ohmidog!

The man who fed the pack of dogs that mauled an Oglethorpe County, Georgia couple last weekend will not face criminal charges, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Howard Thaxton, who was recently forced to move from his rural Lexington home due to medical problems, did not own the 16 feral canines — a major factor in the decision to not file charges, said Jim Fullington, special agent in charge of the GBI’s Athens office.

Thaxton, an amputee who visited his property every other day to feed the dogs, told investigators he did not believe they were responsible for the attacks. Neighbors interviewed said the  dogs hadn’t shown any previous signs of aggression.

Authorities say the dogs attacked and killed Lothar and Sherry Schweder. The dogs were euthanized Tuesday at the Madison Oglethorpe Animal Shelter.

An Annapolis man received a three-year sentence Thursday — the maximum — for the killing of his girlfriend’s puppy.

Donte W. McCreary, 20, killed the 3-month-old terrier in front of his girlfriend because she cared more for it than for him, Anne Arundel County Assistant State’s Attorney Kimberly DiPietro said. “If this is what he will do to a dog that he thinks she loves more than him, I don’t know what he would think of doing [to] a child,” she said, noting that the couple has a 15-month-old son.

McCreary pleaded guilty to a Christmas Eve 2008 assault on girlfriend Laura Sanford and to felony animal cruelty in the March 7 killing of the 4-pound dog, which he squeezed and stabbed, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The judge also sentenced McCreary to the maximum 10 years in prison for second-degree assault, suspending seven years and adding five years of supervised probation.

Dogs aren’t just permitted in Washington state’s King County Courthouse, they work there — serving to calm the nerves of  intimidated witnesses and make their testimony flow more freely.

In addition to serving as companions for traumatized victims of child abuse who are testifying in court, the dogs are used for a variety of other courthouse purposes, according to a recent article in the Dallas Morning News.

According to the Courthouse Dogs website, dogs have been helping seek justice in Seattle since 2003.

The dogs provide comfort to sexually abused children while they undergo forensic interviews and testify in court, assist drug court participants in their recovery, visit juveniles in detention facilities, greet jurors and in general lift the spirits of courthouse staff.

Ellen O’Neill-Stephens, a prosecutor in Seattle, launched Courthouse Dogs in 2003 after using a service dog – Jeeter – for her son who has cerebral palsy.

She was in Dallas this week to make a presentation on the progam to the 21st annual Crimes Against Children Conference, sponsored by the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center and the Dallas Police Department.

“Sometimes, these children will say things to the dog that they’re too embarrassed to say to a person,” Stephens said. “We had a girl who had been severely abused and she could never talk about it. But she petted Jeeter for over 90 minutes straight and she was able to tell what happened.”

Stephens said the courthouse dogs are usually golden or Labrador retrievers who go through an intensive training regimen. Only about 30 percent of the dogs that start out actually make it, she said.

She said she believes that the highly skilled canines can often be the difference in a conviction or not guilty verdict in child abuse cases.

“These children are suffering acute emotional trauma,” she said. “These dogs can help them get through that.”

(Photo courtesy of www.courthousedogs.org)

An eight-year-old dog is being credited with saving the life of an abandoned newborn baby in Argentina, carrying him from a field and placing him safely alongside her own puppies.

The country’s media are calling him “the miracle baby,” according to the BBC.

The baby boy was born prematurely to a 14-year-old girl, who apparently panicked and abandoned him in a field in a shanty town outside the capital of Buenos Aires.

The dog, named La China picked up the baby and carried him from the field to join her litter. The dog’s owner reported hearing the child crying. The baby had some slight injuries, but no bite marks.

La China, worried about her own puppies, is reported to be petrified by her new found fame, and her owner says he is worried that she is not eating.

A Staten Island man was arrested this week for fatally beating his girlfriend’s 5-pound Chihuahua, apparently because the dog had bitten him days earlier, police said.

Or, as the New York Post  put it, “Brute Bashed 5-Lb. Dog to Death: Cops.”

Frank Coppola, 28, allegedly beat the 3-year-old dog, named Bella, on Feb. 28 at the Staten Island apartment he shared with his girlfriend.

Police said it took six months to arrest him because his girlfriend, Melissa DePietro, was reluctant to testify against Coppola. Prosecutors convinced her to testify before a grand jury, which, along with graphic medical evidence, proved enough for an indictment.

A necropsy performed on Bella showed the dog had suffered severe trauma to its chest, internal bleeding, several broken ribs, a ruptured jugular vein and bruised lungs, investigators said. According to the Post, the dog had bitten Coppola days before the fatal beating.

When asked by a veterinarian what had happened, Coppola claimed the dog had run into a wall and collapsed.

Coppola was charged with animal cruelty, and faces up to four years in prison. He was released on $2,500 bail.

“This a very serious crime. It’s not every day that an animal-cruelty charge goes before a grand jury, but obviously we thought this case was serious enough to take that step,” said Bill Smith, a spokesman for District Attorney’s office.

Not too many dogs are full-time outdoor dwellers these days, but for those who are, and even those who aren’t, here’s a product that makes good sense, especially on days as miserably steamy as yesterday.

The WaterDog hooks up to your spigot and turns on when it senses your dog approaching, spewing out some fresh water to quench his thirst.

It then turns off when your dog leaves the area.

The device helps keep your dog from drinking from a stagnant pool, keeps you from constantly having to fill the water bowl and ensures he always has water.

Its inventor came up with the idea on his daily walks with Romeo, his Great Dane. Anxious over wheter the dog was getting dehydrated, the inventor would stop and turn on spigots in front of houses under construction.

That led to Romeo walking up to any spigot he saw and waiting there for his owner to turn it on — a minor inconvenience.

“As I thought more about how much Romeo loved to drink from the spigot, I decided to build one at the house, so that he could have it all the time. This was partly out of love to Romeo but also out of laziness from me, since having a device like this would free me from the chore of keeping water available,” the inventor, a mechanical engineer, says on his website.