ohmidog!

Humans had been searching more than 10 days for the monkey that escaped from Wake Forest University’s Primate Center, but it was a dog who finally spotted her.

Cassidy Garwood, 14, told WGHP/Fox 8 that her dog, Keeley, saw the monkey Tuesday afternoon in some trees outside their house on Frye Bridge Road.

When the family went to see what Keeley was barking at, they saw the 8-pound, one-foot-tall macaque jumping from tree to tree.

The family called authorities and officials from the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, Lexington Police and Wake Forest soon arrived on the Garwoods’ property, where the monkey was brought down with three tranquilizing darts and returned to the research facility.

Richard Young, who heads the animal resources program for Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, told the Winston-Salem Journal that the monkey is doing fine and will be quarantined for six weeks.

After that, he added (in a word choice he probably regrets) she’ll be placed “back with her other cage mates, inmates, back in her family.”

The monkey outsmarted two barriers at the center on June 29 and fled into the woods, prompting a search in which law enforcement, university officials and animal control officers set traps with apples and bananas and even used recordings of a baby monkey in their efforts to capture her.

The 16-year-old macaque is a breeder, producing offspring that are used for medical testing. She came to the primate center in 2008 after being captured in Indonesia.

According to the website for Wake Forest’s Primate Center, staff “use nonhuman primates to study six of the 10 major causes of death in the United States.”

The monkey’s escape led to criticism from some animal welfare groups, including PETA, which filed a formal complaint July 4 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The group urged the agency to investigate Wake Forest for possible violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, including failure to ensure that the primate housing is safe and secure.

Young said that Wake Forest has beefed up security at the primate center.

After eluding authorities for 11 days, the laboratory monkey who escaped from a Wake Forest University research facility has been captured and returned to the school’s Primate Center.

The one-foot tall, 8-pound macaque was caught this afternoon near Frye Bridge Road in Davidson County after being shot with three tranquilizer darts. three shots from on Tuesday afternoon.

Forsyth County Animal Control responded to the neighborhood after a teenaged girl spotted the monkey in a tree in her family’s yard, Fox News reported.

The 16-year-old monkey is kept at the center as a breeder, producing more monkeys that are used for medical testing.

(Photo: By Cassidy Garwood, via Fox News)

The wolfish-looking creature who lurked for months in Pennypack Park has been caught, and it is indeed Levi, a Malamute-wolf mix that escaped when his Florida owner was visiting Philadelphia earlier this year.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission said the wolf-dog hybrid was captured using hot dogs and foothold traps, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The animal is believed to be a wolf-Alaskan malamute mix that was purchased as a pet in Florida and escaped when his owners were visiting in March.

The wolf-dog attacked no one during that time.

About a week ago, Game Commission officials began trying to catch the canine at the park in Northeast Philadelphia park, using traps, nets, snare poles, sedative-laced hot dogs and tranquilizing darts.

On Monday night, wildlife agents set foothold traps, one of which went off around 3:15 a.m. today. They followed the dog’s yelps. The dog was briefly aggressive as it was being put in a cage, said Jerry Czech, of the game commission, but he soon calmed down.

“He laid there, unfazed, did not growl, kick, spit, anything,” Czech said.

The  wolf hybrid was taken to the Wolf Sanctuary near Lititz in Lancaster County, a 22-acre woodland refuge for wolves and wolf-hybrids. Wolf-dog hybrids are legal in Pennsylvania only with a special permit.

He believes the animal is Levi, whose owner, Kasey Lyons, searched for him at the park after seeing reports about the mystery dog on Philly.com.

Lyons bought the dog for his then-fiancee for Valentine’s Day. While visiting from Florida, they let the animal off leash in the park and lost him.

Lyons, who has since broken up with his girlfriend and moved back to Philadelphia, could be fined for transporting and possessing a wolf-hybrid without a permit, but Czech said his cooperation with officials will be taken into account.

(Photo: Alejandro A. Alvarez / Philadelphia Inquirer)

(An update to this story can be found here.) 

Apparently gunning down stray dogs on the streets wasn’t enough for the dog unfriendly officials of Cumberland County, North Carolina.

Now they want to slay, within 72 hours, every dog that comes into the shelter who is, or appears to be a mix of: 

American Staffordshire terrier, Rottweiller, Akita, chow chow, Doberman pinscher, German shepherd, Great Dane, Presa Canario, Siberian husky or mastiff. There’s a convenient catch-all pit bull category as well.

They’re not doing it yet, despite what you may be reading on the misinformation highway.

But they’re talking about it.

The county’s Animal Control Board is recommending that authorities limit the adoption of the above dog breeds, or, as one county official referred to them, ”attack animals.” (Clearly, they haven’t met many Great Danes.)

The idea is only in the discussion stages, but many websites are reporting –erroneously — that the new policy goes into effect today.

“I’ve probably had 1,500 emails,” said John Lauby, director of Cumberland County Animal Control. (Here’s hoping he gets about 150,000 more.)

Lauby told a Fayetteville Observer columnist that misinformation on the Internet led people to believe the county will ban adoption of pit bulls and other breeds starting Monday, and immediately euthanize any members of those breeds in the shelter.

In reality, the county hasn’t taken that medieval step, it’s just considering it.

“We’re looking at a list of animals used as attack animals,” County Commissioner Charles Evans said. “It has been suggested that something needs to be done about those.”

The recommendation would have to make its way through a committe and then require approval by the county commissioners before going into effect. But it’s scheduled to be introduced at a meeting tonight. (6 p.m., at Cumberland County Animal Services, 4704 Corporation Drive, Fayetteville).

Lauby said animal control constantly receives calls from residents complaining about dogs behaving aggressively or running loose, preventing people from getting into their cars.

“We have an inordinate number of pit bulls in the county that are chasing people, chasing dogs, they’re on school grounds and generally bother people,” he said. “The reality is that about 80 percent of our calls are related to that particular breed.”

Complaints from the public also led Cumberland County to hire an outside contractor to capture stray dogs in and around Fayetteville — a massive roundup that started in August and, at last report, led to more dogs being gunned down than caught alive.

Fayetteville doesn’t have its own animal control department, instead relying on the county office to handle dog-related issues.

As I’ve implied before, that might be part of the problem — the problem, in my view, being not just too many uncontrolled dogs, but too many unenlightened public servants, who see dogs as foes and death as a solution.

Maybe it’s the army base influence. In any event, someone needs to usher Cumberland County into modern times.

In a way, the proposed policy — while it it lists some new ”public enemy” breeds, like the husky, and some returning ones, like the shepherd — would only formalize what’s already common practice in the county.

Since April, Cumberland County Animal Control has taken in nearly 1,300 pit bulls, but only 124 have been adopted. The shelter has taken in 180 Rottweilers since then, only 26 of whom were adopted. Of 96 chow chows received at the shelter since April, 15 have been adopted, according to the Fayetteville Observer.

The rest are euthanized.

Now, some want to make it official, banning the adoption of any of those breeds and guaranteeing a death sentence for all of them, or any mixes thereof — all based on what will likely be, judging from the wisdom they’ve shown so far, an uneducated guess.

In addition to complaints, worries about liability issues are also behind the proposal. The county fears it might be held responsible for any damage done by dogs adopted from its shelter. Most shelters handle that with a simple waiver.

Petitions against the policy can be found on several websites, including our-compass.org and change.org.

If you’d like to give Cumberland County officials a piece of your mind — and it appears they could use it — continue reading for contact information.

Read more »

Dozens of wild animals who escaped from a wildlife preserve in Ohio have been gunned down by police and sheriff’s deputies, and only two — a wolf and a monkey — are still believed at large.

The animals were freed by Terry Thompson, the preserve’s owner, who killed himself after opening all the cages, officials said.

On Tuesday night, a grizzly bear and a mountain lion were killed, but Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz told reporters he can’t be 100 percent sure how many of the 51 animals might still be roaming around Zanesville, Ohio.

Lutz and wildlife expert Jack Hanna, who will take the living animals at the preserve to the Columbus Zoo, urged the public to remain cautious, according to an ABC News report.

Lutz said his officers found grizzly bears, lions, Bengal tigers, black bears and leopards roaming the area around the preserve, many of which had to be killed.

When a veterinarian shot a tiger with a tranquilizer from 15 yards away, Lutz said,  it “just went crazy,” and started to run, so officers were forced to shoot it.

Another animal — described only as a big cat — was hit by a car on a highway, and an escaped monkey was eaten by one of the lions.

Thompson, the 61-year-old owner of the preserve, was recently released from prison after serving one year on federal weapons charges. According to investigators he has been cited in the past for animal abuse and neglect.

Sheriff Lutz warned residents to stay inside until the animals are rounded up. Several schools cancelled classes for today.

A dog seen wandering around Danville, Virginia last week with a plastic container stuck over his head — in the fashion of a spaceman or deep sea diver — has been captured and relieved of his involuntary helmet.

A police officer captured the dog Friday morning, after a resident spotted him and called for help.

He’s now in the custody of the the Danville Humane Society, which has named him “Jughead.”

The Humane Society had been trying to catch “Jughead” all week because the plastic container — similar to one cheese puffs might come in — was preventing him from eating or drinking. They’d offered a $500 reward to anyone who could capture him.

Danville Police Officer Mike Smith captured the dog Friday after a woman spotted him resting on a porch on Colquhoun Street, the Danville News reported.

“He was eager to drink. He seems to be doing better now. He seems to have come around a little bit. He was very scared and very shy when we first saw him but he seems to be doing better now, Danville Humane Society Director Paulette Dean said.

The Humane Society says it will put Jughead — believed to be a pit bull-chow mix, about four years old — up for adoption if no owner is found.

Dean said Jughead wasn’t the first animal to get entrapped in litter. The society has had cases of stray cats, a fox and a raccoon getting their head stuck in containers.

“There are dangers of littering,” she said. “People need to keep their trash contained.”

And their dogs, too.