ohmidog!

Warrick County, Indiana, appears to be living in the dark ages — at least when it comes to its animal shelter.

Operated by the animal control department, the county shelter makes little or no effort to adopt out animals, according to critics.

And last month, the dogs it had euthanized and dumped at a landfill near Boonville included one that was still alive.

So they took it back to the shelter — and killed it.

“Shelter” probably isn’t even the right word. It’s more like death row. The shelter’s kill rate is 90 percent, and unless an owner comes to reclaim a pet, or the local humane society pulls one out, most dogs end up being euthanized.

Or, as one TV report innocuously put it in the case of the landfill dog, he was taken back to the shelter and “given more medicine.”

The County Health Department told 14 News  it’s common procedure for euthanized dogs to be dumped into landfills, but that discarding a live dog was an unfortunate mistake.

According to Change.org, two people saw animal control officers dumping plastic bags at the landfill. Then they saw one bag start to move, and heard a panting sound come from inside it.

When they brought it to the attention of the animal control employees, one of the officers said, “Guess we’re taking this one back.” Without opening the bag, they tossed it in the back of the truck.

The county says the department’s two animal control officers apparently failed to confirm the dog was dead before taking it to  the dump. Both employees have been reprimanded.

Officials say it was an isolated event, but criticism of the county-run shelter is mounting.

Residents voiced numerous concerns to the Warrick County Commission on Monday night, according to another 14 News report.

Said one resident, ”Any time you try to go out there, nobody is there when you call. You leave message after message so you can set up an appointment and it makes it very difficult to adopt animals from there.”

County Commission Board President Don Williams defended the animal control officers saying they had a heavy workload, and blamed residents of Warrick County for neglecting their animals.

A petition demanding changes at the shelter — critics say it makes no effort to place adoptable animals on pet adoption websites, rarely answers its phone, and makes it difficult for visitors to view animals in its care — can be found at Change.org.

A sheriff’s deputy in Ohio County, Kentucky, was fired yesterday after allegedly beating an injured dog with a garden hoe — apparently in an attempt to put her out of her misery.

The dog, thought dead, was then buried, only to resurface a few days later — alive.

Ohio County Sheriff David Thompson informed Deputy Randy Taylor of his termination shortly before a news conference Tuesday morning, according to this report from WEHT

Thompson — despite reports that quote Taylor as saying he beat the dog because it “wasn’t worth the bullet” — said he didn’t think Taylor’s intention were cruel.

“Obviously Mr. Taylor is very disappointed,” said Thompson. “He’s very sorry about the situation. His intent, which I believe, probably was never to punish the animal or be cruel to the animal as such.”

Deputy Taylor had been suspended with pay over the June 28th incident, in which sources say a state transportation worker noticed an injured dog, apparently struck by a car, and called for a deputy.

When Taylor arrived, he allegedly began beating the dog with a garden hoe. The dog was then reportedly taken back to the garage and buried under a mound of dirt.

Several days later, the dog was discovered to still be alive. A transportation worker has also been fired in connection with the incident.

Sheriff Thompson said that Muhlenberg County Attorney Darris Russell is being brought in as a special prosecutor to review the case due to a conflict of interest in Ohio County.

While most news reports don’t mention whether the dog is still alive, a Facebook post indicates she is, and that she has been named Chance.

“I was fortunate to see ‘Chance’ today and I was truly shocked. Although they said she looked a hundred percent better, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I bent down to be close to her and she took a minute to find me. I believe her sight is gone in one eye and it looks like she might have trouble getting in focus. As soon as I got close, she gave me a kiss.

“Her little body is beaten, but her spirit not broken. She is very underweight and has multiple large dents on the top of her head where she was hit. They got her up for me to see and she cried very badly for a few seconds. She is really sore after all this (as to be expected).

“As I was there, the vet showed me something that I could not believe. She has a bullet lodged in her hip where she has been shot in the past. This is not made up and if I hadn’t seen it, well, let’s just say she gets more beautiful by the moment. As soon as she is out of danger of being exploited, I will post a picture for all to see. I for one, appreciate the overwhelming care that you all have shown for this helpless, wonderful dog.”

Wall-E, the dog who turned up alive and kicking the day after he was “euthanized” at an Oklahoma animal shelter, has been adopted.

And, even though he’s living in a new state now, Wall-E — with help from an artist — is still raising money to build a new shelter in Murray County to replace the overcrowded one where he was injected with lethal drugs, pronounced dead and tossed in a trash bin.

After he survived euthanasia — he received two lethal doses, one in the leg, one in heart — Wall-E went on to become a much sought after dog, with national publicity leading to thousands of inquiries from people wanting to adopt him.

After months of reviewing the applicants, the shelter has placed Wall-E with a family that lives out of state and wants to remain anonymous, according to an Associated Press report.

“For some reason I had a complete comfort in picking them. They just really stood out,” said Amanda Kloski, the veterinarian technician at Arbuckle Veterinarian Clinic in Sulphur who cared for Wall-E after he was found alive. “They can give him what I can’t give him and what a lot of people probably couldn’t.”

Kloski said that while Wall-E’s story has made more people aware of the need to find homes for stray animals, overcrowding at the local shelter in Sulphur, about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City, remains a problem.

But donations to the shelter in his name, and sales of his portrait, are helping to raise the money needed to build a new shelter in Murray County.

Animal artist Ron Burns painted a portrait of Wall-E, and is donating 40 percent of the proceeds from sales of the prints.

“I believe Wall-E is still with us for a certain purpose, and that purpose is threefold — that through his ‘tail’ of miraculous survival, he is here to help his fellow four-legged friends, to remind us all of the importance of animal adoption and to stress the necessity of local spay and neuter programs,” Burns said.

Here’s a pretty amazing story out of Sulphur, Oklahoma, about a dog who apparently was euthanized, declared dead and, the next morning, was found scurrying around the trash bin in which he had been dumped.

As a result of his tale of survival, hundreds have expressed interest in adopting Wall-e, as the three-month-old dog is being called.

Wall-e and his littermates were dropped off outside the animal shelter in Sulphur. Because all seemed seriously ill, shelter officials say, they were euthanized. After being pronounced dead by a veterinarian, they were all disposed of in a bin outside the shelter, which was scheduled to be emptied that night.

The next morning, though, Animal Control Officer Scott Prall looked in the bin and saw it still held its contents, including Wall-e, who was alive.

“He was just as healthy as could be,” Prall said.

Amanda Kloski of the Arbuckle Veterinary Clinic, took him in, and word about Wall-e, named after the movie robot, spread on Facebook, leading to hundreds of calls from people interested in adopting him.

The vet clinic said they would review the offers this week and choose a permanent home.

Both the clinic and the animal control officer say Wall-e and the others may not have been put to sleep at all if Murray County had a better animal shelter, according to KWTV.

A California firefighter and his search dog located three girls trapped alive since Tuesday in the rubble of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation says.

Bill Monahan and his border collie, Hunter, were searching a neighborhood near the Presidential Palace, going through the remains of a four-story building, when Hunter gave a bark alert. Monahan passed the three children water in bottles tied to the end of a stick.

Rescue workers from California Task Force 2 pulled the girls from the wreckage and provided first aid, according to a foundation press release.

Monahan and Hunter were trained by  the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, which partners rescue dogs with firefighters, and trains them to find survivors buried in the aftermath of disasters.

Monahan reported finding the survivors to the foundation headquarters in Ojai, California.

Monahan and Hunter are continuing to search, along with six other foundation teams in Haiti with California Task Force 2 and Florida Task Force 1. Their progress can be followed on the foundation’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to strengthen America’s emergency response network by producing highly-trained canine-firefighter disaster search teams.

Since its founding in 1996, the foundation has rescued hundreds of dogs and trained 105 search teams, 72 of which are currently active. SDF Teams have been deployed to 66 disasters including the World Trade Center attacks and Hurricane Katrina and state and local emergencies such as earthquakes, mudslides, building collapses, train derailments and missing person searches.

The foundation’s dogs are among hundreds from across the globe that have been seen to Port Au Prince. In the video below, a rescue team from Fairfax, Virginia searches for victims.

Jessica Simpson, having given up the search for her Malti-poo, says on her Twitter page that she doesn’t appreciate the false information her loved ones have received from pranksters claiming Daisy is alive.

The five-year-old dog was taken by a coyote last month.

“People  have been contacting my family and friends saying that Daisy has been found. Untrue. People are so cruel. please respect her memory.”

Daisy was a gift from ex-husband Nick Lachey. The dog was dragged from its back yard in Los Angeles  by a coyote in mid-September.

Simpson, who was recently in Morocco filming her VH1 reality show, The Price of Beauty, has more than 1.6 million followers on Twitter, where she regularly posts her doings, thoughts and epiphanies, including this recent dispatch:

“On my last day in Morocco i have finally learned it is spelled with 2 c’s and not and 2 r’s. i am a dweb!! i mean REALLY?!?!”

The Oregon man who used a hammer to try to euthanize his daughter’s dog, then buried it alive, has been sentenced to 120 days in jail for misdemeanor animal abuse.

Hyrum Long, 75, of Forest Grove, said Tuesday he was trying to euthanize the dog in October when he hit it on the head with a hammer and buried it up to its neck. The dog, named Molly, was rescued by police but later euthanized by a veterinarian because of injuries and apparent long-term neglect.

Judge Rick Knapp called the situation “appalling” and told Long what he had done was “monstrous and barbaric.” Long, according to the Associated Press, also was sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service.