ohmidog!

An Oregon man was arrested Tuesday on charges of putting an electric dog collar on each of his four children and shocking them — “because he thought it was funny,” police in Salem said.

Police said the father, Todd Marcum, 41, of Salem, gave a statement admitting he had shocked all four of his children — 3,6,8 and 9 — with the collar at least once.

Marcum told police that he would chase the 3-year-old boy around with the collar, making him cry at the thought of being shocked. Police said that because of the boy’s behavior, it is likely that the children were shocked more than once.

Oregon Department of Human Services workers summoned police to Marcum’s home, where he was taken into custody on four charges of first-degree criminal mistreatment, according to the Statesman-Journal. The four children were left in the custody of their mother.

Dixie, a drug-sniffing police dog in Snohomish, Washington, was saved from the budget ax when the city council voted Tuesday night not to include her position on a list of those being cut.

The $16,000 a year the city would gain from axing her wouldn’t be worth the loss of her skills and the city’s investment in her training, Mayor Randy Hamlin said.

Dixie is one of two dogs on the force. The other, Kizar, is trained as a tracking dog.

A collie-shepherd mix, she’s never missed a day of work — even when she was injured, said her partner, Sgt. Jeffrey Shelton, who showed up at the council meeting to plead for her job.

Dixie has found $25,000 in cash and seven pounds of drugs, Shelton said. He held up a plastic bag of 25 grams of cocaine to emphasize his point, the Everett Herald reported.

Mayor Hamlin said the cash-strapped city may look into whether there’s a way to keep some of the drug money Dixie has located to pay for her care.

“A police dog could be self-sustaining given some creativity,” he  said.

The city needs to cut about $180,000 in order to have enough money to pay the bills.

A University of Cincinnati researcher says the canine hearing aid he is developing may be ready for the market by the end of this year.

Pete Scheifele began working on a hearing aid for dogs after his own 17-year-old dog — a miniature pinscher/beagle mix — lost his hearing.

The highly trained dog has appeared on television and performed for schools and didn’t seem to mind wearing the prototype. In fact, he would seek it out and nudge it when he wasn’t wearing it, Scheifele says.

Researchers are now working on modifications to make the prototype version smaller and more comfortable, according to a report in DVM 360.

The hearing aid would only work on dogs with acquired hearing loss, according to Scheifele, Director of UC’s Bioacoustics and Canine Audiology Clinic.

Scheifele says he is in discussions for commercialization of the prototype and hopes it might be available for sale later this year.

(Photo: Courtesy of University of Cincinnati)

Chanel, a 21-year-old dachshund mix who has been certified by Guinness World Records as the oldest dog in the world, appeared on the Today Show yesterday, celebrating her birthday with her owner, Denice Shaughnessy.

Wearing a pink sweater and red goggles (because of cataracts), Chanel received her official Guinness certificate on the show.

Denice’s husband, Karl Shaughnessy, contacted Guinness after noticing it had no category for world’s oldest living dog.  He sent in Chanel’s birth certificate showing her birth date: May 6, 1988. In dog years, her veterinarian says, Chanel is 120. She’ll be listed in the 2010 edition of Guinness World Records, scheduled for publication this October.

The oldest dog ever whose age could be verified was Bluey, an Australian cattle dog that died at the age of 29 years, 5 months in 1939.

Chanel wears a sweater or T-shirt when she goes out, because she tends to get chilled easily. She also has a benign tumor on one hind leg, and wears booties to protect the limb. She is prone to getting up in the middle of the night for a drink, and sometimes has trouble relocating her bed.

Denice Shaughnessy was a single mother in the U.S. Army 21 years ago when she went to a shelter in Virginia looking for a dog for her daughter. They paid a $25 adoption fee and took Chanel home.

A few months later, Shaughnessy’s house burned down. That was followed by more hard times in which mother, daughter and dog subsisted on macaroni and cheese. Denice later married Karl Shaughnessy and settled on Long Island, where she got a job as a school secretary.

It has become something of a tradition on the University of Wisconsin campus — just when student stress is at its highest, final exam week, dogs show up to help them chill out.

The Pet Therapy study break on the Madison campus was held again yesterday, with staff from University Health Services bringing their dogs to the Library Mall so students can pet and play with them.

In addition to the dogs soothing frazzled nerves, counselors from the school offer advice on how to deal with finals week — including telling them that all-night cram sessions are not the way to go. A good night’s sleep will probably be more valuable.

Students at the campus in Madison can also get free one-on-one counseling, and for $40, massage therapy.

(Photo: A scene from last year’s break, The Capital Times)

Artist Robert McClintock is celebrating the launch of “DOGS THAT I KNOW, Part 3,” the latest additions to his series on Charm City canines, with a reception at his Fells Point gallery on Thursday, May 7.

The public is invited from 5 to 9 p.m.

The evening will feature art, food and entertainment, with a portion of the proceeds donated to Recycled Love, the Baltimore-based rescue organization. Admission is free.

“They have one mission in life which is to make humans smile, ” McClintock says of dogs. “All they ask in return is to be loved.” One of McClintock’s most treasured portraits featured at the show is of “Jasmine” (above), a pup rescued from convicted dogfighter Michael Vick and now living safely with her adopted family in Baltimore.

“DOGS THAT I KNOW” continues to be McClintock’s most popular series, featuring pooches of every shape and size, mixed breeds and mutts. Select pieces are being published and sold internationally by New World Graphics in Richmond, Va.

Gallery visitors attending the opening will be offered a chance to enter a drawing to win a selected work from the artist’s collection.

The gallery is at 1809 Thames Street in Fells Point.

The college student accused of taping her boyfriend’s dog to a refrigerator will be allowed to spend the summer at her mother’s home in Chicago — even though her mother has a dog, a judge has ruled.

Abby Toll, 20, an environmental design major at the University of Colorado, will be required to participate in a monitored sobriety program in Chicago as a condition of her release on bond. “I think the defendant’s mother can look out for the family pet,” a judge in Boulder said.

Toll was arrested in April on suspicion of felony animal cruelty. She is accused of binding her boyfriend’s 2-year-old shiba inu, Rex, in packing tape and sticking him upside down to the refrigerator during an argument. She also faces a felony charge of drug possession after police said was found with a trace amount of heroin while being booked into jail.

Her boyfriend, Bryan Beck, also faces a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty. He is scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial conference Thursday, according to Coloradodaily.com.

Rex is living with a Denver-area foster family awaiting adoption. Another dog living with Toll and Beck, a Chihuahua named Peanut, remains in the care of the Humane Society of Boulder.

If you’re not noticing Greenies on your store shelves these days, that’s because their maker, Nutro Products, Inc., has restricted those selling them to veterinary hospitals and pet specialty retailers.

In a press release issued last week, Nutro announced the change applies to Greenies canine and feline dental chews, Pill Pockets and Smart Biscuits.

“…We believe that pet medical professionals at veterinary hospitals and well-trained, knowledgeable staff at pet specialty stores are best equipped to answer pet owners’ questions about our products, and to make the right recommendation, said Carolyn Hanigan, Vice President of Marketing, Nutro Products, Inc.

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Baltimore city’s leash law – and the new $1,000 fine violators of it face – was alternately blasted and defended on WEAA’s Marc Steiner Show last night as four guests and numerous caller-inners voiced their opinions and offered solutions.

The city increased the leash law fine from $100 to $1,000 in February, then followed up with a crackdown on violators.

William Cole, the city councilman who, though he was among those approving the increased fines, is now seeking to have them lowered, and said last night that the majority of the council feels the same way.

Cole has also introduced an amendment to allow the city Recreation and Parks Department establish off-leash hours in designated areas of city parks.

Cole said he favors fines of $250 for a first offense, $500 for a second, and $1,000 for a third. But he also said, at one point, “I would hope that any animal control officer responding to a complaint is first going to give a warning.”

Cole also displayed some excellent hair-splitting skills when he said that the new law, while it does produce new revenue for the city, “is not a revenue-producing bill.”

And he was slightly off the mark when he assured listeners that a dog park in Latrobe Park in Locust Point – the first the city has chosen to take part in opening – would be ready in “in the next couple weeks … two months?” Mary Porter, design planner for the city Department of Recreation and Parks, then corrected him, saying, “end of the summer.”

Also on the program were Judith Kunst, a single mother and dog owner involved in the petition effort to reduce the fines (1,316 signatures so far), and Robert Joyce, a dog owner and lawyer who has offered to represent, pro bono, anyone fined $1,000 for having their dog off leash.

You can hear the podcast here.

Cole admitted that the city council wasn’t aware it was increasing the off-leash fine when it approved the bill, saying it was included in a category marked “other offenses” that no one seems to have bothered to look into. “Quite frankly, we didn’t pick up on it,” he said.

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Filmmaker Geoff Talbot is looking for a three-legged star.

Through his blog and Twitter, Talbot — an actor, filmmaker, writer, comedian and veterinary surgeon — is searching for a dog to play Scrap, a role in his new movie, “Lucky & Rich.”

The ideal candidate is missing a hind leg, is medium-sized, non-aggressive and has “big cinematic doggie eyes,” according to an entry on his blog, “seven sentences.” The blog entry also carries pictures of the contenders so far.

The movie is described as a “24-hour Bohemian love story between a Czech prostitute called Lucky and a homeless New Zealand bum named Rich.”

The film will be shot in Prague from November 2009 to February 2010 and both dog and guardian will be transported there by the moviemaker. The dog playing Scrap will be under constant veterinary supervision and care, he assures candidates.

Photos of possible candidates can be sent to help.find.scrap@gmail.com.

(Photo: Frankie, one of the dogs submitted for consideration, from Talbot’s blog)