Facebook fans: Let Cody stay!

DUNEDIN - A Pinellas County dog is fighting to keep his day job, after getting booted by the Florida Department of Agriculture.

At his home in Dunedin, Cody is literally howling the blues to tunes from the 1970s.

"When I come home, he's just sitting on the couch like 'what did I do wrong?' He knows. He knows," owner Karim Mansour said.

The chocolate lab has to stay behind now, when his Mansour goes off to work. They used to work together at Mansour's BP gas station at U.S. 19 and Nursery Road in Clearwater, until state inspectors came last week and called it a health violation, saying Cody had to go.

In Florida, only service animals are allowed in food establishments, no exceptions.

But Customers have a bone to pick.

"Give the guy a break. The dog's not bothering anybody. He's never hurt anybody," Bill Martz said.

Word of Cody's firing spread quickly. One man made an impassioned plea on YouTube. "When I was reading this article, I said to myself 'whoa, how can they do this to Cody?' " he said in part of his post.

Then there's the "Let Cody Stay" Facebook fanpage with more than 4,000 members and counting.

Mansour says he doesn't even know the person who started the page.

"No matter how it ends up, at the end of the day, it makes me proud and happy inside that there is a warm heart in this world," Mansour added,

"Don't Fire Cody," Janet writes.

"Get him certified as a service dog and let him go back to work," Le wrote.

Mansour says he and Cody are looking into that. "I'm going to contact them and see if we can come to some sort of agreement with getting him certified," Mansour said.

In the meantime, Cody will keep wearing his BP uniform and keeps singing. Who knows? It could be a second career?

The Department of Agriculture says it's nothing against Cody. But if they let one store have a dog, then they'd have to let everyone.