ohmidog!

A Florida man who used glue and dental floss to perform surgery on a dog that was injured while under his care has seen the animal cruelty charges filed against him dropped.

Although the dog died, the Broward State Attorney’s Office said it reviewed the case and determined there wasn’t enough evidence to convict William Ralph Jones Jr., of Oakland Park, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Jones, 55, was arrested in January on two counts of felony animal cruelty. He was accused of using glue to seal a 3-inch cut that the dog suffered when she escaped from Jones’ yard. When that didn’t work, he allegedly stitched up the dog with dental floss and used chloroform to knock her unconscious, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.

Jones’ acts caused Zoe — a 2-year-old hound-retriever mix who was left in Jones’ care by his daughter’s friend — to suffer excessive and unnecessary pain, the sheriff’s office said.

Upon reviewing the case, the State Attorney’s Office issued a memo stating that Jones “executed extremely poor judgment, but did not intend to hurt the animal.

“I’m just in shock that they’re allowing him to get away with this,” Danielle Vecchio, Zoe’s owner, told the Sentinel Tuesday. “They’re basically saying that he can’t be charged for stupidity.”

The attorney general’s office said, “The fact that he did this while she had an injury is evidence to the fact that he was trying to help the dog — albeit in a painful manner.”

Abby Toll, the former University of Colorado student accused of taping her boyfriend’s dog to a refrigerator, did not have an “impaired mental condition” at the time that would excuse her behavior, a state mental health doctor says.

Toll, 20, has entered a not guilty plea, claiming she suffered from an impaired mental condition as a result of being an “ongoing victim of domestic violence.”

Her case goes to trial April 12, according to the Boulder Daily Camera. The doctor’s conclusion came in a pre-trial report.

Toll, who now lives in Chicago and is no longer enrolled at the university, is accused of binding her boyfriend’s 2-year-old shiba inu, Rex, in hair bands and packing tape and sticking him upside-down to a refrigerator during a fight.

Her boyfriend, Bryan Beck, also was charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty. In exchange for a guilty plea, he was given a one-year deferred sentence and 50 hours of community service.

The dog has since been adopted by another family.

Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) is waiving the $65 adoption fee for selected dogs and cats for the entire month of March.

Dogs and cats that can be adopted for free will be identified at the shelter with a basketball sticker on their cages.

Included in the adoption fee are spay/neuter surgery; vaccinations for rabies, DHLPP and bordatella for dogs or FVRCP for cats; de-worming, a flea preventative, a general examination, a food sample, and a month of free health insurance. Baltimore City residents will have to pay a $10 license fee.

In addition to waiving some fees, BARCS will be offering microchipping for $20 per pet – only $5 for those who were adopted at BARCS.

BARCS is the largest shelter in Baltimore and the surrounding area, taking in over 11,000 animals each year.

More information about animals available for adoption may be found at the BARCS website. BARCS located at 301 Stockholm Street, across from the M&T Bank Stadium, and is open for adoptions Monday through Friday from 2 to 6 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Baton Rouge Zoo officials think a pack of wild dogs may be responsible for the Sunday night deaths of 17 flamingos, more than a third of the zoo’s flock.

Despite having 24-hour security, the zoo didn’t discover the deaths until staff arrived for work Monday morning,  Phil Frost, zoo director, told The Advocate.

Zoo officials don’t know how the dogs got into the zoo, or through an additional fence and into the flamingo enclosure, but they said canine paw prints were detected.

Besides the 17 flamingos killed, one more bird was injured in the attack and was being treated at the zoo’s hospital, said Mary Wood, the zoo’s marketing director.

The remaining 30 members of the flock who survived were back on display Monday. Zoo officials aren’t sure how they managed to survive the attack.

Paul Railton was fined and barred from driving for six months after taking his dog for a walk while sitting behind the wheel of his car.

Prosecutors said he was spotted by a cyclist driving slowly along a country lane in December, holding his dog’s leash through the car window as the animal trotted alongside.

Railton pleaded guilty Monday to not being in proper control of a vehicle, but told the court that “a lot of people exercise their dogs in that manner,” MSNBC reports.

His lawyer said Railton, 23, acknowledged “it was a silly thing to do and there was an element of laziness.”

Railton was ordered by magistrates in Consett, northeast England, to pay a fine of about $100. He also received three penalty points on his driver’s license, leading to him being barred from driving for six months.

Several British newspapers reported that Railton was involved in an attempted murder case last year (drive-by shooting?), but that the case was dismissed because of police misconduct.

Here’s an ending almost too happy to be believed.

Three years ago, a Washington man surrendered his family dog, a five-year-old shepherd mix named Haley, to the Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County.

An unspecified family crisis forced the family to give up the dog, the humane society said.

Though gone, she was not forgotten. The father still kept photos of the dog on his iphone, and his daughter, now 12, was, still missing and talking about the dog they had said goodbye to years earlier.

This week, with their crisis averted and the family having decided to get another dog, the father dropped by the Tacoma Humane Society to look at potential adoptees. Though it’s not uncommon for shelter dogs to start jumping and yapping when people come by, one dog went particularly crazy when the father approached, staff members say.

Taking a closer look, the father was shocked to see that the dog making all the noise was — you guessed it — Haley!

As it turns out, Haley, after being surrendered by the family, was adopted in 2007, but the family that adopted her the second time had so much trouble with her continually running away they’d returned her, just a few days ago.

The Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County, which related the story on their  Facebook page, said the dog and her original family are now reunited.

The city council in Jackson, Miss., plans to reconsider a proposal to ban pit bulls from the city after last month’s death of a five-year-old girl.

City Councilman Jeff Weill believes he has enough votes to ban pit bull terriers from the city, the Clarion-Ledger reports.

Weill, who has long pushed to ban pit bulls, had all but abandoned his idea. But the Feb. 12 attack that killed Anataisa Bingham in Terry has rekindled concerns.

The city considered outlawing pit bulls in 2006, but ban was removed from a proposed ordinance when pit bull owners and breeders complained.

Only two council members oppose banning the breed, one of whom, Tony Yarber, is a pit bull owner.

Weill said he plans to bring the ban up for a vote next week at a meeting of the council’s rules committee. If it passes, the ordinance would move to the full council for public hearings and a final vote.

Weill suggested the ban could be gradual, and said it might make exceptions for pit bulls that are already family pets.

 
Tiger Woods’ attorneys apparently growled loudly enough to dissuade PETA  from using the troubled golfer’s image in a public service announcement for spaying and neutering.

So now the organization is considering using South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford instead as their roll in the hay model.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals planned to put up billboards bearing Woods’ face and the slogan, “Too much sex can be a bad thing … for little tigers too. Help keep cats (and dogs) out of trouble: Always spay or neuter!”

After lawyers for the golfer threatened to sue if his image was used, PETA set its sites on Sanford for a similar billboard, with  the possible tagline: “Your dog doesn’t have to go to South America to get laid,” the New York Post reports.

The ad campaign is aimed at preventing millions of abandoned cats and dogs from being euthanized at shelters each year.

PETA now  intends to poke fun at Sanford, who flew to Buenos Aires last year for a romantic assignation with someone other than his wife — when he claimed to be hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Authorities have no plans to pursue charges against a Mississippi animal control officer suspected of shooting dogs and dumping their carcasses — more than 100 of them — into a creek.

A Madison County grand jury recommended Alzonzo Esco, who worked for the city of Canton, be tried on misdemeanor animal cruelty and illegal dumping charges.

District Attorney Michael Guest, however, said an arrest warrant couldn’t be issued until signed statements from police investigators were turned in.

And that’s not likely to happen. Canton Police Chief Vickie McNeill said she will not authorize her investigator to file the paperwork because he did not actually see Esco commit any crimes, the Madison County Herald reported.

“There are standards regarding a felony, and there are standards regarding a misdemeanor,” McNeill said. “By the standards of a misdemeanor, you must actually see the crime in action to file an affidavit. None of the officers saw any of the dogs having anything being done to them.

“At this point, I don’t see any further action being taken on it,” she said, but if somebody brings it to my attention that there is a way, I’m willing to listen.”

Esco, who worked as an animal control officer in Canton for three years, was fired by the Board of Aldermen on McNeill’s recommendation.

The 4-year-old  step-daughter of Jesse Browning from The History Channel’s series “Ax Men” has died from injuries her family said she received when she was attacked by their Rottweiler.

Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin says Ashlynn Anderson was found by her mother, badly injured on their lawn of their home just outside Astoria, Ore.,  on Sunday.

Jesse Browning called 911.  Paramedics tried to save the girl’s life and she was transported by helicopter to Oregon Health and Science University hospital in Portland. She was pronounced dead on arrival.

Though Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin said only one of the two family dogs mauled the girl, but both were taken from the home at the request of the family. The couple also has another child, age 1, living in the home.

Deputies transported the dogs to the Clatsop County animal shelter where they are quarantined.

According to TV station KATU,  the family contacted the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office about four months ago to report a third dog who bit a adult family member. That dog was reportedly destroyed.