pets

A dog is locked in a car with the windows up in the Walmart parking lot in Batavia. It is described as a red Honda Pilot, which is an SUV, parked in row 10. An animal control officer is responding.

A pair of golden retrievers are missing the Morrow Road area, off Route 246, in Pavilion.

A reward is offered for their safe return. No questions asked.

One of the dogs critically requires medication. One of the dogs is a therapy dog.

E-mail Barbara Beach: barbbeachrealestate@yahoo.com.

Jen Goss, found of Catty Shack, a cat and kitten rescue, and Kasey Thompson, with kittens that will soon be available for adoption during a garage sale at the corner of Batavia Elba Townline Road and Route 98 (Daws Corners) this afternoon.

The garage sale continues on Sunday as is a fundraiser for Catty Shack.

Catty Shack will have at least 15 kittens available for adoption in a few weeks. They will be vetted and spayed and neutered. 

State Street Animal Hospital is hosting "The Bark-arrific Saturday Ice Cream Social" from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 23, at the hospital, located at 7950 State Street Road, Batavia.

Just show up with your friendly K9 friend and join the State Street crew for this special event.

All dogs must be leashed to attend. Dog-safe ice cream will be served, and there will be ice cream for human companions as well.

While this social is specifically for dogs, they love your feline friends, too, and treats will be provided for owners to take home to their kitty comrades.

Parasols, gloves and hats, strictly optional. Wet Wipes probably aren't.

Yesterday, there was a report of a dog locked in a car on South Lake Avenue in Bergen but according to a woman who said she witnessed the whole thing, it didn't go down anything like the way it was reported to law enforcement.

Julianna Kalke said the dog was in the car no more than five or 10 minutes -- not the 45 minutes originally reported -- and not only did the owner roll down all the windows but she stayed by the car the whole time and talked with the dog.

The woman, Kalke said, stopped for a cigarette break.

"I am an absolute animal lover and attended Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine and I did not see any harm to the animal," Kalke said. "If anything, the owner was doing the right thing by exiting the car so the dog did not inhale secondhand smoke."

Kalke described the woman who reported the dog in the car to dispatchers as "rude" to the dog's owner.

"(She was) harassing the poor woman who was just trying to do the right thing," Kalke said.

A dog has been locked inside a vehicle at 12 S. Lake Ave. in Bergen for at least the last 45 minutes, says a caller to dispatch.

An officer is responding.

It's 90 degrees outside.

A dog is barking inside a van in the Tops market that has its windows up, according to a caller to dispatch. The vehicle is said to be closer to Main Street in the parking lot. 

An animal control officer is responding. It's 90 degrees in Batavia.

UPDATE 1:25 p.m.: "I checked that white van; there's no dog in the vehicle," says the responding officer before clearing the scene.

Genesee County Park hosted its inaugural Park Paws dog walk event today and only three canines participated, though several more dog owners signed up who didn't show up.

While in the park, we also came across a group of riders on horseback (photos below).

Sam is missing. He is missing from the area of Route 20 and East Road in Bethany.

His family asks, "please return him, no questions asked."

If you see him, call (585) 356-0820 (Debbie) or (585) 356-0824 (Tom).

Spring is here and nature is, well, springing up all over the place. Bright green, pops of yellow, soft pink blossoms. The bees are buzzing and the birds are flitting.

But over at the Genesee County Animal Shelter, Serena and Boots are just sitting. Waiting for a friend, you, anybody really (Volunteers for Animals notwithstanding), to stop by and say 'hi,' or better yet take them home.

Playing fetch with a ball is her favorite thing. Unless she's eating dinner, which is then her favorite thing, or palling around with her people, which is also a favorite thing.

So basically whatever Serena is doing at that moment is her favorite thing. Such is a dog's life and attention span. 

Boots, a spayed tiger and white domestic shorthair cat, takes the long view of our sweet old world, making patient mental notes of the global continuum, parsing in her own way the values and actions she holds dear.

Like chin scratching, the importance of which cannot be overstressed.

This "quiet and docile...very sweet" feline is all set to get out of the shelter and make patient mental notes in a much better place -- like your windowsill or lap.

Genesee County Animal Shelter

3841 W. Main Street Road, Batavia

Hours

Sun., Mon., Tues., Fri.: 1-3 p.m.

Wednesday: 1-3 p.m. and 7-9 p.m.

Closed Thursdays

Saturday: 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

City police are out with a possibly injured Rottweiler at 2 Cedar St. but don't yet have it in custody.

The officer says the dog appears friendly.

The dog may have a leg injury.

Somehow Barney, who never goes out of the house, got out of his house on Fargo Road, between Clapsaddle Road and Sweetland Road, in Stafford.

Barney weighs 13 pounds, is an American shorthair and is declawed.  

"He's very friendly and deeply missed," said Adam Reich.

UPDATE 12:39 p.m.: Barney decided it was time to come home. He's safe.

Otto, a German Shorthair Pointer, doesn't like the cold, but he may be out there somewhere or holed up in a nice cozy home if somebody had taken him in, but his owner, Katie Grant, is devastated that he's missing.

He was last seen in the area of Genesee Street near Ellenwood Road in Corfu.

He has an orange collar.

Katie can be reached at 585 297 0721 or 716 939 0330

She said he will seek out people and try to get inside homes to escape the cold.

"Bring my baby home," she said. "He's never been lost before."

UPDATE March 19: Reader Rick Hensel informs all that the dog is home safe and sound.

After six days missing, an Alexander farmer today spotted Blue, the English pointer we reported missing over the weekend.

Christina said the farmer called today with the good news he had found Blue.

"We are happy to say he is home now," she said. "We are grateful to have him home safe."

A driver spotted a German shepherd wearing a bandana walking along the roadway in Bergen and stopped, opened her car down and the dog jumped in.

The dog seemed friendly at first, the caller told a dispatcher, but now it's growled a couple of times.

The caller is parked at the 7-Eleven in Bergen awaiting the arrival of Animal Control.

UPDATE 2:45 p.m.: As Animal Control was showing up at the 7-Eleven, so did the dog's owner. Owner and dog reunited.

Blue is missing. Blue is a 2-year-old English pointer who went missing Friday afternoon around Stannard Road, Alexander. He ran off chasing a deer and hasn't been seen by Ben and Christina since. He was last seen wearing an orange collar with an ID and a red collar with a big bell.

If you can help Blue get home to Ben and Christina call either (716) 572-2591 or (910) 382-0341.

A Le Roy fox hunter says he had to chase a woman he believes stole his hunting dog this morning at speeds that reached 60 mph on Route 33 before a state trooper arrived on scene and initiated a traffic stop. 

The woman, who was in tears, the hunter said, told the trooper, according to Troop A's public information officer, Trooper James O'Callahan, that she thought she had found a lost dog and was taking the animal to State Street Animal Hospital.

The hunter, who asked not to be identified, said he was hunting on Griswold Road with the local property owner when he heard his dog bark. He walked a couple hundred yards down Griswold but the dog was nowhere in sight.

"I thought, there's no way that dog could run that fast," he said.

He went back to his truck and drove back down Griswold. Just then, he saw a sedan pulling away.  

The dog was wearing a GPS collar, he said, so he knew the dog was in the car. Pretty soon, he said, he noticed he was still behind the car, but the GPS signal was behind his location, which meant, he believes, the woman with the dog had removed the collar and thrown it out the car window.

He followed the woman down Route 33 and she was eventually stopped at Seven Springs Road.

The problem for the trooper, in deciding whether to file charges against the woman, O'Callahan said, is that the hunter didn't see the woman remove the collar and she said the dog didn't have a collar.  Though the collar was found at the location near where the dog was picked up, there isn't sufficient proof the woman removed the collar.  Without that, there's no proof of a crime, O'Callahan said.

The owner called The Batavian to clarify that the dog was not taken from a residence.

"I don't want people to think there is somebody going around taking people's dogs from their homes," he said.

(Initial Report)

A resident in Byron noticed a cat carrier on her porch on Friday. The door was open and when she took a quick look inside, there was no cat.

She left the tan carrier, with a black handle, on the porch not thinking much of it until today when she looked inside and found a male black and white cat.

The unneutered cat is about 9 months old, said Animal Control Officer Agie Jaroszewski.

The cat has apparently been going in and out of the carrier since being abandoned.

Jaroszewski said there was a blanket in the carrier but this morning it was covered with snow.

The cat is now warm and safe at the shelter.

If anybody knows who abandoned the cat, call the Sheriff's Office at (585) 343-5000.