Brutus vs. Sock Brutus 1 – Sock 0

Now that I have finally caught my breath and calmed down I can share the “excitement” we had here on Tuesday.

Had a very scary day with Brutus.  The morning started out with him throwing up his breakfast.  Then two more vomiting bouts with the remainder of his breakfast.  Oh joy!  Bloat is of course going through my mind at this point.  Cleaned that up and he started going down hill from there FAST.

He threw up some water and headed outside to vomit again and collapsed in the most horrific fashion.  I will never get that image out of my mind.  I literally thought he had a heart attack and was dead laying there.  I absolutely freaked!!!  Stark raving screaming freak out.  I re-positioned his head and straightened out his legs and then he held his head up.  I helped him stand and he wandered back inside a little dazed, but far from dead.

He climbed under my desk and was very uncomfortable.  He started having some labored breathing. At that point I’m on the phone trying to get help from my husband to get him to the emergency vet.  He starts profusely drooling and I know hes about to get sick again.  We head out on the deck and he pukes up a ton of water AND a SOCK, a freaking SOCK!!!!!!!!!  WTF that dog has never eaten anything other than food before!

Immediately he starts wagging his tail and I just collapse on him bawling.  He came back in made himself comfortable in front of the fan.  He had rice and chicken for dinner and ate with gusto and seemed to be completely back to himself with in 2 hours.  I think I aged 10 years that day.

I was absolutely sick about it.  Thank goodness for happy endings.  Morale of the story… never, ever take it for granted that your dog wont get into something they shouldn’t.  And make sure your teenager picks up their socks!

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Dig This Video: Nathan the Hairless Dog Is a Dancing King

The Chinese Crested rescue dog has a great crew behind him, too. Your move, Kanye.

Have you ever seen a hairless dog flanked by three of his crew getting down to Madonna's "4 Minutes" in a rocking office chair?  

No? What's wrong with you? Have a look: 

Now go watch the video here.

This dog is down with it, no? And his posse -- Crazy Hair on the left, Not Having It over the shoulder, and Eyebrows sort of hunched behind the rocking office chair, the way he does -- that's a fine-looking crew, dead ringers for about 100 people in 1984's Breakin', which is where all the great crews come from.

And Nathan, on the rocking office chair -- do you know that Nathan dances better than 85 percent of people at weddings, 95 percent of people at any given Red Lobster, and 100 percent of Ellen's studio audience? 

We know this because we Nathan and the Furious Three were featured on the show: 

Nathan's video has predictably struck a chord with Internet users -- "Hey, that dog has more game than me!" -- going viral and bringing scads of much-needed attention to the rescue Bald Is Beautiful, out of Greenville, SC, which takes in primarily hairless and small-breed dogs and finds them homes.  

Nathan, who is identified as a Chinese Crested on the Bald Is Beautiful website, was a hard case, the group reports Facebook. After his owner died in 2008, he was left in her home with all of her other dogs for a week. Another rescue took him in but failed to place the dog.   "He was moved to several homes over the next few years," writes BIB, "and apparently no one was willing or able to keep Nathan for more than a year before moving him on."

In 2011, Nathan ended up at Bald Is Beautiful. The group placed him with a foster home, where they discovered his fear of men. 

"Nathan was an unusual case in that he required ongoing training to address his issues. Part of this process includes changing behavior, but also minimizing triggers and helping the dog find success where it is possible."

After another failed placement, his foster mom realized "he was happier at her home than anywhere else he'd been before," so she adopted him. Nathan has been a joy ever since. 

As for his dancing, well, yeah, he's scratching his back. But it's so much more than that. 

"This dancing behavior is something he started on his own and now does on command for lots of praise from his mom, and treats, too," writes BIB.

And that crew? "Well, they know the drill. When Mom says, 'Wiggle it!' they all line up behind the green chair and wait. When it's over, everyone gets treats!" 

Two of Nathan's crew are his brothers, but Not Having It is up for adoption. His real name is Diamond; check out his profile here.

And check him out here with Al Roker:

Photos via Bald Is Beautiful's Facebook

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RAGD interviewed by Toxic Free Talk Radio!

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Indy the Pit Bull -- Hurt by a Sadistic Act Involving Fireworks -- Finds a Happy Ending

A vet tech who helped him recover from injuries sustained on July 4 offers him a new home.

Happy endings sometimes seem in short supply, especially in cases of animal abuse, so this one is very welcome. After months of treatment and recovery, a Pit Bull who made the news last year after someone strapped fireworks to his body and lit them, has found a new forever home.

Indy (short for Independence) was part of a particularly sadistic kind of Fourth of July  celebration last year. He was discovered in an alley in Van Nuys, California, on July 5, 2013, with more than half his body covered with third-degree burns. To this day, no one knows where Indy came from, or who tied fireworks to his body and legs. It's possible that we never will.

But we do know that this week, he went to a new home, adopted by one of the veterinary technicians who looked after him at the Westlake Village Animal Hospital. Jenny Mandel, who officially adopted Indy, wasn't working at the hospital when he first came in, but for months she has made a habit of coming to see him every morning when she came in. In November, she decided to adopt him.

"You can't not love a dog like that, so every day it was just more love, more love, and then finally he became a momma's boy. I became a doggy's girl," she told NBC.

It has been a very long and painful journey for Indy to get to his new home. NBC reports that his treatment involved "at least four skin grafts and surgeries."

The volunteers and staff who have cared for Indy during that time understand that journey better than anyone. Just after his recovery was announced in November, volunteer Allison Polumbus said, "It's really hard to see an animal in this kind of pain. We saw him without the bandages. It's horrific, it's gory, and you can't even imagine the pain he's in."

The scars from Indy's trauma are going to last for a long time, but everyone says that he has remained loving and affectionate the whole time. At his new home, at least he'll be assured of getting some of that love back.

I have to admit to a certain sentimental attachment to this story. I grew up in Westlake Village, where Indy has been recovering. It's an affluent suburb about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. I went to two high schools in the area and hated almost every minute I lived there. I was glad when I finally escaped to go to college in the 1990s, because I knew from an early age that I wouldn't get any happy endings there. I'm glad that I got out when I did, but I'm also glad that Indy, at least, found his happy ending in Westlake.

Via Life With Dogs and NBC

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P.L.A.Y joins the Raise A Green Dog Partner Pack!

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Dempsey the Boxer Survives Nine Freezing Days Outside in Maine Only to Be Hit by a Car

He went 10 rounds in subzero woods and then got knocked flat by a car, but this fighter survived.

Dempsey the Boxer was named after the boxer Jack Dempsey, so you have to assume that this little guy is not going to go down without a fight. 

And last week, he was in the fight of his life: nine days alone in subzero temperatures, and then he gets hit by a car.  

It started a couple of weeks ago, when Dempsey and his owner Jamie Cyrway visited her parents' house in Maine -- a very cold Maine. Dempsey, for reasons known only to Dempsey, jumped a six-foot fence in the backyard and aced into the woods. Those woods were freezing. Dempsey was an out-of-town Boxer, unused to such conditions. It didn't look good. The family immediately started searching, offering a reward, putting up signs around the neighborhood and on Facebook.

“We went out on snow shoes,” Janet Boothby, Cyrway’s mother, told CBS News. “We went out at night. We took my dog on trails. Jamie and I went through the woods. We had scent stations set up.”

They did everything they could, in short. But still no Dempsey. Eventually, Cyrway, who is a single parent with three kids, had to get back to Maryland for work. She left with her kids, but her family continued the search. 

The days continued to pass, but they didn't give up hope. 

"Jamie and I never gave up on him," Boothby told WMTM.com. "We said, 'Until we have proof Dempsey is gone by being dead or something, we’re not going to give up. Because if we give up, he will die and we weren’t going to do that."

Then, nine days later, a break in the case. A man told others he hit a dog near a farm in the area where Dempsey vanished. Christine Pierce, who heard about Dempsey on Facebook but didn't know the dog, thought she'd go check it out. 

She found tracks in the snow, which led into a shed. She followed them and found Dempsey, who looked "horrible" and "skinny." 

“He wasn’t moving, and when I saw him, I said, 'Dempsey, I found you. I can’t believe I found you,'" Pierce said. “He kind of opened his eyes a little bit and then I knew he was alive. I scooped him up and put him in the back of my vehicle and called his owner Jamie and said, 'I found your dog.'"

Pierce took him straight to Madison Animal Hospital. Dempsey had a broken leg, he had lost weight, his heart rate had dropped, and he was having seizures, but he was alive. 

According to Dr. Darren Richards, Pierce found Dempsey in the nick of time. 

“It’s really a miracle. Nine days in the subzero temperatures that we had, and he’s not a very big dog, so he’s lucky,” Richards said. "I think when she found him, he was probably within an hour or two of dying.” 

Dempsey is recovering from surgery to fix his leg, and he's been reuinted with Cyrway. Her mother praised the community for helping them find the dog.

“We had so many people looking, so many people helping us look. So many people putting food out. People are good people,” Boothby said. “At church, our opening prayer was for Dempsey on Sunday morning, so Dempsey touched the hearts of many, many lives.”

Via CBS News

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Is your dog's shampoo safe?

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Nobody Puts Blaze the Husky into His Kennel

In this video, the big, relaxed, sleepy puppy is very polite about it, but he makes it clear: NO!

John Ventresco's video of his 11-month-old Husky (named Blaze) resisting going into his kennel, is getting a lot of "Awww" around the Internet, and for good reason. We've all been there, whether we have four legs or two. At some point, you just become very satisfied with the place you're in, and when someone comes along to rouse you for dinner, television, or just moving from your spot on the couch to a proper bed for the night, you just want to stay where you are.

For the most part, Blaze is vocal but polite about not wanting to leave his comfy spot. Every time an attempt is made to rouse him, he makes a kind of doggy grunt indicating that he just doesn't want to go.

Blaze's courtesy is one thing that's been commented on a lot as his video circulates. He's kind of become the canine Bartleby of the Internet -- in Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, the title character responds to work requests from his employer by saying only "I would prefer not to." So, maybe Blaze isn't just cute; think of him as an easy way to educate your kids on classic American literature.

While YouTube's "annotate" feature is one of those things that posters sometimes use to crank their obnoxiousness up to 11, here it just brings out the adorableness. The feature translates Blaze's moans of protest into a definitive "No." It's certainly more accurate than the automatic transcript produced by YouTube's servers, which nevertheless are a great bonus source of surrealistic humor. According to YouTube, the conversation between Blaze and his humans goes something like this:

0:00 thinks I'm going to tell mom month
0:04 whom more mmm
0:07 where my
0:11 I'm I'm
0:14 sand or gravel an all-time
0:18 a whole time Mike
0:22 mom and cool harm
0:26 call please and
0:30 home well month ago
0:33 warm Mike girl
0:00 thinks I'm going to tell mom month

I guarantee that's not what's being said, either by Blaze or the humans, but check it out for yourself below.

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Tubby has a nose for recycling. Follow his lead!

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Happy Thanksgiving to our RAGD pals!

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Will your dog's food be frankeninfished?

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A Super Sunday Dog Event: The Bill Foundation's Rescue Bowl

The organization plans to live-stream an adoption event that pits Shelter Dogs vs. Street Dogs.

How many of you tuned into the Bill Foundation's live stream adoption event?

Always searching for new ways to help dogs in need, the rescue organization did something never done before: The Bill Foundation live-streamed its weekend adoption event in Los Angeles. Viewers were treated to streaming footage of wiggly, waggily dogs in need of forever homes as volunteers narrated their individual stories. Thanks to contributions from Ustream and Logitech, the event was a tremendous success, drawing more than 30,000 viewers as well as a deluge of adoption applications. Adoptions haven't been finalized yet (it's a long, thorough process), but it looks like 9 or 10 of the pups will be going to their forever homes.

Check out the recorded video below.

Now the foundation plans its first Rescue Bowl. Twenty to 25 adoptable dogs will get to play in a game of Shelter Dogs vs. Street Dogs. The dogs will be dressed in jerseys, and there will even be cheerleaders to rally their spirits. It's scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 3, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. If you're interested in watching the Super Bowl, you can still do that -- it starts at 3:30 p.m. Pacific, 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

You can watch the Rescue Bowl here for free, but you can also donate $5 to vote for you favorite team. All donations go to the Bill Foundation's continued rescue efforts.

The group plans to announce the starting lineup Saturday on its Facebook page; it'll also announce the "winning" team there Monday. There's even talk of a trophy and perhaps an exciting halftime show. 

Photo: Golden Retriever with star sunglasses on football by Shutterstock

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Part 1: The ultimate laundry guide for the green dog!

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Lucy, the World's Smallest Working Dog, Is a Rescue Sucess

See cute photos of the Yorkie who holds the Guinness World Record as a therapy dog.

So after the bummer news on Thursday, we all kind of sat around in shock. Then the Dogster team decided, "Aw fluff it, let's go get lunch." So we did. After lunch, we had a group hug. And me, being the shortest of the group, got everyone's armpit in my face. Fortunately, everyone had remembered to wear deodorant. (Yours truly, however ... )

You might call me the "smallest employee of Dogster," and then Lucy the Yorkie and I would have something in common. Lucy is the Guinness World Record holder of Smallest Working Dog. The pint-size rescue is a certified therapy animal, AKC Good Canine Citizen, and certified caring hospice volunteer.

But Lucy's story almost didn't have such a happy ending! Lucy was one of a few dogs her former owner was trying desperately to rehome, going so far as taking the dogs door to door to see if anyone would adopt them. She walked into the shop in which the person who would become her new owner, Sally, was working; however, Lucy was hidden in a carrier. Sally asked to see Lucy, and the woman resisted -- Lucy was tiny and sickly with dirty, matted fur. But once Sally saw the pup, that was that. She took the dog, unsure of what would happen next except that she'd just made a promise. Fortunately, it all worked out well, and after some grooming and a trip to the vet, the little dog perked right up, and now gives back to her community.

Even though she is tiny, Lucy brings tremendous joy to the people and patients she works with, performing agility tricks that, at least for a little while, distract people from whatever might be ailing them. And for people like me, she's an inspiration, a reminder that even the smallest among us can do great, great things.

And anyway! There are benefits to being petite, such as:

Okay, sometimes the styles are a little childish, but hey! They're almost always cheaper!

And that includes plane seats!

It's cuddly warm in there!

Yay! Sunshine!

And when you lose just, like, a pound, you look great!

All photos via Lucy's Facebook page -- go check it out and tell her that Dogster sent you!

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About Liz Acosta: Dogster's former Cuteness Correspondent, Liz still manages the site's daily "Awws," only now she also wrangles Dogster's social media. That's why she wants you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and -- her personal favorite -- Instagram. See ya there!

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