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Street dogs are being blamed for the deaths of four people in a park on the outskirts of Mexico City.

“Experts have established that due to the gravity of the wounds, at least 10 dogs were involved in each attack,” Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement.

Authorities have begun rounding up dogs living in the park to conduct tests aimed at determining if they were involved in the attacks.

In one case, the Associated Press reports, a teenage girl called her sister with her cellphone to plead for help as the attack took place.

“Several dogs are attacking us, help me!” the girl screamed before the call was disconnected.

Despite that, some animal activists are questioning whether the deaths should all be blamed solely on wild dogs,  and Diana Ruiz, who received the phone call, still doesn’t believe dogs were responsible for her sister’s death.

“What kind of dog can tear the skin from your whole arm and leave just bone and if it was an attack dog why didn’t it attack her neck?” Ruiz told Milenio Television. “What’s most shocking is that one of her breasts was mutilated.”

She said she later visited the place of the attack and saw no pools of blood.

“There needs to be a thorough investigation,” she added.

The attacks occured in the Cerro de la Estrella, a hilltop park surrounded by the city’s Iztapalapa district.

The first two bodies — a  26-year-old woman and a 1-year-old child — were found there Dec. 29, authorities in Mexico’s capital said.

The woman, Shunashi Mendoza, was missing her left arm, and prosecutors said that both she and the boy had bled to death and been partially eaten.

On Friday, visitors to the park found the bodies of  Alejandra Ruiz, 15, and her boyfriend Samuel Martinez, 16. Both had bled to death.

Antemio Maya, president of the Street Dog Protection Association in Mexico City, said he doubts dogs could have killed the people found in the park.

“It’s not the behavior of street dogs to kill humans,” said Maya, adding that blaming street dogs for the deaths could make life difficult for the thousands of homeless dogs in the city.

“A lot of people get tired of their dogs and they simply throw them on the streets,” he said. “This is going to create a terrible hate for street dogs and that’s going to lead to even more abuse.”

It’s estimated that, in the city of 9 million people, the number of dogs range from 1.2 million to 3 million.

Mexico City Public Safety Secretary Jesus Rodriguez told Milenio Television that the four victims were not dumped in the area as some had suggested. He said all the bodies had bite wounds, and that the bites were inflicted both while they were alive and after they had died. He warned against visiting the park.

At least 100 police officers had trapped 25 dogs in the park by Monday night. (The photos in this post are of four of them.)

According to Maya, the trapped dogs included beagles, Maltese and poodles and most were probably abandoned pets or their offspring.

Experts will test the dogs’ hair for traces of human blood and also test their stomach contents. Authorities haven’t said what they plan to do with the dogs.

Previous attacks by feral dogs have occured in Mexico City’s famed Chapultepec Park, but none fatal. After one attack there, authorities rounded up dogs, spayed and neutered them, and then either returned them to the park or found them homes.

A pleasant outing with her dogs turned into a nightmare for a Washington woman when both of her dogs jumped into a concrete-sided canal and were swept up in its current.

Noya Deats regularly walked her dogs, Fawn and Nia,  along the Roza Canal, which is marked with signs warning people not to enter it, due to its sometimes swift current and steep and slippery sides.

Last Wednesday, the dogs decided to jump in, according to the Yakima Herald-Republic – only to find they couldn’t get out.

As the dogs were being swept downstream, Deats ran alongside, trying to keep up with them while calling her husband, Matt.

Matt arrived after she had run — and the dogs had drifted — about two miles. He found a ladder leading into the canal, climbed down it and attempted to grab one of the dogs, but missed her as she floated by.

A Yakima County Sheriff’s deputy arrived and attempted to lasso the dogs with a rope, but without success. As the dogs were swept along the canal, Fawn, a Labrador mix, seemed able to keep her head above water, but Nia, an Australian shepherd mix, was struggling, Matt said.

Things were looking hopeless when, about three miles from where the dog entered the canal, a 54-year-old farmworker, hearing the commotion, approached, watched the deputy struggle to rope the dogs, then asked for the lasso.

Jesus Villanueva, who speaks only Spanish, roped one dog on his first try and pulled it to safety; on the second try, he snagged the other.

“I was amazed,” Noya Deats said. “He just kind of came out of nowhere. It was amazing how fast he lassoed them.”

Villanueva said he learned to lasso at a cattle ranch in Jalisco, Mexico, but it had been 30 years since he had roped anything.

Photo: Noya and Matt Deats hold onto their dogs, Fawn, right, and Nia as Jesus Villanueva, right, looks on. By Andy Sawyer / Associated Press

A Canadian couple fell in love on their vacation in Mexico — with a stray dog.

Josiah Allen and Erin Docking were sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta when the small white dog came up, sat down next to them and stayed all day long.

By the time their 10-day vacation ended, the couple had determined to take the dog, who they’d named Paco, back to Canada.

They filled out paperwork, took him to a veterinarian for treatment of an eye infection and tick infestation, and paid to get him the necessary shots.

But on their flight home, Delta Airlines somehow lost the dog, the Detroit News reported.

On May 3, the couple placed Paco in a pet carrier and flew from Puerto Vallarta to Mexico City. At the airport there, they ran into trouble getting approval for Paco to fly to Detroit. Airline officials questioned whether the carrier was large enough for Paco but approved him for the flight once Allen signed a waiver protecting Delta from any claims if the dog was injured.

When Allen and Docking arrived in Detroit,  Paco was nowhere to be found.

“After waiting around for two hours, they told us (Paco) was in Mexico City and would be flown in on the next flight,” said Allen, 19, a kinesiology student at the University of Waterloo.

But Paco –  described as a mix between a “wiener dog and a Jack Russell terrier” — didn’t arrive the next day, and hasn’t since.

After Allen went public with the story, Delta officials called and offered to cover the expenses he’d incurred with Paco and throw in some extra cash, Allen said.

“Our staff has conducted exhaustive searches to locate the dog,” Delta officials said in a statement. “We have been in contact with the dog’s owner to inform them of the situation and to offer our sincere apologies that we have been unable to recover the dog…”

Some reports say Paco broke out of his cage at the airport and ran away — meaning he may once again be a stray, only this time in Mexico City rather than Puerto Vallarta.

Dogs from New York City and around the world are being sent to help in the search and recovery effort in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

The U.S. government is sending two, 72-man search and rescue teams with dogs to help dig out survivors, said Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Business Week reports.

French teams with “sniffer dogs” were seen boarding vans yesterday, headed to the airport on their way to Haiti. China dispatched a chartered plane containing multiple sniffer dogs and 10 tons of tents, food and medical equipment. A team from the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations left Moscow, also bound for Haiti, Discovery News reports.

Elsewhere, dogs were departing from Peru, Taiwan, Mexico and Britain, where a 64-member team, including dogs and handlers was en route.

The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation has sent at least six dog-and-handler teams have been sent to Haiti.

“Our hearts go out to our neighbors in Haiti, and we’re honored to be able to help find survivors of this terrible tragedy,” NDSDF executive director Debra Tosch said. “This is the day that our teams have trained for; when the unthinkable happens, SDF Teams stand ready to respond, bringing hope and comfort to victims and their loved ones.”

 
With “The Dog Whisperer” starting its sixth season, his new magazine hitting the stands last month and his fourth book going on sale, the New York Times Saturday took a long and mostly complimentary look at Cesar Millan and the empire he has built since crossing the border illegally 20 years ago.

Proclaiming him a “cultural icon”  the article recounts how the once-penniless native of Culiacán, Mexico (he became a U.S. citizen this year), became a dog trainer to the stars, then the world.

One of his first clients was Jada Pinkett (before she added the Smith) who in the early 1990′s was 20 and starring in a television sitcom. Millan helped Pinkett take control of her four Rottweilers, and they went on to become friends. When Millan told her he wanted to be on TV, the article says, she told him he wasn’t ready, and needed to study English.

Pinkett and Will Smith started recommending Mr. Millan to friends in the entertainment industry, starting with director Michael Bay, who needed help controlling his 230-pound mastiff, Mason. He’d later go to the aid of  Oprah Winfrey, former Disney chief Michael D. Eisner and director Ridley Scott, among others.

In addition to books, a magazine and a television show, Millan and his wife, Ilusion, runs Cesar Millan Inc., a constellation of businesses that coordinates Millan’s speaking engagements and executive leadership seminars;, and puts out a line of products including DVD’s, collars, organic dog food, fortified water, shampoos and toys. His website, cesarmillaninc.com, grosses annual sales in the mid-seven figures, according to a company spokesman.

The Times article devotes only one paragraph — tssst! – to the debate over Millan’s macho leader of the pack techniques:

Not everyone agrees with Mr. Millan’s methods. “Positivist” trainers like Ian Dunbar reject the idea that a submissive dog is a happy dog. Mr. Dunbar advocates treating dogs as companions, not followers. While Mr. Millan uses his hand like a mother dog uses her mouth — to nudge dogs to behave — Mr. Dunbar shuns physical corrections and relies instead on treats and rewards.

Despite any controversy, Millan’s fame and empire are only expected to grow.  This summer, the National Geographic Channel struck a deal with Fox to syndicate “Dog Whisperer” next fall.

(Photo: Courtesy of National Geographic Channel)

Eye-catching as the paintings might have been, it was their frames that caught the nose of a U.S. Customs drug-sniffing dog on the Mexico-Arizona border.

Federal officials say a man was taken into custody Friday after Customs and Border Protection officers found 90 pounds of marijuana hidden in the frames of six large paintings in his vehicle.

Officers selected the man’s vehicle for a routine inspection Friday at the border crossing in Douglas, Ariz., and their dog alerted to the paintings. An X-ray revealed the marijuana in the frames.

The man was being held pending the filing of charges, according to an Associated Press report.

The agency says the paintings were professionally done and the frames were nicely constructed.

Cesar Millan — star of the National Geographic Channel series “Dog Whisperer” — took the oath last week and is now an official U.S. citizen.

Millan, who passed his citizenship test earlier this year, attended a swearing in ceremony Thursday morning with dozens of others in Montebello, Calif., just north of Los Angeles.

Millan was joined by his wife Ilusion and two sons, Andre and Calvin, who attended to cheer him on (they are already U.S. citizens).

“This is the ultimate culmination of living the American dream,” said Millan. “Becoming an U.S. citizen has been a goal of mine since I first came to this great country. I have much to thank this country for, and all of the success it has afforded me and my family, and now I am proud to be a citizen.”

Millan, who shot to fame in 2003 when his series premiered on the National Geographic Channel, was born in Mexico, where his talent for rehabilitating dogs was developed on his grandfather’s farm.

He chronicles his childhood in Mexico and how he crossed the border as a young man in his first best-selling book “Cesar’s Way.” He has been a legal resident of the United States since 2000.

(Photo by Ray Mickshaw, courtesy of National Geographic Channel)

Although it’s winning all sorts of acclaim, “Companions to None,” a Texas documentary-maker’s unflinching look at the lives (and deaths) of Mexican street dogs, is being spurned by most networks, even Animal Planet.

The film — the first full-length documentary from Dallas-based director Bill Buchanan — was screened over the weekend at La Cineteca Nacional in Mexico City.

The documentary looks at the overpopulation of stray dogs in Mexico (they outnumber humans in some regions) and the macho culture that perpetuates it. One reason Mexicans are reluctant to sterilize their male dogs, Buchanan says, is their belief that it will make a dog “gay.”

Buchanan’s movie captures some harsh realities — from electrocution of dogs (the common method of euthanasia) to the often brutal treatment they face living on the streets.

Buchanan, according to a blog entry by the Los Angeles Times Mexico City correspondent, has faced problems finding a home for the film. Buchanan said American networks such as Animal Planet, Discovery and HBO passed on broadcasting it.

For more information about the documentary, visit its website.