Awards for Freeing Dolphins and Piano Cat
October 16, 2009 by Peggy Rowland
Filed under Pets
This year’s ASPCA Humane Awards recipients are brave, helpful and talented.
In March, I told you how to nominate an animal or person for the ASPCA Humane Awards, and the winners have just been announced.
The ASPCA Dog of the Year award went to Archie, an eight-year-old black Labrador retriever. Archie is an assistance dog and social lifeline for Sergeant Clay Rankin who suffered spinal injuries while serving in Iraq.
ASPCA Cat of the Year is Nora, a five-year-old gray tabby who you may have seen playing the piano on YouTube. A Lithuanian composer even arranged a symphony in her honor! Nora is hailed as a great example of how a shelter cat can turn out to be a sensational companion.
The ASPCA “Tommy Monahan” Kid of the Year award has been given to eleven-year-old Monica Plumb who launched PetMask.com to collect online donations to purchase pet masks for fire departments. The award is dedicated to Tommy Monahan who perished in a house fire while trying to save his pet in 2007. He was only 9 years old.
ASPCA Firefighter of the Year award was given to the Hingham Fire Department. They rescued a Labrador retriever named Ollie from the frigid waters of Hingham Harbor after he fell through thin ice. ASPCA Law Enforcement Officers of the Year are Sergeant Terry Mills and Sergeant Jeffrey Heath of the Missouri Highway Patrol. With the help of Tim Rickey and Kyle Held of the Humane Society of Missouri, they participated in the largest federal crackdown on dog fighting in US history, providing a second chance to countless dogs.
ASPCA Henry Bergh Award was given to Steve Smith and Alayne Marker, founders of the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary in Montana. They’ve turned 160 acres of open grassland and cottonwoods into a sanctuary for animals with special needs.
The ASPCA Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded to Richard O’Barry who once trained dolphins for the TV series “Flipper.” In 1970, he founded the Dolphin Project and launched a campaign against the dolphin industry. Since then, O’Barry has rescued and released more than 25 captive dolphins in Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, the Bahamas and the US. He’s the subject of an award-winning documentary, “The Cove.”
Congratulations and thanks to all the winners.
(Image via stock.xchng)
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