ohmidog!

That’s Rick Santorum atop the car roof, and Mitt Romney behind the wheel, on the cover of next week’s New Yorker.

Robert Staake, the artist behind the New Yorker’s March 12 cover, apparently saw some similarities between Seamus’ 12-hour ride in a kennel atop the Romney family car and the less than smooth sailing Santorum’s presidential campaign has encountered of late as Romney appears to be taking control.

Romney, as we’ve duly noted, strapped the kennel containing his Irish Setter atop the family car during a trip to Canada in 1993.

As mentioned in our previous post about a cloned dog arriving home in Albuquerque, my book on dog cloning is coming out in paperback soon.

So it seems as good a time as any to unveil its new look, namely, a new cover and subtitle — proving that books resurrected as paperbacks, like dogs resurrected as clones, don’t always look exactly like the original.

“DOG, INC.: The Uncanny Inside Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend” will be coming back to life as “DOG, INC.: How a Collection of Visionaries, Rebels, Eccentrics and Their Pets Launched the Commercial Dog Cloning Industry.”

The book looks at the history and ethics of dog cloning, and the marketing of the service — before dog cloning was even achieved — to bereaved pet owners.

In the paperback version, the cute little beagle with a bar code on its butt is gone from the cover, replaced by six framed images of the same dog — is it a Jack Russell terrier? In any case, it’s a generic pooch, I should point out, and not one of the hundreds of cloned dogs that have been produced in South Korea.

You can learn more about the book here.

You can read an excerpt here.

You can read some customer reviews — thanks, customers — here.

You can buy it  here or here or here.

A Baltimore County dog was stabbed in the throat earlier this week while in her own fenced yard, and died later that night.

Princess, a 3-year-old mixed breed, was stabbed sometime Wednesday, and was found bleeding by her family when they returned home.

David and Robin O’Steen rushed the dog to the vet and left her there overnight, hopeful that she was going to survive. The vet told the O’Steens that the wound appeared to be from a knife.

“I had planned to go at 2 o’clock yesterday and get her from the vet,” Robin O’Steen told WJZ in Baltimore. “And they called yesterday (Thursday) morning when I was at school to tell me that she had passed overnight.”

The O’Steens said Princess had been mistreated by passersby before, because she was prone to bark at strangers. The street they live on in Essex is near a pedestrian bridge, and gets a lot of foot traffic, they said. Once someone walked by and spit on her because she was barking.

Contrary to the WJZ report (above), Princess wasn’t really on the cover of “Dog Fancy” magazine. According to Robin O’Steen, it’s a fake cover she had made at Walgreen’s. Because the visiting news crew didn’t ask about it, Robin said she didn’t bother to point it out. Even though Princess wasn’t a true cover dog, Robin still considered her a star.

Baltimore County police are investigating the death of Princess, but with no witnesses having come forward, Robin O’Steen isn’t too hopeful that the dog’s assailant will be found.

“Without an eyewitness, the police are unable to do anything, which greatly saddens me,” she told ohmidog!

Princess, a Rottweiler and black Lab mix, was a rescue from Georgia and had a limp when her daughter adopted her.

“She was my sidekick/my shadow. If I went outside to sit on the porch, she had to go outside with me. Even if to just lay in the yard, she was always by my side to make sure I was OK. Even though she was 80 pounds, she would lay in my bed with me while I watched TV, worked on homework, etc. She spent almost every night at my feet, sleeping with me and my husband.”

“I had her for three years and she was THE best dog I ever had. She was not my property, she was my family. I feel so lost without her, and I am so angry that anyone could do this to a dog that never hurt anyone.”

 
It’s an anus. Deal with it.

Having a curly-tailed dog, I’ve gotten used to the sight (though I’ll admit what’s known as Ace’s “winky” has a way of popping up in photos far more often than I’d like).

But for those who can’t tolerate the sight, for the sphincter-phobic among us, for those who find the anus especially heinous, there’s now a product designed to spare dog owners from catching a glimpse of the offending orifice.

It’s called Rear Gear – and it is, quite possibly, the silliest canine-related product we’ve heard of since the dog chastity belt.

Made in Oregon, Rear Gear comes in several designs including a disco ball, air freshener, heart, flower, biohazard, smiley face, cupcake, sheriff’s badge and dice.

The website offering it, which says they are made with recycled paper, recycled styrene and satin cord, doesn’t make clear how it is attached/installed — and I’m not sure I want to know. Apparently the cord is used as a noose around the tail.

Still, you’d think they’d become a little problematic when the time comes for the dog to poop. Even if they don’t interfere with the function, they probably — unless removed and reattached — come out a little worse for wear

The makers of Rear Gear — “No more Mr. Brown Eye,” is their slogan — say they are also happy to work with you on a custom design. They sell for $5 each.

Prince Georges County firefighters rescued a Labrador retriever mix who fell 25 feet into the bottom a storm drain.

The drain’s cover, authorities said, had been displaced, apparently by a snowplow.

Firefighters and medics responded to a call Tuesday from a resident in Laurel who heard a dog crying at the bottom of a storm drain, according to the Washington Post.

Rescuers pumped fresh air into the drain, rigged up a pulley system and lowered a rescuer on a rope, who was able to put a harness on the dog so it could be hoisted out.

The operation took about 10 minutes, said Mark Brady, a spokesman for the Prince George’s County Fire Department.

The 40-pound, long-haired black dog was wet and cold but had no apparent injuries, Brady said.

The dog had a collar but no tags. Anyone with information about its owner is asked to call the animal control facility at 301-780-7200.

Here’s a product that — while I could do without the monogram — would make my life easier.

The pet loveseat cover (they make couch and chair ones, too) would be a cozy sleeping surface for Ace, protect the sofa from drool stains (I can’t help it!) and save me from having to vacuum dog hair off of it EVERY … SINGLE … YEAR.

Available from Sure Fit, the throws come in quilted “soft suede,” or cotton, and are machine washable.

The quilted pet throw comes in taupe and chocolate, while the cotton ones come in black, claret or linen. Only the quilted ones are offered with monograms.

The non-personalized throws cost $29.99 for a chair,  $39.99 for a loveseat, and $49.99 for a sofa. The monogrammed ones — up to 15 characters are permitted — run $37.49 for a chair, $47.49 for a loveseat, and $57.49 for a sofa.

Were Santa to bring me one, I would opt for cotton, loveseat size, non-monogrammed, in the color linen. And I’d promise not to drool on it.

I have no statistics, just a hunch: Dogs — in addition to all the other places they’re appearing more often (books, TV and movies to name three) — are turning up more regularly on album covers.

The latest I’m aware of is the Saint Bernard who graces the cover of Norah Jones’ new album, ”The Fall.”

The dog on the cover isn’t her’s — just one of several model dogs that the photographer planned to use in a group shot.

“She wanted to use a bunch of dogs because she likes working with animals. I thought it sounded fun,” Jones said in an interview with Hulu’s blog “We ended up just loving the Saint Bernard so much that we got some shots with just him. He was so beautiful.”

Jones is a dog lover, doting in particular on her rescued poodle Ralph.

“My dogological clock started to tick. So I got a dog … I’m madly in love with him,” the songstress told NPR’s Morning Edition. “I like to say that he’s a scruffy, manly poodle, because you say poodle and people start rolling their eyes… ”

Ralph also served as the inspiration for the closing track of the album, “Man of the Hour,” whose lyrics recite the many advantages living with a dog has over living with a man.

Here’s her recent performance of the song on ”Good Morning America.”

 
Weezer lead vocalist Rivers Cuomo was perusing the pages of National Geographic when he came across a reader-submitted dog photo that he thought would make a good cover for the group’s next album.

And that’s how Sidney, the high jumper above, came to grace the cover of “Raditude.”  The album comes out Oct. 27.

The shot of Sidney was entered in a reader-submitted photo contest sponsored by the magazine. When Cuomo spotted it, according to Spinner, he decided to track down the photographer.

The band then lucked out big time. When they got in touch with the winning photographer, Jason Neely of Middletown, Conn., to seek his permission to use the shot, it turned out he was a big Weezer fan. Here’s Jason’s Flickr page.

There’s a cat in the photo, too, though it’s difficult to spot.

We rarely meet a New Yorker cover we don’t like (New Yorkers themselves; that’s another story) — and we especially like this one of little Bo in the White House front yard.

It’s by author and illustrator Bob Staake, who has also put together a new book on the family’s quest for a dog, ”The First Pup: The Unofficial Story Of How Sasha and Malia’s Dad Got the Presidency — And How They Got a Dog.” Somewhat surprisingly, Media Bistro reports, it hasn’t found a publisher yet.

On the New Yorker‘s book blog, Staake explained how he wrote his book as the First Family debated breeds and prepared for their new puppy, the now famous Portuguese water dog Bo. He also explains the thinking behind the New Yorker cover.

“You put any dog on the cover and everyone goes crazy,” Staake wrote. “This cover is good at being cute, but it also works as a metaphor for Obama. The best New Yorker covers are the ones where the reader looks and brings their own interpretation, which brings the image to a new dimension.”

Today we kick off a new Sunday feature on ohmidog! – highlighting the best comment of the previous week.

Our first winner is Mary Schmidt, who commented on the entry, “What a difference 20 years makes,” contrasting Sports Illustrated’s 1987 pit bull cover, and its current pit bull cover.

Wrote Mary: “I have nothing but praise for Sports Illustrated for the recent issue with the cover story about Jasmine and the other Vicktory dogs.

“Maybe in another 21 years, Sports Illustrated will have evolved enough to dispense with the swimsuit issue.”

For her winning comment, Mary will receive an ohmidog! plastic water bottle.