Newsday reports ...

NEW YORK - Animal rescuers discovered a miniature poodle so neglected that it could not stand under the weight of its own matted, feces-covered fur, authorities said Friday. An animal protection agent arrested Diana Elias, the owner of the six-year-old dog named Miss Bea, which was discovered in a Manhattan apartment closet with three pounds of gnarled fur on its roughly six-pound frame.

"Miss Bea's body and all four of her legs were encased in a solid cocoon of severely matted hair, and she demonstrated considerable pain when she was handled," Dr. Robert Reisman, an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals medical coordinator, said in a statement.

The ASPCA noted that poodles and some other dogs have been bred not to shed their fur, making grooming particularly vital. Miss Bea's nails had grown so long that they curled around and pierced her paws, the organization said.

Elias, 52, faces up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine if convicted on animal cruelty charges. Rescuers went to the home on an anonymous complaint. Elias has no listed phone number, and prosecutors had no information on whether she had a lawyer.

Miss Bea has been treated and will be put up for adoption.

For a long time, Jarrod Cooper wouldn't tell anyone at the Oakland Animal Shelter what he did for a living. He wasn't there as an NFL player, as the anti-Michael Vick. He had a pretty good idea that if the league wanted someone to do spin control, he wouldn't be the first choice for the job.

The Raiders had started their season without Cooper, while he served a four-game suspension for a positive steroid test. He doubted that he would return the field. It would be so easy to write off a special-teams player, even a great one, if his name was linked to any type of scandal.

He needed something to fill his time, to distract him from the disturbing thoughts that filled his head and to begin building a future without football. So he arrived at the shelter like any other volunteer. The staff members didn't ask too many questions about the heavily muscled young man with elaborate tattoos, but they did find him intriguing.

"He'd drive up in this nice car. He had all this time," volunteer coordinator Megan Webb said, laughing. "We had no idea."

Cooper returned to the Raiders, and everyone at the shelter figured out who he was late in the season, when he got hurt and arrived to volunteer on crutches. By then, he was hooked on the place. He had become the perfect antidote to Vick and his sadistic dogfighting ring - a pro athlete who owned big dogs and, more and more every day, devoted the fierce intensity cultivated by football to the cause of protecting animals.

"When I first came here, I'd see a mean dog, I'd say what's wrong with that dog? And now if I would see a mean dog, I think, 'Who did that to this animal?' " he said. "The dogs only do what you train them to do."