Otello, black lab

Amazing Grace: Website Helps Reunite Dog, Owner
By Hunter Chase
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Children on Kiawah Island don’t know how close they came to losing one of their business partners in Pinehurst.

Frank Manganella and his companion, Otello

Otello, a 12-year-old black lab, is a whiz at finding lost golf balls. His owner, Frank Manganella, who lives on Kiawah Island in South Carolina, laughs when he talks about some of the knocks he gets on his door in reference to his canine companion.

“He retrieves anything,” Manganella says. “I live on a golf course, and that dog shags golf balls, hundreds of golf balls. Kids in the neighborhood will knock on the door and ask if they can borrow Otello for a while to go find lost balls. Then the kids take the balls they find and go sell them over by the clubhouse.”

Manganella did a little retrieving of his own Monday morning, thanks to the Pinehurst Police Department and the lost-and-found- pets feature on thepilot.com.

In Pinehurst to visit some friends, Manganella was keeping Otello in the garage of his friends’ house when a storm hit on Sunday. Manganella believes the dog got out of the garage, became disoriented and wandered away. Otello is almost completely deaf.

Manganella turned to the Internet Monday morning to begin his search for his missing dog. He went to the Moore County government website, and from there he was directed to thepilot.com. He filled in the online form to post information about a lost dog at around 9:25 a.m.

Meanwhile in the Pinehurst Police Department, the saga of the missing Otello also revolved around thepilot.com.

According to police reports, the department received a call about a black lab that had been wandering around Sunday near Overcup Lane. A police officer went over to investigate, and the dog immediately came to the officer, so Otello was taken to the police station, where he was placed in a kennel for an overnight stay.

Karen Hammer, administrative assistant in the department and a professed animal lover, falls into the reunion story at this point. Hammer volunteers with Animal Advocates and is involved in wildlife rehabilitation in addition to her job at the police station. She knows a thing or two about animals, and when she arrived at work on Monday morning she immediately took a liking to Otello.

“He’s a senior, such a nice old guy,” she says. “He is such a sweetheart.”

She called Animal Control as required so it could come get the dog (the department can only keep found pets on premise for a short time), but also went to thepilot.com website and filled out the found animal form at around 9:50 a.m.

“It was the first time we used it,” she says. “Everything just came together perfectly for him (Otello). That program is what made it all work out.”

Mark Bamberry, the Webmaster for thepilot.com and another bigtime animal lover, connected the dots when he saw the two reports that had been entered. He immediately called Manganella to tell him that Otello could probably be found at the Pinehurst Police Department.

“Thirty minutes later, I got a call telling me my dog might be at the police station,” Manganella says. “I was amazed. The system in place on the website is mind-boggling.”

There are probably some kids on Kiawah Island that will be happy to find out that their business partner is coming home to continue his retrieving ways. Manganella and Otello certainly are glad to be reunited.

“He sure was happy to see me,” Manganella says. “The feeling was mutual.”

Lost-and-Found Pet Forms Online: Pam Partis, a woman with bright ideas and an avowed animal lover, and Bamberry collaborated on thepilot.com’s lost and found pet section. Partis came up with the idea and Bamberry implemented it.

Partis pointed out that when a person loses or finds a pet, there are seven animal rescue groups in the area to contact. That means filling out seven different lost-or-found reports — and doing it only during the time when the agencies are open.

So, she suggested, why not create a lost-and-found report on thepilot.com that would allow a person to file a report and submit a photo of a ­missing or found pet with a single click 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Then, when that report is ­submitted through thepilot.com, it will automatically be distributed by e-mail to all seven agencies. Voilá — a ­clearinghouse for lost and found pets.

Bamberry crafted the form for lost and found pets, and created the system that distributes the information to the various agencies. The system has reconnected several pets and pet owners in addition to Manganella.

Source: http://www.thepilot.com/news/2010/may/19/amazing-grace-website-helps-reunite-dog-owner/

Big Black Dog in East Nashville

Ode to east nashville, i.e. the happy ending
Jamie
April 29, 2008

Yesterday, our dog went missing.

After the the Garage Theft of 2007, we put up a new fence that enclosed the garage area and had two big gates that allowed us to drive into the backyard. With this being our first foray into gate making, they aren’t the sturdiest things, and a year later, they sag enough so that the latch doesn’t always stay latched. Such was the case last night when the wind picked up and the gate was blown open enough to let a big dog through to eat grass and poop in yards other than his own.

After discovering that Houdini had made a run for it, we loaded up in two cars and canvassed the neighborhood until midnight. We drove every street an alley from Eastland to Davidson, from 5th to 20th, many of them twice, but no luck finding a big black dog in the big black night. Though our dogs are sloppy, mushy lovers, they’re big and have rottweiler markings, so we’re always conscious that strangers may see them as a threat. Desperate, we put posts up on Craigslist, Petfinders, and the East Nashville listserv.

By this morning, we were getting calls and emails of possible sightings around the area. Neighbors we’ve never met have offered their assistance, local business owners have gone out of their way to help, and all of you guys have kept our spirits up all morning.

Turns out, while we were doing all this work, that dumb dog had lucked into finding one of the nicest people in the neighborhood and had a slumber party at her place, his belly full of food and his lazy butt in her bed.

Despite the hardships that come with living in East Nashville, I have never known a kinder, more considerate community.

Thank you to Jackson for taking time out of your day to follow up on a sighting posted on the listserv. Thank you to Chris, Chris, and Christy for keeping an eye out and offering your help. Next blogger meet up, I’m buying each of you guys a beer. Or twelve.

Thank you to Laura Creekmore for managing the Google Group that reunited us with our four legged wanderer, not to mention everything else you do. Thank you to Trisha of the Hip Zipper for answering my post and calling just to make sure that I had indeed found him. Thank you to Leslie on Woodland for letting me know that the staff at Mad Donna’s had taken pity on the dog. Thank you to the staff at Mad Donna‘s for taking the time to help him find his way home instead of kicking him off your doorstep.

The biggest thank yous of all to Robin of Robin’s Nest Animal Rescue (no URL yet, but believe you me, when it’s up, I’m posting all about it) and to our newfound neighbor Tammi. Thank you for taking our pup in, for coddling him, for protecting him by making sure we were who we said we were, and for bringing him home to us.

I’m so grateful that I have this community (both online and off) to live in. I thought tweeting about the dog being missing would just be another little contribution to an ongoing conversation, but instead, you guys jumped right in to offer help and consolation, and then celebrated when he was found. I’m sincerely taken aback by your compassion, and I am very, very thankful.

Our boy is at home now, unaware that anything was ever amiss, and his sister is sleeping the sleep of the dead, so relieved that she doesn’t have to spend another night alone on the dog bed.

Thank you guys. Really.

Source: http://beingbrilliant.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/ode-to-east-nashville-ie-the-happy-ending/

Therese, yellow lab

Craigslist helps reunite Hazel Dell woman with lost guide dog
by Katherine Cook, kgw.com
Thursday, May 27, 2010


VANCOUVER, Wash. -- A visually-impaired Hazel Dell woman was reunited with her guide dog Wednesday, after it escaped from her home.

Amber Crispin spent hours searching her neighborhood, cane in hand, listening for her yellow lab, "Therese."

"She always comes when I call," said Crispin, "except for this time."

Around 6 a.m., Crispin said her fiance left the garage door open, and Therese ran out.

"She's more than just a dog, she's my eyes," said Crispin, 24. "She's everything I'd ever wanted in a guide, and I'm really attached to her."

The pair had been a team for three years. Congenital cataracts and glaucoma had taken most of Crispin's vision. She said Therese restored some of her freedom.

"When we go across the street I depend on (Therese)... she's there to stop me if there's a car coming."

It had been more than six-hours since Therese ran away, and Crispin grew more and more discouraged. Then, her cell phone rang. It was someone from the Humane Society of Clark County, with news that brought small smile of hope to Crispin's face.

"They found a posting on Craigslist about a dog found in Hazel Dell," shared Crispin.

Tyler Chester had listed the early-morning discovery: a small, female, yellow lab, found near Jorgenson park -- right by Crispin's home. Within a half-hour, Chester was walking up Crispin's driveway, umbrella in one hand, leash in the other, with Therese leading the way.

"Hi!" Shouted Chester, as Crispin came into view. "Ahhh, hello!" Replied Crispin, as Therese broke into a full sprint, totting Chester behind. "I was worried about you," said Crispin, as she ruffled Therese's ears. "Thank you so much for finding her!" Squealed Crispin.

"Therese just wandered into our yard," recalled Chester. "She was very friendly and cozied up to us ... my wife wrapped her in a blanket while we tried to figure out who she belonged to... she's a great girl."

Crispin thought Chester was a pretty nice guy.

"There are a lot of people out there that could have just said, 'oh, free dog!' And that would have been the end of it," she said.

Crispin promised Chester she'd bring Therese by for regular visits.

"We'd like that," said Chester.

Source: http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Hazel-Dell-Woman-Reunited-with-Lost-Guide-Dog--94976989.html#

Spikey, german shepherd mix

Dog rescued from L.A. River is reclaimed by owner
Lindsay Barnett, L.A. Unleashed
All things animal in Southern California and beyond
January 28, 2010 | 4:28 pm


Vernon the mystery dog is mysterious no longer: The German shepherd mix, whose dramatic rescue last week from the flooded L.A. River was carried live on many TV news stations, has been reclaimed by his owner.

The dog had been taken to the Southeast Area Animal Control Authority shelter in Downey after his rescue, and animal control officers had been unable to locate his owner because he wasn't wearing ID tags and hadn't been microchipped. Officers called him Vernon after the city in which he was rescued.

Turns out, Vernon's name is really Spikey, and he's owned by an elderly woman who lives in Maywood. According to the family friend who went to claim him Tuesday, the dog's owner speaks only Spanish and, since the rescue didn't receive as much attention on Spanish-language TV, she wasn't aware that her dog had become a media sensation until a friend alerted her several days later.

Animal control officers visited Spikey's home and talked with both his owner and some of her neighbors. They discovered that the woman's other dog, a yellow Labrador retriever named Polo, had been found wandering on the street the day after Spikey was rescued from the river.

Polo was impounded by animal control but will be released back to the owner after her backyard is cleaned up, our sister blog L.A. Now reports. As for how the dogs came to be wandering loose in the first place, the woman suspects that her grandchildren inadvertently left a gate open.

When a familiar person arrived at the SEAACA shelter, "Vernon just went crazy, his tail flapping," the organization's director of operations, Aaron Reyes, told L.A. Now. "We see it all the time: Gosh, he really knows this guy."

Because Spikey bit the firefighter who pulled him from the river, he will remain under quarantine until next Tuesday. But the firefighter, Joe St. Georges, says he has no hard feelings toward the dog. "He's cold, he's wet, he's scared, and then here's this stranger jumping on his back for all intents and purposes, and he did what dogs do," he told the Associated Press after his release from County USC Medical Center, where he was taken for treatment for a bite wound to his thumb.

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2010/01/vernon-dog-rescue-la-river.html