ohmidog!

As mentioned in our previous post about a cloned dog arriving home in Albuquerque, my book on dog cloning is coming out in paperback soon.

So it seems as good a time as any to unveil its new look, namely, a new cover and subtitle — proving that books resurrected as paperbacks, like dogs resurrected as clones, don’t always look exactly like the original.

“DOG, INC.: The Uncanny Inside Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend” will be coming back to life as “DOG, INC.: How a Collection of Visionaries, Rebels, Eccentrics and Their Pets Launched the Commercial Dog Cloning Industry.”

The book looks at the history and ethics of dog cloning, and the marketing of the service — before dog cloning was even achieved — to bereaved pet owners.

In the paperback version, the cute little beagle with a bar code on its butt is gone from the cover, replaced by six framed images of the same dog — is it a Jack Russell terrier? In any case, it’s a generic pooch, I should point out, and not one of the hundreds of cloned dogs that have been produced in South Korea.

You can learn more about the book here.

You can read an excerpt here.

You can read some customer reviews — thanks, customers — here.

You can buy it  here or here or here.

Old Blue passed away a few years ago in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

New Blue, a cloned copy of the original — a mastiff-Great Dane mix — is now 12 weeks old and, according to his veterinarian, thriving.

The dog’s unidentified owner paid $100,000 for the genetic duplicate, which was produced in a laboratory in South Korea.

You can see a story and video about Blue on KOAT, but its a bit off the mark when it estimates there are seven dog clones living in the U.S. It’s actually closer to 25.

The story doesn’t mention the name of the South Korean company that cloned the dog, or that of the dog’s owner.

SNUPPY

An American company, which has since gone out of business, brought at least 17 cloned dogs into the U.S. Those clonings were performed by Hwang Woo Suk, the scientist, who, after leading the team that cloned the world’s first dog, Snuppy, was fired from Seoul National University for falsifying results of human embryo research. He went on to open his own lab, Sooam Institute, which has cloned scores, if not hundreds, of dogs.

A second South Korean company, RNL Bio, continues to market the service, and is cloning dogs for bereaved pet owners, laboratory use and government duties, such as providing security at Seoul’s Incheon Airport.

The history and ethics of dog cloning, and the marketing of the service to pet owners — which began before the first dog was even cloned — are recounted in my book, “DOG, INC: The Uncanny Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend,” soon to be available in paperback.

As for Blue, his local veterinarian, Dr. David Caffey reports, “he has a great personality” and is in good health.

Caffey revealed few details about the dog’s owner, and called the cloning ”a special situation.”

Petie, the Jack Russell terrier who disappeared from his back yard in Tennessee in July, and turned up in Michigan last week, has been reunited with his 73-year-old owner.

A Michigan Humane Society volunteer, Nancy Greiser, drove Petie the 600 miles to Erin, Tennessee and handed him over to owner Jim Arrighi on Thursday.

The reunion couldn’t come at a better time, the Detroit Free Press reported: Arrighi’s wife of 37 years, Juanita, died two weeks ago.

The  4-year-old dog arrived to much fanfare — balloons, welcome signs, TV cameras and, inside, a steak that had been prepared for Petie by a local restaurant.

“He’s more excited than I thought he’d be,” Arrighi said moments after Petie greeted him with barks and a wagging tail.

Arrighi had been searching for Petie since the dog disappeared from his yard July 28. He put up posters, bought ads in the local newspaper, and went door to door.

Earlier this week, in Michigan, a Rochester Hills man found Petie wandering in his backyard and took him to the humane society. There he was scanned for a microchip, and that information led them to  Arrighi. How Petie got to Michigan remains a mystery.

“He meant a lot to me and my wife,” Arrighi said. “I figured he was gone. I thought the chip was a waste of money, but I guess not.”

(Photo: Mark Hicks / The Stewart Houston Times)

The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee passes on some sad news: Bella, the dog whose friendship with an elephant captured hearts around the globe, is dead.

Indications are that Tarra was the first to learn of Bella’s demise, and that the elephant picked up her body in the woods and carried it to a place where they had spent happy times together.

Here’s how Robert Atkinson, the CEO of the sanctuary, explained the events in a letter to supporters.

“My dear friends,

“I write to you with very sad news. Tarra’s little dog Bella has died. We found her body on Wednesday and have been dealing with the aftermath ever since, trying to work out what happened while we look after Tarra and each other.

“We noticed Bella was not with Tarra at breakfast on Tuesday and later that morning she still had not appeared. Tarra and Bella have always spent short periods apart as one goes off exploring briefly on their own, but this longer absence worried us deeply and a search of the property was started which continued into the next day. The search ended tragically when Bella’s body was found close to the Asia barn that had long been home to Tarra, her five sisters and Bella. During the time of the search our usually social Tarra chose to remain alone, watched over by concerned caregivers.

“Dr. Scott, our vet of sixteen years, examined Bella for the last time and, with advice from the experts from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, determined the probable cause of death was an attack by animals, most likely coyotes. We have sent off samples to see whether there were any other contributory causes.

“Having carefully examined Bella’s wounds and the place where she was found, we concluded that Bella had not been attacked near where she was found and neither could she have walked there.

“As these investigations were taking place observant Caregivers, even more watchful of Tarra than usual, noticed blood on the underside of her trunk, evidence that pointed us in the direction of what likely happened that fateful night.

“The most probable scenario is that during the night Bella strayed from Tarra briefly and was set upon. Tarra arrived too late to save her but was able to stop further damage being done to Bella’s body. With deep sadness and deeper wonder we come to comprehend what likely happened next — that Tarra picked Bella up and carried her home.

“Further evidence in support of our belief for what happened comes from Tarra herself. After Bella had been found, caregivers ensured Tarra had every chance to inspect Bella’s body before it was buried and to come to terms with her death, as this is an important part of the grieving process for elephants. But Tarra was not interested in either Bella or the group of caregivers who would normally have drawn our inquisitive girl to see what was happening.

“It was only later when we had pieced together the whole picture that Tarra’s behavior at Bella’s grave made sense. Our poor, brave, loving girl knew what had happened to her beloved Bella and, in the dark hours of the night as she carried her body home, had come to terms with her death.

“Tarra’s sisters will help her through her sadness. Although we cannot take away Tarra’s pain immediately or the pain of all those that knew Bella, I do know Bella knew true love and true freedom. It will always be so for animals that find sanctuary.”

Here’s an advertisement I’d never seen for a dog food I’d never heard of.

It’s for Show Bound Naturals, made by Healthy Pet Food, Inc., and features a golden retriever who’s a waggingly good ping-pong player.

(All of our “Woof in Advertising” selections can be found archived here.)

This powerful public service announcement from Amsterdam contains no gore, no animal cruelty, but, ouch, is it ever painful to watch.

Such a downer, in fact, that we’ll have to follow it right up with a happier one.

(All of our “Woof in Advertising” selections can be found archived here.)

A National Zoo bird researcher denied in court Wednesday that she fed rat poison and antifreeze to feral cats roaming her D.C. neighborhood.

“Absolutely not, no I did not,” Nico Dauphine said after taking the stand in her own defense Wednesday in Superior Court, WJLA reported.

Dauphine is a postdoctoral fellow with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo.

Prosecutors have presented evidence of her disdain for free-roaming cats, as well as a surveillance tape that they said showed her walking up to a planter where food was kept, reaching into her purse, then reaching into the cat food and leaving.

Dauphine argued in court that she was trying to get rid of the food because it attracted rats: “I went over to the planter, took out the food, put it in a plastic bag and threw it out,” she said.

Prosecutors have entered as evidence a number of quotes and articles in which Dauphine describes cats as an invasive species that should be euthanized. One online lecture by Dauphine is entitled “Apocalypse Meow – Free Ranging Cats and the Destruction of American Wildlife.”

Both sides presented closing arguments in the animal cruelty trial Wednesday and Judge Truman Morrison is scheduled to give his verdict Monday afternoon.

Best Friends Animal Society, a national animal welfare organization, says attempts to poison free-roaming cats — not uncommon across the country — often pose a threat to pets and wildlife..

“There are no ‘safe poisons’ and there is no ‘safe way’ to poison,” said Dr. Frank McMillan, director of well-being studies at Best Friends Animal Society.

Says Laura Nirenberg, Best Friends’ legislative analyst for cat initiatives.”The sad truth is that not only is poisoning an indiscriminate and inhumane method of controlling animal populations, it is unnecessary, especially when growing evidence from communities across the country shows that trap-neuter-return, commonly known as TNR, is the most efficient and cost-effective method.”

Daniel my brother you are older than me
Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won’t heal
Your eyes have died but you see more than I
Daniel you’re a star in the face of the sky …

– Elton John

There’s something about a dog-surviving-euthanasia story — and we’ve presented a few tales of such dogs, and cats, on these pages —  that grabs our hearts and won’t let go.

Maybe its because those dogs have beaten such overwhelming odds, or because we like to see the underdog (and a dog can’t get more under than this) triumph; or because we all just love to see death get cheated.

Or maybe it’s because it serves as a haunting reminder — penetrating our veil of denial — that we humans shouldn’t be killing dogs by the millions, whether it’s in outdated gas chambers or by lethal injection.

In that vein (cruel pun intended), we present the case of a beagle mix named Daniel.

Daniel was one of four or five dogs (who can keep count) loaded into the gas chamber recently at the Animal Control Department in Florence, Alabama.

“It’s the toughest part of the job,” said Cody Berry, the loader.

Berry turned the death machine on, carbon monoxide seeped into the chamber, and the fumes worked their black magic.

But when Berry went to unload the corpses, Daniel stood up and walked out.

As is often, but not always the case, the pound decided not to re-gas Daniel, and instead took him to a veterinarian before seeking a rescue group that might take the death-defying dog under its care.

On Wednesday, Daniel arrived in New Jersey, where, until a permanent home is found, he’ll live in a foster home provided through the Rockaway-based Eleventh Hour Rescue, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

“He’s one in a million,” said Linda Schiller, the founder of the organization.

While finding him a home is the top priority, the group also hopes to make him the next  “poster child” in the campaign to end the use of gas as a form of animal euthanasia.

The practice has been banned in some states, including New Jersey.

In Alabama, it will become illegal next year under Beckham’s law, named for another dog who survived the gas chamber.

In far too many other states and counties, it continues.

The American Humane Association, among others, has been lobbying to end the use of gas chambers, which it says cost more than lethal injection and is a crueler form of death.

Daniel arrived in New Jersey, with 11 other rescued dogs, in a single-engine plane piloted by Scott Messinger, a volunteer with the group Pilots N Paws.

As soon as the 5-year-old dog was on the ground, his tail started wagging, the Star-Ledger reported.  

He’ll be staying with Jill Pavlik, a volunteer with Eleventh Hour Rescue.

Roger Keyser, another Eleventh Hour volunteer predicted we’ll be hearing more about the 20-pound beagle mix who outsmarted death.

“This dog has got to have some destiny,” he said.

Although still largely unavailable and heavily restricted for humans, stem cell treatments for dogs are becoming quicker, cheaper and more common.

Just ask an 8-year-old mutt named Jake, who, injured in pursuit of a UPS truck, underwent the procedure Tuesday in Winston-Salem.

The treatment involves siphoning off belly fat, isolating, filtering and condensing the cells, then injecting them into the area where the problem exists — in Jake’s case, his  rear knee joints.

Where once the cells had to be sent to a laboratory before they were ready for injection, some veterinarians are using a new technology, developed by Kentucky-based MediVet-America, that allows the therapy to be done in one day without the stem-cell samples leaving the clinic.

The cost of the procedure has also dropped, from about $3,000 to as low as $1,800, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

At University Animal Hospital in Greensboro, about 20 grams of fat from Jake’s belly were harvested and placed in a small jar, and, after being isolated and concentrated, injected back into Jake, a beagle mix.

Stem cells can spark new tissue growth in the body, and they aren’t likely to be rejected, as sometimes happens with donor cells.

For humans, it’s a little harder to secure stem cell therapy, at least in this country. Among those who have benefitted from it is presidential candidate Rick Perry. Perry’s stem cells were harvested by RNL Bio.

That’s the same South Korea-based company that clones dogs, and which has successfully cloned them from the stem cells in fat.

(So if the day comes that Rick Perry is campaigning simultaneously on the West Coast and East Coast, don’t be too surprised. We jest. Or do we?)

Those human treatments that do take place have mostly been through experimental programs, or in cases in which patients have traveled to countries where the procedure is legal. About a dozen companies in America are now offering it, but some believe a crackdown by the FDA, whose regulations permit only “minimal manipulation” of harvested cells,  is imminent.

For animals, the treatment is a little less controversial and easier to accomplish.

Dr. Christine Hunt, Jake’s veterinarian, said the dog — between his injury and arthritis — was a prime candidate for the procedure. Other treatments, including acupuncture and physical therapy, had been of little help.

Hunt has been certified in stem-cell therapy for about three years but hadn’t used the therapy, partly because the cells had to be shipped to the West Coast to be prepared.

Jake was the second dog to undergo stem cell therapy at the Greensboro clinic. The first, a 7-year-old Pembroke Welsh corgi named Riot, owned by veterinarian Catherine Markijohn, underwent the same therapy this month for back spasms, arthritis and other problems.

Markijohn said that two weeks after the procedure, Riot, is moving much more normally.

The city of Chicago, which has long let dog owners slide when it comes to licensing their pets, plans to put the “man” back in mandatory.

After a 90-day public education period, the city will begin enforcing its mandatory dog license policy and start ticketing dog owners who haven’t registered their pets.

According to the Sun-Times, the city sold 27,918 licenses last year, less than 5 percent of its estimated dog population of 560,000.

That’s more than $2 million, at the very least, being missed out on.

“We can ticket people . . . that is part of the plan. At the end of the period of time we give people to get the dog license, if they didn’t obtain it, it’s a ticket that ranges between $50 and $200 for not having a dog license,” said Cherie Travis, executive director of the Commission on Animal Care and Control.

The crackdown will follow a 90-day education campaign that will also feature low-cost rabies vaccines at events across the city and an online dog registration contest with prizes donated by local businesses.

To purchase a dog license, owners must show proof that their dogs have been vaccinated for rabies. The dog license is a sticker that affixes to the metal rabies tag.

The dog license fee for neutered dogs is $5, compared to a fee of $50 for non-neutered dogs. For senior citizens, the rates are $2.50 and $5 respectively.