ohmidog!

The heartwarming story of an injured stray dog taken in by students at a Catholic school on the Crow Reservation in Montana came to an abrupt end when someone drove onto school grounds and fired six shots at the dog.

Named Mission, the female Rottweiler mix — who’d been nursed back to health after limping onto the grounds of Pretty Eagle Catholic Academy in St. Xavier six years ago — was fatally wounded.

Students are still grieving her death, more than two months ago, according to the Billings Gazette.

“We’ve had dogs come and go, but never one that stuck around like she did,” said Garla Williamson, the principal at the private school for children in kindergarten through eighth grade. “She adopted us, and we adopted her.”

The shooting is being investigated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and a small reward is being offered by the school for information leading to an arrest.

Samantha Stoddard said she was watching television and heard through an open window at her campus residence what she heard shots, then heard Mission yelp in pain. She ran outside and saw a white sedan parked at a cattle guard near the entrance to the school property.

Two more shots were fired as she ran to the dog.

She found Mission collapsed on the ground and helped carry the dog to the porch of her residence.

“She was trying to die, and it was really painful,” she said. With the dog sufferering and no veterinarian, a staff member got a gun and put her down.

Several days passed while staff struggled with how to tell students what had happened.

Stoddard said Mission is buried near her residence, and the children have been making regular visits to the grave.

“It’s turned into a little shrine,” she said.

This one’s a lot like the story we told you last this week — about a German shepherd in Baltimore named Jerry Lee — but in our view it’s the sort of thing that can’t happen often enough.

Bear, a two-year-old Labrador retriever mix who months ago was just another mutt in a Kentucky animal shelter, is the newest addition to the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama.

Dustain Vance, head trainer for Advance Canine Academy in Scottsville, Ky., adopted Bear from the Bowling Green-Warren County Humane Society. Bear had been adopted earlier, but returned by a family who had difficulty controlling the dog’s energetic behavior.

“For a drug dog, that’s what we actually look for,” Sheriff Ted Sexton, who swore in Bear as a deputy Wednesday, told Al.com. “We’re looking for a dog that has drives and instincts primarily in play and prey and hunt, and he excels in this particular area.”

The Sheriff’s Office purchased the dog from the training center, and he’s been assigned to a partner, a deputy attached to the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force.

Bear has been trained to sniff out marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

Last week, Bear and his new handler returned from training to Tuscaloosa, where the dog immediately found a pound of marijuana in a FedEx package. He has since made another bust.

Deputy Nick Lolley said he and Bear are getting along well in their first week on the job. “He has to trust you and you have to trust him,” Lolley said. “That’s — I say 50 percent of it, because if a dog trusts you, then he’ll work for you.”

(Photo: Chris Pow / al.com)

 
1. They wouldn’t give overly long acceptance speeches.

2. They wouldn’t waste huge amounts of money on gowns.

3. They would deal better with both victory and defeat.

4. We like them, we really like them.

5. They could get to the stage much more quickly.

6. It makes more sense than Michael Vick getting a “Courage Award.”

7. They’ve been snubbed as a species by the academy for far too long.

8. Their ego and bank accounts don’t require constant feeding — just themselves.

9. Oscar chew toys would be cheaper than statuettes

10. The red carpet is probably cleaned every year anyway.

(Photo: From the movie “Hotel for Dogs)