ohmidog!

When a missing West Highland terrier in Florida returned home after three hours, her owner could tell right away something was wrong.

“She wobbled back into our yard about 10 p.m. I could tell she had been kicked because she screamed when I picked her up,” said Shawne Boardman, 49.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

“Bailey’s jaws were glued shut,” Boardman told the News-Press. “She was having trouble breathing.”

The North Fort Myers woman said she and her boyfriend pried open the 13-year-old dog’s jaws and fed it water with a turkey baster. She says she didn’t take Bailey to a veterinarian because they were able to open the dog’s mouth. But on Saturday, Bailey took a turn for the worse.

“She died in Dan’s lap,” Boardman says. “She was a great dog. Bailey was like our baby.”

Boardman says she buried Bailey next to a gardenia bush in her yard.

Glenn Johnson, operations manager for Lee County Animal Services, says whoever glued the dog’s jaws shut faces a third-degree felony. The maximum penalty is a fine of $5,000 and a sentence of five years in prison.

The incident is similar to one last month in Sanford, N.C., where a Chihuahua mix with its mouth glued shut was abandoned at a local shelter, according to pet-abuse.com

“The dog was unable to open its mouth,” said Abbey Lindauer, adoption coordinator for Sanford’s Carolina Animal Rescue & Adoption (CARA). CARA workers spotted the dog’s suspected owner driving away in a red truck.

Lindauer said the dog died later that night after it was transported to the Lee County Animal Shelter.

Police say an investigation into a Connecticut woman’s suspicion that her ex-boyfriend stabbed her dog has led to animal cruelty charges against the woman.

Michelle Masella had told police her boxer returned home from a neighhboring park with a knife — her boyfriend’s knife — sticking out of her chest.

But East Haven police say all evidence pointed not at the boyfriend, but Masella.

Masella, 42, denied hurting her dog, and maintains the incident is just the latest harassment from her ex-boyfriend.

Bailey, her 68-pound boxer, was treated for a small superficial wound to her right shoulder, and another wound to her chest. She’s recovering, but remains in the care of the local animal control department.

According to police, officers found blood on Masella’s front porch, on the stairs leading to her second floor apartment and on the kitchen and living room floor. No blood was found at the park, or the sidewalk leading to Masella’s house.

Masella was arrested yesterday on a warrant charging her with cruelty to animals, filing a false report, interfering with a police officer and failure to vaccinate her dog for rabies.

She was released on $5,000 bond with a court date in New Haven on Oct. 12.

Masella, police said, has also been charged with forging her ex-boyfriend’s signature on one of his unemployment check and cashing it.

Name: Bailey

Age: 2 1/2 years

Breed: Corgi-Chow mix

Encountered: At Washington Park, in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Backstory: Ace and I were visiting Winston-Salem’s dog park when Bailey came trotting in — a demure little thing with a pretty close to ground level view of the world.

Built like a fire hydrant with short stocky legs and a neck as big as her head, she was adopted by her owner from the Forsyth County Humane Society a couple of years ago.

Despite being short of stature, she had no trouble leaping a foot-high barrier, and, with two more leaps, jumping up on a picnic table, at which point she towered over Ace and all the other dogs, who she seemed content to lay there and watch.

Roadside Encounters is a regular feature of Travels With Ace. To see them all, click here.

Little did Today Show producers know when they came up with the idea of having members of the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. bobsled team usher some adoptable dogs on stage that a love connection would result.

As part of its weekly “From Bow to Wow” segment, the Today Show asked Steve Holcomb and his bobsled team — who won the USA’s first gold in the event since 1948 — to walk four adoptable dogs onto the set.

Apparently Holcomb and one of the dogs, a 2-year-old, female golden retriever named Bailey, bonded during their short time together.

“I may take her home myself,” Holcomb said after ushering Bailey onto the set during the segment — jokingly, it seemed, at the time.

This week, the Today Show announced the Holcomb has adopted the dog, who had been at Animal Care and Control of NYC for about a month. The Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals flew Bailey to Denver.

Here’s the Today Show update, and the happy reunion:

With our first decent snow of the season, it’s time to break out my favorite dog-in-the-snow video.

It was shot in Ward, Colorado during a blizzard in the late 1990′s — one that brought more than 50 inches of snow over two days.

Bailey, the dog featured in the video, died in a house fire on December 26, 1998.

“So this is all I have left,” her owner writes of the video, which has drawn more than 3 million views on Youtube.