ohmidog!

Maybe it’s because he was a golden retriever, as opposed to a pit bull. Maybe it’s because he was 12-years-old and arthritic. Maybe it’s because his owner is a lawyer.

In any case, when it comes to the seventh dog shot and killed by St. Petersburg police officers this year, the public anger is not subsiding.

Boomer’s death is still echoing — and doing so well beyond Florida.

Between his vocal owner, a Facebook page called “Boomer’s Voice,” and a petition at Change.org that has drawn more than 4,000 signatures, Boomer’s death has already gotten more attention than the previous six dogs that were shot, combined, the St. Petersburg Times reports.

Roy Glass,  a prominent personal injury lawyer, says he wants the police to know how much the dog’s violent death hurt his family. He wants the agency to admit the officer was wrong, and he wants police to change how they deal with dogs.

“What I want is for police to not be so trigger-happy in blowing away an obvious family pet,” he said.

Boomer escaped from his fenced yard Oct. 1 after a worker removed some wire that kept the dog from digging his way out. That night, he approached a woman walking her dog. The woman says he growled and snapped at her when she tried to check his tags.

When the woman called police, officers Misty Swanson and Michelle Fotovat responded. According to their police report, the dog was sociable at first, but bared his teeth when Swanson reached for the dog’s tags.

“Officer Swanson was about two feet from the dog when I observed her pull out her gun and fire one shot at the clearly now vicious dog,” Fotovat wrote in the police report.

Glass says — despite the dog’s tags — police never called him. On Oct. 2, he reported his dog missing. On Oct. 3, the SPCA called to tell him what happened to Boomer.

When Glass and his wife, Lauren, started hearing from other residents whose dogs had been shot and killed by police, they started a campaign.

They began a Boomer’s Voice Facebook page, featuring a photo of the dead and bloody Boomer, which already has over 2,500 followers. A California animal activist started a petition on Change.org calling for St. Pete’s officers to be better trained to handle animals.

“When a police officer’s first line of defense in restraining an animal is to reach for a weapon, it is sending the wrong message to the community that they swore to uphold and protect,” the petition says. “The ‘uncooperative animal’ that the police officer may kill could be someone’s senior pet who could be afraid, deaf, or in pain and not able to respond to the officer’s request.”

Boomer’s shooting is under investigation by the Police Department’s internal affairs division, and police aren’t commenting until the investigation is completed.

A police spokesman did point out that, after a September 2010 shooting that killed two leashed dogs, all officers were ordered to go through two hours of training with the SPCA.

Boomer’s owner believes that’s not enough. Glass wants to see officers undergo more extensive training, and lawmakers rewrite existing laws that define pets as property.

“As the law stands, our pets are nothing but chattel,” he said. “They’re personal property, and if somebody violates them, or abuses or maims or kills (them), you’re not entitled to any compensatory damages other than value of the dog. That’s so antiquated these days.”

About five hours after she was featured as “Pet of the Day” on a Raleigh TV news program, Sassy, an 8-month-old Lab mix, was euthanized by the Wake County Animal Center.

Sassy appeared on WRAL’s noon news Tuesday.

She was euthanized Tuesday at 5:30.

Wake County Deputy Manager Joe Durham released a statement several hours later saying that “it was a mistake” for Sassy to have appeared on TV as an adoptable dog.

“Sassy appeared to be healthy when she left the center. That evening, a kennel technician reported Sassy was demonstrating a ‘honking cough and green nasal discharge,’” he said. “At that time, Sassy was identified as a dog that needed to be euthanized, based on her demonstrated symptoms.”

Animal Shelter Director Dennis McMichael, who started the job Monday, was scheduled to do an interview with WRAL News Wednesday to talk about Sassy’s death, but later canceled it, the station said.

Shelter volunteers told WRAL News that at least one caller saw Sassy on TV and wanted to adopt her. “She was such a great dog and very adoptable, and it’s just sad that this is her outcome,” said volunteer Julie Powers.

Sassy, a Labrador/hound mix, appeared to be in good health Tuesday afternoon when she appeared on the news program with a shelter staff member who pronounced her immediately available.

“She’s already spayed. We went ahead and did it earlier, so we can go ahead and send her home today,” the staff member said.

The county-run shelter also posted Sassy’s TV appearance on its Facebook page:

“Check out Miss Sassy on WRAL! She is sweet as sugar and all ready to go.”

Since the dog’s death was made public, the Wake County Animal Center — which has come under criticism in recent months for its soaring kill rate — has seen its Facebook page inundated with angry comments.

In January, the Wake County animal center euthanized 131 dogs, or about 18 percent of those brought in. By August, it euthanized 327 dogs, or nearly 42 percent of the intake.

“I don’t understand how Sassy … can be ‘Pet of the Day’ on WRAL at noon and then dead by suppertime,” said Hope Hancock, executive director of the Wake County SPCA, which also operates a shelter in Raleigh.

Back to Michigan we go for another tale of shameful behavior — that of another service dog getting kicked out of a restaurant.

Frank Eckl, his family and his service dog, Spruce — who helps Eckl, a veteran, detect and recover from seizures he believes are a result of contact with chemicals in the Gulf War — were forced to leave the Don Julio’s restaurant in Grand Rapids because the manager on duty would not permit the dog beyond the lobby.

“She said we were more than welcome to stay, but patrons in the restaurant and the manager didn’t want dog hair in the restaurant,” he said.

A manager at the restaurant told News 8 that patrons had complained, and that she would do the same thing again. “I can’t keep every customer happy,” she said. “I can’t have any kind of animal be around food. It’s kinda hard having most of my customers leave out on me because of one customer.” 
 
“That’s insane!” said Jocelyn Dettloff, a representative for the Disability Advocates of Kent County.  “I mean, who would say that you have to leave your cane or your mobility device at the door. People who rely on service animals — it’s the exact same thing.” 

Eckl says he isn’t seeking monetary damages and doesn’t want anything from Don Julio’s other than an apology and training for its staff. 
  
After the restaurant’s unwelcoming behavior, Eckl and his family went to the IHOP restaurant next door, where Spruce was permitted.

What is it about police agencies and the press in, shall we say, non-urban areas, that prevents them from seeing dog abuse when it seems to be staring them in the face?

The Muskegon Chronicle reports that deputies are “not sure abuse was involved” in injuries suffered by a dog found Monday afternoon … HANGING FROM A HOOK ON A TREE.

Pardon my caps. This reminds me of our recent report about a pit bull in Missouri who was dragged behind a car, tied to a pole and set on fire before being found dead, in a case the local TV station called “alleged animal abuse.”

In the new case,  a young male Sheltie-Pomeranian mix is expected to recover from the injury left by the large hook that protruded from the roof of his mouth.

Muskegon County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Herremans said the incident is being investigated and that while abuse has not been ruled out, it also is possible the dog was victimized by an illegal coyote trap.

Rescuers, however,  told WOOD TV-8 the animal was abused, and a local veterinarian who treated the dog concurred.

(It’s also interesting to note how, while the police and reporter call the male dog an “it,” the veterinarian refers to him as a he. Is there a connection, you think, between people who call a dog, even when the gender is known, an “it,” and how seriously they take animal abuse?)

Herremans said deputies are seeking the dog’s owner, who lives across the street from the wooded spot where the animal was found. He theorized it was possible the dog got caught in “some type of coyote trap.”

However, an official at Pound Buddies, a non-profit group that operates the county animal shelter, told WOOD TV-8 that the hook was too high for the small dog to reach by himself.

Residents in the neighborhood said the dog was normally kept tied up.

The Wake County SPCA, which received a finger-wagging warning from a wealthy music conglomerate after it had the audacity to use an Abba song to try and save animals’ lives, has managed to get their inspiring lyp-synch video back online.

We showed you the video not long after it was posted on YouTube. And we told you about it when Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music content company, polititely instructed the Wake SPCA, in Raleigh, to take it off.

The SPCA did so, but now it’s taking another chance on “Take a Chance on Me,” the Abba song which staff and volunteers lip synch in the video, all while showing off adoptable pets.

Performing a little magic of its own, the SPCA returned the video online in a silent version, providing instructions on how to link simultaneously to a recording of the Abba song that’s already on YouTube, one that has somehow avoided the wrath of the corporate giant.

If you time your click right, you can hear the song from the other source while watching the SPCA video, which is silent except for a few barking dogs in the background, and the voices of staff and volunteers singing at the end.

The SPCA explains on its website that it came up with the solution after trying to convince UMG that its video was not a commercial, that it was similar to hundreds of other user-created YouTube videos using the same song, and that, as a charity, it was using the song for noble purposes.

“So we begged, we pleaded, we promised to single-handedly bring Abba back to the U.S. pop charts, and finally we tried to purchase the license. The animal loving music rep in Calilfornia reported that the songwriters actually watched the video, and the answer was still, ‘no, it’s a commercial.’ But like we said, we don’t blame them. After all, homeless pets and animal shelters aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.”

Because of its popularity during its short life — 65,000 viewed it on YouTube in six days — the SPCA came up with the alternative viewing method, which, though it requires a little more work, is still worth the effort.

The SPCA says it holds no ill will toward the production company:

“We don’t blame them really. Who could believe that our total budget was only $32? Who could believe that an incredible production company would be so committed to helping animals that they would work for hours and hours without pay? Who could believe that more than 50 volunteers and staff would be so dedicated to helping homeless animals that they would come together and pretend to sing and dance and be silly for the animals? Well, we all can believe this, but lawyers in Sweden can’t.”

A lot of the conclusions of a new dog walking study conducted in the Czech Republic fall into the category of “what else is new:”

Leashed dogs are likely to act more aggressively. Dogs, researchers ascertained, like to sniff other dogs, especially those of the opposite sex.

But here’s one fascinating finding that I think is worth much more research: Dogs being walked by men are four times more likely to threaten and bite other dogs.

That’s pretty stunning, and merits further investigation — into dog, into man, but even moreso into dogs’ abilities to read our emotions, better even, perhaps, than we can read our own.

The study, to be published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, found that the sex of the owner had the biggest effect on whether or not a dog will threaten or bite another dog.

“We propose that the occurrence of threat and biting in dogs on a walk may have some connection with aggressive tendencies and/or impulsivity in people,” Petr Rezac and his team at Mendel University wrote.

They add: “Dogs are able to perceive subtle messages of threat emitted by another dog. Simultaneously, dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social and communicative behavior.”

Rezac is an associate professor in the Department of Animal Morphology, Physiology and Genetics. He and his colleagues studied close to 2,000 dog-dog interactions on owner-led walks held in the city of Brno, according to Discovery News.

What they observed the most, as you might expect, was sniffing and peeing. And most of the researchers’ conclusions are already known by anyone with a dog:

Males sniff females more often, males and females prefer play with each other than with members of their own sex, adult males mark the most, puppies play together more than twice as often as adults, dogs prefer to play with similarly sized individuals and dogs tend to be more aggressive when restrained by a leash.

(Scientists, meanwhile, according to my own observations, are prone to sniffing, scratching their heads and marking their turf. They don’t have time to play, and tend to be aggressive when their funding is threatened. They should almost always be leashed.)

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in the process of trying to figure dogs out, man learned a thing or two about his own self?

I think much helpful-to-humans information is there, inside dogs, but it mostly goes untapped — because we speak different languages, because we don’t often look for it, and for reasons of focus. Scientists, like detectives building a case against a suspect, sometimes develop tunnel vision, to the extent that bigger, broader potential revelations, and sometimes ethics and boundaries, go ignored.

The Czech study, for example, leads me to wonder whether, in addition to studying the dogs, scientists might want to pay closer attention to those dog walkers, and all the baggage and pent-up hostilities they may be carrying around — whether they have those emotions on a leash, or too tight a leash, or no leash at all.

I don’t think it’s a Czech thing. And, in my experience, it’s not a gender thing. Generally, I’ve found that the most tightly wound pet owners — male or female — have the most unpredictable dogs.

Dogs, in large part, mirror their owners.

But their powers go far beyond mere reflection. Let’s go back to those pent-up hostilities. Sometimes they are undectable to psychiatrists. Sometimes they are undectable to the person they are pent-up in. Yet dogs have the power to sense them, and sometimes to calm them.

I’m not saying dogs know more than scientists — or am I? — only that dogs sense and know things we don’t. If only we could figure out a non-intrusive and polite way to ask the dogs to share with us all the things they have the power to sense — things that, even with all our scientific instruments, we humans can’t.

Maybe then — leashed or unleashed, male or female, dog or human — we could all just get along.

(Photo: By John Woestendiek)

(PS: The dogs pictured above were playing, not fighting)

Start spreading the news: New York, despite the occupation of Wall Street, isn’t all protests all the time.

Even with the civil unrest, you can still find some civility, including this harmonious moment on the streets of the city.

“I saw this on my walk back to the office from lunch,” writes the person who posted this video on YouTube a few days ago. “It was a nice contrast to the perception everyone has of the NYPD in the area due to the Occupy Wall Street camp nearby.”

The moral of this ad? Always share the cheese.

(To see all of our Woof in Advertising selections, click here.)

Crunching leaves

Shuffling through dry leaves

One of life’s distinct pleasures

 Wet ones … not so much

(All our Highway Haikus can be found archived here.)