IAMS Pet food Investigation
A nine month investigation by PETA
has uncovered animal cruelty in the IAMS pet food laboratories.
A beloved member of Lance Armstrong's family is on the mend, PEOPLE reports in its latest issue.
Armstrong's dog Rex – a 9-month-old yellow Lab who was a gift from the cyclist's fiancée Sheryl Crow – had been born with a leaky heart valve, which gradually made him listless and would inevitably prove fatal. So Armstrong had Rex flown to Colorado State University for open-heart surgery on Aug. 31, a 4 1/2-hour procedure that cost over $10,000.
"He's our family dog," the 7-time Tour de France champ tells PEOPLE. "I didn't want to sit down with the kids and say, 'He's only going to live three more months.'"
Armstrong has three children with his former wife Kristen: son David Luke and twin daughters, Isabelle Rose and Grace Elizabeth.
Said their father: "I was prepared to do whatever it took; I just wanted (Rex) to live."
The operation, performed about 25 times a year at CSU, worked; Rex is taking blood thinners and recuperating between Armstrong's Austin ranch and Crow's California home.
"He's going great," says Armstrong of his dog Rex. "It's wild how dogs and kids recover fast."
Armstrong is also doing well. He'll celebrate his engagement and surviving cancer since 1996 with a party in Austin on Oct. 2, featuring a performance by Crow.
LOST KING
One cold rainy night, around 9 pm, as I was about to take Jonah, my beagle, for his last outing of the day, I encountered a large black dog hanging around my front door. I closed the door right away, and paused for a minute to think about what to do. "Well, I thought, maybe this is just a neighbor’s new dog". As Jonah and I were about to leave, the dog came and gently greeted us and he seemed to be a well-behaved dog, not growling or barking at us. So we went for our walk and returned quickly as I was curious to see if this dog was still at my door. Yes, indeed he was.
My neighbors decided to take the dog for a walk with their dog around the neighborhood to see if the dog would take them anywhere. But nothing particular happened. They came back from the walk with more questions. Did its owner abandon him? No, it couldn't be, he was well maintained, well behaved and had a tattoo on his ear.
We checked for an ID tag. There was none other than the District's registration tag so we had no means of contacting the owner. We decided to call the local animal shelter but they were closed at that time of night. Then we called the main animal shelter and explained the situation. They told us we should keep the dog until the next morning when we could drop him off when the animal shelter opened.
This wasn't good news, either for us or for the dog. He must have felt frightened to be surrounded by strange people. From his behavior we could tell he was young. But I had to do something. I called the 24-hour emergency animal clinic to see if they had any room for him for the night and they were not too helpful, but they did ask if I could give them the ID tag number so they could trace the owner. Several hours later they called me back with no results. They told me to keep the dog until the next morning and then call the animal shelter to arrange for them to pick up the dog. We had no choice but to keep the dog overnight.
He felt at home in our place, and slept with few disturbances. Jonah didn't mind him being in his house, it was as though he understood the dog needed help, and we were taking care of him. Jonah slept near him to make him feel Comfortable. They were cute together.
Early next morning my wife decided to take both dogs for a walk, and since the animal shelter is within walking distance of where we live, she could drop him off at the shelter. As they were walking near the park, a car stopped and the driver called the dog's name. A lady and a girl got out of the car and walked toward them, and said that they had been looking for their dog. The black dog was theirs and they were so happy to find him. They had lost him the previous night when he had been chasing a coyote.
Fortunately he didn't have to go to the shelter. We were all happy that the dog and his owner had been reunited within such a short time. A happy ending!
The dog's name was "King".
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