Bob the Bernese mountain dog doesn’t know how lucky he is.

Abandoned shortly after birth, Bob is on his way from Mankato to a new home in Vancouver, British Columbia — via a ride to northern Wyoming with a Good Samaritan.

Waiting for him will be two little girls and their parents just aching to make the puppy a part of their family.

“Obviously, a local dog would have been easier. But once we saw his picture and learned about his story we realized it doesn’t matter where he is, he has to come here,” said Terry MacEwan of Vancouver.

Indeed, the series of unlikely events that took place the past weeks makes Bob’s journey seem preordained. They include a chance sighting on the Internet, a Wyoming license plate on a car parked in a Mankato driveway and enough good-hearted people to make a Hallmark card-writer weep.

It started a month ago when 10 puppies — actually two litters of five — were found nursing from one mother in rural Faribault County. The dogs were saved from euthanizing by a farmer who got them to the Blue Earth Nicollet County Humane Society.

Humane Society volunteers Catherine and Don Nelson helped get the puppies and the mother in foster care until they could be adopted out.

Bob’s exact lineage isn’t known. Although his mother is bernese, he appears to be part golden retriever or yellow lab. Pure Bernese are usually brown, white and black colored.

A week ago Sunday night, Catherine posted Bob’s photo and information on the national PetFinder.com Web site. Just minutes later, MacEwan logged on to another pet Web site looking for a new puppy for his family — wife, Denise, and their 10- and 14-year-old daughters Alexa and Sydney.

They had a cocker spaniel for 15 years who died last summer.

“We waited a while and then decided we had a void in our life and we wanted to look for another member of the family,” said MacEwan, who owns a temporary fencing business.

As he clicked on links from one Web site to another he ended up at PetFinder and typed in “Bernese mountain dog.” An active family, the MacEwans had decided they wanted a large dog like a Bernese, which grow to about 80 pounds.

On the Web site, a photo of Bob popped up. Once the family saw him, MacEwan said he knew the search was over.

The MacEwans were planning to fly to Minnesota to bring Bob back, but the fast-growing 8-week old puppy was now too big to be allowed to be carried onto a plane and the Humane Society won’t allow them to be flown in cargo holds.

So Terry MacEwan began making plans for a 26-hour drive to Mankato.

But one nice evening last week, Catherine and Don Nelson were walking through their neighborhood near the MSU campus when Catherine spotted a car with a Wyoming license plate.

She knocked on the Ellis Avenue door of Bob and Dorothy Isdahl and found the car belonged to their visiting daughter, Connie King.

King, who would soon be heading home — near Cody, Wyo. — said she’d be glad to relay Bob part of the way to the MacEwan family.

“I’m a pet rescuer, animal lover myself,” King said. “I’m driving 16 hours west, so they only have to come 10 hours to meet me.”

Tuesday morning, the Nelsons dropped Bob off with King, who then headed out for Wyoming. Bob will have company on the trip — King’s Australian shepherd and Australian Kelpie, both stock dogs who help on King’s and her husband’s horse ranch.

The MacEwan family decided to make a family trip of it. The girls took a couple days off school and they plan to arrive at King’s ranch early Saturday morning to pick up Bob.

Catherine Nelson said the chance encounters and resulting happy ending are what make work with the Humane Society so fulfilling.

“Bob’s so irresistible. And there’s two little girls that are going to love him.”

Each week one third-grade student at Fountain Lake Elementary School leaves class for 30 minutes for a special time with Buddy.

Buddy is a beautiful collie who recently moved to Hot Springs Village from Madison, Wis., with his owners, Carla and Howard Olson. He has been trained from the time he was a puppy to work around children and elderly people.

Reading aloud to Buddy helps the children develop their reading skills. Carla Olson said most children are nervous about reading aloud in front of their classmates, but Buddy will sit and listen to them without making any noise.

Students from the Grayson County High School donated their time and hardwork to build birdhouses and birdfeeders for the Grayson Manor in Leitchfield.

Larry Fleenor’s woodworking class built eighteen birdhouses. The employees of Grayson Manor then painted each of them to reflect each others different personalities.

Larry Baker’s metalworking class built six bird feeders and shepard hooks. Starting this August Baker plans to have ten more built by the end of the year.

Jordan Wilkerson, secretary and Kellie Gibson, president of Skills USA/VICA cut and fabricated the metal shepards hooks themselves.

Baker said he got the idea for the project through his daughter that works at Grayson Manor. He asked her what he could do for the residents. She responded in saying they love birds, and animals in general because it reminded them of home. It took two weeks to build the shepards hooks and birdfeeders.

Debbie Clack, activities director for Grayson Manor wanted to extend a show of gratitude for the students and let them know that the residents greatly appreciate their efforts.

A poorly cat who was plagued by hay fever has been given a special inhaler after a rape field was planted next to his home.

Bruno, who suffers from asthma, nearly died after he succumbed to the wheezing and spluttering that plagues millions of humans during the summer months.

Owner Anna Dickie noticed her moggie’s asthma became unbearable when he was exposed to the bright yellow rape crop which popped up near to their home in Cavendish near Sudbury, Suffolk.

The worried animal lover took Bruno, an Asian ticked tabby, to specialist vets to try to put an end to his suffering during the summer months.

She said: “It is quite rare but my asthmatic cat is particularly affected by the horrid rape crop.

“He developed breathing problems and was diagnosed with asthma last year after we took him to specialists in Newmarket.

“He was close to dying and spent several days in intensive care because of his asthma.”

The vets gave the moggy steroids and a puffer but his condition deteriorated when he came into contact with the fields of yellow flowers.

Mrs Dickie said: “He was given daily steroids and a puffer which seemed to get it under control but since we had a rape field planted directly adjacent to our home, he has got a lot worse.”

The experts suggested Bruno use a specially adapted inhaler – just like human sufferers do – to try to ease his snuffles. Mrs Dickie now has to administer the drugs through the special puffer which fits over her cat’s mouth.

Admitting she was sceptical at first, the devoted owner said the inhaler has eased Bruno’s hayfever.

She said: “We had to experiment with using the puffer at first although it looks just like a human inhaler.

“It has a plastic tube fitted to the mouthpiece which allows the spray to go directly into Bruno. He has breathing problems and gets choked up and starts wheezing. It is not very nice at all.

“He wasn’t very keen at first, but he is now very good at taking it.”

Although pets are usually blamed for causing allergies with their shedding fur, feline asthma affects one in 200 cats. Symptoms include coughing wheezing and difficulty breathing.

Experts now believe human lifestyles, such as smoking, dusty houses, pollen, human dandruff and even some types of cat litter, can contribute to cat asthma.

The 3,500-mile partition is twice as long as the Great Wall of China but cannot stop dromedaries in search of a mate.

One of the world’s biggest man-made structures, Australia’s Dog Fence, is under threat from amorous wild camels barging into it in search of partners.

The 3,500 mile-long fence, stretching into Queens land from the Great Southern Bight in Western Australia, was built in the 1950s to keep dingoes and wild dogs out of sheep-grazing areas in the east. Kangaroos and emus regularly damage it, but the camels – descendants of animals brought to Australia in the 19th century to open up the interior – have become the biggest problem.

The wild camel population, already the largest in the world, doubles every eight years, and the mating season is now under way. Michael Balharry, manager of the South Australian segment, said that frustrated males were ramming their way through the fence to reach females.

The problem with the barrier – twice the length of the Great Wall of China – is that camels could get their heads over it, he said. “If you add a bit and electrify the top of it, maybe this will stop them.”

For nearly three weeks, employees spent hours unsuccessfully trying to locate a dog they heard yelping from somewhere in the mountains above the Hawaii Nature Center in Iao Valley.

On Wednesday, persistence paid off when Steven Fischer found the emaciated female heeler mix on an 8-foot ledge above a 400-foot cliff.

“I knew there was a dog up there crying for help,” Fischer, a cook at the Nature Cafe, told The Maui News. “I couldn’t handle letting the dog die on the mountain.”

Fischer, Hawaii Nature Center Director of Operations J.D. Wyatt and Programs Manager Jay Franey brought the dog to safety Wednesday afternoon. Using ropes to rappel down the sheer cliff, the three men first slid the dog to each other in a blanket before Franey carried the 20-pound animal in a backpack much of the way.

They turned the dog over to Maui Humane Society animal control officer Marty Davis so the young animal could be examined by a veterinarian.

“That dog did touch a lot of hearts,” said Dee Dee Santos-Ai, Hawaii Nature Center gift shop manager.

Employees had called police, the Fire Department and state Department of Land and Natural Resources to try to get help for the dog that sounded like it was in distress.

“It would have been unrealistic to ask the Police Department or Fire Department to go search,” Wyatt said.

But a DLNR officer gave employees an idea of where the dog might be, Santos-Ai said.

“It was almost like the dog was saying help,” she said. “It’s a life to us. That’s why these guys didn’t stop.”

Fischer, 30, who moved to Maui from the Longview-Kelso area of Washington state in December, had hiked up the mountain every day, waiting for hours at a time to see if the dog would bark so he could get a fix on its location.

The dog wouldn’t bark while he was on the mountain, Fischer said, only to start barking again once he was off the ridge.

At times, visitors could hear the dog barking, especially when children were at the center.

Fischer and his uncle Jody Sparks, who owns the Nature Cafe, would show up at 7:30 in the morning, well before the cafe opened, to listen for the dog’s bark.

“We even closed the cafe a couple of days to look for that dog,” Sparks said.

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, Fischer again climbed up to the ridge. About an hour and a half later, he spotted the dog, who was 20 feet away under a large tree. “She was light brown, blended into the tree,” said Fischer, who first noticed her ears. “She heard me and poked her head up. She’s staring right at me.”

He was prepared for the possibility that the dog might be aggressive, but she didn’t move when he walked up to her and she drank water from a container he held in his hand.

Fischer also had food for the dog, who was on a dirt ledge that was 6 to 8 inches wide.

Unable to bring the dog down himself, he called his uncle for help. Because Sparks was busy serving lunches, Wyatt and Franey climbed up instead.

Wyatt said the three “inch-wormed” their way down one at a time, moving sideways at times while anchoring ropes on trees before reaching the bottom at about 3 p.m.

“There was no going fast,” Fischer said.

Wyatt, 41, had to put off a business call when his cellular telephone rang about halfway up the ridge. He did use the phone to call the Maui Humane Society as the climbers and dog were descending.

Because the dog was sliding out of the blanket, the men decided to see if she would fit in the backpack, which she did.

“By the end, she trusted us enough to put her in the backpack. She didn’t even bark once,” said Franey, 37. “The best thing was just to know we got to go and take care of her.”

While the men may have taken some unnecessary risks to rescue the dog, Wyatt said the result was worth the effort.

“Everyone on staff has really been concerned about the dog,” said Wyatt, 41. “We do some great things for kids here, but that’s got to be one of the best feelings.”

“Since I have been on island, it’s been the best feeling I’ve gotten,” Fischer said.