This Pooch Chooses a People Hospital

Buddy, a 6-year-old runaway pooch, knew where to go after he was hit by a car in Bellflower: Kaiser Permanente hospital.

“The dog walked through the emergency room’s automatic doors and lay on the floor next to the waiting room area,” said Aaron Reyes, director of operations for the Southeast Area Animal Control Authority.

“The guards saw that he was limping and looked tired, so they called us right away.” Buddy was treated at the animal agency by Dr. Brad Brunskill (see photo), and the prognosis for recovery is good.

An implanted microchip indicated that he belonged to American Rental in Bellflower, which is just a block from Kaiser Permanente.

Buddy worked at the company as a guard dog and, when some fencing was removed during construction two weeks ago, he apparently took it as an invitation to take some vacation time.

A notice from the Viagra folks? Nope, the message to Stan Coutant of Sierra Madre regarded his trash pickup bill (see accompanying).

Disarming warning: “I saw this sign on a window of a bank in Hastings, Minn.,” wrote Harry Love of Bakersfield. “I guess it must be common to carry a gun into a bank back there.”

For masochists? It might be, if the sign were in America. “Actually, I was in France,” wrote Jackson Henry of Torrance, “and ‘pain’ is French for bread. It was a painful reminder of what bread does to the waistline” (see photo).

Unwanted, dead or alive: “My daughters, who live three miles from me in Placentia, called to say that a possum was in their upstairs hallway,” wrote Gordon Shaffer of Anaheim Hills. “I asked if it was dead, and they said, ‘We don’t know. It just lays there.’ ”

Shaffer went to the house and found that “the possum was indeed lying on the floor, so we got a shovel and pushed it into a box. It was still playing possum or dead, so we dropped it over the wall in back. Later that day my daughters reported that it was gone!”

He asked for it: A Diamond Bar man was arrested on suspected parole violations near Covina the other day -- nothing unusual about that.

Except for one detail, reported by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. The suspect, Steven Krueger, 42, had cut off his tracking device several months ago and sent it to authorities along with a note that said, “Catch me if you can.” They could and they did.

miscelLAny: Perhaps there was a shortage of math scholars at Long Beach’s Wilson High that year. The class of 1965, the Grunion Gazette says, is holding its 40th reunion Oct. 21, a year late, according to my pocket calculator.

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083; by fax at (213) 237-4712; by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012; and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.