ohmidog!

A Jack Russell terrier is worth $1.11 less, but feeling much better, after 111 pennies he gulped down were removed from his stomach.

The 13-year-old dog, named Jack, underwent a two-hour operation at BluePearl Veterinary Partners.

The coins were fished out five at a time, said Jack’s owner, Tim Kelleher, who reported that Jack was back to normal after the operation:

“He’s driving me crazy again,” he said.

Kelleher who lives in Manhattan and works on Wall Street, said Jack climbed onto a desk to reach a bag that had a bagel in it, and knocked the change over the floor. He said Jack must have swallowed the pennies while licking the bagel crumbs off the floor.

When Jack became ill and started vomiting last Friday, Kelleher took him to the vet, where an X-ray showed the pennies clustered in his belly.

Surgery was advised because the zinc in the coins posed a lethal threat to the dog’s kidneys and liver.

“If Jack would not have had the pennies removed the consequences would have been fatal,” said Dr. Amy Zalcman, who helped treat the dog.

The New York Daily News reports that the dog’s owner let the vet keep the change.

A dog on a hot warehouse roof, spotted by a rider on a commuter train, has become a source of controversy in Miami, with some animal activists saying he needs to be rescued, and warehouse officials saying he’s only doing his job.

“No animal should live on top of a roof … a scalding hot roof,” said Amy Roman Restucci with Abandoned Dogs of the Everglades, who posted an account about the dog on Facebook.

“We do not know why this dog is up there, but we thought of a few different possible scenarios, and can not think of one that would be acceptable for this dog to be there. Not knowing the circumstances, we are torn as to how and go about helping this dog without possibly putting him in more danger or dooming him to death by animal control if called.

“… One thing we do know is that this is NO PLACE FOR A DOG!! The temperatures on that roof alone can cause this dog a heat stroke. We want the dog removed from that roof immediately!

Local 10 flew its helicopter above the building, spotting the dog on the roof. There are some shaded areas, and a doghouse, and several bowls nearby, it reported.

Neither the Miami Fire Department or the Miami-Dade County animal control department planned to get involved, saying it’s not against the law to keep a dog outside, as long as it has food, water, and shelter.

Raudel Hernandez, a worker for G&G Produce, told Local 10 that the dog on the roof, named Burro, is one of two that serve to protec the building from thieves. Burglars have broken in three times, stealing copper wire from the air conditioning units.

A petition to “save the dog on the roof” has been posted on Change.org

“Copperseverance”

Acrylic on canvas

By John Woestendiek/2011

Price: $1,800

Depicting man’s dogged uphill climb – the abysses he must cross, the spillage that inevitably occurs, and above all the Sisyphean, never-give-up perseverance that is at his emotional core (know what I’m sayin’?)  — “Copperseverance” is the first in John Woestendiek’s “Copper” series.

A one of its kind artwork, it is currently is on display in the artist’s home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but available for purchase (shipping and handling not included) because he can always just make another one and, because it was kinda fun, probably will.

I believe there is an interior decorator within all of us.

I would like the one within me to leave now.

That’s because he’s an annoying little twit who’s spending too much of my time and money in his attempt to make everything “just so,” insisting on “color schemes” and “balance” and “flow,” and of course “bold accessories that really make things pop.”

I like to think that I’ve always had some taste,  that I’m a notch above those uncivilized brutes who –  having never watched HGTV, having kept the interior decorator within them buried — are content with soft reclining seating (built-in cupholder optional), a wall-mounted flat screen TV the size of your average billboard, and nothing in between to obstruct the view.

But, of late, the interior decorator within me has — and this is the only way to describe it — blossomed. Recent circumstances, I think, are behind my newfound excitement with home decor.

For one, Ace and I have just completed a year on the road, most of which was spent hopping from pet-friendly motel room to pet-friendly motel room every day or two. Remember the Motel 6 bedspread? We do. In those places we stayed longer – a friend’s sailboat, a trailer in the desert, an empty house and the basement of a mansion – we weren’t afforded much opportunity to make them “our own.” After all that flitting about, I think I developed a zest to nest.

For another, while staying in the basement of a mansion in North Carolina for the past month (with free cable TV provided), I became briefly addicted to Home & Garden Television (HGTV) – and all those shows that showed people moving to new homes, or renovating and redecorating their old ones. I despised many of those househunters and homeowners – because they were whiny and spoiled – but I also, for reasons I can’t pinpoint, or don’t want to, envied them.

On top of all that, the place we’ve moved into is special – to me at least. It’s the very apartment unit my parents lived in when I was born and, while dozens of people and families have moved in and out of it since then, I hoped to make it mine again, tip my hat to its heritage and make it presentable.

So join me now for the reveal, keeping in mind that — unlike those HGTV programs — we had virtually no budget to work with. Nevertheless, I’d appreciate it if you say “ohmigod!” a lot on our walk-through, because that’s what they do on all those home makeover shows.

We’ll start in the living room.

Among its featured pieces are my mother’s old couch, an old family desk, an old rocking chair, a wingback chair that once belonged to my father’s parents, my cousin’s coffee table and my mother’s old footstool featuring the needlepoint of great aunt Tan, seen here (in the lower right corner) before I stripped off the old cover and discovered the prize beneath.

I chose copper-colored faux silk drapes from Target for the living room — one of my first, and one of my few, purchases. I just thought they looked cool, and that I could build my color scheme around them.

That gave me copper, burgundy and gold (in the big chair) and blue (the couch). Fortunately, I found a cheap area rug at Wal Mart that bespoke them all, and which, in my non-expert opinion, really ties thing together. I describe my color palette — yes, palette — as being based on elements of the earth: copper, silver, gold, water, wine (I consider wine an element) and silver.

Silver is the color of the room’s dominant artwork, procured from New York artist Lance Rauthzan during an exhibit of his work in Baltimore.

While the living room, through its furniture, bows to tradition, its more modern artworks, I think, make for an eclectic mix – eclectic mixes, such as my dog Ace, being the best kind.

At first I had some concerns that the piece — its inspiration, Lance says, being a silver, Airstream-like trailer — would disappear on my grey walls. To the contrary, I think it works well … subtly, as if to say, yes, I am here, but I am not going to shout about it, even though I am silver.

You can learn more about Lance and his art — his father played major league baseball, and younger Lance once bartended at Baltimore’s Idle Hour, a bar in which Ace spent his formative years — at his website.

But back to my place. On the living room’s opposite wall, I – believing there is an artist in all of us, too — have commissioned myself to paint my own piece of modern art, of copper and blue and maybe some red, further establishing our color scheme.

The painting will symbolize … I have no clue. I will figure that out when it’s done.

The goals I was trying to achieve in the living room were comfort, simplicity and a rustic elegance that says “come in, sit a spell, OK you can leave now.”

Moving on to the dining room, I found some discounted copper-ish drapes with swirly things on them to echo, somewhat, those in the living room. The dining table was a Craigslist find and the featured artwork is a portrait of Ace resting by a waterfall in Montana, painted by my friend Tamara Granger, Ace’s godmother.

Again, I was striving for simplicity, making sure not to use too much or too-large furniture, since that prohibits Ace from easily navigating the house.

Decorating around your dog (don’t laugh, a lot of people do it) is crucial, especially when he’s 130 pounds. That’s probably why he doesn’t — as much as he’d like to – go in the kitchen, which, in terms of floor space, measures about the same size as his crate.

In it, one can accomplish all kitchen duties without walking — a simple pivot step is all that is required, or permitted. The kitchen features another of Tamara’s artworks, a big black bird, hung over the stove, where it echoes the greys and silvers elsewhere.

Behind the kitchen and dining room is an added on room — not part of the house when I first lived in it — that will serve as a laundry area, once I figure out where to put all the junk now stored there and get a washer and dryer.

In my sole bathroom, I have put up a shower curtain of turquoise, and hung towels to match. So it is white and turquoise. I think it needs another color.

My bedroom is simply decorated with a box spring and mattress that sit on the floor, the better for Ace, until his back problems improve, to climb in. There are two end tables, and a dresser whose origins I don’t remember, and another TV. With cable television starting at $60-something a month, I have opted for the far cheaper, totally undependable and highly unsightly digital TV antenna.

As we enter the guest room/home office, we pass two old editorial cartoons in the hallway — a preview of a bigger collection ahead which pays homage, if you will, to those talented and artistic souls who were once able — and in some cases still are able – to make a career at newspapers out of hoisting the rich and powerful on their own petards.

Amazingly, they were able to do this even though hardly anybody knew what a petard is. While, in modern day slang, some use it as a derogatory term for members of PETA, a petard is actually an explosive device. The phrase ”hoist by one’s own petard” means to be undone by one’s own devices.

Editorial cartoonists are becoming an endangered species, but I was always a huge admirer of them — for they were people whose jobs seemed more like playtime, who were allowed to be goofy, and who had the power to makes us laugh, think and feel, sometimes all at once.

They could, and some still do, bring attenton to an injustice, afflict the overly comfortable, and point out that the emperor isn’t wearing anything — all with just a sketch and a punchline. It’s a shame many newspapers have opted not to have their own, anymore, because I think we have more naked emperors walking around on earth than ever before.

My collection — mostly from the 1950s and 1960s — includes the original works of Tom Darcy, Burges Green, Sandy Huffaker, Bill Sanders, Cliff Rogerson, Edmund Duffy, D.R. Fitzpatrick and C.P. Houston.

I lined their works up in two rows above my futon, AKA Ace’s bed, the arms of which still bear the scars of his gnawing on them as a pup.

They, too — those gnaw marks that angered me when I discovered them but now view as Ace’s childhood art – are part of the decor now, another little piece of history, or at least his history. I wouldn’t cover them up for anything.

Rounding out the home office furnishings are my old library table, two dinged up file cabinets, an office chair, an actual bed made for dogs,  and four newly purchased, less than stalwart Wal Mart bookshelves, ordered over Internet.

What’s now the home office was 57 years ago my bedroom. From birth to the age of one, I shared it with my older sister.

The futon — long Ace’s favorite place to rest, and from which he watched me write my book — is one of five soft sleeping areas he now has to choose from. He also sleeps on my bed, the living room sofa, actually a loveseat, the actual dog bed, passed down from his Baltimore friend Fanny, and the Wal Mart rug that bespeaks the colors of my decor, and, come to think of it, of Ace as well.

This is where we’ll end our reveal, and we apologize if it was overly revealing.

In conclusion, I will tell you, what I told my mother when I invited her over for an advance reveal last week: Don’t ever expect to see it this neat and clean again.

(Next week: A look at the family that lived in the house that’s gone from being my crib to being my crib.)

A local humane society in Kentucky mistook a Shiba Inu for a coyote, and released the dog into the wild.

The AKC-registered dog, a female named Copper, had been picked up by police and taken to the Frankfort Humane Society, which deemed her a coyote.

Lori Goodlett told The State-Journal that her pet of 11 years disappeared from her fenced back yard on July 3.

Only when she put up posters with her dog’s picture did a police officer recognize Copper as the dog he had taken to the shelter.

After the officer dropped the dog off, a shelter worker called police and said the animal had to be picked up because coyotes weren’t allowed there, according to an Associated Press report. (Apparently, the AP is no expert on the breed either, as it spelled it Sheba Inu.)

The Frankfort Humane Society turned the animal loose behind a home improvement store after consulting — apparently on the telephone — with a wildlife expert who said coyotes were nuisance animals and should be returned to the wild or killed.

A Humane Society official defended the actions. “If our manager assessed the animal to be a coyote, then it is against the law for it to be at the shelter. We rely on the people who work there,”  said Humane Society board chairman John Forbes.

Goodlett, however, said she can’t understand how her dog was misidentified. “People would say when Copper was young, she looked like a fox with her pointy ears and red coloring,” Goodlett said. “But no one has ever mistaken her for a coyote.”

Police and volunteers are helping Goodlett search for her pet and have set cages in hopes of capturing her, and PETA has kicked in a reward as well — up to $1,000. “Copper needs to be home with the people who know and love her,” says PETA Director Martin Mersereau. “We hope that someone will find Copper so that she can be reunited with her family.”

“I know in my head Copper is gone for good, but in my heart I would like to think some nice family found her and took her in,” Goodlett said.

A California  man with a  history of violence was sentenced Friday to more than 25 years in prison for beating his former girlfriend’s cocker spaniel to death with a hammer.

The conviction was a third strike for Alex Castro, leading in part to the lengthy sentence, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Castro, 48, of Milpitas, said the sentence was too much for killing a dog — and that he should get no more than the maximum three-year sentence for animal cruelty. The judge said he could not ignore the violence Castro inflicted in his life, according to the prosecutor.

“I am appreciative that not only did a jury take this case incredibly seriously, as evidenced by their verdict, but also that the judge did,” said Deputy District Attorney Kevin Smith. “Despite the defendant’s claims he was getting too much time for ‘only killing a dog,’ he is getting this sentence for the violence in his past.”

A drywall worker, Castro was sentenced to 25 years to life for the 2007 dog killing, but with enhancements to his sentence, the earliest he’d be eligible for parole is 33 years, Smith said.

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