ohmidog!

A pit bull mix who was kicked and slapped by her owner on an apartment house elevator — that’s the surveillance video above — has been adopted by a young New York couple.

Richard Palacios, a 33-year-old SoHo waiter, and his fiance, Natalya Prokenpenko, 24, adopted the dog Friday, according to the New York Post.

“We didn’t know her story … When we saw the video, my fiancée started crying,” Prokopenko said.

The dog, who appears pretty happy with the new developments, is now known as Hazel.

Prokenpenko said as soon as they entered their Queens home with Hazel she “started kissing me, kissing my fiancé.”

Hazel’s beating on the elevator at East Harlem’s Wagner Houses, was recorded by police department surveillance cameras last August, and led to the arrest of  Brian Freeman, 28. Hazel was taken from him and placed in a shelter then.

She had a cracked rib and bruises, but vets said she didn’t seem to have been subjected to prior abuse.

Freeman, who worked in a security job at a homeless shelter and was in college, entered a guilty plea last week to a reduced charge of misdemeanor trespassing. A  judge indicated he would sentence Freeman to term of 25 days community service at his sentencing on Feb. 5.

 (Photo: Brigitte Stelzer / New York Post)

A British talk show host – while he was quite genteel about it, at least from an American perspective — threw some hard questions at Cesar Millan last week.

Alan Titchmarsh, a UK afternoon talk show host, politely accused Millan of using old-fashioned and inhumane techniques that include punching, kicking and using shock collars on dogs.

The “Dog Whisperer” — appearing just slightly uncomfortable at some points — responded calmly, asserting that he never punches dogs, but only touches them to redirect negative behavior.

Millan, while some in America are critical of his methods, is even more controversial in the UK, where many, including the RSPCA, view his techniques as unacceptable.

“Adverse training techniques which have been seen to be used by Cesar Millan can cause pain and fear for dogs and may worsen their behavioral problems,” the RSPCA said in a statement read on the air. “The RSPCA believes that using such techniques is unacceptable, nor are they necessary to change dog behavior for the better when other dog trainers use reward-based methods to train dogs very effectively.”

“We’ve never had so many complaints about a guest,” Titchmarsh told Millan.

Elevator surveillance cameras have once again caught an apparent dog abuser in the act.

Brian Freeman, 28, who police say is the man seen repeatedly kicking a pit bull mix in this Aug. 26 video, was arrested on charges of torturing and injuring an animal.

The New York Daily News reports charges were filed against Freeman Monday when he appeared in court on a marijuana possession charge.

The video was taken by a surveillance camera in an elevator at the Wagner Houses on E. 120th Street in Harlem.

Freeman was not the first to be charged with cruelty to animals after being identified on an elevator surveillance video.

Two years ago, Chris Grant was arrested and charged with animal cruelty after being recorded kicking a pomeranian-Chihuahua mix on an elevator at the Grant Houses.

Later the same month Tiara Davis, another resident of the Grant Houses was captured on video abusing her Pomeranian.

And last year, New York City police released a video of Irving Sanchez abusing his pit bull mix dog in an elevator at the Wagner Houses. Sanchez was charged with aggravated animal cruelty.

The city and PETA had offered a combined $7,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the latest incident.

Freeman, according to the Daily News, was recognized by detectives and identified. His arrest record includes charges for assault, robbery and marijuana possession.

Police said they don’t know the whereabouts of the victimized dog or Freeman’s relationship to it.

An Illinois man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for beating his Lhasa Apso.

James Robert Wesolaski, 51, of Des Plaines, entered a guilty plea on torture and cruelty charges for pinning his small dog to the ground in front of his home in early June and punching him four or five times.

He was also ordered not to own a pet or live in a residence with any animal for 20 years, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Police, called to the home by witnesses, found the dog, named Teddy, with swollen, bleeding eyes and broken capillaries, indicating he had been choked.

Wesolaski told police that he was having a bad day and beat the dog because it got outside.

Police took the dog, along with two others inside the home, to Northwest Animal Hospital in Des Plaines, where they were treated. Teddy has made a full recovery and been adopted by a new family, as have Wesolaski’s other two dogs.

Authorities also said Wesolaski’s June arrest violated his probation from an incident earlier this year in which he admitted to trying to take a Taser away from a police officer.

Judge Lauren Edidin also advised Wesolaski to get anger-management counseling and treatment for alcohol abuse.

An Atlanta area man is facing upgraded charges in connection with a fight he had with his wife two months ago in which he beat her with her dog, then killed the Pomeranian by snapping its neck, police said.

Emmanuel Alfredo Tadeo, 27, of Sandy Springs, was in the Fulton County jail Wednesday facing felony animal cruelty and other charges, Channel 2 Action News reported.

Police said the charges stemmed from a May 19 disturbance at the home of Tadeo and his wife,  Andrea Jill Armintrout, in their condominium on Roswell Road.

“The argument started over him blaming his wife for his misfortunes in life,” said Capt. Steve Rose, spokesman for the Sandy Springs Police Department. The man had been drinking heavily, he said.

“It is probably one of the worst cases of animal cruelty that we’ve ever seen,” Rose added.

Rose said the man had kicked and stomped on the dog and at one point he swung the animal at his wife, striking her.

Tadeo initially was charged with battery and misdemeanor cruelty to animals, according to Fulton County jail records. He was released June 14 after posting $5,000 bond.

This week, prosecutors upgraded the charges to aggravated assault, aggravated battery, battery and two counts of cruelty to animals.

Armintrout was also arrested Friday and charged with one count of  obstruction, a misdemeanor. She was being held on $500 bond Wednesday.

A Chicago woman who said she “no longer wanted” her dog was charged with animal abuse over the weekend after her bleeding dog led police to her doorstep.

Police said they responded to an animal abuse call of children beating a dog with broomsticks and baseball bats.

The children fled when police arrived, and the dog, a terrier mix, walked back to the home it had been put out of, in East Garfield Park, and scratched on the door, according to Chicago Tribune.

Officers said the dog’s owner, Lashon Parks, 42, hadn’t been giving the animal water or food and had left it outside in temperatures below 25-degrees for an unidentified amount of time.

Parks told officers that she owned the dog for ten years but no longer wanted it.

She was charged with failure to comply with an animal owner’s duties and cruelty to animals, both misdemeanors.

The dog was in stable condition, according to an Animal Care & Control official.

Human DNA found underneath a dogs claw helped build the animal abuse case against a San Diego man accused of beating his girlfriend’s three dogs to death.

Patrick Caleb Land, 25, was sentenced Friday to five years and four months in state prison.

“These crimes were committed with callous violence and a serious punishment is warranted,” Judge Charles Rogers said.

The maximum possible sentence was eight years, but the judge took into account Land’s guilty plea, that Land was born to a drug-using mother and that he was beaten in his youth by an adoptive mother, according to 10 News in San Diego.

According to prosecutors, Land called his girlfriend Natasha Strain last year and told her that he had come home to find Josh, her 8-year-old Golden Retriever mix, dead.

Three weeks later, he called her again to tell her that he had found her other two dogs, Jackie, a 9-year-old white shepherd mix, and Pikanik, a 50-pound mixed breed, dead in a bedroom.

No necropsy was performed in the first case, but a veterinarian determined the second two animals were beaten to death.

Prosecutors said there was evidence of attempts to suffocate the animals, and that the defendant’s DNA was found under one of the dogs’ nails.

At a preliminary hearing, a roommate of the couple testified that Land sometimes complained that Strain spent more time with her dogs than she did with him.

Hours after video was posted on Facebook of  a British man lashing out at his dog, an angry mob gathered outside the dog owner’s house and police arrived to arrest him.

The video, shot from a neighboring window, shows a man apparently kicking, punching and using a pole to beat a cowering white dog.

Police were called to the address in Lincolnshire, and onlookers watched as a man, believed to be the dog’s owner, was arrested, according to the Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail said it was unable to confirm reports that citizens had punched the man and broken windows at his house.

The dog was removed from the home and taken to Grimsby Blue Cross Animal Hospital. The RSPCA is  investigating the incident.

“‘We did have a lot of calls from members of the public about it who were obviously concerned and it’s been passed on to our inspectors who will be looking into it today,” a spokesman said.

Andrew David Thompson, the Michigan State University student accused of slaying 13 Italian greyhounds, told investigators he killed them “out of anger,” according to court transcripts obtained by the Lansing State Journal.

The 24-year-old osteopathic medicine student, since suspended by the university, said he killed the dogs by throwing them to the ground or against a wall and by grabbing them by the neck and beating them.

“He (said) that he has killed every single one of these dogs except for two,” Ingham County Animal Control Deputy Jodi LeBombard testified at a June 24 hearing in 55th District Court that led to charges.

Thompson is charged with killing 13 dogs since September 2010.

Typically, he’d put a deceased dog in a garbage bag, along with its clothes, collars and other items, LeBombard testified. “He would cry all the way to the Dumpster, and throw it in the Dumpster,” she said.

Thompson faces 10 felony counts of animal killing in 55th District Court in Mason and three additional counts of animal killing in East Lansing’s 54B District Court. The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison.

He is being held at the Ingham County Jail on a $500,000 bond in the East Lansing case and a $100,000 bond in the Mason case.

Thompson faces an additional count of animal neglect because at least one of the dogs survived.

Officials didn’t say where Thompson bought the Italian greyhounds, a small and delicate breed that typically weighs 7 to 14 pounds.

According to the transcripts, Thompson was seeing a psychiatrist, who expressed concern that Thompson might be a suicide risk.

On his Facebook page, Thompson, who has 790 “friends,” says he attended Phoenix Christian High School in Arizona, then the University of Southern California, where his major was biochemistry. He lists his favorite book as The Bible and his interests as snowboarding and reading The Economist.

The investigation began on June 14, when animal control officials received an anonymous complaint that Thompson had been seen with numerous dogs that kept disappearing.

Several days later, investigators searched Thompson’s Okemos apartment and found a severely injured puppy in the closet.

Authorities also found evidence Thompson bought the dogs from outside Michigan and had them transported via airplane in carriers. Thompson previously lived in Goodyear, Ariz.

In a June 22 interview, Thompson told LeBombard he killed the dogs out of frustration or anger, often sparked when they defecated on his floor, urinated in his bed or wouldn’t come to him when he called them.

“And he got frustrated they didn’t want to stay with him,” LeBombard said, according to transcripts. “And that made him upset.”

These are becoming — sadly — almost a video staple.

New York City police have released another surveillance video of a dog being abused in a public housing elevator.

This time, it’s a 46-year-old man who swinging a pit bull puppy against an elevator wall, then kicking the animal and slapping him in the face with his leash.

The man was identified as Irving Sanchez, and he was charged with aggravated animal cruelty on Monday, police said.

The incident took place at the Wagner public-housing complex in East Harlem on Sunday night.

The dog, named Max, was not seriously injured, police said, and is now in the custody of the ASPCA.

The charge against Sanchez carries a penalty of up to two years in prison.

Last year, at least three other cases of dogs being abused on elevators were captured on video in the Grant Houses in Harlem.