ohmidog!

Ace didn’t get to go to my son’s high school graduation, but we let him wear the cap for a while afterwards — stopping short of awarding him a dog-torate degree.

There were close to 300 seniors graduating from Florence High School in Alabama, and, being a Woestendiek, Joe’s turn to accept his diploma came pretty close to last. 

As hard as those bleacher seats had grown by then, it was a small price to pay for seeing the moment.

I only misted up once, when the seniors filed in, and my mind flashed back to the day 18 years ago when Joe, at 6 months of age, arrived from Korea at Los Angeles International Airport, whiny, tired and his full head of  jet black hair sprouting every which way, kind of like he’d stuck his finger in a wall socket. The hair eventually calmed down, and so did he.

And 18 human years whizzed by — too many of them spent too far apart.

His mom and stepdad are newly moved to New Albany, Mississippi, where Joe will spend the summer before going on to Rhodes College in Tennessee in the fall.

Ace and I plan to hang around here for a while, maybe taking a few day trips, and testing how long ex-wife hospitality lasts.

We checked out of the Knights Inn (where Ace got away with being 110 or so pounds over the weight limit) and made the two hour drive to New Albany this morning in a caravan of four cars – Joe’s mom, Joe’s grandparents, Joe, and Ace and me pulling up the rear.

This being ohmidog! and not ohmison!, it’s probably not the place to go on about how proud I am of my son … but I’m pretty darned proud of my son.

TV legend Art Linkletter died this week at 97.

A Canadian immigrant, Linkletter was an orphan, adopted by ”a one-legged preacher.” He left home at 17 and bummed around America as a hobo —”a great way to see this great country,” he noted.

He went on to become one of the most famous voices on radio in the 1930s, successfully making the transition to television in the 1950s. As Stephen Moore noted in this week’s Wall Street Journal, the most enduring of his hit TV shows was ”Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

One of Linkletter’s personal favorites was the comment of a 7-year-old boy whose dog had recently died.

“Don’t be sad because your dog is up in heaven with God,” Linkletter said, attempting to appease the youngster.

“Mr. Linkletter,” the boy responded, “what would God want with a dead dog?”

When you get off the Interstate Highway system, the country becomes a far more interesting place.

We finally did that today, for the first time on this trip, leaving behind all the monotonously lookalike exits to get a taste of yet-to-be homogenized America, where some character still exists.

Our drive across Alabama from Huntsville to Florence on Highway 72 — less than two hours — took us through Decatur, where we noticed this establishment on the side of the road.

I didn’t have time to drop in – I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of makeover, anyway  – because I had to get to Florence, get checked in and get myself gussied up for my son’s high school graduation tonight.

Ace won’t be attending that function. He’s more than content, I’m sure, to stay in the air conditioned room, even if it means he’ll be by himself.

The Knights Inn in Florence allows dogs, with a an extra $10 fee, but has a weight limit of 20 pounds, which wasn’t pointed out — neither the fee nor the limit — on the website where I made the reservation.

“What kind of dog do you have?” the desk clerk asked.

“A big mutt,” I answered.

“We have a limit of 20 pounds,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, “then he’s 19 and a half pounds.”

I’m not sure how I will handle it if I get confronted about my 130-pound dog — nearly seven times the limit:

Maybe, “He’s grown a lot since I checked in.”

Or, “He’s actually very small, he just has a lot of hair.”

Or perhaps, “Praise the Lord! He was a Chihuahua yesterday. It’s a miracle!”

For all of “Dog’s Country” – the adventures of Ace and me as we spend a month or more traveling around the country – click the picture to the left.

More than 250 dogs were confiscated from a rescue organization in Polk City, Florida, and its operators were arrested.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office says 261 dogs were seized from Mid-Florida Retriever Rescue. Diane and Charles “Chuck” O’Malley were charged with more than 200 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty and are being held at Polk County Jail.

The sheriff’s office received a tip at around 3 p.m. Wednesday that about 100 dogs were being mistreated at the O’Malley home, said Carrie Eleazer, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman.

Animal control officers went to the home Wednesday night and asked to see the dogs. The couple wouldn’t allow animal control staff into the home, but brought out one dog at a time to be inspected, Tampa Bay Online reported.

The couple showed 117 dogs to authorities, but by then it was midnight and they said they would not show any more, officials said.

The sheriff’s office obtained a search warrant and returned to the home at around 2 a.m. Thursday, confiscating all 261 dogs that were at the home — 35 of them puppies. The dogs were mostly Labradors and Labrador mixes.

Sheriff’s officials said many of the dogs were malnourished and had fleas, parasites and tartar build up on their teeth.

“It was deplorable living conditions, even for humans,” Eleazer said.

The Facebook page for Mid-Florida Retriever Rescue said the nonprofit, founded in 2005, is dedicated to placing “Labrador retrievers and other working dogs in loving permanent homes.”

Investigators in Virginia are looking for the person who threw poison-spiked meatballs into the yards of at least three homes in Fairfax County, killing two dogs and making a third ill.

One of the fatalities in the Centreville neighborhood was a five-month-old pit bull puppy; the other, an adult West Highland terrier. The third was taken to a vet for treatment, NBC in Washington reported.

The meat was found around homes in the 15000 block of Olddale Road.

Fairfax County police haven’t figured out what was in the meat, but they are warning all residents, especially those with children and small pets, to inspect their yards for anything suspicious.

Your guess is as good as mine, but my guess is the person in charge of rest areas in North Carolina is a cat person.

Why else would have they created this giant litter box, installed at an I-40 rest area west of Asheville?

My dog certainly wasn’t interested in doing his business there, and I doubt many others are. Not to mention the dangers inherit in tying your dog, the sheer indignity of having to poop or pee while lashed to a wooden post, and the distinct possibility — in the event you and your dog do follow the directions — of soggy leash syndrome once the deed is done.

Perhaps I’m just not getting it. At the rest area, there’s a sign with an arrow pointing in the direction of a designated dog area, but no designated dog area — unless this horseshoe pit is it. We can only  hope children don’t see it, say “yeah, a sandbox,” and jump in.

Another traveler I encountered, accompanied by her Rottweiler mix, Bianca, couldn’t figure it out either. So both Bianca and Ace peed where they wanted, despite the state highway department’s apparent desire to have dogs tinkle only while tied.

Not long after the rest area stop, after cruising along that wonderfully winding stretch of I-40, we were in Tennessee, passing through Knoxville, Chattanooga, a smidgen of Georgia and then back into Tennessee before turning south and making it as far as Huntsville.

There we checked into a room at a La Quinta (Spanish for “we don’t make your dogs pee while tied to posts”), turned the air conditioner as low as it could go and cooled off, which we intend to do for the rest of the night and well into the morning before taking off for Florence, Alabama.

After two nights of free lodging at my mothers, and free meals, our budget took more of a hit today, after spending nothing yesterday.

Here’s how today’s expenses broke down:

Gas: $70

Food: A $2 meal deal at Taco Bell. (Ace got most of the tortilla and all the burrito filling that oozed out of it and hit the ground.)

Lodging: $60 at La Quinta.

Dog-friendly motels that don’t charge deposits, and air conditioning: Priceless.

The Humane Society of the United States says a major figure in the dog fighting world has been arrested in Bedford County, Virginia.

The Humane Society says Jeffrey Denny, of North Carolina, has acknowledged selling hundreds of dogs for breeding or fighting all over the country.

According to WSLS, the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office says Denny attempted to sell a pit bull to an undercover deputy. Two pit bulls were seized along with Denny’s van, which is crammed full of dog crates.

Police in North Carolina searched Denny’s Franklinville Home where sixteen more dogs were seized. Police also found break sticks, needles and syringes, an auto suture gun, a tool box containing medical supplies, medications and veterinary supplies, IV supplies and saline solution, mineral supplements, dog collars and a dog harness. Police said they seized eight guns and ammunition, drug paraphernalia and computer and written records from the home.

Denny faces one felony charge in Bedford County for transporting animals for fighting. After that, he’ll be returned to North Carolina to face sixteen felony dog fighting charges, eleven misdemeanor dog cruelty charges and one felony count for possession of drug paraphernalia. The sheriff’s office says Denny planned to sell the two pit bulls for $900 each. Deputies seized $392 from Denny’s van.

Folks in Dallas may become a little less likely to befriend a stray dog in need in light of an ordinance passed by the City Council this week.

The council approved an ordinance Wednesday requiring anyone who takes possession of a stray dog to make a reasonable effort to find the dog’s owner, the Dallas Morning News reports.

The rule comes largely as a result of one persistent dog owner, Brad Kirby, who has lobbied City Hall since two of his huskies disappeared two years ago. Kirby found the person he suspected stole them, but police said little could be done because the man told authorities he’d encountered the dogs running loose and gave them away.

The ordinance gives a person who picks up a stray dog 72 hours to:

• Call the phone number listed on the dog’s tags;

• Take the dog to a licensed veterinarian to screen for a microchip, tattoo or other identification and to call the owner if one is identified;

• Call 311 to request that animal services pick up the dog; or

• Deliver the dog to the city’s animal shelter.

A violation – meaning failure to do any of those things — will be punishable by a fine up to $500.

The lone vote against the measure came from council member Vonciel Hill, a former city judge, who said she worries that someone trying to help a stray could end up in trouble.

“I think that this ordinance places an inordinate burden on any person who is trying to have some kindness toward a stray,” she said.

What is it about moving day that turns an otherwise adequately functioning brain into a sieve?

Our departure from Baltimore on our trip to who knows where was delayed for a couple of hours — not through any fault of Ace, but by mine own forgetfulness, a case of my brain getting so full of things to remember that a few of them got lost in the shuffle.

After my last trip to the storage unit, I returned home to find my bicycle, which was supposed to go in the storage unit. I went ahead and packed for the trip, loaded Ace in the car and made one more trip to the storage unit, with plans to leave straight from there.

Once the bicycle was loaded into the unit, I remembered I had forgotten to pack my pills that I never remember to take. So it was back home one more time to pick those up. I will probably continue to forget to take them, but at least I have them now. Then we were off, for real.

Ace, after some head out the window time, settled down in the back, where he has plenty of room because I put all my camping gear on the roof. As I suspected, that happy and carefree feeling I get on the road kicked in around Fredericksburg. It was smooth sailing, mostly, down I-95 to I-85, and into North Carolina. We made a quick stop for some barbecue for dinner — the drive-up window of Hursey’s Pig Pickin Bar-B-Cue in Graham is always good for a sandwich, and for a dollar more, they throw in a pig bone.

We dined in a parking lot, and Ace happily munched the bone — don’t worry FDA, I was monitoring him through the rearview mirror — all the way to Winston-Salem.

We arrived late, about 9 p.m., and — this being a frugal trip (we won’t allow ourselves to spend more on our travels than we were spending on rent) – confiscated my mother’s room in the retirement community for the evening. (Dogs are allowed in her room, but not the guest rooms. So she stayed in the guest room and I took hers.)

It was a clean start to the trip, once we got rolling, with only one snafu. Around 10:30 p.m., I stepped outside for a cigarette. Five minutes later, when I tried to get back into my mother’s building, it was locked. Apparently, I was out past bedtime.

The situation was quickly remedied with a call to security. They popped the door open and I stayed inside for the rest of the night.

Day one was relatively inexpensive — that, as I said, being one of our major goals.

Total costs for the day:

Gas: $50

Food: $2.55 sandwich for me; $1 bone for Ace.

Lodging: Free.

Liberation: Priceless.

Lax government enforcement of puppy mills has led to countless dogs dying and living in horrific conditions, according to an internal government report.

Investigators say the Department of Agriculture often ignores repeat violations, waives penalties and doesn’t adequately document inhumane treatment of dogs, the Associated Press reported.

In one case cited by the department’s inspector general, 27 dogs died at an Oklahoma breeding facility–  after inspectors had visited the facility repeatedly and cited it for violations.

The review, conducted between 2006 and 2008, found that more than half of those breeders who had already been cited for violations flouted the law again.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday that USDA will take immediate action. “USDA will reinforce its efforts under its animal welfare responsibilities, including tougher penalties for repeat offenders and greater consistent action to strongly enforce the law,” he said.

Federal investigators uncovered grisly conditions at puppy mills around the country where dogs were infested with ticks, living with gaping wounds and in pools of feces, according to the report.

The report recommends that the animal care unit at the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service immediately confiscate animals that are dying or seriously suffering, and better train its inspectors to document, report and penalize wrongdoing.

The investigators visited 68 dog breeders and dog brokers in eight states that had been cited for at least one violation in the previous three years. They found that first-time violators and even repeat offenders were rarely penalized.

“The agency believed that compliance achieved through education and cooperation would result in long-term dealer compliance and, accordingly, it chose to take little or no enforcement action against most violators,” the report said.

In the case of the Oklahoma breeding facility, the breeder had been cited for 29 violations, including nine repeated violations, from February 2006 to January 2007. The inspector returned in November 2007 before any enforcement action had taken place, according to the report, and found five dead dogs and “other starving dogs that had resorted to cannibalism.”

Despite these conditions, the inspectors did not immediately confiscate the surviving dogs and, the report says, 22 additional dogs died before the breeder’s license was revoked.

Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said the report confirms what animal rights groups have been pointing out for for years.

“Enforcement is flaccid, the laws are weak and reform needs to happen,” he said. “We have long criticized having the animal welfare enforcement functions within a bureaucracy dedicated to promoting American agriculture. There’s a built-in conflict of interest.”