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A bloody and dirty blob of fur found in a sealed plastic trash bag in downtown Louisville this week has been cleaned up enough to reveal he is a Maltese, treated for fleas, anemia and pelvic fractures, and given the name Karma.

Authorities suspect, based on his injuries, that the 3-1/2-pound dog was thrown from a car window.

A $2,500 reward is being offered by the Humane Society of the United States for information leading to an arrest.

Wave3 News reports that the dog was dumped Tuesday at the intersection of Chestnut and Louisville streets.

A woman stopped at a traffic light heard a noise, got out of her car, ripped the bag open and found the dog inside.

Rebecca Eaves of the Shamrock Pet Foundation said the dog was “”absolutely covered in flea nests, severely anemic, parasites inside and outside, the whole nine yards.”

Dr. Scott Rizzo of Blue Pearl Veterinary Partners said Karma has pelvic fractures, likely the result of being thrown or dropped onto the concrete.

Believed to be 2-3-years old, the dog was originally thought to be a brown terrier mix, but once cleaned up he was revealed to be white.

“He’s a little Maltese and he’s white,” Dr. Rizzo said. “You never would have thought that when he came in.” He said Karma’s fractures may be able to heal without surgery.

Anyone with information is asked to call Metro Animal Services at (502) 363-6609.   

The Shamrock Foundation’s Arrow Fund (P.O. Box 24033 Louisville, KY, 40224) is collecting donations for Karma’s medical care.

A year and a half after a starved pit bull was found at the bottom of a trash chute at a Newark high rise apartment — looking more like a corpse than a pet — the dog who would go on to be named Patrick is doing great.

Progressing far less quickly are court case against his former owner, and a proposed bill, named after Patrick, that would bring stiffer penalties against those who abuse and neglect animals.

Patrick’s Law would increase penalties against those who abuse and neglect animals. Last week,  it cleared the New Jersey Senate Economic Growth Committee, but it still requires approval by another committee and both houses of the legislature.

The bill (S1303) would make certain acts of neglect and abuse fourth-degree offenses and increases the civil penalties — up to $3,000 for a first offense and $5,000 for a second offense, according to NJ.com. If an animal dies, offenders could be charge with a third-degree crime, which carries stricter penalties.

Sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., it would also increase the penalties for dogfighting; failing to provide an animal with proper food, water and shelter; and leaving animals unattended in hot cars.

Patrick was found in March 2011 in a garbage chute at Garden Spires.

His former owner, Newark resident Kisha Curtis, was charged with animal cruelty and remains free on $10,000 bond. Curtis has entered a plea of not guilty and has rejected a plea deal under which she would serve 18 months in prison, pay a $5,000 fine and serve 30 days of community service.

Instead, she wants to enter a pretrial intervention program,which would involve no jail time and, once completed, leave her without a record.

That’s now under consideration by Newark Superior Court Judge Joseph Cassini III, who agreed last month to review documents from the Department of Children and Family Services regarding Curtis and her childhood.

Curtis admits to abandoning Patrick, but says she “never harmed” the dog and that she had only had him for a few days. She is not accused of throwing the dog down the chute, only of neglecting and abandoning him.

Patrick, meanwhile — after months of veterinary care and intensive rehabilitation at Garden State Veterinary Specialists in Tinton Falls, N.J.–  is happy and healthy.

Who will eventually be awarded custody of him is still at issue, but it definitely won’t be Kisha Curtis.

(Photo: Tony Kurdzuk / The Newark Star-Ledger)

The video above was made last year, when Eldad and Audrey Hagar of Hope for Paws found a dog huddled amid some trash in South Los Angeles.

“She was just so defeated,” said Eldad Hagar, who captured the rescue on video. “…There seemed to be no hope there.”

As it turns out, and as you’ll see in the “after” video below, there was.

The Hagars, who estimate they’ve rescued more than 500 dogs through their organization, took the dog home and named her Fiona. They shaved off her grimy and matted fur, gave her a bath and, realizing she was blind, took her to a vet who told them it was possible that sight could be restored in one of her eyes.

A nationwide fundraising effort followed, and Fiona received a $4,000 eye surgery that replaced the lens in one of her eyes. Her other eye, badly damaged by glaucoma, had to be removed.

After that, Fiona — a poodle mix — was adopted and “is doing amazing,” Eldad says.

Eldad, 36, and his wife, Audrey, 37, are the founders of Hope For Paws, a Los Angeles-based animal rescue organization that takes in abused and neglected animals.

Hagar and his wife rescue several animals a week in the Los Angeles area, and often videotape the process. You can see some examples on their YouTube page.

You can also learn more about their oganization at the Hope For Paws website or Facebook page.

A year has passed since a starving pit bull was put in a plastic bag, dropped down a trash chute and found in a garbage bin at a high-rise apartment complex in Newark.

Just look at him now.

Dubbed Patrick — in honor of St. Patrick’s Day — he defied all the odds.

One year later, he’s looking healthy and happy — though a custody battle is still raging over him.

Meanwhile, his former owner, who turned down a plea deal, is scheduled to appear in court today for her trial on animal cruelty charges.

Patrick was originally taken in and cared for by the Associated Humane Societies, New Jersey’s largest animal shelter organization.

They took him to Garden State Veterinary Specialists, where, after a giant hairball was removed from his stomach, he began eating and gaining strength.

In the months that followed, by virtue of his inspiring story, he’d become a poster boy for the rescue organization, the veterinary hospital, and a few others that hoped to capitalize on his growing fame by using his case and image to fight for stronger animal abuse laws.

Associated Humane Societies  is seeking permanent custody, despite earlier rulings that he should remain in the custody of Garden State Veterinary Specialists of Tinton Falls.

Both sides accuse the other of trying to profit from Patrick’s plight.

Patrick weighed 19 pounds when he arrived there, and now weighs 50. He has been staying with Patricia Smillie-Scavelli, the hospital’s administrator, who wants to keep him.

AHS says Patrick should be returned, and that once he is, they would begin the process of finding a home for him. They deny that they are trying to make a profit off of him, and say the veterinary hospital didn’t have the right to take possession of a dog brought in for treatment.

Kisha Curtis, meanwhile, the dog’s former owner, rejected the state’s plea offer of 18 months in prison, a $5,000 fine, 30 days community service and termination of animal custody rights.

She is not accused of tossing the dog down the chute, only of neglecting and abandoning him.

(Photo credits: Top, The Patrick Miracle Facebook page; middle, Associated Humane Societies; bottom, Newark Star-Ledger)

Leo fell into a Dumpster and couldn’t get out.

An aging Australian cattle dog mix, Leo apparently climbed a ramp attached to a large Dumpster and, when no one was looking, either jumped or fell in.

Barbara Grabell and her husband George Anderson searched high and low for Leo after he disappeared from their ranch in Alfalfa, Oregon.

“I thought he – sometimes, they just go off to die privately. I was walking the property, looking under trees, the sagebrush,” Grabell told KTVZ.

Grabell said she walked over to the nearby trash transfer station and looked in the 9-foot-tall Dumpster, which has a ramp that allows residents to more easily dump their garbage. It was about two-thirds full of garbage by then, but she didn’t see Leo. She shouted his name, but he’s hard of hearing.

Four days after Leo disappeared, the Dumpster was picked up for the trip to the Knott Landfill in Bend.

There, Paul Decker, a driver for Bend Garbage and Recycling, was watching its contents pour out when he saw, amid the trash, a dog — dazed and confused but alive, apparently having survived on a diet of garbage.

The dog was taken to the Humane Society of Central Oregon, which Grabell had called earlier to report Leo missing. They notified her he’d been found. She picked up Leo, took him to a vet to be checked out, and then back home.

“He’s home and he’s resting comfortably,” she said Saturday night. “I’m so thankful and relieved, you have no idea.”

Oreo, the South Carolina shih tzu whose owner put him out with the trash, has a new home.

Kevin and C.J. Miller, of Greenville, adopted Oreo Friday at the Greenville County animal shelter.

Last month, sanitation workers found Oreo in a trash bin waiting to be picked up at the curb. They returned the dog to his owner and called animal control officers who, when they arrived, found he had been put in the trash again.

Oreo’s former owner, Nancy Smythe, 58, of Spartanburg, has been fined $470 for ill treatment of animals, and another $80 because Oreo was not vaccinated against rabies.

“I just couldn’t believe someone would throw a dog in the trash, much less a dog this sweet,” said Kevin Miller, who picked the dog up Friday.

The Millers have a shih tzu at home, named Bam Bam, and had another who, partially blind and battling cancer, had to be put down in December, according to the Spartanburg Herald Journal.

They had visited several shelters before hearing of Oreo’s story.

“When I saw his picture on the Internet, I thought that’s him — that’s the dog,” C.J. Miller said.

(Photo: Michael Justus / Spartanburg Herald Journal)

The South Carolina woman who put her live dog out with the trash, got caught, then did it again, has been found guilty of ill treatment of animals, officials in Spartanburg County say.

Nancy Smythe, 58, was fined $470 for ill treatment of animals, and fined another $80 because the dog was not vaccinated against rabies, according to GoUpstate.com.

An employee with a trash collection company found the dog inside a trash can outside of Smythe’s residence earlier this month. The worker took the dog to Smythe’s residence, where, after initially denying it, she identified the dog as her’s. The worker called animal control officers before leaving, and when they arrived they found the shih tzu in the trash can again, under two bags of garbage.

Smythe told officers that she “needed to get rid of the dog.”

The dog, named Oreo, is now at Greenville County Animal Care, where Susan Bufano said he’s not nearly as shy and reserved as she expected he’d be.

“He is just a love,” she said of the dog, believed to be about 8 years old.

Oreo was not neutered, was loaded with fleas and had other skin problems when he arrived, but he is being treated with antibiotics and improving, she said.

Bufano has received about 200 calls and emails — from people as far away as Arizona, New York and Texas — willing to provide Oreo a home. The pool of potential adoptees has been narrowed to about 20, she said.

Authorities say a South Carolina woman put her dog out with the trash — twice.

Not her dog’s body. Her dog.

The dog was first discovered by sanitation workers who found it in a trash bag while picking up garbage on a street in Spartanburg County, according to WYFF.

Jamie Nelson, with Spartanburg County Environmental Enforcement, said a trash company worker brought the dog to the house the trash can was in front of, and the owner originally said it didn’t belong to her.

Eventually, she admitted the 8-year-old black and white Shih Tzu was her dog, and animal control was called. While they were on their way, Nelson said, the woman put the dog back in a trash bag and put it back in the trash can, hiding it beneath other bags of trash.

When animal control officers found it there, Nancy Jeanne Smythe, of Spartanburg County, was charged with ill treatment of animals and the dog was taken to a local shelter, where it — other than a pre-existing skin condition — was reported to be doing fine.

Wall-E, the dog who turned up alive and kicking the day after he was “euthanized” at an Oklahoma animal shelter, has been adopted.

And, even though he’s living in a new state now, Wall-E — with help from an artist — is still raising money to build a new shelter in Murray County to replace the overcrowded one where he was injected with lethal drugs, pronounced dead and tossed in a trash bin.

After he survived euthanasia — he received two lethal doses, one in the leg, one in heart — Wall-E went on to become a much sought after dog, with national publicity leading to thousands of inquiries from people wanting to adopt him.

After months of reviewing the applicants, the shelter has placed Wall-E with a family that lives out of state and wants to remain anonymous, according to an Associated Press report.

“For some reason I had a complete comfort in picking them. They just really stood out,” said Amanda Kloski, the veterinarian technician at Arbuckle Veterinarian Clinic in Sulphur who cared for Wall-E after he was found alive. “They can give him what I can’t give him and what a lot of people probably couldn’t.”

Kloski said that while Wall-E’s story has made more people aware of the need to find homes for stray animals, overcrowding at the local shelter in Sulphur, about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City, remains a problem.

But donations to the shelter in his name, and sales of his portrait, are helping to raise the money needed to build a new shelter in Murray County.

Animal artist Ron Burns painted a portrait of Wall-E, and is donating 40 percent of the proceeds from sales of the prints.

“I believe Wall-E is still with us for a certain purpose, and that purpose is threefold — that through his ‘tail’ of miraculous survival, he is here to help his fellow four-legged friends, to remind us all of the importance of animal adoption and to stress the necessity of local spay and neuter programs,” Burns said.

Patrick, the dog found starved nearly to death after he was dumped down a high-rise apartment building’s trash chute in Newark, now weighs in at more than 35 pounds. 

And that’s without the petrified hairball that was surgically removed from his stomach this week. 

Dr. Jason Pintar, an internist at Garden State Veterinary Specialists, removed the long flat hair mass from Patrick’s stomach using a video endoscopic procedure while Patrick was under anesthesia. 

Hair mass removed from Patrick

 After the hair mass was removed, Patrick was transferred to another surgery suite for neutering, Associated Humane Societies in New Jersey reportsAfter surgery, he’ll still need treatment for mange, and physical therapy for weak rear legs, AHS says. 

The non-profit organization says it’s receiving thousands of emails a day — and that it has been contacted by several people who say Patrick was their dog. Some say he ran away, some say he was stolen, and one told AHS they’d contacted an attorney. 

Also casting a cloud over Patrick’s story is the emergence of people hoping to profit off his name and image. 

The number of Internet sites related to him — some well-intentioned, some not — has steadily grown, and some are selling ”Patrick” items such as t-shirts, keychains and posters, and using his story to ”solicit funds for their own use,” AHS says. 

(Photos: Courtesy of Associated Humane Societies and Popcorn Park Zoo)