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.”

A cat named Ugly is drawing stares at an Exeter, New Hampshire vet’s office, where clients say they can’t take their eyes off his striking appearance.

The cat — whose full name is Ugly Bat Boy — is bald some in places, has flowing fur in others, and he passes most of his time spread out on a warm computer.

The cat was part of a litter of four with a sister that looked just like him. That kitten died at only a few weeks old, but that was long enough for the veterinarian, a Dr. Bassett (appropriately enough), to become enamored with Bat Boy.

“The owner knew that I liked the way the sister looked, and I came in from lunch one day and this cat was sitting in a cage, and the owner said Dr. Bassett liked this cat, so that’s it,” Bassett said.

People come in and take pictures of him on their cell phones,” said veterinary employee Christie Hartnett. “The impression from clients that come in is he’s not real because he just sits so still, and when he does move, he scares them, but they think he’s mesmerizing,” Hartnett said.

The office staff was getting so many questions about the cat that they put up a couple of fliers saying he’s about 8 years old and perfectly normal in every way — just ugly.

Ugly Bat Boy, I presume is named after the creature created, er … discovered by the Weekly World News — that Florida publication that was doing fake news long before it was cool, keeping us apprised of the latest sightings of Elvis, aliens, Bigfoot and more. I had the pleasure of visiting and doing a story about about its wacky staff before it went out of business, a reprint of which is still online.

It’s good to see Bat Boy’s name living on in a hideous cat. (Actually, I can see the cat’s inner beauty, just as I saw the seriously misunderstood Bat Boy’s.)

As for Bat Boy, the cat, he has the run of the vet’s office in New Hampshire, and all the attention he can handle, according to a TV news report. “He likes it here,” Bassett said. “He’s comfortable. He likes the people petting him.”

Of course, anything this “ugly” deserves a video. So here it is.

The city of Denver, while it has killed 1,667 pit bulls since reinstituting its ban on the breed in 2005 — that’s about one a day — says it can’t say “with certainty” whether the ban is working.

Clearly, though, its doggie death chamber is functioning just fine.

According to a story in yesterday’s Denver Daily News, the city’s only free paper, city officials say they have no evidence that the ban is not working, and no evidence that it is.

That’s because there hasn’t been a serious pit bull attack in Denver since the 1989 mauling of Rev. Wilbur Billingsley, who was left with more than 70 bites and two broken legs. Three years before that, a 3-year-old boy was killed by a pit bull.

Those incidents resulted in the City Council banning pit bulls from the city. In 2004, Gov. Bill Owens signed a bill prohibiting local municipalities from enacting breed-specific legislation, but Denver challenged the statute and enforcement resumed in May 2005.

Labrador retrievers, meanwhile, have been allowed to go about their lives as normal in the Mile High City — even though they are the most frequent biters, responsible for 13.3 percent of all bites in the area, according to the Colorado Association of Animal Control Officers.

That data was released last week by the Coalition for Living Safely with Dogs.

Pit bulls are second, making up for 8.4 percent of bites, followed by German shepherds at 7.8 percent.

Several other Denver metro towns and cities — including Englewood and Lakewood — examined dog bite data and decided breed-specific legislation is not as effective as stricter aggressive and dangerous dog laws, which hold owners responsible for their pets.

Between 1995 and 2006, Denver had almost six times as many dog-related hospitalizations compared to Boulder, even though Denver’s population is only about twice that of Boulder. During that 12-year period, Denver experienced 273 dog-related hospitalizations, while Boulder experienced only 46, according to statistics provided by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

“I find it interesting that the only area, region, county or city in Colorado with a breed ban happens to be the only county with a higher than normal rate of dog bite hospitalizations,” said Karen Delise, founder of the National Canine Research Council. “The breed ban isn’t working, it’s not addressing education or irresponsible owners.”

A Metro bus driver in Washington D.C. stepped out of his bus and punched McGruff the Crime Dog.

Driver Shawn Brim, 38, told police he thought his act was funny, but children who witnessed it were reportedly horrified, according to the Associated Press.

Brim got back on his bus and drove away after taking a whack at McGruff, who was actually police officer Tyrone Hardy. Hardy, dressed as the crime dog, was handing out fliers to children.

Brim was later pulled over and charged with simple assault. He will also undergo drug and alcohol testing and his future with the agency is under review, a public transportation spokesperson said.

Alley Cat Allies, a group that promotes humane care for cats — both those in homes and those on the streets — will conduct free workshops in Baltimore tonight and tomorrow.

Tonight’s session will be at the Maryland SPCA, 3300 Falls Road, from 7 to 9 p.m.

Thursday’s will be at Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS), 301 Stockton Street, also from 7 to 9 p.m.

The sessions are part of the organization’s “Every Kitty-Every City Program,” and is open to anyone interested in learning more about dealing with stray and feral cats.

Feral cats are outdoor cats that are unsocialized to humans and therefore unadoptable as pets. These workshops will provide information on how to best care for feral cat colonies through communication, mediation, and trap-neuter-return practices.

There’s nothing like a fresh blanket of snow to bring out the inner puppy in your dog.

Which tends — no matter how many hassles the snow might be causing you – to bring out the inner child in yourself.

Which then makes your dog even sillier. And so on.

It’s a joyous cycle — as opposed to one of those vicious ones — and, cold as it gets in the park, we tend to prolong the visit because our dogs (or us?) are having so much fun, lingering until our toes have all but lost their feeling.

Snow, like life, goes better with dogs.