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 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)

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)

Bethany was found on the streets — homeless, suffering from mange, and with paws so infected she could hardly stand.

With help from a cheeseburger, she was rescued and the transformation documented in this video began.

Joining in the rescue were Eldad Hagar, co-founder of Hope For Paws, and Annie Hart, of the Bill Foundation.

“Everyday, Bethany made remarkable progress,” Hagar said. “Watching her transformation has been an awe inspiring journey. Special thanks to Annie Hart for joining me on this rescue … and for finding Bethany an amazing foster home.”

You can learn more about Hope For Paws, and see other rescue stories at its website.

A Virginia woman has been charged with  animal cruelty after two dogs were found locked in her car Saturday — one of them dead.

Sharon Mulcahy, 62, of Richmond, told  police she’d arrived at a motel in Baltimore the night  before with her “bowels overflowing,” and left the dogs in her car while she checked into a room, according to the Baltimore Sun.

“Ms. Mulcahy stated that she was going to go back downstairs to care for the  dogs, but instead decided to go to sleep, leaving the two dogs inside the vehicle for approximately 19 hours,” the police report said.

Temperatures in Baltimore reached the mid-90s on Saturday. Police said one window of the car was cracked open about two inches, but that the dogs — both poodles — had no food or water.

Inside the car, they found a six-year-old brown poodle named Missy dead, laying across the center console. A second poodle, Bear on the floor of the drivers seat. Bear survived.

Police found Mulcahy in the laundry room of the hotel. She was charged with six counts of animal cruelty and two counts of restraining a dog without shelter or food and water.

As many as 200,000 dogs a year are smuggled out of Thailand, across the Mekong River and into Vietnam. The cruel journeys — in which the dogs are crammed in cages — last for days. The destination is even, by Western standards, meaner yet.

While smuggling the dogs is illegal, killing, cooking and eating them is not, and remains a tradition among some  in China, Vietnam and South Korea.

This CNN report, based on a new documentary, The Shadow Trade, looks at both the supply and the demand — and the cruel road between the two.

Dogs commonly become dehydrated, stressed, and die during the trips, in which they are packed 20 or more to a cage, and 1,000 or more to a truck.

“Obviously when you’ve got dogs stacked on top of each other they start biting each other because they are so uncomfortable, any kind of movement then the dog next to the one that’s being crushed is going to bite back,” said Tuan Bendixsen, director of Animals Asia Foundation Vietnam, a Hanoi-based animal welfare group.

When they arrive in Vietnam, the dogs are bludgeoned to death and have their throats slit before they are butchered for their meat.

Some animal rights activisists say the stress all that inflicts, even before death, is intentional — that some believe the stress and fear release hormones that improves the taste of the meat.

While some of the dogs rounded up in Thailand are strays — known as soi dogs — John Dalley of the Phuket-based Soi Dog Foundation estimates 98% of them are domesticated and says some are wearing collars and have been trained and respond to commands.

“You can see all types of pedigree animals in these captured Thai shipments — golden retrievers, long-haired terriers, you name it,” says Dalley. “Some are bought. Others are snatched from streets, temples, and even people’s gardens.”

A dog in Thailand can sell for $10, according to animal rights activists, but they’re worth $60 once they are served up in restaurants in Vietnam, where they estimate a million dogs a year are eaten.

The trade is illegal in Thailand, but, with no animal cruelty laws, traders are commonly charged with illegally transporting animals.  The smugglers usually receive sentences of just a few months in jail. And the dogs taken from them often wind up being captured again by traders, and shipped again to Vietnam to become meat.