A mutt from a city animal shelter is acting as a surrogate mother for nine African painted dogs born at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

Dr. Stephanie James, the zoo's director of veterinary service, says the only other litter of wild dogs to be hand-raised in captivity was in the United Kingdom. The Pittsburgh zoo staff had to intervene in raising its pups because their mother died of a ruptured uterus shortly after delivering the litter last month.

Zoo officials found a mixed-breed mutt who recently delivered a litter of pups. That dog, Honey, has been nursing the wild dogs.

The mortality rate for painted pups is 50 percent, even when born in the wild to a healthy mother.

Zoo officials hope to wean the pups in about two weeks.

A Pittsburgh neighborhood preservation group wants to save the former Iron City Brewing Co. complex from the wrecking ball.The brewery in July moved its production and bottling operations to the former Rolling Rock brewery in Latrobe. Before that, Iron City beer had been brewed in the city since 1861 and at the same location in the city's Lawrenceville neighborhood since 1866.Although the company still has corporate offices and a warehouse in Pittsburgh it plans to demolish the rest of the complex.