ohmidog!

Fox News is reporting that country singer Mindy McCready’s fatal shooting of her own dog before she commited suicide Sunday was “not an act of malice at all.”

Fox quotes an unidentified friend as saying, “Mindy really loved her dog … It would have been more of a case where she just didn’t want to leave the dog alone.”

How thoughtful.

Not to speak ill of the dead, or to suggest rational behavior should be expected from those in the clutches of mental illness, but there are better ways of securing a future for your dog when you’ve decided you no longer want one for yourself.

And to describe an act like that as anything close to kind-hearted is just plain wrong.

A better description — even if the misguided thinking behind it was a hope they would end up in the same place in the hereafter  – would be selfish.

McCready, who had attempted suicide twice earlier,  had reportedly been depressed since the father of her youngest child, record producer David Wilson, died earlier this year from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. That took place on the same front porch where McCready shot the dog and herself.

“Based on what we have found at the scene at this time, we do believe that she took the life of the dog that we are being told by family members belonged to Mr. Wilson before she took her own life,” said Sheriff Marty Moss of Cleburne County.

McCready’s two sons, aged ten months and six, were removed from her home by a judge on Feb. 6. After that, McCready was committed to a rehabilitation facility for mental health and alcohol abuse examinations, but released two days later.

“She didn’t really have a support network and coming home to an empty house seems to be what really did it,” the source told Fox News. “It is tragic. She was a sweet and kind girl at heart.”

Whatever other morals her tragic life holds, however kind her heart was, whatever her legacy might be, one thing stands out — given the course she chose for her beloved dog — about her messy end:

How much more tragic the story might have been had her children not been taken from her.

(Photo: Associated Press)

Every species, I guess, has its geniuses and morons, or at least those who are so perceived.

When it comes to dogs, for example, Afghan hounds have been called the dumb blondes of the dog world, while border collies are often referred to as the genius of the species.

With humans, in what is an equally unfair characterization, TV and radio personalities are often portrayed as something less than razor sharp. (I’m not sure if that is true, but it does seem that  the dumber they are, the louder they are — and the more they interrupt.)

This video, from ABC’s Good Morning America, shows a border collie named Zelda balancing things on her head as the humans on the program, some of them wearing funny hats, seem to compete to see who can be loudest and most annoying.

When Zelda’s owner tries to explain how Zelda came to possess the talent, the host of the show loudly interrupts: “Now we should point out border collies are one of the smartest dogs there are, I mean they’re like real smart.”

At the end of the bit, the camera cuts to a member of the crew, showing he can balance things on his head, too.

Watching this, online, made me reconsider my rankings of  the intelligence of the three smartest species here on earth.

I still think dogs are at the top, but I’m unsure of the order in which to rank the other two – humans and computers, earth’s newest species.

But then I read the computer-created transcript of the video, which we’ll only quote in part:

A dog was shot in the head and left on the doorstep of a worker for Dogs Deserve Better, the animal rescue organization that moved into Michael Vick’s old house in Surry County, Virginia.

Melissa Wischmeier with Dogs Deserve Better said the dog was taken to Roger’s Veterinary Hospital in Smithfield.

WAVY.com reported that the dog had a microchip.  Later, WAVY reported that the dog had been reunited with its owner Monday night.

Wischmeier said the dog, named Leah, was left in front of the home of a Dogs Deserve Better worker.

Dr. Kathryn Bouvier at Roger’s Veterinary Hospital said x-rays showed a trail of bullet fragments from Leah’s snout all the way to her spinal cord.

Bouvier said the the dog was recovering, but concerns remained about shifting bullet fragments and infection.

Mark Buehrle, the Miami Marlins pitcher traded to the Toronto Blue Jays last November, will be leaving his dogs and family behind when the season opens, due to Ontario’s ban on pit bulls.

One of the Buehrle family’s four dogs, Slater, falls under the government’s pit bull ban, so Buehrle’s wife Jamie, their children and their dogs will remain in Florida until the end of the school year, then return to their off-season home in the St. Louis area.

The Toronto Star reports it will be the first time in his career that Buehrle has spent the summer away from his wife and children.

It’s not the first time, though, that the family has been inconvenienced because of their love for pit bulls in general, and Slater in particular.

When Buehrle was traded to the Marlins, from the White Sox, his family couldn’t live in the Miami-Dade area, because of a similar ban, and located in Broward County instead.

“Other families have gone through things and they’ve made it work. And I will see my dogs when I can,” Buehrle said of the Toronto situation during spring training last week.”