K9 Officer Passes Away

A K-9 officer with the City of Lenoir Police Department passed away Tuesday after a battle with cancer.

Police K-9 Axel served the department and City for six years, “providing his handler and family six years of love and companionship.”

The department put out a release about Axel’s passing and years of service on Wednesday. You can read that below:

Axel was born June 30, 2013, in the Czech Republic and was purchased by the City of Lenoir Police Department in August 2014. Sgt. Zachery Poythress trained Axel from start to finish while the sergeant earned certification as a Comprehensive Police Service Dog Trainer and Police Service Dog Team Instructor. Axel certified in October 2014 and became the City’s first Police K9 to be dual certified by two separate associations.

In early November this year, Sgt. Poythress received news that Axel was diagnosed with advanced hemangiosarcoma. Axel did not suffer, but the news was hard on the Poythress family.

“Some people will say that it is just a dog, but they overlook the impact these dogs have on people’s lives,” Sgt. Poythress said. “Axel has proven his dedication and love for the people of the Police Department and the city. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the support of Lenoir Police Department command staff, everyone at the Police Department, and for all the messages and support we have received during this time.”

Axel started working for the Police Department in October 2014. During his six years of service, he completed more than 1,000 utilizations including narcotics sniffs, tracks, building searches, article searches, area searches, perimeter security, demonstrations, and training. He was responsible for the seizure of $943,243 worth of narcotics and $82,242 of money, which included the largest seizure of LSD in the history of the department and the largest or second largest seizure of heroin/fentanyl.

Service Dogs Helping Out

Four years ago, my daughter developed a rare condition known as autoimmune encephalitis, or “AE” for short. Any time she gets sick, rather than making antibodies that fight infection, her body makes antibodies that attack her brain. Doctors have described it as “her brain on fire.” It’s as cruel and debilitating as it sounds. She’s seized to the point of lifelessness more times than I can count, is reliant on a feeding tube for nutrition and frequently finds herself unable to walk or talk. Yet, still she smiles. Her condition doesn’t have a cure, but its symptoms are controlled with fistfuls of pills, and regular chemo and blood product infusions. Time and time again I’ve pleaded with the universe for a break. I’ve begged and bartered with every higher power you can name. But it was in vain. I couldn’t change what her body was doing. Then, in December of 2018 I got an email that two donors were willing to pay the balance of a service dog for her in full. They gave her the news Christmas morning and from that day forward I saw life in her eyes.

In early 2019, Gracie was presented with profiles of two pups. And after reviewing both with tears in her eyes, she declared of one, “that’s my Auggie.” And from that moment forward their hearts belonged to one another. Auggie had a lot to learn before she could come home. It wasn’t just commands like “sit and stay,” or her “service task” of seizure alert, but also how to behave in public. There are high expectations on a dog who accompanies their person everywhere, and it’s time consuming to teach them. Gracie kept in touch with Auggie through FaceTime, care packages, and letters, and the two met for the first time a year later, in January. Their bond was instant. Auggie knew Gracie was her girl, and Gracie knew Auggie was the friend she’d waited forever for. They had just 24 hours together, but you would have thought they shared a lifetime. Auggie looked at Gracie with stars in her eyes, and Gracie at Auggie as if she’d hung the moon. Auggie dutifully alerted to seizures, Gracie was generous with the snuggles and while the world spun around them, they were only in tune to each other. The goodbye at the end of their visit was hard but the hope we both walked away with having seen and experienced their connection made it worth it.

In spring, Gracie’s health crashed. At 13 years old she was just 57 pounds. Her heart rate was low and her liver and thyroid function below expectation. Her body was tired, and seemingly trying to give up. A feeding tube went in. Life was sustained, but its quality was poor. Gracie had fought long and hard, and simply had no more to give. The outlook was bleak. Then, Auggie came home. Auggie brought joy, inspiration and purpose. She brought out the best in Gracie, just by being near her. Gracie fought hard to speak clearly so Auggie could understand her. But when she couldn’t, Auggie never strayed from task. For her girl she’d do anything. When Gracie’s muscles hurt, she didn’t resign herself to a wheelchair. She used it when she needed to and doubled down on physical therapy to strengthen them again, knowing her girl needed her. She cried with pain as she stood up to play fetch, but she pushed through it, with renewed purpose. And with that purpose every day she grew a little stronger.

Her seizures didn’t stop, but they became less debilitating. Most times Auggie can tell her before they occur, allowing her to get to a safe space, minimizing the ways they hurt her. When they’re triggered and Auggie can’t alert before, she is able to get someone who can help. This shortens the duration of the seizures and has done wonders for recovery. But, probably the most amazing thing in this regard is that Auggie’s training has changed Gracie’s comfort level, giving her confidence to do more things independently.

Today Gracie is twice the size she was in March. Her body and mind are stronger, and her will dramatically different. Auggie has given her a second chance at life. Together they set goals that she once saw as unattainable, and collectively they crush them. Gracie, a girl who was once told she would never read again, is now an honor roll student and she and Auggie are co-owners of an Etsy shop, and budding philanthropists with their profits.

Auggie hasn’t given Gracie forever, but she’s made the forever she has worthwhile.

Animal Shelter Adoptions

The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter (SMRAS) exceeded its December goal of 120 new adoptions with a total of 131 pets being placed in their forever homes during the Holiday Adoption Special.

These were pets at the shelter or in foster care who were already spayed or neutered and could go home to their new family the same day.

“We had some big adoption highlights including guinea pigs Thumper and Flower finding their new family, pup pals Madison and Baylor being adopted together and already loving their new life, five barn cats headed off to work, and 18 pets being adopted from foster homes,” said Animal Shelter Supervisor Christie Banduch.  “It was a true success for our animals, for their new families, and for our staff who work tirelessly to find permanent, loving homes for each of our furry or feathered friends.”

The shelter thanks the public, volunteers, foster families, and rescues for making this adoption effort a huge success.  The SMRAS will be closed to the public until January 12, along with all other City of San Marcos facilities, to protect staff and visitors from the spread of COVID-19 following the holidays.

However, all animals at the shelter will continue to receive quality care and adoption fees will be reduced to $21 through January 11.

All transactions including adoptions, fosters, and intake/reclaim for lost pets will be handled outdoors and curbside while the shelter is closed to the public.

Due to limited staffing and volunteers at the shelter as a result of social distancing, our pets will be well-cared-for, but would benefit greatly from the fun and attention provided in a foster home.

“We are looking for fosters through January 12, but any amount of time that you can open your heart and home to a loving pet will provide a great service to our community and our animals,” stated Banduch.  The community is asked to help limit the number of stray animals entering the shelter and help reunite lost pets and owners by utilizing online resources such as the Lost and Found Pets of Hays County Facebook page, Nextdoor, and Finding Rover.

New Service Dogs

Newmarket resident Amanda Robar has had epilepsy her whole life and has relied on the assistance of her service dog when she goes about her daily life outside of her home. Now she needs a new one and has turned to the community to help cover the considerable training cost.

Local residents and businesses have helped raise more than $11,000 for her new puppy’s training at a time when normal fundraising activities such as golf tournaments and other events are impossible due to the pandemic.

“The community support has been amazing so far. Having a service dog gives me the confidence to go out on my own into the community, so having the community’s help makes me so grateful because I couldn’t do this without it,” said Robar.

Robar has had two service dogs so far. With her current one, a golden retriever named Kramer, now eight years old, it is time to start training her replacement, a process that takes roughly two years.

With the $11,000 she has received so far from a crowdfunding campaign and other donations, she has found a golden retriever puppy named Cable currently undergoing service dog training. But she expects that the total cost of Cable’s training will be closer to $36,000.

Each animal requires special training to meet her specific symptoms and disabilities, including arthritis, autoimmune disorders, vision impairment, and depression.

“If you are a cookie-cutter model, the dog can be free. But if you are someone like me with multiple disabilities and non-cookie-cutter model epilepsy, it is not,” she said.

Some of the behaviours she needs Cable to be taught is to lick her hand to bring her out of a seizure and, if they persist, to help Robar lie down and use the dog’s head and paw to keep her from moving.

Robar also has seizures that can leave her disoriented and cause her to wander. Cable will be trained to not allow her to cross a street without first being given a signal to tell him it’s OK. The dog will also be able to guide her home from wherever they are and find her a place to sit if she has had multiple seizures.

The dog will also be trained to push an emergency button that Robar’s brother designed that will automatically call her family if she has a major seizure that leaves her incapacitated.

Cable is a few months into his training, and Robar expects she will be able to take him home when he is 18 months old. In the meantime, she has set up a blog and a Facebook page to keep her supporters informed of how everything is going.

RCMP Police Dog

Alberta RCMP Police Dog Services (PDS) had an incredibly busy 2020. Although many Albertans spent a majority of their 2020 experiencing some stage of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic there was no shortage of work for Alberta’s Police Dog Service teams.

In 2020 PDS responded to 2,800 calls for service and captured over 900 criminals. The PDS held a key role in rural property crime initiatives this year, and contribute this to part of the reason they were so busy.

PDS teams are used in a primary role in locating and apprehending rural property crime suspects.

The Alberta RCMP PDS is made up of 18 teams throughout the province. These teams are trained to track and search for suspects, missing persons, crime scene evidence, firearms, and controlled substances or explosives.

Of the 2,800 calls PDS responded to in 2020:

Approximately 650 involved firearms or other weapons;

570 involved violence-related offences;

450 calls were for missing people;

Over 950 calls were for property crime related offences;

And PDS were deployed in a tracking profile over 700 times, which resulted in 400 captures.

All Alberta RCMP Police Service Dogs are purebred German Shepherds. The RCMP has been breeding German Shepherds since 1999 and through this are able to provide enough puppies to satisfy the RCMP’s training needs and no dogs are purchased for training.

On average, one in three puppies will become an RCMP working dog or breeding female.

The RCMP says their dog teams will continue to respond to calls over the holidays and thanks their PDS teams for working tirelessly to keep Albertans safe in 2020.

Therapy Animals Bring Comfort

In this dark year, pets have brightened the lives of both their families and strangers. The purrs of cats in laps and wagging tails of dogs have brought comfort to millions of Americans having to social distance from other people.

Because therapy animal handlers believe so strongly in the healing power of pets, in pre-pandemic times they volunteer to take their dogs and cats to hospitals, schools, assisted living facilities, airports, funeral homes, dentist offices and other places where animals can help reduce stress and offer support. For the nonprofit Pet Partners alone, around 13,000 therapy animal teams make more than 3 million visits each year in communities across the country. So when the coronavirus pandemic shut down most in-person visits, therapy animal teams didn’t give up. They just got creative. “It has been an unusual circumstance where what is best for people’s health during a pandemic (isolating to stay safe) is in direct conflict with how we operate to bring the benefits of therapy animals to people, and visiting in person hasn’t been an option in most places,” Elisabeth Van Every, senior communications specialist at Pet Partners, told TODAY in an email. “But now more than ever people need joy, comfort, and uplifting, and these wonderful therapy animals and their handlers have found new ways to bring the power of pets to those in need.”

Here are some of the special ways therapy animal teams managed to spread cheer this year.

They wagged from outside windows at assisted living facilities.

They paraded outside of hospitals for nurses and doctors. They Zoomed, of course. They put their feline curiosity to good use outside of hospitals. They “cloned” themselves.

They offered their bellies to hospital staff working tirelessly during the pandemic. They smiled from decorated cars at residents in senior living communities. They showed gratitude to our men and women in uniform. They proved that our precious pets always give 100%. Here’s to in-person visits and brighter days in 2021!

Book About Dog

 A dog born in March of 2017 is now the subject of two children’s books written by a school teacher who calls the Adirondacks a home away from home. Our Scott Fleishman spoke with the author in Lake Placid and learns how her imperfect pup, Phil, became her storytelling subject.

We first met Sue Steinhardt and her dog, Phil, over the summer at the Ausable Brewing Company. Back in November, Sue released her second book based on Phil. It’s available at the Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid.

I had the chance to speak with Sue via Zoom. She has a retirement home in the Adirondacks. She has been coming here for 25 years and will eventually move to that home full time. But for now, she’s teaching school in New Jersey.

Reporter Scott Fleishman: Sue, here we are in your second book out in November, let’s go back to the beginning.

Sue Steinhardt: When we first got him, we would take him out for walks and we would get within about 20 yards of the car, regardless of where we were. And so it would stop. He would just lay down, locked up and he would refuse to get in the car. So I kept taking videos and pictures of it, and I would share them with my friends. And they kept saying, you have to write a story about this. You have to write a story about this. So it became a blog and the blog became a story. And the first story became a second story. And like you said, now we’re in one, two a series.

Scott Fleishman: What was it about Phil? Because you tell stories on your blog about how people just flocked to him.

Sue Steinhardt: He just attracted people. People love him. He looks harmless. He’s huge. He just makes people at ease. He comes into my classroom and kids who have been afraid of dogs their whole life by the end of the school day will walk up and hug him. And they’re just not afraid of him.

Scott Fleishman: You’re an English teacher in New Jersey. So I’m sure writing comes second nature to you. Did you ever think that this is the path that would go down?

Sue Steinhardt: I’ve always wanted to write a book. I believe my parents have thought I would write a book since I was probably a year old, but I never had a character. I’m not an exciting person. No one wants to hear a story about me. And when I got Phil and I saw the way people reacted to him and I would watch him on our walks and he truly does all the things we tell our stories, he just became the voice that I had been looking for this whole time.

Scott Fleishman: Your first book, “Phillip T. Basher is Imperfectphil” and “Imperfectphil is Who I Am!” What are they about?

Sue Steinhardt: These books are based entirely on a true story. We wanted Phil to be a therapy dog. So we took him to therapy dogs in school. We finally reached the final test and he was just doing this thing exactly as it says in the story. And one of the other women in class really did say it loud. He is absolutely perfect. So I’m perfect. Just morphed into imperfect. And he became imperfect though. The new book is about accepting who you are and everywhere we go, people want to know what Phil is. His mom was a St. Bernard and his dad was a mastiff, but he doesn’t look like another dog. He doesn’t look like a Newfie. He doesn’t look like a St. Bernard. Everywhere we go, people say, well, what is he? So again, true story. We kind of took this idea of looking up the characteristics of what his two breeds are realizing that he’s not really either one of them, which translated into this story about a lot of times what kids hear and what hear people say about them isn’t true. And we live in this world of always being on social media. And what other people say about you isn’t necessarily who you are. So again, Phil’s story became a real-life lesson.

Having her books in a local store means a heck of a lot to this budding author.

When Sue wrote her first book based on Phil, she went to the Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid to see if they would want to sell it. And yes, they liked the concept. Now, they not only sell her first book but the second book in the ImperfectPhil series.

“The Adirondacks has been our dream destination for over 25 years. And as we get closer to retirement and coming up there, as an English teacher, I love books. I love independent bookstores. We are in there, every opportunity that we get. So it was really the opportunity to take that next step from, from online selling to a place where people could touch the books and feel the books. And that’s just what it’s all about,” Sue said.

Imperfectphil not only has books, but he has his own clothing line!

Alaska Service Animal Policy

Following recent changes to U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) rules, Alaska Airlines will no longer accept emotional support animals on its flights. Effective Jan. 11, 2021, Alaska will only transport service dogs, which are specially trained to perform tasks for the benefit of a qualified individual with a disability.

Earlier this month, the DOT said it will no longer require airlines to make the same accommodations for emotional support animals as is required for trained service dogs. Changes to the DOT rules came after feedback from the airline industry and disability community regarding numerous instances of emotional support animal misbehavior which caused injuries, health hazards and damage to aircraft cabins.

“This regulatory change is welcome news, as it will help us reduce disturbances onboard, while continuing to accommodate our guests traveling with qualified service animals,” said Ray Prentice, director of customer advocacy at Alaska Airlines.

Under the revised policy, Alaska will accept a maximum of two service dogs per guest in the cabin, to include psychiatric service dogs. Guests will be required to complete a DOT form, which will be available on AlaskaAir.com beginning January 11, attesting that their animal is a legitimate service dog, is trained and vaccinated and will behave appropriately during the journey.

For reservations booked more than 48 hours prior to travel, guests must submit the completed form via email. For reservations booked less than 48 hours prior to travel, guests must submit the form in person to the Customer Service Agent upon arrival at the airport.

Alaska will continue to accept emotional support animals under its current policy for reservations booked prior to January 11, 2021, for flights on or before February 28, 2021. No emotional support animals will be accepted for travel after February 28, 2021.

Emotional Support Animals

two weeks, Alaska Airlines will no longer allow emotional support animals to fly with guests on its planes.

The airline announced the news on Tuesday, following recent changes to the Department of Transportation’s rules on such animals.

Under the updated federal policy, airlines can opt out of accepting emotional support animals as passenger companions.

Effective Monday Jan. 11, Alaska will limit animals in its plane cabins to service dogs, which are defined by the airline as those that “are specially trained to perform tasks for the benefit of a qualified individual with a disability.”

“This regulatory change is welcome news, as it will help us reduce disturbances onboard, while continuing to accommodate our guests traveling with qualified service animals,” Ray Prentice, director of customer advocacy at Alaska Airlines, said of the DOT’s updated policy in an Alaska statement.

With Alaska opting out of flying emotional support animals, these new measures will be in place:

A flyer may bring a maximum of two service dogs with them, which can include psychiatric service dogs.

A flyer with a service dog must complete a DOT form to attest their dog is a legitimate service dog that is trained, vaccinated and will behave on the flight.

While Alaska is adopting its new policy soon, it will allow emotional support animals on flights through Feb. 28 for reservations booked before Jan. 11.

Parvo Preventative

The deaths of countless puppies might soon be prevented, thanks to a newly announced agreement.

Elanco Animal Health is set to acquire the global rights to Kindred Biosciences’ proprietary KIND-030, a monoclonal antibody being developed for the treatment and prevention of canine parvovirus (CPV). The global license includes an upfront payment of $500,000, as well as additional milestone payments based on successful completion of development targets, including efficacy, formulation, and manufacturing, Elanco says.

“[This] announcement brings us a step closer to saving hundreds of thousands of dogs exposed to this deadly disease each year,” says KindredBio’s CEO, Richard Chin, MD. “We believe KIND-030 can transform the way parvovirus infections are treated and prevented.”

Banfield Pet Hospital estimates there are approximately a quarter of a million parvo cases in the U.S. annually, according to Elanco. Additionally, the company says, BluePearl noted a 70 percent increase in cases at its hospitals amidst the COVID pandemic.

At this time, there are no approved treatments for CPV, Elanco says.

“With parvovirus on the rise, it’s more important than ever to bring a new treatment option to veterinarians for this devastating and deadly disease,” says Aaron Schacht, Elanco’s executive vice president of innovation, regulatory, and business development. “We’re excited to establish this important partnership with KindredBio to develop and commercialize this novel monoclonal antibody.”

KIND-030 is currently being pursued for two indications in dogs: prophylactic therapy to prevent clinical signs of CPV infection and treatment of established parvovirus infection. Completion of an upcoming pivotal efficacy study for the therapeutic indication is expected in the first quarter of 2021, Elanco says.