ohmidog!

Gus, the irrepressible, one-eyed, three-legged, nine-year-old Chinese crested who was named the World’s Ugliest Dog at the 20th Annual Sonoma-Marin Fair in northern California, has died of skin cancer.

Gus, from St. Petersburg, Florida, was rescued by his owners, Jeanenne Teed and her daughter Janey, after they learned that it was being kept in a crate in someone’s garage.

When her pet won the contest in June, Teed said the prize money would be put toward the dog’s radiation treatment. Gus, who lost an eye in a fight with a cat, was also missing a leg that was amputated because of a skin tumor.

When Gus accompanied Janey to school one day, frightened teachers corralled him into a bathroom with a broomstick. He had a long, skinny rat tail, and looked as if he had been in a fire.

“He was the most hideous thing I had ever seen,” Jeanenne told the St. Petersburg Times, which ran an excellent story yesterday on the demise of Gus.

Recently, the cancer that took his leg returned, appearing in his spine and pressing into his abdomen. By September, he was too weak to walk. Jeaneanne, a certified public accountant, used his prize money, and her mortgage payment for October, to pay the $5,000 bill for chemotherapy.

Gus was buried in a tiny grave in the family’s backyard. Next to it, Jeaneanne planted a Butterfly bush with golden flowers.

“Something beautiful,” she said, “to grow out of all that ugly.”

     Last year, when doggie DNA testing hit the market, I tried it on my shelter mutt Ace, as part of my research for this story, and found out the answer to the question everyone asked:
    “What kind of dog is that?”
     Of the 38 breeds the early versions of the test checked for, only two showed up in Ace — Chow and Rottweiler.
     The tests, as we reported last month, have come a long way since then.
     In the latest version, The Wisdom Panelâ„¢ MX Mixed Breed Analysis, which came out this week from Mars Veterinary, the presence of 157 breeds of dog can be detected through a blood sample.
     So we’re going to check Ace again, and see if the results come out differently than they did a year ago when we used the Canine Heritage test, which is administered by a cheek swab.

And ohmidog! is going to give one of you a chance to find out what’s in your mutt, too — for free.

Mars Veterinary has agreed to send us two free kits (one for me, one for the winner of the ohimdog! What’s in Your Mutt contest.) Tune in tomorrow for the contest details.

According to Mars, the new test is 90 percent accurate, and the information gained from using it — in addition to satisfying your nagging human curiosity — can help you work with your vet to refine and develop the way you feed, train and care for your pet, as well as help identify health problems to which your dog might be prone.

The new test detects 153 of the American Kennel Club’s (AKC) 158 registered breeds, plus four breeds that the AKC considers foundation stock.

Among the new breeds checked for are Komondor, Neapolitan Mastiff, Otterhound and Black and Tan Coonhound.

In addition to making the new test available in stores and through veterinarians, Mars is sending  dogs owners that had the earlier version of the test performed between Sept. 22 and Oct. 20 a free updated report that will include the new breeds.

Those who tested their dog before Sept. 20, 2008 can contact customercare@marsveterinary.com to request a new analysis. If any of the new breeds appear, a new report will be sent out for $25, to cover the cost of printing and shipping the updated report, the company.

(Photo: Ace as a pup)

(Tomorrow: contest details)

Naming a new dog is no simple task. One could go with the name of someone they admire (Stay, Phelps!), a place they once lived (Good boy, Wichita!), or perhaps a predominant trait: Here, Tinkler! Sit, Humpty!

Daniel Wallace, in an article for Garden and Gun magazine, suggests spending some time observing your new pooch. Unlike naming a child — often done before he or she is born — dogs generally have the advantage of being observed before they get their moniker.

Wallace’s basset hound, for example, was clearly a “Barney” — a name he suggests be avoided for humans.

“(People) given this name out of the womb … will without a doubt become sad. The name dictates the sadness to follow. Dogs benefit from being dogs in that we have a good idea of what they’ll look like and the general characteristics they possess before we give them their names,” he writes.

For his boxer, he chose “Mugsy.” 

“The name Mugsy works because a boxer looks like a boxer, and in that sense it’s easy to imagine what a dog like that might be named,” Wallace wrote. “One could even claim it’s clichéd, but I think the only person who would claim that is the kind of person who would begin a sentence with the words one could. ”

For his mixed breed, Wallace came up with “Rudy.”

“… His big red eyes were so needy, so pitiful, and when he looked at you, it was not love you saw but the last hopeless look of a man falling off a cliff. Maybe you’ll throw me a rope or something? Maybe? No? That’s fine. I didn’t expect you to. He whimpered. He whined. He shivered for no good reason. Women seemed to like Rudy, but it was really just pity.”

The best name is one that fits the dog’s personality, Wallace seems to think — though he admits that  personality will evolve as a dog matures.

“Dogs have been hanging out with people for over ten thousand years. They are empty vessels we fill with a reflection of ourselves; or, alternatively, they come ready-made with their own strong personalities, which, insane as they sometimes are, we accept, because they accept ours. Having a dog is possessing a life, and dogs are in fact like children, but better, because they don’t grow up to rob banks or hate you. They love you the same until they die.”

Speaking of names, I’m not sure who came up with Garden and Gun, which struck me as an unlikely combo. When it was first mentioned to me, I pictured folks planting a vegetable patch, then waiting around with shotguns for varmints to infiltrate it. Actually, it’s a far more civilized publication, headquartered in Charleston, S.C. (which is named after King Charles II of England).

(Photo couresty of cafepress.com)