Tag: cody

Cody and Sierra with some yuletide favorites

We interrupt our regular Monday “Sleeping Dogs” feature to present some singing dogs.

For your Christmas Eve enjoyment, here are Crooning Cody and Singing Sierra, who have appeared here before, and also once made it on Anderson Cooper’s show.

They belong to Adam Yamada-Hanff, a friend of mine in Baltimore and proprietor of the website singingdogs.net.

“I have started to record a few special and unique versions of classic Christmas songs,” Adam informs me. “We are still working on a couple currently but we decided to start off with the well known classic, ‘Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer’ since that was requested via email by a fan of the singing dogs.

“While I was playing the song I started laughing, since it was just too funny not to laugh! Even after playing with Cody and Sierra for awhile it is still very hard not to laugh when they are both singing loudly together.”

Here they are performing “Oh Christmas Tree”:

Adam and  his family work with the National English Shepherd Rescue, Ltd.

As for our sleeping dogs, they’ll return next Monday.

Kiefer Sutherland’s singing dog

Since we’ve shown you the musical stylings of the world famous Adam Yamada-Hanffff and his dogs, Sierra and Cody, a few times, it’s only fair we give some space to this relative newcomer to the field, some guy named Kiefer Sutherland.

Sutherland posted a video on Twitter of his dog singing along as he played guitar, along with the comment, “Even the dog can sing better than me.”

The actor, who’s now starring in the TV series, Touch, didn’t bother to mention his dog’s name in the post.

Sierra and Cody and Anderson Cooper

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In case you missed it, here are Adam Yamada-Hanff and his singing dogs — well, one sang anyway — in their appearance Monday on Anderson Cooper’s show.

Sierra belted out “Auld Lang Syne” as Adam played saxophone and Cody, whose a little newer to the act, checked out the audience.

Sierra and Cody meet Anderson Cooper

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.

Sierra and Cody sing “Oh, Christmas Tree”

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.

Some Christmas music, courtesy of Sierra

Singing Sierra is back, and just in time for Christmas.

Adam Yamada-Hanff, a Baltimore area community college student, has posted several videos on YouTube of Sierra “singing” as he plays his saxophone. This latest one also features Cody, who clearly considers himself a backkground vocalist.

We met Sierra and Adam back in May, when they — well, Adam, anyway — agreed to a quick sidewalk performance during my “Hey, That’s My Dog!” photo exhibit at Captain Larry’s, a bar and restaurant on Fort Avenue in South Baltimore.

Adam uses Sierra’s singing abilities to help raise money for animal shelters and rescue organizations.

He’s Claude no more

Naming a dog after his deformity, funny as some may find it, seemed downright cruel to Barbara Sulier.

And that’s why the dog she adopted — born with ectrodactyly, or “lobster claw syndrome” — no longer goes by “Claude.”

A 2-year-old, 60-pound pit bull mix, Claude’s now named Cody. He was left at a shelter as a pup, then rescued by Even Chance, a San Diego-based pit bull advocacy center, which paid for surgery to help correct the deformity by fusing his two toes together.

Now, Cody lives happily with what’s called a “mitten” paw. He’s found a forever home with Sulier. And he’s been certified as a therapy dog, PeoplePets reports.

Working with New Leash on Life Animal Rescue’s Lend a Paw program, he’s the first of his breed to be certified as a therapy dog through the organization, which Sulier hopes will set the record straight about other dogs of his kind.

“Pitties are sweet, loyal dogs, and the reason they become mean dogs is because they’re so loyal, they will do anything you ask them to,” she says. “People need to see that they really are extremely loving dogs.”

Every other week, Sulier and Cody head to the Jewish Home for the Aging in their hometown of Los Angeles. Sulier feels Cody, who walks with a slight limp, has a personal connection to those he comforts.

“He’s been pretty special ever since [I adopted him],” she says. “For some reason, from the bottom of my heart, I know I’m supposed to have Cody.”

Inspectors say gas station dog must go

codyCody, the chocolate Labrador we showed you a video of last week — the one who jumps up and greets customers at the drive-through window of a Florida gas station — has been declared a health hazard and ordered to leave the premises.

The dog was featured last month in a St. Petersburg Times story, along with a heartwarming video of Cody in action that has been seen widely on the Internet.

Apparently state officials didn’t find it as heartwarming as everybody else.

Inspectors — from the health department according to some reports, agriculture department according to others — stopped by Karim Mansour’s BP station and convenience store in Clearwater and issued a warning. Unless the dog was removed, all of Mansour’s food products would be declared unfit for consumption, the St. Petersburg Times reported yesterday.

That most everything Mansour sells at his shop in Clearwater is packaged — bottled sodas, candy bars, chips and the like — didn’t matter to the Grinch-like bureacrats, who apparently feared the wholesome goodness of the store’s Slim Jims, Twinkies and Marlboros might be tainted by a deadly pet hair.

Mansour, who adopted 6-year-old Cody three years ago, accepted the warning and plans to start leaving his dog at home.

Most readers, judging from the comments the Times has received on the story, see the state’s crackdown on Mansour as a ridiculous case of overkill.

We couldn’t agree more. Once again, it appears, bureaucracy has prevailed, accomplishing its mission of  making the world a safer, far more boring, smile-free  place.

Drive-thru dog greets gas station customers

The friendly face that often greets customers at the drive-thru window of a gas station in Clearwater, Florida isn’t that of the owner, but that of his dog.

Cody, a chocolate Labrador retriever, jumps up and puts his front paws on the counter when a car pulls up to the window at Karim Mansour’s BP gas station and convenience store, according to the Associated Press.

Mansour said he started bringing Cody to work five months ago for company on the early morning shift. The dog quickly became a celebrity among store regulars, and now wears his own BP shirt and name tag.