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Some 18 months after being rescued from stone-throwing children, a street-dwelling mongrel has emerged as India's top dog in the country's elite bomb- and drug-sniffing squad. "Asha" - meaning "hope" in Hindi - was rescued by West Bengal police when they found her being mistreated outside their training facility. "The dog was bleeding when she was taken inside the campus," senior West Bengal Police Training Academy official Dipankar Bhattacharya told AFP. Officers originally intended keeping the mixed-breed stray as a pet, but Asha turned out to have a nose every bit as good as the German Shepherds and Labradors usually...

Before dog licenses and leash laws; before doggie mohawks, colored hair and painted toenails; before $100 teeth cleaning, $800 vet bills, and humiliating Halloween costumes, there existed – in almost every sleepy town with a red brick school and a white church steeple – an extinct breed of canine I like to call the American dog. He (or she) went by names like Old Shep, Old Dog Tray, or Spot. This is the story of an American dog. UNCLE ROY AND HIS PUPPY: SPOT'S ADVENTURE BEGINS My mother's uncle Roy was a WWI veteran. He had been gassed in the...

A Boise family is outraged over the death of their 5-year-old dog. Sunday afternoon, a Boise Police officer fired his weapon at the dog, killing it. For years, Gabrielle Stropkai found companionship in her dog, Kita, calling her a lover and a friend for her son Hayden to grow up with. “We have kids who run up and pull her tail and grab her by the back of the neck and get in her face and she does nothing but love on them,” said Stropkai. However, as two Boise patrol officers were investigating a theft that was reported in the...

When Rebecka Brown returned home June 5, she noticed a business card stuck in her door. That card was from Det. Joey Cooper, a deputy with the Carteret County Sheriff’s Office.“Naturally I called the number immediately to find out why an officer had been here,” she wrote on a Facebook page.Det. Cooper told her he was there to serve a warrant to her husband for failure to appear in court in relation to a ticket he had received while hunting. She also found out something horrifying.“He then told me he had to tase my dog.”When she asked why, Brown says...

An Omaha police officer shot and killed a dog on a public sidewalk. The officer’s report claims the shooting was justified; however, the owners call the incident an execution of a friendly, family pet. Mike McKnight obtained surveillance video of the incident for a Fact Finders exclusive. On October 7th, after midnight, police blocked a street in the area of 35th and Vinton to look for an armed suspect. They say Chris Schulte, who lives in the area, ignored orders to stop and walked the family dog toward the search area. He was arrested and his dog, Teela, shot. Chris...

SAN ANTONIO — A blind dog that was lost and believed to be dead is reunited with his San Antonio family for Christmas, thanks to Craigslist, a school teacher and an animal care agency. Nearly a month after Stevie Oedipus Wonder disappeared — and was reported dead — the cairn terrier mix puppy is home for the holiday, the San Antonio Express-News reported Saturday

A dog in Oregon is up for a national award after saving her owner’s life, The Oregonian reported. Ceili, a 15-year-old Lab mix, doesn’t usually get too excited – but one day last August, she stood by her owner’s side, trying to block his path, licking his face and even sniffing his breath. “She was driving me nuts,” said Danny Fincher, 62. Later on that night, Fincher started feeling ill, and Ceili continued pestering him – she pulled off his shoe and tried to block him from climbing the stairs. She knew something was wrong.

They’re calling it the parcel puppy. A Minneapolis woman is charged with animal cruelty after police say she tried to send a puppy through the mail. The poodle-mixed pup is being held temporarily at the animal control office in Minneapolis but still belongs to the woman who allegedly tried to mail it — 39-year-old Stacey Champion. “Clearly there wasn’t a whole lot of thought that went into this,” said Sgt. Angela Dodge with the Minneapolis Police Department. Dodge said last Tuesday Champion took the puppy to the Loring Post Office. The puppy was in a box with a priority sticker...

A Minneapolis woman has been cited for animal cruelty after postal workers say they discovered a puppy in a box she was mailing to Georgia. Police say the box was taped shut and had no air holes. And, had it been sent for delivery, the box would have been put in an airplane's unheated and non-pressurized cargo hold. Sgt. William Palmer says the Postal Service told police the dog would have died. Postal Service spokesman Pete Nowacki says post office employees became suspicious when the box fell off the counter after the woman left last Tuesday. Postal inspectors were summoned,...

SAN CARLOS PARK, Fla. - A Lee County deputy goes in a woman's yard, and ends up facing off with a family pet. He shot the dog twice, and now the owner is furious, demanding answers, saying her dog did nothing wrong. Christine Bonelli was inside her San Carlos Park home Thursday afternoon when she heard two shots. "First I thought it was fireworks and said no, that's gunshots I think," Bonelli said. She stepped outside to find two deputies and her Foxhound Mix "Harley" with gunshot wounds. "Blood was coming out of his shoulder and on his leg, coming...