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A trainer and rescuer of birds who once worked for the National Aquarium in Baltimore is being sought for questioning in connection with the deaths of 40 animals found in her Columbia townhouse, about half of which may have been abandoned while still alive.

Howard County animal control officers found 19 dead animals inside a freezer at the home, including birds, rabbits, a guinea pig and a hermit crab, according to the Baltimore Sun. Twenty one more dead birds, cats, rabbits and a snake were inside cages or loose in the home with no food or water. Four animals were found alive.

Howard County police on Wednesday left a letter at the home of Beth Lindenau, on the 9600 block of Lambeth Court, requesting she come in for an interview.

National Aquarium officials confirmed that Lindenau worked there from December 2004 until November 2009.

A police spokesperson said charges likely won’t be filed at least until after they have results of lab reports that show how and when the animals died.

Officers entered the house Monday after a property manager reported odors coming from the home. The electricity and heat had been turned off, and while food was left for some animals, those in cages had no access to it.

Several neighbors at the Lambeth Court townhouse said they had suspected that animals were inside the house and not being looked after, but officials with the county’s health department said they never received any complaints at that address.

Police said they are investigating whether she was involved with a nonprofit animal rescue group. A trailer belonging to the Bailey Foundation, a Columbia-based bird rescue organization was in the driveway.

WJLA reports that Lindenau is executive director of the organization.

According to the Bailey Foundation website, it was established in 2004, and has taken in dozens of birds, from finches to macaws, in hopes of finding them adoptive homes.

“Many of these birds will need care for up to 80 years or more,” the website says. “…Space is running out for the care of large birds like macaws and cockatoos. We will need to expand our available space soon. Our long-term goals are to purchase land on which large aviaries can be built to house the various species of birds as well as serve as an educational center. In our current location this is not possible…

“It is our goal to always have a place for one more bird in need.”

He was free with his opinions, generous with his discount-brand dog treats, and prone to dispensing an endless supply of both at Baltimore’s Riverside Park.

There, for years, he was dog’s best friend.

He knew almost all the regulars by name, and many of them, like my dog Ace, could spot him from hundreds of yards away. They’d run to greet him, then follow him as he slowly trudged up to the park gazebo, his dog — his very, very fat dog — Louie, at his side.

There, on a bench by the gazebo, Stan would hold court daily — complaining about politicians, grumbling about bureaucracies, and breaking out his big bag of treats, which he’d fling, one at a time, to the dogs that would congregate.

I got word yesterday that Stan, the biscuit man — a fixture, if not a legend, at Baltimore’s Riverside Park — had died, on Christmas day.

Stan was one of the first friends Ace made at the park, and one he never forgot.

Last year, when we returned to the city after nine months on the road, we stopped first at the park. Ace was reacquainting himself with its smells when, a good 100 yards in the distance I saw a man rolling up the sidewalk on one of those powered scooters, a fat black dog following him.

Ace recognized him before I did — despite nine months away, despite Stan’s new method of getting around — and joyfully bolted off in his direction.

And of course Stan had treats. He always did.

Some called him Stan the biscuit man, some called him Stan the cookie man. Some just called him Stan — easy to remember because it was stitched right there on his blue mechanic’s jacket.

Dogs always perked up when they saw Stan, and vice versa.

Not all the humans appreciated his generosity. There were those who detoured when he was sitting at his bench of choice — those who either didn’t want their dogs to fill up on treats, or feared that, with so many dogs vying for them, it could lead to trouble.

But I rarely saw any of that. Instead, dogs — sometimes three, or four, or five or six — would sit and waiting patiently for their turn, as he tossed the bargain biscuits into the air.

If any got too eager, too pushy, or tried to grab the biscuits before he tossed them, he’d gently admonish them by name: “Wait your turn, Argus. Don’t be greedy, Ace. Let this little guy in here to get some.”

His own dog, Louie, a pit bull mix, nearly as wide as he is long, always seemed to get his fill. After a while, Louie would stop eating the treats he was tossed, instead just catching and dropping them to the ground, where other dogs would scoop them up.

Stan, who was out of work on disability and suffered from back problems, eventually stopped walking all the way to the gazebo, settling for a bench on the edge of the park, closer to his home, at least until he got the scooter.

While I’ve not heard the details of his death, I’m told Louie, who Stan lived alone with, is being cared for by a friend. If you knew Stan, and want to share any information or memories about him, please feel free to leave a comment on this post.

What I’ll always remember about him is, no matter how worked up he got grumbling about politics, his ire subsided and his face always brightened up when he talked about Louie.

“It’s like living with a cartoon character,” he once told me.

I don’t know if Louie’s new guardian lives in the same South Baltimore neighborhood, or whether Louie will continue waddling up to Riverside Park everyday. But even if he does, without Stan, Riverside Park will be one character short.

Postscript: After this post appeared, we heard from Stan’s sister-in-law Mary. (Her full comment appears in the comments section below.)

According to Mary, Stan was diagnosed in July with lung cancer and went through chemotherapy and radiation. While he beat the cancer, he became weak and developed pneumonia.

“One thing lead to another and he finally could no longer fight. He died on Christmas day. Louie is living with Tom in Catonsville. Tom had been Stan’s friend since elementary school. He has 3 dogs of his own and now added Louie. He has lost 6 inches from around his waist and now runs and plays with his new pals. Tom’s wife met us at the funeral home after the cemetery and had Louie with her. He looks happy and much thinner and full of absolute ‘dog joy.’ She said when she looks at Louie she sees Stan.”

This excerpt from the award-winning documentary ”100,000″ focuses on the work of Island Dog, an animal welfare organization in Puerto Rico founded by Baltimore native Katie Block.

Block left Baltimore in 1999, looking for paradise, she admits. On her first day in Puerto Rico she came across a homeless dog and brought it home. When she  took it to a vet and explained how she had found it, he laughed at her.

She quickly learned the stray she’d found was just one of thousands — and that many of them spent their lives at a particular beach, called Los Machos, where they’d either been abandoned, or, sometimes, born from those previously abandoned.

She tried to do what she could. At her bartending job at a resort, she persuaded guests to take dogs home to the states. She enlisted her parents help in getting dogs shipped to new homes. Making a small dent in a very big problem, and swamped by veterinary bills, she, after three years, threw in the towel — but only temporarily, as it turned out.

In 2002, Block returned to Baltimore. She finished college and ended up in Puerto Rico again, where in 2006, she established Island Dog.

Today, as the founder and director of the organization, she works full-time to rescue dogs, find them homes in the states, and supply strays with food and medical attention — all while focused on longer term goals.

Those include teaching responsible pet ownership, expanding the practice of spaying and neutering, and increasing awareness around the world about  the cruelties animal face in U.S. territories in the Caribbean. Her hope is to make Puerto Rico more animal friendly, and get an animal education program started at every school in the territory.

Island Dog estimates that 98 percent of the dogs that end up in Puerto Rico’s few under-equipped and under-funded shelters are euthanized; and that about 500 dogs and cats die a day.

Only about 10 percent of Puerto Rico’s pet population ever visit a veterinarian, it’s estimated.

In the documentary “100,000,” which we’re featuring all week on ohmidog!, director Juan Agustin Marquez captured the scene at Los Machos beach, and a lot of the work Island Dog does — feeding and medicating homeless animals, rescuing and rehabilitating strays, and finding them homes in the states.

The organization also offer clinics for free or low cost spay/neuter services and vaccinations, provides a humane education program for children that encourages kindness to animals and responsible pet ownership, and supplies medication and food to other animal welfare organizations working in the U.S. Caribbean.

You can find Island Dog listed with our other animal welfare friends on our rightside column, and you can visit its website and learn how to donate to the cause here.

(Photos courtesy of Island Dog)

Here, as promised, is Adam Yamada-Hanff’s big news: He and his singing dogs, Sierra and Cody, will be on the Anderson Cooper show.

Adam tells me the segment was taped last week and is scheduled to air Monday.

They’ll be performing Auld Lang Syne, one of their earlier renditions of which is shown above.

Adam said one of the program’s producers called him last week, asking him to come on the show with both dogs. She told him she’d been searching YouTube for interesting New Year’s videos when she came across Sierra and Cody.

“We think they’re hilarious!” he quoted her as saying. “We would love to have you on the show. We just thought it would be perfect for our New Year’s special …”

Adam said they drove to New York last Wednesday for the Thursday taping. Both dogs sang during a rehearsal, as they generally do when he starts playing the saxophone. But when the crew asked him to perform it again, for a sound check, neither dog uttered a sound.

“Sierra just lay on the floor and had a look as to say, ‘We just did this!’”

Adam said he was a little nervous they might not perform when the time came, and he didn’t divulge how the final performance went.

“Watch Monday,” he said.

The show airs in Baltimore at 2 p.m on WBAL. To find when and where it airs in your part of the country, click here.

Surely, you remember Sierra and Cody.

Who better to turn to for a saxophone-accompanied Christmas Eve carol?

We met Sierra and her human, Adam Yamada-Hanff, a Baltimore area community college student, back in May of 2010, when he agreed to perform with Sierra during my “Hey, That’s My Dog!” photo exhibit at Captain Larry’s in Baltimore.

Adam later brought his other dog, Cody, in on the act, and they’ve posted several videos on YouTube.

When he’s not playing saxophone and performing with his dogs, Adam writes about automobiles for several websites, and has his own blog called Adam’s Auto Advice.

Adam’s goal is to use the dogs’ performances to raise money for animal shelters and rescue organizations.

He also has some big news to share, but we’re going to make you tune in tomorrow — and get serenaded again — to find out.

They’re called the “Pit 6,” the scarred survivors of a group of nine pit bulls seized two years ago in an animal cruelty case that appeared to have some ties to dogfighting.

This week, as the man they were taken from heads to court for sentencing, the dogs, who might otherwise have been put down, are getting close to being put up — for adoption.

Their long road to rehabilitation is documented in an excellent story that appeared in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun — one that looks at the plight of pit bulls nationwide and the surge of compassion for them, and avoids the common news media errors of identifying them as a single, stereotypical breed.

The Pit 6 — four of whom are now staying at the Baltimore Humane Society in Reisterstown — were seized in two separate visits by county animal control officials to Larry Alston’s home in the Woodlawn area.

Alston had been living in Beaufort, N.C., when animal welfare officials there seized 17 of his dogs. He managed to get some of them back, and moved them to Baltimore. Based on a tip to Baltimore County Animal Control from officials in North Carolina, county police and animal control officers paid him a visit.

They found scarred, malnourished and whimpering dogs in metal cages, filled with urine and feces and covered with tarps. They seized seven dogs, then returned in February and seized two more.

In early November 2010, Alston was arrested and booked on charges of mutilating an animal, as well as drug and weapons charges — 22 counts in all.

In August of 2011, he entered Alford pleas to the seven animal mutilation charges, and the other charges were dropped. An Alford plea is not an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgement that there is enough evidence to convict.

He faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison on each count.

During the much-delayed court case, the dogs were held at the county animal control shelter in Baldwin, where, upon their arrival, they were examined and found to have been ”severely underfed.” They ”had lots of scars of undetermined nature,” and one dog’s teeth had been painted silver.

But this spring, when local animal advocates learned about the case, they began organizing to try to save the dogs from euthanasia, the fate they feared would be ordered once Alston was convicted.

Three had died by then. Two broke through a fence at animal control and killed each other. A third was euthanized on the recommendation of a behaviorist who determined that the dog would not be able to adapt to life as a pet, according to animal control. Humane Society staff thinks the dogs were used for breeding, and as bait dogs.

In late September — with Alston’s case resolved — a group of  20 animal welfare advocates, including Marty Sitnick, associate executive director of the Humane Society, went to the county shelter to remove the dogs and take them to a private kennel in Baltimore County.

As the Sun story reports …

“That left six: five females and one male, the “Pit 6,” as they have come to be known: Michelle, Tippy, Bridget, Shelley, Meme and Meris.

“On the morning of Sept. 24, a caravan of some 20 animal welfare advocates rolled into the county shelter on Manor Road. Not knowing what to expect of the dogs, Sitnick said, they came equipped with muzzles and spray shield to ‘keep everybody safe.’

“The first dog was ‘all wiggly’ with excitement, he said, and was ‘licking faces, my face. By the time we took the third one out, it was kind of like Woodstock for pit bulls … These six dogs love people.’

Since then, four of dogs have been moved to the Baltimore Humane Society and two remain at the kennel.

Michelle will likely be the first to become available for adoption — probably in another four to six weeks, according to Sitnick.

When they do become available for adoption, it will likely be with conditions. In Michele’s case, for example, she won’t be permitted to go to a home with another dog, and will require a fenced yard.

Members of the “Pit 6″ won’t be rushed into adoptive homes, Sitnick said.

“We need to be extremely conservative in our evaluation of them,” he said. “We are going to take our time … We want to be able to point to these dogs as an example.”

Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) is waiving adoption fees for dogs and cats six months and older for the entire month of December.

Included with adoptions are spaying and neutering, rabies vaccination, DHLPP vaccination, bordatella, de-wormer, flea preventative, a general examination, a food sample, a month of free veterinary care insurance, and Felv testing for cats and kittens.

Baltimore City residents are required to purchase a $10 pet license.

Puppies and kittens under six months old will be available for adoption at just $65 until December 31, 2011.

BARCS is also making gift certificates available for people who would like to give the gift of an animal to some one else. They are $65.

To adopt an animal from BARCS, stop by the shelter (behind M&T Bank Stadium), call 410-396-4695, or visit its website.

If in your house you have a wall
In a kitchen, bedroom or a hall
And if sometimes you can’t recall
What day it is — no, not at all
Here’s a gift that will enthrall
Almost each and every one of y’all
It’s about a dog quite tall
Who crossed a country far from small
But here’s the best part of it all
You can skip the shopping mall

Happy Black Friday. I — in exchange for forcing you to ready my hasty poetry — am about to make your life easier. No need to thank me.

Announcing: The limited edition, visually breathtaking, hand-signed, not overly large 2012 (and half of 2013) “Travels with Ace” calendar.

The calendar recaptures some of the more memorable moments from our one year and 27,000 miles of travels across the country, about half of that spent retracing the route John Steinbeck, 50 years ago, took with his poodle in “Travels with Charley.”

The way I figure it, if you buy enough copies, you might be able to avoid the mall altogether, and you’ll be contributing to a good cause.

Half of all profits will go to Rolling Dog Farm in New Hampshire, formerly Rolling Dog Ranch in Montana. The sanctuary for blind, deaf and disabled animals relocated last year, and it was one of the stops on our journey across America.

Inside our calendar, you’ll find 18 unusual slices of American life – from our visit to John Steinbeck’s grave in Salinas, California, to dropping in at a gentlemen’s club in Dallas, where Ace spent time with Mel, a former Michael Vick dog.

From Dog Mountain in Vermont (one artist’s tribute to dog) to Salvation Mountain in California (one artist’s tribute to God). From Maine’s magnificent coast to Niagara’s roaring falls. From standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona to spotting dogs in the kudzu in Mississippi.

The calendar allows you to relive our journey, without spending a penny on gas; to see the places we went, the people we met and the dogs we bumped into.One month also features some of our old dog friends back in Baltimore.

It’s $25, plus $3 for shipping and handling, and each copy is hand signed by me – not Ace, though, as he has declared a moratorium on pawtographs.

It’s an 18-month calendar, which will carry you all the way to June, 2013.

And, or so we hope, it will raise a few bucks for Rolling Dog Farm, which you can learn more about here.

To place your orders, visit this page.

For a fourth time, the animal cruelty trial of brothers Travers and Tremayne Johnson — accused of setting a pit bull named Phoenix on fire — has been postponed.

The new trial date  is Feb. 1 – nearly a year after the first trial ended with a hung jury.

Shortly before jury selection was to begin today, the trial was rescheduled because some key witnesses were unavailable this week, the Baltimore Sun reported

Prosecutor Jennifer Rallo requested the delay, saying a key witness in the state’s case has had a family emergency and will be unavailable for two weeks, possibly longer.

The twin brothers, after making bail on the animal cruelty charges, were arrested in connection with other crimes and are both in custody.

In the first trial, 11 jurors voted to convict the Johnsons, but one declined to do so.

Phoenix, as she was named after the incident, died days after she was doused with accelerant and set on fire on a Baltimore street.

Animal welfare activists are invited to a special holiday celebration being hosted by Maryland Votes For Animals at the Iron Works Restaurant in Baltimore on Friday, Dec. 9.

The event will feature a performance by comedian Dan Piraro, creator of the internationally syndicated cartoon Bizarro, and includes vegetarian and vegan appetizers, entrees, desserts, and a cash bar.  

The event will also include a short panel discussion on the work of the Task Force to Study the Establishment of a Spay/Neuter Fund in Maryland.

Animal activists are hoping that the recommendations of the task force will lead to establishment of a public funding mechanism to subsidize the cost of spay/neuter surgeries for those who cannot afford them.   

Reservations are required and tickets are $50 if purchased by Dec. 8 (go to www.voteanimals.org). Tickets at the door, if any remain, will be $60.

Iron Works Restaurant is at 1036 East Fort Avenue. The event starts at 6 p.m.

MVFA believes affordable, accessible spay/neuter programs can help prevent some of the estimated 48,000 deaths of homeless dogs and cats euthanized in Maryland shelters annually.

Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have a public funding mechanism to subsidize the cost of spay/neuter surgeries for those who cannot afford it. During the 2011 session of the Maryland General Assembly, legislation was enacted establishing a task force to study the establishment of a statewide fund.

The first meeting of the task force will take place Dec. 1 in the House Environmental Matters Hearing Room, Second Floor, House Office Building, 6 Bladen Street, Annapolis.

A second meeting is scheduled for Dec. 15 at 1 pm.

The meetings are open to the public.