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A British rabbit whose lost her hop is now getting around on a set of wheels made in Texas.

The four-year-old rabbit, Ethel, lost the use of her back legs after coming down with a mystery illness.

Vets advised owner Zoe Holbourne to put the rabbit down - but she refused and turned to Internet.

There, she found a mom and pop company on the outskirts of Houston that makes customized miniature carts for disabled animals and placed her order.

The Telegraph of London reports that Ethel is “now happily bounding around in the contraption, which is made from toy wheels and lightweight plastic tubing.”

Miss Holbourne, 46, said: “It looks bizarre but it is just amazing. It has given Ethel a new lease of life … At first she struggled to keep her balance and kept tipping over, but she soon got to grips with it, especially on flat surfaces. Now she loves it.”

Ethel also lost control of her bladder and bowels due to the illness, according to the Telegraph, and has to wear “a special nappy at night.”

Ethel’s was the first cart Dogs To Go has built for a rabbit, and the first they’ve shipped to Britain.

“Most of the carts we make are for dogs, but we’ll consider any animal so long as it isn’t too large, said Laurie Miller, a veterinary technician and director of Dogs to Go. ”We even make some carts for skunks which people keep as pets.”

Laurie manages the company, while husband Larry builds the carts. The couple has two disabled pets of their own.

“Larry is our cart builder. He works a full time job, then comes home and builds your custom cart,” the Dogs to Go website says. “He puts a lot of love into every cart because he knows how much you want your baby to get back to a normal life.”

(Photo: A Pug gets his wheels; courtesy of Dogs to Go)

Texas officials have begun making arrests in an investigation into what authorities describe as one of the largest dogfighting rings in the country.

Eight people were arrested and 187 dogs were seized Friday — all part of what was called a sophisticated dogfighting ring involving a network of bettors and fight organizers throughout eastern Texas.

According to the New York Times, 55 people were indicted after an undercover investigation that lasted 17 months. Officials said the network’s dogfights drew crowds of up to 100 people, who placed tens of thousands of dollars in wagers on a single fight.

“This was a large-scale, highly organized operation,” said Lisa Block, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

It was not uncommon for a gambler to put $500 to $1,000 down on the matches, which took place several times a month in secluded parts of Harris County, law enforcement officials said.

Ring members invited only people they knew to the fights, but undercover agents from the state police infiltrated the group to gather evidence and even managed to videotape some of the matches, officials said. The investigation started after troopers received a tip from someone in another state about the fights.

Most of the dogs seized were pit bull mixes.

During raids to seize the animals, state troopers also found firearms, marijuana, cocaine and stolen property, the authorities said. But the indictments charged the defendants only with engaging in dogfights, a felony that carries up to two years in prison, or misdemeanor charges of being a spectator at a dogfight, which carries up to a year in jail, the Times reported.

A down-on-his-luck Florida man whose last act in life was to try to save three dogs stranded in a freeway emergency lane, was remembered Wednesday at a donated funeral where he was praised by Houstonians who never met him, and remembered by a daughter who hadn’t seen him in 20 years.

Robert “Bob” Emery, 54, was fatally struck by a motorcycle the night of Sept. 27 as he dashed onto the East Freeway to rescue three dogs stranded against the median.

Alaina Emery, a 25-year-old paralegal student, drove from Pennsylvania to attend her father’s service, the Houston Chronicle reported. About two dozen animal lovers also were there.

She placed a framed wedding photograph of her estranged parents atop Emery’s oak casket.

Emery. after a 13-hour day of clearing brush from Hurricane Ike, was preparing to turn in for the night when he heard about the dogs just yards from his motel. He was struck my a motorcycle as he ran across the freeway. Animal control officers called to the accident later rescued the dogs, and  they were returned to a senior-citizen couple that had been looking for them for days.

During the service at San Jacinto Funeral Home and Memorial Parks, the Rev. Bill Cole called Emery a hero, and sang a solo of the Prayer of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals. Flowers were placed atop a table covered with a blanket emblazoned with drawings of paw prints and bones.

Among those offering hungs to Alaina Emery were the dogs’ owners, who weren’t sure if she would be angry with them, but wanted to thank her.

“It is OK. It is OK,” Emery said quietly as she hugged them. “Take care of those dogs; take care of those dogs.”

The loner from Florida who was killed trying to rescue three dogs from a freeway in Houston will be cremated next week, and a veterinary paramedic scholarship is being created in his name at Houston Community College.

Robert “Bob” Emery, 54, who went to Houston to help clear debris from Hurricane Ike, was killed Sept. 27 after running onto the East Freeway to rescue three dogs trapped against the interstate’s concrete median.

“Man, we can’t leave them dogs to die,” Emery’s friends recalled him saying.

In the days after his death, no relatives could be found and it appeared Emery was headed for a pauper’s funeral. But animal lovers came through with offers of money as well as flowers, a casket and even a burial plot. A Clear Lake-area resident, Kellye Nagata, searched the Internet and located Emery’s long lost daughter, Alaina, who hadn’t seen him since she was 5 years old.

Emery, 25, plans to attend his funeral service, and her father’s remains will be sent to Pittsburgh, where he grew up.

San Jacinto Memorial Park and Funeral Home, of Houston, is donating a funeral service for Emery, which is set for Oct. 22 at 2 p.m, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“It was an amazing story to me,” said funeral director Stan James, who has four dogs. “I thought, ‘We’ve got to do something for this man.’ ”

Among those who took up his cause was the Houston nonprofit organization, No Paws Left Behind, which collected donations in his name. The money will go toward a $2,000 annual scholarship at the Veterinary Paramedic program at Houston Community College Northwest in Katy.

“Besides helping the dogs, he is going to help students that could use a break in order to keep helping animals,” said Pamela Huebner, director of the veterinary paramedic program.

A Pittsburgh woman who spent 13 years searching for her father learned yesterday that he was the Hurricane Ike relief worker who was killed when he tried to rescue three dogs from a Houston freeway.

Alaina Emery, 25,  learned about the death of her father Robert Emery, who she hadn’t seen since she was a child, in an email exchange from a stranger, the Houston Chronicle reported.

She’s the first relative of Emery to be located since he died Sept. 27 when he ran onto the East Freeway to rescue three dogs stranded in an emergency lane.

The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office had been unable to find relatives, and Emery was to be buried as a pauper if no one claimed his body.

The daughter was located by Kellye Nagata, a woman who says she searches for people as a hobby.

“Girl, he died a hero with tons of people loving him,” Nagata said in one email to Alaina Emery, whom she tracked down on the Internet.

Bob Emery’s death rallied animal lovers in Houston and elsewhere, who vowed to ensure he receive a proper burial, and that his attempt to save the dogs would not be forgotten. There have been offers to donate a casket as well as a burial plot, flowers and ministerial services, and the animal welfare organization, No Paws Left Behind, is collecting money for a funeral or memorial to Emery.

Alaina Emery said she had unsuccessfully searched phone books, the Internet and even appealed to a television show as recently as last week for help finding her father.

“I am very saddened that I could not find him in life, but somehow he found me in death,” Emery told the Houston Chronicle by phone.

The newspaper reported that Emery had battled a drug problem that destroyed two marriages as well as his career as a construction worker.

He had two other children, and authorities were still trying to determine if he was still married at the time of his death.

A sad story just got a little sadder.

Bob Emery, the Hurricane Ike relief worker who died while trying to rescue three dogs trapped on an interstate highway, appears to be headed for a pauper’s funeral.

The 54-year-old repairman lived alone on Big Pine Key, Fla. He had a trailer with a view of the sea and was apparently estranged from family, the Houston Chronicle reported.

“We are trying to locate family to notify them of this person’s death,” said Beverly Begay, chief investigator with the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office. If no family is found, and no one claims the body, it would be given a pauper’s burial, Begay said.

The three dogs Emery was trying to reach when he was struck by a motorcycle and killed were rescued by Houston animal-control officers and returned to their families.

Emery’s, meanwhile, has yet to be found.

“He lived in Big Pine alone, and didn’t have a wife or girlfriend that I know of,” said Sandy Downs, whose husband knew Emery for about five years. “I’m having trouble tracking down the rumor he had two older daughters.”

After a long day repairing damage from Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Robert “Bob” Emery and his work crew returned to their Houston motel ready to turn in.

But when Emery, 54, heard that three dogs were stranded in the emergency lane of the East Freeway, just in front of the motel, he dashed to the scene. Seconds later he was struck by a motorcycle and killed.

“Man, we can’t leave them dogs to die,” Emery’s co-workers recalled him saying late Saturday night.

Emery, according to the Houston Chronicle, was one of thousands of workers who descended on the Houston area after Ike.

“We came here on a good mission, but Bob died on an even better mission,” said Nick Downs, 42, among those Emery came from Florida with to help after the storm.

The 50-year-old motorcycle rider from Pasadena was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital with a possible broken arm, Houston police said.

The three dogs, found wearing collars and tags, were rescued by police and turned over to the city’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care.

“He’d bend over backwards and jump through a hoop for anyone,” said Billy Siegel, 24, a friend of Emery’s who said he shouted at him as the motorcycle approached. “He was trying to do a good deed, not anything drunk or stupid. He risked his life, and, of course, it cost him his life.”

Meera Nandlal, a spokeswoman for Houston’s SPCA, said thoughts and prayers go out to Emery’s friends and family. “Obviously, the guy had a huge heart, and went out there to help these animals, who couldn’t help themselves.”

More than a thousand animals displaced by Hurricane Ike have been taken in by the Houston SPCA — horses, ducks, goats, iguanas and even a bear.

The shelter began taking in animals even before the storm crashed ashore Saturday, many of them coming from Brazoria County and the Bay Area SPCA in Galveston, which were forced to evacuate. The Houston shelter set up a web page on the hurricane, which includes a list of items they need help with.

To prepare for the influx, Houston moved about 300 of its own animals up for adoption to other shelters in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and San Antonio and set up an animal rescue hotline. (Those needing help with their pets can call 713-861-0161 or toll-free 877-661-0161.)

Thirty-seven staff members from the Houston SPCA stayed with the animals overnight Friday to tend to them.

“As of right now, the animals are OK, but we haven’t been able to go outside because it’s pretty bad out here,” said Meera Nandlal, the Houston SPCA’s public relations manager. “As soon as we’re able to go outside and check on them, we will.”

She said the hotline phone “has been ringing off the hook.”

The shelter is housing about 300 dogs, 400 cats, 60 horses and 40 other farm animals. The SPCA also has taken in wildlife including pelicans, falcons, owls, ducks and the bear, which is part of an animal cruelty case.

Mercer advised people who see or have animals in need of rescue to call the hotline. She said staff would be prioritizing the rescue efforts and working primarily on “the animals in the greatest danger.” Veterinarians are on hand to perform surgeries as needed.

She also warned that there would likely be a flood of strays in the streets because of pets left behind in the storm. Animal control authorities will be taking care of them.

Luckily, help is on the way for the Houston SPCA. Mercer said teams from Colorado animal shelters as well as those from the Los Angeles and Louisiana SPCAs and others around the country are flying in to provide support.

(Photo: Houston SPCA)

An animal control officer in Houston says the heat-related deaths of six to eight dogs in the back of her truck last week wasn’t her fault. Instead, she blames the animal control bureau for issuing her a truck with broken air conditioning.

“It’s not my fault that the wires burned on the truck,” said Beverly Tucker, 36. “The air goes out, and I’m being finger-pointed.”

Tucker had nine dogs in her truck when she stopped for lunch Aug. 26 – a day when the high was 95 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. After what she says was a 40-minute lunch, she found that the air conditioning in the back of the truck had stopped working.

Tucker, an animal control officer for nine months, said she poured ice and water from two coolers over two of the most overheated dogs and drove quickly back to the animal shelter, according to an account in the Houston Chronicle.  

Tucker said six dogs died, and two more that were in the truck were later routinely euthanized. Kathy Barton, spokeswoman for the city health and human services department, says eight dogs died from the heat.

Whether the air conditioner was broken was also in dispute, at least for awhile. City officials on Tuesday said the air conditioning in the back of the truck was working when Tucker returned to the shelter with the animals. On Wednesday, though, they agreed that the air conditioner was broken, but said the agency was still considering firing Tucker because she didn’t follow a policy requiring officers to unload a full load of animals at the shelter before taking an extended break in the summer.

The incident has made nationwide news, and has led to another outcry for reforms of Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC).

Sam Levingston, a veterinarian fired by BARC in 2000, testified in state district court that animals sometimes died from overheating before arriving at the facility because air conditioners on shelter trucks weren’t working.

Levingston sued the city, saying he was fired because he was a whistle-blower. A court granted him a $1.2 million award, according to the Chronicle article, and the city settled the case by paying him $875,000.

The way the city of Houston treats its domestic animals is a “national embarassment” — and that’s according to the city’s own newspaper, the Houston Chronicle.

As the city’s director of animal control departs, the newspaper, in an editorial, urged that the city “seize the moment” and hire a replacement to tackle the problems associated with the “tens of thousands of abandoned or mistreated animals that Houston produces in wildly increasing numbers.”

Not that the departing director, Kent Anderson, didn’t give it a shot.

Anderson tried to transform Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC) into a no-kill shelter, only to be ”frustrated by the low budget and relentlessly irresponsible behavior that have made Houstonians’ treatment of domestic animals a national embarrassment,” the editorial stated.

About 80 percent of the shelter’s animals were euthanized when he started the job in 2006; about 80 percent still are, the newspaper said. In other ways, the shelter has improved from the mess it reportedly was when Anderson inherited it.

“…The shelter was filthy and inhumane; volunteers routinely had to step over sacks of just-killed animals to feed and water those still alive,” the newspaper editorial said. “When animal control trucks rolled up to the facility, some of the animals would already be dead from being left unattended in the heat.”

Anderson, citing personal reasons, is leaving the job to return to Dallas.