Sad Loss and Ugly Prince

The dog world has lost one of their finest.


A black Labrador that burrowed through smoking debris after Sept. 11 and flooded rubble after Hurricane Katrina in search of survivors has died of cancer.

Owner Mary Flood had 12-year-old Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. Flood said Jake had been in pain, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.

No one can say whether the dog would have gotten sick if he hadn't been exposed to the toxic air at the World Trade Center, but cancer in dogs Jake's age is common.

Some owners of rescue dogs who worked at ground zero claim their animals have died because of their work there. But scientists who have spent years studying the health of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue dogs have found no sign of major illness in the animals.

Many human ground zero workers have complained of health problems they attribute to their time at the site: the largest study conducted of about 20,000 ground zero workers reported last year that 70 percent of patients suffer respiratory disease years after the cleanup.

The results of an autopsy on Jake's body will be part of a medical study on the Sept. 11 dogs that was started by the University of Pennsylvania more than 5 years ago.

Flood adopted Jake as a 10-month-old puppy. He had been abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

"But against all odds he became a world-class rescue dog," said Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, a federal search-and-rescue team that looked for human remains at ground zero.

On the evening of the team's arrival in New York, Jake walked into a fancy Manhattan restaurant wearing his search-and-rescue vest and was treated to a free steak dinner under a table.

Flood eventually trained Jake to become one of fewer than 200 U.S. government-certified rescue dogs - an animal on 24-hour call to tackle disasters such as building collapses, earthquakes, hurricanes and avalanches.

After Katrina, Flood and Jake drove from Utah to Mississippi, where they searched for survivors in flooded homes...

"He was a great morale booster wherever he went," Flood said. "He was always ready to work, eager to play - and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items."

She said Jake's ashes would be scattered "in places that were important to him," such as his Utah training grounds and the rivers and hills near his home where he swam and roamed.

Another amazing example of how smart dogs are!!

No not so much the hero stuff but the ability to walk into a fancy Manhattan restaurant wearing his search-and-rescue vest and being treated to a free steak dinner under a table and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items. Now that's a smart dog.



Now if only people were as smart as dogs:

Prince von Anhalt, naked in his Rolls

Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, the wacky Freddy von Anhalt, 64, was photographed after a trio of women robbers (he says) pulled up next to him, asked for a photo, but instead robbed him at gunpoint and left him naked and cuffed to his Rolls-Royce.



The imbecilic 9th husband of 90-year-old Zsa Zsa previously injected himself into the national news by claiming to be the father of Dannielynn Birkhead, saying that he had an affair with the late Anna Nicole Smith. No one has corroborated that alleged liaison. There were also no witnesses to the "robbery."

Zsa Zsa called to tell her daughter about "the robbery," and she first said "it was three aliens, but I told him to say it was three humans, because people would think he was crazy."

Notice how tightly he is bound to the steering wheel.

What a strange world we live in.

That's the reality world for today, thanks for stopping by!!