Not too surprisingly I have a soft spot for dogs.  There’s nothing quite like the loyalty and love you get from a dog.  So, I saw a couple of articles today about dogs and thought I would share them.  First is an animal cruelty officer in Toronto who apparently saw a Rottweiler locked in a car on a hot day and arrested the animal’s owner.  He handcuffed the guy to his car, and I guess the bystanders got a little out of hand and started to lay a beating on the jerk.  This is not a problem, as far as I can see.  The problem is that the animal cruelty officer is suspended because of the incident.  Fittingly enough, he has been spending his free time visiting the Rottweiler at the vet’s office to see how he is recovering.  Personally, I think the guy deserved to get roughed up a little bit for leaving his dog in the car to the point that the dog may have brain damage.

Then I read an article about the dog soldiers in Iraq, it’s inspiring and had me almost choked up here at work (I’m such a frigging softy).  There are a lot of dogs in service there, 2000 in the entire forces, with demand for more all of the time.  They obviously are excellent at non-lethal crowd control, but of course they are most prized for their sniffers and bomb detection.  Naturally since they are leading patrols, they get hurt a lot, but are given first-rate medical care.

“They are cared for as well as any soldier,” insists Senior Airman Ronald A. Harden, a dog handler in Iraq.

A good read, sniff, sniff.

And, finally since I can’t bear to leave things on even a slightly sad note, here’s a nice puppy chaser from Wilson.  Have a look at this video and tell me that isn’t the frigging best puppy, hands down.