ohmidog!

Caught raiding a chicken coop in rural Wyoming, a blue heeler named Bo was shot twice, tossed in a barrel, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

According to the Washakie County Sheriff’s Office, an 18-year-old neighbor shot the dog — after returning home and finding it was going after the family chickens.

Then, thinking Bo was dead, he asked his father what to do with the dog’s body.

“I said, ‘Burn it,’” the father, Mike Gerber, told the Casper Star-Tribune. ” …We have had other predators come around — and even our chickens that the dog had killed — how we got rid of them was we just burned them.”

His son, Wesley Gerber, dragged the dog to a burn barrel in the front yard, doused the dog with gasoline, and threw in a match.

“The next thing you know, the dog comes popping up out of there in flames,”  Mike Gerber told the newspaper. Bo ran around in a circle, and then home.

Ben and Abby Redland, Bo’s owners, said when Bo ran into the house “there was this terrible smell … His hair was melted and fallling out. He was still smoldering.” 

Bo was rushed to a vet. Bullets had grazed his cheek and back, and he had third-degree burns over most of his body. “Bo was in such shock, the vet didn’t think he’d make it,” Abby Redland told the Los Angeles Times.

Since the incident — back in December, in rural Worland, Wyoming, 150 miles north of Casper — three-year-old Bo has fully recovered, though he has a few scars.

The Redlands have taken out a restraining order on the Gerbers. And they’re pushing to change Wyoming law and introduce measures that require those who shoot pets to at least contact the animal’s owners.

“I wish it never happened,” Mike Gerber said. “The decisions being made were made fast. Maybe if they would’ve been thought through more clearly, we would’ve done things differently.”

(Photo: By Abby Redland, via Los Angeles Times)

Lilica lives in a junkyard in São Carlos, Brazil, along with another dog, a cat, some chickens, a mule, and a human caretaker named Neile Vania Antonio, who found her abandoned as a pup and took her in.

Every night, Lilica walks two miles to the home of  Professor Lucia Helena de Souza, who takes care of 13 stray dogs and 30 cats.

Lucia prepares a large meal, and Lilica eats some of it. Then she carries the rest two miles back home to share with her fellow junkyard dwellers.

It’s a routine that has been going on every day for three years, according to this report.

When she first started feeding Lilica, Lucia said, ”I realized that she ate and then stared at what was in the bag.” When a neighbor suggested that Lilica might want to take the rest home, Lucia tied up the bag and Lilica carried it home.

“From that day on we do it,” said Lucia.

Lucia meets Lilica every night at 9:30 pm. Lilica eats some of the meal and then carries the rest back down the highway and delivers it to her family.

Lilica’s caretaker, Neile, said the dog’s spirit of sharing is more than she sees in some people.

“People don’t do that. Some people hide and do not want to share what they have with others. She did not. Lilica is an exceptional animal.”

Technically, maybe it’s correct to say no animals were harmed during the filming of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”

But away from the set, when the cameras weren’t rolling, 27 animals signed up to take part in the production died, and more were injured – mostly at a New Zealand farm where they were being kept.

Animal wranglers involved in the making of “The Hobbit” movie trilogy say the production company is responsible for the deaths because it kept the animals at a farm filled with bluffs, sinkholes and other “death traps,” according to an Associated Press report.

Despite that, the movie’s credits do carry the American Humane Association’s “No animals were harmed” stamp of approval — the exact wording of which is “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.”

The AHA says its monitoring of animals is limited to the actual filming of a movie or television show, and that it lacks the manpower, funding and authority to police animals when they are away from the set.

But others, PETA included, think that’s splitting hairs.

“How can something like this happen when the unit production manager was warned and the production was monitored by the AHA,” asks PETA, which has been critical of AHA in the past, and which was involved in breaking the story.

PETA also wonders why — given the state of the art of computer graphics — live animals had to be used at all:

“This movie was directed by Peter Jackson, a master at computer-generated imagery (CGI). In a movie that features CGI dragons, ogres, and hobbits, CGI animals would have fit in perfectly. Jackson could have made The Hobbit without using a single animal—and he should have.”

AHA called the deaths “needless and unacceptable,” and said they show that there are shortcomings in the oversight system, which monitors film sets but not the facilities where the animals are housed and trained. Read more »

Giants and Patriots aside, it’s time for the big event — the Puppy Bowl – two hours worth of puppies playing on a miniature football field, and more.

Unlike the well-paid athletes who will be battling it out in Indianapolis, all the pups in this bowl game are currently without permanent homes; all are adoptable; and all can be found listed at Petfinder.com.

In its eighth year on Animal Planet, this year’s Puppy Bowl will also feature kittens, pigs, chickens and Meep the Bird, who will be Tweeting the action from inside the stadium.

Five pigs will replace last year’s chicken cheerleaders.

Puppy Bowl referee Dan Schachner sat down with the Wall Street Journal’s Kelsey Hubbard before the event to talk about the big game, which starts today at 3 p.m. on Animal Planet.

You can learn all you need to know about the broadcast here.

Luna, the Siberian husky who has spent more than a month in solitary confinement and faced the death penalty for attacking two chickens at a neighbor’s property in Connecticut, has won a reprieve with help from a lawyer.

Luna on Thursday was signed over to New York lawyer Richard Rosenthal, co-founder of the animal defense group The Lexus Project, who became involved in her case after learning about it on Facebook.

According to the Hartford Courant, Luna was to have a court hearing Thursday, but the town of Tolland and Rosenthal came to an agreement prior to the hearing.

The town withdrew the “disposal order” issued by Tolland animal control officer Tina Binheimer in June, and the judge approved the agreement.

Rosenthal said he will in turn give the dog to Ruth Hanley of Double Dog Rescue in Massachusetts, who will care for and rehabilitate Luna until the organization can find her a new home.

According to the settlement, Luna can return to Connecticut — but not to Tolland.

“Luna’s now spent over a month in solitary confinement and it does take a toll, they are very social animals,” said Rosenthal. “I’m told by people that visited last week she’s starting to show some apprehension, a little bit of fear of people. So she just needs to quietly be reintroduced to being around people and see that it’s OK.”

Luna has been in the Tolland animal pound since June 20, after she escaped from owner Paul Doyle’s property and twice killed chickens belonging to a neighbor.

After the first incident Doyle was ordered by a judge to build an enclosure, but he never did and Luna escaped a second time, killing a second chicken. After the second attack, animal control officials issued an order of disposal for the dog, which stipulated that Luna had to be put down by June 21.

A Facebook page in support of Luna attracted the attention of Rosenthal and his group. Rosenthal filed a civil lawsuit and received a temporary restraining order against Binheimer and Tolland Animal Control. On Thursday he planned to challenge the legality of the order issued by Binheimer before coming to an agreement with Tolland’s town attorney Richard Conti.

As part of the settlement The Lexus Project, which worked for free, agreed to pay the town $660 to cover fees for Luna’s stay in the dog pound.

(Photo: From the “Save Luna from Tolland” Facebook page)

SPCA investigators in Philadelphia found the remains of dozens of animals when they responded to a report of a dogs living inside a house in unsanitary conditions.

The animals, found inside a house on North Front Street, had apparently been sacrificed in religious rituals.

“The whole house was covered in feathers from chickens that had been sacrificed,” said George Bengal, director of law enforcement of the Pennsyvlania SPCA. There were also skeletons of what were possibly other farm animals, and what appeared to be skeletons of dogs, cats and possibly primates, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

Bengal said a blood-spattered altar had been set up in the house. Candles were burning and music was playing when investigators arrived. Two dogs were found alive, according to Bengal.

On Sunday, Pennsylvania SPCA officers used a warrant to search the property after receiving a tip that two emaciated dogs were being kept at the house.

They found, and removed, the dogs, but only after confronting an elaborate altar and the bones of possibly several hundred animals that had been killed, apparently as part of Santeria – a combination of African religions and Catholicism that originated among slaves in the Caribbean, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported today.

The officers also found what appeared to be the remains of small monkeys.

Bengal said the man who lived at the house and is suspected of performing many of the killings is believed to be in Mexico. His wife , who may still be in the city, is being sought for questioning.

New Zealand professors Brenda and Robert Vale say the title of their book was partly tongue-in-cheek, partly shock tactic.

“Time to Eat the Dog?: A Real Guide to Sustainable Living” — and we’re thankful they at least used a question mark — doesn’t actually propose pet owners eat their dogs and cats, but it does suggest switching to pets like chickens and rabbits, which then can be eaten.

Of course, if their fate is to be eaten, they wouldn’t be pets. They’d be livestock. But the Vales, both New Zealand professors of architecture and non-dogs owners (as maybe you’d guess), don’t seem to see the distinction.

By eating our pets, the Vales say, we’d reduce their carbon footprint.

And dogs and cats, granted, make some pretty big ones — according to the Vales, the amount of land and energy it takes to make one dog’s food for a year makes for twice the carbon footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,213 miles a year.

A cat’s carbon footprint, meanwhile, is  “slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf.

New Scientist magazine, in an editorial, stopped short of backing the authors’ suggestion – that we should recycle our pets by eating them or turning them into pet food at the end of their lives – but it did call for reducing the impact of pets on the environment, and for the pet food industry to be more environmentally responsible.

“In a world of scarce resources, can we justify keeping pets that consume more than some people?” the editorial asks. “… Giving up our pets in the name of sustainability may seem like a sacrifice too far, but if we are going to continue to keep animals purely for our enjoyment then we have to face uncomfortable choices.

“At the moment, pet-food manufacturers thrive by selling us the idea that only the best will do for our beloved animals, but once owners become more aware, what they demand from the industry is likely to change,” the editorial notes. “The first manufacturer to offer a green, eco-friendly pet food could be onto a winner. Sustainable lifestyles require sacrifices, and even cats and dogs can be made to do their bit.”

Responding to a complaint about animals in need of medical care, Houston SPCA investigators were shocked to discover more than 1,000 animals at a home in the city — mostly crammed in cages.

SPCA officials say the seizure of animals from the home in northwest Houston was one of the largest in U.S. history.

“They were in deplorable conditions throughout the entire property,” said Charles Jantzen, chief investigator for the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “Very few of the animals had the basic staples of life — food, water and shelter.”

The majority of animals confiscated were birds, including a score of chickens, roosters, ducks and parrots. SPCA workers also seized gerbils, snakes, iguanas, a malnourished goat, and a pair of small dogs, also in cages.

The animal cages were scattered throughout the property, which is located on an isolated stretch of road in a mainly light-industrial area, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Authorities said the homeowners, who were cooperative during the investigation, told them they sell the animals at flea markets throughout the area.

“They (the animals) were not hidden — they were not secretive,” Jantzen said.

The animals were taken to the SPCA’s Houston headquarters for a medical examination.