Mayor Rawlings, Judge Jenkins to join Nina Pham and her dog Bentley at ... - Dallas Morning News (blog)



Bentley!



Update at 12:22 p.m. October 31: Dallas City Hall now says Nina Pham and Bentley will be reunited Saturday morning at 9 a.m. — and they will be joined by Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. Says the heads-up from the city, Pham “will be seeing Bentley for the first time since he was placed in isolation and will be taking him home.”



There will be a press conference during which Pham will speak to the local media for the first time since returning home from the National Institutes of Health.


We have also asked the city how much it cost to care for Bentley since he was placed in isolation. Says city spokesperson Sana Syed via email, “Since the isolation period is still not over, we are in the process of determining how much this effort cost. The cost of Bentley’s care has been a collaborative effort through the City of Dallas, Texas Animal Health Commission, Texas A&M, TDSHS, Dallas County and community support.” We likely won’t know how much it cost until mid-November.


Original item posted at 6:06 p.m. October 30: It’s official: Bentley is Ebola-free. And according to city of Dallas spokesperson Sana Syed, he will be reunted with his owner — Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas nurse Nina Pham — on Saturday.


As expected, the year-old King Charles Spaniel’s stool and urine were tested for Ebola one final time before the end of his 21-day quarantine at the former Naval Air Station. And all three samples came back negative today. This is the second time his tests came back negative.


Pham, of course, was released from the National Institutes of Health in Maryland one week ago. But she hasn’t seen her dog since returning to Dallas on October 24: Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said over the weekend that while he was “lobbying for her and the dog,” he wanted to make sure letting Bentley see his owner wouldn’t disrupt his routine while in quarantine. As Jenkins told The Dallas Morning News, Bentley’s been suffering from separation anxiety ever since rescue workers in Hazmat outfits pulled the dog out of Pham’s Marquita Avenue duplex on October 13.


Pham was told earlier this afternoon that Bentley’s Ebola-free. When she was released last week, she said she really only wanted to do one thing with her newfound freedom: see her dog.


That will happen Saturday morning. Syed says Pham will collect Bentley, meet with those who’ve cared for the dog for the last three weeks, then talk to the media. Says Syed, “Nina said it’s clear how much the public cares about the dog and about seeing a happy ending.”





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