Working Dogs.

We give good dog news along with the bad and the ugly, but it can be really upsetting to read a story like this one that ran last week in the New York Times. The story described the death of Ape, a dog trained to work for the FBI. The dog's working career lasted a mere three weeks. The two-year-old Czech German Shepherd was shot in the chest by a gunman who was promptly killed by return fire from Ape's team. Despite being rushed to an emergency veterinary hospital in an armored vehicle, Ape died shortly after arrival. Ape had been on active duty for the FBI for a little over two weeks. "Ape was doing what he was trained to do and made the ultimate sacrifice for his team," the agency said ...

Oregon is famous for four of their culinary truffles: the black truffle, the Oregon winter white, the Oregon spring white and the relatively rare Oregon brown truffle. Harvesting the fungi is extremely labor intensive, and would be nearly impossible without the help of the talented graduates of NW Truffle Dogs, according to The New York Times. NW Truffle Dogs is a school in Oregon City, Ore. where dogs and their owners hope to raise the reputation of Oregon's fine truffles, their value in the market and the way they are harvested. Many Oregon truffle foragers rake to gather the goods, but in 2006, Charles Lefevre founded the Oregon Truffle Festival, an event that was dedicated to ...