N.C. officials now allow father to care for GI's dogs

The saga of the father getting static from county officials because he is caring for his son’s two dogs while the soldier is in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division (see April 21 Grumpy Editor) has come to a sudden, happy conclusion.

Following national publicity on the matter, officials are showing fresh sensitivity to pet-owning service personnel in the area, home to Fort Bragg, a major military reservation. 

Cumberland County, N.C. officials had claimed Henry Carroll, of Fayetteville, an Army veteran disabled by a heart condition, was running a kennel, since with his own three dogs, five dogs under one roof put things into the pet boarding house category.

Steve Sbraccia, reporter at WNCN-TV, the NBC outlet in Raleigh, tells Grumpy Editor that county officials agreed to amend an ordinance that will allow Carroll, and others in the same situation, to keep an over-the-limit number of dogs on a temporary basis without need to be licensed as a kennel.

“The county’s ruling that five dogs were too many came back to bite them,” mentions Sbraccia.

“County officials admitted they were inundated with negative publicity resulting from the situation after the story went national, but they insist the negative publicity wasn’t what made them change their minds about the pet ordinance,” adds the TV newsman.

Grumpy Editor’s end-of-week leftover notes:

Parched West poised for huge runoff.  Most media have been quiet in reporting bright news concerning above-average mountain snow in the West that will result in a promising runoff, highest in 11 years, via six rivers to ease the drought, which has been heavily covered for months.  Included:  The Colorado River that flows into Lake Powell ---expected to rise 50 feet from its current level --- plus Lake Mead and southward to California and Mexico…Earth Day was spotlighted by 45 King Features cartoonists.  Their comics ranged from serious to funny…Second language:  Promoting a May 2 music event at Mandalay Bay hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, the Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a quarter-page ad --- all in Spanish.

Snap job. To illustrate Wells Fargo & Co. first quarter results, a Bloomberg News photo of a man walking his dog past a Wells Fargo automated teller machine in San Diego gives the photographer a credit line for the easy, quick, “no sweat” shot…Size of the New York Post this week shrunk to 12 inches high, clipping off 1½ inches…Time to share:  If some stories in the eight largest newspapers in Ohio (including the Cleveland Plain Dealer) look alike, it stems from a sharing arrangement through a new network called the Ohio News Organization (OHNO)…Not much comment was made when Ford Motor Co. announced Wednesday that it is hiring 1,500 workers to boost production, primarily on the Focus model, at its plant near St. Petersburg --- in Russia.