ohmidog!

A 12-year veteran of the Columbus, Ohio fire department is under investigation for allegedly shooting and killing his two dogs.

Dave Santuomo is accused of shooting the animals several times and dumping their remains in a Dumpster outside his fire station, 10TV in Columbus reported. An anonymous tip led officers from the Capital Area Humane Society to the Dumpster, behind Station 27, where they found two bloody bags containing the dogs’ bodies. 

Investigators believe Santuomo killed the dogs inside his home, and were looking into reports that Santuomo strung the dogs up on a beam in his basement before shooting them.

“This is a very grave, very horrific situation,” said Kerry Manion of the Capital Area Humane Society.  “We’re treating it very seriously.” Read more »

Mira — the first cloned dog in America — has turned one.

It was one year ago last Saturday that a clone of Lou Hawthorne’s family dog, a border collie-husky mix named Missy, was born in a Korean biotech lab.

Efforts to clone Missy began in 1997, when a longtime family friend of Hawthorne’s, Arizona billionaire John Sperling, funded a research project at Texas A&M University called the “Missyplicity Project.”

In 2000, Hawthorne launched a company, Genetic Savings & Clone, to continue the research that started in Texas, but it too failed in its dog cloning attempts. Despite cloning numerous cats, GS&C closed in 2006.

Hawthorne continued his quest, and in 2007 formed BioArts International, partnering with Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, a laboratory in Korea headed by Dr. Woo Suk Hwang, who was part of the team at Seoul National University that cloned the world’s first dog, Snuppy, in 2005. While Snuppy was verified as a clone, Hwang was fired from the university after being accused of fraudulently reporting he had cloned a human embryo.

The cloning of Missy, and birth of Mira, were achieved under the direction of Hwang, with whom Hawthorne contracted for the service.

Four more Missy clones were produced, after which BioArts announced an international dog-cloning auction, called Best Friends Again, which sold all 5 available cloning slots in July, raising over $700,000. All those clonings are being done at Sooam as well.

BioArts reports that the first client clones were recently born, but declined to provide further information, including the identity of the clients.

Mira, who I met last month, is something of a local celebrity at the Mill Valley, California dog park she frequents.

Hawthorne says Mira bears a striking resemblance to Missy, and also shares some of the donor dogs behavioral quirks, “like her love of broccoli and her tendency to steal my socks.”

John Schneider has made a radio appeal for the safe return of two puppies stolen with his car from a Los Angeles shopping mall.

“I understand what’s going on in the economy and I understand that… Nobody stole the car because the dogs were in it. If you have been given the gift of two little puppies or even one of our puppies – if you’ve been given the gift out of nowhere… Those puppies really belong to (my children).

Schneider, speaking on Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, went on to say:

“I’d very much like for you to consider doing the right thing and getting in touch with Valentine (the DJ of the show on which he appeared), getting in touch with the shelter and getting those puppies back in the Christmas home that they belong in.

“I’m not mad, I’m not gonna point a finger, I’m not gonna tell a tale. I would just like to have our puppies back for Christmas.”

The Yorkiepoo and Yorkshire Terrier – both 10 weeks old — were gifts that Schneider planned to give to his children for Christmas. They were in the back of his Cadillac Escalade when it was stolen from Sherman Oaks’ Fashion Square Mall. The car was later recovered, without the dogs.

Schneider played Bo Duke in the 1980s TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard” and appeared more recently as Superman’s father on the show “Smallville.”

“Superman’s dad would very much like to get his puppies back,” he told the radio station.

Three years and $3 million in the making, the Downtown Dog Resort & Spa has opened in South Baltimore.

Owned by Baltimore attorney Barry R. Glazer, the new facility offers boarding, day care and grooming by appointment. It has a hydrotherapy pool and doggie gym, as well, and future plans call for a veterinary clinic and retail space.

Dog owners can also choose from special packages and a menu of extras that include, gourmet meals, cuddle time, bottled water and email updates. Boarding prices start at $32 a night, and go up to $49 a night for the kennnel’s “ultra resort” rooms, which are larger and offer flat screen TV, fluffy bed and web cams.

The kennel, which is taking reservations for the Christmas holidays, has 90 units, and Glazer plans to devote at least 10 spaces to rescue dogs.

It’s also very convenient to I-95 — in its shadow, in fact — in the area off Hanover Street that is home to the recently cleaned up and soon to reopen Swann Park. The park was closed in April, 2007, after tests found elevated arsenic levels in the soil. About 13,000 tons of contaminated soil were removed from the park, which was above the approved cleanup standard. It’s scheduled to reopen in 2009.

The Dog Report & Spa, at 200 W. McComas St., doesn’t have a website up yet, but it can be reached at 443-869-4071, or by emailing thedowntowndogresortandspa@gmail.com.

Glazer — whatever you may think of his law firm’s TV ads (”Don’t urinate on my leg and tell me it’s raining”) – has a history of helping out dogs, footing the bill for medical services for more than a few pets rescued by Recycled Love. He was recently profiled by “b,” the Baltimore Sun’s lite version.

Here’s his famous ad, which someone recorded off a TV and put on Youtube. The urination line is a sanitized version of one in the movie “The Outlaw Josey Wales” — “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.”