Rip, a stray dog who became a World War II hero after being found homeless and starving in a bombing raid in London, will be remembered at an auction next month.

Rip was saved by an Air Raid Precaution (ARP) warden during the 1940 German attacks in the Poplar area. The terrier-cross became the local ARP post's mascot and soon started sniffing out casualties trapped under burning or bombed buildings.

He located more than 100 victims and won a Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the U.K. military's Victoria Cross for bravery. His circular bronze decoration will be offered by the specialist auction house and dealers Spink on April 23. The medal will fetch as much as 10,000 pounds ($14,400), Spink said in an e-mail last night. It would not name the seller. 

Like Rodney Dangerfield the Dryosaurus gets no respect.  Not now or millions of years ago.

If there was a playground back in the Late Jurassic period, the Dryosaurus was the kid with two left feet, bad asthma and glasses so thick bullies used them to burn ants. While it was built like a super model with long neck and long slender legs, it didn’t have the sex appeal of the Raptor, Brontosaurus, Triceratops or T-Rex. Old Dryo was basically just food and fodder for others.

Last weekend a 9-foot-long Dryosaurus skeleton that was expected to bring up to $500,000 was a no-sale at the I.M. Chait Gallery in Manhattan. The skeleton was unearthed at a private quarry in Wyoming in 1993. 

An 18,000-year-old woolly mammoth skeleton found in Siberia stole the show for $60,000 while an ammonite fossil went for close to $50,000.
 

Disgraced Atlanta Falcon quarterback Michael Vick’s crib goes to auction next week (March 10) as part of his bankruptcy case. The minimum bid will be $3.2 million for the eight-bedroom, 20,000-square-foot home on Darlington Run in the gated Sugarloaf Country Club. Bidding will be in $25,000 increments until a bid of $3.3 million is reached. Bids will then be done in $10,000 increments.

Vick is currently serving a 23-month in federal prison for felony charges related to dog fighting. He is scheduled to be released to home confinement in May.

No word yet on whether part of his release will include Vick being covered in puppy chow and thrown into a room with a few hundred vigilantly pit bulls.
 

The Art by Animals 2 charity auction benefiting AZA is being postponed. Originally slated to take place at Busch Gardens (Tampa, Fla.) on March, 28, the auction is now being moved out to late spring or early summer.

The auction will feature unique art created by animals in zoos from across the United States. The sale of these one-of-a-kind pieces created by chimps, hyenas, penguins and other animals funds animal enrichment programs at zoos and aquariums across America.
 

• Imprisoned NFL star Michael Vick's (above) suburban Atlanta home will be offered for sale to the highest bidder on March 10. The judge presiding over Vick's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case issued an order scheduling the auction Tuesday. The order sets an opening bid of $3.2 million for the eight-bedroom home in a gated community in Duluth, Ga.

• The Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. auction Tuesday took a pummeling as prices for racehorses continued to drop, looking more like the floundering stock market than a high-end thoroughbred sale. During the same sale one year ago, eight horses sold for $400,000 or more each. During this year's sale, none reached that level.

• The gloves worn by Pittsburgh Steelers Santonio Holmes when he caught the game-winning touchdown pass in Super Bowl XLIII were sold for $70,200 in a charity auction. Holmes was named the game's most valuable player after the Steelers captured an unprecedented sixth Super Bowl title by defeating Arizona thanks to Holmes' catch.

• Props used by 1950s television comedian Ernie Kovacs, including a pair of eyeglasses with images of eyes on the lenses, are being sold this weekend by a Dallas collectibles auctioneer. Kovacs wore the glasses when he was in character as drunken poet Percy Dovetonsils.

• The tumbledown farmhouse in Cumbria, England where Withnail and his hapless sidekick went on holiday in the cult movie Withnail and I has been sold for £265,000. A Cumbrian publican fought off seven rivals at auction to buy the house known as "Uncle Monty's cottage" in the 1987 film starring Richard E. Grant.

• A full frontal nude photo of Madonna, taken in 1979 before she became famous, has sold at auction for $37,500 — more than double its pre-sale estimate.

• Christie's auction controversy reveals China's dilemma in retrieving lost relics. In the middle of the angst: bronze rabbit and rat heads.

• A Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa racing car is expected to set a record auction price of $15 million when it comes up for sale in the Italian city of Maranello in May.

• Gandhi's sandals, pocket watch and spectacles, which the father of the Indian independence movement said gave him "the vision to free India," will be sold to the highest bidder at a New York auction house next month, but his great-grandson joined Indian MPs in demanding their return.

• Some North American wildlife advocacy groups are urging eBay to ban the posting of certain guided trophy hunts currently available on the online auction site. Alaska Wildlife Alliance, Raincoast Conservation and Big Wildlife sent correspondence to eBay CEO John Donahoe requesting that posting of hunting auctions for such big predators as bears, wolves and mountain lions no longer be allowed.

• Here's a twist on efforts to stop human trafficking: Hold a singles auction to raise money for the Somaly Mam Foundation, an organization dedicated to ending sexual slavery.

• A charity auction for a steakhouse lunch with renowned oil trader T. Boone Pickens has sold for $125,000 (€96,842) — one of the largest sums raised in such an auction — as philanthropists and charities are forced to look for creative ways to raise money in the downturn.