ohmidog!

Cody, the chocolate Labrador we showed you a video of last week — the one who jumps up and greets customers at the drive-through window of a Florida gas station — has been declared a health hazard and ordered to leave the premises.

The dog was featured last month in a St. Petersburg Times story, along with a heartwarming video of Cody in action that has been seen widely on the Internet.

Apparently state officials didn’t find it as heartwarming as everybody else.

Inspectors — from the health department according to some reports, agriculture department according to others — stopped by Karim Mansour’s BP station and convenience store in Clearwater and issued a warning. Unless the dog was removed, all of Mansour’s food products would be declared unfit for consumption, the St. Petersburg Times reported yesterday.

That most everything Mansour sells at his shop in Clearwater is packaged — bottled sodas, candy bars, chips and the like — didn’t matter to the Grinch-like bureacrats, who apparently feared the wholesome goodness of the store’s Slim Jims, Twinkies and Marlboros might be tainted by a deadly pet hair.

Mansour, who adopted 6-year-old Cody three years ago, accepted the warning and plans to start leaving his dog at home.

Most readers, judging from the comments the Times has received on the story, see the state’s crackdown on Mansour as a ridiculous case of overkill.

We couldn’t agree more. Once again, it appears, bureaucracy has prevailed, accomplishing its mission of  making the world a safer, far more boring, smile-free  place.

Catholics are cross with Joanna Krupa, the Playboy cover girl and “Dancing with the Stars” competitor whose latest ad for PETA features her wearing nothing but angel wings and a crucifix.

Krupa unveiled the new  “Be an Angel for Animals” PETA campaign at a protest this week outside Barkworks, a Los Angeles pet store that sells puppies.

The campaign, which urges people to adopt dogs rather than buy them, was quick to draw criticism from Catholic leaders.

“The fact is that cats and dogs are a lot safer in pet stores than they are in the hands of PETA employees,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement. “Moreover, pet stores don’t rip off Christian iconography and engage in cheap irreligious claims. PETA is a fraud.”

“It’s totally inappropriate,” said Deal Hudson, publisher of InsideCatholic.com. “It’s another instance of disrespect toward Christianity and another example of the kind of abuse that would never occur with any other major religion, because the outcry would be so immediate and so loud that the people behind it would immediately retreat.”

Krupa, herself a Catholic, responded that she’s just doing what the church should be doing — and by that, we’re pretty sure she meant fighting for defenseless animals as opposed to shedding clothing.

“As a practicing Catholic, I am shocked that the Catholic League is speaking out against my PETA ads, which I am very proud of,” the New York Daily News quoted her as saying.

“I’m doing what the Catholic Church should be doing, working to stop senseless suffering of animals, the most defenseless of god’s creation. I am a voice for innocent animals who are being neglected and dumped by the millions at shelters. In my heart I know that Jesus would never condone the suffering that results when dogs and cats are allowed to breed.”

Picture this: A police dog chases a suspect into a dead-end alley and has him cornered against a wall. It’s a standoff. And then the dog says, “Drop your weapon and lay down on the ground.”

It’s a scenario that could come true in the year ahead. A Canadian company plans to start marketing a bulletproof vest for dogs that comes equipped with a wireless camera, speakers and a microphone — allowing the dog’s handler to see what the dog sees and issues commands.

The vest is made by K9 Storm in Winnipeg, Canada, a company that sells $5 million of custom dog armor a year for canines in Army, Navy, Marines, police departments in 13 countries and security firms worldwide.

“This will change the way dogs are managed in emergencies,” Glori Slater, vice president and co-founder of K9 Storm, said of the new vest, called “K9 Storm Intruder.” The vest relays sound and images over a distance of up to 300 yards.

Slater and her husband, Jim, a former dog handler for the Winnipeg Police Department, spent 11 years perfecting the vest, according to CNNMoney.com.

The Slaters say they have dozens of preorders for the Intruder, prices for which start at $20,000.

What do Baltimore and Albany have in common?

Giant Nippers.

The cities sport the only remaining giant statues of the RCA Victor mascot that were placed atop RCA warehouses in the northeast in the 1950′s.

Albany’s (left) is the largest – 25 feet tall and weighing almost four tons.

Its history was recounted this week by photographer Chuck Miller on his Times-Union blog.

New York Nipper, erected in 1954, sits atop what is now Arnoff Moving and Storage in North Albany’s early industrial warehouse district.

The bulding was once the RTA warehouse, an RCA Victor electronics distributor, then went through several different owners, serving as a  furniture store, flea market and art gallery. The object on Nipper’s ear is an aircraft beacon that keeps low-flying airplanes from hitting him.

In 1997, according to Miller’s report, there was talk in Albany of removing Nipper, who had deteriorated a bit over 40-plus years, from the top of the building. But Michael Arnoff, owner of Arnoff Moving and Storage, announced the company would spend $1 million in building renovation, including repairing Nipper’s steel skeleton and giving him a new paint job.

The Baltimore Nipper statue is 18 feet tall. It was originally installed on the RCA building in Baltimore around 1950. When RCA temporarily discontinued using the icon in 1975, the statue was sold to Virginia resident Jim Wells, reportedly for $1, who moved it to his property in Merrifeld, Virginia.

Twenty years later he decided to sell his land for development as a townhome community. (The street leading to the development is named Nipper Way, according to Wikipedia.)

Wells sold Nipper back to a group of Baltimore citizens, reportedly for $25,000. It is now located on the roof of the Maryland Historical Society at Park Ave. &  W. Centre St.  Unlike Albany’s, Baltimore’s Nipper sculpture still includes a gramophone.

The real Nipper was  a fox terrier-pit bull-maybe something else mix born in Bristol, England in 1884.

When the dog’s owner died, Nipper was passed on to two French painters, Marc and Francis Barraud. In 1895, Francis Barraud saw Nipper gazing intently at a nearby gramophone, and painted the scene, calling the work “His Master’s Voice.”

He later sold the painting to the president of a music company in London called the Gramophone Co., Ltd., where in 1900, Emile Berliner – the inventor of the disc gramophone – saw it and had it registered as an official trademark. Berliner’s company later evolved into the Victor Talking Machine Company, which would later become RCA Victor.

The dog and gramophone trademark appeared in the company’s advertising campaigns, on phonograph cabinets and lids, on records and, in numerous cities, atop buildings.  Most of the rooftop Nippers didn’t stand the test of time, falling out of fashion and victim to weather.

But in two scrappy cities — both known for being proud of their pasts and unashamed of their quirky sides – Nipper is still sitting pretty.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle on Tuesday signed a bill to regulate large-scale dog breeding facilities — a measure he hopes will bring an end to the state’s reputation as a magnet for puppy mills.

“Frankly, when it comes to regulating dog breeders, we have fallen short of many other states – until today,” Doyle said. “We can’t allow these bad actors to continue these practices here in Wisconsin.”

The bill passed the legislature unanimously in November and requires breeders who sell three litters or 25 or more dogs a year to get licensed by the state, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The law also sets regulations to ensure dogs get adequate food, water and exercise and are provided safe enclosures. The department will inspect the facilities and can revoke licenses and impose penalties on breeders.

“The puppy mills won’t disappear overnight simply because of the new law,” Eilene Ribbens, executive director of the Wisconsin Puppy Mill Project, said. “It will take years of work to clean up after a very cruel and abusive industry that flourished in Wisconsin during years with no regulation. We have much work ahead of us.”

The Humane Society of the United States said Wisconsin joins nine other states that passed new laws this year to protect both the dogs in puppy mills and the consumers who often unwittingly purchase sick puppies.

In addition to Wisconsin, bills to regulate puppy mills were enacted by the 2009 state legislatures in Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Nebraska, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington, according to a HSUS press release.

A tipster has received the $2,500 reward PETA offered last fall for information leading to the conviction of a man who placed a South Carolina homeowner’s dog in the oven during a burglary, propped a chair against the door and cooked the dog alive.

Teofilo Falaniko Jr., 21, was sentenced to 11 years in prison and three-and-a-half-years probation after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree burglary and one count of unlawful treatment to animals, SCnow.com reported.

Dillon police said Falaniko already was in jail on two other burglary charges when he was charged. He told police he placed the dog — a pug named Penny — into the oven because it bit him during the burglary.

The tipster, whose identity is being withheld, overheard Falaniko bragging about his crime and contacted authorities.

Falaniko admitted to ransacking Bonnie Bowens’ Owens Street residence while she was at church. When Bowens got home, she noticed her front door kicked in and called police.  Officer checked the over and found the dog dead.

A Baltimore animal control officer was shot on duty Tuesday night after he seized a dog from a house in the city’s Brooklyn neighborhood.

Jermaine Barnes, 37, who has been on the job four years was shot in the hand as he sat in his vehicle doing paperwork on Patapsco Avenue.

A police spokesman told the Baltimore Sun it was unclear whether the shooting was random, related to the dog he had seized, or connected to another stop he had made on Pontiac Avenue in response to a citizen complaint about five dogs living in a residence. No dogs were found in the home.

Police said Barnes and was sitting in the driver’s seat completing a report when he heard gunshots. One shot shattered his window and hit him in the hand.

Bob Anderson, the director of the city’s Bureau of Animal Control, refused to comment.

Police in Baltimore are investigating the shooting of a 9-year-old boy and his dog Tuesday night.

The boy was shot in the left hand in West Baltimore Tuesday night after three men kicked in the front door of his residence, police said.

The boy was taken to an area hospital and is in stable condition, the Baltimore Sun reported. The dog was killed.

Police were called to the 1600 block of N. Ellamont St. about 11 p.m. and found the victim shot along with a dog. Witnesses told police that the suspects fled the residence after the shooting.

It seems I wasn’t the only one to disagree with “Dear Abby’s” recent opinion that throwing the bagged poopage of your dog into someone else’s garbage can was acceptable.

“I’m sorry to say my advice … landed me in the doghouse,” the columnist noted earlier this week.

Back in September, Abby advised “Pooped Out in North Carolina” — who was getting the business from his family after tossing his dog’s bagged feces in a neighbor’s garbage can — that “as long as the bag was securely sealed, I don’t think adding it to someone’s trash bin was a social no-no.”

ohmidog! quickly pounced on Abby for dispensing such bad advice. It’s bad manners and, worse yet, gives the anti-dog types something else to complain about.

As it turns out, we weren’t alone. Many others disagreed with Abby, and a sampling of those opinions were included in her column Monday.

“DEAR ABBY: … As a homeowner who is a frequent recipient of foreign feces, there is a practical issue that you may not have foreseen. Our garbage collectors will not dispose of small bags of dog poop; they will only take trash bags of the larger size one would expect to contain household waste,” wrote Frequent Feces Finder.

“DEAR ABBY: You should have told “Pooped” to check the local laws first. In my community, if you’re caught putting your trash in someone else’s container, you are made to clean it out, fined and sometimes given jail time,” wrote Tom in Reed City, Michigan.

“DEAR ABBY: We walk our dogs four times a day and place their carefully bagged “deposits” only in the trash at our house. We do this for two reasons: One, people can be territorial about their refuse containers and resent any ‘unauthorized’ garbage placed there. Two, many homeowners hate finding animal waste on their property or in their trash,” opined Picker-Upper in California.

(Photo from the flickr page of left-hand)

Michael Vick told a gathering  of children in New Jersey that he would like to have a dog.

“I wish I could have a dog right now more than anything in the world,”  the convicted dogfighter and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback told  children at the Boys and Girls Club of Newark.

A federal court judge banned Vick from owning dogs.

Vick’s appearance, according to NBC News in New York, was about the sixth he’s made with the Humane Society of the United States since his release from prison and house arrest in July.

“Everything you read and everything you heard was true — except for the electrocution,” he said, denying the widely repeated accusation that he electrocuted dogs that didn’t perform well as fighters. “That never happened.”

Vick said he’s hopeful he’ll have a dog again one day. “I don’t know when that day is going to come.  It’s up to my judge at his discretion,” he said.

When asked by one of the children why he participated in dog fighting, Vick responded: ”I don’t understand why to this day.” But he told them, “use me as an example for you not to do the things that would lead you down the wrong path.”