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Saturday Night: A Little Bit of Good News

Posted: April 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Japan, just because, open thread | Tags: , , , , , , |19 Comments

Japan Times:

SENDAI (Kyodo) The Japan Coast Guard managed to save a small brown dog Friday from a floating rooftop 1.8 km off Miyagi Prefecture, three weeks after a massive tsunami ravaged the northeast coast.

The team’s initial rescue attempt failed after the dog, perhaps scared by the hovering helicopter, jumped from the roof over to nearby driftwood.

A rescue boat with three guardsmen was then dispatched and succeeded in catching the pooch an hour later by using rescue stretchers.

The dog, which was wearing a black collar that had no indication of who its owner might be, was fed biscuits and sausages aboard the coast guard vessel and is behaving itself, the coast guard said.

How did he survive for three weeks surrounded by salt water? One suggestion: Perhaps with all the rain, perhaps the dog was able to drink rainwater that collected in spots on the house roof.

The dog was wearing a collar, so his rescuers will try to find his family.


This is an open thread, but I encourage you to share any heartwarming animal stories that you know about.

19 Comments on “Saturday Night: A Little Bit of Good News”

  1. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 2, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    Story about pets in Japan after the disaster: Finding creature comfort in a living hell

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      April 2, 2011 at 8:25 pm

      One story from the article linked above:

      In Sendai, tsunami warden Mr Kamata tried to return for his dog – a large pedigree Akita – after warning neighbours about the incoming wave, but found his way blocked by the churning water.

      “I thought there was no way he could have survived. It was terribly sad,” Kamata said.

      But later that night, as he sheltered in a refuge with hundreds of other residents, Kamata heard that a dog had been found outside.

      “It was him. He’d swum and found me. He’d ingested a lot of sea water and kept throwing up and I thought I was going to lose him anyway, but he pulled through,” Kamata said.

  2. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 2, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr17Ke3e2fA&feature=related

  3. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 2, 2011 at 9:40 pm

    Public employees rescue cat on Duluth bridge.

    Minnesota Department of Transportation employee Christopher Smith was just doing his job — clearing debris on the sidewalk near the center of the Bong Bridge about 1 p.m. Tuesday.

    And then he heard the meowing.

    He looked over the edge to find a cat on a pier cap, a concrete ledge of sorts, about 20 feet down from the bridge.

    The cat was trapped about 80 to 90 feet above the water without a way to come back up, according to John Bray, spokesman for MnDOT.

    After Smith tried unsuccessfully to phone his co-worker, Gary Wright, who was operating a sweeper on the bridge, he called for help.

    Seeing a Superior police car parked near Smith got Wright’s attention, and he went to check on his co-worker.

    He found Superior Police Officer Bradley Esler and Smith trying to figure out what to do.

    Read the rest at the link.

  4. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 2, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    Apartment fire out; cat saved.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/apartment-fire-out-cat-894671.html

  5. Branjor's avatar Branjor says:
    April 2, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Oh wow – I just shared the dog rescued story on Facebook a short time ago!

  6. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    April 2, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    Here’s a link to more “Japan’s ‘miracle’ animal survivors:

    Ghosn, the “surfing dog”
    When the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit, Atsuko Oikawa’s two beloved miniature dachshunds were spooked, and ran off. She found one, Carlos. The other, Ghosn — the pair is named after Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn — headed toward the port, which would soon be slammed by the tsunami. Oikawa and her husband had no choice but to head for the safety of the hills. They were heartbroken, and assumed the worst. But a week later, police told her Ghosn had been found, in fine shape, a mile inland. “Maybe he rode on it, a surfing dog, perhaps,” said Oikawa’s husband, Yuki, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times. “We’re so incredibly happy to get him back.”

  7. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    April 2, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    Yale law library has a “therapy dog” for “four-legged stress relief.”

    http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-yale-law-dog-therapy-20110402,0,4528961.story

  8. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    April 2, 2011 at 10:10 pm

    Okay, I’m going to interrupt this feel good thread for an outrage … please excuse me cause it’s very personal.

    Transocean Ltd. had its “best year in safety performance” despite the explosion of its Deepwater Horizon rig that left 11 dead and oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the world’s largest offshore-rig company said in a securities filing Friday.

    Accordingly, Transocean’s executives received two-thirds of their target safety bonus. Safety accounts for 25% of the equation that determines the yearly cash bonuses, along with financial factors including new rig contracts.

    The payout contrasts with that for 2009, when the company withheld all executive bonuses after incurring four fatalities that year “to underscore the company’s commitment to safety.”

    In a filing on executive pay, Transocean said, “Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record.” Based on the total rate of incidents and their severity, “we recorded the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.”

    How wrong is that?

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