MERRY CHRISTMAS!

From ohmidog!

 (with apologies to my brother and sister)

 Photo: John (with guitar), Kathryn (with Santa), and Ted (with bobblehead dog), circa 1965

If you need something to keep the kids busy on Christmas Eve, or perhaps even simple-minded grown-ups like myself, here’s a website that can provide, if not hours of entertainment, at least enough time to run out for some last minute gifts, or egg nog.

It’s the Mutt Maker, from Animal Planet, which allows you to combine attributes of 20 dog breeds — head, body, tail, legs — and fashion your own mutt. It then shows you a cartoon image of it, and gives it a name.

Example: Take the pug head, put it on a Rottweiler body, add poodle legs and a shih-tzu tail, and you’ve got a “Purotttzuoodle.” In a nice touch, every time you put on a new head, you hear the bark of that breed.

After that, you have the options of entering it in “best in show,” getting a “certificate of legacy” for your creation, or adorning it with accessories, including bonnet, cowboy boots, cape, glasses, pipe and more.

It’s not exactly the same as a puppy under the tree, but it’s free, interactive, won’t soil the carpet, and is relatively quiet — and for the child who’s not quite ready for a living, breathing, responsibility-laden puppy of his own, it’s a good way to learn a little more about dogs.

(Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared Friday, but was taken off the ohmidog! website after it recieved so many visits that our server crashed. That, and our subsequent transition to a new and more powerful server, explains any ohmidog! outage you may have experienced in the past few days. We’re back, stronger than ever, and just in time for the holidays. We weren’t about to let the glitch steal Christmas.)

Modern Dog magazine has pulled a Rachel Ray recipe billed as dog-friendly from their website after realizing it called for onions, which can be toxic to dogs.

The recipe accompanied a fawning article about Ray, her “stratospheric” rise to fame via the Food Network, her love for dogs and her new line of dog food, “Rachael Ray Nutrish:”

“Other celebrities may opt for a namesake clothing line, but for an animal lover like Ray, this is far more gratifying … The same qualities that make Ray’s signature dishes appealing are present in her new line of dog food and snacks: they’re made of fresh, real food.”

At the bottom of the article a Ray recipe appeared for “Isaboo’s Butternut Squash Mac and Cheddar,” which calls for half an onion.

“I know it sounds odd, but my girl loved butternut squash!” Ray writes in introducing the recipe. “One of the most comforting traits of our puppy Isaboo is that she’s crazy-nuts for butternut squash, too. Using frozen squash makes this sweet, creamy pasta possible year-round. Always check with your vet about which foods are appropriate for you to share with your pet.”

But apparently neither Ray nor the editors at Modern Dog checked the ingredients of the recipe, which has since been taken off line. You can see the current version of the article here, the cached (original) version here.

This mistake, and remake of the web page — without the recipe — was pointed out by Devouring Seattle, a food blog published by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A Texas lawmaker has asked the state attorney general to issue an opinion on whether local officials have the authority to pass laws banning or regulating specific breeds of dogs.

In a letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott, Republican state Rep. Tony Goolsby requested an opinion to clarify a state law that cities and counties have interpreted as preventing them from targeting breeds.

He wrote that confusion caused by “varying interpretations” of the law has stopped local governments wanting to pursue such measures, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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