ohmidog!

A contractor who spray-painted a dog who barked at him was found not guilty of animal cruelty by a DeKalb County State Court jury yesterday.

Dario Harris maintained he was afraid of the black lab mix, named Bear — and worried that, even though the dog was in a fenced backyard, it could have jumped the fence and attacked him, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Harris was marking utility lines with fluorescent orange paint outside Jeffrey Tompkins’ Stone Mountain home.

In an interview before the trial, Harris said he loves dogs and “was just trying to protect myself.”

“You have to look at what’s reasonable under the circumstances,” said Harris’ attorney, Gerald Griggs. “The jury got to hear his actual intentions that day.  There were two dogs, both weighing over 60 pounds, jumping at a fence. You don’t know if they were nice dogs or mean dogs. He did not intend to injure Bear in any form or fashion. He was just scared.”

Harris wants to pay the veterinary bill, Griggs added.

Solicitor Robert James said he was disappointed in the verdict. “This is not going to change the way we do things in DeKalb County,” he said. “We take animal abuse very seriously, it’s wrong, and we’re going to continue to stand up for pet owners and animals, continue to hold people accountable.”

Five thousand dogs are escaping from death row this week — by airplane.

In what’s being called the world’s largest airlift of homeless pets, this week Pilots N Paws is seeking to transport 5,000 animals to safety in a flurry of flights designed to raise awareness of the charity and draw attention to the importance of spaying and neutering. The pilots donate their time, planes and fuel.

Thousands of animals have been saved by rehoming them to new locations — like  Lady Di, a purebred collie whose owner, unable to give her away in a Walmart parking lot, dumped her at a shelter in Clanton, Alabama where in an average week hundreds of dogs are euthanized because there is not enough space to house them.

Lady Di, according to an Associated Press report, managed to escape that fate thanks to private pilot Jeff Bennett, a volunteer with Pilots N Paws, a group that moves pets from overwhelmed shelters to communities where they’ll stand a better chance of adoption, and a lesser chance of being euthanized. Lady Di was flown to Tampa by Bennett, a retired Florida Keys businessman, who took a dozen dogs on the trip as well. In Tampa, rescue groups picked them up to care for them until new homes could be found.

Bennett has transported 124 animals for Pilots N Paws in the past year — including snakes, lizards, a chicken and a potbellied pig .

Pilots N Paws got its start in February 2008 when a Knoxville, Tenn., pilot named Jon Wehrenberg offered to fly his friend, Debi Boies, from her home near Greenville, S.C., to Florida to pick up a Doberman pinscher she wanted to adopt from a rescue group. Wehrenberg asked Boies if there would be a regular need for such a thing.

Was there ever. Rescue groups have long moved animals from high-kill shelters around the country, a task that usually involves long car trips.

The website for Pilots N Paws now serves as a forum where shelters and rescue groups can hook up with pilots. Boies says more than 680 pilots have already transported thousands of animals all over the country.

The Muncie Police Department is getting a new K-9, courtesy of Ozzy Osbourne and son.

The “Prince of Darkness,” who was often shown interacting with his family’s dogs on their MTV reality show, was recently convinced by his son Jack to buy the Indiana police department a new K9 officer, according to the StarPress in central Indiana.

“Jack and Ozzy are sending the check either this week or next week and then we’ll go get him,” said police Sgt. Jay Turner. The department plans to name the new dog Ozzy.

Read more »

A Louisville man with a lengthy arrest record has been charged with second-degree cruelty to animals for allegedly throwing a pit bull off the Clark Memorial Bridge into the Ohio River.

Damon D. Bledsoe, 39, of 210 E. Ormsby Ave., was arrested Tuesday morning and arraigned Wednesday.

Four witnesses contacted Louisville’s Metro Animal Services to report that Bledsoe allegedly spoke of throwing the dog off the bridge, and allegedly threatened to do the same to a witnesses’ cats.

The dog survived the 80-foot fall to the river and was adopted by a waitress at a nearby Joe’s Crab Shack who witnessed the rescue.

Court records show Bledsoe has been arrested on 99 separate charges since 2002, ranging from domestic violence to disorderly conduct to theft to public intoxication, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Kelsey Westbrook, the waitress who adopted the pit bull and named her Sunny, said the dog has recovered from her minor injuries and is “as happy as she can be.”

“She’s a 60-pound lapdog. … She’s got a little bit of separation anxiety, which I think is expected given what she’s been through. I think she trusts me now and knows I’m not going to leave her or put her in danger.”

Earlier this summer, Westbrook faced the loss of her apartment because she had adopted the pit bull, but she said the building got a new landlord who has let her and Sunny remain.

About 75 people showed up for the first public meeting of Baltimore’s newly appointed Anti-Animal Abuse Task Force tonight, with many calling for improved education, harsher penalties for animal cruelty and creative measures to instill empathy for animals among young people.

Others ideas included bringing pets into schools; recruiting local celebrities, such as Ravens players, to become role models on how to treat animals; hiring an investigator trained in animal abuse cases for the police force, beefing up the 16-member staff of the city’s Animal Control Office; and mandatory spay/neuter laws to cut down on the number of homeless animals that often become targets for animal abuse.

The task force was appointed this summer after a pit bull puppy, later named Phoenix, was doused with gasoline and set on fire. The dog’s injuries were so severe he had to be euthanized a few days later. Since then, several cats have been discovered tortured, burned and abused.

The panel is expected to make recommendations to Mayor Sheila Dixon next July.

Baltimore’s Anti-Animal Abuse Task Force holds its third meeting tonight – the first to which the public is invited. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, 1400 W. Coldspring Lane. That task force — made up of  representatives from city offices, the police, the states attorney’s office, animal welfare organizations and city residents — was formed in July after several highly publicized incidents of dog and cat abuse.

If you didn’t like Jon Gosselin before, you’re really not going to like him now.

Gosselin, saying he’s unable to care for the dogs — what with his celebrity, and his divorce from Kate, and his moving to New York — is sending his two German shepherds back to the breeder.

The eight Gosselin children are staying in the family’s Wernersville home in Berks County, Pa., and the parents are dividing the duty, taking turns being with the children while trying not to be around each other.

Apparently the dogs are too much trouble.

Shoka and Nala are being returned to the breeder, and Jon is quick to point out it’s Kate’s fault, because she won’t take care of them when he’s not at the house, Radar Online reports.

“Jon blames Kate for having to give up the dogs,” a source close to the situation told Radar Online. “Of course these days, Jon blames Kate for just about everything.”

But Jon’s attempts to blame Kate for getting rid of the dog simply isn’t fair, Radar quoted unidentified sources as saying. The dogs have always been Jon’s, and he made no attempt to find housing where he could keep his dogs.

(Photo: INF Daily, via Radar Online)

Big guys with large tattoos rescue dogs in “Rescue Ink Unleashed,” a new weekly series on the National Geographic Channel.

It premieres Sept. 25 at 10 p.m.

Rescue Ink was formed a few years ago when eight tough guys with soft spots for animals began their mission to save animals from abuse.

The New York Times had an excellent article on the group last year,  which led to National Geographic’s interest. Its members include bouncers, security guards, a retired New York City detective, and some who have run afoul of the law.

Each one-hour episode of “Rescue Ink Unleashed” takes viewers on “ride-alongs” as members follow up on leads in the New York metro area. Taking an average of 100 calls a week at their headquarters on Long Island, they jump into their cars — or on their “hogs” — and confront alleged animal abusers, rescue fighting dogs, investigate stolen animals and  encourage owners to give up their pets if it is in the best interest of the animals.

Animal “crush” videos — recorded depictions of extreme, and generally fatal, animal cruelty — have undergone a resurgence, ten years after they led to the passage of federal anti-animal cruelty laws, the Humane Society of the United States says.

With the U.S. Supreme Court is set to consider the constitutionality of a federal anti-animal cruelty law on Oct. 6, the HSUS revealed the results of a new investigation showing that such videos are widely available on the Internet, despite the decade-old law, and even more so since it was struck down by  an appellate court last July.

The enactment of the Federal Depiction of Animal Cruelty Law in 1999 halted the proliferation of animal crushing operations, the HSUS said. The law has also been used to crack down on commercial dogfighting operations.

“The federal Depiction of Animal Cruelty Law is the only tool available to crack down on this horrific form of extreme animal cruelty,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States. “We wouldn’t allow the sale of videos of actual child abuse or murder staged for the express purpose of selling videos of such criminal acts, and the same legal principles apply to despicable acts of animal cruelty.”

Pacelle wrote about the crushing issue on his blog yesterday.

The videos and photographs show, among other things, women, often in high-heeled shoes, impaling and crushing  puppies, kittens and other small animals. Read more »

The fashion industry elite have gathered in New York for Fashion Week, but I’m not sure how many of them made it to the Snuggie runway show.

Allstar Products Group, LLC, a global leader in the development, branding, marketing and distribution of consumer products, held a Snuggie Fashion Show in New York City yesterday to introduce the “next generation” of the Snuggie blanket.

The runway show featured both Snuggies for humans and the new Snuggie for dogs.

The Snuggie Fashion Show featured lights, cameras and glamorous models — human and canine — as they struck a pose in new Snuggie, according to a company press release.

But wait, there’s more.

Snuggie makers unveiled a number of new limited edition designs — including zebra and leopard animal prints.  Also introduced was the “luxury microplush” Snuggie, with extra roomy pockets, and new colors that include black, purple (attention Ravens fans), camel and hunter green. Also being introduced in limited numbers is a camouflage Snuggie and a tie dye “Snuggadelic Snuggie.”

Dog Snuggies ($9.99 for all sizes) are available only in pink and blue.