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Wake Forest University has been fined $35,000 for shortcomings found during a government inspection of its animal research laboratories, including failing to properly secure a macaque who escaped last summer.

The 8-pound female macaque — used to breed other monkeys for research purposes — got out of her cage at the Wake Forest Primate Center on June 29 and roamed the woods for 11 days before she was captured.

In response to a formal complaint by PETA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted an initial inspection and cited Wake Forest University for failing to safely and securely house the monkey — a violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act.

Subsequent investigation led to the fines — posted this week on the USDA website — for that and five other violations.

The other violations include  failing to ensure that personnel involved in experimental use of animals were qualified to perform their duties, insufficiently monitoring rabbits in which diabetes had been induced, and improper euthanization of rabbits.

The $2 million primate center, based on a 200-acre farm in southern Forsyth County, is the subject of a court battle between Wake Forest University and the University of California at Los Angeles, which hold a joint agreement to operate it.

Wake Forest has sued UCLA to terminate the agreement and recoup half of the 2012 operating expenses during the 2012 fiscal year, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.

UCLA has filed a countersuit accusing Wake Forest of financially mismanaging the research center and using vervet monkeys there for unauthorized research.

(Photo: By Lauren Carroll / Winston-Salem Journal)

Somehow, Fritz the German shepherd was able to get out of his cage at the West Toledo Animal Hospital.

Somehow, he was able to get out the front door — even though it had a dead bolt lock.

Somehow he managed to do all this despite having been attacked earlier in the day by four dogs, despite the bleeding wound and a large bandage around his belly, despite being sedated, despite the cone around his head, and despite the intravenous tubes dragging behind him when he was spotted walking down West Sylvania Avenue in Toledo.

Micah Risher stopped his car, and he and his passenger, Cara D’Amato, got out to help him, according to the Toledo Blade.

“Once he calmed down a bit, he stopped panting and lay down on the pavement next to me and started to relax,” D’Amato said, noting that he was bleeding through his bandages. “He really seemed to be more stressed out than anything. He was very sweet.”

Risher walked to the animal hospital, just down the road, and saw the front door unlocked and smeared wih blood. He called police, who arrived not long after a member of the veterinary hospital’s staff did. According to Bob Dunlap, the veterinary hospital’s business manager, Fritz had been sedated and was to undergo surgery Thursday, but escaped before the operation.

“I should have warned them to put extra locks on his cage,” said Fritz’s owner, Jeannie Pilatowski of Toledo.

Fritz has severe separation anxiety and hates being caged, she said. “I was upset when I first heard about [his escape], but I don’t blame them because I have seen what he can do. This dog is a magician.”

Even when they secure Fritz’s crate with clips, or wire it shut, Pilatowski said, he still manages to get out.

Pilatowski said she was walking Fritz and her other dog, Gomer, when they were attacked by a pack of four dogs.

Fritz had his surgery late last week and is now back home.

(Photo: Toledo Blade)

A bomb-sniffing dog who had worked at both the U.S. Capitol and the White House escaped during his trip to a new home, but was recovered a few hours later.

The five-year-old shepherd — retired from duty early after killing a cat — slipped out of his collar and ran off from Detroit’s Metro Airport while his new owner, a Toledo woman, was taking him for a bathroom break.

It took animal control officers and police — two of whom were bitten in the process — about two hours to capture the dog, named Arco, after he was spotted running near train tracks in Romulus yesterday afternoon, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Arco is now at the Romulus Animal Shelter and will be quarantined for 10 days before being released back to his new owner.

The dog had arrived on a flight from Arizona, where he’d been under the care of Rescued Helpers, Inc.,  in Tucson for the past seven months.

According to WXYZ, the rescue organization stepped in when they heard Arco, after his government service was over, was to be euthanized.

Rescued Helpers vice president and founder Nadine Karsevar said Arco wasn’t aggressive and that, while under the organization’s care, had taken part in parades and other events.

It was five years ago when strange things started happening at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

Somehow, the same group of dogs were escaping from their pens at the shelter at night and proceeding to raid the food area, where they ate, played and partied all night long.

The shelter at first suspected staff wasn’t propertly closing the gates. Then they thought maybe it was a practical joke.

Finally, to find the answer, they installed three cameras. The first couple of nights, nothing happened, but then the cameras caught a greyhound mix named Red in the act — first freeing himself, then freeing his friends from their cages.

In Great Britain and Ireland, they call the mixed breed “lurchers,” and they’re known for their stealth and cunning.

Red certainly fit that bill — and better yet, shortly after shelter staff brought an end to the late night parties, Red got adopted.

Four dogs owned by Arizona Cardinals linebacker Joey Porter got loose from his Bakersfield, Calif., residence over the Fourth of July weekend and killed a neighbor’s dog.

Porter was cited for not having the dogs on a leash, county Animal Control spokeswoman Kim Rodriguez told the Bakersfield Californian. She said it was unclear how the dogs got out of their kennel.

Porter’s dogs were large and appeared to be half mastiff, half pit bull, she said.

Rodriguez said she doesn’t know what kind of arrangement Porter reached with the neighbor whose dog was killed.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, two of Porter’s dogs got loose from his home in Pennsylvania in 2006 and killed a miniature horse on a nearby farm.

Max, the fugitive pit bull, is back in custody, and he’s scheduled to be euthanized next week.

The a 3-year-old, 70-pound red nose pit bull — sprung from an animal shelter in Alameda, California — was located at a Reno motel and placed in a local shelter.

An Alameda animal control officer will drive to Reno on Monday to retrieve Max, after which the dog will be destroyed, Alameda police Sgt. Jill Ottaviato said Friday.

Max’s co-owner Melissa Perry, 38, was found with the dog and was cited by Reno police for possession of stolen property, a misdemeanor, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. An arrest warrant was also issued for Perry in Alameda County Friday on charges of burglary and receiving stolen property.

Police say Perry and her boyfriend, Richard Cochran, 57, conspired to free Max from the Alameda shelter the day before he was to be euthanized in connection with having bitten two people.

Cochran appeared in an Oakland courtroom Friday on charges of second-degree commercial burglary and receiving stolen property, both felonies, and he is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

Perry, in a phone interview with the Chronicle Friday morning from Reno,  said someone had tipped animal control officials to Max’s whereabouts.

“I don’t care about going to jail,” Perry said. “It’s not about me, it’s about Max. He’s my protector. That’s my companion. That’s my best friend.”

Perry said neither she nor Cochran had anything to do with the break-in at the animal shelter Wednesday — the day after an Alameda County Superior Court commissioner ordered Max destroyed.

But after the hearing, police say, Cochran bought a set of bolt cutters, and the couple’s pickup truck was seen on surveillance video taken outside the animal shelter the morning of the break-in.

Cochran told police that two other people were involved in the plot to free Max, but investigators said they now doubt that story.

“There are people all over this country who form strong emotional attachments to their pets, particularly dogs, and I think many people feel as though that dog, that animal, is part of their family,” said Demetrius Costy, Cochran’s attorney.

“The idea that a pet is going to be executed could cause someone to be very distraught,” Costy said, “which could lead someone to act out of character.”

A California pit bull was sprung from death row by the couple who owns him, police say, and he’s apparently being driven across the country in an attempt to elude euthanasia.

Police say an Alameda couple concocted a scheme to free their pit bull, Max, from the Alameda Animal Shelter, which, because he’d been deemed a dangerous dog, was planning to euthanize him Wednesday.

Authorities arrested one of the suspects, Richard Cochran, 57. Cochran admitted to formulating a plan to steal the three-year-old dog from the shelter with Melissa Perry, 38, his girlfriend of 17 years, and two other people whose identities haven’t been confirmed, police said.

He denied playing any other role in stealing the dog, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Perry, meanwhile, called the Chronicle on Thursday evening, saying Max was with her and that a friend was driving them across the country. “I’m almost to Kentucky,” she said.

Perry told the newspaper that, while neither she nor Cochran had anything to do with the break-in, she had told friends she wished someone would “break him out.”

“Max doesn’t deserve to be euthanized. Considering the circumstances, I think he deserves a chance.”

Police say the dog is dangerous. “If anyone comes into contact with the dog and this woman, I really want to stress that they should take caution,” said police Sgt. Jill Ottaviano. “This is a very dangerous animal. It is very protective of this woman.”

Max had bitten two people. While being examined at an animal hospital in Oakland, he bit a veterinary technician. The dog was ordered to be quarantined at his home in an Alameda motel after that, but during the quarantine he bit a friend of the couple.

The animal shelter was ready to euthanize Max on Tuesday, after a court order was issued. The court commissioner agreed that the dog would be kept alive one more day to allow Cochran and Perry to say goodbye.

When shelter staff arrived for work Wednesday morning they discovered someone had used bolt cutters to cut through a cyclone fence and break the lock on the kennel where Max had been staying.

(Photo: Alameda Police Department)

Two dogs trapped inside a Colorado mine shaft since Monday managed to escape on their own.

Christy Huffman told KRDO that her border collie and Chihuahua escaped from her home Monday, along with a third dog who is still missing.

The two who ended up in the mine pit at the Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine in Teller County got out and are now in the care of the local animal control office.

Rescue crews had been trying to reach the animals since Tuesday, and Animal control officers Wednesday tried coaxing the dogs out of the mine shaft with food, treats and water, but had no success.

CC&V Gold Mine spokesperson Jane Mannon says the dogs were able to make their way out of the mine on their own.

Sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Mikel Baker said officials were worried about  sending a search-and-rescue team down the 500-foot Ironclad Mine because the ground is unstable.

The dogs’ owners have been cited for letting their dogs run loose.

A black Lab named Felony who worked for the police department in Howard Lake, Minnesota, escaped from his kennel, ended up at the local humane society and, after getting labeled aggressive, was euthanized.

Felony, 10 years old and nearing the end of his police career as a drug sniffer, was discovered missing on October 30 when a police officer arrived to pick him up for work.

Police immediately called the Wright County Humane Society. The dog wasn’t there. But he did end up there a day later when a Howard Lake resident found him and called the local dog catcher, KARE11 in the Twin Cities reported.

“Our officer contacted the Animal Humane Society on Friday evening shortly after contacting the dog catcher, said Chief Tracy Vetruba. “Unfortunately, at that time the dog catcher still had the dog, who he did not believe was our dog, and it ‘was’ our dog.”

With no tags or microchip on the dog,  a spokesperson for the Animal Humane Society said workers had no idea Felony was a K-9 officer. Felony was placed on a 5-day mandatory hold, during which he demonstrated aggressive behavior. Tests determined that he was dangerous and unadoptable, and Felony was euthanized, the humane society says.

“Our officers were devastated to learn that he was put down,” said Cheif Vetruba. “He will absolutely be missed by our officers.”

Howard Lake’s police chief will look into the events that led to Felony’s death as part of a larger examination of the department’s K-9 program, and he hopes to get a new dog for the department.

 
Gary Rowley hadn’t seen Brindle since 1999, when his dog nosed open a door and disappeared into the night.

This past Sunday — thanks to a microchip, Facebook and an animal lover who volunteered to drive the dog  1,300 miles back home from Oklahoma – they reunited at Rowley’s home in Fredricksburg, Virginia.

“He needed a way home,” said Laurie Swain, who flew from Virginia to Oklahoma, then drove the dog back. “If the dog can wander 1,300 plus miles in 10 years I can certainly spend a few days driving.”

Rowley had given up on finding the dog in the decade since he went missing, shortly before the Super Bowl in 1999.

Then, last month, he received a message on Facebook: “Did you ever have a dog named Brindle?”

The question came from an Oklahoma military family who had discovered Brindle hiding under a bush, NBC News in Washington reported. After a local veterinarian found a microchip in Brindle’s neck, the family tracked Rowley down.

“I don’t know what to say. I just can’t believe someone would do this,” Rowley said.

Rowley has no idea how Brindle managed to wander so far from home, but he says it won’t happen again.

“For him to get out now, he’s going to have to turn a knob and flip a dead bolt,” Rowley said. “I’m still thinking about some of those child safety locks.”