ohmidog!

A dog belonging to the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA died last week after being left alone for about four hours in her owner’s car, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

Robin Starr, tragically, didn’t know the dog was even in the car until finding him when she went to lunch. Temperature in Richmond, Va.  last Wednesday had reached 91 by noon.

Her husband, Ed Starr said that, as his wife prepared for work, he put the couple’s 16-year-old dog — a deaf and blind mutt named Louie — into her  station wagon. The dog often accompanied Robin Starr to work, and Ed Starr said he forgot to tell her Louie was in her car.

“I just forgot . . . and didn’t think about it until I got this frantic phone call from Robin. I knew immediately what I had done,” he said today.

“At 16, he just laid down where you put him and didn’t make a peep,” Robin Starr said. “He never made a peep in the car; he’d just lay there in the back.”

Robin Starr  took the dog inside to the SPCA clinic, then to an emergency veterinary clinic in Carytown. The dog died about midnight of kidney failure, the Starrs said.

This is the eulogy Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died yesterday of brain cancer, gave at the public memorial service for his brother Robert Kennedy on June 8, 1968 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

Vasily Fedorouk, an internationally acclaimed sculptor, drowned Sunday after saving his dog, Era, from Horsetail Lake, outside Chicago.

The 2 1/2 -year-old German hunting terrier went into the lake to fetch a ball but got caught in some vegetation. Fedorouk, 59, jumped into the lake and freed the dog, but wound up getting entangled himself, according to the Chicago Tribune.

“He was waving his hands in the water,” his wife, Dilbara Arapova said. “At first I thought he was joking. Then he went underwater and I started to scream. I couldn’t help him. I can’t swim.”

Another man at the scene, who also couldn’t swim, called police on a cell phone. By the time police and paramedics arrived, eight minutes later, Arapova said, it was too late.

Fedorouk was found submerged in 6 to 8 feet of water. An official with the Cook County medical examiner’s office said Fedorouk died of accidental drowning. Arapova said police told her that Fedorouk apparently got caught in fishing line.

On Monday, Arapova and her son, Anton Fedorouk, 24, described the sculptor as a hardworking, passionate artist. “He would work from sunup to sundown on his sculptures,” Arapova said. “That was his passion. He would want to be remembered for his art. He told me that after he dies, his art will still live on forever.”

Fedorouk, who immigrated to the United States with his wife from Ukraine in 1992, attended the Lviv Academy of the Arts, in Lviv Ukraine, in the mid-1970s.

Anton Fedorouk was not surprised that his father risked his life for Era. “He loved our dog. He would do anything to save it.”

(Photo from vasilyfedorouk.com)

Animal rights groups met with Philadelphia Eagles management this week for a two-hour discussion described as spirited, cordial and candid.

For the Eagles, it was an attempt at damage control — soothing the ire of animal lovers upset with the team signing convicted dogfighter Michael Vick.

For animal welfare activists, it was a chance to urge the Eagles to play a role in fighting animal abuse.

Vick wasn’t in attendance at Monday’s meeting, NBC in Philadelphia reported.

“I thought it was a good first step in making the best of what we all think is kind of a horrific starting situation,” said Rich Britton, with Chester County’s SPCA.

The team extended the invitations, reaching out to representatives of the area’s animal welfare groups.

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A confrontation over an unleashed dog ended in a California man’s arrest on suspicion of a hate crime, after a woman reported that he screamed racial slurs and tried to hit her with his pickup truck at Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, .

Police are continuing to interview witnesses who were present Saturday afternoon in what bills itself as  “the largest public off-leash dog park in the nation,” according to a  Contra Costa Times report.

Police booked David Triebwasser, 48, on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and committing a hate crime. He later posted $175,000 bail.

The 55-year-old black woman arrived at the park in Southwest Richmond with her German shepherd about 2:20 p.m., according to police reports. Apparently upset about the dog’s behavior, Triebwasser, who is white, confronted the woman.

The woman told police he shouted, “Take your black ass out of this park!” and threatened to kill her if she did not obey. She reported that he shouted racial slurs, punched her in the face and hit her with his pickup truck.

Both the man and woman called police. The woman declined medical treatment .

Officers found several witnesses who observed a heated exchange and who confirmed some details of the man’s and woman’s assertions. Triebwasser denied voicing racial slurs, hitting the woman with his car or punching her, police said.

Over the objections of school officials, Kaleb Drew went to first grade on Tuesday with his Labrador retriever, Chewey, and his family says they’re optimistic they’ll win a court battle to keep the dog in class.

Chewey, trained to help the autistic boy deal with his disabilities, did “just as he’s supposed to” in keeping Kaleb safe and calm during his first full day back at school, said the boy’s mother, Nichelle Drew.

A Douglas County judge allowed the dog to accompany Kaleb until the family’s lawsuit against Villa Grove Elementary School in east-central Illinois goes to trial in November, according to the Associated Press.

Kaleb’s case is one of two challenging an Illinois law allowing service animals in schools.

“I hope as time goes by that maybe they’ll see that it’s not causing a problem, and they’ll let the fight go,” Nichelle Drew said. Regardless, she added, “We’re in it for the long haul.”

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