ohmidog!

OK, now they’ve gone and made me mad.

From the get go, I wasn’t a fan of “b” — the Baltimore Sun’s free and fluffy publication that made its debut this year.

The free part is fine, but the idea of putting out a dumbed-down, celebrity-laden, depth-free daily newspaper, when the regular newspaper is headed in that same direction, b-fuddled me.

On the other hand, it’s generally a pretty b-nign publication — like one of those bugs that makes annoying noises in your ear but doesn’t sting or bite.

Today, though, one of its “content providers” (what we used to call writers) made this remark in reference to the story of the Berwyn Heights mayor whose two dogs were killed by police in a poorly thought out marijuana bust:

“It’s not like these dogs were pit bulls, foaming at the mouth ready to bite off the officers’ legs. They were Labrador Retrievers …”

I think it might b-hoove “b” — and the rest of the news media — to learn a little more about pit bulls and avoid using and reinforcing the easy and erroneous stereotypes.

This is the sort of thing that happens, though, when you take the quick, easy and, above all, cheap approach to producing newspapers.

I’m not sure what the consensus is on “b” in Baltimore, but in my opinion (also free) it adds little to the conversation, and the resources devoted to it are taking away from the fine newspaper Baltimore once had.

Being a former Sun reporter, I don’t want to come across as disgruntled, or for that matter, gruntled, for I am neither. But slurring an entire category of dog raises my hackles.

Maybe, with all the other bumper sticker variations you see around town of the former Baltimore mayor’s lingering (BELIEVE) slogan, it’s time to add one more to the mix:

Nearly three years have passed since the link was discovered, but veterinarians and animal welfare groups are still working to get the word out: Xylitol, a sugar substitute increasingly found in sugar-free cookies, mints and chewing gum – including Orbit, Trident, Spree and Altoids — can be highly toxic, even fatal, to dogs.

The sweetener, long popular in Europe and relatively new in the U.S., can be “very, very serious” to dogs when ingested, according to the Animal Poison Control Center of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Two or three sticks of gum with xylitol can kill a 20 pound dog, the ASPCA says.

“It doesn’t take a whole lot, and the effects are so rapid that the window of opportunity to treat the dog is extremely small,” said ASPCA spokesperson Dana Farbman.

The ASPCA sent an advisory to veterinarians two years ago warning them about the potential for serious harm or death. But as with chocolate, grapes and raisins — all of which can be toxic to dogs — there are still dog owners who don’t know the dangers.

Within 30 minutes of consuming a small amount of a xylitol-sweetened product, the ASPCA says, dogs experience a dramatic drop in blood sugar, begin vomiting, become lethargic and can have difficulty standing or walking.  Some have seizures, develop internal hemorrhaging and lesions and suffer liver failure.

USA Today wrote about the dangers of xylitol to dogs last year. At that time the ASPCA’s poison control unit was aware of 10 dog deaths from xylitol since 2002, and it has received scores of reports of dogs becoming gravely ill.

But the organization believes that represents only a small fraction of the cases.

Xylitol is derived from birch tree bark, beets, corncobs and other natural sources. Unlike sugar, xylitol does not require insulin to be metabolized, so it’s popular in cookies, candies, cupcakes and other sweets developed for people who have diabetes

To learn more about xylitol, check out this article from Veterinary Medicine, reprinted by the ASPCA.

To see the ASPCA’s original press release warning about the dangers of xylitol, click here.

It all sounds like something that would take place on the outskirts or Riyadh, rather than D.C, and there’s plenty of dust still to settle, but what’s clear is this: Prince George’s County police officials burst into the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last week and shot and killed the two family dogs during an investigation into a marijuana delivery.

After the carnage, the Baltimore Sun reports today,  the family’s two black labradors, Payton and Chase, lay dead, the mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back, and his handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the pets police killed.

The raiding police officers arrested no one at Calvo’s home near College Park, but they seized an unopened package of marijuana — it being the same one that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier.

Thursday, Calvo called for a Justice Department investigation of the raid. He said officers burst into his house without knocking or announcing themselves, in violation of the warrant they had. And he said his wife, Trinity Tomsick, though her name was on the package, was apparently a victim of identity theft.

Police in Arizona intercepted the package, addressed to Tomsic, when a drug-sniffing dog alerted them to the presence of marijuana. An undercover officer in Prince George’s delivered the package and was told by Calvo’s mother-in-law to leave it on the porch, according to Calvo’s attorney, Timothy Maloney.

Prince George’s County police arrested two men involved in a scheme to transport marijuana. Once packages were dropped off by a deliveryman, a conspirator would pick them up — all without the addressee’s knowledge. Police seized a half-dozen packages that contained about 417 pounds of marijuana, including the 32 pounds delivered to Tomsic, the Associated Press reported.

Calvo said shots rang out shortly after police kicked in his door. Officers killed one dog, Payton — named for football running back Walter Payton –after he ”engaged” officers. Calvo confirmed that Payton probably moved toward the door but said it was unlikely he would have harmed the officers.

“He was an aggressive licker,” said Calvo.

Chase was shot while running away from sheriff’s deputies, Calvo said.

Calvo, 37, who has been mayor since 2004, was told to walk backward down the stairs with his hands in the air.  Police handcuffed him. His mother-in-law was also cuffed and made to lie on the kitchen floor next to Payton’s body.  His wife arrived shortly afterwards to see the blood and dead dogs.

“They were my kids,” said Tomsic, 33, an employee with Maryland’s Department of Human Resources. “All I could see was the blood and the tissue of the dogs.”