The people at JH Specialty in Fort Wayne are accustomed to getting calls from big-name companies wanting to buy large quantities of coffee cups, water bottles, seat covers and just about anything else you can think of.

So the call that came June 21 from someone wanting 5,000 plastic cups – stadium cups, as they’re called – sounded pretty routine. How big do you want them? What style? What color?

“And who are you with?” the order taker eventually asked.

The answer was a first for JH Specialty.

“The White House.”

Presidential staffers were planning a July 4 party and needed cups, red ones and blue ones, and they’d found JH Specialty online.

The Internet is changing how business is done in America, even at the White House. They needed some cups, so someone there did a Web search for stadium cups and found the local company, which operates about 30 online stores.

“When they called in, it was no big official thing,” said John Henry, who runs JH Specialty. “We got some information, asked who they were with, and they said the White House. They paid with a credit card.”

The White House supplied certain illustrations that it wanted displayed on the cups, including a drawing of the White House and the words, “Fourth of July, 2009, The White House.”

It does suggest a change in the way business is done. It used to be, Henry said, that the General Services Administration had a huge book of vendors, and when some government agency needed something, a supplier would be found in the book.

The government won’t be buying tanks online, but it is apparent that plenty of incidental purchases will be made online in the future.

The big challenge for Henry now is figuring out how to keep them as a customer.

Is nothing sacred?

Stealing someone’s dog is a lousy thing to do.

How often it happens is unclear.

In the city, people generally don’t let their dogs run loose because they don’t want them to get hit by a car, so thefts are unusual.

But the countryside is another matter. Traffic is light in some rural areas, and people have more land, so letting Fido loose in the back 40 is a common practice.

Janelle Smith of Columbia City did that. With 34 acres, Smith has plenty of space for her dogs to run.

Her daughter’s 9-year-old Yorkshire terrier, one of those little dogs about as big as a shoe, was well known to neighbors up and down Medallion Boulevard and County Road 100 South in Whitley County.

The dog would drop by neighboring houses and visit with other dogs and eventually make its way home.

The routine went pretty much like that on Father’s Day. Smith was working in the yard, and her husband had been called into work unexpectedly.

As evening approached, Smith got in her car and headed out to collect Ginger.

About the same time, though, Ginger caught someone else’s attention.

A middle-aged couple in an older blue-gray Honda happened to see the Yorkie and backed into a neighbor’s driveway. A woman got out and asked the neighbor whether he knew who the dog belonged to.

The neighbor, of course, did know, and even pointed to the house down the road. Don’t worry, I’ll take her home, he told them.

But the woman, who had picked up the Yorkie and was petting it, said that wasn’t necessary. She’d deliver the dog herself. She then got back in the car and took off.

The neighbor saw the car turn down Medallion, the street where Smith lived, and thought nothing of it.

And that’s the last anyone has seen of the couple, the old Honda or Ginger, who had a fresh haircut for summer.

That is a lousy thing to do to someone, but it happens. Dogs like Yorkies are valuable, and some people recognize things of value wherever they go, whether it’s a bike or scooter or lawn mower or a stretch of wrought-iron fence – or a dog.

Smith is leaving a leash on her front porch if the thief decides to return the dog anonymously. She’s even willing to pay a reward if necessary.

“If it requires money to get the dog back, I guess we’ll talk about that,” Smith said.