ohmidog!

I’m a proponent of spending more time with your dog, and less with your computer, but here’s an interesting, and interactive,  presentation from WNYC in New York, which has mapped out not just what breeds dominate the city’s neighborhoods, but what names as well.

Citywide, the top three female names for dogs are Bella, Princess and Lola; the top male names are Max, Rocky and Lucky and the top breeds are Yorkie, Shih Tzu and Maltese.

(Actually the most popular dog in New York is the mutt, and WYNC does report that elsewhere. Somehow they didn’t rate getting on the map, though.)

What’s the most fun though is scrolling through the boroughs to see where Lola tops Lucy, where Buddy beats Buster as the name of choice, and what breeds are, from neighborhood to neighborhood, most predominant. While Yorkies dominate most areas, there are enclaves where Labs and Chihuahuas and pit bulls are owned in the highest numbers. There’s a major English bulldog contingent in lower Manhattan, and pit bulls are the highest in number in Bed Stuy.

The list is based on information WNYC obtained from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which runs the city’s dog licensing program.

The feature has some other bells and whistles, too, including opportunities to play games and make a t-shirt.

Just after WNYC came out with its map, Gothamist put together an interactive map of its own – this back in January — claiming to show not where the dogs are, but where their poop is, or at least where it’s most complained about. The map shows what neighborhoods have the most barking dog complaints, too.

One wonders what would happen if those two interactive maps were to interact. Would that reveal large dogs named Brutus leave bigger droppings than Chihuahuas named Princess? That Sparky barks more than Snoozy?

Somewhere we have to draw line on all this interactivity with our computers — especially that share of it that’s presenting information that’s just everyday knowledge or common sense or entirely bogus.

In those cases, your time would be better spend interacting with the dog.

Next we bring you this smooth little customer, a Chihuahua who, in addition to being one highly suave canine, seems to be a master of salsa dancing.

Actually, he was with his owner in a restaurant, and showed his moves every time the waiter came by with food.

We’re pretty sure the music was added later, but we’re still impressed — and we hope he got something to eat.

A Chihuahua mix born with deformed front legs — causing her to scoot across the floor like a baby kangaroo — is about to get a leg up, thanks to the Dearborn Animal Shelter and lots of kindly donors.

Found slip-sliding her way around the streets of the Michigan city a few weeks ago, she was named Victory.

“We thought that she needed some name that really described how she looked at life and the fact that she survived when many animals with deformities don’t,” Elaine Greene, executive director of Friends for the Dearborn Animal Shelter, told Today.com.

When no one came forward to claim the one-year-old dog at the shelter, staff began to consider equipping her with an orthopedic device that would help her get around — all of which cost $2,000 or more.

When the shelter mentioned Victory in its newsletter, the Detroit Free Press picked up on the story.

Within a week, $7,000 in donations had come in.

The money will be used to purchase a protective vest for Victory, a sled like device allowing her to move around on carpet, and a set of wheels.

While she’s out of the shelter — Greene took her home to stay temporarily — she’s still up for adoption.

“We’re all very attached to her, and she to us, so we’re looking for a very special situation,” she said.

“I would really like her to get a job working with people with disabilities,” she said. “If I could find a way to add that into her new life, that would be great.”

(Photo: Friends for the Dearborn Animal Shelter)

Deputies say a 20-year-old Oregon man was preparing to heat his enchilada lunch, but when his grandmother’s dog nipped him, he put the nine-pound Chihuhua mix in the oven instead.

Kevin Dean Parrish of Lyons, southeast of Salem, was arraigned Tuesday on a  charge of first-degree aggravated animal abuse, the Associated Press reported.

Marion County sheriff’s  spokesman Don Thomson said the six-year-old Chihuahua-miniature pinscher mix, named Kudo, sustained cuts, bruises, singed fur and burns on three of his legs.

Parrish had been caring for the dog while his grandmother was out of town. He told deputies he had reached into Kudo’s kennel and was bitten.

Deputies say he punched the dog, tried to strangle him, then put him in the oven, set at 350-degrees.

When he heard his brother coming into the house, he took the dog out, officers said. Parrish’s brother and father took the animal to a veterinarian.

Parrish’s next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 30.

The vet who treated Kudo said he expects him to make a full recovery.

(Photo: Marion County Sheriff)

A volunteer on her way to work at a Riverside, Calif., animal shelter noticed a dog sniffing a burlap bag on the side of the road and stopped to investigate.

As she approached, the bag — tied at the top — began moving.

And when she opened it she found a cream and white- colored Chihuahua mix inside, dirty but alive.

According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the dog has been named Angel and is being cared for at the Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center, formerly the Riverside Humane Society.

The volunteer, Debra Jordan, was on her way to work at the center when she spotted the sack, about 9 a.m. Monday, according to center spokeswoman Carrie Ridgeway.

Ridgeway said the dog is believed to be about three years old. Her ears were caked with mud and there were insect bites on her body.

“Who knows how long she’d been out there,” Ridgeway said.

After a bath and a meal, the dog seemed to be fine, she added.

Adoption Center officials reported the incident to the Riverside County Department of Animal Services.

“It’s not only heartbreaking, it’s also a crime,” Denise Perry, executive director of the adoption center said. “Pets aren’t disposable. They are living, breathing beings.”

We’re not sure how big a role her dog Jack plays in helping Tisha out, or, for that matter — given her determination and what she has accomplished – if she even needs any.

But he shows up a lot — on her Facebook page, in recent news coverage about her, and in the collection of videos she has posted on YouTube about living life without arms.

On her YouTube channel, “Tisha Unarmed,” the irrepressible 25-year-old demonstrates how she texts, showers, ties her shoes, drives, gets dressed and more — even how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches — all without arms.

In some of them, like this compilation, Jack, her black Chihuahua, can be seen standing by — at least until she turns on the vacuum cleaner:

Tisha — born without arms, and with one of her legs eight inches longer than the other — lives alone with Jack, and we don’t know if he inspires her, or she inspires him, or if perhaps a little of both goes on.

She was born in St. Louis, the oldest of five children, and grew up all over. Her father’s family is from Jordan, and she spent a few years in the Middle East before moving back to the United States by herself when she was a teenager, according to a story about her on Yahoo! Shine.

Last year, she graduated from St. Louis Community College with an associates degree in graphic design, the field in which she’s now seeking employment.

She’s also an artist and member of  Mouth & Foot Painting Artists. She uses her toes to draw and paint.

She started making YouTube videos — demonstrating everything from how to eat with chopsticks to how to put on make-up — to showcase her graphic design skills, but now sees that she’s serving to educate a lot of people, able and disabled.

“If I can educate more people to be a little bit more open minded about disabilities and conditions, then I’ve done my job,” she says. “Not only am I educating abled people, but I’m also educating handicapped people to be more independent.”

Her her first video was titled “Eating a sandwich with my feet.” Since then, she’s added more videos and attracted more than 300,000 hits. She begins each video with the same introduction: “Hi everyone, this is Tisha Unarmed and I’m here to answer all your questions about not having arms. As you can see, I don’t have any arms.”

“I was just being silly and funny at home,” she said. “I just never expected to have so many views in so little time.”

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.

I was going to stay silent and let “I Cloned My Pet 2″ pass peacefully in the night.

But I just can’t.

Part two of the program, which aired Monday on TLC, followed two potential dog cloning customers and recounted the experiences of a Florida couple who were among the first to get their dog cloned.

All in all, it was, like the first installment, another quasi-documentary that avoided the harsh realities of dog cloning — at least when it comes to all the dogs used in the process of cloning just one.

Instead, reality show style, it reconfirmed how wacky people can get, especially when it comes to their pets, and the lengths they will go to get what they think, or at least let themselves believe, is a live version of their dead dog.

In reality, it’s not, though the show kind of glosses over that, and more, repeatedly referring to cloned dogs as resurrections of the original, and describing their first meetings with their owners as “reunions.”

Given that, the second installment, like the first, was high on melodrama, low on context and served little purpose other than building interest in a service that, while still on the fringes, continues to draw customers.

My opinion — formed in the process of writing a book about the subject — is that pet cloning is almost always best avoided.

It, for starters, is mostly a selfish pursuit. Clients seeking to clone dogs are mostly delusional, at least when it comes to what they expect — the exact same dog, in terms of looks, behavior and personality. Only the first of those can really be achieved, and often only with repeated tries. But beyond that, cloning dogs, at least as practiced in South Korea, raises a host of animal welfare concerns, ranging from the intrusive procedures involved, the number of dogs it takes, both to serve as egg donors and surrogates, and the fact that many of the dogs used in the process have been farm dogs, raised in South Korea for their meat.

Amid all the melodrama in “I Cloned My Pet 2,” there was little discussion of any of that. But amid all the silly moments, there were a few telling ones, some of them even believable.

“Yes, it is the same dog,”” Nina Otto insists in the show. “Yes, it is the same personality. Yes, we got more than we ever bargained for, and we were thrilled to death.”

Nina and her husband Edgar, the grandson of a NASCAR co-founder, had their dog Lancelot cloned three years ago as the highest bidders in an online cloning auction sponsored by an American biotech company. Lancelot Encore was born in a Korean laboratory and delivered by the American company, which has since moved away from dog cloning.

While happy with the dog, Edgar Otto came close in an interview on the show to admitting that their belief Lancelot Encore is the same dog may be a delusion: “Maybe we’ve set ourselves up wanting it to be the same dog, and it probably is not the same dog. Just leave us alone in our beliefs; we’ll be happier.”

The Ottos in 2009 bid $155,000 for the cloning — one of five winning bids in the auction – leading to the dog’s creation at South Korea’s Sooam Institute, the only facility in the world now cloning dogs.

Our favorite part of the show came when a Los Angeles woman named Myra, still grieving the death three years ago of her basenji, Kabuki, debated whether or not to proceed with cloning him.

Her boyfriend thinks it’s a bad choice. She wants it more than anything. Seeking guidance, she contacts a medium who gets in touch with the spirit of Kabuki, a dog whose ashes now rest in a decorated cardboard box in Myra’s bedroom.

It was — if you believe in that kind of stuff –  the first time a dead dog was asked his opinion on whether he should be cloned. And he said no.

According to the medium, Kabuki advised Myra to, more or less, get on with her life.

The show’s third main character was Dr. George Semel, a Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon, whose Chihuahua was killed by a Rottweiler last year while on a walk.

While struggling to come up with money for the cloning, he eventually works out a payment plan with the Korean lab and receives three copies of his Chihuahua. 

Along the way, he holds a “cloning party,” selling his skin cream to raise money, and has a song recorded about cloning his dog. It does not become the viral hit he hoped for:

(Photo: Nina Otto and Lancelot Encore / TLC)

Cricket has only been at the Forsyth Humane Society for a couple of days, but already the rubenesque Chihuahua has been on a special outing.

Tuesday night, Cricket, along with two beagle siblings named Daisy and Boomer — who are also up for adoption — were taken to Pups in the Park, one of five dog-friendly evenings of baseball planned this summer by the Winston-Salem Dash.

The Forsyth Humane Society, a sponsor of the event, will be featuring some of their adoptable dogs at each of them.

Cricket — and we’re guessing the dog was named after the insect as opposed to the sport – seemed to take all the festivities in stride. Not that Cricket, who has been put on a diet, was striding that much.

More often, the portly pooch was being held by one of the many humane society volunteers on hand to help out.

My son and I met Cricket earlier in the day when we showed up for volunteer orientation at the Forsyth Humane Society, where we’ll be pitching in from time to time in the weeks ahead.

Cricket, Daisy and Boomer all arrived at the game in the humane society’s mobile unit.

All were outfitted in “Adopt Me” vests and mingled with arriving fans.

Since we were volunteering, Ace stayed home, but I was reminded of him every time I saw this dog (left), his lookalike, except for a white patch on her chest. Coco was adopted from the humane society last year.

We also ran into our old friend Darwin, a three-legged beagle we met during a Pups in the Park event last season.

Actor Mickey Rourke says he plans to raise millions — and donate $250,000 himself — to build a dog shelter in Romania.

Rourke, in Romania filming the thriller “Dead in Tombstone,” made the decision after finding a stray dog on the set, named Foxy, and adopting it.

According to the Bucharest Herald, Rourke said the shelter will be called The Wild Dogs of Romania Sanctuary and that it will not be a money-making operation.

He also said he will come to Romania whenever necessary to see how the project is going.

Rourke has already found several partners for the project, including two Romanian veterinarians.

The actor said the shelter will be as large as a football field and will be able to host thousands of dogs. The Herald reported that Rourke is already in contact with an investor who will sell him a plot of land south of the capital.

Rourke’s a hard core dog lover who, after receiving the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in The Wrestler, took time to acknowledge his dogs in his acceptance speech –  “the ones that are here, that aren’t here anymore, because sometimes when a man’s alone, that’s all you got is your dog. And they meant the world to me.”

He credits his Chihuahua Loki, who passed away in 2009, with helping him battle years of depression.