members of the board gather to hear what the school is up to in terms of research, fund-raising and curriculum changes, which are coming pretty fast and furious nowadays as the industry, facing declining profits, continues to try to pull new tricks out of its hat, or in some cases get a whole new hat.

This meeting was a special one because it’s the journalism school’s 100 birthday — a benchmark the university’s basketball program also hit this year. That’s pretty old, but there are older journalism schools, I learned during the festivities, such as the highly respected one at the University of Missouri, which was the nation’s first.

Getting ready to pick up my dog Ace (who I’d dropped off for a bath during the meeting) and leave town, I was walking down Franklin Street. Doing that always triggers memories of my days as a student. Thirty-four years ago, I was getting ready to graduate with my degree in journalism, and I was sending job applications to newspapers across the country. I used the seventy-some rejection letters I got then to wallpaper my room.

It dawned on me that, today, I’m in sort of the same situation – job hunting, getting a few rejections, and much more often getting no response at all. At least in the good old days they sent you a form letter. Today, many companies often don’t even bother to acknowledge receipt of your application. While students are still finding jobs, the journalism job market — like journalism — seems tighter, shallower and meaner than ever.

So bleak, in fact, that when I saw Mark Williams’ sign, I ever so briefly considered getting my own piece of cardboard, picking up my dog and setting up shop on the next bench down, offering higher-priced, upscale dog tricks (the Starbucks approach) for $5 to cover gas for my trip home.

Two Beans’ trick requires a dollar bill. Having only a $10, I asked Williams if that would work. He pocketed the ten dollar bill and pulled from his other pocket a crumpled one dollar bill. “Now go back in that alley and hide it somewhere, and Two Beans will find it.”

I wedged the bill behind a drainpipe, about waist high, and sure enough, Two Beans, when I called, came around the corner sniffed around, pulled it out, and brought it dutfifully to his master.

Williams got the dog from a friend, shortly before he began a stretch of life on the streets. He named him Two Beans, he said, because the dog — a golden retriever-Rhodesian ridgeback mix, he suspects — is not neutered. Williams said police don’t give him any trouble about his street business. “They’d rather me do this than just be panhandling like these other guys,” he said.

In addition to providing some income — as much as $70 a day when there’s a home football game – Two Beans makes life on the streets “a little less miserable,” Williams said. He said teaching Two Beans the trick cost him $3, because the dog ate the first three dollar bills

As we sat and talked, Williams, originally from Greenville, N.C., revealed that he once wrote a book about dog training. It was only 20 pages and, so it wouldn’t cost him much to mail it out, weighed only an ounce. “It was basically plagiarized, and not very good.” He took out an ad in the National Enquirer, offering the mini-book for sale for $3.  He says he only sold two copies, one to a customer in Virginia Beach, another to a customer in Acapulco — making him, he joked, an “international author.”

When he learned I was a former newspaper reporter, Williams revealed that his family was in journalism as well: His grandfather, Walter Williams, founded the journalism school at the University of Missouri.

“That’s the nation’s first journalism school,” I said.

“Yup,” he answered.

Coincidentally, I’d also recently applied for a job there, in my continuing quest to sniff out writing/teaching/multi-media positions. I received an emailed rejection, one of at least a dozen so far.

I don’t print out my emailed rejections. They don’t have the cool logos on them that I once found decorative enough to serve as wall art. I think I also take them a little more personally, now that I have experience and credentials. So I won’t be using them as wallpaper — either the kind you put on your wall, or the kind on your computer.

Instead, I’ll keep plugging along, like Williams, and waiting for the better times I keep hearing are ahead.

Until then … dog trick, anyone?

A Maryland dog who has completed 22 paintings — some of which have sold for up to $1,700 — was featured this week in the UK’s Telegraph.

Sam, a bloodhound-sheepdog mix who lives on the Eastern Shore, paints with a tailor-made paintbrush held in his mouth.

“Sam is a regular renaissance dog and his abstract paintings are all the rage with the hip New York galleries,” says Mary Stadelbacher, Sam’s owner. “He loves his painting and would happily carry on for hours if I left him to it. He loves to work in a variety of colours and layers his paintings with darker shades first and then moves on to lighter ones later.”

Stadelbacher, who runs Shore Service Dogs, took in six-year-old Sam four years ago, after he’d bounced from one shelter to another. She intended to train him as a service dog. But surgery left her temporarily without the use of her right hand.

Instead, Sam became her household helper, leaving him time to pursue painting. Stadelbacher says the dog will paint on command. Proceeds from the sales of his work — and other Shore Service Dogs — help keep the organization open, she said.

Fox is developing a new sitcom inspired by the work of “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan.

Details are still being ironed out, Variety reports, but it appears that Wilmer Valderrama (left) would play the character based on Millan, who has built a massive empire from his skills as a professional dog trainer.

Millan’s series, “The Dog Whisperer,” has aired on the National Geographic Channel, which is operated by Fox Cable Networks, since 2004.

Valderrama is best known for his role on “That ’70s Show” and, more recently, as the voice of Disney Channel’s “Handy Manny.” His feature credits include “The Dry Land,” “Fast Food Nation” and “Unaccompanied Minors.”

We’ll call this one, with apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,  ”The Case of the Pilfered Plaid.”

If you, like me, aren’t on top of the fashion world enough to know that plaids could actually be copyrighted, it might surprise you to hear that Burberry, makers of the famous Burberry check, is  suing the retail chain Pets at Home, claiming material they used on items such as dog coats and beds is highly reminiscent of Burberry’s patented plaid.

Burberry is claiming copyright infringement.

Burberry, it seems, is making a comeback.. It made  a “triumphant return” to London Fashion Week last month, the UK Guardian reported. And last week, Burberry revealed six month revenues were up 14 percent.

This comes after the signature check – an emblem for the fashion house for almost 100 years – suffered some image problems due the high number of counterfeiters and the design being linked to “hooliganism and “chav” culture, the newspaper reported.

Given that, the company isn’t about to let sleeping dogs lie on what they consider a copy of their pattern, or wear it.

The Guardian reports that Pets at Home has pulled the items in question from its shops, but the dispute has yet to be resolved.

An ugly scene on the side of the road turned uglier in McClellanville, S.C. last week, leaving a dog dead, one man in the hospital and another in jail.

Sheriff’s officials said William T. Youngman, after accidentally striking a dog with his pick-up truck, used a hammer and a machete to try and end the pet’s suffering.

Upon seeing his dog being attacked (but not having seen the accident) James Brian Kennedy took the hammer from Youngman and began beating him.

Youngman, 57, suffered multiple skull fractures, broken ribs and a punctured lung, according to his family.

The Charleston Post & Courier, quoted family members as saying Youngman is an animal lover and was only trying to put the dog out of his misery.

Youngman’s daughter told the newspaper her father lives in a rural area where there is no veterinarian nearby. He did not have a gun to end the dog’s pain, she said.

Youngman, against whom animal cruelty charges may be filed, was listed in fair condition in the intensive care unit at the Medical University Hospital on Friday afternoon. The dog, named Dingo, suffered a spinal chord injury and was euthanized Friday night.

Kennedy paid bail and was released from jail, but faces charges of assault and battery with intent to kill.

The anonymous owners of two dogs who swallowed cocaine in Florida say they may file a complaint against a West Palm Beach veterinary clinic that refused to treat their dogs because they didn’t have enough money.

The story, as aired on TV station WPBF, is one of those that raises more questions than it answers — but apparently the couple took the dogs to Palm Beach Veterinary Specialists in West Palm Beach on Thursday after the animals suffered seizures.

The couple says the clinic was treating the dogs with intravenous fluids, but kicked them out upon learning the owners didn’t have enough money for the treeatment required.

The next day, they took the dogs to Safe Harbor Animal Hospital, whose director said the first clinic violated the law by declining to treat the dogs. “By Florida state statute, as a vet you must render care to an animal that is in critical condition or in a life or death situation,” Safe Harbor Director Kay-Lynette Roca said.

A spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Veterinary Specialists denied they broke any laws and said the dogs were stable when they left their hospital. She said they even offered the pet owners discounts to make sure the dogs got the medical attention they needed. The pet owners chose to remove the animals from their facility against medical advice, she said.

The owners have not been identified, which leads me to wonder (A) if they, perchance, were the rightful owners of the cocaine the dogs gulped down, and (B) if so, they might want to set aside some of the money in their recreational drug budget for emergency veterinary care.

Baxter the therapy dog, who we featured here last week, passed away Friday.

The news was broken on Facebook, where Baxter has his own page, in a message sent to members of The Baxter Bussey fan club :

“Baxter, the world’s best and oldest therapy dog, 19 years and 6 months, eased peacefully from his life on Friday afternoon, October 16th, 2009 … The sweetest angel. … We love you Baxter, and many hugs to his family…”

Baxter worked with hospice patients, bringing them comfort and love at the end of their lives His story was published in a book, “Moments with Baxter” all proceeds from which are being donated to animal and hospice charities.