ohmidog!

Some signs in New York City — warning of $1,000 fines if you fail to clean up after your dog — start off with these words: “IT’S THE LAW.”

Problem is, IT’S NOT.

Proving once again that words written in all caps should never be trusted.

As the New York Post reported yesterday, the signs, which show a human dutifully following his dog with a small shovel, are a bit off the mark.

Posted in at least a couple of locations, the signs not only have the maximum fine wrong, but the law they cite — Public Health Law 1316 — doesn’t exist.

The actual maximum fine for the offense is $250, and the law behind it is Public Health Law 1310.

Most signs in the city have it right, but apparently some rogue ones got fabricated and posted as well over the years, either due to poor research, or because the city wanted to scare the sheer bejeebers out of people.

The Post reported that “the city for years has posted signs in parks and promenades that threaten a $1,000 fine for dog-waste violations … Just one problem with the signs: They’re full of crap.”

When The Post asked city officials about one such posting on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, they admitted that “1316” was a typo — and that the actual fine is $250. A spokeswoman said for the Parks Department said the promenade sign was taken down after The Post’s inquiry.

The spokeswoman said the sign “appears to be an older sign that is no longer fabricated and no longer installed in parks. We make every effort to replace these signs when applicable.”

That would make sense if the signs were ever accurate, but they weren’t.

The Post  found at least one more sign still standing – at Washington Market Park in TriBeCa.

All of which  makes us wonder: Is there a fine for putting up false warning signs?

(Photo: Helayne Seidman / New York Post)

Officials in New Taipei City say their dog poop lottery was a resounding success – more than 4,000 people collected 14,500 bags of excrement.

For each bag they turned in, they were given a lottery ticket, earning them a chance to win gold and household appliances.

Officials in the Taiwan city credit the program with cutting in half the amount of dog droppings on city streets.

The program began in August and was initially planned to run until October, but it was so successful the city extended it a couple of more months — up until they started running out of gold, the BBC reported.

Final prizes were awarded this week, with the big winner receiving a gold ingot worth $2,200. The woman, in her 50s, was part of a team of volunteers that clean the streets regularly.

Smaller gold ingots, worth several hundred dollars, were given to four other prizewinners.

A total of 85 people won prizes, including household appliances.

City officials told the BBC they did not know how many of the winners were motivated by gold, as opposed to people who regularly pick up the poop of their own dogs or other’s.

Officials say they hope residents have gotten into the habit of picking up dog droppings, and that they will continue to do so without financial rewards.

In her soap opera persona, Julie Marie Berman — or Lulu on General Hospital — has engaged in some shameful behavior.

The daughter of Luke and Laura, she has stolen, lied, manipulated and, more than once, let her heart lead her astray, such as when, while still a “feisty teen,” she masterminded the break up of  her stepbrother Dillon Quartermaine’s relationship, then proceeded to offer him her virginity, but the condom broke and things got even more compilcated.

I don’t think, though I don’t watch the show, she’s a bad person;  but more of a good person who bad things happen, to — over and over and over. She’s had bombs strapped to her body, been a waitress in a brothel, been stuck under a beam in freezing water, and been abducted and held hostage repeatedly. I don’t think she has been in a coma yet — though her mother has — but give her time.

In real life, Julie admits to making at least one mistake, too — buying a dog online.

While dating her future husband, Mike Grady, they decided they wanted a dog. She ended up on “a huge web site that had, literally, every color imaginable of the breed I was interested in. I thought, ‘Great!’ So I ordered my dog online … then I got another one. The first one came with a lot of issues that we’re still dealing with today.

“I thought  I was doing the right thing by not going to the pet store. But I think it is safe to say that I ordered our dogs right from the puppymill. I had no idea that I was doing that. I thought that because they were AKC registered, and I talked to the breeders on the phone, that everything was normal. But after receiving our dog, I started to question the validity of the breeder and the care that they give their animals.”

Julie and Mike educated themselves on the horrors of puppy mills, became proponents of adoption and are now pushing that cause in their newly formed company, Better Buddies.

Along with a third partner, they reached out to Best Friends Animal Society to join forces on ending the homeless pet problem and push  adoption as the best choice when searching for a pet. The company has pledged 10 percent of its profits to the organization.

With its current merchandising limited to hemp dog beds, Better Buddies, Julie says, plans to expand — all while bringing together the worlds of design, quality, eco-awareness and social change.

The idea for the company, their website says, came during a visit to a pet store.

“While rummaging through an endless stock of uninspired, low-quality pet toys, we found ourselves asking, ‘Why aren’t there more eco-friendly options out there?’ …  Even more of a challenge, a pet-adoption in the store was begging us not to leave without adding another adorable, yet needy pet to our clan.

“And then it hit us…why not … make high-quality ‘green’ products that are actually thoughtful in design and style, while simultaneously giving back to animals in need. And right there, in that mess of pet store mania, Better Buddies, Inc. was born.”

When are you responsible for picking up the poop of someone else’s dog?

Apparently, in San Francisco, when it ends up on your roof.

When a building manager complained to the city’s health department that dog feces was piling up on top of the pet-free residential building — and that she suspected it was being left there by a dog from an adjoining pet-friendly building – an inspector came to investigate.

A week later, a “Notice of Violation” letter arrived in the mail — not to the offending dog’s owner, or even to the adjacent bulding, but to the manager who had complained. The notice declared her rooftop a public nuisance and threatened a $163 fine if the waste was not immediately removed.

The tale was told in the Bay Citizen, and reprinted yesterday in The New York Times, by columnist Scott James, who knows the manager, a fellow writer named Diane Archer who also lives in the building.

A citizens group in Germany is fighting Berlin’s ongoing problem of uncollected dog poop with, of all things, humor.

Instead of pointing fingers at owners who don’t pick up after their dogs, surreptitiously photographing them, engaging in shouting matches and confrontations, or fining them $1,000 (aka the Baltimore way), Sandra Kaliga and her neighbors decided to go for the funny bone.

She and her friends now regularly hit the streets of Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district — under the auspices of their organization, Shit Happens – to place tiny flags featuring funny quips atop uncollected piles.

“Only humor is effective,” said Kaliga, a dog owner.

Shit Happens has 15 different flag slogans that they hope will alert innocent pedestrians and remind dog owners to clean up after their pets. “Well formed!” reads one. “100 grammes, just €1.99,” says another.

So far reaction in the neighborhood has been positive, according to an article in “The Local,” an English-language news website in Germany.

“Most people find it funny,” Shit Happens member Sabina Ruminski said. “But we also get some dim-witted commentary, which mostly comes from dog owners who feel like they’ve been caught.” Other dog owners rush to clean up poop when they see the group headed their way, members said.

According to the Berlin Animal Protection Agency, the city is home to more than 107,000 pooches, producing an estimated 30 million pounds of poop a year. Some dog owners in Germany, because they are required to pay a “dog tax” each year, reportedly feel that should absolve them of having to clean up after their pets.

Shit Happens members say they sympathize with Berlin dog owners, who are often forced to carry plastic bags of poop for long distances due to a lack of waste receptacles – a problem the group suggests be solved with dog tax money.

In the meantime, Shit Happens is filling tiny flag orders for communities outside Berlin and is creating new “Danke” flags to hand pet owners they spot doing their part to keep the streets clean.

(Photo from Shit Happens … “Haufen,” I think, means pile, but I don’t know what “Herrchen” means. Maybe some our readers in Germany can help us out.)

It’s a car wash. No, It’s a dog wash.

Wait, it’s both — a self-service car wash in Voorhees, N.J.,  where you can also wash your dog.

The White Horse Road Car Wash and Dog Wash belongs to Al Nicolosi, who purchased a six-bay car wash last April and, looking for a way to increase his profits, turned one bay into a dog wash, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He had heard about the idea at a trade show a couple of years ago.

“It was a perfect fit,” said Nicolosi, 37, of Lumberton, an entrepreneur who has been in the car-wash business for more than 15 years. It costs $8 for 10 minutes, and vending machines are available that supply shampoo, grooming aids and treats.

About 40 pooches per week are getting gussied up in the self-enclosed salon that accommodates two dogs, and Nicolosi expects the numbers to grow as warm weather approaches.

The combo is more popular than you might think There are more than 500 car/dog combo washes at about 100,000 total car-wash sites in the country, and a few of them even have a place to do your laundry as well.