ohmidog!

A baby in Mesa, Arizona died from severe bite wounds that police said were inflicted Wednesday night by the family dog, a Chow/golden retriever mix, the Arizona Republic reported.

Police said the mother of the 2-week-old girl placed the child in a bassinet so she could use the restroom. When she returned, the infant had severe bites on her head.

By the time paramedics arrived the baby was unresponsive and pronounced dead.

The infant’s father is a Mesa police officer and the mother is a Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community officer. The dog was euthanized Thursday after the family signed off on the procedure.

A Texas mayor’s love for dogs has once again gotten him in trouble — this time for trying to save a Great Dane he thought was in distress, stranded on an apartment building balcony.

As it turned out the Dane wasn’t in distress after all, but Mayor Pat Ahumada didn’t find that out, according to the Brownsville Herald, until after he scaled called for a fire department ladder and surprised the apartment owner in his kitchen.

Overzealous? Maybe a little. Still, it’s good — especially after reports about Don Call, the dog-shooting mayor in Kansas — to hear a tale about a mayor with compassion, as opposed to a murderous streak, when it comes to dogs.

According to an Associated Press report, Ahumada, mayor of Brownsville, alerted animal control, the fire department and police when he received a report from a local TV station about a dog apparently stranded on a second story balcony.

He then went to the location himself, the AP reported, scaled a fire department ladder and entered the apartment to help the dog.

“He looked to be stuck on the balcony,” Ahumada said. “I didn’t know the condition of the dog or if the building was abandoned … The animal’s paws were hanging out from the railing and he was struggling to get up.”

As it turned out, the 14-year-old dog was fine. According to his owner, he has little mobility, and enjoys passing the day on the balcony. “He broke into my house,” the owner, who asked not to be identified, said of the mayor. “My dog is very well taken care of. He shouldn’t have done that.”
Brownsville’s NEWSCHANNEL 5 had an entirely different take on the incident. Its website reports that a reporter and photographer spotted the dog “dangling helplessly from a second story balcony” and rushed to the rescue. After the two were not able to locate the owner, they called Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada for help.

The mayor’s zeal for animals has caused problems before. In 2007, the city informed Ahumada that his six dogs were twice the city’s legal limit for one home. That same year, Ahumada picked up a dog thinking it was stray and gave it to a family. When the original owner asked for the dog back and the family refused, the issue ended up in court.

Two years earlier, before he was elected mayor, Ahumada was charged with theft after taking a dog from the Brownsville Animal Shelter. He claimed the dog was not being properly cared for and the charge was dismissed.

The Humane Society of the United States says a 9-month undercover investigation has revealed routinely unlawful mistreatment of hundreds of chimpanzees and other primates in a federally funded research project at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana.

As a result, HSUS has forwarded a 108-page complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, alleging at least 338 possible violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act at the center. The law sets minimal standards for the treatment of animals in labs.

The HSUS covertly videotaped the lab, gathering evidence of severe distress of primates in isolation, including self-mutilation — tearing gaping wounds into their arms and legs in what the HSUS says could be a result of the center’s failure to provide adequate environmental enhancement.

In addition, the report says, dart guns and squeeze cages are shown causing acute psychological distress to chimpanzees and monkeys.

“These experiments come at an enormous short-term and long-term expense to taxpayers, and an even greater expense in suffering and anguish to chimpanzees and other primates forced to live in this pitiful laboratory,” said Wayne Pacelle, HSUS president and CEO.

“Our investigation found an abject failure on NIRC’s part to attend to the psychological well-being of primates as dictated by law, a lax USDA attitude about enforcing that law, and a knowing and gross violation of the federal government’s pledge to stop breeding more chimpanzees for research.”

The center cages about 6,000 monkeys and 325 chimpanzees on its 100 acres, but in the span of nine months, an HSUS investigator saw only about 20 of the chimpanzees used in active studies. The majority of chimpanzees at the facility appeared to be warehoused or used for breeding – at a time of fiscal crisis and when no other developed nation uses chimpanzees in experiments.

The chimps in New Iberia are among more than 1,000 chimps kept in laboratories across the United States, HSUS says.

Part of the the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the New Iberia Research Center is located on a former naval base outside of New Iberia, Louisiana.

Workers in the employ of Renfro Productions — apparently unfamiliar with the concept of service dogs, and the federal laws that guarantee them access – kicked an epileptic veteran and his Labrador retriever out of Pepsi Coliseum last weekend.

Robin Davis and his 5-year-old Lab, ”Doc,” who helps him cope with seizures, were first turned away from the Indianapolis Boat, Sport and Travel Show at the gate.

They managed to get in through another door, but were stopped 30 minutes later, he says, by a woman who said she was with the Boat Show asked him and Doc to leave, according to WTHR-TV in Indianapolis.

Twenty minutes later, a third employee told him he and his dog weren’t welcome. Finally, Davis says he went to the office and talked to an employee for the show’s organizer, Renfro Productions. “She was sorry that I thought it was federal law that I could have my dog in there. That she didn’t care,” says Davis.

Renfro Productions issued this statement:

“The long standing policy of Renfro Productions has always been to allow service dogs of any kind into our consumer product shows, such as the Indianapolis Boat, Sport, and Travel show. Our company and our employees continually strive to provide the highest level of customer service and convenience to all of our patrons and exhibitors.”