ohmidog!

We’re not big on dogs being tethered to anything — posts, parking meters, even, except when necessary, humans.

And, entanglements sometimes being easy to get into and hard to get out of, it’s definitely not a good idea, generally speaking, to leash them to each other.

But this was brief, and supervised, and kinda cute.

Ace was recruited into babysitting duty over the weekend when, on the quatro de Mayo, we went to a Cinco de Mayo party at a former neighbor’s home.

Two other guests brought their little dogs. First came a pipsqueak of a pup named Penny who, after greeting everyone, still had lots of energy to spare. With a fairly busy road nearby, it was suggested Penny be tethered to a somewhat stationary object — namely Ace.

We’re not recommending you try this at home, but Ace is pretty mellow, gentle with the little ones and had met Penny before.

Plus, he was used to being latched to smaller dogs, having shepherded a dachshund friend several times without stepping on him.

Plus, he was so happy to return to his old neighborhood he wasn’t about to dart off, or even saunter off, dragging two little balls of fluff behind him.

Plus, I was watching over it all pretty closely.

Ace didn’t seem to mind the arrangement a bit, and Penny put up with it, sometimes walking along in stride with him. She figured out pretty quickly, when she did try to scoot of on her own, that it was hopeless.

After exploring together, Ace decided to lay down, and Penny settled nearby, finding a stick to chew on.

About then, Charlie arrived, another fluffy little dog — slightly larger than Penny. That led to an energy surge, at least among the smaller, younger dogs, so we decided to hook Charlie to Ace, too.

As Charlie and Penny frolicked, Ace monitored them for a while, then worked the crowd, begging for food and ignoring the occasional little tugs on his harness.

Eventually, Charlie and Penny were freed, and they were so into playing, they didn’t go anywhere, except in tiny circles around each other — ignoring their babysitter entirely.

I think Ace liked briefly having a mission.

Like all good things though, it came to an end.

Zeus, the Doberman pinscher shot Monday night by a trespasser, underwent an operation yesterday as more than enough donations poured in to pay for his surgery.

Zeus was shot in the face after being let out into his backyard in Metairie, Louisiana.

“It’s unbelievable. People have been way more then generous, way more than expected,” said Heather Hilton, client services managers for Southeast Veterinary Specialists.

The bullet shattered part of Zeus’ jaw and lodged in the dog’s shoulder.

Zeus’ owner, Henry McCaskill, was trying to come up with the $3,419 required to perform the surgery, but concerned citizens began calling up the animal hospital to make donations after the dog’s story was publicized, the Times-Picayune reported.

The animal hospital said once the amount was reached, it had stopped accepting donations, but said names and numbers were being taken in case additional procedures become necessary.

Name: Corny

Species: Grey squirrel

Encountered: My back yard in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Backstory: As we’ve mentioned, my new place is crawling with squirrels, but there’s one in particular that I’ve become close enough with to call my squirrel friend.

The other day, I found him on his favorite tree limb, just outside my kitchen window — one which he has either scratched or gnawed the bark off.

I don’t know why he did that, unless it was maybe to make for a smoother surface. He likes to stretch out on it like a hammock and take naps there.

This time though, he had brought lunch with him, a piece of corn on the cob he had scrounged somewhere. It wasn’t a full piece of corn on the cob, just half a cob, but he was sitting up, holding it just like we humans do, one hand on each end, and nibbling off what was left of any kernels.

I halfway expected him to knock on my door and ask for butter and salt.

Once he saw me, he adjusted it, deciding to make it a to go order. He chomped down on the end securely before heading down the limb and jumping on the side of a big oak tree and disappearing.

Long Island authorities are continuing their investigation of a woman in Selden whose back yard contained the buried remains of at least 20 dogs.

Sharon McDonough, 43, has been charged with animal cruelty, WCBS-TV reported.

“This is one of the worst cases of animal abuse I have seen in the last 25 years I have been doing this,” Chief Roy Gross, of the Suffolk County SPCA, said.

It all started Thursday, when a local rescue group contacted police about conditions at the house. When authorities arrived, they found five dogs crammed in small cages. By Saturday, police were digging up the backyard.

Investigators are looking into complaints about animals disappearing from the neighborhood, and allegations that McDonough tortured, killed, and buried them behind her house.

McDonough remained free Sunday night after pleading not guilty, but authorities say she could face more serious charges after investigators determine how the animals buried in the backyard died.

The live animals recovered from McDonough’s home, including several dogs and a cat, are doing fine. They are currently up for adoption at the Suffolk County SPCA.

When Lucky, the pet box turtle, lost his front legs to a raccoon, his owner had him equipped with furniture sliders that allow him to get around, almost as quickly as he used to.

Lucky and his mate, Lovey, lived in an open-topped pen with a pond in the yard of Sally Pyne, of Petaluma, Calif.

Pyne suspects a raccoon she’d spotted in the yard, eating some cat food she’d left for another pet, decided to have Lucky for lunch as well.

Pyne found Lucky injured July 31 (the raccoon spared Lovey) and took her to veterinary surgeon Robert Jereb. They think perhaps Lucky had a deformity that prevented him from pulling his front legs into his shell when the raccoon showed up.

Jereb performed surgery to remove what was left of the turtle’s legs, applied bandages and prescribed some medications to ease his pain. Pyne says she considered having the turtle euthanized. 

“I was ready to let little Lucky go home, but Lucky, he was not ready to give up,” she told Sonoma County’s Press-Democrat. “His eyes were open, and he was shoving himself around on his two back legs. He was not going to quit.” 

Jereb came up with the idea to use furniture casters, doubled up in order to match the length of his amputated legs and stuck to the bottom of his shell.  The solution seems to have worked, although the casters may need to be replaced periodically.

A Georgia prosecutor says he intends to aggressively prosecute a contractor who allegedly sprayed fluorescent orange paint on a barking black lab mix that was in a fenced backyard.

“To spray paint a dog in the eye makes no sense,” DeKalb County Solicitor Robert James told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday. “It was gratuitous. The animal was behind a fence. Its really something we take serious and were going to try to make this thing right. We’re going to take this very seriously.”

Dario Harris appeared in DeKalb County State Court Tuesday on two counts of animal cruelty, a charge that could mean as much as 12 months in jail.

Harris was dispatched in March to mark gas lines in preparation for scheduled digging along the residential street. A homeowner, Jeffrey Tompkins, heard his dog, Bear, barking and then saw a truck driving away. A few minutes later, he found his dog rubbing her eyes with her front paws.

Tompkins said there were “seven individual spray marks” low on the fence about the height of the dog’s eyes.

“It wasn’t like he just sprayed one time across [ the fence],” Tompkins said in an interview Wednesday. “He [Harris] went up to the fence. He had no reason to go in the backyard.”

Harris said he “reacted to the dog coming to the gate and scaring me. It wasn’t anything intentional. I wasn’t out to do any harm. I was just doing my job.”

A vet flushed Bear’s eyes and provided antibiotics, and Harris said he would repay Tompkins for those expenses.

“This is making me out to be a criminal,” Harris said. “I’m not.”

A mountain lion leapt a fence and entered a residential backyard in Oregon — only to be chased off by two tiny but tenacious dogs.

Together, Rosie, a border terrier, and Chiquita, a Chihuahua, persuaded the mountain lion to head back to the hills.

Their owner,  Loren Wingert, called her dogs  “invincible.”

“My dogs see something in the yard, they go after it,” she told the Corvallis Gazette Times.  “Actually, they were pretty lucky. One little bite there and they probably would have been seriously injured, but they didn’t have a scratch on them.”

At one point, the cougar pinned down Rosie, who squealed, but Chiquita  barked ferociously, persuading it to leave.

“I think we’re more traumatized than they are. They’re fine,” Wingert said.

The incident occurred on Memorial Day at Wingert’s home, which backs up to a wooded area with deer trails.

Philomath Police Chief Ken Elwer said cougar warnings had been issued in the Neabeack Hill area, where there have been around three sightings in the past year.