ohmidog!

Our original plan was to simply post this song and dedicate it to Marylanders who have pit bull type dogs as companions — they being stressed out now over the state’s highest court badmouthing their loved ones, and the implications that might carry.

But then, as sometimes happens, we got fascinated with its backstory, and attempted to pin down the song’s history, which is difficult to do nowadays with all the bogus flotsam — like pit bull myths — that bobs to the surface on the Internet.

We think we got to the root of it, though, and we still dedicate it to Maryland pit bull owners, whose dogs aren’t nearly as “inherently dangerous” as sweeping, ill-informed court rulings.

To them we dedicate all three versions of the song we’re showing you here, even the Yugoslavian one.

We began, above, with one by Lulu Belle and Scotty, a husband and wife, both now deceased, from the mountains of North Carolina. It was recorded during a radio performance, which Lulu Belle only slightly flubbed.

Next we offer you this rendition — combining a 1926 recording by Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers with some Walt Disney animation, circa 1924, in which a dog catcher gets his due. Don’t try this at home, for it would make you a terrorist, and, in the U.S., only courts and governments are allowed to instill terror.

It cuts the song short, leaving out a last verse, so here are the full lyrics:

Me and old Lem Briggs and old Bill Brown
Took a load of corn to town
Old Jim dog, the on’ery pup
He just naturally followed us up

Chorus:
Every time I come to town
The boys go to kicking my dog around
Makes no difference if he’s a hound
Ya gotta quit kicking my dog around

As we driv’ past the country store
A passel of yaps came out the door
Jim he scooted behind a box
Showered him with sticks and rocks

They tied a tin can to his tail
And run him past the county jail
That just naturally makes me sore
Bill he cussed and Lem he swore

Me and Lem Briggs and old Bill Brown
Lost no time a-getting down
We whupped them fellers to the ground
For kickin’ my old dog, Jim, around

Jim seed his duty there and then
He sure let into those gentlemen
He sure messed up that townhouse square
With rags and meat and hide and hair

While Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers are credited with first recording the song, it was written 14 years earlier and copyrighted in 1912 by Webb M. Oungst and Cy Perkins, a pseudonym for Mrs. William Stark, wife of a famous publisher of ragtime music.

Mrs. Stark used the pseudonym, it is said, because she was afraid the song would be rejected if it was known that a woman had written it.

The same year, Champ Clark, a Missouri Democrat adopted it as his  theme song in his campaign for the presidential nomination. He lost. Woodrow Wilson won.

Given the exposure, though, the song became briefly popular, and Witmark & Sons purchased the copyright for $10,000. Some accounts say the payments weren’t met, which led to a lawsuit.

The Second Missouri Infantry chose it as their marching song, and there are those who have pushed over the years for it to become the state song, which given the state’s not yet totally forgotten and overcome reputation for puppy mills probably would be a mistake.

I think it makes a better theme song for pit bulls, for no breed or type of dog gets more kicked around than them.

Here’s the original sheet music

And here’s the version recorded by Yugoslavian — back when it was still Yugoslavia — pop singer Diego Varagic, “Krcma Na Putu Za Tenesi.”

For the past four years, B-More Dog members and friends have come together to hold “Pit Bulls on Parade” events at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

On Sunday May 20th, they’re planning their biggest yet.

Up to 100 participants are expected to showcase their  dogs in the wake of the Maryland Court of Appeals Court ruling which labeled all pit bull and pit bull mix dogs to be “inherently dangerous.”

“B-More Dog’s goal for Pit Bulls on Parade is now — and has always been — to introduce people to real pet pit bulls and their people, thereby reducing the stereotype and myths that surround these dogs,” the organization said.

The parade will start at 11 a.m. at Rash Field and continue around the promenade to the Coast Guard Cutter Taney and back.

Participants in the walk will include family pets as well as pit bulls available for adoption at Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter, Inc. (BARCS). Local rescue groups such as Jasmine’s House, Adopt a Homeless Animal and FurEver Love often participate in the walk as well.

“B-More Dog was extremely disappointed to learn of the new ‘pit bull’  law in Maryland as a result of the Solesky v. Tracey case. B-More Dog has been working around the clock with regional and national experts to determine the best course of action to have this law changed,” said Pauline Houliaras, President of B-More Dog.

B-More Dog provides humane education in Baltimore city by taking trained and well-mannered pit bulls to community centers, after school programs, schools and churches.

For more information about Pit Bulls on Parade or any of the programs offered by B-More Dog, contact Pauline Houliaras at 410-292-3869 or b_moredog@yahoo.com.

For almost two years now, a big blue tarp has covered the backside of Kim Houghton’s dog grooming shop, Wag More Dogs in Arlington, Va., as courts try to figure out if what’s beneath it is art or advertising.

Since Wag More Dogs’ backside faces Shirlington Dog Park, Houghton thought it would be a good idea to turn the boring cinderblock wall into a mural. She spent $4,000 to commission a painting of cartoon dogs, bones and paw prints. It was intended as gesture of goodwill, she says, and a gift to the community.

The Arlington County Zoning Board saw it differently.

In the fall of 2010, the board informed her that it considered the mural a sign for her business, and that it violated the neighborhood size limit of 60 square feet — even though the mural itself doesn’t mention her business. Houghton said she was told to cover the mural at her own expense, face fines or closure, or make the mural a government sign by adding “Welcome to Shirlington Park’s Community Canine Area” in four-foot-high letters.

Houghton put up the tarp, but she didn’t throw in the towel.

In December, 2010, she filed a lawsuit, saying the county was violating her right to free speech. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema disagreed and dismissed her lawsuit in February of 2011.

The following June, Houghton field an appeal, with the backing of the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit, Arlington-based libertarian law firm.

It’s scheduled to be heard this week by a federal Court of Appeals in Richmond, WTOP reports.

Her attorney says he will argue that Arlington’s sign code “unconstitutionally gives government bureaucrats the power to play art critic.”

A couple agrees to care for a friend’s Chihuahua for the weekend.

The dog’s owner doesn’t pick her up when the weekend’s over; in fact, she doesn’t try to reclaim the Chihuahua, named Lola,  for 10 months.

What’s the couple who cared for the dog owed?

According to the Nebraska Court of Appeals — the third court to hear the case — absolutely nothing.

The saga of Lola, a four-pound, black-and-tan Chihuahua, began Aug. 22, 2007, when Heather Linville of Lincoln asked her friends Travis Derr and Natasha Combs to care for her dog for the weekend, according to the Omaha World-Herald. Linville’s new apartment complex didn’t allow dogs, and she explained she needed time to make arrangements for her pet.

When, 10 months later, Linville asked to get Lola back, Derr and Combs said they wanted to keep the dog.

Linville summoned police, and the dog was returned to her, but Derr and Combs filed a small-claims court case, asking to be paid $2,700 for boarding the animal for 320 days.

A Lancaster County judge ruled in favor of Derr and Combs, a decision later upheld by a district judge. But the appeals court overturned the $2,700 judgment in a 3-0 ruling — proving, in my view, three heads aren’t better than one. What Lola’s owner did sounds to me like abandonment, pure and simple.

The court said Derr and Combs did not ask for compensation when they agreed to keep the dog for the weekend. They should have notified Linville if they were no longer willing to keep Lola for free, the panel said. The court said the couple was entitled only to reimbursement for a $152.98 veterinarian’s bill.

Should it be a crime to sell, own or distribute videos portraying dog fighting or other acts of animal cruelty?

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up that question, the Baltimore Sun reports.

While all 50 states have laws against animal cruelty — and while Congress 10 years ago made it illegal to sell or possess photos or videos of animals being maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded or killed — the question has arisen again because of an appeals court ruling last year.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia declared then that the rarely used law was unconstitutional on the grounds it violated free speech. The judges said the First Amendment protects depictions of illegal activity with only few exceptions, child pornography being one.

The ruling overturned the conviction of Robert J. Stevens, a Virginia man who was serving three years in prison for selling videos of pit bulls fighting and viciously attacking other animals. Stevens advertised the videos in Sporting Dog Journal,  an underground journal that reports on illegal dog fights.

Stevens sold the videos to federal agents in Pittsburgh in 2003, and his prosecution was the first under the federal law that made it a crime to sell such videos.

Government lawyers appealed, urging the Supreme Court  to revive the law. “Graphic depictions of torture and maiming of animals … have little or no expressive content or redeeming societal value, and Congress has compelling reasons for prohibiting them,” they said in their appeal. Animal cruelty has “no place in a civilized society,” and the law should punish those who profit from it, they said.