ohmidog!

A contractor fell into a silo of dog food Monday in Sanford, N.C., and it took rescue crews several hours to get him out.

The man, whose name was not released, accidentally stepped on a lid and fell 40 feet through a chute at an H.J. Baker & Brothers plant.

After falling, his leg got caught in an auger-like device, which complicated the rescue, WRAL in Raleigh reported.

Fire Chief Wayne Barber said the man was hospitalized in Raleigh, and treated for dehydration, but is expected to be fine.

He spent several hours up to his waist in dog food in the silo, which was about a third of the way full.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating.

(Photo: WRAL)

That round up of stray dogs in Fayetteville, North Carolina we’ve repeatedly voiced reservations about? The one we were amazed no animal welfare activists had stepped forward to protest?

There’s good news and bad news.

The good: The protesting has begun. A group of citizens marched earlier this week to show their concerns about the county hiring a private contractor to hunt down, and trap, if possible, stray or feral dogs.

The bad: Of the 55 dogs removed so far from the streets by the contractor, working with Cumberland County’s department of animal control, 22 were captured. Thirty-three, despite the county’s assurance that it would only be used as a last resort, have been shot and killed.

“We are concerned about the shootings in our neighborhoods, of these feral dogs,” said Amy Frey, among the group of animal rights activists that gathered in downtown Fayetteville Tuesday afternoon.

 ”We can’t confirm information whether the dogs are being shot lethally on-sight or if they are being put down,” she told  ABC 11 News.

“It’s incredibly inhumane to be shooting animals on sight,” activist Melissa Katzenbeger said. “Pets do get out of their yards once in a while, and they are not trapping these animals and assessing them for behavior.”

Cumberland County animal control officials say up to 150 stray or feral dogs are roaming neighborhoods, and that those dogs have killed at least 15 pets.

In an e-mail statement, animal control director John Lauby reiterated that the goal is to trap the dogs. ”If the dogs cannot be trapped and are in a safe area, then off-shelter euthanasia is used.”

The activists say they are not opposed to euthanizing dangerous dogs but want to make sure that animal control doesn’t kill someone’s pet or friendly strays that could be adopted.

Animal welfare advocates who noticed the sudden disappearance of 80 dogs from a privately run, city-owned shelter in Ferris, Texas, are disturbed with the shelter management’s refusal to say where the dogs ended up.

Domestic Animal Rescue Emergency Shelter Services (DARESS), a nonprofit that had been contracted with to operate the city owned shelter, began taking in dogs in November.

The manager of the organization says workers took the dogs to an Indian reservation. But he won’t say where, according to the Dallas Morning News.

“Every one of those dogs are happy, healthy, well-fed, watered, taken care of, loved and not abandoned any longer,” shelter manager James “Soaring Eagle” Vonda said. “Every Native American wants to have a dog and a cat because it relates to their spirit guide.” 

Vonda declined to give the location of the reservation, saying that revealing it might also disclose the location of a shelter he runs for victims of domestic violence.

The city of Ferris has since terminated its contract with DARESS, under which the city didn’t pay DARESS anything but did agree to make $5,000 in improvements to the shelter. The nonprofit was to make its revenue by adopting out animals.

Under the contract, after 72 hours of being held at the shelter, all animals became the property of DARESS.

“We can do what we want to do with them … we’re certainly not going to kill them,” said Vonda, whose nonprofit is based in Leonard in Fannin County, north of Collin County. “We’re going to take them to someone who will care for them for the rest of their life.”

The animal shelter is now back in the city’s control.

It’s not the first controversy involving the animal shelter in Ferris. In December 2008, the former city manager allowed Ferris police officers to shoot feral dogs on sight. Last summer, the city ordered all the animals in the shelter to be euthanized if they weren’t adopted within 15 days.

A Georgia prosecutor says he intends to aggressively prosecute a contractor who allegedly sprayed fluorescent orange paint on a barking black lab mix that was in a fenced backyard.

“To spray paint a dog in the eye makes no sense,” DeKalb County Solicitor Robert James told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday. “It was gratuitous. The animal was behind a fence. Its really something we take serious and were going to try to make this thing right. We’re going to take this very seriously.”

Dario Harris appeared in DeKalb County State Court Tuesday on two counts of animal cruelty, a charge that could mean as much as 12 months in jail.

Harris was dispatched in March to mark gas lines in preparation for scheduled digging along the residential street. A homeowner, Jeffrey Tompkins, heard his dog, Bear, barking and then saw a truck driving away. A few minutes later, he found his dog rubbing her eyes with her front paws.

Tompkins said there were “seven individual spray marks” low on the fence about the height of the dog’s eyes.

“It wasn’t like he just sprayed one time across [ the fence],” Tompkins said in an interview Wednesday. “He [Harris] went up to the fence. He had no reason to go in the backyard.”

Harris said he “reacted to the dog coming to the gate and scaring me. It wasn’t anything intentional. I wasn’t out to do any harm. I was just doing my job.”

A vet flushed Bear’s eyes and provided antibiotics, and Harris said he would repay Tompkins for those expenses.

“This is making me out to be a criminal,” Harris said. “I’m not.”