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An outbreak of Parvovirus, a serious and highly contagious dog disease, has forced Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter to temporarily close all dog housing.

Because of the illness, the city shelter ceased adopting out dogs about a week ago. The housing areas at BARCS will be closed to both the public and volunteers until at least Feb. 14, after which adoptions will continue. The shelter remains opens to those wishing to adopt cats, which are not affected by the disease.

Jennifer Mead-Brause, executive director of BARCS, said the outbreak was traced to two dogs that owners brought in to surrender about 10 days ago. In one case, the owner was aware the dog had the disease and told shelter staff, allowing them to take proper precautions.

In the second case, it was not known that the dog had the virus.

In all, eight dogs caught the disease, which Mead-Brause says appears to have been contained.

Dogs are remaining in quarantine for another week to make sure the virus, which has a two-week incubation period, doesn’t show up again.

“We’re waiting for that and just holding our breath,” she said.

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 Shepard Fairey, the Los-Angeles street artist whose Obama poster became an instant icon — and got him sued — has turned his skills to dogs, creating a mutt version of the red, white and blue poster to help support the cause of pet adoptions.

Four hundred limited edition prints are being offered online today by adoptapet.com, a non-profit pet organization, similar to petfinder.com, that helps shelters, humane societies and rescue group advertise their homeless pets to adopters for free.

Sales of the prints, signed and numbered by Fairey, are being sold at $200 each, with proceeds going to ”help animals in shelters and rescue groups to get seen and adopted,” the organization said.

To try and get one, or download your own smaller version, click here.

The poster is based on a photo by Clay Myers, professional animal welfare photographer, and Fairey used it with his permission.

For the Obama poster, he apparently neglected that step and, as a result, is being sued by the Associated Press for copyright infringement. The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation.

Also today, an exhibit of Fairey’s work, entitled Supply and Demand, is opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

North American wolves that are darker in color apparently inherited the trait from dogs.

Although it’s well known that dogs descended from wolves, National Geographic reports, a new study implies that some genetic material moved backward in the evolutionary chain.

Thousands of years ago, the researchers suggest, a few wolves mated with dogs — possibly pets kept by Native Americans — creating hybrid animals that passed on their genes. The study appears in this week’s issue of the journal Science.

Outside North America, where dark wolves can make up 10 to 70 percent of a given population, only Italy is known to have wolves with darker coats.

Scientists know there are particular gene receptors that cause dark colors in animals. But when Barsh and colleagues looked at variations of those genes in wolves and coyotes, they learned that those variations didn’t affect the color of the canines’ fur. Instead, a more unique gene that darkens fur in dogs was found in dark wolves and coyotes from Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park and the Canadian Arctic.

“It’s quite clear that black wolves are just as much wolf as a non-black wolf,” said study co-author Greg Barsh, a geneticist at Stanford University in California. But this small amount of dog genes may have given black-coated wolves a selective advantage.

“It does seem natural to say, Oh, well there’s more black wolves in the forest because that helps them blend into their environment,” Barsh said.

But wolves don’t depend on camouflage to hunt, biologists have found, suggesting that the benefit of being genetically coded for dark fur might not be related to color. It turns out the same gene is involved in humans in helping bolster the immune system to fight off infection, Barsh said.

The new study may also help conservation biologists think beyond traditional views on genetic diversity, Barsh added.

“There is sometimes one school of thought that to preserve species diversity is to keep the natural population pure,” he said. “This is an example where preserving genetic diversity has in fact been facilitated by a hybridization event with a domesticated animal.”

A Navy soldier has been reunited with the dog she rescued in Iraq.

Construction Mechanic First Class Joan Steates, who along with fellow Seabees took in a stray shepherd-mix pup named Sako, was forced to leave her behind when she came home in October.

On Monday night, they reunited at Dulles Airport, throught the efforts of SPCA International’s Operation Baghdad Pups, which provides veterinary care, clearance and transportation for animals that U.S. service members can’t bear to leave behind in the Middle East.

In the past year year, Baghdad Pups has brought 79 dogs and cats from Iraq and Afghanistan. 50 other reunions are in the works.

The SPCA says the program, funded entirely by donations, spends about $4,000 to ship each animal to the U.S.

Lisha, a nine-year-old Labrador, is helping raise three month-old tiger cubs whose mother rejected them — and that’s just the latest in the long line of species she has suckled.

A resident of the Cango Wildlife Reserve in the Oudsthoorn area of South Africa, Lisha has served as a substitute mom for more than 30 orprhaned animals, including a porcupine and a hippo.

“We have had Lisha since she was a puppy,” said owner Nadine Hall. “‘It is all about her conditioning and fear. We noticed early on that she didn’t care if it was a cat or a porcupine. She would just walk up and lick the creature she was caring for. Although in the case of the porcupine that was more amusing.”

Mrs. Hall and her husband Rob, who is director of the Cango park, realized their dog had a unique gift and started bringing orphaned animals home for her to raise.

“If Lisha sees an animal being brought back in a box, she automatically assumes that it is to be cared for,” Mrs Hall said.

Lisha has never had her own litter.

You can see the family’s other photos in yesterday’s Daily Mail.

Mayor Don Call turned himself in Wednesday and was charged with two felony counts of cruelty to animals and one misdemeanor count of criminal discharge of a firearm.

But he said he had no regrets about killing two dogs, who, according to their owner, were chained at the time.

Call, the mayor of McCune, Kan., said he warned the dogs’ owner on Jan. 12 that if the dogs were found running loose in town again, he would shoot them.

After receiving a complaint about the dogs Sunday, he drove to the home of their owner and shot them.

“They was lying on the sidewalk on the front of the house,” Fox News quoted him as saying. “I shot them with a 9mm rifle … five or six times.”

The dog’s owner, Duane Wahl, said his dogs never bothered anyone and that they were chained when the mayor drove up and shot them from his car window. “They weren’t vicious dogs. They don’t bite people.”

We’ve gotten a couple of comments from McCune residents. You can find them at the bottom of our original entry on Mayor Call.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Daniel Rubin was taking his dog Harley for a short morning walk. You know the kind. Hurry up and do your business … It’s cold … Gotta get to work. But — as will happen when new dog meets freshly fallen snow – the short walk turned into a long walk, an acquaintance turned into a friend, and, more important for Dan, taking the time to go down a new path or two turned into a column. Here’s what he posted on his Facebook page, which he later condensed into a column, which appears in today’s Inquirer.

Harley’s first step out the door is up — straight up — all 100-or-so loping, furry, orsine pounds of Bouvier twisting, leaping, soaring into the air. He looks back, wild-eyed and grinning.

To be a dog in the snow.

The idea was to walk him long enough so he could do his thing, then I could excavate the car and drive into town, where bad roads and deadline awaited.

But everytime this dog sees a blanket of snow, he’s seeing it for the first time. I’m not sure how bright he is. But he does know how to live.

We took the middle of the road, usually a whoosh of morning traffic, but there were no cars, no sound. There were no sidewalks yet either at 7 o’clock, just slight furrows in the virgin snow.

In the next block a lone figure shoveled the deep, airy powder. He was pink-faced and wore a beret, a field jacket, sweats and Wellies.

“Nice day for a walk,” he said, happily stopping for a moment.

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The Oregon man who used a hammer to try to euthanize his daughter’s dog, then buried it alive, has been sentenced to 120 days in jail for misdemeanor animal abuse.

Hyrum Long, 75, of Forest Grove, said Tuesday he was trying to euthanize the dog in October when he hit it on the head with a hammer and buried it up to its neck. The dog, named Molly, was rescued by police but later euthanized by a veterinarian because of injuries and apparent long-term neglect.

Judge Rick Knapp called the situation “appalling” and told Long what he had done was “monstrous and barbaric.” Long, according to the Associated Press, also was sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service.

A seven-week-old puppy found frozen to a tree in Hagerstown, Md., is being nursed back to health, and the Washington County Humane Society is investigating how he ended up alone in the woods.

The puppy, a German shepherd mix named Duncan, was found Friday behind the North Spring Apartments, according to an ABC2 News report. Neighbors said they heard whimpers and went to see where the sounds were coming from.

Paul Miller, Executive Director of the Washington County Humane Society said that, other than the loss of fur that occured when the pup was freed from the tree, and a skin disorder, Duncan is in good condition and should be ready for adoption in about two weeks.

Miller said the society is getting three times as many calls as they normally do from from people concerned about animals out in the cold with no shelter.

“This is a very disturbing situation,” he said.  “Any young animal should never be left outside for any length of time. This puppy very easily could have died from exposure and hypothermia.”  The puppy is now being taken care of at the Humane Society on Maugansville Road. 

Miller added, “If someone is having problems training or taking care of a young animal please call us and we will see if we can help you work through training issues.  If you would prefer to remain anonymous our website at www.hswcmd.org has a Trainer Talk section that can offer guidance on how to constructively correct behaviors that may be causing problems with your pet.”

The HSWC is asking anyone who may have information about the dog or the incident to contact their Field Services Division at 301-733-2060 extension 203.

CNBC takes a look at the most famous dog competition in the world tonight in an hour long special on the business side of Westminster.

The report, “American Originals: Westminster Dog Show” is anchored by Trish Regan and delves into the inner workings of the competition, which opens Monday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

Regan explores the cost of doing business at Westminster, the return on investment, and America’s love affair with dogs that has helped turn the pet industry into one of the largest retail sectors in the country.

Featured in the program are “Uno,” the 2008 “Best in Show” winner (the first beagle ever to secure the honor), and “James,” the prior year’s title-holder, who visit hospitalized children as part of the Westminster Kennel Club’s Angel on a Leash charity. Interviews with experts include Westminster Kennel Club historian William Stifel and dog show judge Don Jones.

It airs on CNBC at 9 p.m. Live opening night coverage of Westminster begins Monday at 8 p.m. on the USA Network before switching to CNBC at 9 p.m.. USA will broadcast the complete closing night competition, starting at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.