ohmidog!

An 81-year-old man is crediting his Lhasa Apso with saving his life after he fell from a ridge into a deep pool of mud and clung to a bridge rail to keep from sinking as his dog ran for help.

Derek Ramsden was on vacation in Wales and taking his dogs for a walk when he fell.

He says his 18-year-old terrier mix took no action, but his seven-year-old Lhasa Apso, Toby, ran for a quarter of a mile and, just like Lassie, barked at park officials until they followed him back to the scene.

“I managed to get hold of a railing on the bridge. It was frightening. I could not get out and you can’t hold your grip for long at my age,” he told The Telegraph. “I was scared that I was going to tumble down the bank. I don’t like to think what would have happened if not for Toby. He definitely saved my life.”

“Toby is dedicated to both of us and I think he is a hero,” said Ramsden, from Halifax, West Yorks. “He’s my very own Lassie. He saved my life and I’m very grateful.”

Ramsden’s wife, Ada, who had not gone along for the walk at Bryowen Holiday Park, said she went searching for him after an hour and found him as he was being pulled to safety by park staff.

“He was covered in mud from head to foot. If he had let go he could have slipped down further. Toby saved him,” she said.

“The dog knew what it was doing. It ran past apartments through bushes and alerted security,” said park maintenance manager Ben Thompson. “The dog was leading the way and without the dog we would not have known he was there. That dog certainly has something about it.”

(Photo: Ross Parry / The Telegraph)

A Texas man who claimed to be high on the drug K-2 attacked a dog, strangling it and then starting to eat it, police said.

Michael Terron Daniel, 22, of Waco, was taken into custody Monday and charged with cruelty to a non-livestock animal, a felony.

The dog didn’t survive.

KHOU reported that Waco police responded to a call on June 14, reporting a man was “going crazy.”

Daniel had allegedly assaulted several housemates, then chased a neighbor on his hands and knees while barking and growling like a dog, police said.

Daniel then took a medium-sized black dog onto the front porch of the home, where he beat and strangled the animal and then “began to bite into the dog, ripping pieces of flesh away,” Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said.

Officers found Daniel sitting on the porch with blood on his hands, clothing and face, Swanton said.

Daniel told police officers he was on a bad trip from ingesting K-2, and at one point asked that they shoot him with a stun gun “to help him get off his bad trip,” Swanton said.

His housemates declined to press assault charges against him, police said.

He is being held at the McLennan County Jail on $5,000 bond.

K-2, referred to as a form of synthetic marijuana, is a mixture of herbs and spices that is usually sprayed with a compound similar to THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana, according to the DEA. Studies suggest it can cause extreme paranoia, hallucinations and violent behavior.

(Behave! is a monthly column on dog training and behavior, written for ohmidog! by Lauren Bond and Carolyn Stromer of B-More Charming School for Dogs. To see all of the columns, click on the Behave! tab on the rightside rail.)

While dogs bring lots of wonderful things to our lives, they can also bring muddy paws, dog breath and, sometimes, enough noise to drive you ,or worse yet your neighbors, crazy.

Incessantly barking dogs can, and have, led to full-fledged war between neighbors. But as with much bad behavior — not just canine — the key to stopping it is understanding why it’s taking place.

First, let’s debunk some myths: Barking is not the dog version of conversation. Dogs don’t communicate that way, they use body language for most of their “discussion” with us, and with other animals. Dogs don’t have a barked vocabulary. Nor do dogs speak English, so you can’t reason with your dog to be quiet.

Read more »