Ranger, a member of the K9 unit with Officer Matt Poletto in training at a NYC subway station. Photo: Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Police dogs in New York now have a new gadget in their crime-fighting arsenal: Infrared cameras.
A camera is strapped to the dog’s back with real-time images transmitted to the handler’s wrist-mounted display, allowing the officer to see into dark spaces he wouldn’t be able to get into himself.
A recent training mission had two-year-old Apache, a German Shepherd, tracking a “suspect” (actually a human officer) in the underground subway system. Apache and his fellow trainees are the first group of NYPD dogs to get infrared cameras, which are the same kind the Navy Seals used in the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound last year.
Other new high-tech equipment includes a canine GPS tracking system to help follow dogs on a scent trail, dog collars that emit light, and two custom-built mobile air-conditioned kennel trucks with food storage and rest areas so K9 officers can take a break, have a meal, or escape the summer heat. The trucks can store up to a month of food so they could be used in disaster zones if needed.
Blackie the Doberman, canine star of Martin Scorsese-directed movie Hugo, is expected to get a nomination at this year’s Golden Collar Awards thanks to the director’s campaigning efforts.
Blackie the Doberman stars as a train station attack dog in the movie Hugo.
Blackie was initially snubbed from the nominations, but Scorsese wrote a letter to the LA Times encouraging people to contact the award show’s organizers to request Blackie be added to the nomination list. Scorsese felt that Blackie should have been nominated in the “best dog in a theatrical film” category.
Blackie starred in the Oscar-nominated film Hugo as an attack dog owned by a train station officer. Scorsese suggested that Blackie didn’t originally secure a nomination due to the role she played, pointing out that a cute little Jack Russell Terrier received nominations for two films because the Jack Russell “plays a nice little mascot who does tricks and saves his master’s life in one of the films, while Blackie gives an uncompromising performance as a ferocious guard dog who terrorizes children.”
Dog Daily News, the Golden Collar Awards organizer, agreed to add Blackie to the nomination list if it received 500 write-in nominations via their Facebook page.
New research shows that we have had a relationship with dogs since prehistoric times. It seems our caveman ancestors domesticated dogs at least 33,000 years ago as a canine skull found in Siberia shows. This interesting find represents some of the oldest evidence of dog domestication. The Siberian dog skull’s snout and teeth show that it was a domesticated animal and not a wolf.
Not only is dog “Man’s Best Friend”, but he was “Caveman’s Best Friend” too! Read the full story.
The 33,000 year old skull found in Siberia shows the short snout and crowded teeth that identify it as a domestic dog.
Regan the hero dogA Yellow Lab named Regan found a bag of kittens on the side of a highway in Iowa. Originally there had been four or five kittens stuck in a bag of cat food and left to die on the side of the road, but the bag had already been run over by the time Regan found it. Two kittens were still alive and Regan dragged the bag all the way home and did not stop whining at the door until his owner opened the bag and made the gruesome discovery.
The two kittens, named Tipper and Skipper, were nursed back to health and are now doing fine.
Regan is a hero dog for certain, but I have no words to describe the low-life(s) that dumped the kittens in the first place.
Lynn Jones sits with her three dogs. (AP Photo/The Reno Gazette-Journal, Marilyn Newton)
Former airport baggage handler Lynn Jones knew there was something wrong with the dog in the carrier. She was supposed to load the dog onto a plane, but when she saw the sad look and his emaciated body, she was certain the poor creature wouldn’t survive the flight to Texas. So she refused to load the dog on the plane, going against her supervisor’s instructions. Ms. Jones was fired as a result of her refusal.
A month after the incident at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, the dog has fully recovered (and has been returned to his neglectful owner!) but Ms. Jones is still jobless despite the fact that her former employers and company executives have praised her actions and “situational awareness”.
Phil Newton could barely believe his eyes when he saw a double decker bus being driven by a dog. Apparently the dog was sitting in the driver’s seat with his paws on the steering wheel as the bus drove down the street in the Northern Australian city of Darwin.
Newton chased after the runaway bus, climbed through a window and used the handbrake to bring the errant bus to a halt, moments before it rammed into a parked car.
The dog’s owner, Richard McCormack, said, “He sits next to me when I’m driving and in the driver’s seat when I’m not. The handbrake is on the dashboard and he’s seen me release it many times.
“He was just copying me. He’s tried it before.”
Woodley, the two-year-old driving dog, had no comment on his botched adventure!
In the US it’s Veteran’s Day Weekend. In Canada, it’s Remembrance Day Weekend. Most of us have some tie that makes us reflect, if even for a moment.
We all know “working dogs” truly love a perfectly executed assignment if only to see a smile on their master. It’s rewarding for them.
We brought you a great video from Military.com about soldiers befriending dogs overseas. Now here’s a special look at the dogs who are working side by side, and actual members of our armed forces.
A U.S. Army soldier with the 10th Special Forces Group and his military working dog jump off the ramp of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during a training exercise.
New York Times Best Selling Author Lisa Rogak has captured the excitement of working dogs in her new book The Dogs of War. It’s an inside look into a very elite, working and special class of dogs.
The Mucky Pub in London has figured out a new angle on the hospitality business… dogs are welcome in this tavern, giving it “a leg up” on the competition!
A dog’s age, sex and size, as well as the owner’s sex and whether or not a leash is used all affect canine behavior.
An interesting new study out of Mendel University in the Czech Republic, which is set to appear in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, examines various factors that can affect a dog’s level of aggression toward other dogs while being walked.
The study spearheaded by Petr Řezάč, an associate professor in the Department of Animal Morphology, Physiology and Genetics, found that a dog’s age and gender can affect his or her inclination to threaten another dog. More surprisingly, by observing 1,870 dogs in 30 different public places in the city of Brno from May to September of 2009, the study also found that the sex of the person walking the dog and whether the dog is on a leash has an affect on the dog’s likelihood to attack or threaten another dog.
So what do you think of this study? We’d love to hear your opinion/experiences in the comments below!
