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The push to end dog tethering in Forsyth County, North Carolina, goes before the county commissioners tonight.

Animal groups in Forsyth County have been patiently working for years to build support for a law that would make it illegal to leave dogs tied up for long periods of time.

At tonight’s meeting, though the issue is not listed on the commissioners’ formal agenda, a large turnout of dog advocates are expected to show their support for the proposal. The meeting, at the County Government Center at 201 N. Chestnut Street, starts at 6 p.m.

If a measure were approved, Forsyth County, which includes Winston-Salem, would join 12 other North Carolina counties that have passed tethering bans.

Those behind the proposal — including the Forsyth County Humane Society, Furever Friends, Save the Animals, Dogs Deserve Better and the Coalition to Unchain Dogs — say public opinion seems to be strongly in their favor.

An on-line survey by the Winston-Salem Journal showed 64% of the public approved of a ban, and the county animal control department has recommended one.

Numerous studies have shown that chained dogs — in addition to often suffering from being tethered — are more likely to bite adults and children than those who are not chained.

More details are available on the Unchain Forsyth Facebook page

We love repurposing. It’s so much more fun than recycling. Tossing cans, paper, etc., in a bin and hauling it to the curb — while we all should do it — is a bit of a chore.

But giving an object a whole new reason to exist, a whole new life, that’s an achievement.

That’s one of the reasons we like this whisky crate dog feeder — the first item to be spotlighted in ohmidog’s “Pick of the Litter,” in which we will feature every month a dog-related product we find particularly cool.

Said item will, for a fee, be showcased at the top of our leftside rail for an entire month. That is where we normally keep our paid advertisements. But we’ll also — to allow you to see it a little better and learn more – do a post about it, like the one your reading now.

If your dog has any legs at all (sorry, corgis), he or she should probably be using an elevated feeder. If you don’t believe me, try eating from a bowl on the floor, or even on the table. The stress it puts on your neck and joints — for you or your dog — is significant.

Many elevated dog feeders are boring affairs, such as my dog Ace’s, which is made of gray plastic and resembles something between a UFO and the creature that might come out of one.

This one, available at Forloveofadog.com, is made out of genuine vintage Black & White Scotch Whisky pine crates from Glasgow, Scotland.

Foam gaskets have been applied to stabilize the dog bowls and protect the storage compartment that’s inside.

We see only one downside — the scotch is not included.

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Read more »

In honor of Lucille Ball’s 100th birthday (yesterday), we present a scene from the episode “Little Ricky Gets a Dog,” featuring the cairn terrier — named Fred after neighbor Fred Mertz — who would regularly appear in the show’s final seasons.

In this episode, Fred returns from obedience school graduation with his diploma, but Lucy seems to be the only one who learned the tricks, which, of course, meant she had some “splainin’ to do.”

In case you haven’t noticed, dogs — though they’ve long been a staple of advertising — have become more ubiquitous than ever.

And not just in ads for doggie products. Dogs are being called upon to push everything from toilet paper to insurance to, as with the ad above, cell phone services.

In the months ahead, we’ll be showing you some of our favorites, starting with this one, in which two burly car mechanics share a Paris Hilton-like affectation. Each clutches their own pampered pooch as they perform an oil change.

We especially like the dialogue in the ad — for a cell phone service called Straight Talk — once they find out they share a groomer.

“Awww, how good is she?”

“The woman is a genius.”

If you’ve got a personal favorite, send it along.

Shortly before his arrest, medical student Andrew David Thompson told a friend that killing Italian greyhound puppies became a “vicious cycle,” according to testimony at Thompson’s preliminary hearing.

Thompson said he would get frustrated with the dogs, “punish them, and go too far,” Robert Albers, testified Thursday. “I believe he described it like a vicious cycle he couldn’t get out of.”

Thompson, who has been suspended from Michigan State University’s osteopathic medicine school, killed at least 12 Italian greyhound puppies between September 2010 and June, according to prosecutors.

Also testifying yesteray was Deputy Jodi LeBombard, seen in the Lansing State Journal video above.

She said Thompson told her he killed one of the dogs, Bentley, after he urinated in his bed, by throwing him against the wall. He disposed of Bentley, like the others, by putting him in a trash bag and tossing him in a Dumpster.

Thompson will stand trial in Ingham County Circuit Court on a total of 13 felony counts of animal killing or torture and one misdemeanor count of animal cruelty — ten of them in connection with dogs allegedly killed at his apartment in Okemos.

Thompson also is charged in a separate case with killing or torturing three dogs at an East Lansing condominium, where he lived for about a month last September. A preliminary hearing in that case was held last week.

(To see all our posts about this case, click here.)

In yet another sign that the animal welfare movement is gaining its legs in China, public pressure has led officials of the city of Jiangmen to withdraw their plans to ban dogs in urban areas.

The decision saved the lives of thousands of animals.

City officials had issued a notice that — to prevent rabies and establish a “more civilized” city — they would ban dogs in three urban districts of Jiangmen. Residents of those areas were ordered to turn their dogs in, and those that didn’t faced having their dogs confiscated and euthanized.

The decision to drop the ban drew praise from the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

“Civilized cities don’t ban the ownership of man’s best friend. Killing dogs rightfully owned is an outright violation of basic citizens’ rights,” said Grace Ge Gabriel, IFAW Asia Regional Director, who is from China. 

“Banning and killing dogs are ineffective solutions to preventing rabies, which has been successfully controlled in many parts of the world with education, vaccination and sterilization. We are pleased to see Jiangmen city officials back down from their knee-jerk decision yielding to public outcry.”

You can read more about the ban, and the overturning of it, on Gabriel’s blog.

Lacking national animal welfare legislation and rabies prevention mechanisms in China, local governments have previously resorted to mass dog culls in an effort to “prevent rabies” or to “clean up a city.”

But in Jiangmen, the order enraged many pet owners, who made their voices heard through the online forums, blogs and social networking sites in China.  

“I am tremendously happy and proud to see that public uproar from within China stopped this unethical killing. In the past we were only able to stop some of the dog culls with international pressure,” said Gabriel.

“IFAW stands firm with the millions of animal caring people in China who desperately want to see the country to promulgate animal welfare legislation—the most effective way to ban the culling of companion animals, once and for all.”

The overturning of the ban is another sign that, as pet ownership grows in China and other Asian countries — including some where some members of the population still eat dogs — the animal welfare movement is been growing stronger.

Three months ago, more than 500 dogs being trucked to a slaughterhouse in China were freed from that fate when an animal activist spotted the truck transporting them on the highway, went on line and used social media to arrange an impromptu blockade.

Around 200 people helped block the truck at a toll booth for 15 hours, eventually negotiating the release of the dogs.

Trapped in a tar pit in Keokuk, Iowa, a small dog had all but disappeared under the steamy muck by the time police and an animal control officer showed up.

Tipped off by a citizen who heard the dog’s cries from a  landfill, rescuers arrived to see only one side of the dog’s face — an eye and his nose — above the tar that was swallowing him up.

Tar Dog, as he has been dubbed, is fine now, though he still has some black and sticky patches on his fur.

According to the Daily Gate in Keokuk, rescuers slid wooden planks into the tar, trying to position one under him to lift him out.

“We were unable to see where his legs, tail or most of his body were positioned,” said animal control officer Eric Lindley. “We had to basically pry him out with boards positioned under him in the tar.”

As soon as the 15-pound beagle-dachshund mix was freed, he was wrapped in towels and taken to Krichel Animal Hospital, where he was rehydrated, cleaned up, and cleaned up, and cleaned up some more.

“He is doing just great,” said Jean Meyer, who works at Keokuk Animal Services. “He was walking with volunteers and bouncing. He’s one lucky little dog.”

No one knows how the dog got through the fence surrounding Keokuk’s old landfill last week, or how it managed to become stuck in the tar, which was in a sticky liquid state due to the heat. No one knows who the good samaritan who called police is either.

Friends of Keokuk Animal Services is trying to raise funds to pay for the nearly $1,000 cost of Tar Dog’s veterinary care and treatment.

Anyone interested in contributing to the dog’s care can send donations to FOKAS, P. O. Box 1181, Keokuk, IA or contact Meyer at 524-1127 or 526-5421. If funds in excess of Tar Dog’s costs are raised, they will be put into a fund to care for other animals needing care.

Luna, the Siberian husky who has spent more than a month in solitary confinement and faced the death penalty for attacking two chickens at a neighbor’s property in Connecticut, has won a reprieve with help from a lawyer.

Luna on Thursday was signed over to New York lawyer Richard Rosenthal, co-founder of the animal defense group The Lexus Project, who became involved in her case after learning about it on Facebook.

According to the Hartford Courant, Luna was to have a court hearing Thursday, but the town of Tolland and Rosenthal came to an agreement prior to the hearing.

The town withdrew the “disposal order” issued by Tolland animal control officer Tina Binheimer in June, and the judge approved the agreement.

Rosenthal said he will in turn give the dog to Ruth Hanley of Double Dog Rescue in Massachusetts, who will care for and rehabilitate Luna until the organization can find her a new home.

According to the settlement, Luna can return to Connecticut — but not to Tolland.

“Luna’s now spent over a month in solitary confinement and it does take a toll, they are very social animals,” said Rosenthal. “I’m told by people that visited last week she’s starting to show some apprehension, a little bit of fear of people. So she just needs to quietly be reintroduced to being around people and see that it’s OK.”

Luna has been in the Tolland animal pound since June 20, after she escaped from owner Paul Doyle’s property and twice killed chickens belonging to a neighbor.

After the first incident Doyle was ordered by a judge to build an enclosure, but he never did and Luna escaped a second time, killing a second chicken. After the second attack, animal control officials issued an order of disposal for the dog, which stipulated that Luna had to be put down by June 21.

A Facebook page in support of Luna attracted the attention of Rosenthal and his group. Rosenthal filed a civil lawsuit and received a temporary restraining order against Binheimer and Tolland Animal Control. On Thursday he planned to challenge the legality of the order issued by Binheimer before coming to an agreement with Tolland’s town attorney Richard Conti.

As part of the settlement The Lexus Project, which worked for free, agreed to pay the town $660 to cover fees for Luna’s stay in the dog pound.

(Photo: From the “Save Luna from Tolland” Facebook page)

A 78-year-old North Carolina man described as a “legend” in the dogfighting world was sentenced today to five years in prison, the maximum a federal judge could impose.

Harry Hargrove of Duplin County was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Raleigh on dogfighting charges he pleaded guilty to earlier this year.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence longer than recommended federal guidelines of 10 months to 16 months.

A federal motion says Hargrove has been involved in dog-fighting in the South for about 40 years. He told Judge Terrence Boyle he once had more than 100 fighting dogs, but he’d cut back to 35 by the time he was arrested.

Police found jumper cables used to electrocute dogs on the property, as well as a blood-stained fighting pit and other tools usually used to condition dogs for fighting.

Hargrove was arrested last April after a lengthy investigation, during which he sold the dog at left, Hurricane Hugo, to an undercover officer.

In addition to Hargrove’s five-year sentence, the judge mandated three additional years of supervision after he is released.

We love a good dog movie. We even love a bad dog movie. “Red Dog” — the tale of a stray who wandered Australia’s outback in the 1970s — looks like it might be the former.

The movie, starring a dog named Koko as Red Dog — he’s a kelpie — made its premiere in Australia this week, to mostly good reviews.

Based on those, the book that inspired it, and on the movie trailer, we — not having the vaguest idea of how movie distribution works — say send it on over our way, mates, preferably with, rather than subtitles, a glossary of Australian slang for when we get stumped by the strange words you sometimes utter.

In all seriousness — at a time when not just some Chinese cities, but some U.S. towns, are rounding up and euthanizing strays — we detect in the movie a message worth sharing: That dogs who, through human sloth and neglect, end up as strays, aren’t disposable. That dogs who belong to no one belong to everyone. That, whether they are hitchhiking in Australia or turning over garbage cans in Fayetteville, N.C., homeless dogs, rather than being slapped with the label “feral” and put down, deserve a second chance.

That may not be the movie’s intended message — I haven’t seen it — but it is mine.

The movie is based on the 2002 book by English author Louis de Bernieres.

In 1998, de Bernieres was invited to Karratha, in northwest Australia, for the town’s first literary event. The manager of his hotel loaned him a vehicle so he could tour around in a land that, known mostly for mining, seldoms draws tourists.

Around Dampier he spotted a statue of a dog on the side of the road.

“It said something like ‘Red Dog 1979, erected by his friends’ – something like that. So I thought, ‘That’s really interesting, who is this Red Dog and why has he got a statue?’ I started asking questions.”

The author hung around town for a while, gathering Red Dog lore and making a map of all the various spots Red Dog spent time in. He returned two years later to do further research.

Red Dog had accrued quite a history, as it turned out, and was said to have hitched rides with locals and truck drivers from Karratha as far south as Perth and as far east as Darwin, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

While he was viewed as “everybody’s dog,” Red Dog, in the movie, finally ends up with a permanent human companion.

As the movie trailer concludes, “Sometimes we pick our dogs, sometimes our dogs pick us.”

Before the movie was released, its makers posted on the Internet what they say is Koko’s audition tape. Here’s a look at it: