Early last November, I heard that Emanuel and Meko, two long-term senior coonhounds living in our nearby rural shelter, were to be adopted–together! It felt like a miracle, a blessing, a gift from heaven. These sweet old dogs had been waiting for months, and winter was coming. The shelter has heated floors and indoor-outdoor runs, but coonies have short coats and winters can be brutal in Wisconsin. “Manny” and Meko were friends, and I had often taken them together on walks. I was ecstatic and also curious about their adopter. Coonhounds are not popular dogs to say the least, and most people won’t adopt senior dogs. I heard the adopter lived in Kansas?

What can you say about a middle-aged woman who drove 1,000 miles to adopt two old coonhounds from a little country shelter in Wisconsin? In a word, wings. She was angel on earth who looked deeply at those long-eared sad old faces on Petfinder and was moved to open up her heart and home to them. (See Manny and Meko, still posted on the site). She filled out the adoption application and it passed inspection with flying colors, I heard. So she gassed up her SUV, loaded two dog crates, and headed north. And so it started. Manny and Meko became Vern and Vera, and they all became a family, along with two kitties, Bela and Shugrrr.

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Yesterday, a frightened, cold, and exhausted German Shepherd mix desperately tried to climb out of a concrete channel of the Los Angeles River in Vernon, CA, wearing his nails down to bloody stubs. The LA City Fire Dept. dispatched firefighters trained in animal rescue and a helicopter. Firefighter Joe St. George dangled from the helicopter, waded through raging waters, and secured the dog in his arms. They were lifted up and carried to land, and the dog was rushed to emergency care. He was a stray, perhaps frightened from his home by recent thunderstorms.

Joe St. George was bitten in the hand by the terrified dog. Imagine being that dog. He was lost and alone, and then he fell into a river. He was fighting for his life in the fast, cold water. A loud, scary helicopter appears, and a big moving black thing drops into the water and approaches. The black thing is a strange man who grabs his head and body. What a nightmare for an ordinary dog! He tried to defend himself.

Fox News in Los Angeles reported this story, and — brace yourself — they explained the dog bite as a fearful response to a terrifying situation. The dog was not euthanized, but instead given emergency care, and he is fine today (although his owner has not yet been found). Joe St. George explained on the air that he understood why he was bitten, and he was not angry at the dog. News commentators were sympathetic to the dog’s fear as well.

This news station is a mainstream media in one of the nation’s largest cities. How far we have come! This story would not have been reported 10 years ago as not newsworthy, or even 5 years ago because of the bite which could be controversial. But in 2010, Fox News reported it, and other major media such as Headline News also carried the story this morning. The media is responding to us, the audience, and we want news like this because we value the lives of animals. But there is a long way to go. Many communities still shoot stray companion animals instead of rescue them. And if the dog bites in self-defense, it is all over for the dog. If you live in a community like that, please work for change!

Read more and see amazing videos here: www.myfoxla.com