One day after posting a $15,000 reward for his lost dog, Bert Clark was reunited with his beloved pooch Huckleberry

Someone contacted Toronto police after hearing about the reward on the news. Clark and Huckleberry were reunited Sunday night around midnight.

He said his family was thrilled when they heard from police but were reluctant to get too excited until Huckleberry was back in their arms.

"Until you have him back, you don't want to get your hopes up too high," Clark told CTV Toronto on Monday.

"It was a very, very emotional 48 hours," he said. "We're just happy to have him back."

Clark said he paid the $15,000 reward as promised, calling the pooch a member of his family.

Huckleberry, a three-year-old, chocolate-coloured Labrador, went missing Saturday morning after his dog walker tied him to a pipe outside a bakery in the Rosedale neighbourhood.

Clark flew home from Florida when he heard about the news. He immediately suspected his pet was stolen.

Two young people were seen petting the dog before he disappeared.

On Sunday afternoon before receiving the good news, Clark said he hoped the large sum of money he was offering would motivate people to "do the right thing."

"The number I hope is just enough to motivate the people who have done this, or those around them who may know of Huckleberry's whereabouts, to do the right thing and bring him home," he said as went around the city posting flyers of his missing dog.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Galit Solomon

S. Korean dog cloning firm gets first order

Updated Fri. Feb. 15 2008 8:29 AM ET

The Canadian Press

SEOUL, South Korea -- A South Korean firm is offering to clone pet dogs in cooperation with the scientists who created the world's first cloned canine.

Seoul-based RNL Bio says it is already working on its first order from an American woman who wants a clone of her dead pit bull. She was especially attached to it because it saved her life when another dog attacked her and bit off her arm.

The client, Bernann McKunney of California, provided the firm with ear tissue from the dead dog, which she had taken and preserved at a U.S. biotech firm before the dog died.

A company spokeswoman says the chances of successfully creating a clone are about 25 per cent.

The firm is charging US$150,000 for the clones, which clients pay only after they receive a new pet.

Cloning work will be done by a team of Seoul National University scientists led by professor Lee Byeong-chun, a key member of disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk's research team, spokeswoman Kim Yoon said. The company will handle marketing.

Most of Hwang's purported breakthroughs in cloning human stem cells were found to be fake. But the team was found to have successfully created the world's first dog clone, an Afghan hound named "Snuppy."

Lee was the main scientist leading the dog cloning. He later cloned more dogs and succeeded in cloning a wolf. Kim said no other scientists elsewhere had succeeded in creating cloned dogs, and that her company is offering the world's first commercial dog cloning service.

Lee confirmed the university's animal cloning clinic would work on the project, but did not elaborate.

RNL Bio plans to eventually focus on cloning not only pets, but also special dogs like those trained to sniff out bombs. Established in 2000, the company produces animal disinfectants and health supplements, while also conducting stem cell research

Local branch says N.S. SPCA slow in saving animals

February 7 2008

Local SPCA members in Antigonish, N.S., say the group's provincial executives should have acted much sooner to rescue nearly 100 cats and dogs from a Cape Breton animal shelter.

"We found out about four years ago through public complaints that people were very concerned about the housing of a number of animals," Antigonish member Betty O'Neill told CTV Atlantic on Wednesday.

Dozens of animals were found suffering from "horrible neglect" at Celtic Pets Rescue last Saturday, according to a press release from the N.S. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The animals were seized by two investigators from the N.S. SPCA, along with five RCMP members and two special constables. There were 61 cats and 27 dogs, with up to 30 more cats needing to be rescued the following day.

Mary Haley, another local Antigonish SPCA member, said her branch had tried before to motivate the provincial SPCA to take action.

"There was absolutely no way that anything we said impacted on the present executives in Halifax," she said.

The local branch had stopped recommending clients to the Celtic Pets Rescue.

But N.S. SPCA president Pamela Keddy said her organization had received 150 letters in support of Celtic Pets Rescue. Even the local mayor had backed the animals shelter.

"We even had calls from the mayor himself, as late as the day of the seizure, telling us there was nothing wrong with this individual and we should be leaving her alone," said Keddy.

She said the SPCA often has to deal with complaints that have more to do with personality conflicts, rather than actual cases of animal abuse.

"A lot of it plays back to people just not getting along," she said. "There are a lot of very passionate people involved in our industry and we try to work with everybody."

Video footage of the seizure showed dogs living among their own feces. Another building at the shelter had a sewer backup in the basement, where dozens of cats were running free.

Antigonish SPCA member Peggy Cameron said her provincial counterparts should be taken to task for not listening to previous complaints about Celtic Pets Rescue.

"I would say a new slate of officers would definitely be in order. There would have to be some soul-searching among the executives," she said.

With a report by CTV Atlantic's Toby Kaufman

Groundhogs Predict Early Spring

Severe weather across the country that plunged the Prairies in the deep freeze, Prince Edward Island in the dark and Ontario and Quebec under a massive dump of snow will soon come to an end, according to Canada's furry weather forecasters.

Wiarton Willie, Canada's most famous weather prognosticating rodent, heralded an early spring when he failed to see his shadow after being roused from his slumber early Saturday in this small southern Ontario community.

Folklore has it that if a groundhog sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, he'll flee to his burrow, heralding six more weeks of winter - if he doesn't, it means early spring.

Hopefully this will signal the end of what has been an unsually warm winter and those of us that are not fortunate enough to head south for the winter will be able to resume regular training soon.

Thieves take 36 dogs from Ontario kennel

LINWOOD, Ont. - Thirty-six dogs have been taken from a kennel in southwestern Ontario - less than a month after a similar incident nearby.

Police say someone broke into the kennel of a farm in the Linwood area on Sunday and stole the dogs. The value of the dogs to the breeders is about $15,000.

Police believe the culprit is someone with knowledge of the dog-breeding industry.

A kennel north of nearby Wallenstein was broken into twice over the Christmas holidays and 23 dogs were stolen - a loss of $9,000 to the breeders.

Joyce Frey had said it would take about two years for the kennel to breed dogs to replace the stolen ones.