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A rat terrier who wandered from his home and ended up on a busy Texas highway was rescued by a police officer in La Porte, who halted traffic and carried the dog to safety.

Cujo, whose owners say he suffers from a bad hip, was spotted Monday by officer Kyle Jones on Spencer Highway, limping along in a lane of moving traffic.

Jones spun his car around and blocked traffic on the busy highway, called to the dog, then walked over to him, debating whether he should pick him up.

“You know how Chihuahuas are,” Jones told KHOU. “You’re not really sure if you can trust ‘em or not. But he kind of looked at me and said, ‘Man, I’m glad you’re here.’ He let me pick him right up. Stuck him in the back seat of the patrol car.”

Jones turned Cujo over to an animal control officer who, thanks to the ID tag on the dog’s collar, was able to return him to his family.

The Zapalac family had been searching for Cujo.

“We spent the whole morning, about an hour, looking for him,” Jeremy Zapalac said. “It started pouring down rain. And he hates water.”

Zapalac described Cujo as “a Napoleon-type of dog. He’s very short, but with a very big ego.”

Sampson County will dismantle the gas chamber it uses to euthanize dogs, thanks to a $7,000 grant from the Humane Society of the United States.

The North Carolina county– one of about 20 in the state still gassing dogs — says it has accepted the grant and will use it to destroy its gas chamber.

The Sampson Independent reports that the grant was one of three the county accepted that were aimed at reducing the number of animals put to death.

In addition to the HSUS grant, the county board of commissioners approved accepting two others from the Petfinder Foundation, including a $6,300 award to fund a kennel cough vaccine program and a $3,000 grant to fund a feline vaccination program.

Kimberley Alboum, HSUS director for North Carolina, said the grant requires the county to phase out its use of the gas chamber in six months. Any money left over, she said, can be used  by the Sampson County Animal Shelter for repairs and upgrades.

County manager Ed Causey that the use of gas chambers is declining across the state, and said switching to lethal injections isn’t likely to cost the shelter any more.

“The state has done a lot of encouraging to get shelters to transition on their own without a mandate. I think one of the reasons (the state inspector) has been so cooperative with us is she’s seen that effort on our part to get out of (operating the chamber). We felt this was something that would put us in a more favorable light with the state and all the people who are interested in the humane treatment of the animals.”

Both Vance and Person counties also recently halted use of gas chambers at their shelters.

To hear Fox 2 in St. Louis tell it, a massive round up of pit bulls was underway last week in the small town of Sikeston, Missouri.

According to the Fox report (above), animal control officers were seizing pit bulls from homes around town — so many that the Sikeston shelter had to send 20 dogs to St. Louis to make room for all the pit bulls they were rounding up.

Other TV news operations, and the Standard Democrat in Sikeston, were quick to report that the Fox News account was a little off the mark.

Sikeston, which does have pit bull restrictions, picked up three dogs it said were not in compliance with the rules — but no roundup took place.

Wednesday’s Fox News report by Chris Hayes that Sikeston held a “pit bull round up day” led to dozens of calls to the newspaper, and a flurry of online alerts and notifications.

Hayes reported that he “found out about the program after learning about a sudden influx of dogs coming to the St. Louis area” and that it was “to make room for seized pit bulls.”

Sikeston City Manager Doug Friend said allegations that the city held a “pit bull round up day” weren’t true.

There are 32 pit bulls registered in Sikeston, according to Friend, and the city audits those on an annual basis.

“It’s not a big process,” he said. “We just basically drive by, verify that somebody that had a registered pit bull still lives at a registered address. Our plan was to just do our annual look.”

During that recent audit, three pit bulls were taken into custody for non-compliance with the city code. It requires that the owners of pit bulls and some other breeds register those pets with the city, carry liability insurance, and keep their dogs in a fully enclosed pen if they are outside.

KFVS also reported that the Fox report was misleading.

According to KFVS, about 30 dogs were shipped from the Sikeston shelter to no-kill shelters across the country, including one near St. Louis.

Friend told KFVS that the transfers, the seizures, and the TV report added up to fear quickly spreading among pit bull advocates, in Sikeston and around the country.

“To suggest and sensationalize the way that the news reporter did is … I’m at a loss for words” Friend said. “I mean, we’re a rural town of 18,000. We try to serve the public to the best of our ability. Everything we do is tailored to the health and safety of our citizens after extensive public comment.”

Of course, none of that is to suggest pit bull bans and restrictions make sense. They don’t.

But for a news organization to suggest, based on a couple of unconnected facts, that a round-up of all pit bulls is underway is a similar sort of fear-mongering — and one that’s neither fair nor balanced.

It has been nearly four years since Bosnia passed a law banning the killing of stray and wild dogs, but as of this year only one city is respecting it, according to the Associated Press — Sarajevo.

As a result, Sarajevo has become both a dumping ground and, relatively speaking, a safe haven, with people from around the country dropping homeless, stray and wild dogs on its streets.

The law was passed amid a sharp rise in dog killings, but it was largely ignored because the government provided few alternatives, like shelters and sterilization clinics.

In March, Sarajevo became home to a new city-funded dog shelter that also performs sterilizations.

Animal protection advocate Amela Turalic runs the shelter, and she and her team of animal lovers respond to calls to pick up strays, who have been increasingly arriving from other areas

Bosnia remains divided along ethnic lines, and different parts of the country deal with strays differently. Despite the national ban against slaughtering dogs, some local governments have passed laws contradicting it.

In Sarajevo, it took Turalic’s teams three months to get the problem of strays under control last summer with the shelter and sterilizations.

“But then we started noticing ‘new faces’ on the streets daily and people started telling us about overnight deliveries,” she said.

Not everyone in Sarajevo is happy about that, and some don’t think Sarajevo — the one place doing something about the problem — should be getting overwhelmed with needy dogs because of it.

Sounds a little like another country that once welcomed outsiders.

As Turalic sees it, those from other cities who drop off dogs on the streets of Sarajevo aren’t abandoning their own pets, just trying to give a stray a better chance of surviving.

“Let them come,” she said. “People do this with best intentions.”

(Photo: Amel Emric / Associated Press)

The owner of a dog killed by police in Colorado last month says Chloe had never shown aggression toward anyone.

And his attorney said Chloe — despite Commerce City police officers having repeatedly described the dog as a pit bull — may not have had any pit bull in her at all.

Gary Branson, 58, of Pueblo, said the three-year-old dog who helped him recover from triple-bypass surgery, “was friendly with everybody … She loved being around people, loved attention,” according to Examiner.com.

Chloe was shot repeatedly — while in a garage and on a catchpole — after a neighbor reported a dog running loose. The incident was videotaped by the son of the man who made the report.

Officers said the dog posed a danger, but the incident is being investigated by the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, at the request of police officials.

Branson’s attorney, Jennifer Edwards of the Animal Law Center in Wheat Ridge, questioned whether Chloe had any pit bull in her, and said she hopes to have DNA tests performed on Chloe’s remains to prove that.

Commerce City has an ordinance banning pit bulls.

Chloe was staying with Branson’s cousin in Commerce City while he was away in California. He said he adopted her as a puppy in Pueblo.

Police in Commerce City, Colo., are reviewing this video, but say they believe officers acted appropriately when they fired five shots at this dog — even though she was secured with a catchpole.

The dog, a three-year-old named Chloe, described by police as a pit bull, died.

Police had been called by a resident who saw the unfamiliar dog loose in the neighborhood. He was unaware that she was being cared for by a neighbor.

According to the neighbor caring for Chloe, she’d secured the dog in the garage before going shopping. Apparently, the dog tripped a sensor, leading the door to open.

The neighbor who reported the dog to police,  Kenny Collins, said the dog didn’t appear aggressive, but he was concerned about her running loose. It was Collins’ son who used his cell phone to shoot the video of police shooting the dog.

The dog was sitting inside the garage when police Tased her, got a catchpole around her neck and then, as she squirmed to get free, shot at her five times.

“An animal control agent was able to place a ‘catchpole’ around the dog’s neck,” Commerce City Police said in an intitial statement. “The pit bull remained extremely agitated and continued to attempt to attack the animal control agent. Due to the dog’s size and aggressive demeanor, it could not be controlled on the catchpole. For the safety of the animal control agent and the community, a police officer shot and killed the dog.”

Collins said it appeared to him the dog was simply trying to run away from the officers.

“I totally disagree with it, totally,” Collins said. “The dog was not attacking people and that’s not what I said when I called 911.”

Commerce City Police Detective Mike Saunders said the video is being reviewed: “We need time to look at the video. We need time to look over the officer’s report. And we need time to speak to the officer before we can comment.” Saunders said.

9NEWS dropped off a copy of the video at the Commerce City Police station  Sunday.

Alicia Hall, an animal behavior technician with the Dumb Friends League who reviewed the video for 9 News, said:

“The animal could still potentially be a danger, but if the catchpole is being used appropriately, the animal should be restrained safely. As far as I can see from the video, it looks like the dog actually walked right into the catchpole as it was coming out of the garage and was safely restrained.”

Sixty-five chained dogs, believed to be part of a dogfighting operation, were seized on Thanksgiving in Tennessee after firefighters discovered them when responding to a brush fire.

The dogs — mostly pit bulls and beagles — were removed from the property in Ashland City by Cheatham County Animal Control and the Animal Rescue Corps, a non-profit animal protection organization.

“We believe this is the largest dog fighting rescue in Tennessee history,” said ARC president Scotlund Haisley. He described the conditions the dogs were living in as “the worst I have ever seen at a dogfighting operation in my 22 year career in animal protection.”

The dogs were underweight, without food and fresh water and some had sores covering their bodies, officials said.

Animal control officials identified dog fighting equipment, such as a treadmill, fighting pen, and a spring pole used for strengthening dogs’ jaws.

All the animals on the property were taken to an emergency shelter outside of Nashville, where they will be assessed before being transported to rescue centers around the country.

Also taking part in the rescue were New Leash on Life, a shelter in Lebanon, Tenn.; Agape Animal Rescue out of Nashville; the Nashville Zoo and the Tennessee State Highway Patrol.

(Photos: Animal Rescue Corps)

Monika Wesolowski wanted to adopt the pit bull mix she became a foster mom to this summer, after he was found in northwest Georgia with his throat cut.

But, given his ability — once he recovered — to jump over her chain link fence, there was no way she could keep him unless a fence was to magically appear.

Now it looks like a fence is going to magically appear.

The dog was brought into Murray County Animal Control in July with a slash across his neck so deep his trachea was visible. A Facebook post about the dog,  named Braveheart by animal control staffers, led the Animal Rescue League of Northwest Georgia to pick him up, take him to a veterinary clinic for surgery and search for a foster home.

Wesolowski, who volunteers with the Animal Rescue League, agreed to care for him during his recovery — even though she knew that, when the time came to give him up, it would be difficult.

When Braveheart was to be put up for adoption last month, she told the Rome News-Tribune, “I just had a meltdown. I was like, ‘I can’t do this.’”

She wanted to keep the dog, but, with two dogs of her own and a backyard fence Braveheart could easily jump, she felt he’d be better off elsewhere.

When she described the dilemma on Braveheart’s Facebook page, suggestions poured in, and when she followed one of them, establishing an online fund drive, money poured in, too – enough to build a new fence.

Wesolowski has raised $1,500 to help build a privacy fence around the back yard of her home, and Walker Landscape and Fence, LLC, has offered to build it and charge her only for materials. A Lowe’s store in Rome agreed to give Wesolowski the materials for the fence at cost.

By the end of the first day, more than $400 had been donated to Braveheart’s fence fund on GoFundMe.com.

“I cried for three days straight, probably because it just blows my mind,” Wesolowski. “I know people give money all the time to charities but a dog just hits people right in the heart.”

Dogs Deserve Better,the Virginia rescue now heaquartered in Michael Vick’s former house, donated $200. About 60 other donors gave money to the fund. Wesolowski said she wants to have a plaque with a list of donors put on the fence.

Braveheart has a scar on his neck, but whoever is responsible for it hasn’t been arrested. The Animal Rescue League has offered a $2,500 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.

“I just can’t see how anybody could hurt a creature like this,” Wesolowski said. “He’s such a nice dog.”

(Photos: Braveheart’s Facebook page)

The starving stray dog rescuers initially dubbed Java, because of the coffee can around her neck, has been renamed Olivia, and she’s recovering from her surgery Monday.

Authorities estimate she spent a month with the can encasing her neck and cutting into her ears. She apparently gave birth to a litter during that time, though it’s not likely any pups survived, based on the emaciated condition Olivia was found in.

But she’s been making steady improvement since having surgery Monday. “She’s really doing remarkably well,” a board member with Animal Allies of Texas told the Dallas Morning News.

According to Animal Allies, Dallas Animal Control is not investigating whether the dog was abused because there is no evidence the can was intentionally placed on her head.

Olivia — believed to be a one-to-two-year-old shepherd mix – was found by a citizen  Sunday near Dowdy Ferry Road and Interstate 20, said to be a common dog dumping ground.

Vets expect Olivia, who still needs to be treated for heartworm and spayed, to spend another week at Metro Paws Animal Hospital. After that, she will be fostered by one of the veterinary technicians.

It could be up to four months before she is put up for adoption.

Contributions to Olivia’s care can be made through the Animal Allies website or by calling Metro Paws at 214-887-1400.

(Photos: Animal Allies)