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WASHINGTON (AP) - Needing a wheelchair isn't always the biggest complaint of people left paralyzed by spinal cord injury - it's also the loss of bladder control. On Monday, Michigan doctors began a unique experiment to see if rerouting patients' nerves just might fix that problem. It's a delicate operation: Surgeons cut open a spot on the spine and sew two normally unrelated nerves together - one from the bladder to one from the thigh - with a single hair-thin stitch. It will take months for this new nerve bridge to heal, an anxious waiting period for the first volunteers. But if it works, merely scratching the thigh should signal the bladder to empty, allowing patients to ditch their despised catheters and restore a longed-for degree of freedom, as well as fewer bladder infections and other serious complications. "I've got nothing to lose by doing this," is the way a cautiously hopeful Kevin Bryant, 19 and paralyzed from the waist down by a car crash, app...

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - On most days, a tumor on Zvulun Muola's spinal cord keeps him confined to a wheelchair, but today he is standing on a small, wooden dinghy gliding downstream, navigating between the islands of a tropical paradise. Muola, whose legs are partially paralyzed, is among a handful of disabled patients in Israel using the Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment. The virtual-reality system puts patients at the helm of a life-size video game, forces them to use atrophied muscles and teaches the basic skills necessary to recover from severe injuries and disorders. "It gives more confidence," said Muola, standing shakily on a moving platform, sandwiched between a walker and a physical therapist. "It's hard at the beginning but once you get the hang of it ... it improves stability and helps the patient trust himself." The $650,000 computer system at the Chaim Sheba Rehabilitation Hospital near Tel Aviv is the only one of only a dozen worldwi...

Copy Cat, Now 5, Does It Without Test Tubes, Help Copy Cat, who was cloned by Texas A&M University researchers in 2001, had three kittens in September. Mother and kittens are doing well, said Duane Kraemer, an A&M veterinary medicine professor who helped clone her and has been taking care of her since. "They're cute and we thought people ought to know about the birth," "But we're hoping it doesn't cause the same frenzy CC did." CC got worldwide attention after she was cloned at Texas A&M, which has cloned more species than any institution in the world, including cattle, swine, goats, horses and a deer. The father is Smokey, a naturally born tabby who was brought in to mate with CC. Two of the kittens take after their mother, while the third has a gray coat like his father. CC is not the first cloned cat to give birth, Kraemer said. In New Orleans, two cloned wild African cats successfully mated to produce kittens. Tags: News

LARGO, Fla. (AP) - Brandy the Chihuahua is 6 inches long and weighs less that two pounds. She's not allowed on the furniture because if she jumped off, she'd break. She's also, according the Guinness, officially the Smallest Dog in the World. Brandy's owner, Paulette Keller, carries her around in a sheepskin-lined purse. For fun, she dresses her in a pink Hawaiian dress. You don't pet Brandy so much as rub her with a thumb and forefinger. Brandy made the transformation from Keller's lap ornament to the Smallest Dog in the World over a year ago. The breeder told Keller she thought Brandy was smaller than the smallest dog in the Guinness Book of World Records. Keller took Brandy to the vet, who signed papers listing her vital statistics. So in the 2006 Guinness book, there is bug-eyed Brandy, on the same page with the dog who can fit five tennis balls in its mouth. The perks so far have been few. Last year, the Pedigree dog food company paid to fly Ron and Paulett...

MUMBAI, India (AP) - Mumbai's fussy high-society dogs can now feast on gourmet cuisine specially adapted to their individual tastes and delivered to their homes. More than 500 people have signed up for the Home-Care Dog Food service that caters to canines in Mumbai, India's booming financial and entertainment capital, said the owner of the business, Wasiff Khan. "They tell us about their dog's likes, dislikes, allergies, and we come up with a meal plan for the month," Khan said. Owners' habits are also taken into account, said Khan. On Hindu holidays when people do not eat meat for religious reasons, their dogs go vegetarian too. Those who can afford the service, which costs from 30 rupees to 120 rupees ($0.66 to $2.60) daily, are attracted by the convenience, said Khan. Before now, such pet pampering was unheard of in India, where hundreds of millions of people earn less in a day than the cost of these meals and where stray dogs are found on every street corn...

GRESHAM, Wis. (AP) - A Rottweiler awoke a mother in time to grab her two young sons and escape from their burning house over the weekend in eastern Wisconsin, according to sheriff's officials. The 150-pound dog, named Zeus, awoke Jennifer Brusoe at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday at their rented house, according to a Shawano County sheriff's officials. Brusoe grabbed her two sons, ages 5 and 6, and escaped. One of the children was injured from a piece of falling ceiling, but his injuries were not life threatening, Deputy Jesse Sperberg said in a news release. "She said the whole ceiling was in flames," sheriff's Sgt. Staber Cook said. "She grabbed the children as the ceiling collapsed in the bedrooms." The Rottweiler and a family cat escaped and were picked up by a neighbor. The Gresham Fire Department was investigating the fire, which they don't consider suspicious. Cook said it may have started from an electrical overload caused by electric heaters. The f...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just in time for the holidays, America's best-known Scottish terrier is back with a new video on the White House Web site. It's "Barney's Holiday Extravaganza," a production that follows Barney around the White House as he plans a holiday show, runs into trouble developing a plot and then wrangles over his budget with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Budget Director Rob Portman. The supporting cast includes President Bush, his wife, Laura, entertainer Dolly Parton, three-time Super Bowl champion and "Dancing with the Stars" winner Emmitt Smith, political strategist Karl Rove, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, Press Secretary Tony Snow and others. Miss Beazley, the Bushes' other Scottish terrier, and the first cat, Willie, also make appearances. --- On the Net: http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/2006/barneycam.html Tags: News

SPENCER, Iowa (AP) - The final chapter is closed on Dewey Readmore Books. The 19-year-old cat, who became a mascot for the city's library after being found in a book drop, died Wednesday in the arms of librarian Vicki Myron. The temperature was minus 10 when Myron and another librarian found Dewey under a pile of books in the library's book drop when they came to work one morning in January 1988. "We didn't know if someone abandoned him or if a Good Samaritan found him on the street and shoved him in the book drop to get him out of the cold," she said. "His paws were frozen. We warmed him up and fed him and he just purred and cuddled. From day one, we felt he'd be the right personality for the public." Since then, Dewey became famous, Myron said. She said TV crews came from as far away as Japan to do stories about him. Myron said she has found 222 "hits" for Dewey on the Internet search engine "Google." Dewey's name was chosen...

Tags: Pictures Funny

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue. -Anonymous Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. -Ann Landers If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. -Will Rogers There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. -Ben Williams A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself. -Josh Billings The average dog is a nicer person than the average person. -Andy Rooney We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made. -M. Acklam Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate. -Sigmund Freud I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult. -Rita Rudner A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perse...

TALK TO THE DISABLED TUESDAY! The first Tuesday of every month is hereby proclaimed as Talk To The Disabled Tuesday . NOW, THEREFORE, I, The WillaWoman, do hereby proclaim the First Tuesday of every Month as TALK TO THE DISABLED TUESDAY . I call upon public officials, educators, librarians, parents, and all the people of the World to observe this day with the appropriate actions outlined below. Pretty official sounding, eh?! Goals : Raise awareness of the Disabled's plight of feeling invisible or feeling like a circus freak. Demonstrate to the abled-bodied that The Disabled are just like everyone else. Cause a generational avalanche of knowledge to the abled-bodied 's children. Make the day of a lonely, ostracized Disabled Person . Actions : Say "Hello" to a Disabled Person . Nod and smile to a Disabled Person . Strike up a conversation with a Disabled Person . Have your child say "Hello" to a Disabled Person . Look a Disabled Person in the eye and a...

A few weeks ago, we lost our beloved "pet" dog Barney. Here's a memorial to him. Not Just "Man's" Best Friend, But Every "Man's" Best Friend We got Barney when we lived in Vermont. At the time, we had our first dog JoJo, who had terrible separation anxiety (which later turned out to be a good thing when she needed to be trained as my first Service Dog). We decided to get another dog to be her companion. That dog was Barney. When we went to look at Barney's litter, each little 4-week old puppy looked completely different. But Barney stood out because he was the only one that was brown and white. So we chose him. On the way home, we were trying to decide what to name him. We both thought "Barney" at the same time. For some reason, he seemed kind of dorky, like Barney Fife. That name certainly came to fit him. Barney was a very easy puppy to housebreak and train. We had JoJo there to teach him dog-etiquette and the rules ...

Tags: Barney

A new priest at his first mass was so nervous he could hardly speak. After mass he asked the monsignor how he had done. The monsignor replied, "When I am worried about getting nervous On the pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass. If I start to get nervous, I take a sip." So next Sunday he took the monsignor's advice. At the beginning of the sermon, he got nervous and took a drink. He proceeded to talk up a storm. Upon his return to his office after the mass, he found the following note on the door: Sip the vodka, don't gulp. There are 10 commandments, not 12. There are 12 disciples, not 10. Jesus was consecrated, not constipated. Jacob wagered his donkey, he did not bet his ass. We do not refer to Jesus Christ as the late J.C. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Daddy, Junior and the spooky. David slew Goliath, he did not kick the sh*t out of him. When David was hit by a rock and was knocked off his donkey, don't say he was ston...