In The News

Yesterday's Tampa Tribune had a nice spread on dog friendly beaches in Florida with lots of fun pictures. They listed parks in all parts of the state including Jacksonville, Port Orange, Dunedin and Key West. In the Tampa Bay area they featured Honeymoon Island's Pet Beach. For more info on dog friendly beaches, check out "The Complete Florida Beach Guide" by Mary and Bill Burnham. This is the perfect time of year to get wet with your dogs.

And, if you are one of the few who can still afford gas for a trip, in yesterday's paper was a blurb about a traveling exhibit called Pets In America. The Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee will host this collection of old artifacts, from collars and vintage food packages to antique medical equipment. Included will be photos of famous historical figures with their pets. Sounds like fun. If you go, bring back some souvenirs and give us a blog report.

And last of all is a "feel good" kind of story that was on the front page of the Trib's Metro section today. A Pitbull Terrier pup had been adopted by a couple through the Hernando County Pitbull Terrier Rescue group. Two days later, they're house was broken into and the dog stolen. Apparently the three month old puppy was too much for the thief who dumped him out on Twelve Oaks Blvd. in Tampa. The Pitbull rescue group sprang into action, printing up flyers about the lost dog and going door to door to help find it. Saturday, through anonymous tips, it was located and returned to the couple. Now, the curious thing about this article is that there are two photos of the dog playing with family members after it's return home. One shows the puppy laying down with a long white tipped tail. The other shows the same puppy with what looks like a docked tail. Maybe that picture is deceiving and it only looks like a docked tail. The other photos posted at tbo.com don't show the tail. But if that is a docked tail, then my question is, did the thief dock the tail, did someone else who had the dog in the last week dock the tail, or did the new owners do it as a home coming present. I'm going on record here to say that I consider tail docking and ear trimming to be mutilation. But that's an issue for a whole other blog article, so I'll stop right here.