With the help of her faithful dog ‘Blue,’ a 3-year-old girl survived a night of cold temperatures after getting lost. For complete story click HERE.

Animal Advocates Alliance (AAA) and the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation (Heigl Foundation), two Los Angeles based non-profit organizations are excited to announce the launch of a pilot training program aimed at teaching introductory obedience training and proper pet care to families adopting pets from the Baldwin Park Los Angeles County shelter.  The program will also be available as an alternative option for families that cite perceived behavioral issues as the reason for relinquishing their pet to the Baldwin Park shelter. Initially, two classes will be offered every Saturday at Morgan Park located in the city of Baldwin Park, with the first class currently scheduled to take place in late February or early March. Each class will be one hour in duration and will be offered to qualifying participants free of charge. Upon completion of the class, participants will be provided with basic supplies which may include leashes, collars and pet food. Each class will be instructed by a licensed trainer and will cover topics such as integration of the pet into the family, positive reinforcement training, house breaking, and proper dog socialization.  Instructors will also provide education on topics such as importance of spaying and neutering, local laws applicable to pet ownership, availability of low cost veterinary care and the hard reality of relinquishment of a pet to a municipal shelter. The staff at the Baldwin Park shelter will assist in promoting the program and will register interested parties for classes.

Los Angeles-area city and county shelters continue to experience overcrowding with stray and abandoned pets, and continue to euthanize a large number of adoptable animals due primarily to lack of space. The “Learn to be a Best Friend” program is aimed to reducing the number of pets surrendered to shelters by owners as a result of correctable issues that can be addressed with education and basic training.

A Superior Court judge ordered that Wilkes County destroy more than 127 pit bulls seized from a dog-fighting ring because a county ordinance requires that dangerous dogs be destroyed and state statutes define dogs involved in dog-fighting operations as dangerous.  The 127 pit bulls were seized on Dec. 10 during a raid on Wildside Kennels. It’s unclear exactly how many dogs there are now because several litters of puppies have been born since the raid.  Kennel owner Ed Faron pled guilty to 14 counts of felony dog fighting and was sentenced to 8 to 10 months in prison. His son pled guilty to one count of felony dog fighting and was given a suspended sentence of 6 to 8 months. For complete story click HERE.

A new Zealand man has been jailed for seven months after feeding five kittens to his pitbull terrier. Te Ahu Mankelow was charged after a video surfaced showing the gruesome incident. The person who took the video has not been found and, therefore, has not yet been charged. For complete story click HERE.

An estimated 30,000 stray dogs roam the streets of Mosquera, a suburb of Bogota, Colombia’s capital. This suburb of Bogota has long been a dumping ground for canines whose owners are too uninterested or financially strapped to care for them. Animal control has been a foreign concept in Mosquera, a city of 90,000 with no dog pound. The mayor declared an order to ‘capture and kill’ which sparked an outcry from the animal rights community.  Mayor Rincon retracted his “capture and kill” order and agreed to join a task force with animal rights leaders aimed at raising private funds to build a regional dog pound. For complete story click HERE.

Did you know that your dog can donate blood? Dogs need blood just like people do in surgeries and medical emergencies. Many veterinary offices do local blood drives for dogs. The blood is all tested, just like human blood is, to make sure it’s safe and then it’s used to save lives. You may want to take a moment and ask your vet next time you’re in the office, if you are at all interested in being a doggie blood donor and saving lives.

To read more about dog blood drives and how they can help, click this link: http://blogs.dogtime.com/aschaes-dogblog/2009/11/local-vet-starts-up-dog-blood-donation-program-in-eastern-idaho

I couldn’t find a blood drive in the Los Angeles area but if you find one please let us know!

Title: Pits and Pals! – Spay/Neuter Day
Location: North Central Animal Shelter – 3201 Lacy St., Los Angeles, CA 90031
Description: Free spay/neuter for pets of LA city residents who qualify! (total yearly household income not to exceed $31,700). Vaccination included with surgery. Must have an appointment, call 1-888-349-7388
Date: 2010-02-27

How sweet it is to see two little souls rescued from the Baldwin Park shelter doing so well together. Enjoy the description from their new parent below.

“Petie (the one on the left in the photo) and Lucy are best of friends. They are about one year apart in age and were adopted in Los Angeles and traveled to Sacramento to their forever home to live with me and my husband Joe. When we first got them, they were very skinny, had dull coats and had lost a lot of hair not to mention the fact that Petie was suffering from a very painful broken tooth when we adopted him.

We can’t imagine anyone finding two more happy, smart, funny and truly appreciative dogs. They have learned so much in the last year. Petie is all business and Lucy is the center of attention and the life of the party. Both dogs are very affectionate and good listeners and really know how to strut their stuff when we all go on walks through the neighborhood. We just don’t know what life would be like without our angels.”

From PawNation.com

Twitter is already lame, some company has thought of a way to make it lamer. Who cares what most of these people have to say? A company is looking to take Twitter to the next lame level. Now your dog can tweet on his/her own lame tweets.

Mattel is working on a device that will make it possible for your dog to tweet automatically, without your help. No typing, no logging on, no trying to think of some silly thing that your dog would tweet if he/she could. Now this thing called Puppy Tweets – which is made up of a smart sensor that, attached to your dogs collar, will send signals to a USB reciever in your computer, which will then update your dogs Twitter account with unoriginal, pre-fab tweets such as “Somedays it feels like my paw is permanently on the snooze button.”

I can’t imagine a more useless waste of money than the money Mattel used to come up with this device. There are dogs dying every day and they could have donated money to animal rescue services, instead they spend all this money coming up with the lamest technology imaginable. Way to go Mattel.