ohmidog!

A pit bull found hogtied and abandoned in a muddy field in California last month has a new home, thanks to the efforts of actress Katherine Heigl and her family’s rescue foundation.

The dog was discovered last month in Bakersfield. The dog’s owner James Worley, 52, has been arrested and faces a possible charge of felony animal cruelty.

The pitbull, who has been named England after the animal control officer who saved him, Kristen England, was placed into a new home on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a petition asking the District Attorney’s office to prosecute the dog’s owner to the fullest extent the law allows has received almost 1,000 signatures.

The petition was started April 26 by Karen Marousek, of the Friends of the Kern County Animal Shelters Foundation, according to the Bakersfield Californian.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 1,000 signatures had been gathered. The petitions will be presented to the prosecutor and judge handling the case.

Worley, 52, was arrested on suspicion of felony animal cruelty on April 26.  An arraignment is scheduled for Friday in Lamont.

The Jason Debus Heigl Foundation was founded by Katherine Heigl and her mother Nancy Heigl in memory of Jason Debus Heigl, Katherine’s brother. It  rescues dogs and works to increase awareness of inhumane treatment to animals.

The Heigls, officials from the group Last Chance For Animals and Kern County Animal Control Director Guy Shaw held a press conference in Los Angeles Tuesday.

(Photo: England, as he was found; courtesy of Kern County Animal Control)

A Georgia man says a visit from a census worker led to the death of his two-year-old Chihuahua, Sofie.

Charles Oliver said a worker from the U.S. Census Bureau pulled into his driveway at his home in Byron Tuesday, crushing his dog.

Oliver said he had not returned census forms sent to his home this year.

“They know I’m here,” he told the  Macon Telegraph. “Why do they even need a census? Let me not pay my taxes. They’ll be here.”

Oliver said the census worker, whom he described as an older, heavyset man driving a newer model sport utility vehicle with a Vietnam Veteran tag, didn’t apologize after both men spotted Sofie in the driveway. He took Oliver’s information and left.

Sofie was normally kept inside, but was in the yard because Oliver was outside working in his garage, he said.

During the 2000 Census, 13 workers died during visits to collect information from people who had not responded to the mail-in form, including one who was mauled to death by a dog, census officials say.

Ed Davis, spokesman for the U.S. Census bureau’s Atlanta office, said the bureau had received no report about the dog’s death.

“We take very seriously the public safety and personal safety of our workers,” Davis said. “Unfortunately, things happen when we have hundreds of thousands of people in the field.”

The Peach County Sheriff’s Office took a report about the incident, but no charges are expected to be filed against the unknown census worker.

(Photo: Beau Cabell / Macon Telegraph)

You may not think your dog is in a position to do much about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But he is.

As oil continues to gush into the gulf from the April 20th BP rig explosion, booms and mats are being put in place to contain the floating slicks — many of which are made with dog and human hair, stuffed into casings.

The idea of a hair boom and hair mats came from Phil McCrory, a hair stylist from Alabama who came up with it after watching television coverage of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, Suite101.com reports.

Using hair clippings from his salon, McCrory experimented to find out just how much oil could be absorbed with hair.

Among those organizations recycling scraps of hair for use as booms is Matter of Trust, a San Francisco nonprofit.

It  accepts donations of hair from all over the world and disperses them to oil spill disaster sites. It asks that individuals not mail in single donations as hair collections in bulk saves processing time.

Dog owners wanting to donate dog hair to the Gulf oil spill cleanup can sign up with the ExcessAccess program, or inform their local groomer about the program.

Couldn’t help thinking yesterday, what with the sunny skies and all, how nice it would be to be at the beach.

Then I saw this.

Now I want to go the beach even more. Ace, too.