The following is a script of "The Smartest Dog in the
World" which aired on October 5, 2014, and was rebroadcast on June 14,
2015. Anderson Cooper is the correspondent. Denise Schrier Cetta, producer.
Human beings have lived with dogs for thousands of years.
You'd think that after all that time we'd have discovered all there is to know
about them. But, as we first reported last fall, it turns out that until
recently scientists didn't pay much attention to dogs. Dolphins have been
studied for decades, apes and chimps as well, but dogs, with whom we share our
lives, were never thought to be worthy of serious study. As a result, we know
very little about what actually goes on inside dogs' brains. Do they really
love us, or are dogs just licking us so they can get fed? How much of our
language can they understand? Before you answer, we want you to meet Chaser,
who's been called "the smartest dog in the world."
Eighty-six-year-old retired psychology professor John
Pilley and his border collie Chaser are inseparable.
Tigers, lions, a hippopotamus and other animals have
escaped from the zoo in Georgia's capital after heavy flooding destroyed their
enclosures, prompting authorities to warn residents in Tbilisi to stay inside
Sunday. At least eight people have been killed in the disaster, including three
zoo workers, and 10 are missing.
An escaped hippo was cornered in one of the city's main
squares and subdued with a tranquilizer gun, the zoo said. Some other animals
also have been seized, but it remained unclear how many are on the loose. Bears
and wolves are also among the animals who fled from their enclosures amid the
flooding from heavy rains and high winds.
"Most of the escaped animals are believed to have died
in the flood last night or were killed by special forces," Mzia
Sharashidze, spokeswoman for Tbilisi Zoo, told NBC News. "Not many animals
are still on the loose but it is difficult to say how many are still out
there."
It wasn't immediately clear if the eight people were killed
from the flooding or animal attacks. The zoo said one of the dead was Guliko
Chitadze, a zookeeper who lost an arm in an attack by a tiger last month.
Heavy rains and wind hit Tbilisi during the night, turning
a normally small stream that runs through the hilly city into a surging river.
The flooding also damaged dozens of houses.
City mayor David Narmania told journalists that eight
people were known to have died and 10 others were missing.
Helicopters are circling the city and residents have been
told to stay indoors except in an emergency. About 1.1 million people live in
the former Soviet republic's capital.
A group of pit bulls will get a fighting chance after cops
rescued them from a Harlem owner who was conditioning them to do bloody battle,
police said Sunday.
A series of 311 calls reporting the dog-fighting den on W.
112 St. at Manhattan Ave. led investigators to 11 malnourished pooches kept in
“terrible conditions” in a cramped basement, cops said.
Authorities executed a search warrant Thursday and also
discovered equipment often used in the brutal dog fights, police said.
“I was very happy to get them out,” said Sgt. Maria Sexton,
an animal-cruelty liaison officer. “There were tails wagging all over the
place.”
Brandon Baez, 41, was nabbed during the sting and hit with
a slew of charges including 11 counts of animal cruelty and weapons possession.
Last year, 5,767 postal carriers were bitten by dogs, up
from 5,581 in 2013, and the most attacks happened in warm and sunny Los
Angeles, Houston and San Diego, said Linda DeCarlo, manager of safety for the
U.S. Postal Service. None of the bites caused deaths.
The cities’ weather draws pets and people outside and doors
and windows get left open, DeCarlo said. The slight rise in bites also stems
from the popularity of online shopping because postal workers must bring
packages to front doors instead of street-side mailboxes, DeCarlo said.
But the biggest victims are children and senior citizens,
who can be overpowered by dogs. Of the 4.5 million people bitten every year,
more than half are kids, said Dr. Jose Arce, an American Veterinary Medical
Association board member.
Bites kill about 16 people a year. Besides the
postal-worker totals, specific numbers on dog bites are lacking because few
people seek treatment. And no one tracks bites by breed.
What Not to Do
Stare into a dog’s eyes.
Tease a dog.
Approach one that’s chained up or injured.
Touch a dog you don’t know that’s off a leash.
Run or scream if one charges.
Play with a dog while it’s eating.
Touch one while it’s sleeping.
Get close to one that’s nursing puppies.
Leave a small child alone with a dog, even if it’s the
family pet.
What to Do
Ask an owner before petting a dog you don’t know.
Let the dog sniff your closed fist before touching it.
Freeze if a dog runs toward you.
Socialize puppies so they are comfortable around people and
other animals.
Use a leash in public.
How Parents Can Help
When the mail arrives, place your pet in a closed room so
it can’t go through a window or screen door to possibly attack the carrier.
Tell children not to take mail from the carrier in front of the dog because the
animal could see it as threatening.
Also, teach children to treat dogs with respect and avoid
rough or aggressive play.
Where Bites Happened
Last year, 74 postal-carrier bites were reported in Los
Angeles, followed by Houston with 62 and San Diego with 47, DeCarlo said.
The LA tally rose from 61 bites in 2013, when Houston was
No. 1 with 63. San Diego moved up a notch from two years ago, when 53 postal
workers were bitten.
The Postal Service didn’t break down the severity of
injuries, but 1,540 bites kept employees from work for at least a day after the
attack, DeCarlo said.
Insurance Payouts
Bites and other dog-related injuries cost insurers $530
million last year, about a third of their paid claims, the Insurance
Information Institute said.
The number of dog-bite claims decreased 4.7 percent from
2013, but the average cost per claim rose by 15 percent because of higher
medical costs and settlements. The average claim in 2014 was $32,072, up from
$27,862.
Oregon City, Oregon - They dove into the cold waters,
emerging with writhing, eel-like fish in hand and thrusting them into nets.
Thus began Northwest Native American tribes' annual lampreyharvest at a rushing, 40-foot waterfall about
15 miles south of Portland.
The jawless, gray fish are a traditional food source for
tribal members in the Columbia River Basin, which stretches from the Oregon
coast to Canada and into Idaho, Montana and Washington. Lampreys grow to about
2 feet long and are prized for their rich, fatty meat.
On Friday, adults, teens and children from the Umatilla and
Warm Springs reservations in Oregon and the Yakama reservation in Washington
crawled over slippery rocks and waded through icy pools to reach the lampreys'
hiding spots. The fish latch onto rocks in Willamette Falls with their round,
toothy mouths.
"Our people have always come here, generation after
generation," said Bobby Begay, a Warm Springs tribal member who drove more
than a 100 miles to the falls from his village of Celilo.
Begay, 46, has attended the harvest for more than 40 years.
He is teaching his children and nephews how to navigate the rocks and where to
find the biggest catch.
"The same fishing holes my grandfather showed me, his
father and grandfather showed him, and I showed my kids," he said.
Lampreys taste best when roasted over an open fire, Begay
said. They also can be dried or frozen for later use. The fish harvested this
month will be distributed to tribal elders and used for ceremonial purposes, he
said.
In previous generations, lampreys were abundant up and down
the Columbia River and its tributaries. Biologists have estimated at least a
million once were crossing Bonneville Dam on the Columbia east of Portland.
But their numbers have dwindled over the past 30 years
because of the dams and toxins such as pesticides. About 20,000 remain, said
Brian McIlraith with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Willamette Falls is the last place where the fish can be
caught by the hundreds.
Tribes have been instrumental in advocating for lamprey
restoration, and the government has started paying attention. That's because
lampreys also offer an alternate food source for sea lions and other predators
that otherwise would be munching on threatened salmon.
Tribes have received funding and run research and recovery
projects. They truck lampreys past dams and have pushed for construction of
ramps to help the fish navigate the structures.
They're also looking at breeding lampreys in a hatchery,
but that's not the preferred method, said tribal elder Donnie Winishut Sr., who
observed the harvest to assure safety.
"We would rather see them grow in a natural way,"
Winishut said. "It's good to see the young people coming to the falls and
learning our tradition, and I hope they can continue coming here to catch the
fish."
The thumb-sized crustaceans started washing ashore further
up the California coast earlier this year, but turned up this week in San Diego
in unusually larger numbers, officials said.
They’ve washed ashore periodically over the years because
of any number of natural effects, but research scientist Michael Shane of the
Hubbs SeaWorld Research Institute in San Diego cited El Nino as the phenomenon
that might have pushed the crabs up from their normal habitat far offshore.
The result is certain death and nothing can be done to save
the crabs.
“The crabs start to die because the local waters are much
cooler,” Shane told ABC News today. “Local animals have begun to eat the crabs
and they have been found in the gut contents of sea lions, fish, and birds.”
The remaining carcasses will remain on the shore until they
decompose or are swept back into the water.
A fast-rising number of people in the Washington, D.C. area
are suffering dog bites or encountering illegally owned pit bulls, according to
a yearlong investigation by the News4 I-Team.
The increases, which are sharp and sudden, are partly the
result of neglectful owners or people who fail to follow local animal control
laws, the I-Team learned in a series of reviews of animal control reports and
interviews with animal control officers.
D.C. Department of Health reports, obtained and reviewed by
the I-Team, show the number of dog bite incidents in the city has jumped more
than 100 percent since 2007. That increase, from 214 bites in 2007 to 457 bites
in 2013, is raising alarm among some city residents.
The city’s animal and human populations have increased
during the same time span. Field investigators with the Washington Humane
Society, which responds to animal complaints in D.C., report some of the increase
can also be attributed to owners who neglect to follow leash laws or prevent
dogs from straying.
John Fenner, a resident of northeast D.C., said a pair of
stray pit bulls attacked him on a sidewalk in his neighborhood in 2013. He
suffered a pair of bites to his groin. “If you have an animal not on a leash,
not monitored, you cannot actually predict how they behave,” he said.
Prince George’s County Animal Control officials said the
number of stray dogs has plateaued in the county. But the I-Team’s review of
county animal shelter reports shows a 150 percent increase in the number of pit
bull seizures since 2009. Pit bulls are an unlawful breed of dog to own in the
county. Those seizures, up from 192 five years ago to 427 last year, are also
an indication of pet owners who neglect to follow local animal control laws,
officials said.
Rodney Taylor, associate director of the county’s Animal
Management Division, said his shelter in Upper Marlboro houses 30 to 35 pit
bulls each day. “They’re illegal,” Taylor said. “You cannot have them. (This
problem) goes back to the owner.”
In a series of reviews of D.C. and Prince George’s County
animal control operations, conducted over 12 months, the I-Team witnessed a
long series of animal control officer responses to stray dogs and pit bull
calls. In several instances, stray dogs ran free on busy D.C. and Maryland
streets.
A spokesman for the Washington Humane Society said the
increase in reported bites is at least partly attributable to his
organization’s role investigating dog complaints, which began in 2011, he said.
“We’ve heightened the community’s awareness about animal problems,” he said.
“People recognized that we have a structured reporting program.”
During cold winter mornings and hot summer afternoons, the
I-Team spotted animals placed outdoors in yards for extended periods of time.
Those issues of neglect can lead to biting incidents, animal control officers
reported.
The I-Team’s review found the number of animal control
calls has sharply increased in D.C. Animal control officers responded to more
than 18,000 calls in the city last year, a 3,000 call increase since 2010.
The cosmic kitty has garnered a lot of attention on
Instagram, where her human companions, who identify themselves only as
"The Bearded Man" and "The Lady," share photos and videos
of the special feline.
Matilda has a genetic eye disorder that's caused her
enlarged eyes, and she's now blind, her owners wrote on Instagram, but she
didn't always have her alien-like eyes, it turns out.
The celestial cat arrived on Earth on Valentine's Day in
2013 in a hoarder house in a small town, her owners said, adding that they
adopted her from a rescue society that picked her up.
Matilda landed in their home when she was only 12 weeks old
and that she "showed no fear when she met Dog, who was about 10 times her
size," said her owners, who also call themselves her servants.
Matilda was born with seemingly normal eyes, but as she
grew older and bigger, she started having "one squinty eye from time to
time, which earned her the nickname of Quasimodo," her servants said.
After multiple veterinary visits, The Lady said she
contacted the rescue society that Matilda came from to try and solve the
mystery.
"When she heard back from the rescue society there was
a surprise -- they had moved offices and had lost the contact information for
Matilda's servants, and had been trying to reach them for months!" her
owners wrote. "As it turned out, two of Matilda's littermates had developed
a mysterious eye condition, and they had been trying to re-find Matilda."
A veterinary ophthalmologist soon confirmed that Matilda
displayed signs of spontaneous lens luxation, just like her siblings, her
servants said. The specialist explained to them that Matilda's lenses had
spontaneously detached and that she also had a collagen deficiency, which makes
it difficult to heal from injuries and surgery.
The Lady and The Bearded Man wrote they initially decided,
with the veterinary ophthalmologist's support, that they would let Matilda's
eyes "do what they naturally would, and would not intervene with a
traumatic surgery that did not appear to be helpful."
"Lens luxations in cats are real and are usually the
result of other diseases going on inside the eye," veterinary
ophthalmologist Dr. Matthew Fife told ABC News today. Fife, who did not treat
Matilda, works at the Veterinary Ophthalmology Center in Orlando, Florida.
"From looking at her pictures, the main problem, in
addition to the detached lenses, is her glaucoma, which means the pressure in
her eyes is very high, causing the eyeballs to enlarge and stretch," he
said. "It's actually pretty painful."
Matilda's "progressive genetic eye problem"
requires her to take medicine to stay pain-free, but she will
"inevitably" need surgery in the future, according to the GoFundMe page
that has been set up for the starry-eyed kitty. "No matter what happens,
her servants think she's perfect and beautiful," they said, "and will
love and care for her the absolute best way that they can for however long this
little alien is here."
