Ok, gotta admit it, I am not into NASCAR at all so I really have no clue who Tony Stewart is but what I do know is that this guy is tops in my book anyway! He just donated money for 30 bulletproof/stab-proof vest for police dogs and at $895 each, that’s a helluva donation!! Then he donated money for 10 more vests… WOW!

Stewart, a Columbus, Ind., native, donated the money to provide 30 vests for the Indiana State Police K-9 unit and 10 for police dogs waiting for vests in Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina and Minnesota.

Susie Jean of Socorro, N.M., requested a grant from the Tony Stewart Foundation for vests for the 14 dogs currently in the Indiana State Police unit. Stewart upped the amount to cover more vests upon learning the state police unit was expanding to 30 dogs. The vests cost $895 each, according to information provided by the foundation, meaning 40 vests would total more than $35,000.

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You all remember ex-Trooper Charles Jones, the NC trooper that was videotaped hanging and kicking his K-9 partner? Well, after being fired in September 2007, he sued to get his job back and a judge recommended that he be reinstated but the final word is not in yet.

Well, it looks like Jones is back on a police force and actually has been since four months after he was fired from NC State Highway Patrol in September of 2007. He’s now with the Apex, NC police department as a patrol officer.

I find it funny that in the media storm surrounding the case, which included him suing to get all his back pay from the job he was fired from, it was never mentioned that he had already been hired by another police department.

So now he’s making almost 40K a year, about two-thirds of what he was making as a trooper at 60K. He been working for Apex PD for months now, he wants his trooper job back and the pay since September. If the Office of State Personnel follows the judge’s recommendation, what exactly will it mean? Will he be getting paid twice over? Will he just quit Apex PD, the department that gave him a chance even thought he had been fired by NC state?

I’d also like to know why he wasn’t brought up on animal abuse charges. Just because his was just one of many troopers who treated their K-9 partners in this manner to one degree or another, doesn’t make it right. He was caught, on tape no less. In my mind, anyone with common sense should know better than to treat any living creature in the manner that Jones treated Ricoh.

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Just off a 13 week training course, Drug Enforcement Investigator Sonny Smith and 1 1/2 year old German Shepherd, Chico, a trained narcotics dog, made a big hit or bust the first day on the job, worth about $100K! Way to go Chico!!

You’ve got to have the greatest respect for these dogs and their handlers. Sure, we’re heard some stories that are not so positive but all in all, these incredibly trained service dogs and their handlers are an unbeatable team. The dogs are true canine heros!

Chico, who was provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to Denton County, was trained at the Canine Enforcement Training Center in Washington, D.C. The training is designed to teach law enforcement officers all aspects on handling, training and employing a detector dog.

“The dogs are worth $15,000 but we were able to get this one for $5,000 because of Sonny Smith, who has an excellent reputation in law enforcement,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Jeff Wawro.

“He’s a very passive dog,” Smith said. “Not aggressive with people. They train them to be very independent of their handlers. He has a routine that he does on his own with a people search. He does it for his reward, which is his towel. He’s very possessive of his towel and he knows he will get it afterward.”

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It is totally incomprehensible to me that anyone could possibly recommend that NC Trooper Charles Jones be reinstated after viewing the violent abuse against his K-9 that was videotaped! Not only reinstated, but have his back wages and lawyer’s fees paid!

Administrative Law Judge Fred Morrison, who handed down the recommendation, stated that Jones was fired without the incident being properly investigated. How the hell much investigation does it take to look at a videotape and see that this trooper’s disciplinary method was violent and abusive? What kind of an excuse can someone give for doing something like that that would make it acceptable?

State employees are not allowed to be fired or demoted unless there is just cause, and the state must be able to prove that there is just cause in each case. In his ruling, Judge Morrison said that the burden of proof was not met and that Jones was making “a good faith training effort to make Ricoh release.” (News 14)

Good faith training effort?!?!? Hanging, kicking and beating the dog is a “good faith training effort”?

Testimony also included troopers saying training methods included whatever worked with their dogs, including: choke collars, stun guns, sticks, cans filled with rocks, Alpha Rolls, windmilling, helicoptering, tying-off, tethering, lifting-up. They seemed to believe all these to be acceptable ‘training methods’.

Lt. Everett Clendenin, a spokesman for the Patrol, said the agency will likely contest the judge’s ruling. Crime Control and Public Safety Secretary Bryan Beatty still believes Jones should have been fired.

“We’re surprised. We believe this agency did the right thing, based on the investigation, based on the video. “And we stand by that decision that we made,” spokesman Lt. Everett Clendenin said Thursday.

In September on 2007, Sgt Charles Jones was fired from his position after he was videotaped on August 8, 2006, hanging and kicking his K-9 partner, a 9 year old Belgian Malinois, because he would not drop a toy. This was after he had ‘helicoptored’ the dog, a technique in which a dog is swung off the ground by his leash.

“Dog experts say trooper Jones’ conduct was completely unacceptable,” Easley said Thursday following the judge’s decision. “If the state has to resort to that level of cruelty to train dogs demonstrated in the video by trooper Jones, then they will simply not be in the dog business.”

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Bilbo, a 7 yr. old, almost 200 lb Newfoundland and trained lifeguard credited with saving at least three lives has been given the boot by RNLI, Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Regularly seen riding a quad along the beach with his owner, 54 yr old Steve Jamieson, head lifeguard at the beach in Sennen, near Land’s End in Cornwall, UK, Bilbo was not only a lifesaver but doggie spokesperson and attraction. Bilbo, who had to pass fitness and swimming tests before he could join the beach patrol, wore a lifeguard’s vest which carried a number of safety messages on it, warning swimmers about the dangerous areas. He’s trained to swim around struggling bathers and after they grab the float fixed to his harness he paddles to safety. His huge size and love for the water make him perfect for the job.

“Everyone loves him and he’s become an indispensable part of the team,” said Steve Jamieson. “If an alert comes in, his ears start twitching and he knows something is on.

RNLI, which was recently contracted to provide lifeguard services, has decided that Bilbo’s services are no longer needed.

A spokesperson for RNLI said, “The RNLI is contracted to provide a professional lifeguarding service on the beach and has fully trained lifeguards to do this. “Bilbo is a privately-owned dog and does not belong to the RNLI. The RNLI will not be using the dog to save lives at sea.”

“We can’t employ a dog as a guard. They are banned from the beach,” and added, “He would fail the resuscitation test.”

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Since I wrote the story yesterday on NC Trooper, former Sgt. Charles Jones being fired for hanging and kicking his K-9 partner, Richo, I have been following the following the story and looking at what people are saying.

Sadly and to my disgust, it seems that many of his fellow troopers find no fault in the use of these abusive techniques and feel that kicking, beating and even choking are acceptable methods of training a K-9 partner.

Dog handlers for the North Carolina State Highway Patrol have stunned dogs with tasers, swung them by their leashes until they became airborne and hit them with plastic bottles full of pebbles.

None of that was an issue until a trooper used his cell phone to record a video of a sergeant kicking his police dog repeatedly while it was leashed to a loading dock, its hind legs just touching the ground.

What is wrong with these people, these officers of the law who are supposed to protect and serve?? How can they possibly not only condone, but also do the same thing to one degree or another?!

Many of the highway patrol members said they’ve seen similar training techniques as demonstrated in the cell phone video. Some said they have kicked dogs and some said, while they’ve never done exactly what Charles Jones did when he left Richo to hang for a few seconds, they did not consider it abusive. (NBC17)

Thankfully during the hearing State Attorney Ashby Ray did go through a list of other highway patrol members who were on record saying the treatment of Richo, as seen in the cell phone video, was “excessive.”So at least we can see that this mentality has not permeated the entire force!

Watch the new video and tell me what you think, then read on to see what the public, the people who are paying these men to protect and serve, is saying!

Troopers approve of kicking, choking, beating K-9s

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This could have been yet another horror story of an abandoned puppy, and had she not been found, she most like would not have made it. Instead, it’s a story of love and inspiration.

For a 9 week old birth defect puppy, St. Patrick’s Day really was a lucky day! Someone had tossed the tiny dog into a garbage bag then in a dumpster because she was born with only three legs, most likely someone who was attempting to breed and didn’t know what they were doing.

From Dumpster Dog to Therapy Puppy

Clover, as the little Cock-a-poo mix of some sort has been dubbed, not only has a home where she is loved, spoiled and pampered, at only nine weeks old, she has a job too!

Laura Chase, whose friends found the little abandoned puppy, is a physical therapy assistant at Oakmont Nursing Home and Residential Care Center in Union. She knew right where Clover would fit in and do something inspirational. Clover is now a tiny little therapy dog at the nursing home and you can bet she revels in all the attention and love and the residents just love her too.

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Yet another case of service dog discrimination despite all the federal and state laws the school district is breaking.

In the latest incident in a year long battle, John Cave and his hearing service dog, Simba, were turned away at the entrance of W. Tresper Clarke High Scool in East Meadow by principal Timothy Voels. Despite a ruling and the support of the state Division of Human Rights, Voles persist in denying entrance to the dog citing that it poses a danger to other students.

Human Rights Commissioner Kumiki Gibson said in a 24-page decision that the district was in violation of two sections of state human rights law while East Meadow Superintendent of Schools Leon Campo is determined that the district will appeal the decision.

“I don’t think they know what they’re doing,” John Cave said of school district officials. “I think they’re going to be in big trouble with the state.”

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