Dogs Best Friend - Man Frees Dog From Jaws of Alligator

How much do you love your dog?

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Mandy, a Wheaton terrier, and her owner, David Grounds, are together again. Both are still shaken up and recovering from an alligator attack Saturday.
Grounds had let Mandy out in the back yard of his West Palm Beach home. The gator grabbed the dog while she was walking along the edge of a pond.

"My first thought was, 'I've got to pry his mouth apart to keep him from, you know, killing her,'" David Grounds told WPBF News 25's Alexis Rivera from his home Tuesday.

Grounds said he poked the gator's eye and managed to pry his jaw open in time for Mandy to get away. She suffered a few cuts on her back and belly.

However, Grounds wasn't as lucky. The reptile bit off one finger and part of another.
"She's likes a child -- my child, you know," Grounds said of Mandy. "I have four sons and if one of them had been attacked, you'd have to see what you can do -- and the same with her."
A trapper later removed the 7-foot gator from the pond behind Grounds' home. It was euthanized.

Grounds told Rivera he'd do it all over again if he had to.
"I'd trade these two fingers for her, for sure, without a doubt," he said.

I read an article last week where a doctor suggested, you never put your own life and limbs at risk, if your dog is in danger. MOST pet owners would disagree! They are just like our children! Of course, I am going to try to save them!

Tiny Miniature Teacup Breeds Compete for Worlds SMALLEST Dog!

There was a time when being the runt of the litter was considered a bad thing. (Wilbur, the pig co-star of the title spider character in "Charlotte's Web," was almost killed for being a runt, as any children's literature fan will remember.) But nowadays, tiny dogs are fashionable -- as evidenced by the hotly contested Guinness World Records for smallest dog by height and smallest dog by length.

Scooter, above, is a 6-month-old Maltese whose owner, Cheryl McKnight of New Zealand, believes will one day hold the title of smallest dog by height. Scooter is just over 3 inches tall, measured from his feet to the top of his shoulder blade. Although he's still a puppy, McKnight says he hasn't grown at all since he was 2 months old, and she believes he won't grow any taller -- certainly no taller than the current recordholder, an American Chihuahua.

These tiny dogs are unquestionably cute -- but does cute come with a price? The increase in popularity of "teacup" dogs -- extra-small poodles, Yorkshire terriers, Chihuahuas and the like -- has undoubtedly helped boost profits for puppy mills that churn them out as if they were products on an assembly line.

And what of their health? Scooter "weighs less than a block of butter at 400 grams -- and that is while he is wearing clothes," according to the New Zealand Herald. He wears a brightly-colored sock as a shirt to make him stand out, presumably to prevent the inevitable injury that would result if his owner were to make a wrong step. Tom Thumb "can fit inside a teacup and cannot reach his mum to feed when she is standing up," the Daily Mail reports.

According to Petside.com, as humans breed smaller and smaller dogs, "the dogs' teeth don't keep pace as well and many small breeds are troubled by teeth that are too big for their mouths." Tiny bones can break easily as well -- although it's also true that small dogs, on average, live longer lives than large ones.

We're sure many teacup pups are in fine health and enjoy the attention they get for being cute, traveling about in purses and the like -- still, we can't help but wonder if we're doing them a disservice in the long run by making them just too small for their own good.

READ MORE AT LA TIMES.

Yorkie Mom Dies After Giving Birth....

It's a dog's life for Jackie Irvine but she's loving every minute of it, playing mum to a litter of puppies whose mother died eight days after giving birth.



Jackie bottle feeds the tiny three-week-old Yorkshire Terrier pups six times a day, acting as their surrogate mother, after seven-year-old Amber died.She said: "When Amber died it was such a shock – even when I picked her up I didn't think she was dead because she was still hot and her eyes were open."



But when you are left with five little faces looking up at you, you just have to take over."I was feeding them through a syringe but I got a bottle from the vet with a teet on it and we feed them with that now."It's quite humorous to see them because as they get bigger, they want more.



"They feed six times a day, I am up through the night feeding them and if I go out it's not for more than an hour-and-a-half."Jacie said she will probably keep one of the pups – which have been named Lucky, Fudge, Madonna, Robert the Bruce and Lulu – and give the others away once they are six- or seven-weeks-old.



Lucky was given her name because she was the first puppy to be born and was cold and lifeless, but she and her husband Bill managed to revive her.