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The handler of seven show dogs who died after being left overnight in a hot van has been charged with eight counts of animal cruelty, authorities said.

Mary Wild, the handler, is free on $2,500 bond, according to a report in the Kansas City Star.

Police said Wild left eight show dogs in the van last month after returning from a dog show in Iowa. Authorities said the temperature in the van could have reached 120 degrees.

Wild, 24, had been hired by the dogs’ owners to present the dogs at a show in Iowa. When she returned got home, about 1 a.m. on June 22, she left eight dogs in the van and went inside to sleep.

Seven of the eight dogs died of apparent heat stroke. The eighth dog, a Siberian Husky named Cinder, recovered and went home last week.

The other dogs, all purebreds and mostly large breeds, included a malamute, a dalmatian, three golden retrievers and an Akita.

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A 1-year-old duck and a 7-year-old Labrador retriever have become best friends in Iowa.

Owner Tiffany Smith, 17, introduced Sterling the duck to Cleo the dog shortly after the duck’s mate died, and the two hit it off immediately. Smith says the animals are now inseparable and even eat and sleep together.

Michigan’s animal shelters euthanized 118,365 dogs last year — some of them in outdated gas chambers which take as long as five minutes to accomplish the ugly job. 

“In a gas chamber, the larger dogs survive for four to five minutes — terrified and choking,” said Joe Sowerby, one of many animal advocates upset by revisions to a bill that would have prohibited the gassing of dogs.

A bill to require euthanasia be administered through more humane lethal injection was proposed in the Michigan legislature, but now it appears it will be watered down, allowing the process to continue in some counties, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Dogs injected with sodium pentobarbital lose consciousness in seconds and die within about minutes. The method has also been shown to be less costly.

Despite that, Assistant State Veterinarian Dr. Nancy Frank said she wouldn’t favor limiting shelters’ options because not all facilities have the training for injections.

State legislators, including two from metro Detroit, say they plan to revise — and essentially weaken — bills that, in their original versions, would have outlawed the use of gas chambers in animal shelters.

“We’ll say whenever possible you should do injections because that’s the most humane,” state Rep. Fred Miller said last week. “But if you have the training and you’ve invested in the equipment to use gas properly, that’s allowed.”

Poison gas is no longer used at animal shelters in most of Michigan, including metro Detroit. But at least 10 counties in north and west Michigan still use it, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

State officials said Michigan shelters euthanized 53% of the animals brought in last year, but figures aren’t available on how many were gassed.

A Chicago man is accused of killing the landlord who told him he couldn’t have a dog, using garden tools, an ice scraper, a BB gun and a pipe to allegedly beat him before setting his body on fire.

Martin Vega, 27, is charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty, Cook County prosecutors said.

A judge denied bail for Vega, who was renting an apartment from William Hallin, 67, in the two-story home Hallin owned in Chicago’s Gage Park community, according to the Chicago Tribune.

On Friday, Hallin went to collect rent and saw Vega had a dog in his apartment. When Hallin told Vega he would have to move out, a bloody fight ensued, officials said.

An Alaska man was killed over the weekend when he tried to save his dog from being struck by a train.

Alaska Railroad officials have identified the man as Brett P. Miller, 42, of Anchorage. Both he and his dog were killed when they were struck by a passenger train near Montana Creek north of Wasilla, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Railroad spokesman Tim Thompson said Miller was walking along the tracks  Saturday with about a dozen people, all of whom were apparently headed back to a campsite along Montana Creek. The group moved off the tracks when they heard the train coming.  But the dog, a Labrador retriever, ran back onto the tracks. Miller was struck when he tried to rescue his pet, Thompson said.

The accident is still under investigation, he said.