ohmidog!

With only two weeks remaining before the big event, the USA Network has announced that Mario Lopez is out as co-host of the 134th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Tamron Hall is in.

On Friday the network announced that MSNBC’s Hall would be replacing Lopez as the co-host of Westminster, America’s second longest continuously held sporting event (behind only the Kentucky Derby).

“It saddens me to say I will not be able to co-host this year’s Westminster Kennel Club dog show, due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts,” Lopez said. “I wish Tamron, David and all the dogs the best of luck. I will be cheering you all on from LA.”

“I’ve been a dog lover my entire life,” said Hall. “I currently have two furry ‘best friends’ in my family, and I can’t wait for the show. I’m honored to be given the opportunity to join this team.”

Hall will be co-hosting the event with David Frei in his 21st consecutive year with the show. NBC Sports’ Tiffany Simons will also appear as a sideline reporter.

The first hour of the show will air on USA at 8 p.m. Monday, February 15.

The next two hours will air on CNBC, from 9 to 11 p.m. On Tuesday, all three hours, including the crowning of the 2010 Best in Show, is back on USA, from 8-11 p.m.

A California man was treated and released after being shot in the back by his dog.

The unidentified 53-year-old man was hunting in Merced County when he set the safety on his loaded shotgun and put it on the ground while he grabbed his decoy ducks, according to the Fresno Bee.

Merced County sheriff’s officials say the hunter’s black Lab stepped on the loaded shotgun, causing the safety to release and the gun to fire.

There was a gem of a story in the New York Times last week — about  two elderly but popular neighborhood dogs who died within a day of each other.

Both lived in an apartment building on West 86th Street. Harry died Friday evening, his friend Bix died on Saturday.

“The fact that they were not human, but were instead a pair of 14-year-old dogs, seems only to have magnified the bereavement in their building, where they had lived longer than most tenants; on their block, where Harry held court at sidewalk cafes and was known as the Mayor of 86th Street; and deep into Central Park, where Bix had been the ringleader of a 9 a.m. play group since 1997,” the article reported.

Harry was a purebred Shar-Pei. Bix, named for the jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke,was a mix of Akita, Saint Bernard and German shepherd.

His 84-year-old owner, the documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, said he never knew any of his neighbors until Bix moved in, serving as an icebreaker and conversation-starter.

“Over the years, because of him, my circle of friends changed, I met people I never would have met; I came to see my whole life depending on this dog I hadn’t wanted at all,” said Pennebaker. “I’d expected having to walk him in the rain in the middle of the night. But I never expected to lose him. If ever you put a dog down, some of you goes with him.”

Rafael Curbelo, the building’s doorman, who kept a stash of treats behind his desk in the lobby, cried upon hearing the  news. “Harry was my best friend here,” he said.

As has become the tradition in the dog-friendly building, two dog death announcements were posted in the elevator. Within hours, both had been inscribed with expressions of sympathy from tenants.

A San Antonio teenager who believes she’s a werewolf has admitted to beheading a dog in her kitchen, but says the dog was already dead.

Sarah Rodriguez, 18, who prefers to be called “Wolfie Blackheart,” was contacted by authorities after a photo of the dog’s severed head appeared on the Internet.

“I didn’t kill any animal,” Rodriguez told the San Antonio Express-News. “I wouldn’t, like I said. I’d be more likely to hurt a human than a dog any day. And even then not really possible. I’m pretty friendly.”

Investigators are waiting to find out exactly how the dog, whose family said it went missing two weeks ago, died.

Rodriguez, who wears a tail, said the dog was found dead, and that she used a pocketknife in her kitchen to decapitate it.  “I severed the head, boiled the head.”

Before boiling the head, someone held it up and snapped a photograph of it that ended up on the Internet.

Within days, the photo had spurred an animal cruelty investigation by Animal Care Services and the San Antonio Police Department.

Rodriguez says she’s guilty of nothing more than a love for taxidermy: “I would never kill a canine,” she said. “I am a canine.”

Lisa Rodriguez, Wolfie’s mom, said she supports the career goal of her daughter, who has two dogs of her own, both huskies. She said her daughter has Tourette’s syndrome, which causes her to “yip” — a result of head trauma suffered in a car crash about a decade ago.

Police served a search warrant at the Rodriguez home and confiscated the head of the dog.

The black-flecked chow mix, Rigsby, went missing from a family’s backyard on Jan. 5. Two weeks later, on Jan. 20, a neighbor showed the dog’s owner a website with the photo of a dog’s head. “My heart pretty much sank,” the mother of four daughters said, “because when I saw that picture, I said, ‘That’s Rigsby.’”