ohmidog!

Three puppy mill raids in two Washington counties in recent weeks resulted in about 600 dogs being seized — but those 600 are expected to soon become 1,500.

Four of every five dogs rescued are pregnant, authorities say.

“We’ve already had two litters born,” said Bud Wessman, director of Everett Animal Services, which is caring for 155 dogs seized from a Snohomish County property on Jan. 16. “We have six that will give birth over the weekend and probably another 10 litters coming up in the next week.”

The Snohomish County kennel is linked to another in Skagit County, where authorities seized 135 dogs on Wednesday and returned Friday to seize the remaining 308. The owner of the Skagit County property, near Mount Vernon, is the mother of the woman who owns the Snohomish County property near Gold Bar, the Seattle Times reported.

Animal control officials are struggling to care for the crush of animals, most of which are Chihuahuas, shih tzus, poodles, and Yorkshire terriers.

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After an appeal from Pamela Anderson the Indian Supreme Court has issued a ruling against killing stray dogs in Mumbai.

The former Baywatch star appealed to the authorities in India’s financial capital not to put down nuisance stray dogs, instead calling for them to be sterilized.

“It is well established that killing stray dogs is not a permanent solution to controlling their populations,” the former “Baywatch” star said in a letter to the municipal commission of Greater Mumbai, made pubic by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

About 70,000 stray dogs are in India’s financial and entertainment capital and there are widespread concerns about the spread of diseases, including deadly rabies.

Anderson’s letter, which cited World Health Organization and Animal Health Board of India support for mass sterilisation, cam after a legal ruling here to destroy nuisance dogs.

Anderson’s stance was supported by the Mumbai-based charity Welfare of Stray Dogs, which has been carrying out mass sterilization of stray dogs since 1989.

India has so many dogs roaming its streets because of its high numbers of slum and street dwellers, who often keep the animals as pets, plus a large amount of garbage, which provides readily accessible food for scavenging mutts, according to an AFP report.

India’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that a dog can be put down only if it is rabid, mortally wounded or incurably ill.

Albertsons grocery stores are recalling dog treats sold in Washington and seven other western states.

Albertsons is voluntarily recalling Happy Tails multiflavored dog-biscuit products, saying they may contain peanut butter that could be contaminated with salmonella.

The decision comes after federal authorities urged consumers to avoid foods containing peanut butter until more is known about a deadly outbreak of salmonella possibly linked to a Blakely, Ga., facility owned by Peanut Corp. of America.

The dog treats have not been linked directly to the salmonella outbreak; Albertsons said it was recalling the products “out of an abundance of caution.”

There are a couple of dogs in this video, in the background, at the beginning.

If you think there needs to be more reason for it to appear here, on a dog website, there’s this one: Music — like dogs, like causes, like inspirational leaders, booze, Bingo and lazy Sundays — can bring people together, slow them down and put them in a position to make the world a better place.

That position also being the first name of our country: United.

The video above, from the documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music,” features non-huge name performers from around the world, street musicians in many cases, performing the Ben E. King classic “Stand By Me.” Each musician added their part to the song as it travelled around the world.

Mark Johnson, the Grammy-award winning producer/engineer and co-founder of Playing for Change, embarked on the mission after hearing two monks playing in a New York subway and watching about 200 normally harried commuters stop and listen.

Over the last decade, Johnson’s mission evolved into promoting international peace through global musical cooperation.

“For the past four years, a small crew has traveled the world with recording equipment and cameras in search of inspiration and human connections,” Johnson explains. “The result is a movement connecting the world through music … Music has the power to break down the walls between cultures, to raise the level of human understanding.”

Dogs are much the same way, I think. And who, after all, is better at standing by you? If we stood by each other the way dogs stand by us, well, to quote John Lennon, “Imagine.” So those are the reasons, if we need them, that we proudly present this particular video on this particular lazy Sunday.

Peace.

Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to the hospital this weekend after being bitten by his own dog — a “clinically depressed” Maltese.

The 76-year-old statesman was bitten by his dog Sumo, who has been being treated with anti-depressants.

Chirac who ruled France for 12 years until 2007, was taken to a hospital in Paris where he was treated as an outpatient and sent home.

“The dog went for him for no apparent reason,” Chirac’s wife, Bernadette, said. “My husband was bitten quite badly, but he is certain to make a full recovery over the coming weeks.’”

The pet, named after the Japanese form of wrestling, was a gift to the Chiracs from their grandson Martin, according to London’s Daily Mail.

The No. 1 rule for a website, most will tell you, is to write short. We at ohmidog! have never been too fond of rules. Today, with all the hubbub about Obama’s yet-to-be-named dog, with gift dog offers pouring in to the Obama family, we travel back in time to look at another dog gifted to a politician, how that gift came to be given, and how Checkers, arguably the most famous dog in politics, rescued Richard Nixon’s career. This article (written by me) originally appeared in the Baltimore Sun on Sept. 22, 2002.

She taught music. He was a traveling salesman. They never gained much fame. But, with help from their cocker spaniel Boots, they may have changed the course of history.

Had Beatrice Carrol not been hired to teach piano at a women’s college in Texas, had Lou Carrol not picked up a newspaper to read during another lonely dinner on the road, had Boots not been paired up with a stud named Ace and given birth to a litter of black and white cockers two months before the Republican National Convention in 1952, Richard Nixon — it could be argued — might never have been president.

It was the Carrols who — back when TVs were black and white and Communists were “Reds” — gave the Nixon family the puppy they would name Checkers.

And it was Checkers who provided the sentimental hook in a speech that helped the then-U.S. senator from California secure his role as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice presidential running mate.

Nixon’s “Fund Speech,” better known as his Checkers speech — given 50 years ago tomorrow — was historic on several levels. It was the first time a politician, bypassing news organizations, made a direct appeal to the public on television. The speech was watched by the largest audience TV had ever amassed. And, most historians now agree, it resulted in Eisenhower turning around a decision — all but made, Nixon found out shortly before going on the air — to remove him from the ticket.

But like so much else when it comes to the man who would later serve as the nation’s 37th president, the Checkers story is full of contradictions.

Nixon barely knew the dog when he gave the speech. He implied she was a surprise when, in fact, his staff had known about the planned gift for more than a month. And, in the speech, he both got her gender wrong and incorrectly stated where she had been picked up.

Those discrepancies — granted, not as alarming as an 18 1/2 -minute gap on a White House tape recording — never got the kind of scrutiny that Nixon would in 1974, when the Watergate scandal and investigation led to his resignation as president.

For Lou Carrol, “that whole Watergate mess” made for some uncomfortable times, as well. While he had remained in relative obscurity, while he had never boasted about his gift to Nixon, he became, after that, hesitant to mention it at all.

To this day, few know he is the “man down in Texas” Nixon referred to in the speech. Other than appearing on two TV quiz shows in the 1950s — I’ve Got a Secret and What’s My Line? — Carrol never received much publicity. “Nor,” he says, “was I seeking it.

“It was just one of those things you do spontaneously. There’s a joy in doing that kind of thing,” he said. “Every time I’d see those children — those pictures of them and the dog and how happy they looked — it put a smile on my face.”

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A pair of puppies livened things up on NBC’s Today Show this morning, bloodying the chin of co-host Lester Holt and shredding the stockings of another.

Holt was promoting what was coming up on the show, when the Rottweiler pup he was holding got squirmy, nipped him in the chin and pawed him in the face.

As Holt continued with the script, blood began flowing from his chin.

“Oh he cut you! Oh my gosh!” Al Roker says. As cohosts wipe his chin, Holt tries saying something about Obama, then gives up. “Nobody’s listening to what I’m saying,” he says.

It was the second canine mishap on the Today Show in two weeks. Last week, on the show’s fourth hour, a dog urinated on stage, leading Kathie Lee, who was already scolding the dog for scratching, to berate the dog even more.

The Maryland State Police confirmed this week it will investigate allegations of misconduct and animal cruelty at the SPCA in Cecil County, where two other state agencies have also launched inquirires.

Both the Maryland attorney general’s office, which has assigned an attorney to look into the case, and the Maryland State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, a division of the state Department of Agriculture, are also conducting investigations.

Nancy Schwerzler, president of the facility’s board of directors, said she welcomes independent investigations “so long as they’re fact-based and emotion-free,” the Baltimore Sun reported  Wednesday.  She said she has invited the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a national organization with no ties to Cecil County facility, to investigate as well. (The Cecil County SPCA also has no ties with the Maryland SPCA, based in Baltimore.)

Four former employees and four former volunteers of the Cecil County organization have submitted written accusations against the facility in Chesapeake City, ranging from animal cruelty and neglect to mismanagement.

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The World of Pets Expo starts today at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium — a great chance to see the latest in pet products and learn more about your dog, cat, bird, snake, hamster, fish, frog or ferret.

Exhibitors will be touting thousands of products and services for pets, and some of the country’s foremost authorities in the pet industry will be presenting seminars and demonstrations about pet care and training.

Entertainment includes AKC agility trials, which will be going on all three days, grooming contests and demonstrations on everything from drug detection to dancing with your dogs, featuring the Boogie Woogie Bow Wows.

They include a talk by animal nutrition expert Richard Patton, PhD, lead nutritionist for K-9 Kraving, on the connection between diet and behavior (noon Saturday), and a seminar on hip dysplasia by Daren Roa, DVM, DACVS, of Chesapeake Veterinary Surgical Specialists (1 p.m. Saturday). Animal communicator Terri Diener, of Petspeak, will be holding two seminars, one on pet loss, and one on communicating with your animal.

Workshops and seminars take place all three days, You can find the full schedule here.

General admission is $9 for adults and $5 for children under 12. Admission includes all seminars and entertainment.

As for bringing your dog, well-behaved pets on a leash are welcome at the expo, but the organizers offer this note. “Due to the large number of pets performing in the many demonstrations and seminars, we believe you will have a greater enjoyment of the Expo, if you do not bring your pet.”

A Nova Scotia dog blogger has come up with a novel way to fight puppy mills.

Hearing that a husband and wife dog breeding team were continuing to sell dogs even after their facility was raided, dogs were seized and charges were filed, Joan Sinden took it upon herself to deal their business another blow.

Last week, she bought the Internet domain names of the couple — gailbenoit.ca and danabailey.ca – both of which now link to her web page containing information about their controversial history of selling allegedly unhealthy dogs.

“I just want to educate people,” said Sinden whose blogs is called dogkisser. “I thought someone should do it and I already had most of the information together already.”

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