This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Raffa Dellan's 12-year-old Yorkie, Cody, is a friendly little guy.

He likes to approach strangers on his walks with his master, then roll over on his back for a belly rub.

But on the evening of March 14, when he approached a woman who was standing alone near the stream in Sugar House Park, the 3-pound Yorkshire terrier was kicked into the swift-moving water.

"Why did you do that?" asked a shocked Dellan.

"You shouldn't be here," the woman screamed. "Go back to Mexico."

Dellan, a native of Venezuela who has lived in Utah for 25 years and has never been to Mexico, then noticed the dog had not resurfaced. He jumped into the water, which was littered with tree limbs and leaves, and began feeling around for his pet.

Luckily, Cody's harness had latched onto a tree branch, preventing him from going downstream, and Dellan finally felt the dog's little body in the water. He pulled him to shore and began squeezing his stomach to force the water out while the woman continued to scream, "We're going to build a wall and you're going to pay for it."

Delon didn't have time to stick around and deal with the woman or try to learn her identity. He rushed his dog to a veterinary hospital, which was closed. A groomer was still open and was able to clean Cody up and tend to his many scratches.

"I don't understand the hatred," said Dellan, who teaches aerobics and physical fitness classes to senior citizens and people with special needs at 24 Hour Fitness gyms.

He said at the end of workouts, he typically puts on soothing music and shares an inspirational story with his class. Last week, trying to find some kind of closure to the traumatic incident in the park, he told his class what happened to Cody and why.

He received an outpouring of love, he said, which helps.

As for Cody, he contracted the giardia virus and an eye infection from the dirty water, but he is recovering and seems to be fine.

He no longer approaches strangers for a belly rub, however.

Cleaning up at the 'Oscars' • If good advertising translated directly into votes, Democrats and environmentalists would rule Utah.

Utah-based advertising agency Love Communications won seven awards at the annual conference of the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC), held last week in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Two awards went to Love's advertising campaigns for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), and two were for promotions of the re-election campaign of Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams. Other awards were for the ad promotions of the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office's get-out-the-vote campaign and its vote.utah.gov web site.

The SUWA and Vote Utah campaigns garnered "Best in Show" trophies. The McAdams campaign ads won two gold awards known as "Pollies," which Esquire magazine has dubbed the Oscars of the political advertising business.

There were 2,200 entries, of which only 18 percent received a Pollie. Love's trophies represented two of the three overall honorees in the exclusive "Best in Show" category.

The SUWA ad campaign targeted the proposed Utah Public Lands Initiative by Utah Republican Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz. The animated spots lampooned the proposal with a parody version of the Woody Guthrie classic, "This Land Is Your Land."

The McAdams campaign featured the song, "You've Got a Friend in Ben" with bipartisan McAdams supporters boarding the "Ben Bus."

Back of the bus • The Salt Lake County Democratic Party's Women's Caucus seems to be taking a page from the strategy used by slave-owning states when the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787.

You recall the controversial three-fifths compromise that allowed states to count a slave as three-fifths of a person when determining how many representatives each state would be allowed in Congress based on their population.

In the 21st century, you would think that logic is now obsolete.

But the women's caucus, meeting Monday to vote on proposed bylaws its members want to endorse at the county convention in April, has revived the idea.

One bylaw would allow men to be members of the women's caucus. But each male member would only get 68 percent of a vote, meaning he would be counted as 68 percent of a person.

According to the agenda sent to members of the women's caucus, that reflects the fact than women earn 68 percent of what men make in Utah.