ohmidog!

We usually don’t memorialize a dog twice — but Andre was extra special.

We wrote about Andre when he was found inside a knotted plastic trash bag on the side of the road, his eyes mutilated. We wrote about him again when it was learned he died last week.

But the best person to write about him is the person who took him in, gave him a loving home for eight months and has been updating fans on his Facebook page ever since.

Above is the video she put together.

Here are her words:

“This is the story of a courageous miniature pincher who suffered both horrific abuse and unbounding love. Andre the Rescue Dog was found on January 3, 2012, by our hero, Cedric Conwright, who witnessed a black garbage bag being thrown out of a moving car into an empty lot as if discarded trash. When the bag moved, Cedric opened it to find little Andre, eyes gouged and hanging from their sockets, starved to 7 1/2 pounds, shot with BBs. Thanks to God’s divine intervention in guiding Cedric to that lot, on that day, at that moment Andre’s (or as Cedric named him “LG” for Little Guy) story did not end there but began to unfold on a journey that has touched human hearts all over the world. Rescuers later named this sweet dog Andre and I came to call him Andrea Bocelli after witnessing the first sound he made almost two months after he was rescued. His sweet little bark that lifted his front feet off the ground sounded like music to my maternal ears. And so he became Andrea Bocelli Powers!

“Andre came with a ready-made FaceBook page when I adopted him. It was originally created to help raise funds for his early medical needs and later for two surgeries, one of which was a double-adrenalectomy. It didn’t take long for me to understand that although Andre could no longer see the world, the world was seeing Andre for the first time,

“Mr. Bocelli’s birthday because his rescue day, January 3, and his greatest gift was a new life free from abuse. His last day, October 6, 2012, came far too soon when he died at home of diabetic complications. I shall always yearn to hold my Bocelli again; Bocelli, Bocelli, Bocelli.

“I am confident that If Andrea could, I know he would, say thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone one who helped both him and me in any way. No matter how big or small the gesture, I have been forever touched by your generosity of prayer, words of support, money, newspaper and TV articles, hugs, tears, etc., etc.

“Deeply grieving the loss of my companion, I am.

Sandy Powers
Andrea’s Seeing-Eye-Human
October 11, 2012″

Dogs that survived the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan show symptoms not unlike those experienced by humans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study by a Japanese university says.

The research compared abandoned dogs rescued from Fukushima, site of the nuclear disaster, and Kanagawa, with non-disaster affected dogs abandoned in 2009 and 2010, before the earthquake.

The dogs that lived through the disaster had stress hormone levels five to 10 times higher than the dogs that were simply abandoned or found as strays, the researchers reported in the journal Scientific Reports.

Researchers at Azabu University in Japan took in eight dogs from shelters in Kanagawa Prefecture, where the 2011 earthquake and tsunami led to thousands of refugees being forced to abandon their dogs. The team took in 17 more dogs collected at shelters and rescue centers in Fukushima.

They measured their levels of physical stress by daily monitoring of the hormone cortisol in the dogs’ urine. All the dogs were later adopted by new owners.

The disaster-affected dogs had five to 10 times the cortisol levels of dogs not touched by disaster. When compared with the Kanagawa dogs, the Fukushima dogs were less aggressive toward unfamiliar people but also less attached to caregivers and more difficult to train.

They suggested that, in addition to showing similar syptoms,  similar brain chemicals could be at play in dogs and humans trauma survivors.

“Humans affected by the disaster are already recovering and gradually returning to normal life,” the researchers wrote. “However, our results suggest the possibility that stress can induce excessive, deep psychosomatic impacts with implicit behavioral manifestations, such as deficits in attachment and learning ability also in dogs.”

(Photo: Shane was separated from his owner, Kamata-San,during the tsunami, but later showed up at the shelter where Kamata-san was staying. Credit: JEARS)

A homeless man in Kansas City says two women he thought were taking him in ended up just taking him.

And taking his dog.

Tony Pulliam said he and his dog Seven were offered shelter by two women during the hottest days of summer. In exchange he offered to paint their basement.

Eventually, though, the women kicked him out and kept his dog, later giving it to a relative.

When he objected and asked for his dog back, “they said, ‘No, you can’t have your dog,’” Pulliam  told Fox News in Kansas City.

“I want my dog back” he said. “I don’t function without my friend … I don’t even want to get up in the morning.”

Pulliam met the women while panhandling with his dog at Interstate 435 and Front Street. “They seen my dog and seen how well I was taking care of my dog. They have been helping me out ever since.”

A friend of Pulliam’s, Don Faudel, said Pulliam always took care of Seven.

“He had a raincoat for his dog in the rain,” he said. “I just don’t understand how anybody could decide that anyone is not worthy of owning their dog. He took good care of his dog.”

Faudel and others are trying to find Seven, and get him back to Pulliam.

“As the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover,” said one of them, Brenda Berger. “Just because it was unconventional doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve the dog,” she said.

One anonymous donor has offered a $200 reward for the return of Seven.

A dog name Zeke displays his basketball skills.