ohmidog!

KSL-TV in Salt Lake City says it has heard from a woman who thinks the dog caught by surveillance cameras shoplifting a rawhide bone in a Utah supermarket is hers — a Siberian Husky named Balto who she lost four months ago at a motel in Oregon.

The otherwise unidentified Siberian Husky entered Smith’s Food and Drug store in Murray, Utah, made his way to the pet food aisle and snatched a rawhide bone from a shelf. He was last seen leaving the store with the bone clutched firmly in his teeth, ignoring the store manager’s order to “drop it.”

The story generated big national interest, with regular showings on CNN and one of the busiest days ever at KSL.com.

The TV station says they were contacted by Chanda McKeever of Washington state, who believes her dog Balto wandered all the way from an Oregon motel to Utah’s Salt Lake Valley. So far, there has been no confirmation that she’s the owner and the dog remains at large.

The original “Balto,”  was the sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 run to Nome, Alaska to deliver diptheria antitoxin  — a trip commemorated by the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. There’s a statue in his honor in New York’s Central Park. (His name has nothing to do with Baltimore; he was named after Norwegian explorer Samuel Balto.) After his death, he was “stuffed” and donated to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

If McKeever’s Balto is the dog that shoplifted in Utah, he has covered an equally impressive amount of ground, though he may not become quite as famous as the original. He hasn’t save humanity; he just stole a bone. But there’s a certain admiration for him — and his successful you-do-what-you-gotta-do heist — and it seems to be growing, judging from Internet comments.

We’ll keep you posted.

Darn, this would have made a good Christmas present.

Dozens of volunteers dropped their holiday plans to rescue about 80 puppy mill dogs in Missouri who probably otherwise wouldn’t have made it to the new year.

Now, the National Mill Dog Rescue Network is trying to find homes for all the dogs.

The network was contacted shortly before Christmas by a breeder in Missouri — a state known for its abundance of puppy mills — who wanted to surrender his animals, according to a report by TV station KKTV in Colorado Springs.

“When we asked if they could hold the dogs until after Christmas they let us know they would kill them,” said Helen Freeman, a member of the National Mill Dog Rescue Network.

So a group of volunteers dropped their holiday plans and left for Missouri.

When they got to Missouri Tuesday, another puppy mill owner contacted them, wanting to surrender his animals too. In the end, they returned with more than 80 dogs.

Since then, the dogs have been cleaned up, given medical attention and are enjoying their newfound freedom, Freeman said.

“It’s pretty exciting to watch the transformation from caged dog to, ‘hey, I get to play, I get to be free.’

The National Mill Dog Rescue Network says its more than 200 volunteers have saved more than 1,300 dogs over the last year and a half.

(Photo from National Mill Dog Rescue Network)