I know what it's like to lose a dog. It happened to me - and to my family - when I was a teenager and Goldie, our standard Poodle, ran away. We looked for her in animal shelters, ran ads in newspapers, put up fliers in our town and surrounding areas. After several months of searching every day after school and on weekends, we lost hope.
One year later, almost to the day she disappeared, our veterinarian called and said he believed he had found her. Someone brought in a scruffy, filthy apricot-colored Poodle, and the ID on her collar listed him as the vet. He called us.
It was Goldie, all right. We thought we would never see her again, but there she was in our vet's office looking scared and uncertain. I can't describe how happy we were.
Those memories came rushing back when I read the story about Muffy, a Terrier mix on the east coast of Australia who went missing for nine years. Nine years! The other day, she was reunited with her family in Queensland.
RSPCA Australia heard about the dog from someone who had seen her living in a suburban backyard in Melbourne. But she looked sickly, so the person called the organization.
"We found her living in pretty awful conditions on a piece of cardboard," RSPCA inspector Gail Coulter (pictured above with Muffy) told the Times newspaper. "She had matted hair and was riddled with fleas and had a really severe dermatitis condition."
A welfare agency discovered that Muffy had a microchip and traced her to the Lampard family, which had purchased another dog, named Jack, after giving up hope of finding Muffy. But Jack died four months ago.
"I just couldn't believe it. It's absolutely amazing," Natalie Lampard told the Times. "I told my daughter Chloe and she was just over the moon. She can't wait to see Muffy again."
The dog will need continued care for her skin condition, but after a 1,250-mile odyssey and almost a decade on her own, she's clearly none the worse for wear.
Oh, the stories she could tell.
The tragic story about the 150 dogs that were found dead in a Dearborn, Mich., house last week keeps getting worse. On Monday, city animal control officers found six more dead dogs.
The man who owned the dogs, 56-year-old Kenneth Lang Jr., was under psychiatric evaluation this week, although his lawyer said he should not face criminal charges.
"He didn't abuse these animals," attorney James Schmier said. "They were abused because of the environment they all were living in -- Kenneth included -- but they were relatively healthy. They weren't malnourished.
"He considered them his family."
Even so, it's clear the dogs were not properly cared for. When officers found them, they were in a house filled with feces and debris. More than 100 dogs, mostly Chihuahua and Chihuahua mixes, were found alive and are considered adoptable by the Dearborn Animal Shelter.
The best part of this story is that people are stepping forward to adopt the dogs who survived. In fact, the animal shelter said it had stopped accepting applications for adoptions.
Michael Vick is going to play football again, probably this season and probably no later than Oct. 18. So what happens next?
Good question.
I have no doubt we're going to see Vick appear in public service announcements for the Humane Society as he attempts to reshape his image in a favorable light. He will say and do the right things and hope he can convince NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to allow him back in the league on a full-time basis.
It's up to us - the public - to decide if we believe him. For me, it will take a lot of convincing.
If you don't know much about football, it's important to understand that Vick gained a partial reinstatement in the league on Monday, which means he can sign with a team and practice but can't play in games. He'll be allowed to take part in two preseason games, but as far as games that count - and games that will pay him a salary - he'll need to get permission from the commissioner.
It's possible he won't get full reinstatement until Week 6 of the season. It's also possible that Goodell will let him back sooner, assuming he believes Vick is conducting himself as a good citizen and has shown remorse for his past mistakes.
As Goodell said in a letter to Vick that was released to the media, "My decision at that time will be based on reports from outside professionals, your probation officer and others charged with supervising your activities, the quality of your work outside football, the absence of any further adverse involvement in law enforcement and other concrete actions that you take that are consistent with your representations to me."
Goodell also said, "I do recognize that some will never forgive him for what he did. I hope that the public will have a chance to understand his position as I have."
While I was hoping Vick would be given a longer suspension for his role in a dogfighting operation - and his admitted hand in the killing of dogs - I knew he would be allowed back at some point. Now I'd like to see which team is willing to face the criticism of a dog-loving public and sign him.
Are you OK with this? Would you want to see your favorite team sign Vick?
Let me know.
When good people do good things for dogs, we like to tell you about them. And that's what this story is about - although it almost took an unfortunate twist.
A woman who recently stepped in to rescue a five-legged puppy from being sold to a Coney Island sideshow was facing a possible lawsuit from the sideshow owner who believed he had purchased the dog from its previous owner.
Allyson Siegel, a resident of Charlotte, N.C., didn't want to see the Chihuahua mix puppy live a life as a sideshow curiosity. She wanted to give the dog - whose name she changed from Precious to Lilly - a permanent home and was willing to pay for the surgery to have the fifth leg surgically removed.
John Strong, the owner of the sideshow who put down a $1,000 deposit on Lilly, said he would seek an injunction to prevent Siegel from having Lilly's extra leg amputated. But that didn't stop Siegel. She called a veterinarian and arranged for the surgery anyway.
In an interview with PEOPLE Pets, Siegel said, "Last night I called the surgeon and said, 'Will you take a look at her to see if she's healthy enough, see if you think that she could possibly have the surgery now?' And he did, and she did."
Siegel initially read about the two-month-old puppy in the Charlotte Observer. The story said that Strong had promised to pay Lilly's owner, Calvin Owensby, $3,000 and planned to put the dog in his show along with other animal oddities, some alive and some stuffed, preserved or mummified.
Sounds sick, doesn't it? Siegel thought so, too, and called Owensby to ask what it would take to buy the dog. Owensby said he still wanted $3,000 but also had to return the deposit to Strong. So Siegel offered him $4,000.
The surgery could cost Siegel $2,000, so her investment so far is $6,000 - and could be more if Strong decides to sue. Some people have already sent her donations to help defray the cost.
She's hopeful this will finally end the story.
"In my mind it's kind of over. Just let it be over," she said. "I'm very happy that Lilly is fine and that she's going to be a normal dog and get to have a normal life and not be in a cage. I don't personally have anything against him, Mr. Strong. ... This was really always about Lilly."
Imagine the difficulty of being homeless, having a medical condition and being turned away from a shelter designed to help you - only because you own a dog.
That's what's happening to a number of people in Los Angeles County who aren't permitted to sleep in shelters because they own service animals. The L.A. Times reported this week that the Housing Rights Center and the Disability Rights Legal Center filed suit against the city's Homeless Services Authority and other shelters it funds, alleging the bans are illegal.
According to the suit, the Americans with Disabilities Act and fair housing laws forbid discrimination against people just because they rely on service animals. "They are all supposed to take service animals," Shawna Parks, director of litigation for the Disability Rights Legal Center, told the Times. "We are not talking about pets."
The suit describes the case of a homeless woman, Lydia Zerne, who has a seizure disorder but was turned away by at least four shelters because she had a service dog. She began looking for "the ‘nicest parks,'" the suit said.
Although there are shelters that have animal centers for pets, it doesn't work for service animals, which need to be near their owners to assist with their care. This sounds like a no-brainer. Let the people who require the help of their pets stay with them, even if it means separate accommodations.
