Rodney, the pit bull mix with brown splotches on his white coat and a hand-lick greeting upon introduction, fully approved of his treat.

He licked. He chomped. He slurped. He crunched the ice with his teeth.

Rodney likes his popsicles. "Pupsicles," actually -- frozen summertime treats for dogs. Eunice Chang of Durham invented them three years ago, and sells them to benefit animal-rescue services.

"I was trying to figure out how to keep dogs cool," she said.

Chang volunteers at the Animal Protection Society shelter on East Club Boulevard. When she started there, the kennels were not air conditioned. Shared pools might have spread disease, she said, and when they tried ice cubes, the dogs would just let them melt.

Inspiration came from two directions. First, a fellow Animal Protection volunteer filled some dog toys with frozen meat broth. Second, an acquaintance told Chang how her dog had been enjoying a popsicle but swallowed the wooden stick -- necessitating a trip to the vet.

Putting the two together, Chang bought a popsicle mold, broth and some rawhide sticks to replace the wooden kind.

"The response was very positive," she said.

Enticed by the frozen broth, dogs would chomp through to get at the rawhide -- getting the cooling effects along the way. The 'sicles seemed to soothe the mouths of teething puppies, "and they were often fascinated by how the pupsicle would slide across the floor, like a toy."

Soon Chang was giving her pupsicles to friends. One of those was Summer Bicknell who, about the same time, had opened her first Locopops gourmet-popsicle shop on Hillsborough Road. Pupsicles passed the taste test by Bicknell's Rudy and Kiska, and, for the 2006 popsicle season, she asked Chang to make pupsicles for her -- with sales to benefit APS.

"She's amazing," Bicknell said. "Amazing and brilliant."

In their first two seasons, pupsicles brought Durham APS about $3,200, Chang said. Now, Locopops has six locations -- two each in Durham and Chapel Hill, one in Raleigh and one in Hillsborough -- and Chang's pupsicles are making money for animal shelters and rescue services in all four towns.

"Eunice has repeatedly refused any compensation or reimbursement for raw materials," Bicknell said.

Pupsicles come in beef and chicken flavors, and her "pupsicle season" runs from April through October. So far this year, the "pupsicle fund" is up to $477 -- that according to Chang's blog, bullcitydogs.wordpress.com.

Like Rodney -- "Eager to please, but not pushy, and he has an enormous amount of charisma. ... His tail is always wagging."

(Rodney even has two videos on YouTube -- see the link on www.apsofdurham.org/adopt/adpt-dogs.html.)