ohmidog!

There is nothing in the world cuter than a dog tilting his head.

Except maybe four pugs, with their furrowed brows and bulgy eyes, doing it together.

The video above features Minnie, Mabel and Max and Monte, whose adventures you can follow on their Twitter page.

We told you at the beginning of this week about Ella, a young pup found wandering in Dundalk who was scooped up by a good samaritan.

We’re happy to report at the end of the week that Ella has a new home, in Baltimore’s Riverside neighborhood.

An employee of K-9 Kraving found the dog not far from her home. After knocking on doors in the area, and finding no one who claimed the dog, she took her home, with plans to drop her by a shelter.

When a friend offered to care for the five-month-old pup until a home was found, Ella, as she’d been dubbed by then, was brought to South Baltimore, stopping by my house on the way for a quick photo session.

After her photo and story appeared on ohmidog!, and was picked up by other blogs and spread on Facebook, a Riverside resident — deeming Ella too cute to pass up — contacted Ella’s foster mom.

He met Ella earlier this week, and planned to pick her up today to bring her to her new home, where she will be known as Lily.

Now, if only Miley could be that lucky.

Up until now, I’ve been pretty much against debarking — a surgical procedure whose proponents like to call it “bark softening.”

But this video makes me realize that, possibly, in some cases, it may be justified.

Why some dogs react the way they do to certain songs and sounds would probably make for an interesting scientific study.

Until then, we have YouTube, where a mounting number of videos, it has been noted, show dogs howling along with — or in objection to — the theme from “Law & Order.”

It’s not the first time multiple dog owners have noticed certain songs seem to cause their pets to vocalize, and captured the result on video. Remember all those videos of dogs singing along with Gwen Stefani’s ”Sweet Escape?”

Just as only some dogs howl at sirens, some howl at Gwen Stefani and, for reasons just as mysterious, at the Law & Order theme. Whether they are expressing discomfort or joining the chorus, we don’t really know.

In any event, for an impressive array of dogs howling at “Law & Order,” check out the compilation video above, or visit nastynets.com.

A German shepherd who went missing in Virginia turned up in Florida.

Deacon was spotted weaving in and out of traffic with another dog in a DeLand neighborhood — more than 600 miles from his home, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.

Deacon had been missing since two weeks before Christmas and his owners were convinced the 18-month-old dog was dead.

“My husband and I had grieved and had moved on. We had decided we were not going to get any more dogs,” said Pamela Holt of Stuart, Va.

In Florida, a convenience store clerk spotted two dogs in traffic and coaxed them into the store for their safety. Later they were placed in the city run Second Chance Kennel, where Deacon was checked for a microchip. He had one.

DeLand Animal Control Officer Gary Thomas contacted the agency that issued the microchip, which connected him to Holt.

“He asked me if my dog was missing and I told him that he is missing but that I am pretty sure he was dead,” Holt said. “He said, ‘No he is not dead. I am looking at him.’ ”

The Holt’s adopted Deacon last year from a shelter in Statesville, N.C.

They reunited last weekend.

“It remains a mystery about how Deacon traveled to Florida and how he survived until he was found,” DeLand police Deputy Chief Randel Henderson said.

(Photo: DeLand Police Department)

By taking steps to register the estimated two-thirds of dogs in Los Angeles who aren’t licensed, the city stands to gain $3.6 million.

So, being in dire of of revenue, that’s exactly what it’s doing, the Los Angeles Times reports.

About 120,000 dogs are licensed in the city, as required by law; it’s estimated that there are twice that many whose owners are not following the rules.

The task of locating unlicensed dogs falls to eight full-time canvassers for the Department of Animal Services, who roam the city looking for canines with no licenses or expired licenses and handing out information on spaying and neutering.

But they’ll soon be getting some help. On Tuesday, the council unanimously approved a motion to have the Department of Animal Services coordinate with the Department of Water and Power, which keeps a  database from its meter readers of residences with dogs.

 
Just when I proclaim this quite a week for wieners (dogs and franks), there’s more late breaking wiener news: The world’s oldest hot dog — possibly the world’s first hot dog — has been unearthed at Coney Island, CNN and others reported.

CNN posted a story about the “discovery” of a “140-year-old hot dog” after officials at the Coney Island History Project put an “ancient” frankfurter — bun and all — on display, saying it was unearthed during the demolition of Feltman’s Kitchen, said to be where the first hot dog was made.

“1st Hot Dog,” read a sign next to the display. To the embarassment of CNN and others who picked up the story — to be frank, they didn’t check the facts — it was all just a publicity stunt, aimed at creating interest in an exhibition this summer of real artifacts from the Feltman’s site, the New York Post says.

“The recent discovery by an amateur archaeologist of the ‘140 Year Old Feltman’s Hot Dog’ encased in ice along with a bun, [and] an original receipt from Feltman’s, … was a publicity stunt in the grand tradition of Coney Island ballyhoo,” said Tricia Vita, spokeswoman for the history project.

She said that the hoax was an example of Coney Island’s history of P.T. Barnum-type hype. Even though the ancient hot dog was said to be found “encased in ice” by archaelogists, the story was gobbled right up.

(It was Barnum, I believe, who said a sucker was born every minute. That rate has increased to about every millisecond, thanks to the Internet.)

“I was surprised in the beginning at how many people believed it was true,” Vita said. “But after reading all the buzz about it on Twitter and the Internet, I’m not really that surprised because people want to believe these types of things are true.”

 
Choked on a wiener. Blinded by a wiener. Saved by a wiener. Bitten by a wiener. It has been a big news week for wieners, both the food and the dog — enough fodder (which I believe is the top listed ingredient in hot dogs) to hold our own Wiener Awards.

So without further ado, the envelopes please.

Our first category — Best Wiener in a Supporting Roll …

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

 
A persistent dachschund saved a Washington family from a potentially damaging fire in their mobile home Sunday.

A 3-year-old dachshund named JoJo — who the family took home after finding him as a stray — is being credited for trying to shove 11-year-old Kalen Huntley out of her bed and alerting her parents to an electrical fire smoldering behind an outlet on her bedroom wall.

“Our dog saved our house,” Diane Urquhart, who lives in a mobile home park in Kennewick with her husband, Colt, and four of their five children, told the Tri-City Herald.

The couple and three of the kids were home early Sunday when JoJo, who normally sleeps in their daughter Kalen’s room, began repeatedly coming out the room and approaching the adults.

“He came out to see us four times, then kept going back into our daughter’s room,” Mrs. Urquhart said. On top of that, his ears weren’t in their happy position, she said.

“These ears we did not recognize,” she said. “And his face, if a dog can look worried, he looked worried.”

When she went into her daughter’s room, she smelled burning rubber and saw the dog nudging her sleeping daughter with his nose.

They called 911, and got everybody out of the house, taking their two cats and JoJo.

Urquhart said the wall at the head of her daughter’s bed was hot. Firefighters told the family the outlet, which had a lamp and alarm clock plugged into it, was minutes away from catching fire. When the family removed the outlet the next day, one side of it was scorched.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

(Photo: Courtesy of Tri-City Herald)

 
Does the hot dog need a makeover?

The nation’s largest pediatricians group thinks so. The American Academy of Pediatrics — un-American as it may sound —  is calling for sweeping changes in the way the hot dog is designed to minimize children’s chances for choking.

In a policy statement issued earlier this week, the group identified the hot dog as the greatest food-related choking hazard to children, particularly those ages 3 and younger, and said the shape plays a large role in making it unsafe.

The academy proposes warning labels be placed on hot dogs, and that consideration be given to manufacturing them — gasp! — in the shape of a patty.

The academy cited statistics showing 17 percent of food-related choking deaths among children come from from hot dogs. Other common food choking hazards include grapes, apples, popcorn and nuts, the group said. Of the 141 choking deaths in kids 14 and under in 2006, 61 were food-related, according to an Associated Press story.

The doctors say high-risk foods — including hot dogs, raw carrots, grapes and apples – should be served to small children in pea-sized pieces to reduce chances of choking.

We’d agree with that much, but we think it’s up to parents, as opposed to the government, to see that  their childrens’ food is cut into manageable pieces.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)