Official State Dog of Texas: Blue Lacy
First recognized by the Texas State Senate in 2001 as “a true Texas breed,” the Blue Lacy was designated the official State Dog Breed of Texas on June 18, 2005. Originating in the mid 1800’s, the Blue Lacy is named for the Lacy Brothers of Burnet County. The Blue Lacy Game Dog breed is officially recognized by the National Kennel Club (NKC).
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June 2009: Severely Abused Dog in Oak Cliff makes remarkable recovery
She can’t walk on her injured front legs. Bites have scarred her head and neck. Two of her front teeth have been filed, dulled. Veterinarians believe she may have been training bait for fighting dogs.
Veterinarian Julie Ducoté of Carrollton has adopted Roo, who was found in north Oak Cliff with severe nerve damage to her front legs. ‘She’s pretty amazing the way she does everything,’ Ducoté says of Roo, who gets around by walk-hopping on her hind legs. But Roo is on a rapid rebound.
About a month after some Oak Cliff residents found her lying lethargic and hungry beside a road, the pit bull terrier is settling into a caring home. And she’s getting around just fine – on her hind legs, with a kangaroo-like hop.
Roo is recovering at the Center for Veterinary Specialty Care in Carrollton, where she is a source of joy for the staffers. Despite the adversity she has faced, Roo is always calm and affectionate. “She’s pretty amazing the way she does everything,” said Julie Ducoté, a Carrollton veterinarian who examined and later adopted her patient.
“I’m a sucker. She’s got a very loving and gentle personality. And I just didn’t want her to be homeless,” she said.
The doctor met Roo several weeks ago, when Shannon Love and neighbor Chuck Snakard brought her in for care. Ducoté, a veterinary neurologist, concluded she had suffered severe nerve damage to her front legs, often caused, she said, by a forceful landing, such as a leap from a moving vehicle.
Despite her injuries and apparent traumatic past, Roo’s making-do and her calm, affectionate behavior has touched hearts. “She doesn’t seem to have any hang-ups over what she’s been through,” said Love, who was called after a neighbor found Roo near Greenbrier Lane in north Oak Cliff.
“I was driving by and saw this dog sprawled along the road,” said Snakard. “I said, ‘Oh, another dog.’
After food and water restored some of the animal’s strength. Love and Snakard drove her to a veterinarian for shots and a cleanup.
Snakard, then Love cared for Roo and began looking for a permanent home. The adoption group Paws in the City got involved. And before going to Ducoté’s clinic, Love and a friend, Bart Weiss, produced a video to help tell the dog’s story.
Ducoté says her brindle and white pet weighs 34 pounds and is 1 ½ to 2 years old. She says Roo can feel her front legs but probably won’t regain enough strength to walk with them. Still, she has learned to use her strong abdominal muscles for balance and mobility.
“She’s got abs of steel,” the doctor said.
Roo is a “remarkable inspiration,” Love said. “She’s one of those dogs that puts a lie to the notion that pit bulls are mean, vicious animals,” said Snakard.
Roo is just one example of dog-dumping in Dallas. The city impounded 10 percent more dogs from October through May than last year. A crackdown by animal control officers and the abandoning of animals, perhaps in part because of the economy, are likely the cause, says Kent Robertson, director of Dallas Animal Services.
But animal shelter adoptions are up 20 percent. Add in animal rescues and returns to pet owners and the number of dogs euthanized is down 5 percent, he said.
Roo is numbered among the fortunate ones.
“She landed in tall cotton,” said Love, who rescued another pit bull terrier in March and has placed it in a foster home.
“It shows what one chance can do for a dog.
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Farley, a spaniel cross, is trained to smell the scent of peanuts and peanut residue to help people who are fatally allergic to peanuts.
Dogs trained to help people with severe peanut allergies
Jun. 28 2009, Herald/Catrina Rawson
FLORENCE – Farley desperately scavenged through the blisteringly hot warehouse, searching through wooden boxes and discarded toy sets.
His trainer, Leslie Staven, encouraged him to keep looking for the one thing he frantically searched for throughout the purposefully disheveled array of boxes: half a peanut in a sealed plastic baggie.
Farley is a spaniel mix who was trained at Sharon Perry’s Southern Star Ranch in Florence to detect peanuts and peanut residue for those who are fatally allergic. Perry’s life-saving operation began after she was laid off at 52 from her chemical engineering job with 3-M.
“I had trained dogs since I was a little kid anyways, and it just blossomed,” Perry said. “We spent about a year on that first dog trying to get all the bugs worked out, because it’s not really the same way you would train a narcotics dog.”
She trained narcotics dogs a number of years ago, and peanut dogs became an extension.
All future peanut dogs are adopted from local shelters that euthanize animals.
Each dog is painstakingly selected based on the family’s needs. Perry said she sees about 300 dogs before selecting one to train for a family.
Dogs are trained for six months, where their energy is channeled into a tireless drive to work for their owners, and still settle down for three hours at a dinner table.
Any tiny trace amount of peanuts are detected by the dogs, and each dog has a different way of signaling when they have discovered their target.
“Farley tends to move around in kind of a half-circle and whine,” Staven said. “Other dogs kneel down, but the indication is always to sit.”
Dogs sniff food, hands and breath for peanut residue.
Perry keeps her operation close-knit in terms of trainers in case something goes awry with the dog after it joins a family.
“I know how the dog was trained. I know what the dog was like, and I know how it was when it left,” Perry said. “A lot of people don’t understand how severe this allergy is. We’re talking about dying.”
Peanut dogs cost $9,995, which includes two weeks of training for the owner. Perry intends to train dogs that also detect tree nuts, seeds, soy and paprika.
“Every dog ends up being the favorite,” Staven said. “It’s hard to see them go away, but when you see how these dogs are improving the quality of these children’s lives, it’s worth it.”
Karen Gensel of Tampa Bay, Fla., stumbled across Perry’s work while researching peanut dogs on the Internet. Her 9-year-old son, Billy, goes into anaphylactic shock if he comes into contact with peanut residue.
Through money inherited from her mother, Gensel was able to purchase her son’s life-saving best friend, Remy, a black Labrador that Perry trained in April 2008.
“She’s made all the difference in the world,” Gensel said.
Prior to obtaining Remy, the Gensels could not eat in restaurants or stay in hotels, without risking their son falling victim to a fatal allergic reaction.
Gensel said Remy opened up a new world for Billy.
“I want him to have as much of a childhood as he can without me hovering,” Gensel said. “Remy has given him a whole new sense of independence. She never had an off day. I trust her. If she signals peanuts are present, then by-God they’re there.”
National Canine Research Council