Rudy, a 13-year-old Lhasa Apso, has a pair of “doggles” and a small hat to protect him from the sun, Smith said. The Smiths have tried other things, such as booties, to make their walks comfortable and safe.

“I found with him, so long as you’re doing what it is that he’s interested in doing, he’s OK with wearing it,” Smith said. “He’s an indoor guy, but it’s something he really looks forward to.”

Skelli Dedmon, Smith’s neighbor and president of the Best Friends Dog Club of Sun City, stressed the importance of keeping pets safe and healthy in the scorching Arizona heat.

“This time of year is kind of tough to exercise your dog,” Dedmon said, adding her dog Mitzi, a black Labrador mix, gets hot very quickly because of her dark fur, while other dogs with lighter coats can sunburn.

The Best Friends Dog Club has had several speakers talk to the group about heat safety for pets.

Bretta Nelson, Arizona Humane Society spokeswoman, said there are many things to keep in mind for pets in the heat, including the obvious one: don’t leave pets in the car.

“One of the main things is to keep your pet indoors,” Nelson said, adding if pets are outside, they need water and shade. Ventilated shelters are great, but even a wire kennel with a rug thrown over the top offers relief from the sun and good air circulation.

“You want to make sure they have somewhere to get out of the sun,” Nelson said.

If pets are outside, make sure to also use plastic water dishes, not metal ones, and a dish that won’t spill.

Nelson said pet owners also need to provide enough water depending on the size of the breed. For large dogs, use a 5-gallon bucket, which has removable handles, making it easy to weave through a fence.

Nelson also said when the temperatures really heat up, pet owners should make sure not to exercise in the heat of the afternoon. Instead, opt for walk times late at night or early in the morning.

Heat rises from the ground, and since pets are much closer to the ground than their owners, “just imagine how easily they are affected by that heat,” Nelson said.

She said pet owners should also limit their pet’s activity during the summer as “pets don’t know when they’ve had enough.”

“They’re not going to know when to slow down,” Nelson said.

Lee Root, president of the Sun City Grand pet club, said walking pets at sunrise or sunset is the best option, since late at night they have the added concern of coyotes that roam the neighborhoods.

Whenever possible, Root said, owners should walk their pets on something cool, like grass or even concrete rather than asphalt.

Umbrellas don’t have to be used just for rain, but can also provide a bit of shade, and spray bottles are good to carry around to mist both yourself and your animal, she said.

Summer is the time to get out the booties for your dog, Root said.

“When it gets over 100, there’s not much you can do,” she said. “It’s never too early to be prepared. It’s time to start thinking about that.”

Arizona Humane Society emergency animal medical technicians receive about 23,000 calls a year, Nelson said, and many of those calls are heat-related.

AHS tries to educate pet owners about the importance of using safety precautions in the 100-plus degree temperatures.

“They just don’t even think about it sometimes,” Nelson said, adding neglect in the heat could lead to animal cruelty charges.

Some signs of pet heat stroke include rabid panting, glazed eyes, excessive salivating, whining and sometimes vomiting, Nelson said.

In those cases, Nelson recommended while searching for vet care, pet owners can start applying cool water in small amount to the animal’s body, including the shoulders, stomach and feet.

Lynette Jelinek, Glendale Fire Department Crisis Response manager, who works with city Crisis Response dog Topaz, said some people don’t intentionally hurt their pets, they don’t know the heat dangers.

She said dogs cool down by panting and breeds with flat faces like bulldogs can’t breathe as quickly as others, while huskies have much thicker fur and heat up more quickly.

Because of the heat, many people choose to shave their pets. Jelinek warned pet owners to keep in mind they might need to apply sunscreen on their pets to protect their skin.

Pool and lawn-care chemicals can be very harmful to pets, Jelinek said, so don’t let pets drink pool water and be careful in the yard. If your pet wants to cool down, a small child-size play pool filled with regular water is a great option.

“Doggie safety vests are pretty good to have around,” Jelinek said.

For more heat safety tips, visit www.glendaleaz.com/fire/news/CrisisResponseDog.cfm#tips, or www.azhumane.org.

The Arizona Humane Society pets in distress hotline is free and available daily from 8 am to 7 pm by calling 602-997-7585, ext. 2073.

Linda Smith’s dog Rudy’s hat is available at www.k9koolhats.com; his goggles are from Petsmart or available at www.doggles.com.

Now that the Glennallen residents targeted in the investigation are behind bars, the government is trying to reunite the paintings with their rightful owner.

Jesse Leboeuf and his longtime companion Loretta Sternbach pleaded guilty in July 2011 to selling hundreds of pounds of illegal walrus ivory, at least two polar bear hides and two illegal machine guns. The plea agreement put the couple in prison, and the five paintings landed in the custody of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Thats a rarity, said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Bruce Woods. Im not aware that weve ever seized artwork, other than handicraft, you know, illegal animal products used in artwork.

In a court filing Tuesday, the US Attorneys Office started the process of returning the artwork to its rightful owner. Thats probably an insurance company.

The court papers filed this week are just the latest chapter in the tale of the stolen paintings, which include highly sought after works from Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Mildred Anne Butler, among others.

They were great paintings. Theyd been in museums, said Nicolette Wernick, the formerly wealthy widow from Connecticut from whom the paintings were allegedly stolen. I always suspected the movers, but I never got any proof.

Wernick said she was moving from Massachusetts to a remodeled condominium in Bloomfield, Conn., in 2005. According to Bloomfield police, Wernicks belongings were packaged to be sent to a moving companys warehouse for about six months, then to the new condo. It was during this time that the paintings went missing, either snatched during the move, from the warehouse or from Wernicks home, according to the local police.

It wasnt until Wernick ventured into the basement of her condo that she realized the paintings were missing, she said. Court papers say she reported the theft in October 2005.

I wept. I was terribly upset. I loved those paintings, Wernick said. I mourned them for years, and then I sort of got over it.

At the time of the theft, though, Wernick was tenacious about getting the paintings back, said Bloomfield police Lt. Mark Samsel, who led the theft investigation and is now the spokesman at the department, which serves a community of about 21,000.

Mrs. Wernick is a pistol. Shes quite the woman, Samsel said.

An insurance company paid Wernicks claim on the stolen works, about $400,000, she said. The paintings are worth twice as much, she said.

Wernick, born in London and a longtime art lover, is hoping to get them back: The five paintings represent the last few pieces of a vast collection she assembled and was forced to sell after she was ensnared in the worlds most infamous Ponzi scheme.

I lost all my money with (Bernie) Madoff, and I had to sell that condo and moved in with my boyfriend, Wernick said. I also had to sell all my paintings.

Despite the efforts of Lt. Samsel and his detectives, the stolen paintings were never recovered, Samsel said. Because of the transient nature of moving companies and their employees — they travel from one new city to another and change employers often, Samsel said — the investigation turned up no specific suspects.

Even though the insurance company paid the $400,000 claim, she says shed like the paintings back.

The bottom line was the list of potential suspects was 100-plus, Samsel said. That left all kinds of loopholes for the who and the when.

The investigation was fully stalled after about 10 or 12 months, Samsel said. Even now, with new information about the potential suspects, the statute of limitations on prosecuting the theft has run out, so it would be impossible to charge someone, he said.

Its a unique case. We dont handle high-end art very often, Samsel said. Ive been playing this game a long time, and this is one of those cases I never stopped wondering about.

The wondering ended when a federal prosecutor in Alaska contacted Samsel in late 2011 to tell him the paintings were recovered as part of an investigation of illegal animal parts sales.

Its unclear exactly who first nabbed the artwork or when. But a wildlife investigator, who worked on the case and asked not to be named because of his work, said Leboeuf told him his half-brother and some cousins grabbed the paintings during a party with the original thieves, who stole them from Wernick.

According to the Tuesday federal court filing in Alaska, Leboeuf told undercover agents in 2010 he bought the paintings from the half-brother, a man named Mario Murphy, for $100,000 worth of gold and silver at some point in 2006.

The court papers say Leboeuf first mentioned the paintings in a 2010 conversation with undercover federal agents, to whom he was plotting to sell illegal ivory from walrus taken at Saint Lawrence Island. The agents spent the night at the Glennallen home on several occasions, the court filing says.

The investigator said Leboeufs rambling about the paintings seemed hard to believe– at first.

Hed be doing what he does, sitting in his chair carving ivory, partaking in the fruits of what he grew upstairs, and he liked to tell stories, the investigator said. Keep in mind, these stories are endless and go on and on in the haze of the smoke in his living room, the investigator said.

Leboeuf showed the agents pictures of the paintings and claimed the artworks value at $30 million. He said he was willing to take $1 million, and if the undercover agents could find a buyer, theyd get a finders fee, too, the court papers say. Leboeuf later showed them two of the paintings: Milton, by Lucien Pissarro, and Cattle And Figures in a Farmland, by William Payne.

Instead of selling the paintings for Leboeuf, federal agents raided his house in April 2011 after a nine-month investigation. They arrested him and Sternbach and found 20 guns, 30 marijuana plants, some coca plants intended for cocaine production, and an unregistered, fully automatic machine gun, according to court documents filed by prosecutors.

In the plea deal, Leboeuf was sentenced to nine years in prison, and Sternbach to 31/2 years.

While the paintings remain with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal attorney has filed a motion to have the artwork placed in the custody of the insurance company that paid the theft claim. That could be completed within a week or two, but the forfeiture process to determine the final ownership of each painting could take more than a year, according to the US Attorneys Office.

Wernick says all five once belonged to her, and she hopes to own them again.

Id spent 30 years collecting this art, she said. Maybe Ill get them back. Id love that.

___

Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com

New collectors and old poured into Christie’s Rockefeller Center sales room on Tuesday night for the start of the big spring auctions. They may have come hoping for fireworks but instead sat through an anemic sale devoid of the kind of suspense and sky’s-the-limit bidding that can give these big-money evenings their excitement.

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“Card Player,” by Cézanne, was bought for $19.1 million, including Christie’s fees. More Photos »

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