OAKLAND — In a new music video, regular people are filmed doing not-so-regular things: a guy does back flips off a pogo stick, a little girl in a helmet with pink rabbit ears skateboards a half-pipe, youngsters Double Dutch jump rope on their hands, and a three-legged German shepherd from Oakland bolts over a dog jump with ease and grace.
Codie Rae, 5½, was 8 months old when she was dumped in the night box at Oakland Animal Services in July 2006, with a wire wrapped around a badly infected hind leg and instructions to euthanize her because she was in pain.
However, she caught a stroke of luck when the shelter crew saw something special in her and worked with a local volunteer veterinarian to save her life.
That was her first brush with luck.
Her second came earlier this year when she was chosen for Patrick Stump’s video “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia),” a song from his debut six-song album “Truant Wave” that has logged nearly 200,000 hits on YouTube since it was released less than three weeks ago.
The video shows children and adults excelling at the silly — speedy cup-stacking and extreme pen-twirling — and the truly amazing — back-flipping off bleachers and doing jaw-dropping tricks on a BMX bike. The music is uplifting, the performances are uplifting, but some say Codie Rae steals the show.
“I think she understands she has a handicap and tries to make up for it by being out in front,” said her owner, Ralph Kanz, a former Oakland City Council candidate and the president of German Shepherd Rescue of Northern California, a nonprofit group.
Kanz said Codie Rae’s first scene in the video, on leash but pulling to run free, says all you need to know about her. “Nothing can hold her back from living life to the fullest; missing a leg is just not something she worries about,” he said.
He also jokes that dogs are born with three legs and a spare — Codie Rae just doesn’t have her spare.
When she was found at the shelter, “she had a wire wrapped around her leg and it was three times the normal size, and she was still very happy,” said Martha Cline, the shelter’s animal care coordinator.
The vet who worked on her called her Squirrel because she would not stop moving.
After surgery, she returned to Oakland Animal Services for healing and exercise and was put in the front of the adoption center to boost her chances of finding a new home.
“We had doubts about adopting a tripawd but once we saw her incredible spirit and did a little research online, my wife and I had no choice but to open our home to this amazing dog,” Kanz said.
Codie Rae became a member of the Tripawds.com website, where people who have three-legged dogs or are facing the potential of having their dog’s leg amputated can share information and support.
It was there that Stump’s music director, who was not available for comment, found Codie Rae and two other dogs with three legs.
“They knew exactly what they wanted,” Kanz said. Stump, the lead singer with the group Fall Out Boy, apparently once had a three-legged cat and could relate to animals who have lost a leg.
One night in January, Kanz packed up Codie Rae and another three-legged dog, Travis Ray, and headed to Los Angeles to meet two friends with their dog, Wyatt Ray Dawg, and the video crew in a park.
“The first three times (Codie Rae) went around the jump,” Kanz said. “Then they put up the vertical (bars) and she went straight over the jump and they got it. She was only one who could do the jump.”
The shoot took about 45 minutes and along with many humans, a star was born.
“It’s amazing because you see all these different people doing all these different things that they aren’t famous for,” said Mike Walker, the director of dog operations for German Shepherd Rescue of Northern California.
But Codie Rae isn’t really famous either.
Yet.
“Wait until she blogs about it,” joked Kanz.
“Or tweets,” added Walker.
online
View the video at www.youtube.com-
/watch?v=C5nC1yoTh3M&feature=play-
er_embedded.