ohmidog!

Grey, creaky and 18 – pretty darned old for a black Lab mix of his size — Bear Dog is hanging around a little longer.

But then he’s always been a persistent sort.

Bear Dog is pretty well known around Castle Rock, Washington, at the western base of Mount St. Helens. For almost two decades, he has hung out at the town’s riverfront, the ball park — just about anywhere his owner, Don Caulfield, went, and a few places he didn’t.

At the North County Recreation Sports Complex, near Caulfield’s mobile home, there are signs, posted by the city, that read, ”No pets allowed inside baseball complex or on soccer fields, except Bear Dog.”

Since 1996, the highly social dog has been befriending workers — including those who built the sports complex — as well as tourists, hikers, students and fishermen.

Whenever anyone walked by Caulfield’s mobile home with a fishing pole,  Bear Dog wanted to join them.  He’d also swim out to fishing boats, leading anglers to drop what they were doing, haul him aboard and bring him ashore.

At the ball fields, Bear Dog would meet Janice Vinton, the concession stand manager, in the parking lot, walk her to the concession stand and then sit and wait for a hot dog. He’d always get one, at least until he had a heart attack and Vinton decided he should avoid them. When Vinton would close the concession stand at night, Bear would wait for her and walk her to her car.

At Caulfield’s home, visitors would frequently drop by to take Bear Dog for a hike on the trails, or drop off treats and presents. A Seattle man brought short ribs to him every weekend.

“How he got so popular, I don’t know,” Caulfield, a 62-year-old retired trucker, told the Daily News in Washington. “He done that himself.”

About two months ago, though, sightings of Bear Dog became more rare. His back legs had stopped working, and the only way he could walk was by Caulfield using a towel as a sling to lug him in and out of the house. Even as an invalid, Bear Dog still wanted to go out and meet any visitors that stopped by.

Given the dog’s age and condition, Caulfield’s veterinarian advised him it was time to put Bear down, but Caulfield didn’t have enough money to cover the $150 euthanization fee.

He went home and cried, and then he started digging a hole in the yard.

“I knew what had to be done,” he told the  the Daily News, which published an article Sunday about Bear Dog.

But Caulfield couldn’t bring himself to shoot Bear, and when he called friends to ask they do the deed for him, they all declined.

Bear Dog was living out what appeared to be his final days until one day he dragged himself outside and promptly fell down the porch steps. Caulfield heard a pop and feared his dog had broken his back. Instead, Bear Dog got up, walked, and even tried to chase a rabbit.

“Every time I think it’s time, he bounces back somehow,” said Caulfield. “I don’t know how he does it.”

We have a theory: Maybe it’s because so many people are pulling for him — and even more since the newspaper story.

Since the article on Bear Dog appeared, he has received a slew of visitors, gifts and phone calls, the Daily News reported in a follow-up article. 

Caulfield returned from church Sunday to find people parked in front of his trailer. One offered a new fishing pole. Another man brought over a top sirloin steak, a roast and a tub of dog bones for Bear. And one woman promised to pay for any medical treatment Bear needs, as well as – if and when it becomes necessary — the cost of putting him down.

“He’s quite the legend out there,” Castle Rock Mayor Paul Helenberg said last week of Bear Dog, who became the sports complex’s unofficial mascot by virtue of hanging ot there so much when it was being built.

Some dog-owning residents don’t understand why Bear Dog gets special privileges at the complex, and their dogs don’t, but Helenberg said Bear Dog is something of an institution. He even spoke of building a monument to the dog once he passes away.

“It’s going to be real sad,” the mayor said. “We’ll do something special.”

From the looks of things, Castle Rock, and the friends of Bear Dog, already have.

If you’re going to honor a dog, that’s really the best time to do it, before he’s a memory – not by building a sculpture when he’s dead and gone, but by pitching in and helping out and making him happy while he’s still alive.

Which is not to say a statue of Bear Dog isn’t appropriate — only that one honoring the friends of Bear Dog might be, too.

(Photo: Bill Wagner / The Daily News)

Regina Ebey’s dog, Sloopy, a Jack Russell and black lab mix, was more than a pet. Twice, she says, he saved her life — waking her up when, due to a medical condition, she stopped breathing in her sleep.

Last weekend, a neighbor shot and killed him.

The neighbor was arrested by police in Jacksonville, Fla., and charged with cruelty to animals and discharging a firearm.

News 4 in Jacksonville,  which  featured Sloopy in a February 2011 report, said the Ebeys had just moved into a new home in Jacksonville the night before.

On Saturday night Regina’s husband, Ross, went outside to smoke, taking Sloopy with him. The dog was sniffing around the driveway when neighbor Kenneth Martin opened his front door and shot him.

When officers arrived, Martin told them, “I have made the biggest mistake of my life. I have no reason for what I have done.”

Martin was booked into the Duval County jail.

Alex Ebey said her mother-in-law moved into the neighborhood to be closer to her family because of her poor health.

“She was trying to make it easier on her heart, and now she’s lived here eight hours and has a broken heart,” he said.

We’re not sure what effect revelations that a political candidate was once cruel to animals has on his campaign for office, but Roger Webb, a Republican running for the Montana Senate, may find out.

Webb shot and killed his neighbor’s black Labrador with a .357 magnum pistol in 1998, entered an Alford plea to charges of cruelty to animals and disorderly conduct and received two three-month sentences, both of which were deferred and later dismissed.

While the court case was sealed, it somehow became unsealed, got circulated on the Internet and was anonymously mailed earlier this week to The Billings Gazette.

“Fifteen years ago, I was attacked by a dog in my own front yard and I defended myself,” Webb, of Billings Heights, said Monday. “I have documentation, because I hired a private investigator at the time, that the dog had attacked a FedEx driver and UPS and the owner’s neighbor.”

Webb said he didn’t know who leaked the sealed documents. They initially appeared Sunday on a liberal political blog and on Twitter.

“I have no idea who is doing that. I have no idea,” said his opponent, Democrat Wanda Grinde.

According to The Billings Gazette, the documents state that Webb struck a neighbor’s black Lab with his pistol and then shot the the dog as it ran away. The bullet killed the dog and ricocheted into a second black Labrador.

Webb told the court that on the night of the incident, the two dogs charged down a hill toward him. He said he jumped in the bed of his pick-up truck until the dogs left. Then, he said, he went inside his house, got his pistol and headed up the hill to talk to their owner. He didn’t see the owner, though, and said the dogs confronted him again on his way home. He struck one of the dogs as it lunged at him and fired his gun.

The owner of the dogs, Lyla Mercer, said she heard the shot while she standing by their kennels, from which they had escaped.

Katie, the black Lab adopted Saturday by journalist Cokie Roberts, was found dead today near a Bethesda middle school, apparently having been struck by a car.

Stephen Push, of Labrador Retriever Club of the Potomac’s, said Katie had been hit near Thomas W. Pyle Middle School. Her body was found about 9 a.m.

Roberts, a correspondent for National Public Radio, adopted the dog from the club’s rescue operation. She went missing the same day.

“We are so terribly sad about the news,” Roberts said in a press release.

Push said Katie, about five years old, was identified and pronounced dead at a veterinary clinic.

During the search for Katie, rescuers found another lost dog, which the club has taken in, the Washington Post reports. If  no one claims the dog, Push said, the rescue group will place it in a new home.

The search for Katie, a black Lab that went missing the same day Emmy Award-winning journalist Cokie Roberts adopted her, has entered its fifth day, with new sightings being reported almost daily.

Katie is described as a five-year-old, friendly but shy Lab, solid black except for some gray fur around her muzzle.

She is wearing a collar with a Lab Rescue tag attached.

Roberts lost the dog  in Bethesda on Saturday.

There have been several reported sightings since then, the latest of which was yesterday on Thoreau Road in Bethesda, Md., according to the Washington Post.

According to Patch.com, Katie, once a stray, had been living with a foster mother in Reston for several months before she was adopted by Roberts.

“This is a dog that was a stray, and she’s very timid, so her foster mother was working with her for about three months to build up her confidence,” said Stephen Push, a spokesman for the Labrador Retriever Club of the Potomac. “She must have been frightened because she was all of a sudden in a new environment. That’s probably why she bolted.”

Roberts has posted fliers around her neighborhood and Lab Rescue , in addition to using tracking dogs to find Katie, is offering a reward and reaching out to the media.

Anyone with information about Katie’s whereabouts can call Lab Rescue at 703-589-5034.

(An update to this story can be found here.)

(Photo of Katie by Carina Thornton / Fuzzypants Pets Photography)

A warrant has been issued for a man who placed needles in hot dogs and left them in his yard, leading to the death of a neighbor’s dog.

Jinx, a black Lab, was euthanized after surgery showed needles — more than 20 of which she had vomited up — had perforated her stomach.

“I miss her the most when I drop food on the floor and look down and realize she isn’t there to clean up after me,” 16-year-old Ryleigh Wann, of Monroe, Michigan, said of her dog.

Ryleigh’s father, Andy Wann of Monroe, went to police after a veterinarian, finding more than 20 needles still in the dog’s stomach and intestines, euthanized Jinx.

Accused in the 8-year-old dog’s death is 64-year-old Gary Pinchoff, who lives two doors down from Wann. Pinchoff told the Toledo Blade Tuesday that he put the needles inside pieces of hot dog to chase away wildlife that had been destroying his garden, and he never intended to harm anyone’s pet.

The Monroe News reported that a warrant was issued for Pinchoff’s arrest yesterday.

Hawkeye, the dog photographed lying next to the casket of his master, a slain Navy SEAL, may be taking part in a tribute to his owner at a University of Iowa football game this fall.

Iowa’s athletics department announced Tuesday that it will honor Jon Tumilson at a Hawkeye home game in November as part of a commemoration of Veteran’s Day.

The department said it will work with Tumilson’s family to determine what role his dog, Hawkeye, might play in the memorial.

Tumilson, from Rockford, Iowa, was one of 30 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan on Aug. 6 when their helicopter was shot down.

Tumilson’s Labrador retriever laid by his casket for much of the Aug. 19 funeral ceremony, after which photos of his loyal display went viral.

Tumilson, who joined the Navy after graduating high school in 1995, was a big Hawkeye football and wrestling fan, according to the Washington Post.

A former Iowa player suggested the dog lead the team on the field.

Tumilson’s mother, Kathleen, said her son made it clear he wanted Hawkeye at his funeral. “He didn’t have family; that was his son,” she said.

When Hawkeye went to their home after the funeral, she said, he went directly to her son’s room.

Hawkeye is now staying with her son’s friends in Texas.

A U.S. District Court jury in Chicago has awarded $330,000 to a family whose black Labrador, named Lady, was shot and killed during a 2009 police search of their home.

“That was my best friend,” the Chicago Sun-Times quoted Thomas Russell III as saying. “We did everything together.”

The Russell family sued the city of Chicago in January 2010, accusing police of excessive force, false arrest and inflicting intentional emotional harm. Police were searching for drugs, but found none.

During the 2009 search of the family’s apartment, Russell and his younger brother, Darren, were handcuffed and both had shotguns placed against their heads, their attorneys said.

At some point, Lady appeared and an officer shot her, the family’s lawyers said.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Thomas Russell asked police if he could  lock up Lady, who was 9 years old, but the request was denied.

When Lady came around the corner with her tail wagging, Officer Richard Antonsen shot the dog, according to the suit.

The jury awarded Thomas Russell $175,000, Darren Russell $85,000 and their parents $35,000 each. The jury also awarded the family $2,000 in punitive damages, levied against Antonsen for shooting the dog, and $1,000, against the police supervisor who made the decision to arrest Thomas Russell.

Jenny Hoyle, a city Law Department spokesperson, said, “The officers involved in this case were executing a valid search warrant when this incident occurred and were simply protecting themselves.”

“We are extremely disappointed and reviewing all of our options, Hoyle added. “In particular, we think the damages awarded to the plaintiffs were excessive.”

In that case, I’d suggest, think again.

A California man was treated and released after being shot in the back by his dog.

The unidentified 53-year-old man was hunting in Merced County when he set the safety on his loaded shotgun and put it on the ground while he grabbed his decoy ducks, according to the Fresno Bee.

Merced County sheriff’s officials say the hunter’s black Lab stepped on the loaded shotgun, causing the safety to release and the gun to fire.

It’s not an unheard of kind of mistake, especially with black Labs, who sometimes look so similar even their owners can’t tell them apart.

It was Christmas Day when the Peterson family of Maple Valley realized the black Lab returned to them after a stay in a Seattle pet hotel two weeks earlier wasn’t their dog, Bella. Instead, they were hosting LaiLa, another black Lab who had been boarding at the same kennel.

As it turned out, Bella (left), who belongs to Stacey and Rob Peterson, ended up spending a few weeks in Issaquah with Anne Galasso, the owner of LaiLa (right). Galasso’s dog, LaiLa, spent time in Canada near Stacey Peterson’s parents, and then in Maple Valley when the Petersons returned from a vacation in Europe, according to the Seattle Times.

PetSmart PetsHotel of Issaquah, where both dogs were boarded, is planning on refunding both families’ boarding fees.

Both families suspected something was amiss, the Times reports.

The Petersons had noted the dog they thought was Bella looked skinnier when they got home, barked a lot more and didn’t respond to her name the same way. They figured maybe she was just upset by their absence.

Galasso noted the dog she thought was LaiLa licked a lot more than normal, but she attributed it to a recent move, and her dog having lost her former playmates.

Eventually, the Petersons took a look inside the mouth of the dog they thought was Bella, and saw that her missing teeth were no longer missing.

“Clearly this dog had all her teeth,” Peterson said. “And that’s when things started to make sense.”

Peterson called PetSmart, and took her dog to a nearby veterinary hospital that scanned her microchip, where she found out the dog she was in possesion of was really LaiLa.

The hospital called Galasso and notified her she actually had Bella. Galasso noted Bella had been sleeping at the foot of her bed with her cats, just like LaiLa does.

The two dogs were reunited with their real owners the day after Christmas.