A Heartwarming Tail*. Or Is It?

In one of those stories that is supposed to make you feel all warm inside, today the AP is reporting on a lost dog who was found. Now this sort of thing doesn't normally make it to the national news, since it is actually a mundane daily occurrence all across the country. But when it involves the "across the country" part, it becomes news. You see, the dog was lost in Colorado seven months ago.

And found in Knoxville, Tennessee on Christmas night.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Seven months after disappearing from her yard in Colorado, a rat terrier named Daisy walked into the arms of Tracie Crass in Knoxville, some 1,300 miles away. Thanks to Crass, Daisy got an airplane ride home.

Crass spotted 2-year-old Daisy wandering down her sidewalk on Christmas night. She assumed the 12-pound dog had slipped out of its home amid holiday festivities, so she brought the pooch on her porch and waited for its owner to come looking for it.

When no one showed up by the next day, Crass telephoned the number on Daisy's rabies tag. She reached Daisy's veterinarian, who contacted Daisy's owner, Vonda Lundstrom of Aurora, Colo.

Now we're as susceptible to having our heart warmed as the next crustacean, but we are also the main clearinghouse for information on the Animal Uprising™, so we tend to be a bit on the suspicious side. We noticed that Daisy is a rat terrier. Then our extensive investigative skills turned up another item after much arduous searching (it was the very next story on the news site). This makes us ask the question: Is it possible that Daisy was making a delivery?

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - No child became sick, but the thought of finding mouse remains in cooked green beans at a preschool lunch has officials feeling ill.

About half of the Oak Ridge Preschool's 206 students had been served Wednesday when a teacher distributing the meals spotted suspected rodent remains.

Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp., which provides food service management to Oak Ridge and more than 420 other public and private school systems around the country, was investigating, spokeswoman Karen Cutler said Thursday.

"The object has not been identified. There is no confirmation of what the object is until it is tested," Cutler said, noting that the local health department considered the health risk so minor "they declined to come out. They are not going to take any samples or anything."

Hey, these questions have to be asked. And who better to ask them?

*(And yes, the spelling was intentional)