ohmidog!

This week’s winner of our “comment of the week” contest is Marie, who coined a new word in her remarks pertaining to our entry on a dog’s near-deadly confrontation with a video game:

“Wii-suscitation”

It’s what you do when your dog, or a human for that matter, gets a little too close to those caught up in a Wii game and gets clobbered with the remote to the extent they need to be revived. You “Wii-suscitate” him.

As this week’s winner, Marie will be Wii-ceiving an ohmidog! sports bottle, though we suggest she let Anne drink from it as well. It was Anne’s earlier comment that Wii-sulted in Kelly’s counter-Wii-mark.

“We don’t have a Wii, and the Beagle has a thick skull, so I suspect chances of this happening at our house are wii-mote,” Anne wrote. She noted how some fire departments have begun to keep doggie oxygen masks on hand, to which Marie responded:

“It is great the local fire departments are starting to really keep an eye on pets. I would be terrified if my dogs wii-suscitation was in my hands.”

In addition to giving us a laugh, the exchange also gave us an idea — given all that uncertainty, even among dog nuts like Marie and Anne: an ohmidog! report on just how you can resuscitate a dog. Look for it in the near future.

And keep Wii-ding.

Robotic dogs, thankfully, have mostly gone by the wayside — or so at least was the case with the Sony Aibo — but robotic cats, it turns out, have multiple lives.

Sega Toys has just introduced its newest model — “Yume-Neko Venus,” or “Dream Cat Venus,” a ginger and white robo-cat that is expected to go on sale in July.

Venus can stand up and sit down and is equipped with touch sensors that make it close its eyes and purr when you pet it, move its legs if you rub its belly and get a little hissy if you yank on its tail. Ignored, it will emit an occasional meow, but soon go into sleep mode.

I couldn’t find any video of the newest model of robo-cat, but here’s some of its predecessor, Sega’s Dream Cat Smile.

ABC2 News in Baltimore (WMAR) aired a report last night on the growing controversy surrounding the Cecil County SPCA and its treatment of animals.

The report included interviews with two former employees, one of whom spoke about dogs being beaten with a hammer and stomped on by staff members. Another employee, a vet tech who resigned in July, spoke of unsanitary conditions, botched operations and the shootings of two dogs.

To see the video, click here.

Cecil County SPCA officials declined to appear on camera, but have said in a letter to the county commissioners, that the allegations are untrue.

If getting an interview with Temple Grandin weren’t impressive enough, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter John Timpane somehow finagled a home visit from the woman who may understand animals better than anyone in America.

Once she got past his dogs, Ricky and Esco, Grandin (who’d been giving a reading nearby) sat down and talked to Timpane about her new book, Animals Make Us Human, and her continuing quest, in Timpane’s words,  ”to explain animals to people and people to themselves.”

Grandin, as Timpane notes in his story, is perhaps the best-known person with autism in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in animal behavior; is a professor at Colorado State; author of Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation; and consultant on how to treat animals in the wild and in industrial settings such as corrals and slaughterhouses.

In Animals Make Us Human, Grandin writes that, for an animal, ”a good life requires three things: freedom from pain and negative emotions, and lots of activities to turn on seeking and play.”

“I think a lot of dogs today have a horrible life,” Grandin said in the interview.  “In my town, Fort Collins, [Colo.], we have draconian leash laws. If you walk down any residential street in Fort Collins, dogs are whining in half the houses. Dogs need to have a doggy social life, a life off the leash. When we were kids and all the dogs ran free, a lot of dogs were killed by cars, and that was bad, but we also had a lot of happier dogs. Now that we live in such a controlled world for dogs, you need to spend some time with your dog – an hour or so of good play, a walk in the park.”

Grandin has said repeatedly that her autism has given her a powerful connection to the way animals think. “It began when I realized I think in pictures, not verbally,” she said. “Animals, lacking the verbal aspect, see everything in terms of what they see, feel, hear … Most of us have just never looked at things from an animal’s point of view.”

State Delegate Michael Smigiel reported on his blog yesterday that he’s received comments from more hundreds of people in connection with the Cecil County SPCA, many of them containing new allegations of abuse and mismanagement.

“Originally, there were only three former employees, a few former volunteers and numerous citizens who had reported problems to my office about abuse of animals and financial mismanagement at the CCSPCA,” Smigiel wrote. “Subsequent to publishing a few of those accounts on this blog, over five hundred people have posted comments on this blog, called my office, mailed my office or came by personally. (Over 33,000 have logged onto this site, so far.)”

Smigiel added that “many new allegations about previous sadistic acts against these innocent animals have also come to light … We are busy collecting sworn statements from those who make allegations about animal abuse and will provide them to prosecutors.”

Representatives of the Cecil County SPCA decided this week not to attend a county commissioners meeting to discuss allegations of abuse that have been raised by Smigiel and and others because of threats of physical harm, SPCA President Nancy Schwerzler said.

In a letter provided to the county commissioners, Schwerzler said allegations being raised by state Smigiel are “not supported by facts” and that the Cecil County SPCA does not “routinely” shoot dogs.

Here is the letter in its entirety.

Read more »

A poodle in Vermont survived 19 days in a van at the Burlington International Airport parking garage.

The 12-year-old miniature poodle, Michou, apparently left in the van without food or water, lost half his body weight and endured freezing temperatures. He was discovered after a passerby alerted police to a stench coming from the vehicle. Since then, he has made an “amazing” recovery, veterinarians said.

Police cited the dog’s owner, Canadian citizen Pascal Bellon, 50, of Frelighsburg, Quebec, for cruelty to animals, which has a fine of $100. Bellon has agreed to give up custody of the dog and pay for veterinary bills related to the pet’s recovery, according to a report in the Burlington Free Press.

Police said the dog, locked in the car from Dec. 14 to Jan. 6, was not left at the airport intentionally, but the circumstances around his abandonment were not divulged.

Mickey Rourke, who thanked his dogs while accepting his Golden Globe award for his role in “The Wrestler,” has teamed up with PETA to encourage spaying and neutering.

Rourke, who owns seven dogs, appears in the ad with one of his Chihuahua’s, Jaws.

In the ad, Mickey and Jaws urge people to have “the cojones to fix your dog. When dogs get knocked up, puppies get put down because there aren’t enough homes for them.”

The ad is part of PETA’s ABC campaign (Animal Birth Control), aimed at knocking out animal overpopulation.

A poll conducted for Petside.com and the Associated Press shows that pet owners favor a mutt in the White House.

By more than a 2-1 margin, pet owners say the Obamas should choose a mutt for their first dog over a purebred. The poll showed people who don’t have pets don’t really care either way.

The survey, conducted by GfK, also found more than half of pet owners and 43 percent of all Americans said it was important to them that the Obamas adopt their dog from an animal shelter.

Obama said over the weekend that his family had narrowed their choice down to two breeds: a Labradoodle (a cross between a poodle and a Labrador) and a Portuguese water dog, the kind owned by Sen. Edward Kennedy. (Although the Labradoodle is frequently called a “hybrid,” there’s really no difference between that and a mutt, other than the price tag.)

Democrats felt more strongly about a mutt in the White House than Republicans. Among all Democrats, 38 percent say the dog should be a mutt, compared with 32 percent of all Republicans. Republicans were more likely to say they don’t care about the question, 42 percent, than Democrats, 33 percent.

Among those quoted in an Associated Press story about the survey was Baltimore resident and miniature pinscher owner Pat Schoff, 55, who pointed out that, all in all, what breed a dog is doesn’t really matter.

“I guess in all reality, a dog’s a dog,” she said.

The University of Michigan is coming under fire for a class in which doctors practice their emergency surgical procedures on live, otherwise healthy dogs.

The procedures so badly damage the animals — some of which are procured from animals shelters — that they must be euthanized — the Detroit Free Press reports.

According to the Free Press, one of the dogs used in the test was Koda, a male malamute that was surrendered at an animal shelter. Instead of being adopted, Koda was sold to R&R Research of Howard City, which resold it to the university for its Advanced Trauma Life Support class.

The University of Miichigan uses simulators for doctors in other courses, but Dr. Richard Burney, who directs the Advanced Trauma Life Support class, insists the dogs are the most realistic training tool and that the training will help save human lives. The dogs are anesthetized during before surgery.

“This is a fair and proper use of animals,” he said. “If you come … with a gunshot wound, without adequate training, you become the animal that is being learned upon.”

The University of Michigan course is one of 15 in the country — and the only one in Michigan — that uses animals, according to a survey from the animal welfare group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The group is to file a complaint today with the U.S. Department of Agriculture against Burney.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine found in a survey of 198 Advanced Trauma Life Support courses nationwide that more than 90% use human cadavers or simulator dummies. The remaining courses use dogs, goats or pigs to teach these skills.

Animal welfare experts in Great Britain are warning that the trend toward outfitting dogs in clothes — especially winter coats — may be causing the animals to overheat.

The RSPCA has gone so far as to compare the practice to leaving dogs in cars during hot weather, and says it may consider prosecuting those who are putting their dogs at risk.

Some experts say that, except for small, short-haired and hairless breeds, clothing is unnecessary and interferes with a dog’s ability to regulate its own temperature, the London Telegraph reported over the weekend.

And a few question the growth of “canine couture” – dressing dogs in “fashionable” clothing – saying it is demeaning to the animals and could even encourage bad behaviour.

“There are very few occasions when an animal needs a coat, even in the recent cold weather, Mark Johnston, from the British Small Animal Veterinary Association, told the Telegraph.

“Dogs have developed a very effective coat of their own, which will protect them from the elements. It is adjustable so they can raise the fur to control their temperature. Dressing them in a coat diminishes the animal’s ability to regulate their own body temperature and could be detrimental if the animal gets too hot. Read more »