ohmidog!

The assistant district attorney prosecuting the case against Tiara Davis, accused of beating her Pomeranian on the elevator at a New York City housing project, broke into laughter in the courtroom yesterday.

While reading Davis’ statement about how she beat the dog, Assistant District Attorney Steven Constantiner began chuckling, the New York Daily News reported.

“He was laughing and had to turn away because he couldn’t control the laughter,” said, Stacy Schneider, a Legal Aid lawyer representing Davis. “I didn’t see any humor in the statement.”

Davis, 31, is charged with beating a 9-pound Pomeranian named Sparky into unconsciousness in an elevator at the Grant Houses in Manhattan. Police quoted her as saying: “It wasn’t like I was killing him or anything like that. I mean I wasn’t gonna really hurt him.”

Constantiner started laughing when he was reading part of Davis’ statement that described the dog relieving itself in the elevator.

“The assistant district attorney laughed briefly and unexpectedly while reading to the court the vulgarities the defendant used in her statement to police,” acknowledged Erin Duggan, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office. Constantiner declined comment.

Davis, a vocational counselor, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor animal-cruelty charges. Her lawyer denied she  made the statements to police. Davis, who has since surrendered Sparky, was caught on video beating the 4-year-old dog and was arrested by the ASPCA. She faces up to a year in jail.

Her arrest came just after another resident of the Grant Houses, Chris Grant, was charged with animal cruelty in connection with beating a dog — an incident police say was caught on the elevator surveillance cameras earlier.

Rachael Ray’s pit bull mauled another dog, and the talk show host is worried that the attack could lead to her dog being put down, Radar Online reports.

Ray’s dog, Isaboo, recently bit off part of the ear of another dog in Greenwich Village, the website reported.

Ray’s husband immediately contacted the other dog’s owners and paid their vet bills, and a vet was able to save most of the ear. 

According to the story, it wasn’t the first time Ray’s dog has been involved in a violent incident, including one that left Ray injured.

Isaboo was in a fight with another dog three years ago. When Ray intervened she received a gash on her hand, the website reported.

In the most recent incident, Radar Online says — citing the National Enquirer as its source — Isaboo was walking past another dog in Greenwich Village when she bit the other dog, tearing its ear.

 
The White House released an official photo of  Bo playing in the record snow that pounded the Mid-Atlantic states. On Tuesday, when this photo was taken, it came up to the chest of the First Family’s Portuguese water dog. After Wednesday, it must be at least up to his neck. We’d show you where Bo peed, but that would be yellow journalism.

 
So, with only three days left to Valentine’s Day, your honey still hasn’t firmed up the plans?

Could be he, or she, is planning to spend it with the pooch.

Rather than spending Valentine’s Day with their human partner, a fifth of adults would prefer to be with their pet, Reuters reports, based on a global poll conducted in conjunction with the market research company, Ipsos.

The survey of 24,000 people in 23 countries found, globally, 21 percent of adults would rather spend February 14 with their pet than their spouse or partner.

Interestingly, Turkish people were most inclined to want to spend the day with the dog (49 percent), while the French were least likely (10 percent).

The survey found that age and income were even bigger factors than country of residence, with younger, less affluent people more likely to choose their pet as their Valentine’s Day companion. About  25 percent of people aged under 35 opted for their pet over their partner, compared to 18 percent of those aged 35-54 and 14 percent of people aged 55 and over. Men and women were evenly split over the question.

About 1,000 individuals per country took part in the poll, with Turkey showing the largest numbers by far of owners who preferred their pet’s company on Valentine’s Day.  Next came India with 41 percent, Japan with 30 percent, China with 29 percent, the United States with 27 percent and Australia with 25 percent.

The nations where residents were the least likely to want to spend the day with a pet over their spouse or partner were France at 10 percent, Mexico at 11 percent, the Netherlands at 12 percent and Hungary at 12 percent.

A Westie left tied by his owner outside a New York supermarket was relieved of his winter wear — that’s right, somebody stole the coat off his back.

Donna McPherson, 42, says she tied up Lexie, her 10-year-old Westie, in front of Ace Supermarket in Park Slope “for two minutes” so she could buy milk.

When she returned, the $25 green wool coat with leather trim he’d been wearing was gone.

Here’s how McPherson relayed the facts to F—ed in Park Slope, a blog that isn’t nearly as dirty as its name:

I ran out of milk Sat night at 6.30pm so bundled Lexie up in his little green coat and walked down to Union & 7th to get some milk from Ace Supermarket. I tied Lexie to the door (where I could see him through the glass) and grabbed the milk. As anyone who’s been in Ace knows, the milk is located right inside the door, so I only had my back turned on Lexie for 10 seconds or so ( I know, I know: people will shout at me for leaving him alone outside and I  never normally do, but I needed some milk!). I was back outside within less than a minute, and when I came out someone had STOLEN THE GREEN COAT off of Lexie’s back!?.

WHAT. THE. F—??? I mean, who does that? 

I thank god the dog coat thief didn’t steal Lexie, but I never expected my friggin dog to get mugged!  Lexie is OK post traumatic incident, but I swear to God: if I see someone with a dog in Lexie‘s green coat you better run in the opposite direction!!”

McPherson, an investment banker, told the New York Post she attempted to make it up to Lexie by buying him two new coats.

(Photo: Gregory P. Mango/New York Post)

Baltic, the Polish dog rescued from an ice floe in the Baltic Sea, is back at sea — this time wearing a life jacket and riding aboard the ship that saved him.

The Associated Press reports that Baltic embarked Wednesday on a three-day mission alongside his new owner Adam Buczynski, the seaman who pulled him to safety from an ice sheet in the Baltic Sea last month.

Buczynski said the dog seemed stressed by the commotion of preparing for the trip.

Ewa Bardziej-Krzyzankowska, spokeswoman for the Sea Fisheries Institute in Gdynia, co-owner of the ship, said the crew had anti-nausea pills for Baltic in case he gets seasick on the journey, whose purpose is to collect samples of fish and sea plants for an aquarium in Gdynia.

Bardziej-Krzyzankowska said Baltic quickly learned that he was to only use one spot on an outdoor deck to go the bathroom, one which the crew hoses down regularly. Baltic resisted a bath after his rescue, she reported, leading Buczynski to take the dog into his arms and take a shower with him.

Buczynski and other crew members spotted the dog Jan. 25 floating 15 miles from land. Baltic was first seen two days earlier on the Vistula River, 60 miles inland, drifting on ice past the city of Grudziadz, where firefighters tried but failed to save him.

(Photo: Krzysztof Mystkowski/Associated Press)

Your dog may soon be tweeting.

Japan’s Index Corp., a mobile content provider, plans to launch an iPhone adaptation of the “Bowlingual” dog emotion translator that it says will translate dog barks into English and tweet them out to the world.

The original Bowlingual device, first offered in 2002 by Takara Tomy, consists of a microphone that goes around the dog’s neck and a handheld receiver with LCD screen that gives a written readout of the emotion a dog’s bark is expressing: sad, frustrated, needy, happy, on guard and “self-expressive.” 

(That last one puzzles me. I wouldn’t consider it an emotion, and it seems any bark would be self expressive. Then again, maybe something is getting lost in translation.)

The Japanese company plans to launch the new iPhone app this summer, PCWorld reports.

Index is planning to charge $4.99 for the app, said Sonoko Tatsuno, a spokeswoman for the company in Tokyo — considerably cheaper than the $229 stand-alone version. A Japanese version of the new app will come out first, followed by an English version.

In addition to translating a dog’s bark, the software can capture a picture of the dog, using the iPhone’s built-in camera. The resulting picture can then be combined with the “translation” and sent directly from the iPhone to Twitter.

The original product proved to be a hit in Japan selling around 300,000 units, It was also put on sale in the U.S. and South Korea.

Another dog befriended by U.S. troops in Afghanistan has made it to America.

Oso was rescued as a four-month-old pup from the streets of Afghanistan five months ago by Phil Bourillion, of the 5th Stryker Brigade, then went on to befriend his entire unit.

The dog arrived at Sea-Tac Airport late Tuesday morning, where she was met by Bourillion’s wife, Lena, KOMO in Seattle reported.

“She means a lot,” Spc. David LaForge, who is with Bourillon’s unit but home this week on R&R, said of the dog. “She was a big boost of morale when we had her – she was a little puppy – we raised her from nothing.”

When the unit got orders to transfer to another base, plans to bring Oso along were nixed by the Army.

That’s when Lena Bourillion began the long process of trying to get the dog out on her own.

Members of the unit paid a driver to sneak Oso through enemy lines to Kabul. Once Oso was there, Lena, with the help of family and friends, found someone who would get Oso into Pakistan. From there, Oso was placed on a flight to New York and another to Seattle.

Bourillion is due back from Afghanistan in five months.

Oso will spend three weeks in quarantine before going to the Bourillion’s home in Puyallup.

A year after the death of her fiance, Saundra Frazer was awakened by the dog he brought into her life, whose barks and nudges alerted her to a fire in her home.

Frazer, 27,  and the couple with whom she shared a home in Lake Worth, Fla., both credit Bubba, a 7-year-old golden retriever, with saving them from the fire.

Bubba’s barks awoke Frazer and Lori and Charles McCauley, who lived in the back of the house.

Frazer’s fiance was the one who brought Bubba into her life when they lived in Fort Lauderdale, the Palm Beach Post reports.

“He’s a champ,” says Charles McCauley. “He’s a hero. If we didn’t get out, it was going to overwhelm us.”

All three, and Bubba, were staying in a West Palm Beach hotel after the fire, courtesy of the local Red Cross.

(Photo: Frazer and Bubba in hotel room; by Allen Eyestone/The Palm Beach Post)