ohmidog!

Two New Mexico men will face felony cruelty to animals charges for cutting a dog’s head off with a chainsaw, sheriff’s deputies say.

The act came to light after children, in the residence at the time, told authorities about nightmares they were having in connection with it.

Teddy Sexton, 32, and Corey Bowen, 31, face charges of fourth-degree felony extreme cruelty to animals, which carries up to 18 months in prison, San Juan County Sheriff’s Lt. Dwayne Faverino said.

The men allegedly were trying to put the 2-year-old pit bull down because it previously bit a 9-year-old girl who was visiting the residence, according to the Daily Times in Farmington.

“Sexton said this was the second time the dog has bitten someone and he felt it needed to be put down,” Faverino said.

He and Bowen, who live on the same property, attempted to use the knife to cut the dog’s throat, but they were having difficulty and grabbed the chainsaw, Faverino said.

A Children, Youth and Families Department investigator told deputies about the incident after being notified by several young children suffering from nightmares stemming from the incident.

Sexton told deputies the children were in the house when he killed the dog.

(Image: Google maps)

I’ve seen my last sunset in Santa Fe and, after an idyllic ten days, Ace and I are headed east — first to Oklahoma to visit another ex, my ex cat.

My stint as a petsitter went well, but with a sour note at the end. After the owners of Sophie, Charlie and Lakota got home, Lakota and Ace went at it, only for a second or two, but enough to leave Lakota with blood coming from his eye.

We should have seen it coming. Lakota’s mom was giving Ace some attention — too much attention in Lakota’s view. The bulldog lashed out at Ace; Ace lashed back, and either bit or clawed Lakota in the eye.

Lakota’s veterinarian dad looked it over and was pretty certain it was just the eyelid that was injured, but he was taking him to get checked out by a specialist just the same.

Ace and Lakota, while there was some growling on the first day, had seemed to have gotten to the point of tolerating each other. Lakota didn’t seem to mind if I was lavishing attention on Ace, or Sophie, or Charlie. Then again, I was just the petsitter.

After ten days without mom, I guess Lakota wasn’t willing to share her once she returned.

From Washington’s Olympic Peninsula comes the story of Harley — a Chihuahua found on the side of a logging road with his throat slit.

The dog, bearing a four-inch gash on his tiny throat, was found Feb. 2, bleeding on the side of a road west of Port Angeles by Monte Mogi, a 75-year-old, Harley Davidson-riding, retired Air Force master sergeant.

Mogi took the dog to veterinarian Dr. Charles Schramm of Port Angeles, who threaded tight a 4-inch open slice across the center of the dog’s throat, according to the Peninsula Daily News

The cut appeared to be intentional. By slitting the dog’s throat, “maybe they thought they were euthanizing it,” said Schramm, adding that he’d never seen a similar injury.

Mogi paid the dog’s $464 veterinary bill, then called his daughter, a veterinary technician, and she drove the dog — dubbed Harley by then — back to his house. Already having eight dogs on his property, Mogi called Nancy Woods, who had cared for Mogi’s wife before her death.

Nancy and her husband Herb, though they’d sworn off dogs after their last one died,  offered to take in Harley — even though he appeared traumatized and was terrified of children.

Once Harley recuperated, they planned to find him a new owner. In mid-February they handed Harley over to a new family. The next day, they asked for him back.

“I had bonded with him,” Nnancy Woods said. “I was terrified for him. My heart just hurt for the trauma he had been through. I felt like he had been with us for two weeks, and then he was uprooted again. I felt horrible about that.”

Now Harley has the run of the Woods family’s rural property, which he shares with Bob, a rescued cat who’s larger than him. He’s doing well, the Woods say, though he’s timid, shakes when nervous and can’t really bark. He starts coughing when he tries to do so. 

Last weekend, the Woods reported, Harley slept under the covers with Nancy’s 7-year-old granddaughter.

Seems he’s beginning to realize that, however evil some of them might be, there are some good humans out there, too.

(Photo: Peninsula Daily News)

A Florida man who used glue and dental floss to perform surgery on a dog that was injured while under his care has seen the animal cruelty charges filed against him dropped.

Although the dog died, the Broward State Attorney’s Office said it reviewed the case and determined there wasn’t enough evidence to convict William Ralph Jones Jr., of Oakland Park, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Jones, 55, was arrested in January on two counts of felony animal cruelty. He was accused of using glue to seal a 3-inch cut that the dog suffered when she escaped from Jones’ yard. When that didn’t work, he allegedly stitched up the dog with dental floss and used chloroform to knock her unconscious, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.

Jones’ acts caused Zoe — a 2-year-old hound-retriever mix who was left in Jones’ care by his daughter’s friend — to suffer excessive and unnecessary pain, the sheriff’s office said.

Upon reviewing the case, the State Attorney’s Office issued a memo stating that Jones “executed extremely poor judgment, but did not intend to hurt the animal.

“I’m just in shock that they’re allowing him to get away with this,” Danielle Vecchio, Zoe’s owner, told the Sentinel Tuesday. “They’re basically saying that he can’t be charged for stupidity.”

The attorney general’s office said, “The fact that he did this while she had an injury is evidence to the fact that he was trying to help the dog — albeit in a painful manner.”

What do some Westminster show dogs have in common with some drug dealers’ attack dogs?

They’ve been debarked.

The surgical procedure, which critics label outdated and inhumane, has been around for decades, but continues to fall out of favor, especially among younger veterinarians and animal-rights advocates, the New York Times reported this week.

There are no reliable figures on how many dogs have had their vocal cords cut, but veterinarians and other animal experts say that dogs with no bark can  be found in private homes, on the show-dog circuit, and even on the turf of drug dealers, who are said to prefer their attack dogs silent.

David Frei, the longtime co-host of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, acknowledged that some show dogs have  the operation. “There is no question we have some debarked dogs among our entries,” he said.

Many veterinarians refuse to do the surgery on ethical grounds, and some states have banned it, except for therapeutic reasons, including New Jersey. Similar legislation is pending in Massachusetts.

In the surgery, vets anesthetize the dog before cutting its vocal cords, either through the mouth or through an incision in the larynx. Dogs generally recover quickly, veterinarians say, and while they usually can still make sounds, their barks become muffled and raspy.

But Dr. Gary W. Ellison, of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida, said the procedure can lead to complications, such as excess scar tissue building up in the throat of dogs, making it difficult to breathe.

Ellison said the procedure is no longer taught at the University of Florida’s veterinary school.

Banfield, the Pet Hospital, with more than 750 veterinary practices across the country, formally banned the surgery last summer.

“Debarking is not a medically necessary procedure,” said Jeffrey S. Klausner, the hospital’s senior vice president and chief medical officer. “We think it’s not humane to the dogs to put them through the surgery and the pain. We just do not think that it should be performed.”

The American Veterinary Medical Association recommends that the surgery only be done “after behavioral modification efforts to correct excessive vocalization have failed.”