ohmidog!

It’s not everyday that a major metropolitan newspaper assigns one reporter to a dog-bites-dog story, much less three of them.

Not that we have any problem with that.

The New York Daily News reports that Manhattan publicist Melissa Kusick has sued the upstate “dog camp” where her mutt Matilda was mauled by other dogs while being boarded.

Given the three bylines, we assume that either this is a big story or that Kusick is pretty prominent, or at least a darned good publicist.

Kusick sent her dog to the Glencadia Dog Camp in February, and was at the Grammy Awards when she learned of Matilda’s injuries.

The attack left the dog’s face ”so swollen it was almost unrecognizable,” Kusick said in court papers.

The News revealed — and here’s what makes it a slightly bigger story — that at least two other dogs have been mauled at the dog camp in Columbia County, one of whom died.

Kate Dwyer, a Manhattan stylist, said her pit bull-vizsla mix was injured during a  two-week stay at Glencadia last July. Another customer, who asked to remain anonymous, said her dog died in 2011 after being attacked by four other dogs.

Glencadia Dog Camp owner Will Pflaum promised Kusick he’d pay Matilda’s medical bills, but reneged after Kusick described the incident on Yelp.com and reported the owner to the Better Business Bureau, the suit says.

Kusick is suing for the vet bills and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The dog camp owner told the newspaper that Matilda was attacked after she was left unsupervised in a pen with another dog.

“We’re very sorry about this,” he said. “We’re making changes so it doesn’t happen again.”

Of the more than 50 street dogs rounded up after five humans were found dead in a Mexico City park, almost half have had tests done on their stomach contents, and none have shown any evidence of having eaten human flesh.

Sources in Mexico City told the Associated Press that initial tests on 25 strays showed none had human remains in their stomachs. An unnamed employee of the city prosecutors’ office said officials were still awaiting results from tests on the dogs’ fur and paws to see if any human DNA was present.

Authorities in Mexico City have blamed five deaths on stray or wild dogs that roam Cerro de la Estrella park, where five mauled human bodies have been found in recent months.

Fifty-seven dogs, including the one pictured above, were swept up in and around the park, prompting protests from animal activists and others who believe authorities aren’t looking closely enough at the possibility that the bodies were killed by drug gangs and dumped there.

Dozens of protesters chanting “free the dogs, arrest the criminals!” and “the dogs aren’t criminals, the police are inept!” demonstrated outside Mexico City police headquarters Friday, demanding the release of the stray dogs.

Authorities say autopsies determined that three women, a teenage boy and a baby found in the park since mid-December died of loss of blood due to bites from multiple dogs.

The protesters, while acknowledging dogs might have fed on the victims after their deaths, say the dogs are being unfairly blamed, and many suspect the victims were killed by humans, then dumped in the park in hopes the stray dogs would destroy any evidence.

Jose Luis Carranza, of the Citizens Front for Animal Rights, was one of those critical of the round-up of strays:

“If the authorities really want to crack down on the overpopulation of dogs, then they should go after the clandestine puppy sellers,” he said. “Every day there are people selling dogs on the streets, and the police don’t do anything.”

The 57 dogs rounded up at the Cerro de la Estrella park, located in a poor Iztapalapa neighborhood, are mostly small to mid-size dogs, and include beagle and border-collie mixes. Twenty-three are puppies or very young dogs, according to the Associated Press report.

On Friday, authorities in Iztapalapa announced that the dogs taken into custody would, once tests are completed, be put up for adoption. They had earlier promised animal rights groups that the dogs would not be killed.

The dogs will get shots, baths and medical treatment before being given away, they said.

(Photo: Dario Lopez-Mills / AP)

Street dogs are being blamed for the deaths of four people in a park on the outskirts of Mexico City.

“Experts have established that due to the gravity of the wounds, at least 10 dogs were involved in each attack,” Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement.

Authorities have begun rounding up dogs living in the park to conduct tests aimed at determining if they were involved in the attacks.

In one case, the Associated Press reports, a teenage girl called her sister with her cellphone to plead for help as the attack took place.

“Several dogs are attacking us, help me!” the girl screamed before the call was disconnected.

Despite that, some animal activists are questioning whether the deaths should all be blamed solely on wild dogs,  and Diana Ruiz, who received the phone call, still doesn’t believe dogs were responsible for her sister’s death.

“What kind of dog can tear the skin from your whole arm and leave just bone and if it was an attack dog why didn’t it attack her neck?” Ruiz told Milenio Television. “What’s most shocking is that one of her breasts was mutilated.”

She said she later visited the place of the attack and saw no pools of blood.

“There needs to be a thorough investigation,” she added.

The attacks occured in the Cerro de la Estrella, a hilltop park surrounded by the city’s Iztapalapa district.

The first two bodies — a  26-year-old woman and a 1-year-old child — were found there Dec. 29, authorities in Mexico’s capital said.

The woman, Shunashi Mendoza, was missing her left arm, and prosecutors said that both she and the boy had bled to death and been partially eaten.

On Friday, visitors to the park found the bodies of  Alejandra Ruiz, 15, and her boyfriend Samuel Martinez, 16. Both had bled to death.

Antemio Maya, president of the Street Dog Protection Association in Mexico City, said he doubts dogs could have killed the people found in the park.

“It’s not the behavior of street dogs to kill humans,” said Maya, adding that blaming street dogs for the deaths could make life difficult for the thousands of homeless dogs in the city.

“A lot of people get tired of their dogs and they simply throw them on the streets,” he said. “This is going to create a terrible hate for street dogs and that’s going to lead to even more abuse.”

It’s estimated that, in the city of 9 million people, the number of dogs range from 1.2 million to 3 million.

Mexico City Public Safety Secretary Jesus Rodriguez told Milenio Television that the four victims were not dumped in the area as some had suggested. He said all the bodies had bite wounds, and that the bites were inflicted both while they were alive and after they had died. He warned against visiting the park.

At least 100 police officers had trapped 25 dogs in the park by Monday night. (The photos in this post are of four of them.)

According to Maya, the trapped dogs included beagles, Maltese and poodles and most were probably abandoned pets or their offspring.

Experts will test the dogs’ hair for traces of human blood and also test their stomach contents. Authorities haven’t said what they plan to do with the dogs.

Previous attacks by feral dogs have occured in Mexico City’s famed Chapultepec Park, but none fatal. After one attack there, authorities rounded up dogs, spayed and neutered them, and then either returned them to the park or found them homes.

Rebecca Carey had been finding homes for animals in need, volunteering at animal shelters and taking in rescues from the time she was a young teen, and all the way up to the weekend before last.

That’s when one or more of the five dogs in her care attacked and killed the 23-year-old woman at her home in Decatur, police say.

Despite that, and the euthanization of all the dogs, her family has set up a fund in her name to support rescue efforts at Loving Hands Animal Hospital, where Carey worked.

“Since the second grade when she read the book ‘Throw Away Pets,’ she vowed to be a voice for all animals,” her parents, Greg and Ellen Carey, said in a statement. “Upon placing her first abandoned animal in a permanent loving home in 2003, she volunteered countless hours with rescue networks and animal shelters. There she did what she loved the most: rescuing animals from untenable situations to find them safe, loving homes.”

LuAnn Farrell, the co-founder of the non-profit Angels Among Us Pet Rescue,” said Carey was known for taking in hard to place animals.

“She was one of the good ones because she did take in the ones nobody else would help,” Farrell told 11 Alive in Atlanta.

Farrell said the young woman’s death “kind of makes us all slip back just a little bit and say this is something that can actually happen,” but that she hopes it doesn’t dissuade people from helping animals in need.

“You know that’s the one thing she wouldn’t want people to do, shy away from rescue. It’s already hard enough. We’re already having thousands of them being put to sleep every day. There’s only so many of us that can do it,” said Farrell.

Carey had one of the rescue organization’s animals, a boxer mix, living with her at the time of her death, as well as two Presa Canarios and two pit bulls, one of which, Napolean, she had adopted six years ago when he was eight weeks old.

She was dogsitting one of Presa Canarios, and it was that dog’s owner, Jackie Cira, who discovered Rebecca’s body after she failed to show up for work at Alpharetta’s Loving Hands Animal Clinic.

Police originally investigated her death as a homicide, but last Thursday they announced she was killed by multiple dog bites.

The dogs were all euthanized Wednesday, with the consent of Carey’s parents, a police spokesperson said.

Cira, in remarks to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, questioned whether it was necessary to put all the dogs down, and why animal control officials made no apparent effort to determine which dog or dogs inflicted the bites leading to Carey’s death. Cira’s dog, Danai, was also euthanized.

Tim Medlin, interim director of DeKalb Animal Control, said public safety was the priority: “I won’t put another person at risk,” he said.

Donations in Carey’s name can be made to www.angelsrescue.org, by putting Carey’s name in the remarks section. They can also be mailed to Loving Hands Animal Hospital, 13374 Hwy 9, Alpharetta, GA, 30004.

A drunk driving arrest turned nasty in Mason, Michigan, when officers used pepper spray and Tasers to subdue a suspect, whose dog joined the skirmish and bit one of the officers on the leg.

Joel Vandouser, 43, was charged with operating while intoxicated,endangering a minor and resisting and obstructing police.

Mason Police Chief John Stressman said officers had spotted the suspect driving, apparently under the influence, with an 8-year-old child in the car. They followed him to his home, according to the Lansing State Journal, where the tussle took place.

Vandouser was taken to a local hospital afterwards. The bitten officers was also treated. News reports don’t indicate whether the dog was taken into custody, but the police chief noted that a pair of police uniform pants were ruined during the incident.

A woman whose pit bull died after it was stunned with a Taser by a  police officer in Roselle said it wasn’t necessary to use that much force on the animal.

“I want the officer to know that what he did was wrong,” Haley Pekala, 20, told the Chicago Tribune  Tuesday. “There was no need to taser the dog.”

Pekala’s 50-pound dog, named Chooch, died May 8 . Police said officers responding to a report of a dog bite were forced to use a Taser on the animal to subdue it.

Chooch had bitten a relative of her boyfriend at his family home in Roselle.

Roselle police said that after helping the woman to an ambulance, they found  Chooch in the kitchen. Unable to slip a noose around Chooch, they used a Taser on the 2-year-old dog.

After that, officers transported the  dog to a Schaumburg animal hospital, where he died.

“The incident is under investigation,” said Detective Sgt. John Lawson. “The officer has not been disciplined, but any time we use a Taser — whether on human or animal — we conduct an investigation.

“We don’t know for sure why the dog died,” said Lawson. “Part of our training is to learn how to properly use a Taser on an animal.”

Pekala and her boyfriend weren’t home when the bite occured.

She said Chooch and a dog belonging to her boyfriend’s family became agitated when a delivery person rang the doorbell. That might have agitated the two dogs, she said.

“It was a dog dominance thing,” said Pekala, a college student who plans on becoming a veterinarian.

Pekala drove the dog to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to have a necropsy performed. She is awaiting results of that examination before having Chooch cremated.

“My dog, he’s still not resting in peace,” she said.

D.C. animal control officers are seeking the two dogs captured on this surveillance video, chasing a group of youngsters to the top of a car and, later, biting a man who came to their aide.

The incident took place Friday on the 1200 block of Queen Street in Northeast D.C.

“It was scary and amazing,” one of the youths told Fox News.

Andre Hawthorne, a 54-year-old usher at Nationals Park, suffered bites when he used a pocket knife to try and keep the dogs away from the youths.

“When one of the dogs came, I let him have my left arm,” Hawthorne explained. “… And while I stuck him with the knife, then the second dog comes.”

Hawthorne’s stepson came to help him, swinging a baseball bat at the dogs.

“If it wasn’t for him, I might be worse then I am today,” Hawthorne said.

“I’m just glad to be alive,” he added. “But I’m sad that the owner allowed this to happen.”

The dogs and their owner were not home when a D.C. animal control officer visited Monday evening.

The D.C. Department of Health says it has ordered the dogs be impounded and will have animal control officers patrolling the neighborhood until the dogs are taken off the street.

Inundated with angry calls and emails, the Austin police department has reassigned the officer involved in the fatal shooting of a dog Saturday.

In addition to taking a closer look at the incident, in which a blue heeler named Cisco was shot by an officer who had responded to wrong address,  the department says it is re-examining its policies.

“This incident has drawn a lot of attention,” Assistant Police Chief David Carter told the Austin American-Statesman.

“We’ve received a lot of calls, a lot of emails from people who are very concerned. And we are, too,” he said.

Cisco, owned by Michael Paxton, was shot  by officer Thomas Griffin, who was responding to a call about a domestic disturbance. Griffin arrived at the wrong address by mistake and said he shot the dog after it charged him.

Paxton denies that Cisco behaved aggressively, but reports indicate that at least two complaints had previously been filed with animal control about the dog — one by a woman who claimed she’d been bitten when she tried to pet him in a parking lot.

While originally discounting Paxton’s version of events and saying the officer acted properly, police officials showed a more conciliatory tone Wednesday.

“The bottom line is, we have a citizen who was going about his business, who was not involved in criminal or suspicious activity,” Carter said. “And he loses his dog. … That’s a big deal, and we recognize that.”

Carter said the official review includes the 911 call and how dispatchers responded to it, the officer’s tactics and what happened afterward. Carter said the department is also examining its policies and training for animal encounters.

The review will also look at whether the recent shooting death of an Austin officer might have resulted in “hypervigilance” on Griffin’s part when he encountered the dog, Police Chief Art Acevedo said.

The shooting garnered national attention. A Facebook page called “Justice for Cisco” has more than 71,000 supporters that have left messages of support and, often, outrage.

Acevedo offered condolences to Cisco’s owner during an interview on the “Dudley and Bob Morning Show” on KLBJ FM Radio.

“My heart goes out to him. I think if you ask everybody in the department, believe it or not, we’re animal lovers, just like everybody else,” Acevedo said

For the second time in just over a month, Anne Arundel County officials are trying to track down owners of a pit bull found severely injured and abandoned.

A resident brought an injured female pit bull to animal control headquarters last week after she was found on Ritchie Highway near 11th Avenue — less than five miles from where a male pit bull, also injured, was discovered early last month.

Police suspect both were used by dogfighters as as bait dogs.

The female had deep scars and had sustained numerous bites, including a large open wound under her front arm, according to the Baltimore Sun.

She’s being called Princess at Waugh Chapel Animal Hospital, which is treating both her and Rocky Road, the pit bull found injured last month.

Both animals are expected to survive, officers said.

Princess will stay at the animal hospital for treatment and then be released to the SPCA of Anne Arundel County, WUSA reported. Rocky Road is expected to be released to Tara’s House rescue soon, say police.

Police are investigating both cases, and have asked the public to report any suspicious activity, such as “high numbers of dogs, particularly dominant breed dogs, being kept in one location, a high volume of people coming and going from a particular area and injured dogs, who appear to have been involved in a fight.”

The Humane Society of the United States is offering a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for abandoning the Rocky Road and Princess.

Kyle Dyer, the Denver anchorwoman bitten on the air, said she probably did stick her face too close to the 85-pound Argentine mastiff, and that’s she glad he’s back home with his family.

Dyer, of KUSA-TV, was bitten on the mouth earlier this month while doing a segment with the dog’s owner and a firefighter who had rescued the pet from an icy pond.

“Everyone says ‘you were too close to the dog.’ I guess I was because this happened. I guess we’ve all learned a lot in the past two weeks,” she said in an interview with the Denver Post

“For me it has been in its odd way a positive experience. In this business, yes, what you look like is a lot. What this whole experience has taught me is it’s more than that. It may seem like a superficial busines, but the people out there in Colorado are not superficial, the way they’ve reached out to me, and letting me know ‘you’re beautiful inside and out’ and all that.”

“I just keep reading those letters and know that I’m healing. I don’t know how quickly, but I will.”

The station said Dyer had a second surgery on Monday. She was given 20 new stitches and had the 70 stitches that were initially put in on Feb. 8 removed.

As for Max, the dog that bit her, Dyer said, “I’m glad the dog’s back home with his family. I never wanted anything but.”