ohmidog!

A team of Swedish and Chinese researchers say they have pinpointed — at least more than it has been pinpointed up to now — the place where, 16,000 years ago, the wolf was tamed and evolved into the dog.

It was in China, on the southern shores of the Yangtze River, they say.

Their findings are contained in an article in the latest issue of scientific journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

“For the first time … it is possible to provide a detailed picture of the dog, with its birthplace, point in time, and how many wolves were tamed,” says Peter Savolainen, a biologist and member of the research team at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm.

Together with Swedish colleagues and a Chinese research team, Savolainen has made a number of new discoveries about the history of the dog — including the most specific date and birthplace yet offered.

“Our earlier findings from 2002 have not been fully accepted, but with our new data there will be greater acceptance. The picture provides much more detail,” says Savolainen.

Savolainen said the research indicates that the dog has a single geographic origin but descends from a large “large number of animals – at least several hundred tamed wolves, probable even more,” according to Science Daily.

The theory that the domestic dog originated in East Asia was challenged earlier this month by an international group of researchers who say African dogs are just as genetically diverse.

That research, based on analyzing blood samples from dogs in Egypt, Uganda and Namibia, shows the DNA of dogs in African villages is just as varied, indicating it could have been where wolves made the transition to become dogs.

(Photo: Science Daily press release)

An Onslow County, N.C. couple appeared in court Tuesday to face charges of child abuse after a dog they were pet-sitting chewed the toes off the left foot of their four-month-old son.

The child is reported in stable condition.

Robie Lynn Jenkins, 20, and Tremayne Spillman, 23, were asleep in their Jacksonville home when the dog, described in news reports as a pit bull, attacked the child.

Authorities say Jenkins was on medication and didn’t hear the attack, which occurred in the same room while the baby was sleeping on a fold-out couch. Jenkins was sleeping in another room and didn’t hear the child crying.

Columnist Ronnie Polaneczky paid a touching tribute to her dog, Blackie, in yesterday’s Philadelphia Daily News.

Blackie, a female border collie-Labrador mix, died on Sunday evening after a sudden illness.

“I was so overcome with tears as she died, I was unable to properly tell her all the ways that her life had made mine better,” Polaneczky wrote. “So this is my thank-you letter to Blackie, the first dog I ever called my own.”

Nine years ago, Daily New columnist Stu Bykofsky offered her the dog, which he had taken in after finding it abandoned in South Philly. Here’s an excerpt from Polaneczky’s column:

“Thank you for tolerating the way we claimed that you had magic ‘healing powers.’ See, not long after you came into our lives, we discovered that our daughter’s bumps and scrapes didn’t hurt her so much once we had her press the injured area into your warm, shaggy coat. Soon, she was telling her young friends to use your powers when they were hurt, too.

“Over time, we realized that those powers were not a parent-created myth but a true ability. When my husband and I were distressed about something, you’d sense our upset and quietly lean against us in solemn comfort.

“Thank you for letting us dress you as a bee on Halloween.

“Thank you for never – ever – chewing our shoes into jerky.

“Thank you for having a gentle spirit that belied your fierce appearance. The first time my husband took you to the schoolyard to retrieve our daughter from kindergarten, a few of the parents pulled their children away in fear of your wolfish looks. Within moments, you were sprawled on your back, a portrait of maternal contentment as a dozen tiny hands rubbed up and down on your belly.

“Thank you for your tolerance of your four-legged housemates. You put up with one prickly cat until his death at 19. You endured the addition of two kittens, who tried to nurse at your row of tiny teats. And then you gamely allowed the latest member of the family, a tiny Yorkie with a brain the size of an M&M, to use your belly like a trampoline, grabbing at your ears and snout while you lolled placidly on the floor.

“Through all of it, you’d look at us with world-weary affection, as if to say, ‘These little ones, eh? Waddya gonna do?’

“We were there with you at the end, at Penn’s veterinary hospital, to sob goodbyes and stroke your soft, dark fur as you peacefully slipped away from us. The doctor had told us that the illness in your lungs was slowly suffocating you and had caused an en

Bo Obama has chewed up the First Family’s stray socks, torn up a magazine (we’re guessing National Review), and gnawed on the president’s gym shoes.

In other words, he’s a normal dog.

Except for the fact that he lives in the White House — and that accounts for this lengthy but not especially revealing Associated Press article on life with Bo.

The article says most of Bo’s days begin with early morning walks on the grounds with Michelle Obama, and end with a nighttime trek with the president.

“I’m the guy with the night shift,” President Obama told one television interviewer. “We go out and we’re walking and I’m picking up poop and in the background is the beautifully lit White House. It’s quite a moment.”

Bo came to the family by way of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., owned three of the breed.