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All in Animal Heroes
French film legend Brigitte Bardot died this week at 91. The pouty “sex kitten” appeared in over 50 films in a 20-year career, which she abruptly abandonedin 1973. For the remaining decadesBardot devoted her life to animal welfare.
A vigilant golden retriever named Polly noticed something was off with her owner, Adam Cooke of Ireland, as he slept. Cooke was breathing strangely, which got Polly to bark until Cooke’s wife, Hannah, awoke to find her husband’s labored breathing. Then he stopped breathing altogether.
Longtime television hostess Giuliana Rancic organized an impressive airlift out of Los Angeles this week: 109 dogs stuck in overcrowded California shelters and slated for euthanization were flown out to more accommodating rescues elsewhere in the country.
With Diane Keaton’s passing last week we remember her film career – Annie Hall, the Godfather movies, Reds – but let’s tip our caps to her other passion, “a lifetime of dedication to the cause of animal welfare,” as the Helen Woodward Animal Center writes in a tribute.
A 70-year-old Egyptian man traveling on a tourist visa attempted to smuggle more than 100 pounds of undeclared food in his luggage as he entered the country at Dulles International Airport. That was bad, but the man, Hamed Ramadan Bayoumy Aly Marie, made matters much worse when he kicked the dog that had sniffed out his contraband, a 5-year-old beagle named Freddie.
The 40 or so guests came from Phoenix, Chicago, and New York to attend a lavish quinceañera in Houston, Texas toasting a 15-year-old cat named Holly Marie Gonzalez.
As fires rage in southern California, hundreds of animals – dogs, cats, horses, pigs, parrots, the works – are in desperate need of food and shelter. Local shelters are stretched thin to take in animals as the wildfires have forced human residents to flee to safety.
At year’s end the American Kennel Club recognized five very good dogs in its annual Humane Fund Awards for Canine Excellence. The categories include Exemplary Companion, Search and Rescue, Service Dog, Therapy Dog, and Uniformed Service K-9.
When Hurricane Helene blew through Burnsville, North Carolina last month, flooding forced evacuations as the Cane River swelled to 20 feet above normal. One family watched in horror as their beloved cat, Ricardo Blanco, was swept away in the waters.
More than 1000 animals reside in Florida’s ZooTampa at Lowry Park, which happens to be just ten miles from the waterfront. When Hurricane Milton blew through town this week, a dozen brave zoo staff hunkered down with their charges, even as other humans had hightailed it out of the mandatory evacuation zone.
A sheriff's deputy in northeast Washington, not far from the Canadian border, was on patrol in a rural wooded area when he came across a dog sitting in the road. Deputy Wright tried to coax the dog into his vehicle so he could find the owner, but the pup held her ground.
Animal-rescue organizations, big and small, are working overtime in the Southeast as hurricanes disrupt the lives of both humans and their pets. The damage wrought by Hurricane Helene, which tore through inland areas not usually susceptible to big-storm paths, is still being assessed while stranded animals await rescue.
The US women’s gymnastics team completed a strong Olympics this week, capturing 10 medals in Paris. The thrill of victory and its agonizing opposite can be stressful in the extreme, but the team has had a comforting presence on their side: a four-year-old golden retriever named Beacon.
This week PBS aired a new documentary on heroes of Ukraine, human and animal. “Saving the Animals of Ukraine” documents wartime life and death for animals – in war-torn households, in zoos, in the wild – and the people who save them.
Torrential rains and intense floods soaked southern Brazil last week, killing over 140 people and forcing more than 100,000 to evacuate. Amid the disaster in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, hundreds of volunteers are busy rescuing animals stranded by the rising water.
A Labrador retriever in Taiwan named Roger couldn’t cut it as a drug-sniffing police dog – apparently too playful to be a cop – but he has since emerged as a rescue dog and something of a media star.
Of all the ways to spend time staring at screens, may we suggest the Netherland's visdeurbel? That’s Dutch for “fish doorbell,” a crowd-sourced system to help migrating fish swim through Utrecht’s canals using an underwater camera and a website.
Hundreds of stray dogs are fleeing the Eastern Siberian town of UIan-Ude, near the Mongolian border, because the local government has decided to kill them. The strays’ saviors are Russian dog-lovers – from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and elsewhere – who make the long trek east and brave sub-zero temperatures to rescue the doomed doggos.
For more than two decades, the Transportation Security Administration has been clogging airports (or keeping us safe, depending on one’s point of view), aided in part by about 1000 bomb-sniffing canines across the country. This week 15 of these photogenic working doggos are honored in the newly minted 2024 TSA Canine Calendar.
In western Thailand just outside Kanchanaburi, an elephant sanctuary is home to a few dozen rescued domestic elephants. They’ve had a difficult time, either born into a brutal life of logging or retirees from the slightly less degrading tourism trade.
