ohmidog!

Camp Bow Wow — at 7165 Oakland Mills Road in Columbia, Md. — invites dogs and their people to a Yappy Hour Wednesday night, from 5 to 7.

“Bring your dog, meet new friends and enjoy a glass of wine at camp,” camp leaders said. For more information visit the Camp Bow Wow website.

People magazine has confirmed that one of Oprah Winfrey’s newly adopted and highly publicized cocker spaniels has died.

Ivan, one of two puppies Winfrey recently adopted from PAWS Shelter in Chicago died of parvovirus last week, a veterinarian confirmed. The second, Sadie, is being treated against the highly contagious virus as a precaution.

Winfrey announced the adoption of Sadie on her show March 6 and said she was thinking about adopting one of her three brothers still awaiting homes at PAWS. She brought home Sadie’s brother Ivan, but the puppy came down with a deadly virus last Wednesday and died, said Dr. Jean Dobbs, a veterinarian who supplied the plasma to treat them both.

A spokesperson for Winfrey confirmed to PEOPLE Pets that the puppy died over the weekend, and added that Sadie, “is getting stronger.”

“It was just a little bit too late. All the veterinary community got together to save his life,” Dr. Dobbs said of Ivan. “The puppy didn’t make it, but he’s teaching others how important this is to get vaccinated at the right times.”

Dr. Dobbs is the founder of Hemopet, a non-profit animal blood bank.

The PAWS Shelter has not responded to an email I sent yesterday — and they didn’t return People’s calls, either.

Winfrey’s Golden Retriever Gracie choked to death on a ball in 2007 and her cocker spaniel Sophie died about a year ago at age 13 of kidney failure. After airing a show on puppy mills, Oprah vowed that her next pet would be a rescue.

Sadie and Ivan were part of a litter of 11 puppies born to a dog rescued from Greenwood, South Carolina by a woman attending her mother’s funeral.

Interestingly, news of Ivan’s death was first broken last week by John Yates, head of the American Sporting Dog Alliance, an organization highly that was critical of Winfrey’s puppy mill episode and tried to initiate a boycott of the program’s advertisers.

Through the weekend only Examiner bloggers were publishing that unconfirmed report, picking up what Yates posted on the Internet.

A Pentagon memorandum issued earlier this year that bans pit bulls, Rottweilers, Dobermans and chows from living on Army bases has come under fire as being cold, backwards, misguided and an insult to soldiers who have served their country.

The Pentagon memo, dated Jan. 5, 2009, specifies that those breeds will no longer be allowed in Army housing — but it exempts those already housed. Any member of the military who switched bases, however, would be subject to its terms. The Air Force also has enacted a breed-selective policy and the Navy is expected to do the same.

Best Friends Animal Society in Utah said yesterday it is calling on the U.S. military to reverse the ban, which the organization says is “tearing apart families and their dogs at bases across the country.”

Best Friends attorney Ledy VanKavage said the memo is a “knee-jerk reaction” that “targets the wrong end of the leash. Our armed forces should target reckless owners, not a particular breed of dog.”

The memorandum states families “may not board in privatized housing” any dog of a breed — or a mix of breeds –that is deemed aggressive or potentially aggressive. The memorandum defines “aggressive or potentially aggressive breeds of dogs, “as pit bulls (American Staffordshire bull terriers or English Staffordshire bull terriers), Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, chows, and wolf hybrids.”

”Behind that cold language are stories of our heroes and their families being separated from their dogs,” VanKavage said.

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Citing a budget shortfall, Los Angeles animal control officials say they will end a voucher program that enabled residents to get low cost spaying and neutering for their dogs.

The program started last year, when the city voted to require all Los Angeles dogs and cats be neutered or spayed, with the exception of show animals, law enforcement and service dogs, and those deemed too old or sick for the surgery.

L.A. Animal Services General Manager Ed Boks says the agency was compelled by the city to make up a budget shortfall of $414,000. Ending the spay and neuter vouchers will save about $150,000, he said.

Animal welfare advocates, and some city council members, are displeased with the decision to end the program, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Councilman Dennis Zine’s office said he ”strongly opposes the recent decision made by the department to halt the voucher program” and will move later this week for the council to reinstate the program.

Sniffing out harmful bacteria in bee colonies is a full time job for Klinker — “our newest employee,” said William Troup, an apiary inspector with the Maryland Department of Agriculture.