A Steelers fan in suburban Pittsburgh killed his girlfriend’s 13-week-old puppy Sunday because the dog was misbehaving before the football game came on TV, police said.
The puppy was kicked to death on the same day that it as announced that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was donating money to Kansas City police to buy a new police dog.
William Woodson, 22, of Bridgeville, was being held on $25,000 bail in the Allegheny County Jail, pending a preliminary hearing on animal cruelty, scheduled for next Monday, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The puppy, a pit bull named Flip, had been the source of recent arguments between Woodson and his girlfriend, according to police. A witness saw the dog being kicked down the street and called Bridgeville police. By the time police arrived, the dog was dead and Woodson was gone.
Woodson’s girlfriend told police he kicked the dog because the pup would not walk with them. Police located Woodson at a friend’s house. ”He admitted the dog would not behave prior to the Steelers game and that he became upset at it,” the affidavit said.
Kansas City police on Sunday announced they’d received an $8,000 grant from Steeler quarterback Roethlisberger’s foundation, which distributes grants to police and fire departments in Pittsburgh and in the cities of the Steelers’ road opponents. The $8,000 will pay to replace Rambo, a Kansas City police dog that is set to retire at year’s end because of arthritis. The Chiefs beat the Steelers 27-24 on Sunday.
Shyla, a Chihuahua mix in New Zealand, has undertaken the nursing of seven kittens born to a stray.
The kittens were taken in by a Pets n Vets clinic to save them from being euthanized, and Shyla, who has nursed a previous litter of kittens, was called to duty.
When a Maltese-poodle mix named Mindy was found after being lost for 100 days in the woods of northwest Massachusetts, she was infested with fleas, her weight had dropped to three pounds, and her fur was so matted over her face that she couldn’t see, which explained why she was running around in circles.
She was “effectively blind,” said Martha King-Devine, of the Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society. “She was just skin and bones when they brought her into the shelter.”
Mindy was lost during a family trip in August, surviving more than three months among the owls, foxes, coyotes and bears who dwell in the woods, the Mansfield News Journal reports.
Mindy had disappeared when Kathy and John Dunbar stopped at a rest area on their way to Maine to visit a terminally ill relative. “I thought he put her in and he thought I put her in,” Dunbar said.
Back on the road, they realized Mindy was missing, and retraced their route, spending six hours trying to find her. They also dropped off business cards at shops and police stations, and filed a report with the Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society — all, it seemed, to no avail.
On Nov. 13, though, Mindy was found by Tye Carlson, a boy with autism, about 30 miles from the rest area. Tye and his father took her to a local veterinarian, then took her home, where Tye — normally fearful of dogs, according to his mother – became fast friends with Mindy.
The Carlsons were more than happy to keep Mindy, but when they learned — through the humane society — that she had been reported missing three months earlier, Carlson and her son knew that they had to give Mindy back to her owners.
Mindy is back home with the Dunbars now.
Mrs. Carlson, meanwhile, said she is “definitely thinking” about getting a dog for her son now.
Here’s hoping he gets a great one.
Sometimes the news media is just soooo cynical.
Case in point: Pfizer, the drug company, is extolling the benefits of taking the family dog along when traveling for the holidays. The holidays are stressful times, Pfizer notes. Dogs can help relieve stress. Why leave a beloved member of the family behind?
In an email worthy of Hallmark that was sent to various news media outlets, Pfizer makes note as well of the “tough economic times” and how “the unconditional love from your dog can go a long way toward helping your family manage that extra stress.”
How thoughtful. Imagine, a multi-national corporate giant like that being so full of holiday spirit that they are thinking about us little people/dog owners when they could be obsessing, Scrooge-like, about profits.
Pfizer even launched a Twitter feed called “Dog On Board” to “help families talk about including their dog in their family holiday.”
Leave it to the Wall Street Journal, in the newspaper’s ”Health Blog,” to suggest Pfizer might have an ulterior motive when it suggests you pack your dog along in the car or airplane when you make your holiday trip.
Pfizer sells Cerenia, a drug that prevents motion sickness and vomiting in dogs.
But is that so terrible? So what if Pfizer stands to profit more if more dogs are going over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house, preferably by winding roads?
Lest that make you — like all the cynical news media and bloggers — question Pfizer’s sincerity and compassion, allow me to remind you that Pfizer is the same company that offered this summer to give away more than 70 of its most widely prescribed human drugs, including Lipitor, Zoloft and Viagra, for up to a year to people who have lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been taking the drug for three months or more.
Of course, there were cynics when they did that, too — those who speculated the company was doing it for a tax write-off, to gain favor in Washington, or to ensure that those who are hooked on Pfizer’s fine products, maintain their, shall we say, allegiance.
While the news media and bloggers are having a field day with what they see as Pfizer’s awkwardly see-through attempt to drum up business, I, for one, salute the drug company – not just for bringing relief to the estimated one in seven dogs who get carsick, and not just for ensuring that an unemployed man can get, if not a job or health care, at least a boner, but for being able to fool so many of the people so much of the time.
A California man is blaming his dog for the fatal shooting of his wife.
John Aaron Norris, 25, of San Miguel said his dog ran underneath his feet, tripping him and causing the semi-automatic rifle he was holding to fire.
Norris is accused of involuntary manslaughter in the July 9 shooting death of 24-year-old Tasha Dawn Norris. His preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume today.
Norris pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter charge and to a charge of possessing an illegal weapon at his home — a semiautomatic rifle found by investigators, according to The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.
Sheriff’s deputies testified Wednesday that Norris stated he was standing on the stairs when the dog ran under his feet and tripped him. He told authorities he was holding the gun because he was planning to remove the ammunition before fire inspectors came to his home to examine new sprinklers in the condominium.
Tasha Norris was seated on a couch in the home when she was shot, according to investigators. Medics attempted to revive her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
