This week’s dog, Lucky, comes with an incredible story. From reader Larry Brothers in Sammamish, Washington:

I spent a month rescuing animals in the aftermath of Katrina. The group I was with got a call one morning from the police. A dog – a bullmastiff, according to them -  was on a shelf in the closet of a wrecked house and was “out of his fucking mind.” He had bitten a couple of them and, if someone didn’t get him down, they were going to shoot him. I arrived to find a terrified, twenty-five pound chow/shiba mix who was, in fact, out of his fucking mind. He had been stuck in that house for two weeks after the hurricane and he bore a striking resemblance to Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.” It took me almost an hour to calm him down enough to get a slip leash on him and get him out of there.

Two weeks earlier, fourteen of us from Pasado’s Safe Haven in Washington had jumped on a plane to Houston, then rented several vans to head to New Orleans. We had no idea on the way there where we were going to stay or how we were going to talk our way past the police and military to get into the city. By the time the plane landed, people back at Pasado’s had secured a ranch with an enormous barn in Houma, south of the city. Louis and Linda St. Martin, a local attorney and his wife, told us to use it as we saw fit and we did exactly that. When we first arrived, we discovered that a local equestrian center had been commandeered to temporarily vet check and house the rescued animals until arrangements could be made to reunite them with their people or ship them out to shelters all over the country.

It was a well-intended cluster fuck. Different rescue groups would arrive with trucks and vans full of animals and have to spend hours checking in—after rescuing in 95 degree heat all day. Often the Center would reach capacity before all the animals were unloaded and the rescuers would have to leave to try to find some other place for them. And, of course, the in-fighting was stupendous. The Humane Society, the ASPCA, local groups… everyone wanted to have endless meetings about who was in charge. ‘Protocol’ seemed to be the watchword. We said fuck a bunch of protocol and set up two hundred wire kennels in the barn. Back in Washington, Pasado’s sent out emails and appeals on their website for volunteers. No experience necessary, bring your sleeping bags and tents and come help save lives. No certification or degrees required, unlike most of the other groups.

Within two weeks, we had vets and vet teams from all over the country and hundreds of volunteers. We had people donating private planes with the seats removed to fly animals to no-kill shelters all over the country. Some just loaded up vans and drove hundreds of miles or more to deliver them.

Some people were there for a few days and some for a few months. We saved over 1200 animals and were blackballed in Louisiana for refusing to follow protocol.

Lucky wouldn’t let anyone handle him but me. He was in the barn for several days before he was shipped out to a shelter. Over the ensuing months, I thought about him often. I had considered taking him home but I had two cats and two other dogs at the time and I didn’t want to get him all the way back to Washington to find he couldn’t get along with everyone. I even tried to find him a couple of times but, unknown to me, his identification number from the barn had been copied down wrongly, so it was fruitless.

In February of 2006, I was talking with a friend in Alabama whom I had met when she came to volunteer with us. She was the best I’ve ever seen with aggressive dogs and she ran a shelter in Alabama. We were reminiscing and, of course, Lucky’s name came up. I told her I hadn’t been able to locate him.

Four days later, she called me. Someone had just surrendered him at her shelter. I had her fly him to Washington immediately.

Today, Lucky is approximately 7-8 years old and shares our house with four other rescued dogs and my unbelievable wife, Amanda, who is – naturally – a dog trainer. My cats have passed away but Lucky did fine with them. He loves his housemates but, not unexpectedly, he has his problems. He is fiercely protective of our home and doesn’t do well with people or dogs he doesn’t know extremely well. That isn’t going to change, so we manage his behavior when people are over by putting him in my office with some toys and a frozen peanut butter kong. He thinks he’s died and gone to heaven.

The photo above is obviously the before. The after is below. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go hug my dog.

Thanks to all of you who sent photos of your dogs. I will eventually post them all. I think.  But this is my new favorite Agitator thing. So keep them coming.

This week’s pooch is “Dwight” a boxer/staffie mix owned by reader Scott Isaacs.

This is Boomer. Sent in by his owner, Luke Fenn.

I like this idea. If you would like your dog featured on Sunday Evening Dog Blogging, send photos to me here.

• I’d like to see the new White House video game czar develop a video game that encourages players to spend taxpayer money wisely and frugally. But then, that would probably mean not having a White House video game czar.
• The species barrier has been broken, as a non-dog wins Westminster.
• The entertainment industry continues to insult its customers.
• Arizona.
• Man spends time in jail after refusing to license his dog.
• Police chief arrested on drug charges.
• This is not a repeat of the link directly above.
• A+++++ seller. Would buy again.
• New ONDCP ad: Smoking pot isn’t cool. It’s dangerous. You know what is cool and not dangerous? Jumping off of buildings.

Not my dog, or my photo. It’s the wonderful work of photographer Seth Casteel, and there are a few more at his website.

• Your latest Hollywood-colluding-with-government copyright outrage.
• Amazing photos from an abandoned New York leper colony.
• British court rules that composing a photo the way someone else has could be a violation of copyright.
• Here is a dog jumping on a trampoline.
• Red State founder and CNN commenter tells radio audience that watching someone he disagrees with politically writhe in pain until the guy requires hospitalization is “made of awesome.”
• Despite promises from politicians, NYC continues with its ridiculous pot arrests.
• “Why more than a dozen teenage girls are exhibiting Tourette’s-like symptoms.”
• Headline of the day.
• Dahlia Lithwich on how Illinois awful recording cops law might affect this year’s G8 summit in Chicago.
• Good post on leash law Tasering: “‘Protect and Serve’ does not mean “you have to win every argument ever.’”

• Here are 300+ photos of dogs looking out of windows.
• Headline of the day. 
• Heroes of the Concordia.
• One in 419 Americans must now register as a sex offender.
• Federal judge says you can be forced do de-encrypt your laptop.
• I may have had a minor heart attack while watching this video. It ends well, though.
• Jonathan Coulton on Megaupload.
• “Those who sat through the film in its entirety were given a . . . a black beanie hat and . . . a blood-splattered tampon in a tube.
• The 2012 horse race.

This is my parents’ old and graying pooch Max, after two days of Daisy wearing him out.

He’s tired.

Daisy’s boyfriend Leo came over this evening. Cuteness ensued.

Man photographs his dog with its head out the window at increasing speeds.

Awesomeness ensues.

Also: Photos of Basset Hounds running.

It’s been awhile . . .

I wasn’t at the best angle to fully capture the uplifted leg. But you get the idea.

Good dog.

Lexy is often employed for various photographic experiments, testing film, lenses, etc.  This was a bounce flash test.  When I was done he made me play with him for 45 minutes.  Huskies seem to be an infinite bundle of energy.

I printed and framed 16x20s of these and have them hanging on the walls.

Thankfully, he’s starting to add a bit more flesh over his bones.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Like Radley, I have dogs except mine are Siberian Huskies.  The  gray one is named Natasha (Tasha) and the white one is named Aleksei (Lexy).  Tasha is 12 years old and Lexy is 2.

Lexy and Tasha then (2009)

Lexy and Tasha now (2011)

My hobby is black and white film photography so the majority of photos I take are black and white and are printed in a traditional darkroom.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

I picked up the new Canon EOS Rebel T3i last week. Wow, is it a beautiful camera. So far I’ve noticed the biggest difference while shooting at concerts, where the expanded ISO (it goes up to 6400, expandable to 12,800) gives you more room to zoom without losing shutter speed. I’ll post a few shots from recent shows later this week. For now, here are some photos from the dog park.

It hit 60 degrees today. That, of course, is dog park weather.

Bought a new couch this week. I wasn’t happy with the one I had, and I saw one I liked on sale. So I now have two, at least until I can sell the old one. Daisy has been a bit overwhelmed by the doubling of her napping space. So she’s been alternating between couches.

Other dog news this week: She caught a squirrel during one of our walks. For her, this was a glorious, long-sought triumph. For me, it was a mess. She maimed the thing, but didn’t really know what to do with it once she had it. Which means I had to euthanize it. This was traumatic, because it was really difficult to find a tiny squirrel vein in which to put the syringe. I’m kidding. I used a log. And it was gross. Try not to think of her savage beastliness while you look at the cute pictures.

Daisy blew my mind this week. I guess she ate something bad on our walk Tuesday morning, because she was throwing up all morning. I promptly cleaned it up the first two times, but the third time, I was finishing up a blog post, so I didn’t get to it for a few minutes. She tried to get my attention, wearing that look of doggie shame. I blew her off to finish typing. Next came the amazing part: She walked to the back of my apartment, picked up a rag in her mouth, took it to her mess, covered the mess with the rag, then started patting it with her paw.

Now, she actually made the mess worse by patting it into the carpet. But still. I mean, wow.

Here’s a little trick I’ve taught my last three dogs.

So as I mentioned in a previous SEDB post, Daisy is in love. His name is Leo, and he’s a very handsome Staffie mix, also about a year-and-a-half old. Daisy is still a bit skittish around other dogs. But when she sees Leo, it’s kissing, pawing, impossibly cute doggie love. His owner walks him on a pretty regular schedule, which Daisy has now learned. So at about the same time each morning and evening, Daisy goes to the window and waits to get a glimpse of Leo. As soon as she spots him, she goes nuts, circling and pawing at me and panting until I finally take her out to see him.

Sigh. They grow up so fast.

I caught yesterday’s interlude with my camera.

It's about that time.

Same time every evening.

She just caught his scent.

Leo! That's him, to the right of the nose smudges she's made on the window.

Must get closer.

I have sturdy screens. Or she'd probably jump.

Take me to him.