Here’s a story in the holiday spirit, something to be thankful for.

A man wanted on dogfighting charges  was caught by a dog.  Does it get any better than that?

DAYTON, Ohio - Authorities said a police dog bit and helped apprehend a Dayton man wanted on dogfighting charges. Dayton police Lt. Patrick Welsh said a 31-year-old man fled on foot Sunday as officers were responding to a call.

The  police dog grabbed Welsh by the wrist and held him until handcuffed.  He was treated for bites and taken to jail.

There’s a working dog that deserves an extra doggy treat.

* The K-9 above is Dogster member Drago.

I want to thank Michelle for sending me this great story out of Glendale, AZ.

The first crisis dog to be used by any fire department in the nation was there to comfort seven children involved in a car accident.

When emergency workers discovered seven children were involved, Topaz, a 1 1/2-year-old yellow Labrador was called into action.

The dog just arrived in the Valley from Michigan and the accident was one of his first. The Glendale Fire Department got Topaz from Paws With A Cause and he’s still in training.

“The scientific evidence shows they help lower blood pressure,” said Lanette Jelinek, the dog’s handler. “Just petting them. Animals have a very calming affect.”

Police said none of the children inside the pickup was injured. The children said they found the dog comforting.

Is there any end to how dogs help better our lives?  This sounds like a wonderful idea and hopefully will catch on around the country.

That’s right, sniffer dogs are being used in the bedroom.  Not just any bedroom, your teenager’s room is the target for these dogs.

Sniff Dogs, which operates in New Jersey and Ohio, use retired police dogs to now work in the private sector. So much for retirement.

The dogs are highly trained to detect illegal drugs but don’t come cheap, $200 an hour is the going rate.

Sniff Dogs claims to offer a “discreet service” that avoids the confrontation that comes from drugs tests because the search can be carried out without the knowledge of their children.

The company cites statistics showing half of American schoolchildren have tried marijuana and that most drug taking takes place when they get home from school.

This is interesting concept, but does it cross the line.  Do you think it’s alright for parents to go into their kid’s room with a sniffer dog, or is it an invasion of privacy?

Police dogs risk their lives for us everyday,  now thanks to  Vest ‘N .P.D.P. they’re a little safer.

Police officers count on bulletproof vests every day. Now the dogs of the K-9 unit with the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office have the same protection.

Sheriff Bill Schatzman said Wednesday his office has received bulletproof, stab-proof vests for eight of the department’s 10 dogs. Schatzman said the dogs detect explosives, drugs and firearms and help catch criminals, and are in harm’s way.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports none of the sheriff’s dogs have been killed in the line of duty.

The vests cost $900 each and were donated by Vest ‘N P.D.P., a nonprofit organization.

That’s great, hopefully more police dogs across the country will get them. To learn more about the wonderful not-for-profit organization Vest ‘N P.D.P., who raises money to buy the vests, visit their site.

Can you Help? Will you Help?

Vest ‘N P.D.P (Police Dog Protection) raises money to provide Police Dogs with bulletproof/stabproof vests. Police Dogs risk their own lives not knowing the dangers that face them.

They are being killed and injured more frequently than ever. Your donations are strictly utilized for protecting them. Please visit our donation page where you can help save Police Dogs by providing them with Vest Protection.

In San Pedro, CA there’s a woman with a very noble mission.

Dorothy Matich  has started a grass-roots movement to raise money to refurbish the military dog cemetery.

The way Dorothy Matich sees it, the war dogs buried at San Pedro’s former Army base deserve a respectable resting place.

“They’re veterans, as far as I’m concerned,” Matich said.

Through the years, the cemetery for more than 30 military canines that helped guard the coastline during the Cold War years had fallen into disrepair.

Some of the bronze grave markers were stolen, along with a life-size statue of a German shepherd that once “guarded” the unique burial ground.

Steve Nelson, curator of the Fort MacArthur Museum located inside Angels Gate Park, had long wanted to restore the canine cemetery, but lacked the funds to do so.

While on a visit to the museum Dorothy Matich  learned of the cemetery and curator Steve Nelson’s wish to restore it.  A one woman dog loving machine Matich has managed to raise thousands to go towards the renovations.

Through teas and small-scale fundraisers, Matich and other San Pedro supporters - Florence Kleinjan and Alan and Liz Johnson among them - managed to raise enough money to install a new wrought-iron fence around the cemetery. Private donations also were solicited, with the Petco Foundation donating $1,000.

An irrigation system has been installed with new turf yet to come. Sculptor Eugene
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Daub is working on a design for a new dog statue for the cemetery.

Replicas of the bronze grave markers - although some are missing, others remain locked safely away in the museum - will be made and placed in the cemetery.

The markers bear the names of the dogs - Lance, Baron, Jack, Winner, Pancho, Fritz - along with their military service dates.

The museum has many very interesting exhibits,  including a history of the  “K-9 Command.”  It’s definitely worth visiting if you’re in the area.

For anyone interested in making a donation for the cemetery project you can do so online, or by sending a check made out to the Fort MacArthur Museum Association (designated for the “K-9 Cemetery”) to the Fort MacArthur Museum, P.O. Box 268, San Pedro, CA 90731.

There are so many dogs in shelters across the U.S., while some get adopted many never make it out.

Some dogs aren’t adopted because their rather rambunctious personality can be a bit overwhelming to the potential adopter.

The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation has a way to save these dogs, by putting them to work.

“They don’t do well sitting in your back yard, they don’t do well with little kids because they are just very very rambunctious dogs,” said Marin County Fire Captain Jim Boggeri. “They need a job and they need to get out and run and do this job.”

National Disaster Search Dog Foundation Canine Manager Karen Klingberg scours shelters for dogs that can’t make it as pets, but might make it as disaster-scene searchers and rescuers.

“This is where your high-energy, your driven fence jumper, pulling, untrained dogs end up. And to me, those are like ‘yeah’,” she said.

After successfully passing a battery of tests, dogs that are sometimes just hours away from being put down at a shelter are enrolled in a six-to eight-month certification course.

This sounds like a win-win situation to me, what a great story.

Razor, a 14-month-old Malinois, has a new job.  She was hired to sniff out cell phones being brought into Florida prisons.

A new law makes it illegal to smuggle a cell phone into the prison, it can now get you 1-5 years. Turning your “day visit” into a much longer stay.

TAMPA - Cell phones smuggled into Florida prisons help inmates with everything from dealing drugs to plotting escapes.

A law took effect Wednesday making it illegal to smuggle cell phones into prisons. To combat the problem the phones can create, the state Department of Corrections recently got a cell-phone-sniffing dog.

The dog will report to duty in mid-November.

“Just like a drug dog is trained to smell drugs, Razor is trained to smell cell phones,” Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.

When the $6,500 dog starts her job, she will be the first pooch in Florida’s prisons used exclusively to sniff for cell phones. No date has been set for Razor to sniff around in the Tampa Bay area.

I hope Razor used her status as the first in her field to secure the necessary work benefits,  premium dog food and  unlimited treats .

I’ve heard of people getting arrested for many reasons, but here’s a new one, a couple arrested for carrying chocolate. Not once, but twice in less than two months.

The couple runs Living Libations, a company that sells beauty care products and natural food.  After the first arrest they armed themselves with a certified letter from the Department of Justice. The letter clearly outlined the organic chocolate they were carting across the U.S. border was,just that, chocolate.

The couple was arrested and charged with exporting a controlled substance.

“It was absolutely crazy,” said Artemis, 37. “We don’t know what it is that sets the dogs off, but it does.”

This was Sept. 11. Just one month earlier, on Aug. 3, the pair had attempted to board a plane bound for Minnesota at Pearson airport.

“I’m a botanical formulator, so we’re carrying all this strange stuff - little vials of jasmine, vanilla.

“We have a lot of exotic stuff,” she said.

They had also packed some raw, organic chocolate - made of unrefined, unprocessed cacao, maca root, hemp seeds and goji berries.

“At first the (customs officials) said, ‘Oh, you guys are just holistic.’ Then the dogs came.”

The animals went nuts over the chocolate. A rapid drug test was done, which returned a false positive result for hashish.

The couple hired attorney, Marcy Segal, who arranged for secondary forensic testing. The test proved the chocolate was simply chocolate, with no added ingredients. Once again, showing the original results were false positive.

Their attorney, Marcy Segal, stated “Clearly, these NIK (rapid drug) tests are unreliable. Whether or not anything is going to be done about it is yet to be determined.”

My biggest issue with this scenario is the use of perfectly good chocolate being put into a body lotion.  What a waste!

Times have been a bit tough lately,  people are cutting back on their spending. When this happens, usually the hardest hit groups are not-for-profits which run solely on contributions.

Take for instance Power Paw’s Assistance Dogs, they rely on donations and fundraisers to keep them going.

The group has 45 dogs in training. Each year, it matches 10 golden retrievers and Labrador retrievers with children and adults with disabilities.

“We are publicly supported, and we are holding our breath as to what’s coming,” Abels said.

Or look at Paws With A Cause, the group that trained Buddy, the dog who  called 911 after his owner had a seizure.

About 80 percent of funding for Paws with a Cause is provided through workforce-donation campaigns, Davis said.

As employers slash jobs, though, fewer people are able to donate.

The dogs pick up dropped items, push elevator buttons, pay cashiers or even pull off pairs of socks.

“So many times people with disabilities don’t go out in public because it’s not accessible to them,” Abels said. “With a dog with them, they are able to become active members of the community.”

It’s so easy for those of us without disabilities to take these daily tasks for granted, something  we don’t give an afterthought. We don’t think about what it would be like if we couldn’t pick something up because we dropped it,  or what would happen if a fire started and we couldn’t hear the alarm.

These dogs not only give persons with disabilities a level of independence they could not achieve on their own, they also react in life-threatening situations. What would have happened to Buddy’s owner if he wasn’t around?  Scary thought.

If the picture above doesn’t make you scrape together a few dollars to donate,  I haven’t done my job very well.  Come on Dogsters, let’s help support the service dogs that support us.

September 11, 2001 is a day that changed history.  On this day of remembrance I would like to pay tribute to all the ordinary people that showed incredible acts of heroism.

I would also like to pay tribute to the heroic rescue dogs. Bo’s pal, Odie,  brought to my attention a great article which features a picture gallery of these dogs.

“If these dogs only knew what a difference they make. Certainly, there’s nothing that can replace the precision of a dog’s nose-and absolutely nothing that can replace a dog’s heart.”
- Bob Sessions, rescue worker, Federal Emergency Management Agency

A special thanks to Odie  who took the time to put together an amazing tribute page with  numerous links to 9/11 memorials and articles.  It’s worth visiting: take a few moments from your busy schedule to reflect and honor the memory of those affected that day.