ohmidog!

On his last day in office — Valentine’s Day – Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spent some quiet time with his right hand man, who is also his sweetheart, and also happens to be a dog.

He’s seen above taking a final walk with Bravo at CIA headquarters.

Bravo is widely believed to be a golden retriever, but inside sources tell us not to jump too quickly to  that conclusion.

Bravo, who frequently accompanied Panetta to work, was at his side during his term as CIA chief, and as the operation to terminate Osama bin Laden was plotted.

“Bravo was in the room when we were talking about the bin Laden operation at the CIA,” Panetta said in an interview with Esquire magazine.

“I remember going through that whole thing with him sitting by me,” Panetta said. “And the ability to put my hand on his head and feel his presence just kinda made me feel ‘OK, this is an important issue and it’s a big issue, but in many ways, it’s about whether or not we are able to protect the quality of life that we enjoy,’ and having a dog there just makes you a little more aware of what life is really about.”

(Department of Defense photo by Glenn Fawcett)

Caught raiding a chicken coop in rural Wyoming, a blue heeler named Bo was shot twice, tossed in a barrel, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

According to the Washakie County Sheriff’s Office, an 18-year-old neighbor shot the dog — after returning home and finding it was going after the family chickens.

Then, thinking Bo was dead, he asked his father what to do with the dog’s body.

“I said, ‘Burn it,’” the father, Mike Gerber, told the Casper Star-Tribune. ” …We have had other predators come around — and even our chickens that the dog had killed — how we got rid of them was we just burned them.”

His son, Wesley Gerber, dragged the dog to a burn barrel in the front yard, doused the dog with gasoline, and threw in a match.

“The next thing you know, the dog comes popping up out of there in flames,”  Mike Gerber told the newspaper. Bo ran around in a circle, and then home.

Ben and Abby Redland, Bo’s owners, said when Bo ran into the house “there was this terrible smell … His hair was melted and fallling out. He was still smoldering.” 

Bo was rushed to a vet. Bullets had grazed his cheek and back, and he had third-degree burns over most of his body. “Bo was in such shock, the vet didn’t think he’d make it,” Abby Redland told the Los Angeles Times.

Since the incident — back in December, in rural Worland, Wyoming, 150 miles north of Casper — three-year-old Bo has fully recovered, though he has a few scars.

The Redlands have taken out a restraining order on the Gerbers. And they’re pushing to change Wyoming law and introduce measures that require those who shoot pets to at least contact the animal’s owners.

“I wish it never happened,” Mike Gerber said. “The decisions being made were made fast. Maybe if they would’ve been thought through more clearly, we would’ve done things differently.”

(Photo: By Abby Redland, via Los Angeles Times)

Despite wearing a service vest clearly marked with the words “service dog,” a German shepherd named Princess was kicked out of Georgia convenience store.

Princess, who is a service dog for Wyatt Fox, a young boy with autism and other medical problems, was booted from the QuikTrip off Interstate 75 in McDonough.

According to his mother, Cory Fox, she was getting coffee when the manager approached and said, “We have food in here and you can’t be in here.”

Ms. Fox said she explained Princess was a service dog, and pointed out the dog’s vest, but the manager kept yelling at her until she was out the door.

“I’m very open to educating people as long as they approach me the right way. I will tell you what the dog does freely. I will tell you about service dogs, but he just continued to berate us and tell us we weren’t welcome,” she told 11Alive.

A QuickTrip corporate spokesman issued the following statement, with an iffy apology:

“If QT made a mistake, we apologize. We recognize all service dogs in our stores. Our training manuals reflect this. If we must, we may go back and retrain the employee so he understands our procedure.”

The Maryland House of Delegates yesterday approved a bill that would make it easier to hold all dog owners accountable for injuries caused by their pets — not just those who own pit bulls.

The Washington Post reports that the measure provides “a small measure of victory to pit bull owners,” whose dogs had been singled out by a Maryland court last spring as “inherently dangerous.”

The bill effectively overturns the Maryland Court of Appeals decision, Tracey v. Solesky, which stemmed from a 2007 incident in which a pit bull mauled a 10-year-old Towson boy.

The measure approved by the house Thursday would make it easier to hold all dog owners liable for injuries caused by their pets. In the past, plaintiffs suing the owners of dogs had to prove the dog was dangerous. Now it will be up to dog owners in liability cases to prove in court that their dog is not dangerous.

The 2012 court decision made owners of pit bulls, and their landlords, automatically liable in the event that their dog bit or injured someone.

Animal rights groups protested the appeals court decision, saying it was leading to dogs being euthanized and tenants being forced to surrender their dogs or move. The House bill does not contain breed-specific language.