ohmidog!

The mayor of a small southeast Kansas town took the law into his hands over the weekend, responding to a call of two loose dogs and shooting them both from his car.

Don Call, the mayor of McCune, Kansas — population around 400 — says he was protecting his city, which had been dealing for the past six months with complaints about the dogs acting aggressively and intimidating residents.

The mayor says he had warned the owner to get rid of the dogs or else he would do it himself, according to TV station WIBW. 

After receiving a complaint Sunday that two troublesome dogs had jumped through a screen to chase some children, the mayor loaded up his rifle and drove to the property. Once he spotted the dogs, he fired several times from his car, killing them both. He then loaded him into his vehicle and took them to his property, reports say.

The Crawford County Sheriff says an affidavit of arrest was sent to the county attorney office who will decide whether to issue a warrant for the arrest of the mayor.

The question that has become all the rage in London — but hardly even gets asked in the U.S. — got some ink in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, and with less than a week before the opening of the Westminster dog show.

The woman who was courageous enough to ask it, and honest enough to give the answer — yes — was Christie Keith, contributing editor for Universal Press Syndicate’s Pet Connection, past director of the Pet Care Forum on America Online, and a writer of a “semi-weekly” column for SFGate.com, the online home of the San Francisco Chronicle.

As Keith points out, the BBC documentary “Pedigree Dogs Exposed,” got things rolling. The series showed that many purebred dogs are prone to diseases and health problems that have resulted from “the tyranny of the show ring” – breeders selecting their dogs to accentuate specific, often freakish traits that win at dog shows but leave them unfit for living the life of a normal dog.

“If that allegation sounds extreme, consider that the Pekingese dog who won top honors in 2003 at Crufts, Britain’s most prestigious dog show,” Keith wrote. “(He) had to be photographed afterwards while lying on an icepack because he couldn’t breathe well enough to efficiently cool his own over-heated body.”

In response to the BBC documentary, the network’s decision to stop airing Crufts, and the withdrawl from the show of several sponsors, Britain’s Kennel Club revised its standards somewhat, warning breed clubs that the most extreme traits would no longer be tolerated.

In the U.S., the American Kennel Club, and critics of it, were mostly silent. Only PETA stepped forward, as it’s prone to do, demanding that the USA Network follow BBC’s example and stop airing the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. USA Network declined, and the show will air Monday and Tuesday, February 9-10, from 8-11 p.m.

“But should it? Are purebred dogs really in that much trouble? And if so, are dog shows behind the genetic and other health problems that plague our pets?” Keith asks in her column.

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A bloody confrontation Saturday at the White Rock Dog Park in Dallas left a woman’s face slashed, a man charged with aggravated assault and carrying a switchblade, and pit bulls, as usual, bearing the blame.

Michael Armalavage, 44, was arrested after he accidentally slashed another dog owner while trying to protect himself and his Australian shepherd from an attack by another dog, described as a pit bull-Rhodesian ridgeback mix.

Krisha Pembroke, 30, whose dog, Bosh, was on a leash but apparently not under control, received a gash just above her right eye, according to the Dallas Morning News. The paper’s crime blog has Armalavage’s account of the incident, and is getting dozens of reader comments about the incident, mostly saying pit bulls, and pit bull mixes, should be banned from the park if not from the city.

Nobody, as you might guess, is calling for a Rhodesian ridgeback ban.

“I don’t have problems with him,” Pembroke said of her dog. “I’ve had him since he was a baby.” But witnesses say the dog dragged her owner across the park and latched on to the nose of Armalavage’s dog. The shepherd required a dozen stitches.

Pembroke says she doesn’t want to press charges agains Armalavage, and offered to pay his vet bill.

White Rock is a leash-free dog park.

A Raleigh restaurant that had become a Sunday favorite with dog owners has been asked to cease permitting four-legged clientele.

For three months of Sundays, Lenny’s Hideaway had welcomed dogs — but Super Bowl Sunday was the last chance for dogs to have their day.

Owner Ed Schultz, at the request of county health inspectors, declared Sunday would be his last pet-friendly day. He says his plan to allow dogs on Sundays was originally OK’ed by the health department.

Schultz, who named his sports bar for his late father, started the Sunday custom as a way to spend more time with his basset hound, Miss Chief (pronounced mischief). His friends from the Millbrook Dog Park were soon followed by others eager to let their dogs play while they watched football and ate burgers.

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