Posts tagged "today show"

Erica Daniel, a Florida woman who fosters dogs that need extra care, saved a pit-bull puppy from the trash and nursed it back to health from a debilitating, life-threatening medical condition.

11-week-old Harper was born with a condition called pectus excavatum, more commonly know as "swimmer puppy disorder," according to NBC's "Today." Puppies afflicted with the disorder lie flat on their chests with their arms splayed out, resembling a swimmer in mid-stroke. Most puppies with pectus excavatum don't survive, and Harper herself came very close to being put down before Daniel stepped in.

Daniel had not originally intended to keep Harper alive, but simply to give the puppy one day of love and affection before she had to be euthanized. "I had to show her what it was like to be loved," Daniel said. But as she spent the day with Harper and massaged the puppy's limbs, the deformed dog began to respond and quickly show signs of improvement.

Instead of putting Harper down, Daniel had a vet perform a closer inspection, only to find that the pup was indeed far healthier than first thought. No longer doomed, Harper has received massage therapy and hydrotherapy. Now, only 11 weeks later, she's walking on her own four feet.

"She's a walking miracle," says Bev McCartt, Harper's physical therapist. "She's a real testament to a dog's determination to get up and just go."

Get ready; the most depressing show on Animal Planet is back for a third season! "Confessions: Animal Hoarders" is the animal-focused version of the immensely popular genre of hoarding reality shows. Whereas other hoarding shows feature people who refuse to throw out any of their garbage for decades at a time, "Confessions" documents folks who own, let's say, "unreasonable" numbers of pets. We mean enough animals to make life unsafe and virtually unlivable for the hoarders and for the pets.

To get an idea of what we're talking about, watch this interview with Yolanda, a "Confessions" hoarder to shared her story on "Today" this morning. Learn about how keeping 38 dogs and cats affects a person and their family. Want more? The new season of "Confessions: Animal Hoarders" premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet.

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Rescuing puppies isn't for the faint of heart. Case in point, the daring puppy rescue that Zak Anderegg carried out while rappelling into one of Utah's slot canyons.

Two weeks ago, Anderegg set out to explore the scenic Arizona-Utah border when he came upon a shocking site: an animal trapped at the bottom of one of the region's famous deep and narrow canyons. Looking over the canyon's edge, Anderegg thought the animal might have been a small calf. "And then the longer I looked at him, I realized he's actually a dog," Anderegg told "Today." An animal lover, Anderegg was exactly the right person at the right place and time to help save the pup's life.

Anderegg called his wife and told her his new mission. "When I saw him, my heart just absolutely broke," Zak said. "Within about 10 seconds of realizing what he was, my plan shifted from vacation to rescue." Without hesitation, Anderegg left the canyon to round up some help in a nearby town. He returned with food, water, and a cat carrier donated by the local animal hospital.

Anderegg rappelled back down the canyon to feed the stranded dog, but it seemed unable to even eat. Estimating that the stranded animal was only "24 to 48 hours away from death," Anderegg placed the puppy in the borrowed cat carrier and hoisted him all 350 feet up and out of the canyon, using his climbing ropes and a pulley.

Hope comes in many forms. In this case, it comes with eight adorable little paws and a whole bunch of stripes.

Two rare Sumatran tiger cubs made their television debut this morning on NBC's "Today." The pair was born May 25 at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Wash. Including these new additions, there are just 74 Sumatran tigers in captivity in North America and only a few hundred exist in the wild.

The birth of these cubs is particularly remarkable because their mom and dad, Jaya and Bali, were pretty clueless when it came to continuing their critically endangered species: "Neither one could seem to understand what needed to be done," Andy Goldfarb, staff biologist at Port Defiance, told "Today." Eventually, though, the couple figured it out, and after much ado, it was confirmed that Jaya was pregnant.

The timing of the conception was fortuitous as Bali, the father, has since been diagnosed with cancer. He's showing improvement now that he's undergoing chemotherapy, says "Today," but his future, like that of his species, is uncertain.

These furry babies are facing tough odds, but you can give them a boost by helping the zoo choose the right names for the pair. All you have to do is cast your vote at the Point Defiance Zoo website!

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"Lost dog reunited with little girl": It's a story we've heard time and time again. While it's always touching, this particular reunion story, shared this morning on the "Today Show", has a little more drama than some.

When Mollie, a German short-haired pointer, didn't come home one night, her family was understandably worried. Four-year-old Olivia Hartzog and her father, James, could hear Mollie barking, but they didn't realize until morning that she was barking from the bottom of a 33-foot dry well on their property, reports MSNBC.

Olivia asked her father to just jump down and get her dog, but he knew it was more complicated than that. Instead, local volunteer firefighter-rescuer Dwight Williams went into the well and Mollie, who emerged unscathed, but understandably elated to see her family. But no one was as thrilled to see Mollie as Olivia. Her father told Ann Curry in an interview that she's hardly left the dog's side. "Every chance she gets now, she wants to go pet Mollie and love on her and play with her -- and her pups, of course."

As for Williams, it's all in a day's work. Immediately following the rescue, he told the WIS news crew, "We do more than fight fires - we do whatever is required of us, like going down in holes and rescuing dogs."