It was 6:30 p.m., and Sheba was nowhere to be seen. The indoor-outdoor cat was known for being punctual for her dinner. Sheba's caretaker, Riley McDermid, wasn't immediately concerned, but when the food remained untouched the next day, it seemed that Sheba was missing. McDermid checked shelters for the microchipped cat and asked neighbors through NextDoor -- a residential social media app that connects neighbors to each other -- about whether they had seen Sheba. McDermid searched for the friendly, black cat in the neighborhood, but to no avail. A week later, after talking with a neighbor, it became apparent that maybe -- just maybe --the cat had taken a 1,600 mile trip. To Omaha, Neb. Suspicions McDermid's neighbor had recently passed away and his adult children had come into town from Omaha to move out items -- including his three cats --from his apartment. On Sept. 19, the day the family had packed their U-Haul for Nebraska, the three cats had gotten out and the neighbor's son and daughter searched for the felines, including a black cat named Lucy. Another neighbor told McDermid that they had seen the siblings leave town with a cat carrier. "Sheba's not skittish and not wild," McDermid said of her cat. "She probably went up to them and they weren't familiar (with their dad's cats) and they had thought it was just one of the cats that had gone back (to his home). ... I briefly hoped that they had the cat." Sheba was adopted by the family in February after being rescued from a coal factory in Crockett. The cat played well with McDermid's 2-year-old daughter, Frankie, and got along with their cattle dog, so McDermid felt she had to try and find Sheba. Finding out the contact info for the son and daughter, McDermid sent Facebook messages and text messages, made phone calls to the two, but did not hear back from them. Getting no reply, the question remained: What were the chances that Sheba was in Omaha? Investigation Tracking down a cat in another state was out of McDermid's experience as a reporter, but having a strong clue that the cat was in Omaha spurred McDermid to try another avenue: A private investigator. "I was sure we'd never see her again," McDermid said. "...This was a last ditch effort and if she was anywhere, she'd be with these people." Looking up private investigators in Omaha, McDermid called around to see who would take a case like this. On her fourth try, she found Mona Kay, who was willing to give it a shot. Kay's practice, Mona K. Investigations, rarely deals with missing pet cases, but she wanted to try and find Sheba for McDermid's family. "Deep down in my gut I really thought I would (find Sheba)," Kay said. "I know my determination and I don't give up easily. I really thought if these people still had the cat, I would find it." Researching the names, Kay came up with four addresses in the Omaha area. At the first house, Kay found Brittany Hulett and, armed with a photo of Sheba, asked if Hulett had seen the cat. "I introduced myself and told her I was a private investigator and I showed her the picture and said, 'Does this cat look familiar? Have you seen this cat?'" Kay recalled. "... I said, 'I'm here to find this kitty, it belongs to a nice family that loves it and misses it and wants to get their kitty back." Hulett told Kay that Sheba was inside her house. Kay saw Sheba -- wearing the exact same collar from McDermid's photos that she had sent along -- and knew she had found the right cat. "They brought the cat out to me," Kay said. "It was much easier than I ever anticipated, which is shocking. I locate people all the time, some take weeks or months and then finding a cat (from) across the country takes three minutes." Hulett said that it was Kay's surprise visit to her home that made her realize she had brought the wrong cat to Omaha. "That's what convinced me that maybe it wasn't (my father's cat)," Hulett said on the phone. "Because who would really go to that extreme? That's why I was like, 'Just take it.' It had to have been true." "What were the odds?" Hulett later added about the mix-up. "Two little black cats, green eyes, same neighborhood." When asked why she took the case, Kay said she loved animals and if this happened to one of her pets -- the private investigator said she has three cats, fish and frogs -- she, too, would have hired a private investigator. "I would be so upset if someone took one of my animals," Kay said. "I would do the same exact thing. I know most people wouldn't, but... I wanted to at least give (the case) a try." "I don't think a lot of private investigators would take the case," Kay later added. "They would have said, 'Oh gosh, I'm not gonna go find a cat. I can't go find a cat, they all look the same.' I can't imagine anyone going to go look for a cat and so I thought she's lucky she found me ... I think a lot of people would have thought it's a wild goose chase." Sheba had finally been found, after having gone missing for 18 days. Reunion Bringing the cat home with her, Kay called McDermid to give her the good news -- only an hour after the two had first spoken on the phone about Sheba. "I called her and said, 'Guess who's here at my house' and she said, 'You have my cat!'" Kay said. "I just started crying," McDermid said of that phone call from Kay. "I couldn't believe it." Saying she's not a "cat lady," McDermid said that her story got its share of opinions at work, drawing comparisons to "Homeward Bound" and "Milo and Otis." "Half of my colleagues in the newsroom thought it's a great story, the other half thought I was crazy," McDermid said of her co-workers. "Once I knew where she was, I had to go get her." "I'm not really a cat person," McDermid later added. "I'm not a big cat lady, I don't like cat memes, but Sheba's just so good with my daughter Frankie that I thought I need to figure out what happened." McDermid disputes Hulett's account of the situation as a "mix-up," and said the siblings ignored two weeks of messages offering a reward and money to ship the cat back. McDermid had also filed a police report at the time the cat went missing. Three days after Sheba was found, Kay shipped the cat home on a plane on Oct. 10 to San Francisco Airport. McDermid and her family picked up Sheba shortly after midnight, three weeks after her adventure first started. And now, every day at 6:30 p.m., Sheba is home for dinner with her family. Source: Times-Herald / Dianne de Guzman A Peaceful Farewell provides compassionate at home pet euthanasia to fellow pet owners in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, Ahwatukee, Scottsdale, and most of the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area.
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Rocky the Boxer is the latest inductee in the Lassie Come Home Hall of Fame. But unlike the classic Eric Knight tale, it wasn’t a mysterious canine instinct that brought the 5-year-old dog back to his people. This reunion happened thanks to a microchip and a crew of kind-hearted drivers from Highway Heroes Rescue Transport. In 2013, Rocky bolted out the door of his home in Mesa, Arizona, and vanished. As months wore on, owner Brittany Romero lost hope that she and her son, Aden Wasil, 12, would ever see their pet again.Romero was stunned when she received a phone call in late July from an animal clinic telling her that Rocky had been found and was alive and well. A family noticed him wandering stray and took him in. He had been living there for a while before they asked a vet to check for a microchip. The clinic called Romero and gave her the good news. The bad news was that he was 1,800 miles away in Elkhart, Indiana. Enter Highway Heroes Rescue Transport. The group’s motto is, “No pet is to far to save.” Over three days and 26 separate legs, Rocky was passed, like the baton in a relay race, from one volunteer driver to the next. Finally, on Sunday morning, July 26, he was back in the arms of his ecstatic family. In Knight’s story, Lassie’s trip from England to Scotland was a mystery to her people. But only the first part of Rocky’s journey is unknown. His return was chronicled in detail on a charming Facebook page, “Rocky’s Journey: One dog, Many people, 1,800 Miles.” The page shows images of Rocky’s relay team and the Boxer having the time of his life on each new part of the trip. There are a lot of smiling faces, hugs, and Boxer kisses. Best of all, the page serves as a great way to thank the kind people who made it possible for Rocky to come home. Source: akc.org / Mara Bovsun A Peaceful Farewell provides compassionate at home pet euthanasia to fellow pet owners in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, Ahwatukee, Scottsdale, and most of the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area.
A golden retriever named “Smiley” is living up to his name as a therapy dog who brightens the days of patients and nursing home residents in the small town of Stouffville, Canada. Smiley was born without eyes, but is still able to work as a St. John’s Ambulance service dog in Ontario. The dog’s owner, Joanne George, rescued the dog from a puppy mill, when he was about 1 or 2 years old. “He was very scared, [the dogs] had never been out of that barn,” George recalled, adding that Smiley quickly bonded with another one of his dogs, a deaf Great Dane named Tyler. “Tyler was so bouncy and crazy and happy go lucky and [Smiley] turned into the same dog,” George said. “He came out from underneath the tables where he was always hiding.” George said seeing Smiley interact with crowds made her realize he would be a perfect therapy dog. She now brings the dogs to hospitals and schools in the area and says the dog almost always brightens people’s days. She said at one nursing home, she realized how even a small visit with Smiley could make people happy. “There was this man Teddy, [he had] no speech, no communication at all,” George said of one memorable nursing home resident. “[The staff] had never seen Teddy smile before.” But once Smiley came up to Teddy, George said the staff was amazed. “[Teddy] smiled when Smiley got into his vision,” George said George said after caring for Smiley for 10 years, she has learned a lot about how to care for blind dogs. “Somebody through St. John’s Ambulance is wanting to adopt a dog that’s blind,” George said. “I told her all those things don’ t be his eyes, don’t run his life, don’t’ keep him in a bubble.” She said it's key for Smiley to figure out how to get around on his own. George said Smiley is mostly able to get around on his own without too much difficulty. "Does he bump into things? Of course, he does. But he does it very carefully," George said, noting the dog’s "high" steps when he walks. "He’s feeling with his feet." Source: ABC News A Peaceful Farewell provides compassionate at home pet euthanasia to fellow pet owners in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, Ahwatukee, Scottsdale, and most of the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area.
It has been a rough year for Dale "Bucko" Franck and his wife Nancy. According to Iowa Public Radio, Bucko spent some time in the hospital for health problems and Nancy was diagnosed with cancer. Nancy recently had cancer surgery, but there were complications, and the Cedar Rapids woman was transferred over to Mercy Medical Center after spending a few days in intensive care. While Nancy’s situation is devastating to Bucko, it also appears to be hard on the family’s two Miniature Schnauzers, Sissy and Barney. And Sissy missed Nancy so much that she decided to take matters into her own paws. In the middle of the night, Bucko woke up and discovered his furnace wasn’t working. While he was up trying to fix the problem, he took both dogs out into the back yard. Usually, the dogs run right back into the house after Bucko unhooks them. He assumed that Sissy had already run into the kitchen, so he went back inside. But it only took a few minutes for Bucko to realize Sissy was gone. Bucko was distraught. “I was scared to death,” he told Iowa Public Radio. “I was crying. That’s my baby.” He called the animal shelter and the police trying to locate his lost dog. Sissy has an identification tag, so Bucko hoped that someone would pick Sissy up and return her. At approximately 5:15 in the morning, Bucko got a call from a security woman at Mercy Medical Center, who said that they had Sissy. The dog — who had never run away before and never visited the hospital in the past — walked twenty blocks away from her home and right to the hospital’s doors, where she actually made her way into the hospital lobby. It was there that the security staff recovered her. Bucko’s only explanation was that Sissy somehow used her sixth sense and was trying to visit Nancy. When Bucko and Nancy’s daughter, Sarah Wood, went to pick Sissy up from the hospital, Sarah asked if she could take the dog upstairs for a quick visit. A security guard escorted them up to Nancy’s room so that Sissy could spend a few minutes with her beloved pet parent. When Nancy saw Sissy for the first time, she thought that Sarah had somehow snuck the dog into the hospital. But when Sarah relayed the story to her mother about how Sissy ran away in the middle of the night to come to the hospital, Nancy could only say, “You little stinker. How did you do that?” Sarah and Sissy were only able to visit with Nancy for a few minutes, but Sarah believes that seeing Sissy brightened her mother’s day. Hopefully Nancy makes a full recovery so that she can get back home to her loving two-legged and four-legged family members. A Peaceful Farewell provides compassionate at home pet euthanasia to fellow pet owners in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, Ahwatukee, Scottsdale, and most of the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area.
Every pet lover knows and understands the bond between a dog and his human. It is an incredibly special connection that heals all wounds and lifts all spirits. And medical workers in a Kentucky hospital are experiencing that amazing, heartwarming love first-hand with one of their patients and his dog. According to The Dodo, James Wathern was admitted to Baptist Health Corbin a few weeks ago and the man’s condition continued to worsen over time. Wathern was near death and had stopped eating. But the dying man made one last request to the staff members at the facility — he wanted to see his dog. Despite the hospital’s no-pets policy, the workers rallied together and partnered with Know-Whitley Animal Shelter to track down Wathern’s dog, an aging, one-eyed Chihuahua named Bubba. Bubba was turned over to the shelter around the same time Wathern was admitted to the hospital. A foster family stepped up to take care of Bubba, and the shelter and the family agreed to help make Wathern’s wish come true. On October 11, staff members and volunteers brought Bubba to Wathern’s hospital bed and handed the small dog over to his faithful friend. According to the Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter Facebook page, Wathern started to cry as soon as he saw his dog again. Bubba snuggled up next to his companion and the two just began to enjoy their time together. A few days after the first visit, hospital workers saw a drastic improvement in Wathern’s condition. Chief nurse Kimberly Probus told reporters that Wathern has been more “lucid and engaged” since seeing his dog. When her beloved dog received a diagnosis of inoperable bone cancer, Riina Cooke needed a way to cope with the grief. "When I found out, I was in shock,'' she told TODAY.com. "He watched me cry, and he would get upset when I got upset because he was a very sensitive dog. It took a couple of days to digest, but then I took him to the park, and we started putting together the bucket list." Cooke, 32, wanted to maximize the time she had left with her boxer, Romeo, so she wrote out a list of fun things they could do near her home in British Columbia. From getting a "pawicure" to a riding in a Vancouver police car to eating his favorite foods, Romeo was able to check off 22 items on the list until Cooke had to make the heartbreaking decision to have him put down on March 16 because he was in so much pain. "The bucket list really helped with my grieving because it got me out and got him out to experience stuff we hadn't done before,'' Cooke said. "I think it kept him alive longer because I believe it kept him happy. I think he doubled the vet's projection of how much longer he had to live." Romeo was able to live to celebrate his ninth birthday on Feb. 27, making it past the initial timetable given by his veterinarian. "He was just such a happy dog right up until the end, sitting there with a bum leg,'' Cooke said. "We had a huge party in the park for his birthday." Cooke's father used to be a fire captain, which helped fulfill the bucket list item of Romeo getting to ride in a fire truck, and a connection in the movie business helped hitch a ride in a police car. "Romeo loved sirens,'' Cooke said. "Whenever he heard a siren, he would just howl and get so excited." Cooke also let Romeo eat everything from cheeseburgers to birthday cake to a steak dinner. "A lot of the bucket list items were food because we restricted his diet his whole life because of stomach issues," she said. "He was dying anyway, so if a cheeseburger is going to give him diarrhea, then whatever." Once Cooke's Facebook friends began to see pictures of Romeo's bucket list, more people offered to help him check off more items. Cooke created a separate Facebook page for Romeo and began to hear stories from others going through similar situations with their pets. "I've had hundreds, maybe close to a thousand messages from people, saying this helped them,'' Cooke said. "There were people saying, 'My boxer has same thing,' or, 'My German shepherd has lung cancer.' People are saying, 'It inspired us to live out the last days with our cherished family members, four legs or two, and end happy.' Why go down sulking?" Cooke also has a Boston terrier pug named Yoshi, whom she bought for Romeo because Romeo had terrible separation anxiety when Cooke went to work. After Romeo was put down, Cooke bought a boxer puppy that she named Elvis Romeo to help with Yoshi's own separation anxiety. "He's been a lot happier now that he's got a new buddy,'' she said. Cooke now hopes Romeo's story can help others going through the loss of ailing pets. "I opened up his Facebook page for people who want to share their bucket list ideas and stories," she said, "to help them out after so many people helped me with Romeo." Romeo on his 9th birthday. Romeo on his birthday. Romeo took a ride in a fire engine as part of his "bucket list." Romeo with his burger. Cooke with Romeo. Owen Howkins, 8, has a rare muscle disorder and was afraid to ever leave his house. That was until he met a 3-legged dog named Haatchi.
Owen's health condition, called Schwartz-Jampel Syndrome, causes his muscles to always be in a state of tension. This not only causes Owen pain and discomfort, but made him feel self-conscious when strangers would gawk at him. All that changed when he met Haatchi, an Anatolian Shepherd that lost his leg in a train accident while tied up to a railway line. After being rescued by the RSPCA, Haatchi would end up in the home of Owen's family and they quickly became the best of friends. Owen and Haatchi now go everywhere together. Even more inspiring, the confidence in Owen has grown and grown over the last year — all thanks to Haatchi. Watch "A Boy and His Dog," which has already garnered over 1 million views on YouTube, below. But have tissues nearby… You know a friendship is close between two animals when their rescuers name them Idgie and Ruth after the two main characters in the movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes.”
What makes this animal friendship really special is the fact that Idgie is a Dachshund and Ruth is a paraplegic cat. The pair were found outside a gated home in Geneva, Fla. in October. Idgie is thought to be around 2-years-old and Ruth is about 7-months-old. However, when animal control arrived at the scene, picking them up wasn’t an easy task. Idgie was fiercely protective of her feline pal and barked anytime someone came near. Seminole County Animal Services finally did remove the pair from the streets and they soon learned that when they separated them at the shelter the protective Dachshund was constantly looking for her feline friend. As a result, they put the pair together in a special pen. It’s unknown what caused Ruth’s condition, but it doesn’t appear to be an injury. The cat can only get around by dragging herself around with her two front legs. The non-profit TEARS, Every Animal Receives Support, paid for experimental therapy and acupuncture. Unfortunately, the procedures proved ineffective. Although the pair appeared to be well-cared for when they were found, no one ever came to claim the duo. Jacqueline Borum, a local resident who owns Hollywood Houndz Boutique & Spa and runs a non-profit called Project Paws, which raises money for animal rescues in emergencies, gave the pair a home in her shop. Staff moves, feeds and bathes Ruth daily and Idgie gets plenty of walks and treats. When they aren’t getting attention from staff and customers alike, you can find Idgie curled up around Ruth, keeping her safe and warm. Borum told the Orlando Sentinel that Idgie is sweet as can be, except when another dog comes anywhere near Ruth. Since veterinarians do not know what’s causing Ruth’s paralysis, it is unknown if her condition will continue to worsen, or how long she has, but Borum says she will make sure the pair isn’t separated, for no matter how long that may be. |
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