ohmidog!

Despite wearing a service vest clearly marked with the words “service dog,” a German shepherd named Princess was kicked out of Georgia convenience store.

Princess, who is a service dog for Wyatt Fox, a young boy with autism and other medical problems, was booted from the QuikTrip off Interstate 75 in McDonough.

According to his mother, Cory Fox, she was getting coffee when the manager approached and said, “We have food in here and you can’t be in here.”

Ms. Fox said she explained Princess was a service dog, and pointed out the dog’s vest, but the manager kept yelling at her until she was out the door.

“I’m very open to educating people as long as they approach me the right way. I will tell you what the dog does freely. I will tell you about service dogs, but he just continued to berate us and tell us we weren’t welcome,” she told 11Alive.

A QuickTrip corporate spokesman issued the following statement, with an iffy apology:

“If QT made a mistake, we apologize. We recognize all service dogs in our stores. Our training manuals reflect this. If we must, we may go back and retrain the employee so he understands our procedure.”

Wawa has paid $12,500 to a New Jersey glass artist to settle claims that he was denied service because of his service dog.

Patrick Stark says he and his dog Copenhagen, a Queensland heeler, were asked to leave a Wawa store in June.

He’d gone to the convenience store in Millville with his dog — who helps him cope with recurrent seizures – to pick up some sandwiches, but an assistant manager argued that his dog wasn’t allowed.

Other customers reportedly joined in. Copenhagen reportedly sat quietly and watched.

Stark said even when he pointed to the special tags on Copenhagen the assistant manager would not listen to him and called police.

“The police were great when they got there,” Stark said. “They were so nice to me.”

New Jersey state officials announced the settlement Wednesday. Despite the payoff, Stark said he plans to avoid Wawas, or at least that Wawa, in the future. Wawa Food Markets operates almost 600 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

The Pennsylvania-based chain has agreed to post signs in its New Jersey stores saying service dogs are welcome and to train employees about state laws regarding service animals. The company didn’t admit any liability as part of the settlement, according to NJ.com.

“Service dogs are permitted in all Wawa stores,” said company spokesperson Lori Bruce. “It is always our effort and intent to fully comply with the law and treat all customers with sensitivity and respect. If for some reason we find out that there was an individual experience that did not reflect that, we will always do our best to look into the situation and address it immediately.”

Stark served in the Army from 1998 to 2000, and began having problems with recurrent seizures three years ago when he was hit in the head during a mugging in Seattle.

“He’s my lifeline,” Stark said of Copenhagen. “Without him I can’t function. Without him I can’t go anywhere and have an independent life.”

Cody, the chocolate Labrador we showed you a video of last week — the one who jumps up and greets customers at the drive-through window of a Florida gas station — has been declared a health hazard and ordered to leave the premises.

The dog was featured last month in a St. Petersburg Times story, along with a heartwarming video of Cody in action that has been seen widely on the Internet.

Apparently state officials didn’t find it as heartwarming as everybody else.

Inspectors — from the health department according to some reports, agriculture department according to others — stopped by Karim Mansour’s BP station and convenience store in Clearwater and issued a warning. Unless the dog was removed, all of Mansour’s food products would be declared unfit for consumption, the St. Petersburg Times reported yesterday.

That most everything Mansour sells at his shop in Clearwater is packaged — bottled sodas, candy bars, chips and the like — didn’t matter to the Grinch-like bureacrats, who apparently feared the wholesome goodness of the store’s Slim Jims, Twinkies and Marlboros might be tainted by a deadly pet hair.

Mansour, who adopted 6-year-old Cody three years ago, accepted the warning and plans to start leaving his dog at home.

Most readers, judging from the comments the Times has received on the story, see the state’s crackdown on Mansour as a ridiculous case of overkill.

We couldn’t agree more. Once again, it appears, bureaucracy has prevailed, accomplishing its mission of  making the world a safer, far more boring, smile-free  place.

The friendly face that often greets customers at the drive-thru window of a gas station in Clearwater, Florida isn’t that of the owner, but that of his dog.

Cody, a chocolate Labrador retriever, jumps up and puts his front paws on the counter when a car pulls up to the window at Karim Mansour’s BP gas station and convenience store, according to the Associated Press.

Mansour said he started bringing Cody to work five months ago for company on the early morning shift. The dog quickly became a celebrity among store regulars, and now wears his own BP shirt and name tag.