ohmidog!

Coney Island sideshow owner John Strong has threatened to file a lawsuit to get the five-legged dog he was promised, but even if he does have a legal leg to stand on it could be a moot point – Lilly’s extra leg was removed today.

The dog’s new owner, Allyson Siegel — who purchased Lilly for $4,000 from Calvin Owensby, outbidding Strong to save the dog from life as a sideshow freak – says the 6-week-old terrier-Chihuahua mix had the surgery at a veterinarian’s office, according to PEOPLE magazine.

“Last night I called the surgeon and said, ‘Will you take a look at her to see if she’s healthy enough, see if you think that she could possibly have the surgery now?’ And he did, and she did,” Siegel said. The operation was successful and the dog is recovering.

Siegel, whose story was originally reported in the New York Daily News, says she will pay for the surgery bill — which could total up to $2,000 — with donations that she’s received from several people who have heard of the dog’s plight.

“In my mind it’s kind of over. Just let it be over,” she says, referring to Strong’s legal threats. “I’m very happy that Lilly is fine and that she’s going to be a normal dog. And get to have a normal life and not be in a cage. I don’t personally have anything against him, Mr. Strong, I don’t know him. This was really always about Lilly.”

Strong told the Charlotte Observer Wednesday that  he was the rightful owner of Lilly because the pup’s original owner, Owensby, of Gastonia, N.C., broke an implied contract to sell him the dog. Strong paid Owensby a $1,000 deposit.  But Owensby decided to sell the pup to a Charlotte woman after media reports of the freak-show deal sparked an outcry from animal advocates.

Upon hearing of his planned legal steps, Siegel expedited the dog’s surgery.

Prior to the surgery, the puppy couldn’t sit, walk or lay properly because of the extra leg (which had six toes and protruded from her stomach). “She’d struggle to run up a hill or walk up a hill because she had to tug that thing behind her,” says Siegel.

So, if there’s no deep meaning behind barks (not that we buy that study), how do you explain this?

Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy is coming out with a new “Bowlingual” gadget that can translate dog barks into the human language, AFP reports.

The new model analyzes six emotions, including joy, sadness and frustration, and speaks phrases such as “Play with me!” — an improvement on the original which just showed them on a screen.

The original version of the toy, which has a handset and a microphone attached to a dog collar, won the Ig Nobel Prize in 2002. The awards, a parody of the Nobel Prizes, celebrate achievements that make people laugh and think.

The new Bowlingual Voice, priced at about $212, will be launched in Japan next month, Yamada said.

Initially, it will be only available in Japanese. The original non-speaking version is also available in English and Korean.

What’s your barking dog trying to say?

Nothing in particular, according to a University of Massachusetts study. It concludes dogs do not bark differently in different circumstances; rather, they have one all purpose bark to ward off predators and deal with conflict.

“What we’re saying is that the domestic dog does not have an intentional message in mind, such as, ‘I want to play’ or ‘the house is on fire,’” said Kathryn Lord, a University of Massachusetts, Amherst doctoral candidate, who worked to define the bark.

She believes the dog bark evolved about 10,000 years ago, when dogs needed to stand their ground to eat at human dumpsites. Instead of running away every time a human came near, they participated in mobbing behavior, bravely barking to intimidate intruders instead of running away and wasting food energy.

Lord pointed out that not all dog noises are barks, and that the other noises might have other motivations behind them, according to a WCVB TV report.

But as for barks, she insists, dog’s aren’t trying to tell us anything, just voice their “internal conflict.”

“There’s no deep cognitive understanding, and I think that upsets a lot of people,” she said.

Dogs had no comment on the study.

New research shows babies have a handle on the meaning of different dog barks – despite little or no previous exposure to dogs.

Infants just 6 months old can match the sounds of an angry snarl and a friendly bark to photos of dogs displaying threatening and welcoming body language, according to researchers at Brigham Young University.

“Emotion is one of the first things babies pick up on in their social world,” said BYU psychology professor Ross Flom, lead author of the study. Flom and two BYU students report their findings in the journal Developmental Psychology.

The new findings come on the heels of a study from the same  lab showing that infants can detect mood swings in Beethoven’s music.

“We chose dogs because they are highly communicative creatures both in their posture and the nature of their bark,” Flom said.

In the experiment, the babies first saw two different pictures of the same dog, one in an aggressive posture and the other in a friendly stance. Then the researchers played – in random order – sound clips of a friendly and an aggressive dog bark.

The Maryland SPCA is holding a Wine & Wag happy hour this Friday, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $10 per person in advance and $15 at the Maryland SPCA, 3300 Falls Road. Dogs are admitted free, but only one per person.

You can buy tickets online until 4:00 p.m. this Friday.

Activities include a treasure hunt, musical chairs, tours of our adoption center, paw painting, a canine pool party and off-leash play in the fun runs. Complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be served courtesy of Lebanese Taverna. There is a suggested donation of $3 for beer and wine and $1 for other beverages.

If it rains on Friday, details on rescheduling will be posted on the Maryland SPCA website, or you can use the tickets at the next two Wine & Wags — August 14 or September 17.

For more info about our Wine & Wag happy hour, please contact Tami Gosheff at tgosheff@mdspca.org or 410-235-8826, ext. 138.