Shelter is brutally honest about a puppy in need of a home. ‘We know this seems crazy'
Brutus, a 6-month-old beauty of a pup with distinguishing features like two different colored eyes, a black mask and white and black body, is struggling with his temperament around people and other dogs, the Central PA Humane Society in Altoona said in a March 4 Facebook post.
'Brutus was an owner surrender. He is said to be an Akita and Husky mix. At this point, he is 6 months old,' the shelter said. 'He is not in the shelter and has been with a trainer. He has been through two potential foster homes at this point. He is not going to be an easy dog to home and we are being honest about it for Brutus' sake.'
An Akita is a large, working breed dog of 'ancient Japanese linage.' While they're considered extremely loyal and protective of their owners, they can be highly aggressive with animals and people they don't know, the American Kennel Club (AKC) warns.
'Wary of strangers and often intolerant of other animals, Akitas will gladly share their silly, affectionate side with family and friends,' the AKC says. 'They thrive on human companionship. The large, independent-thinking Akita is hardwired for protecting those they love. They must be well socialized from birth with people and other dogs.'
While the breed is tolerant of children, Brutus is not.
'Brutus absolutely can't live with dogs or kids. It will not work out. We have tried and both times it was a fail. We know this seems crazy due to his age; but it is what it is. He is not bothered by cats,' the shelter said in its Facebook post.
The puppy has the signature mark of the beautiful Siberian Huskies breed, which is two different colored eyes, the AKC says. Huskies are extremely friendly and make excellent guard dogs, which is why Brutus is in training. But be warned — it's going to take a lot of patience, according to the shelter.
'He will need continued training and socialization. He needs someone who will not allow him to become the boss, meaning he needs an owner in which he respects. When Brutus is done with what is going on; he's done,' the shelter says. 'If he's sleeping, he doesn't want you to wake him up by touching him. He's very stubborn.'
Despite his quirks, Brutus is a good boy who just wants to be loved, per the shelter.
'When he respects you; he is a good dog. He doesn't have food or toy aggression. He loves walks, hikes, and keeping himself busy,' the shelter says.
'He is going to need a very special person to take him on and to be the best dog he can be.'
For more information about Brutus, visit the shelter's website.
Altoona is about a 95-mile drive east from Pittsburgh.
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Chicago Tribune
3 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Column: On an August anniversary, memories of the atomic bomb from a crew member who dropped it on Nagasaki
I was sitting with an old soldier named Ray Gallagher. He held in his hands a small doll. The doll's name was Marianne and it was the doll that he took with him to war. It had been given to him by his niece, Margaret Gillund, and on Aug. 9, 1945, Marianne and Gallagher, an assistant flight engineer, boarded a plane named Bockscar along with 12 other men and a bomb called Fat Man and headed for the skies over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. They dropped the atomic bomb. In an instant, tens of thousands of people were reduced to ash. This was three days after another plane, the Enola Gay, and its crew dropped an atomic bomb named Little Boy on Hiroshima and, in an instant, tens of thousands more were ash. Accounting for those who died from the effects of radiation, it's estimated that as many as 70,000 died in Nagasaki and 140,000 in Hiroshima. T.S. Eliot famously called April the 'cruelest month,' but for me and many others, August grabbed that title in 1945 when the world was changed. Or, as Kurt Vonnegut put it in his 1963 novel 'Cat's Cradle,' 'The day the world ended.' Those who fought in World War II, or who worried for their loved ones who were fighting in WWII, are a diminishing crowd. And soon there will be none. But there were plenty in 1995 when I met Gallagher. He had come to the Union League Club to talk to some kids about the war. They were from local schools, gathered on a frigid Saturday morning to hear Gallagher say, 'War is awful, oh God. There's so much to be lost. When you go to war, you're not a hero. Everybody who goes to war would like to be brave. But you can be a coward. The whole idea of war is to get in and get out. Even now, when I enter a room, I'm looking at the windows and the doors … looking for the way to get out.' He came home from the war late in 1945, married his wife Mary, had two children, and settled into a quiet life in the Gage Park neighborhood and a long career with General Electric. 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It is focused on the deeds of men.' Gallagher is in the film. He died in 1999, but is in my memory every August. He was 73 when I met him. Not a trained public speaker, he told what was essentially a series of anecdotes, random but potent. Eventually, it came time for questions, and a forest of tiny hands rose. 'Did the doll give you any luck?' asked a girl. 'It gave me the feeling of home,' Gallagher said, the doll cradled in his gnarled hands. 'If I wasn't thinking of home at the time all I had to do was look at Marianne. She always told me, 'You still have a home.'' Marianne went with him to an air base in Utah. He carried the doll with him on every training mission and to the island of Tinian in the Marianas, base of operations for the 509th Composite Bomb Group. Marianne was there in the sky over Nagasaki. After the bomb was dropped, after the war was over, Gallagher came home. Marianne came too and when Margaret Gillund grew up and became a school teacher, and when her history classes got around to World War II, Marianne went to school and was used as a powerful show-and-tell. Gillund was there at the Union League Club, along with Gallagher's wife. They heard him answer the question, 'Do you have regrets? Do you feel guilty?' Answer: 'I'd be lyin' if I didn't say I did. My wife Mary and myself have been invited back to Japan many times. I wouldn't go. I think we done a lot of good but we done a lot of bad … But we done what we were supposed to do.' Felt, the filmmaker, whispered to me, 'Ray is the most human gentleman I know.' Another question: 'Fifty years later, is it appropriate to reassess the decision to drop the bombs?' Gallagher answered: 'If someone hit you with a steel pipe would you shoot them with a gun? You had to live those years and walk those miles.' At the program's outset, Felt tried to help the kids' understanding by offering some musty statistics. He told of a Gallup Poll taken in late August 1945, weeks after the bombings. The poll asked people whether they approved or disapproved of the decision to drop the bombs. 'Eighty-five percent approved,' said Felt. He called an end to the question-and-answer session and asked that the kids remain in place so the crew could film a few more shots. Gallagher took a sip of water and received a loving pat on the back from his wife. One boy shouted, not a question but a statement: 'You were a killer.' Gallagher said, 'We had to drop 'em. There was a monster loose and that monster was war and we had to kill the monster.' With that, he removed himself from the wooden chair in which he had been sitting for three hours. He started to walk toward his wife and niece but stopped, turned around and walked back to a table on which the doll Marianne had been lying. He picked up the doll and asked, 'Was it OK? Did I do good?'
Hamilton Spectator
4 days ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Managing Japanese beetles, invasive plants in P.E.I. gardens
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Axios
4 days ago
- Axios
Boston-area residents, ecologists fight black swallow-wort spread
Armed with a pair of scissors, Amy Collier slashes long pod-bearing vines that encroach on Jamaica Plain sidewalks and parks while out walking. Workers near the Boston Nature Center and the Bell Isle March have embarked on the same mission— to stop the invasion of the black swallow-wort. Why it matters: Boston-area conservationists and residents have declared war on the invasive plant, which takes over yards and kills monarch butterfly eggs. Flashback: The black swallow-wort is a textbook case of an invasive plant getting loose and colonizing its new home. Ecologists say the black swallow-wort was brought overseas from Europe to a botanical garden in Ipswich in the 19th century and soon escaped the garden. Today, two kinds of swallow-wort have spread across the north U.S. — the pale swallow-wart, spreading as far west as Minnesota, and the black swallow-wort in Eastern Massachusetts and New York, says Antonio DiTommaso, an ecologist professor at Cornell University. Threat level: The black swallow-wort spreads both through resilient vines underground and through the seeds carried by the wind or eaten and then excreted by birds. It smothers native plants in its way and tricks monarch butterflies into thinking they're laying eggs on native milkweed, before killing the larvae. The longer growing seasons driven by climate change mean they have more time to spread their seed. State of play: The black swallow-wort has made hunters out of concerned neighbors in JP and Somerville, as well as city plant workers and conservationists from East Boston to the Boston suburbs. What they're saying:"I'm not sure many people know what it is or know how to look for it," Collier tells Axios. "The vine is kind of nondescript at first, until it starts growing." So she warns neighbors on Facebook groups or while walking, when she fills up trash bags with broken vines. Francis Nimick, a Somerville resident, has helped neighbors take out black swallow-wort, Japanese knotweed and other invasive plants. He encourages all neighbors to rip them up, even renters whose landlords won't dig up the roots. "If you just rip it with your hands and put it in the trash, that is a huge service to the entire neighborhood." There's still time to stop them from flowering, which accelerates the spread. Alice Brown, Boston's director of environmental quality, suggests ripping what you see on the streets and sidewalks. Homeowners can dig up the roots and rip them up to limit the spread. A targeted shot of herbicide, where allowed, could also help kill them, but be careful not to spray other native plants. And homeowners living near waterways should get permission from the Boston Conservation Commission before spraying herbicide in their yards, Brown says. Be smart: Don't start cutting down vines in a neighbor's yard unless you get permission first. Once you do collect it, put it in the trash. Composting it could enable it to keep spreading. The bottom line: Only a community-wide campaign, and perhaps carefully applied herbicides, could come close to eradicating the black swallow-wort, but these efforts can certainly contain them, says DiTommaso, the ecology professor.
