A study by the BBB says the state — home to 30 percent of the nation’s large scale, federally licensed puppy sellers – has no hope of keeping the industry in check.

The state has four times more puppy mills than the next highest state, according to Chris Thetford, of the St. Louis BBB.

“Consumers end up with diseased animals from the outset, which ultimately end up costing them large amounts of money in veterinarian bills, and that was what motivated our study,” Thetford told KMOX News.

According to the BBB study, Missouri law mandates yearly on-site checkups of the state’s 1,800 licensed dog breeders, but there are only about a dozen inspectors, who also have other duties.

“Ultimately the issue is that there are so many puppy breeders in the state of Missouri, and a lack of ability of the state government to keep up with those, which leads to an ineffective enforcement of the laws.”

The bureau recommended raising annual licensing fees, which have stayed the same for nearly two decades, and better educating consumers to adopt pets from a shelter.

Ex-Boyfriend

Until April 17, the company will be donating 100 percent of proceeds from the sale of its line of keychain/bottle openers to local shelters and rescue organizations.

Ex-Boyfriend established the Sadie Fund after the death of company owner Matt Snow’s cat in 2008, donating 5 percent of net profits to animal advocacy groups.

In honor of April being Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month, Snow says, the company will donate 100% of the profits generated by the sale of its new keychain bottle openers. The openers feature a selection of our designs, cost $6.50 and will be shipped for free through April 17th.

Ex-Boyfriend also offers a Cute Critters line of T-shirts (human and doggie), featuring Groucho Barks, Neil Arfstrong,  Chow Guevara, Fuzz Aldrin, Pirate Kitty, DJ Kitty (above).

The dog was found in Waltham on March 6, unable to move or walk because of severe matting of his fur, WCVB-TV reported. He was taken to Kindness Animal Hospital, but could not be saved and died a few days later.

“This is probably one of the most extreme cases of neglect we’ve encountered in our practice,” said Susan Rosenblatt, chief of staff at Kindness. “We’re concerned that there may be other animals in the same household that are being similarly neglected.”

The Pekingese was between 9 and 12-years-old, tan and blind in his right eye. The left eye had been surgically removed. His fur had become so completely matted around its body that the dog was trapped within itself, veterinarians said.

The dog’s teeth were rotten and his muscles had atrophied because he was unable to move for so long. His nails had grown in a complete circle because they had not been cut in years, the vets said, and he had pneumonia.

The veterinary hospital staff and other animal welfare advocates asked for the public’s help to find the dog’s owners. Anyone with information can contact Kindness Animal Hospital at 718-893-2800 or e-mail kindnessah@gmail.com.

Though reported lost — for the second time in two months — CinnaBun was  in a storage room at James’ West Coast Choppers the whole time.

An update on the West Coast Choppers website reads: “We rarely go into our storage room in the production building but CinnaBun found her way in somehow. She’s back in the office and in high spirits.”

A missing dog report had been filed March 15 with HomeAgain, a company that monitors microchips in pets. HomeAgain sent emails yesterday to residents in the Long Beach area — in the vicinity of West Coast Choppers, where James kept CinnaBun.

James’s wife, Sandra Bullock, recently moved out of the couple’s home amid reports that James had an affair with a tattoo model.

The EPA wants companies to make instructions on the products’ labels more clear so people don’t give their pets too much of the pesticides, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The announcement affects most flea and tick products that are applied directly to a pets’ skin.

The products include those made by Merck & Co., Bayer AG and Pfizer Inc. under the names Frontline Top Spot for Dogs, Promeris Canine Flea Control and Enforcer Flea Drops for Cats.

The EPA said the number of reports of pets suffering from these products continues to rise. In 2008, the EPA received 44,000 reports of adverse events from these products, a 53% increase from the year before.

Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, said the labels are to blame, not consumers. “I don’t know how you would blame the victim in this case when the label isn’t clear,” he said.

Owens said in some instances, people don’t realize they need to regulate the dose based on their pet’s weight. He said the EPA will require more precise dosing on the product labels.

Companies that don’t voluntarily update the labels will be forced to, Owens said.

“Dogs seem to share more genetic similarity with Middle Eastern gray wolves than with any other wolf population worldwide,” said UCLA’s Robert Wayne, who along with his colleagues studied more than 48,000 DNA sequences in dogs and grey wolves from across the world. ”Genome-wide analysis now directly suggests a Middle East origin for modern dogs.”

The journal Nature reports on the latest development in the ongoing debate on its blog, The Great Beyond.

Previous work on mitochondrial DNA suggested East Asia was a more likely origin, while other studies have pinpointed Africa.

“This new Nature paper is a much more comprehensive analysis because we have analyzed 48,000 markers distributed throughout the nuclear genome to try to conclude where the most likely ancestral population is,” Wayne said.

The new paper is more consistent with archaeological evidence, with the oldest dog remains coming from the Middle East around 12,000 years ago, Belgium 31,000 years ago and western Russia 15,000 years ago.

The new analysis did find that some ancient east Asian dog breeds have similarities with Chinese wolves, suggesting there was some mixing between these animals after domestication, or that these breeds actually derived from Chinese wolves.

A Pet Junkie Party will take place in the Conference Room at BARCS, starting at 4 .m. tomorrow (Saturday). BARCS is located at 301 Stockholm Street in Batimore, near M&T Bank Stadium.

Pet Junkie representative Denise Smallman-Chilcoat will be selling dog and cat toys, pet-themed home decor items, jewelry, T-shirts and more, with 35 percent of sales going to BARCS.

For those unable to make it to the party, Pet Junkie will donate 35 percent of online sales to BARCS.

His own dog’s DNA helped convict a reputed gang member in south London of the murder of a 16-year-old.

Oluwaseyi Ogunyemi was killed in a “vicious” attack by a gang of youths who set upon him and his friends with their dogs. One of the dogs,  a Staffordshire bull terrier-bull mastiff cross called Tyson, brought Ogunyemi down as he tried to climb over a fence, after which the youth was stabbed six times by its owner Chrisdian Johnson.

Johnson was arrested as he fled the scene of the murder last April, bare-chested and covered in blood.

New DNA technology proved by a billion-to-one probability that some of the blood on Johnson came from his dog Tyson, who had been knifed during the fighting. The rest came from Ogunyemi.

Johnson was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Seyi’s 17-year-old friend Hurui Hiyabum, whom he stabbed nine times.

Scientists used DNA profiling to prove that samples collected during the investigation were a billion times more likely to come from two specific dogs involved in the attack than any other animals, the BBC reported.

Police  hailed the dog DNA technology, which had just been developed at the time of the murder, as a “hugely powerful investigative tool”.

HomeAgain, a company that monitors microchips in pets, tolds TMZ that a report was filed March 15 with the company that CinnaBun had turned up missing.

HomeAgain sent emails yesterday to residents in the Long Beach area — in the vicinity of West Coast Choppers, where James kept CinnaBun.

“I am asking for your help in finding my lost dog, CinnaBun,” the emails read. 

CinnaBun, a pit bull, went missing at the end of January and wasn’t found for nearly a month.

Meanwhile, James has broken his silence on reports that he cheated on his Oscar-winning wife, telling People magazine he used “poor judgment”.

James, a custom motorcycle manufacturer who married Bullock five years ago, said he took responsibility for his actions. But he stopped short of admitting that he had an affair.

Bullock, 45, pulled out of the London premiere of  “The Blind Side” on Wednesday after the celebrity magazine In Touch Weekly published claims by a model that she slept with James last year.

“It’s because of my poor judgment that I deserve everything bad that is coming my way,” James said in a statement to People.

Bullock, who received the Oscar for best actress last week for her work in the  “The Blind Side,” has reportedly moved out of the home she shared with James.

(An update to this story can be found here.)

Judge Janice Rodnick Ambrose suggested Michael Patrick Flemming, 24, of Thurmont, do his community service at the Frederick County Animal Control shelter, the Frederick News-Post reported.

“They may not want you,” Ambrose said Tuesday in District Court. “But I think you should have to work with animals for what you’ve done.”

Convicted of four misdemeanor charges in the July 25, 2009, death of Taurus, a 3-year-old black and brown Rottweiler, Flemming offered a brief statement: “There’s no amount of time you can give me that will erase what I have to deal with every day.”

“‘He was my baby,’”  Flemming said in a two-page handwritten statement. “‘I loved him almost more than anyone in my life.’”

Flemming told the court he’d put his dog out to urinate, went inside and fell asleep. He didn’t mention that he chained the dog to a stake, without  water, an omission the judge pointed out.

“You tied your dog up. That’s why you are here today,” Ambrose said. “Your poor dog is dead because you didn’t love it enough to take care of it.”

A landscaper found the 112-pound dog unconscious in the middle of Flemming’s yard and contacted animal control officers, according to court documents.

Flemming has a sentencing hearing set for next week on fleeing and eluding charges, and another hearing next month on drug charges, according to court documents.