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| May 13, 2011 |
Dogs in the news
Reports that a dog accompanied the Navy Seals' raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound created a wave of interest in the animals and their training. Almost 3000 dogs are in use by the American military. Other dogs have been in the news lately as well, with sniffer dogs searching for bombs in sensitive areas in the wake of the raid. Sniffer dogs were also deployed to search for victims of the tornados in the American South. Dogs were in headlines for other reasons recently too, as several hundred were rescued in China, street dogs were being killed in Kosovo and Romania, and luxury dog hotels opened in Europe and North America. A luxury hotel would be a welcome change for those dogs abandoned in Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami and nuclear disaster. And in the middle of all of this, the International Dog Show in Szivasvarad, Hungary showed off pampered purebreds. Collected here are pictures of working dogs, rescued dogs, those suffering the effects of natural disasters, and several others. -- Lane Turner (34 photos total)
A military working dog outfitted with its own equipment and light heads up the steps of a building in this undated handout image from a company which manufactures a range of specialized gear that includes high-tech canine flak jackets and tactical body armor. The equipment provides real time video feedback and night vision capabilities. (K9 Storm Inc./Handout/Reuters)
A Navy SEAL platoon performs a land warfare demonstration at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek - Fort Story in Virginia July 17, 2010. Any dog that participated in the US mission to find Osama bin Laden in Pakistan would have been a member of an elite corps of canines with little relation to common family pets, experts say. (Robert J. Fluegel/AFP/Getty Images) #
A security officer walks a sniffer dog through the baggage of commuters at a train station in Manila May 3. The Philippine National Police are on full alert to secure all vital installations in the country for possible retaliatory attacks in the wake of the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. (Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters) #
An Amtrak police officer and a sniffer dog check an Acela train at Union Station in Washington on May 6, five days after al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden was killed. Intelligence seized from bin Laden's compound showed his network pondered strikes on US trains on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. (Stephane Jourdain/AFP/Getty Images) #
Enzo, a search dog used by the special French gendarme search team, is seen in a forest of Roquebrune-sur-Argens, France on April 29 in connection with the discovery last week of the remains of five members of the Dupont de Ligonnes family in Nantes. Police continue to search for the father, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, who they suspect of murdering his wife and four children and burying them in the garden in Nantes. Police found his car in a hotel car park in Roquebrune-sur-Argens, some 10 hours' drive away, after bank withdrawals showed he was in the area. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters) #
Kristen Hartness Law with Canine for Disabled Kids demonstrates on February 24 how she uses Bronson, a four-year old smooth coat Collie, for support during a demonstration at Northeastern University in Boston where engineering students watched and measured the service dogs and interviewed their handlers in order to develop new harnesses and equipment for canines. (Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff) #
Fire survivors Darryl Steen, his daughters Darahne, 9, and Sierra, 16, sit with their pit bull, Diamond, after the dog received the 29th annual National Hero Dog Award from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Los Angeles May 4. When their apartment caught fire in October 2010, the dog barked to wake owner Darryl Steen. He rushed to save his daughters, grabbing Darahne, but he couldn't get through the smoke and flames to reach Sierra. Diamond not only wiggled through but shielded the teenager beneath a mattress until firefighters rescued them both. Sierra and her father were treated for burns and received skin grafts. Diamond spent six weeks at a veterinary hospital recovering from burns and smoke inhalation. (Damian Dovarganes/AP) #
Dolche, Belle, and Flaf relax in their hotel room at Actuel Dogs on April 19 in Vincennes, France. Actuel Dogs is a five-star luxury hotel for dogs with two single rooms and two suites. With the aim of meeting the dogs' needs, the hotel offers activities including 'doggy rando' and other services such as 'dog massage'. T he hotel also caters to the needs of people living in small apartments or who don't have time to walk their dogs. (Franck Prevel/Getty Images) #
A dog owner stands by his hound in a "Caniparc" animal toilet, an area designed to prevent dog fouling public streets, in a park in Toulouse, France, on April 13. According to a series of government reports over the past decade, Paris has 200,000 dogs dropping 15 tons of excrement a day that cost the city 9 million euros a year to clean up. (Fabrice Dimier/Bloomberg) #
Street dogs wait at a dog shelter in the village of Harilac, Kosovo May 4 after they escaped the fate of fellow dogs, which have become the target of a campaign to cull street dogs in Kosovo. Authorities in Kosovo's capital of Pristina say 190 street dogs have been shot and killed in the first three weeks of a culling campaign that has been harshly criticized by animal lovers, but officials claim the city is plagued by packs of dogs that often attack people. (Visar Kryeziu/AP) #
Dogs rescued by animal lovers are released from their truck at a shelter in Beijing April 16. Animal lovers mobilized by online calls for help blockaded a truck of hundreds of dogs being shipped off for food in a rare, permitted display of social action amid a broad crackdown on most kinds of activism. (Capital Animals Welfare Association/AP) #
An animal lover rescues a newborn puppy after a convoy of trucks carrying some 500 dogs to be sold as meat were stopped along a highway in Beijing April 17. There were about 58 million pet dogs in 20 major Chinese cities at the end of 2009, and the figure is rising about 30 percent each year, as pet owners in China spend an estimated two billion USD a year on their animals. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) #
Easy the dog speeds on a park path during the second week of almost daily protests by animal rights activists outside the parliament building in Bucharest, Romania April 19. A parliamentary committee has passed a draft law that says stray dogs can be killed. Romania has long had a problem with stray dogs, with an estimated 30,000 of them in the capital alone. (Vadim Ghirda/AP) #
More links and information
The Dogs of War: Beloved Comrades in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com, 5/11
Welfare groups race to rescue Japan's abandoned animals - CNN.com, 3/17
Detection dog - Wikipedia entry