ohmidog!

It’s time for an update on Hector — the scraggly and toothless American Eskimo dog who, when we first met him, looked every bit as down on his luck as he was.

Since then, Hector, as we reported, found a new long term foster care home, has been enjoying free K-9 Kraving Raw Diet dog food (easier on the gums), has been checked out by more vets and specialists — with more visits ahead — and got himself spiffed up with a grooming (also contributed by K-9 Kraving) from Kelly at Dogma.

Here’s what he’s looking like these days.

For a video on Hector’s progress, put together by K-9 Kraving, which is documenting Hector’s response to a raw diet, combined with ample portions of love and care, click here.

In addition to the before and after, we’ve gotten some information that predates before. We still don’t know anything about Hector’s life prior to BARCS — though suspicions are he may have had his teeth removed so he could be a bait dog for dogfighters. But we do have new information on how he ended up at BARCS.

Tom Askey, who teaches American Government to 10th graders at Patterson High School, said Hector was found lingering around the door to the school, cold and shaking.

“When I tried to get close to him to see if he was okay, he ran from me towards the ball fields and Lombard Street. He then ran across a busy Kane Street into an area that was fenced in by the City Sanitation facility. He was cornered and super-sweet. Just layed down in a pile of garbage. I called a friend at school who I knew wasn’t teaching and owned a dog while I stayed there and talked to him. He drove over to us, gave me his dog’s leash and we fashioned a leash without a collar…

“But I didn’t have a break till 1:30 and it was only 10:30. I left my car running (a little dicey in that neighborhood and with 1500 high school students there), gave him my lunch, and then had my students go out and periodically check on him. They brought him water and all kinds of love. I brought him down to BARCS and prayed for the best. I called BARCS once, but didnt want to get bad news about him so I kind of let it go.”

Askey continued: “I was so touched by your posts/video on him and the progress videos that are posted on the K-9 Kraving website. The fact that people are doing such great things with him really moves me. In a town full of stray animals and badly-behaving humans, Im still struggling to grasp that this little dog I found is getting so much attention and love. Really really heart-warming.”

Hector was pulled from BARCS by Sallyann Jennings, on behalf of the rescue group Stop Killing Dogs. Since then, a number of people have stepped in to help him out. Tobey McGuinness provided short term foster care, and Hector’s now living in a long term foster home with Dave Adams, owner of FlexPrint Graphics.

Several veterinary organizations have also offered to assess Hector’s issues. He’s a little wobbly on the back end, and may have some hearing problems, which could be related to sinus issues and gaping holes in his mouth from tooth extraction. We’ll keep you updated on those as well in the weeks ahead.

Four months after their cattle dog fell overboard off the coast of Australia, a couple has been reunited with the pooch.

Owner Jan Griffith said her dog, Sophie Tucker, fell off the side of their boat in choppy waters off the Mackay coast in north Queensland in late November.

Apparently, the dog swam five nautical miles to St. Bees Island, where she survived until last week by hunting baby goats. She was returned to her family last week after rangers captured what they believed was a wild dog, according to an Australian Associated Press report.

Ms. Griffith said she and her husband had contacted rangers after friends suggested the dog – who had developed a reputation on the island – might be their long-lost pet.

Last Tuesday the couple met the rangers’ boat as it ferried the dog back to the mainland.

“We called the dog and she started whimpering and banging the cage and they let her out and she just about flattened us,” Ms. Griffith said.

This Xena’s not a warrior princess, but she is a rescued Rottweiler. We met her over the unseasonably warm weekend at a dog park in Carrboro, N.C. She was in a full run when I took this photo. Hence the flapping tongue.

As dog parks go, Carrboro’s is a good-sized one — four fenced-in acres within the 55-acre Hank Anderson Park. Its biggest shortcoming is a complete lack of shade. Only one small tree is within its boundaries, and it looks dead.

So Xena, after a little running around, sought out the only spot that came close to being shaded, under the park bench.

And, being a gentle soul, she was more than happy to share it with Ace.

Ex-Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick outlined his bankruptcy plan for more than three hours in court Friday, but a federal bankruptcy judge rejected the proposal and sent him back to the drawing board.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank J. Santoro rejected the proposal because it seemed too dependent on Vick returning to professional football. Santoro said there is no guarantee the league will have the 28-year-old player back, and suggested he develop a new plan that included liquidating one or both of his Virginia homes and three cars he had planned to keep.

Vick remains indefinitely suspended, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has not said whether he will reinstate Vick after his July release from the federal penitentiary in Kansas where he is serving a 23-month sentence for a dogfighting conspiracy.

Vick said his plans include marrying his fiancee next summer and working a $10-an-hour construction job as part of his probation until he can resume his football career, according to an Associated Press report.

Once one of the NFL’s highest-paid players, Vick’s lavish spending and poor investments, coupled with the backlash from his dogfighting case, led to his financial downfall.

Vick said he has accepted full responsibility for his crime, including bankrolling the Bad Newz Kennels dogfighting operation and personally helping to kill some dogs that fared poorly in test fights.

Vick’s other prospects, his lawyers said, include a television documentary deal that will pay him $600,000. There were also hints of a possible book deal. “There are serious and respected people in the literary arts world working on Mr. Vick’s behalf,” he said.

He could be transferred to home confinement at his eastern Virginia home by late May, and Vick’s agent has said that he hopes the player can return to the NFL by September.

Just a quick word of warning for those who take their dogs to Riverside Park in South Baltimore.

Police and animal control officers were at the park today, prepared to dispense some of the city’s new $1,000 citations for violation of the leash law, according to our sources.

The same newly increased penalty applies to owners who fail to pick up their dog’s waste.

Crackdowns usually take place when the weather gets nice, and, thanks to the city council, they now carry a much higher price tag. So, no matter which city park you and your dog visit, watch your step — in every meaning of the phrase.

Ace, being both neutered and neutral, isn’t normally one to take sides, but he will be pulling for the University of North Carolina Tarheels in tonight’s final four game against Villanova, at his master’s command.

In Chapel Hill yesterday, Ace, after picking up a new bandana, attended a journalism school picnic for some retiring professors — and got to enjoy some Bullock’s barbecue, once when high winds flipped my plate over, again when a kindly Bullock’s employee brought him a plateful.

In addition to a little gas, Ace also got to pass along his best wishes to the retiring – or halfway retiring — professor Donald Shaw, who, many years ago taught Ace’s master a thing or two, including calling things by their correct names. So make that School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Best of luck to Donald, and if I may — against his teachings — be slightly less than objective: 

Go Heels!

Matzoball and Meatball attended the Malibu wedding of their owner, Adam Sandler. Gwen Stefani walked down the aisle with her sheepdog, Winston, when she married Gavin Rossdale in London. Gisele Bundchen’s three dogs looked on as she tied the knot with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. And Jennifer Hudson has announced her intentions to include her dogs in her upcoming ceremony.

But not just celebrities are making the dog a member of the wedding party these days. Take Andy MacDonald, regular guy. At his wedding in Seattle, his dog Inge, a collie-malamute mix, served as ring bearer — and handled the job nicely.

The concept of man’s best friend as best man, or at least an honored member of the wedding party, is catching on, and has even led to the creation of a niche industry — or a niche within a niche industry – that caters to Fido’s appearance on his owner’s big day, according to a Columbia News Service article that appeared in this week’s San Jose Mercury-News. 

“It’s a shift in the way people view pets,” says Brian Iannessa, a spokesman for Veterinary Pet Insurance, explaining the trend behind canine participants in weddings. “People are incorporating pets into their lives more than ever before, taking them on trips, celebrating their pets’ birthdays.”

Forty-two percent of the insurance company’s clients had or plan to have their pets participate in their wedding, according to a recent poll of 3,000 pet owners. Iannessa estimates that the vast majority of those surveyed were dog owners.

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A New Jersey man who admitted driving nails through a fence in hopes of injuring his neighbor’s dogs has been sentenced to 15 days in jail.

David Lench, 50, of Middletown also was ordered to pay $4,000 in fines when sentenced Wednesday by Middletown Municipal Court Judge Richard Thompson. He had pleaded guilty to three counts of animal cruelty.

Officials say Lench drove 18 3-inch nails through the a wooden fence separating his yard from Michael Flynn’s, which led one of Flynn’s three German shepherds to suffer puncture wounds to its face.

Neither Lench nor his lawyer, Michael V. Gilberti of Red Bank, could be reached for comment Wednesday, according to an Associated Press report.

Everybody knows about dogfighting, and the evils thereof, but not everyone is familiar with an even sicker — if that’s possible — version of the practice known as “trunking.”

As this video report shows, it involves placing two fighting dogs in the trunk of a car, closing it, turning the music up to avoid detection and letting them go at it — either while the car is parked or on a ride. The dog that survives is the winner. The loser’s body is sometimes tossed on the side of the road.

You can find a full report on the practice on Zootoo.com.

Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the … dogs?

A handful of churches have found a new way to fill empty pews, catching on to what a lot of hotels and other business establishments have already figured out: When you let people bring their dogs, you get more people.

A recent USA Today article looked at a dog-friendly church service in Omaha at the Underwood Hills Presbyterian Church — one where some dogs took seats on the pews, others sprawled on the floor and a few seemed intent on being social. But all eventually settled down for the sermon.

“Just relax,” the Rev. Becky Balestri, 51, said to open the service. “It’s like having kids in church.”

At least two other U.S. churches, in New York and near Boston, also allow dogs at regular weekly services, the article said.

“I hadn’t been to church in many, many years, and this gave me a reason to come back with my friend,” said one churchgoer who hadn’t attended church regularly since about 1988.

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