ohmidog!

Afer getting a good ribbing from Steven Colbert for the AC 360 report on Michael Jackson’s former chimp, Bubbles, CNN’s Anderson Cooper aired nearly the entire piece on his show.

Now maybe Colbert can run a segment on Cooper’s segment on Colbert’s segment on Cooper’s segment. That would be more than a 360 — an actual 720, if my math is right.

Cooper called the Colbert Report bit both “very funny” and “well-deserved.”

Amid the all the other Michael Jackson overkill, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, or at least one of the reporters that works for him, tracked down Bubbles, Jackson’s former pet chimpanzee, and reported that he enjoys eating bananas and making faces.

Bubbles and Jackson split up when the chimp got too big and hard to control. He lived with an animal trainer until 2005 when he was sent to an animal sanctuary in Florida.

That’s where CNN caught up with the 26-year-old chimp and filmed this report.

The owner of the Almost Heaven Kennel in eastern Pennsylvania has been fined more than $150,000 and is facing over 230 charges of violating the state’s dog laws.

Breeder Derbe Eckhart has 15 days to appeal the $152,900 fine from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, according to the Associated Press.

The fines and charges stem from a raid on Almost Heaven Kennel in Emmaus last month by the department and the Humane Society of the United States .

A Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture spokesman said Eckhart failed to get rid of 216 dogs after he lost his kennel license. Almost Heaven was also raided in Oct. 2008. At that time, animal welfare officials said hundreds of animals were living in filthy conditions. Eckhart faces animal cruelty charges from that raid.

(Photo: A Humane Society of the United States staff member removes two of the hundreds of dogs seized from Almost Heaven; courtesy of HSUS)

A Georgia prosecutor says he intends to aggressively prosecute a contractor who allegedly sprayed fluorescent orange paint on a barking black lab mix that was in a fenced backyard.

“To spray paint a dog in the eye makes no sense,” DeKalb County Solicitor Robert James told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday. “It was gratuitous. The animal was behind a fence. Its really something we take serious and were going to try to make this thing right. We’re going to take this very seriously.”

Dario Harris appeared in DeKalb County State Court Tuesday on two counts of animal cruelty, a charge that could mean as much as 12 months in jail.

Harris was dispatched in March to mark gas lines in preparation for scheduled digging along the residential street. A homeowner, Jeffrey Tompkins, heard his dog, Bear, barking and then saw a truck driving away. A few minutes later, he found his dog rubbing her eyes with her front paws.

Tompkins said there were “seven individual spray marks” low on the fence about the height of the dog’s eyes.

“It wasn’t like he just sprayed one time across [ the fence],” Tompkins said in an interview Wednesday. “He [Harris] went up to the fence. He had no reason to go in the backyard.”

Harris said he “reacted to the dog coming to the gate and scaring me. It wasn’t anything intentional. I wasn’t out to do any harm. I was just doing my job.”

A vet flushed Bear’s eyes and provided antibiotics, and Harris said he would repay Tompkins for those expenses.

“This is making me out to be a criminal,” Harris said. “I’m not.”

Delaware Bay beaches in Lower Township, New Jersey may soon see more restrictive dog rules.

The Lower Township Council is reviewing regulations after an increase in complaints about dogs running loose and poop going unscooped. Dogs are currently allowed on the beaches, but must be leashed, and law requires that owners clean up after them.

Both sides spoke out on the issue at at Monday’s Lower Township council meeting, the Press of Atlantic City reported.

“I pay $8,000 a year in taxes to the township, and I have to go down to Cape May and buy beach badges because there are no dogs on their beaches. I shouldn’t have to sit on the beach and watch a dog take a dump right in front of me,” said Bill Conners, of Shore Road.

Bill Greenfield, a Villas resident and dog owner, took exception to the remark: “I think you’re painting dog owners with a pretty broad brush. A lot of people are responsible. Dog owners pay taxes, too,” Greenfield said.

With dogs off limit along many Atlantic coast beaches, many pet owners head to the bay. A recent Philadelphia Magazine identified the township’s Town Bank area as a good place to bring dogs to the beach.

“I don’t think this is a distinction Lower Township really wants. We’re known as dog beach,” said Conners. “I ask you to please enforce some laws or pass some laws that don’t allow these dogs to run wild on the beach.”

Some council members said the problem could be handled by enforcing existing rules, but others said stricter measures are needed, such as time restrictions.

No action was taken but the situation will be monitored in the coming weeks.

An FBI agent was sentenced yesterday to two years’ probation and 300 hours of community service for killing a neighbor’s Chihuahua last year.

A state district judge in Waco placed Lovett Leslie Ledger Jr. on “deferred adjudication probation,” meaning no conviction will appear on his record if he successfully completes probation, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported.

Ledger had entered a plea of no contest to animal cruelty charges.

Ledger fatally shot his neighbor’s 3-pound dog with a pellet gun last year as it walked near his house.

FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said that the agency will conduct an internal inquiry to determine whether Ledger will faces any sanctions, ranging from suspension to dismissal.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon announced on Tuesday the creation of the Anti-Animal Abuse Task Force made up of city officials, prosecutors, police, animal advocates and city residents.

The task force will spend a year reviewing the effectiveness of Baltimore’s cruelty laws and how city agencies might better enforce them. At the end of the year, the task force will issue recommendations to the mayor.

“The protection and safety of animals in this city is an important concern,” Dixon said. “It’s imperative we treat this issue with the upmost importance.”

The first meeting will be at 6 p.m. July 15 at City Hall, but won’t be open to the public. Task force chairwoman Caroline Griffin, an attorney who’s on the board of Baltimore’s Humane Society, said some future meetings may be.

Animal advocates have been calling for a stronger city response to animal cruelty, especially since the May burning of a pit bull. Two teenagers have been charged in connection with the incident, in which the dog was first doused with gasoline.

The dog, known as Phoenix had to be euthanized.

In June,two tortured cats were found, burned and beaten and tied to a school fence.

“We just keep receiving case after case and not a lot is getting done,” says Jennifer Mead-Brause, executive director of Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter, where Phoenix was first treated.

Thirty people have been arrested and as many as 350 dogs have been seized in raids across five states that animal welfare groups are calling the largest simultaneous raid of dogfighting operations in the U.S.

Authorities said that the raids were conducted by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma.

The raids followed a more than year-long investigation prompted by information from the Humane Society of Missouri, according to the Associated Press.

The ASPCA, which cooperated in the investigation, said the targets of the investigation ran what was believed to be the largest dogfighting operation in U.S. history.

John M. Bales, the U.S. attorney in eastern Texas, said nine people in his state were indicted on June 30 of three counts — conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, sponsoring or exhibiting an animal in an animal fighting venture and buying, selling, delivering or transporting animals for participation in an animal fighting venture. If convicted, the defendants each face up to five years in federal prison and fines of up to $250,000.

Bales said eight people were arrested Wednesday in Panola and Gregg counties in Texas. Nine dogs, mostly pit bull terriers, were seized during a search of property in rural Panola County.

Ozzy Osbourne, if we can believe his daughter’s tweets, is devastated after one of his dog’s was killed by a coyote.

Daughter Kelly revealed the death of Little Bit, rescued by the family as a puppy, on Twitter:

“:( my dad’s dog Little Bit was eaten by a coyete (sic) last night in L.A. and he is devastated. She was his other women (sic)!”

London’s Mirror is among the news organizations reporting the death.

Little Bit was saved from a puppy mill following an investigation featured on National Geographic’s “The Dog Whisperer.”

Six years ago, Ozzy Osbourne, saved another family dog from a coyote, according to published reports. He reportedly tackled the predator when it got into the garden of their Beverly Hills mansion and attacked Pipi, Sharon Osbourne’s Pomeranian.

 
Whether dogs should get a couple of hours access a day to Willard Beach in Maine will be decided by voters.

South Portland city councilors voted unanimously Monday night to put the issue of dogs on the Nov. 3 ballot as a referendum question, TV station WMTW reports.

The issue has been debated for close to 20 years, and recent changes, after a push by dog owners, opened the beach up to dogs from 7 to 9 a.m. and 7 to 9 p.m.

After that, those opposed to dogs on the beach in the summer gathered more than 1,000 signatures, enough to present the issue to city council.