ohmidog!

Poor Courteney Cox.

The former “Friends” star and her daughter Coco recently moved into a new 25th floor condo with their two dogs — and taking Hopper and Harley all the way down to the ground floor and outside to go to the bathroom late at night was just too difficult.

So she bought a pooch potty to put on her balcony, and when the Cavalier King Charles spaniels didn’t use the draining patch of artificial grass, she annointed it herself to get them interested.

That, at least, is what she said to Ellen DeGeneres in an interview that aired yesterday.

“I’m like, ‘How am I going to work this out? I could walk them at 10 p.m. at night but what if they have to go in the middle of the night?’” she said.

Apparently, solutions such as hiring a dog walker, or living somewhere with a yard, didn’t occur to the “Cougar Town” star.

Once the patch was in place, the dogs showed little interest in it, she said. “… Hopper and Harley would not go. I tried and I tried and it’s getting late and I can’t leave Coco in the condo by herself while I take them out so I just thought, ‘To hell with it. I’ll mark the grass.’”

Apparently, the idea of peeing in a jar, and then going out to pour it on the balcony patch, didn’t occur to her, either. Cox told DeGeneres she squatted on the balcony.

Given the product she’s using requires a new grass pad weekly, she told Ellen she’s worried she might have to keep reannointing them. “I didn’t think it through… but I will say Hopper peed on my pee.”

We have faith that Hopper and Harley, age 9 and 10, will be able to think it through, even without Cox marking every new patch, and — whether it’s 10 p.m. at night, or 6 a.m. in the morning — adjust to using the balcony potty.

(Photos: Screen grabs from Ellen DeGeneres show)

The state of Illinois has taken sides with a Chicago artist who says his condo association has no right to separate him from a dog that helps him fight depression.

Nio Tavlos believes his 12-pound miniature poodle, Diego, should be permitted to live with him at a 36-story, no-pets-allowed condo development in Lakeview.

The 67-year-old artist says Diego helps him battle bouts of depression. Without the dog, he said, “I spend a lot of time in bed, I’m lethargic, I’m not creative.”

Six years after the dispute began, Tavlos took his case to the Illinois Department of Human Rights. On Tuesday, the agency filed a lawsuit on behalf of Tavlos accusing the condo association of violating anti-discrimination laws.

Tavlos first asked for special permission to keep a dog in 2007 after learning other residents had pets as service and therapy animals, and that others secretly kept pets in the building.

Twice, the request was denied — even after letters from two of Tavlos’ doctors.

Tavlos, who lost another dog last year, is a painter who travels between his home in Santa Fe, N.M., and his wife’s Lakeview condo.

” …I’ve never lived without a dog my entire adult life. I wouldn’t want to live without dogs, to be honest with you … They are like my children,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The Department of Human Rights said his depression qualifies as a physical disability under Illinois state law, and that it found “substantial evidence” that the condo association discriminated against him by denying a reasonable accommodation for the dogs.

The suit asks that the condo association create a policy to deal with other requests from disabled residents and that it train employees in fair housing practices. It also asks for an unspecified amount in damages and court costs.

A day-long trial about dog poop ended with a Fairfax County jury finding a woman not guilty of failing to clean up after Baxter, a dog she regularly cares for.

Two neighbors had accused Kimberly Zakrzewski of violating the Virginia county’s “pooper scooper” law by allowing the Westie-bichon frise mix to relieve himself on the grounds of their condominium.

It took a jury less than 20 minutes Tuesday to reach the verdict, the
Washington Post reported.

Virginia and Christine Cornell had apparently gone to great lengths to document their claims, photographing piles of Baxter’s alleged waste and shadowing Zakrzewski and Baxter to take pictures.

Zakrzewski and the Cornell sisters have long been feuding, according to testimony from all three.

The Cornell sisters testified that Zakrzewski, who walks and babysits Baxter, failed to pick up after the dog on three days last March and April. They said they once heard her boasting to a neighbor that she left the poop unscooped to annoy them.

Zakrzewski testified that she carried plastic bags and always cleaned up after Baxter.

Also testifying was Baxter’s owner, Michelle Berman.

She was shown a photo of a pile of dog waste that had been introduced as evidence.

“Is that consistent with the stool Baxter creates?” Zakrzewski’s attorney asked. Berman answered, “I’ve never seen something that big come out of my little dog.”

Berman said she had gone so far to bring a bag of Baxter’s poop to the courthouse in case it was needed as evidence, but left it in the car.

(Photo: Sarah L. Voisin / Washington Post)

The proposal to establish a DNA database of every dog who resides in Baltimore’s Scarlett Place Condominiums — all in hopes of figuring out who’s not picking up their dog’s poop — appears to have been dumped.

At a meeting of the condo’s board this week, the proposal was tabled and the decision was made to to pursue more “realistic and acceptable” alternatives.

While the meeting was closed to the public, a resident correspondent reports on the Baltimore Sun’s Unleashed blog that the board chairman said that other alternatives to finding the culprit would receive further study.

Under the proposal, every dog in Scarlett Place would have had to provide a DNA sample. Any unpicked-up poop found at the building would then be sent to an out of state laboratory for comparison. The owner of the dog linked to the poop would then face fines.

Unleashed author Jill Rosen wrote that, after breaking the story, she was originally invited to attend the meeting, but uninvited when the story developed legs, appearing in publications and on websites across the globe, thereby, in my view, bringing the luxury condominium the embarassment it deserved.

Richard Hopp, a Scarlett Place resident, reported to Unleashed that the condo board, in a standing room only meeting, ”tabled the proposal.” Not a single resident spoke in favor of it, he said, and the board member who came up with the idea wasn’t present.

“For what it is worth, my take on this is that the board members realized they had really ‘stepped in it’ with their doggy DNA proposal,” Hopp reported, “and in order to save face, they tabled the matter, rather than just vote it down and move on…”

In a episode nearly as ludicrous as the case of the soiled condominium, an English great-grandmother was threatened with a £50 fine for picking up the wrong dog’s poop.

Pam Robson was accused by Sunderland Council wardens of failing to clean up after Derik, her Labrador, in a field in Houghton-le-Spring in January.

The council said the 60-year-old had picked up droppings that emanated from a different dog, according to the BBC.

How they knew that, I’m not sure, for Sunderland is not one of those jurisdictions that are performing DNA analysis on dog poop — a step that has been proposed at a condominium right here in Baltimore.

The board of the Scarlett Place Condominiums on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is considering a proposal to create a DNA database of its canine residents, then sending offending feces to a lab in an effort to find out exactly who, among their residents, is allowing their dog to poop in its ritzy hallways, and not picking it up.

Yes, everyone should pick up their dog’s waste — but going to such forensic lengths, and fining people for not picking up the right pile, are the actions of obsessive, power hungry control freaks who need to find better causes.

In Robson’s case, she refused to pay the fine and was threatened with court action.

Robson said she had been talking to her daughter on her cell phone when her dog ran off and did it’s doody. Robson walked over, scooped up a pile, and then was approached by two men (because policing poopers is apparently too dangerous a job to do alone).

“He said it was the wrong mess and that he was going to issue me with a fine for £50,” Robson recalled. “I picked up the other mess too and put it in the bag but he said I’d still be fined.”

“It felt like the worst kind of bullying,” she said.

Sunderland City Council, after she complained and asked for a review, later wrote to Robson, saying: “Officers at the time were satisfied that an offence had been committed. However it appears you may have collected faeces belonging to another dog.” In light of that, the note said, the council would not be pursuing the fine.

DNA testing, which may have its place in crime solving — not to mention pinpointing your baby daddy — is increasingly being considered around the world as a way to nab dog owners who fail to pick up poop.

Now, in addition to government bodies from Germany to Israel, a ritzy Baltimore condominium is considering using the technology to help track down the owners of the dog or dogs who are not being picked up after.

Some residents of the Scarlett Place Condominiums are so steamed by dog poop — at least some of which is being deposited indoors – they’re willing to watch thousands of dollars be spent in an effort to figure out whodunit or, more appropriately, whodroppedit.

Under the condo board’s proposed plan, all dogs in the building would be swabbed for DNA testing to create a database. Dog owners would pay $50 each to cover the costs of tests, and an additional $10 per month for the cost of having building staff pick up wayward piles of poop.

The staff would then send the samples to BioPet Vet Lab, a Tennessee-based company, which would compare the mailed-in samples to those in the dog poop database.

When the company is able to identify the owner of the dog whose poop was not scooped, that owner would pay a $500 fine.

“We pay all this money, and we’re walking around stepping in dog poop,” resident Steven Frans, the board member who proposed the plan, told the Baltimore Sun. “We bring guests over and this is what they’re greeted by.”

The Scarlett Place condo board is expected to make a decision later this week.

I, for one, would not want to live in a complex whose management, or for that matter, a city whose government, is so anal that it  goes around collecting dog poop and sending it in for analysis.

Such a program is underway, on a trial basis, in the city of Petah Tikva, a suburb of Tel Aviv in Israel, and other jurisdictions in Europe, as well as New York City, have considered it.

As for the Scarlett Place Condominiums, perhaps a cheaper route would be to hire a poop picker upper, adding that service to what its website describes as its ”a plethora of desirable amenities.”

“Entering the lobby, you will be greeted by one of the Front Desk attendants who will take care of your packages, guests, concerns, and deliveries. Attendants are on duty 24 hours a day … A full service, recently remodeled health club is available 24 hours a day and a spectacular indoor pool is at your disposal complete with magnificent walls of glass overlooking The Inner Harbor and Scarlett Place Condominiums courtyard.”  

Meanwhile, if they pursue testing dog poop for DNA, I’m wondering what the more-money-than-they-know-what-to-do-with condo board’s next initiative will be: Establishing a database of their human residents so they can ascertain who’s wiping boogers on the elevator walls?

An angry tenant in a luxury condominium that backs up to the Park Slope dog run in New York’s Washington Park has been hurling eggs at dogs and owners who use the run at night, according to the New York Post.

“Before I knew it — ‘whack’ on my shoulder and ‘splat’ on the ground,” said Ilene Cohen, 55, who was hit by an egg three weeks ago. “I looked up, but I didn’t see anybody.”

Cohen said her black Labrador, Ace, wasn’t making any noise, but other dogs were barking at the time.

Kimberly Maier, the executive director of the Old Stone House, a historic center inside the park, said Cohen’s egging was the second of three aerial assaults, which were first reported by the website Brownstoner.com.

“It’s not a group of people doing it. It’s probably one person,” Maier said.

The condominium board has notified the local police precinct about the incidents, Maier said.

The 12-story luxury building known as Novo 343 opened less than two years ago — about the same time the dog run did.

Brownstoner.com reported a first incident in beginning of December, as well as a second incident last week.

(Photo: Brownstoner.com)