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Maybe it was a snake that caused Rex to take up a pointing stance near a road kill kangaroo. That’s what his owner, Leonie Allan thought as she hollered for her dog to get back to the yard.

Moments later the pointer mix obeyed, trotting back to the yard carrying a relaxed,very much alive baby kangaroo which he carefully deposited at his owner’s feet. Delighted, Ms. Allan, of Torquay, Victoria, Australia, watched as Rex nuzzled the joey who responded to him without fear, cuddling and jumping up to him for licks.

According to Ms. Allan, she and Rex, a 10 year- old German Shorthaired Pointer mix had passed the dead kangaroo earlier in the day while out for a walk but at the time Rex had showed no special interest in the carcass. It was later, as Allan was out front doing yardwork, that Rex wandered back to the carcass where he must have sensed the little roo, known as a joey, and extracted him gently from deep within his mother’s pouch. Kangaroos and other native fauna often fall prey to cars at night, so the road kill was nothing out of the ordinary. Most baby kangaroos whose mothers are killed by cars are killed in the same collision. Those who survive usually suffer shock and are unable to fend for themselves.

The joey, believed to be about four months old, seemed relaxed and completely at ease with Rex, marvelled Tehree Gordon, of Jirrahlinga Wildlife Sanctuary. Dogs are often criticized for attacking local fauna, in this case unjustly. “It’s a lesson that dogs can be raised to be familiar and compatible with wildlife,” the UPI quoted sanctuary director Gordon. “You just have to teach them right from wrong.”

If the joey wasn’t panicked by a giant fuzzy dog face peeking into and extracting him from his cozy resting place, it may be because he was still about three months away from his first peek at the outside world.

Like other marsupials, kangaroo babies face a daunting task at birth.

The young is born thirty-three days after mating. The joey is blind, hairless and barely the size of a kidney bean. Nevertheless, it crawls from the birth canal using its rudimentary forelimbs and, unassisted, finds its way into the pouch where it attaches to one of four teats . It will use this teat exclusively until weaning.

A day or two after the birth, the mother will mate again, but the resulting embryo will go dormant until the joey vacates the pouch or dies. At that time the embryo begins to develop a process known as embryonic dipause.

Rex’s joey, christened Rex Jr. has been taken to Jirrahlinga Wildlife Sanctuary where he’ll stay until he’s given the green light to be released into the wild which for most joeys is about eighteen months of age.

Introducing an occasional series profiling celebrated figures from the past and the dogs on whom they doted.

And who better to inaugurate this feature than the Iron Chancellor himself, Prince Otto Von Bismarck (1815-1898)?

First Chancellor Of Germany and Prime Minister of Prussia under William I, Bismark came to fame as the unifier of Germany in the 19th century after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. A great dog lover, he gravitated toward (what else?) big beautiful black Great Danes, two of whom he called “Tyras,” after the Greek name for the Ukranian river Dniester (which, before World War II, formed the border between Romania and the Soviet Union) .

But, we digress. Tyras I was Bismarck’s constant companion during his studies of law and agriculture at the U of Gottingen. Tyras II, another magnificent black Great Dane, given to him by Kaiser Wilhelm II, was known to be Bismarck’s companion in his old age.

(Ruth Maystead image, from Dogstuff’s notecard collection)

Devoted to his dogs, the Iron Chancellor spoke of the passing of Tyras I:

“A few minutes before the faithful old dog died I spoke to him. He had not the strength to wag his tail; but he opened his eyes, and as he looked at me an expression came over his face that told me, as plainly as if he had spoken, that he recognized me, and wished me well.”

Bismarck’s summed up his attitude toward canines this way ” Great men have great dogs”.

Courtesty of jigzone.com, a dog named “Rusty” makes quite a puzzle……

(Click the Play arrow in the bottom left corner of the puzzle to scramble Rusty and re-assemble him at Jigzone.)

Our longtime staffer, Jacob, offers a hymn of praise to the virtues of a beloved dog

In a world where many look to Brittany Spears or Brad Pitt for some sort of ideal, others continue to ask, "Who, among us, is worthy to be praised?"

"Surely no man!" comes the laughing response.

Indeed, surely no man. And yet I boast that I have encountered an unswerving soul in the earth - a soul of more grace and longsuffering than you or I, my friend.

Some misguided theologians have wrongly concluded that animals have no souls. But the fools have clearly never met Wallace.

You see, Wallace appeared one day, walking methodically on the curb of the street, with neck bent and eyes to the ground as he advanced in the silent countenance of the downtrodden. We saw he was a castaway, or perhaps recently escaped from a life that had become unbearable. He slowed to a nervous halt before us and sat, still gazing at the pavement. He wore no identification, but his unspoken tribulations were as evident in his eyes as pure humility was in his demeanor. Thus, he came into the membership and service of my family. Observing him ever since, I have been continually impressed by his wisdom and prudence, convicted of my own shortcomings in the face of his noble gestures.

Wallace, Scottie-Yorkish-American:
Although his ancestry is unchronicled, Wallace is clearly a descendent of European immigrants, doubtless of a noble lord’s house, who, coming to America, exchanged a pureblooded inheritance to embrace the mores of liberal democracy.

Wallace and the English language:
We do not quite know how Wallace learned to understand rudimentary English, but noted early his tendency to sit between people, look into their faces and turn from one to the other as they spoke, lifting his ears in reaction to certain words as he listened. Attempting to choose a language to command him, we quickly discovered he had already adopted ours as a second - just as immigrants have in the past, embracing English as a cornerstone of our national unity and identity. Thus, we may speak to Wallace in complete sentences.

Wallace and foreign policy:
During visits home, I like to meditate outside with a cigarette before bed. Wallace is keenly aware of this ritual, which to him is an occasion of joy beyond my comprehension. When I, like a commander-in-chief, release him into the front yard, Wallace flies into action, securing our homeland like a tiny, black Stealth Fighter. He seeks an elusive foe, Miss Kitty - a feline who, unbeknownst to Wallace, has established a surveillance stronghold on our roof. Though he cannot see her, Wallace’s tenacity shows that he is rightly convinced of her presence within our borders, and seems intent on maintaining a pre-emptive policy of unilateral defense and aggression to meet her threat.

Wallace and gender roles:
We may never fully understand Wallace’s feelings about being neutered.

Yet his maleness is manifest in his nature, unalterable by surgery or outward cosmetic. He is first to lift his leg in the neighborhood, last to admit defeat when wrestling the strong arm of his master.

Unlike many dogs of his stature, Wallace does not "piddle" when excited, but often chooses to spin his body in violent, premeditated circles to communicate an overabundance of joy, not unlike King David, who gloried in the presence of the Lord.

Wallace and the sinless nature:
He trips along with gentle confidence, on little pads that have ever-trotted upon right pathways. His heart, though compressed within his miniature ribcage, swells with love and loyalty beyond its size. In obeying his inborn purposes, he sins not.

The eternal life of Wallace:
Even so, it seems Wallace has mistakenly guessed that I must be the Christ. That is to say, he looks with eyes of absolute faith upon me, as Lord and Master. He appears to understand that his freedom exists, not despite his boundaries and my authority, but because of them.

A dog’s glory is to follow its master to the end, if only to die at his feet. A wild, untrained dog can survive, but not happily, because it is the dog’s very nature to serve, trust and follow. But alone and without discipline, a dog’s existence proves meaningless, worthless and miserable.

Thank God for Wallace, who sits even now beneath his favorite tree, where there are none to make him afraid. In him there is much to be hoped.

A 2006 study stunned the scientific community when 5 ordinary pet dogs trained for just three weeks were able to accurately detect lung cancer 99 percent of the time. The dogs, who also achieved an 88 percent degree of accuracy (comparable to mammography) detecting breast cancer, were the focus of a study devised by the Pine Street Foundation, a private cancer research foundation based in San Anselmo, Ca.

The extraordinary ability of dogs, who have been shown to be able to distinguish certain chemicals diluted to a rate of one to a trillion, first came to light as a result of a case study in which a dog constantly sniffed a lesion on his owner. This lesion was found to be a malignant melanoma. That led to studies which showed dogs could detect bladder cancer in dried urine samples.

In this study, three Labradors and two Portuguese Water Dogs, (on loan from Guide Dogs for the Blind), successfully sussed out 55 cases of lung cancer and 31 cases of breast cancer using breath samples, differentiating them from the scents of 83 healthy control subjects. The dogs were clicker trained in the manner used to train bomb detection canines. They were cued to to sit when detecting a malignancy.

None of the test subjects had begun chemotherapy and smokers were included in both groups. Breath samples were collected in the same rooms on the same days. The only assistant who knew which breath samples came from cancer patients was out of the room whenever the dogs were working.

In 2007, Pine Street Foundation began chemical analysis on collected breath samples to try to figure out what the dogs are cueing on. Plans are underway to launch a study which should show whether the dogs will be useful in diagnosing early stage ovarian cancer.