ohmidog!

There might not be any town as intent — you might even say obsessed — with wiping out dog poop as Brunete, Spain.

First, officials in the town on the outskirts of Madrid launched a social awareness campaign, aimed at encouraging pet owners to pick up after their dogs.

Part of it included a remote control pile of poop on wheels, which approached citizens bearing the message “Don’t leave me, pick me up!”

“The amount of dog poo on our streets dropped considerably as a result,” a town spokesman is quoted as saying in this article.

When “volume” started rising again, the town opted for a sneakier approach — though it, too, has an in-your-face element.

In February of this year, officials in the town of 10,100 assigned 20 volunteers to patrol the streets in search of dog owners who don’t pick up after their dogs.

Upon seeing an offense, the undercover volunteers approach the owners and strike up a casual conversation — not mentioning the poop, just feigning interest in the dog and asking about its name and breed.

Once the dog walker departs, the volunteer would pick up the dog poop and put it in a box. Then, using the town’s database of registered dogs, they find out the address of the dog walker. Then they’d deliver the surprise package by hand to the pet owner’s home, along with an official warning.

If that weren’t embarassing enough, they film the reunions between dog owners and their dog’s poop.

Brunete Town Hall estimates the program has reduced the amount of unpicked up dog waste by 70 percent.

Officials aren’t sure whether it’s the threat of the fine, receiving a package of poop, or getting humiliated on camera that’s doing the trick, but they say the program seems to be working.

Stopped at a roadblock, James Terry asked state troopers if he could let his two Siberian huskies out of the car so they wouldn’t become overheated.

A trooper agreed to tie the dogs to the bumper of a patrol car, but within 30 minutes, the trooper drove off to another call, dragging one of the dogs behind him.

Terry’s dog Lois had to be euthanized after suffering a broken pelvis and spine, according to the Albany Times Union.

The second dog survived.

“The trooper feels terrible,” said State  Police Capt. William  Keeler. “The owner is rightly upset.”

“I do plan on seeking justice for Lois,” said Terry, who was charged with driving with a suspended licensed. “She was the only innocent victim here.”

The incident happened Saturday as State Police conducted a roadblock to check on whether drivers were wearing seatbelts.

Terry, after he was stopped, was worried his dogs would overheat in his pickup truck, and asked a trooper if they could be let out. Because it was a shaded area, officials said, the trooper tied the dogs to his patrol car’s rear bumper, using the dog’s leashes.

When Terry learned he was being arrested for having a suspended license, he called his parents to pick up the dogs. Authorities said that the trooper, seeing Terry’s family had arrived, assumed they had taken the dogs when he returned to his vehicle and sped off to another call.

“He was under the belief that the dogs had been unsecured,” a state police spokesman said. “He  proceeded approximately 10 feet. Unfortunately, the dogs were  still secured.”

While the leash of the second dog, Liz, detached as the patrol car pulled away, the leash securing Lois to the patrol car did not. She was pulled under the Ford Crown Victoria cruiser and was run over by its rear wheels.

An internal investigation is being conducted, and the trooper will remain on duty pending its results.

When the accident occurred, Terry was handcuffed in a patrol car parked in front of the one to which his dogs were tied.

“I heard the screech of the car taking off,” he said. “I was in the cop car.  There was nothing I could do. I was screaming ‘Get me out of here!’ A cop came  over and let me out. I ran over and held Lois. I knew something was wrong. Lois  was crying, and her legs weren’t moving,”

Another trooper picked her up and took her and Terry to the Latham  Emergency Clinic, where veterinarians recommended euthanasia.

(Photo: Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

A woman who didn’t want to tell a TV news team “how she felt” about her daughter being shot threw a rock at them, shook a baseball bat at them, and then sent her dogs after reporter Abbey Niezgoda of ABC 6 News in Rhode Island.

The crew was on assignment in Providence, seeking to interview the mother of a teenage girl who was shot at a graduation party over the weekend.

Instead of politely declining to speak on-camera, Melissa Lawrence hurled a rock at ABC6 photographer Marc Jackson, then went inside for a baseball bat. Seconds later, she told her dogs to attack.

As Lawrence shouted commands, the dogs chased Niezgoda into a backyard a few houses away.

Niezgoda was a treated for a bite on her forearm.

Melissa Lawrence was charged with two counts of felony assault with a dangerous weapon.

Lawrence’s daughter, who was shot in the lower back, has since been released from the hospital.

A $5,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest in the case of a Boston terrier found with what appeared to be chemical burns over 80 percent of his body.

“In all my years of doing rescue, I’ve seen a lot of things but I’ve never seen a dog in such horrific condition,” said Rachel Farmer, president and director of Boston Buddies, a rescue group dedicated to saving terriers in southern California.

“How anybody can do this is just beyond me,” Farmer told NBC 4 in Los Angeles.

The dog was found in El Monte and dropped off at a Baldwin Park shelter on May 29. Due to the extent of his injuries, he was euthanized the next day. He did have a microchip, showing he was registered in a Midwestern state.

The dog was emaciated, and burned so badly his muscles were showing through his skin in multiple places, rescuers said.

Farmer came across the dog, believed to be 8 to 10 years old, during her daily check at the Baldwin Park shelter, and informed authorities she wanted to take him. Within hours, though, veterinarians at the shelter told Farmer they needed to put him down.

A Boston Buddies volunteer picked up the dog — who was being called Henry — and took him to another vet for a second opinion, but it was the same as the first.

The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control is investigating what happened to Henry, and tests were underway to determine if his injuries were a result of being burned.

A Pennsylvania service dog agency is suing an Episcopal priest with cerebral palsy to force her to give up the service dog she has had since 2007.

So reports the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

The Rev. Claire Wimbush says it’s unlikely she could continue living on her own without Willa, a 10-year-old yellow Labrador retriever provided to her through Canine Partners for Life, a Cochranville, Pa.-based agency that says it wants the dog back for reasons not fully specified.

Canine Partners filed suit last month in Pennsylvania Supreme Court, accusing Wimbush of violating her dog care contract and asking the court to order the dog’s return — along with “reimbursement of all costs and expenses, including legal and court fees.”

Darlene Sullivan, executive director of Canine Partners, declined to comment on the specifics of Wimbush’s case, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. The newspaper is owned by Gannett Co. Inc., and the Rev. Wimbush is the daughter of Gannett Vice President Jane Ann Wimbush.

According to the lawsuit, the Rev. Wimbush did not follow the agency’s training rules, including those that require recipients of  its dogs to maintain contact through follow-up reports. 

“If on repeated occasions there are problems with compliance, we will place that person on probation and they will get a letter explaining everything about why and letting them know if there are further violations they will lose their dog,” the agency’s director said. “If it gets to that point, and they refuse to return the dog to us, we have no choice but to take legal action.”

The Rev. Wimbush said she believes the agency wants Willa back because she was late turning in paperwork about the dog’s health and behavior. She said the documents were mailed on March 25, but Canine Partners didn’t get them by the April 2 deadline. An email from the agency came on April 4, saying arrangements needed to be made for the dog’s return. Six days later, she says, she received a letter telling her to bring Willa to the airport for “repossession.”

“I’m bewildered by this,” said Wimbush, who who has spastic cerebral palsy quadriplegia and uses a motorized wheelchair for mobility. Wimbush served as Curate of Christian Education at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Rochester from 2011 until last weekend, and is now planning to move back to her native Virginia to be closer to her mother.

On a website supporting her campaign to keep the dog, claireandwilla.com, the Rev. Wimbush notes that Willa’s status changed in February, 2012, when she retired from being a service dog and became a home companion dog:

“My ministry had changed; I was no longer moving from place to place over the course of a day, so I didn’t need her to help me carry things and open doors as often. The Rochester winters are tough on both of us. She was nine years old, almost ten; it seemed like the right time to make a change. Since her retirement, she gets to be petted and admired by all the members of my congregation, especially the elementary school crowd. She still goes with me to the church most days, and often accompanies me when I visit parishioners in animal-friendly retirement communities…”

The reverend admits to having had trouble keeping up with the agency’s required paperwork in 2007, due to illness. The lawsuit says she has had a history of not complying with those requirements. In 2009, the suit says, Wimbush was placed on “permanent probation” and told that any future violations would result in the immediate loss of the dog.

On the Facebook page of Canine Partners for Life, the agency is taking some lumps for filing the lawsuit against the handicapped priest, and some commenters are saying it is “shameful” for it to be demanding the dog back.

“What part of ‘for life’ am I missing?” one person wrote.

It’s unusual for an agency like Canine Partners to demand a dog be returned, according to Toni Eames, president of the International Association of Assistant Dog Partners, an advocacy group of people with guide, hearing and service dogs.

“It’s a very legitimate agency, and there has to be something, mistreatment of the dog, neglect, maybe it has gained a tremendous amount of weight or there’s abuse, there‘s got to be something. Filing papers late is not a reason to demand return of a dog,” she told the newspaper.

Marsha Sweet, assistant director of independent living services for the Center for Disability Rights in Rochester, knew of only two such cases, and both times an agreement was reached allowing the person to keep the dog. “Usually, the agencies really try to remedy the situation,” she said.

The Rev. Wimbush hopes that might still happen, and an agreement can be worked out.

“I would do anything, anything, to keep my dog,” she said.

(Photo: ClaireandWilla.com)

A state official’s golden retriever found the body of an East Carolina University student who drowned along the North Carolina coast over the weekend.

Michael Peeler, the deputy for administration in the N.C. Secretary of State’s office, was walking his dog Josie along the beach at Pine Knoll Shores on Sunday evening when the dog ran out into the surf. He called her back, put her on the leash and they continued walking. On the way back, Josie went into the water again at the same spot.

That’s when Peeler saw the body of Braxton Horton, 19, who rescuers had been looking for since Saturday when he was dragged out into the ocean by rip currents while swimming with friends.

“It was less than knee-deep” Peeler told the Raleigh News & Observer. He waded in, pulled the body ashore and called 911. Even after Horton’s body was taken away, Josie remained upset and was pulling at her leash, said Peeler’s wife, Karen.

“She was very agitated the remainder of the evening and kept pulling to go back toward the beach, even after they were already home,” she said.

Horton, a 2012 graduate of Athens Drive High School in Raleigh, had been working at Camp Seagull, a summer camp for boys in Arapahoe, when he and others from the camp went to Atlantic Beach on Saturday.

After he went missing, rescue and recovery crews from Pine Knoll Shores, Indian Beach and Atlantic Beach police departments conducted a four-hour search in the water before suspending the operation due to nightfall.

Horton had just finished his first year at ECU, where he was majoring in biology. His family said he wanted to be a physician’s assistant.

(Photo by Michael Keeler; from the Raleigh News & Observer)

An Iraq War veteran says police were raiding the wrong apartment when they shot and killed his pit bull, Cindy.

Adam Arroyo was at work Monday when his apartment in Buffalo was searched by police, who shot and killed the dog he says he left tied up in the kitchen.

Arroyo rushed home when his landlord called to tell him police were searching his apartment.

“I got here as fast as I could and I saw the carnage. I saw what happened. My house was flipped upside down, my dog was gone,” he told News 4 (WIVB). He said he always tied Cindy up in the kitchen when he left for work because she tended to chew on his clothes and shoes.

Buffalo Police said officers were searching for drugs when they encountered the dog, who they said was aggressive and unchained. They believe they had the correct address, though no drugs were found in the search.

Arroyo says there are two upper apartments at his address. He showed  the search warrant to News 4, and it described the suspect as black. Arroyo is Hispanic.

“They had no right, no evidence, because if that was the case they would have found stuff here and I would be in jail,” he said.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda said an investigation will be conducted by the Internal Affairs Division.

An Indiana dog who lost all eight of her pups at birth is now nursing six newborn pups left orphaned after the tornadoes in Oklahoma.

The Indiana dog, a 2-year-old Rottweiler mix living at a shelter in South Bend, was close to giving birth, but also close to being put down, when she was rescued by Second Chance 4 Pets Network and taken in as a foster by one of the group’s volunteers.

After a prolonged period of labor the dog, named Bertha, was taken to the vet.

“…They did an emergency C-section on her but all of her puppies, eight of them, were dead,” said JoAnn Palko, president and founder of Second Chance 4 Pets.

The group put word out to other rescues in the region, saying they had a lactating dog who could help if any group had puppies who needed to nurse — and that’s when they heard from another rescue, that had just acquired six newborn pups from an Oklahoma City shelter, according to NWI.com.

In the wake of the tornadoes there, a homeless and pregnant pit bull-shepherd mix ended up in a shelter. Staff deemed her aggressive. (Uunder those circumstances, who wouldn’t be?) After giving birth, she was put down.

Her six orphaned pups, rescued by Lakeshore PAWS, were brought to Merrillville to meet Bertha.

“She was unsure at first, but the foster got into the pool with her and she started cleaning them right away,” Pelko said.

“Here they had this sad mom and we had these puppies who needed help,” said Jeanne Sommer, director of Lakeshore PAWS said. “It worked out great for all of us.”

The puppies, who are just over a week old, are thriving, Palko said.

Second Chance is now considering training Bertha to be a therapy dog.

Here we see a duck and a dog peacefully sharing a meal — at least until the food runs out.

Then the duck gets a little peckish.

The dog, who looks like he might have a little pit bull in him, takes it all in stride before nonchalantly walking off.

We won’t cast judgment, since we’re not sure if the food actually belonged to, or was meant for, the duck or the dog.

There’s no explanation of the video by the person who put it on YouTube — other than “quack, quack, quack.”

Interestingly, the comments that have been made about the video indicate there’s some sort of argument going on between humans, who sometimes have trouble sharing, and get a little peckish, too. Apparently someone thinks the video was “stolen.”

“Please stop stealing other people’s videos,” reads one comment.

It’s not clear — to me, anyway — whether they’re complaining about the video being stolen and put on YouTube, or they think it was “stolen” off of YouTube, for use somewhere else, as we have done, via the embed code that most all YouTube videos have, for the express purpose of sharing.

The comments are of no help in figuring things out — instead they consist of the kind of not-so-witty banter we’ve grown to expect from comments on the Internet (except those left on ohmidog!, of course.)

Whose video is it? Whose food was it?

Dunno.  But I’m happy to share.

Kabang, the dog who lost the top of her snout when she stepped between two girls and an oncoming motorcyle, is headed back to her home in the Philippines after a series of surgeries and treatments at the University of California, Davis.

Kabang was brought to the veterinary hospital last October — not to have her snout restored, but for treatment of the gaping wound left where it once was.

Complications arose when veterinarians found she had heartworm disease and cancer.

“We were able to treat all of the complications that arose with the best specialists available,”  said Professor Frank Verstraete, chief of the hospital’s dentistry and oral surgery service.

In a five-hour surgery, they were able to close up her facial wound, leaving her less likely to fall victim to infections.

Kabang was given a final examination and officially released from the veterinary hospital Monday, according to a UC Davis press release.

Kabang leapt into the path of a motorcycle heading toward the daughter and niece of her owner in late 2011. The motorcycle’s front wheel ripped off her nose and the top her jaw. The girls were not injured.

The dog’s heroics, and the condition they left her in, sparked donations from around the world, and hundreds donated to the private organization Care for Kabang to make her treatments possible.

Kabang’s heartworm and cancer treatments were successfully completed in February, and the veterinary team determined that the dog was in good health and ready for the dental and facial procedures.

On March 5, veterinary surgeons first performed oral surgery to remove two of the dog’s upper teeth and reconstruct one eyelid that had been damaged by the motorcycle. Then they prepared for the maxillofacial surgery to correct the dog’s facial injury.

The nearly five-hour surgery on March 27 closed Kabang’s facial wound with skin flaps that were brought forward from the top and sides of her head. Following that procedure, surgeons reconstructed her nasal openings by inserting stents that would allow two new permanent nostrils to form.

Because it was not possible to reconstruct Kabang’s snout and a functional upper jaw, she’ll never look like she did before her accident.

“We were extremely pleased with the overall progress Kabang made while at UC Davis,” said Gina Davis, head of outpatient medicine at the veterinary medical teaching hospital and a clinical veterinary professor. “Kabang ideally completed each stage of treatment throughout the nearly eight months she was with us, and it was a pleasure having her as a patient.”

“We are so appreciative to Rudy Bunggal and his family in the Philippines for entrusting our veterinary team with their precious dog over these many months,” said Professor David Wilson, director of the veterinary medical teaching hospital.

Wilson also acknowledged Kabang’s veterinarians Anton Lim and Ed Unson of  the Philippines, and Care for Kabang coordinator Karen Kenngott of Buffalo, N.Y.

More detailed background information and a timeline chronicling Kabang’s treatments are available at the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital website.

(Top photo by Don Preisler / UC Davis; Kabang with veterinarian Anton Lim, by Karin Higgins / UC Davis; Kabang at her intake, by Karin Higgins / UC Davis; Kabang with a toy, by Don Preisler, UC Davis)