ohmidog!

Hawkeye, the dog photographed lying next to the casket of his master, a slain Navy SEAL, may be taking part in a tribute to his owner at a University of Iowa football game this fall.

Iowa’s athletics department announced Tuesday that it will honor Jon Tumilson at a Hawkeye home game in November as part of a commemoration of Veteran’s Day.

The department said it will work with Tumilson’s family to determine what role his dog, Hawkeye, might play in the memorial.

Tumilson, from Rockford, Iowa, was one of 30 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan on Aug. 6 when their helicopter was shot down.

Tumilson’s Labrador retriever laid by his casket for much of the Aug. 19 funeral ceremony, after which photos of his loyal display went viral.

Tumilson, who joined the Navy after graduating high school in 1995, was a big Hawkeye football and wrestling fan, according to the Washington Post.

A former Iowa player suggested the dog lead the team on the field.

Tumilson’s mother, Kathleen, said her son made it clear he wanted Hawkeye at his funeral. “He didn’t have family; that was his son,” she said.

When Hawkeye went to their home after the funeral, she said, he went directly to her son’s room.

Hawkeye is now staying with her son’s friends in Texas.

Say you’re sitting home minding your own business when Steven Seagal comes crashing through your front gate.

In a tank.

That’s what happened to an Arizona man who plans to file a lawsuit against the actor and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for killing his dog during a police raid, TMZ reports.

The action film star was participating in the raid earlier this year as part of his new reality show, “Steven Seagal Lawman,” having secured permission from Arizona’s infamous sheriff Joe Arpaio — no slouch himself when it comes to macho-fueled overkill.

Jesus Sanchez Llovera has served notice of his intention to sue to Seagal and Arpaio.

He says Seagal and the sheriff’s department raided his home suspecting to find an illegal cockfighting farm.

Llovera says he raises roosters only for show.

TMZ photo of tank

Llovera says Seagal arrived at his home on March 9 with a tank, and rammed through the gate on his property. The tank was followed by officers dressed in riot gear.

He says his 11-month old puppy was shot and killed during the raid, that his home sustained “substantial damage,” and that — between the tank and the storm troopers — more than 100 of his roosters were killed.

Llovera’s lawyer says his client wants $100,000 for the damage and an apology form Seagal about the death of his family’s puppy.

A Lincoln County, N.C, woman agreed to surrender 135 dogs on her property after a visit from animal control officers.

Authorities did not identify the woman and said she would not be charged.

Officers visited the woman’s home Friday after receiving a complaint  from a neighbor. They gave the woman 72 hours to update the dogs’ vaccinations, but she later called them and, saying she couldn’t afford the vet bills, agreed to surrender all but eight of her dogs.

Officers said the woman was running a breeding operation, but that it was not a puppy mill.

But, But Kim Alboum, N.C. director of the Humane Society of the United States, described it as exactly that, and said the dogs’ health and welfare were ignored.

“The animals were clearly neglected in many ways,” she told the Charlotte Observer.

Alboum said the Lincoln County case was the fifth puppy mill discovered in North Carolina in four months.

About 100 of the dogs were heading last night to the Guilford County animal shelter, due to overcrowding at the Lincoln County shelter.

Authorities said a few of them will need medical attention for skin diseases and other ailments but none were in critical condition. The Humane Society of the United States is covering all the costs for the medical care being provided to the dogs, WSOC reported.

The dogs included poodles and miniature Doberman pinschers,
according to the Gaston Gazette.

It’s not the outright ban some were hoping for, but the Forsyth County Commissioners last night approved limiting the practice of chaining or tethering dogs.

The board, by a 4-3 vote, approved an amendment to the North Carolina county’s animal-control ordinance that will make it illegal to tether a dog in such a way as to harm the animal.

The limits won’t go into effect for two years, to allow for a period of public education, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.  

The county’s animal-control advisory board had recommended a total ban on tethering.

A New Jersey woman whose dogs had been impounded used the chaos around Hurricane Irene to take the opportunity to reclaim them, police say.

Susan Kolb, 60, whose dogs had been adjudged dangerous and impounded after she violated an order to get rid of them, apparently took the dogs from the shelter as it was being evacuated.

“We believe there is evidence she had them but it was in the context of the evacuation of the shelter,” Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio told The Jersey Journal. “It looks like there was a misunderstanding in that somebody other than the owner should have removed the dogs.”

Kolb’s dogs, South African Boerboels weighing 160 and 100 pounds, were tied to several downtown Jersey City attacks that, in 2008 and 2009, sent three adults and a baby to the hospital.

The dogs faced euthanization under the state Vicious Dog Law, but Kolb went to trial to defend them in Jersey City Municipal Court. The dogs’ lives were spared when an agreement was reached in which Kolb promised to send the dogs out of state.

The dogs were seized and impounded again when Kolb failed to follow the agreement.

On Saturday. the shelter was being evacuated when it was found that Kolb’s dogs were missing, police said. Police went to Kolb’s home, but neither she nor the dogs were there. On Sunday, a man brought the dogs back to the shelter, officials said.

(Photo: The Jersey Journal)

It’s not quite the same sinking feeling as reaching for the toilet paper in a public restroom, only to find there is none, but more than a few pet owners in San Jose have been surprised to find out the city has stopped providing dog poop bags in public parks.

And while volunteers are trying to pick up the slack, to ensure that dog owners pick up the poop, many are learning the hard way — when they reach toward the empty poop bag dispenser after their dogs have made their deposits.

San Jose was spending $60,000 a year on poop bags. As of last month, as a result of across the board budget cuts, it stopped providing them entirely at city parks, the Mercury News reported.

San Jose isn’t alone in ceasing to stock park dispensers with poop bags — both Palo Alto and Sunnyvale have stopped providing them, as well as the East Bay Regional Park District.

The city’s move has inspired a volunteer effort to stock the dispensers at San Jose Rose Garden. And at some parks, residents are filling dispensers with plastic grocery bags.

Terry Reilly, co-founder of Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden, said he’s already negotiated a deal with EcoGreen Environmental for its biodegradable Pet Pouch bags for at least half the rate the city was paying.

(Photo: From Dogipot.com)

Jennifer Schwenker has spoken publicly for the first time since she, her autistic twin sons and their service dog, Barkley, were bullied out of a Marietta, Ga., McDonald’s last month.

Schwenker said she was just trying to leave the restaurant when she accidentally spilled some of her drink on the off-duty manager who had ordered them out.

“I accidentally dropped the drink just trying to get out the door frantically,” she  told 11Alive News in an exclusive interview Monday.

The drink splashed on several people, including the off duty manager, who followed Schwenker outside and, out of the view of cameras, slapped her, police said.

The manager, Tiffany Denise Allen, 25, was fired and faces misdemeanor assault and battery charges.

Schwenker was having lunch with her twin 8-year-old sons, Ben and Sam, and their autism service dog, Barkley, a Labrador and bloodhound mix who was trained at “4 Paws for Ability”, of Xenia, Ohio, when the off-duty manager insisted the dog had to leave the restaurant.

“Most of the time people don’t understand about autism dogs and what they do,” Schwenker said.

She said Barkley joined their family two years ago, and helps calm her sons, as well as keep track of them.

As a result of her McDonald’s experience, Schwenker has created a web site called “Animals in Service for Children” and is using it to tell her family’s stories and those of others that may have had similar problems.

Start spreading the news. Dogs, despite the many drinking establishments in New York that let them in, are against the rules, and the city health department is making it a point to enforce them.

That means — even though everybody knows his name — dogs like Miles, a 9-year-old boxer-pug mix who has been going to Ace Bar in the East Village all his life, is no longer welcome there .

Citywide, it’s the end of a tradition — an illegal tradition, but a tradition all the same, the New York Times reports.

The crackdown applies indoors and out, and even to bars that don’t serve what you and I might consider food. “Beer, wine and spirits have always been classified as food,” a department spokeswoman wrote in an email to the Times.

As a result, Miles can only forlornly look in the door when he passes the Ace Bar on his daily walk, said manager Justin Saunders. “Every time Miles walks by, he tries to come in.”

“He’s a dog, but I swear he looks sad,” said Miles owner, Mike Israely.

While it has always been a violation of the city’s health code to allow a dog in a bar, the health department has decided to enforce the rule — clearly the work of buzzkilling bureaucrats who don’t really understand dogs, or bars.

“Bars are built around characters,” noted Andrew Templar, an owner of Floyd NY in Brooklyn Heights — an establishment that drew both the canine and human variety.

It recently received a violation notice after health inspectors twice observed dogs on the premises this summer. “Now it’s just people and their people problems,” Templar complained.

Ace at the anonymous Baltimore bar where he idled away much of his youth

The health department issued 469 violations for live animals in food-service sites from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011.

The Times article recounts a long history of dog-friendly drinking holes in the city. At P.J. Clarke’s in Midtown, when a collie named Skippy died, patrons pitched in to have him stuffed. He sits atop a ledge above the entrance to the handicapped bathroom.

A few bars continue to allow dogs, but — unlike the New York Times — we’re not going to name them, lest health inspectors be trolling the Internet.

(Top Photo: By Christian Hansen for The New York Times)

Name: Tiny

Breed: Miniature Pinscher

Age: Unknown

Encountered: Outside a Thai restaurant in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Backstory: I ran into Tiny on my way to a speaking engagement. He was wandering unleashed among the tables in front of the restaurant, leading me to wonder if he might be lost.

Turns out he belonged to members of the restaurant staff, which explained why Tiny acted as if he owned the place, every once in a while peering through the front door, then hopping up on a chair, as if waiting to be served.

To see all of our Roadside Encounters, click here.