ohmidog!

The 134th Westminster Dog Show kicks off today in Madison Square Garden, with 173 breeds — including three newly recognized by the American Kennel Club — competing for the honor of best in show.

“The most prestigious event on the thoroughbred canine calendar” is how the New York Times characterized the show in an article this weekend — and one in which bucks and hype play large roles in determining the winner:

“Among breeders, owners and handlers, it’s understood: you can’t just turn up with the paradigm of the breed, if such an animal exists, and expect a best-in-show ribbon. To seriously vie for victory, a dog needs what is known as a campaign: an exhausting, time-consuming and very expensive gantlet of dog show wins, buttressed by ads in publications like Dog News and The Canine Chronicle.”

Breeders will commonly spend $100,000 a year on ads touting their dog, and that’s just part of the investment.

“Altogether, a top-notch campaign can easily cost more than $300,000 a year, and because it takes time to build momentum and a reputation, a typical campaign lasts for two or three years. Kathy Kirk, who handled Rufus, a colored bull terrier who won best in show at Westminster in 2006, estimates that the dog’s three-year campaign cost about $700,000,” the article said.

Among the 2,500 dogs hoping to follow in Rufus’ footsteps will be some from three newly recognized breeds, competing for the first time — the Irish Red and White Setter joins the Sporting Group; and the Norwegian Buhund and the Pyrenean Shepherd debut in the Herding Group.

Despite its name, the Irish Red and White Setter (above) is a distinct breed, not just a different colored version of the Irish Setter. Bred primarily for the field, they are strong, powerful and athletic, with a keen and intelligent attitude.

The Norwegian Buhund (left) once the companion of Vikings, is a versatile farm dog == black or cream colored — from Norway, where they’ve been used to herd livestock, guard property and hunt game.

The Pyrenean Shepherd (left again) is also known by its French name, Berger des Pyrénées, but fanciers of the breed in America often shorten the name to “Pyr shep.” Native to the mountains of southern France, the breed has guarded sheep since medieval times.

The three new breeds will be represented by 29 individual dogs in the show. The newcomers bring this year’s show total to 173 breeds and varieties, up from about 150 two decades ago.

Here’s the TV schedule

NIGHT 1:
Monday, February 15
Hound, Toy, Non-Sporting and Herding Groups
8-9 p.m. (ET) live on USA Network
9-11 p.m. (ET) live on CNBC

NIGHT 2:
Tuesday, February 16
Sporting, Working and Terrier Groups, Best In Show
8-11 p.m. (ET) live on USA Network

Breed judging highlight videos are available throughout the day on Monday and Tuesday at the Westminster website.

Yesterday’s Washington Post had a great series of photos depicting the rescue of a yellow Lab who wandered into an icy pond in Potomac.

A neighbor spotted the dog — named Tully — out his kitchen window and called 911. Rescuers arrived within minutes, cut through a fence and plunged in after him as the dog’s family watched.

The four-year old dog was worn out by then and unable to hoist himself out, according to his owner, Bruce Stewart, whose 14-year-old son encouraged the dog from shore: “Hold on there, buddy! You’re a good boy!”

Rashad Surratt, a firefighter, entered the pond and Tully paddled toward him. The rescuer wrapped his arms and a harness around the dog, who seemed happy to get a hand. “He just gave up,” Surratt said Saturday. “He was really, really tired.”

Other firefighters were able to help pull Tully across the ice and get him to the shore. Tully was wrapped in coats and blankets, loaded onto a toboggan and pulled home by firefighters and residents. To see all the photos, visit the Post’s photo gallery.

Stewart, an executive at text-messaging company kgb, said Tully apparently walked right through his electronic fence, which had been disabled by the snow.

(Photo: Lea Thompson / Washington Post)

Prince, a three-legged pitbull mix that played in a game of doggie baseball has won “Best in Show” at a talent competition held by one of New York City’s largest animal shelters.

Nine dogs competed in Friday’s contest at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Prince impressed the judges most with his feat of catching three baseballs, the Associated Press reports.

The nearly 2-year-old dog lost one of his legs and had a pin inserted in another after being struck by a car.

Gail Buchwald, ASPCA’s senior vice president of the adoption center, says Prince’s disability doesn’t hold him back.

 ”He struts his stuff like a winner,” she said.

(Photo: ASPCA)

Here’s CNN’s report on the Westie who had the coat stolen off his back while briefly tied outside a New York City supermarket.

Lexie was relieved of his $25 green wool coat last week, while his owner was buying milk. Fortunately, it was his everyday coat, and not the Burberry.

What exactly the cow with a tire stuck on his head — seen near the end of the report — has to do with any of this is beyond me, but then what would you expect from a reporter named Jeanie Moos?

Money can buy you love in Baltimore — and, for the next two weeks, for just $40.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS), is dropping the fees on all adoptions to $40 until Feb. 28:

“Want to find the perfect companion? Want to find someone who is guaranteed to love you unconditionally, even if you go bald, gain weight, or lose all of your money? Tired of the dating scene and the pressure of Valentine’s Day romance? Forget internet dating!”

BARCS promises “the perfect companion … not afraid of making a commitment and they will give you pure affection and unconditional love for their entire lifetime.”

Adoption fees include spaying and neutering, rabies vaccination, DHLPP vaccination, bordatella, de-wormer, flea preventative, a general examination, a food sample, Felv testing for cats and kittens, and even a month of free veterinary insurance.

BARCS is the largest shelter in Baltimore and the surrounding area, caring for more than 11,000 animals each year.

To find true love, stop by the shelter at 301 Stockholm St. (behind M&T Bank Stadium), call at 410-396-4695, or visit BARCS online.

The shelter is open for adoptions Monday through Friday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The shelter will be closed on Monday, Feb. 15, in celebration of President’s Day.

(Graphic: T-shirt design by Punk Rock Dogg)

“Important Things With Demetri Martin” kicked off its second season on Comedy Central this week, and a character with no lines stole the show. Here’s “Bruce the Funny Dog.”

If you’re looking for some good music, a good cause and something to do on Valentine’s Day, there’s a benefit concert at the 8×10 Club in Federal Hill tomorrow to raise funds for MidAtlantic Bully Buddies, a Baltimore pit bull rescue.

Tickets for “Peace & Love for Bully Buddies” are $15 and doors open at 7 p.m. The show is open to all ages and features the bands Can’t Hang, Woo & the Yellow Dubmarine and Mobtown Saints.

All proceeds benefit Mid Atlantic Bully Buddies, a rescue organization that provides foster care for dogs while seeking to find them permanent homes, and works to educate the public and correct misconceptions about pit bulls.

Coming up on his first birthday, Scooby-Roo has come a long way since he was found five months ago — with no front legs, living with his sister in a wrecked car in a gang-ridden neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles.

His first break came when a good samaritan picked him and his sister up. His second came when they were taken in by Fuzzy Rescue. Since then, his story has led to offers of help from Demi Moore, Alyssa Milano, Michael Jackson’s children and many others.

Today, still under the care of Fuzzy Rescue, he has a therapist and a personal trainer and can look forward to a masseuse and acupuncturist, the Associated Press reports.

Not long after Roo arrived at Fuzzy Rescue in Santa Monica — caked in blood from scooting around on the asphalt — the non-profit organization’s director, Sheila Choi send out mass emails looking for donations and other support.

After that, celebrities began tweeting about Roo, from Demi Moore to Shannon Elizabeth. Alyssa Milano saw a YouTube video of the dog and called Choi, promising to help any way she could. Michael Jackson’s children, Prince and Paris, saw a TV report about Roo and began raising money to help out.

With the celebrity help, Choi collected $2,000 for a set of custom wheels for Roo, who is believed to have been born without legs.

On Valentine’s Day, appropriately enough, this sweetheart of a dog turns one.

Here’s an updated report on Scooby-Roo from Fuzzy Rescue:

If conclusion-jumping was a Winter Olympics event, both the police and the press would be deserving medals for their handling this week of an incident in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, that saw a  dead woman’s Rottweiler locked up as her suspected killer.

The facts of the case are these: Carolyn Baker, 63, was found dead at her back steps, wearing only a thin polyester nightgown and boots, with bite marks on her arms and shoulder.

Here are just a few of the headlines (online versions) that followed over the next two days: 

Cleveland Heights Woman Dies Afer Being Attacked by Rottweiler

Ohio Woman Dies of Suspected Dog Attack

Woman Found Mauled to Death by Pet Rottweiler

POLICE: Woman Mauled to Death by Dog

Of course, headlines are never the whole story; and sometimes the whole story isn’t the whole story, as was the case with these.

Instead, as it turns out, the police and, in turn, news media, may have jumped the gun — perhaps a little too eager to place  blame on a dog because of his breed, which is, of course, nothing new.

While pit bulls have taken their place as Public Enemy No. 1, Rottweilers have long been victim to the same kind of negative stereotyping. Zeus, maybe, is just the latest.

Subsequent reports, like this one in the Cleveland Plain Dealer eventually gave the family’s suspicions given some ink — namely that 9-year-old Zeus, rather than being the stone cold killer police and the news media were portraying him as, may have merely been trying to rescue his owner after she collapsed in the yard.

The Cuyahoga County coroner’s office has yet to rule on the cause of Baker’s death, but her family believes she had another stroke or heart attack when she went into her yard to bring her dog inside late Saturday, and that Zeus tried to pull her to safety after she collapsed.

It wasn’t until 3 a.m. Sunday that a next-door neighbor called the family to tell them Zeus was in the Baker’s front yard barking. The dog had gone through a hole in the back fence. After letting the dog in, Baker’s husband found his wife at the bottom of the back steps.

Cleveland Heights police said Baker had severe arm and shoulder injuries and bite marks. While police intitially suspected Baker was “mauled” by her own dog, Baker’s family insists the bite marks aren’t from an attack, but from Zeus’ attempts to rescue his master.

“[Zeus] only locked onto her shoulder trying to bring her in,” said Baker’s son, Rinaldo. “My mom weighed about 200 pounds. The dog just grabbed her and tried to help her out. She had no clothes on or he could have grabbed that. There were no marks on her face, nowhere else.”

“That was her dog,” Rinaldo Baker said. “If we were to go upstairs that dog would run past us and go upstairs to be with us. But if my mom were to go upstairs, knowing how she can barely walk, Zeus would sit and wait for her to go up first and then he would go up. That’s a good dog.”

Zeus is being held at Pepperidge Kennels in Bedford pending the results of the autopsy. The Baker family wants him back.

“If Zeus wasn’t out there we wouldn’t have known till later on that something was wrong because he was the one who alerted somebody,” Carter said. “If he had ways of getting somebody to notice earlier, things may have been different than what they are now, but he did the best he could as a dog.”

Marquel Dawson of Fairfield, Calif., told the news media he used a Samurai sword to fight off a mountain lion that was attacking his dog.

And the news media — despite no confirmation from police or fish and game authorities — duly reported it:

Teen uses Ninja sword to fight off mountain lion, reported KGO-TV in San Francisco.

Dog, sword-wielding teen drive off lion, read the headline on a UPI article.

KTVU reported, Teen saves dog from mountain lion with sword, before correcting the headline, except for its dubious grammar.

As it turns out, state game and fish officials say it was most likely a raccoon — and not a sword-wielding one — that Dawson’s pit bull mix tangled with in a marshy area near Fairfield.  Most media outlets corrected their earlier versions of the story yesterday, though KTVU left a “c” out of raccoon in its correction.

It was yet another case of the news media — as it did with Zeus the Rottweiler — jumping the gun, the kind of boo-boo that, with continued cutbacks in news staff, leaving less time to dig past the surface, is becoming more common than ever.

Dawson told news outlets the animal his dog chased into the bushes after was a mountain lion. But after examining the dog with a veterinarian, and tracks in the area, Fish and Game warden Patrick Foy, who pointed out Dawson called the news media as opposed to police, said Thursday the evidence suggests it was a raccoon.

Dawson said he and his dog, Stunna, a 65 pound pit bull-shepherd mix, were walking in a muddy area Wednesday a short distance from his family’s Fairview Place home when the dog noticed something rustling in a bush and went in after it. As the animals struggled, he told reporters, he went home and got his Samurai sword.

When he got back, he says, he whacked the “mountain lion” hitting it in the shoulder, at which point the animal fled.

Stunna was treated by a veterinarian for cuts and scrapes across his face and legs and is expected to survive.