ohmidog!

A mother dog was photographed rescuing her litter of puppies from a house fire in Chile.

In the photos, a German shepherd mix named “Amanda” carries five of her 10-day old pups in her mouth, dropping each onto a fire truck as flames ravaged her owner’s home Thursday in Santa Rosa de Temuco, Chile.

The fire, at the home of Omar Torres, the father of boxer Tumbaito Jose Torres, was apparently the result of a car bomb explosion.

The puppies were transported to La Clínica Veterinaria Altamira where four are recuperating with their mother. 

One of the puppies died on Thursday night after suffering burns to his abdomen and mouth.

Veterinarian Felipe Lara told the Chilean newspaper Soy Temuco that Amanda defended her puppies when they tried to take them away for treatment.

(Photos: Associated Press /Jose Monsalve, Diario El Austral de La Araucaria)

Do dogs have self control? Yes. Can they run out of it? Yes.

Is there a convenient place they — or for that matter, we humans — can go to lap up a little more? Sadly, no.

A new study, by Holly Miller and others from the University of Lille Nord de France, takes a look at doggie self control, and what happens when it’s depleted.

Dogs can  “run out” of self-control, the study says, and when they do, they are more likely to make more impulsive decisions that put them in harm’s way.

Sound like any other species you know?

I find this quite interesting — even though it runs counter to my assumptions about self control, and about dogs. I’ve always been under the impression that self control, like abs, could be built up if one exercised that particular part of oneself enough.

It was just a theory, because I’ve never exercised them enough — either self control or abs — to find out.

While I know people and dogs have varying amounts of self control, and that both are prone to losing it,  I thought self control was more like  a muscle that could be built up — that the more you practiced it, the more you’d have.

I reasoned that the more one made their dog practice self control, which is of course far easier than making oneself practice it, the better their dogs would become at it.

It’s why, when I put Ace’s dinner down for him, I make him wait for a nod from me before he can eat it. But is that teaching him self control, or just letting me exercise control over him?

And if his supply of self control is limited, should I not be using it up on that silly tradition, and instead letting him save it up for when it’s really needed? Unfortunately, there is no self control gauge to let us know how much we, or our dogs, may have left.

The new study, recently published online in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, is described as the first to demonstrate that  “self-control depletion” has significant behavioral implications in animals.

The researchers recruited ten dogs. Some were left in a room but ordered to sit still for ten minutes; others were caged, yet allowed to move around. Afterwards, the dogs were taken to a room where a barking, growling dog was caged.

Those dogs who had exerted self-control by sitting still spent more time in close proximity to the aggressive dog than did those who had not exerted self-control, according to the study.

“The present research provides evidence that the phenomenon of self-control depletion, once believed to be uniquely human, can be found in dogs,” Miller’s team concluded.

Their study can be downloaded here.

I’m pretty sure this is a work of art designed for Facebook posting, as opposed to an actual billboard.

And it’s slightly innacurate — while Ohio law pretty strictly regulates pit bulls, the state isn’t removing them from homes and exterminating them on sight.

But we love the sign/art anyway, and it does make a good point.

To be cracking down on pit bulls — all while a suicidal ex-convict is being allowed to keep dangerous wild animals on his property — makes Ohio seem something of a laughing stock.

Was Terry Thompson, who freed 53 wild animals from their cages at his private reserve before commiting suicide this week, required to have $100,000 worth of insurance, as state law requires of pit bull owners?

If he had two of the same breed, could wardens arbitarily seize one, as allowed under the Ohio law with pit bulls?

Was he subject to fines and worse if his animals weren’t properly muzzled, or securely fenced and enclosed, as pit bull owners have been?

Some Ohio cities, like Cleveland and Toledo, avoided the state’s strict line on pit bulls by passing their own kinder and gentler dangerous dog laws — laws that didn’t automatically presume all pit bulls to be vicious.

And the state legislature, we should point out, is considering removing wording from its dangerous animal law that currently labels all pit bulls as vicious — a move that would bring an end to the over-reaching restrictions.

House Bill 14 passed the House and was sent to the Senate, but not much has been heard of its status since then.

Until it does pass, the state will likely fall victim to the kind of ribbing this Facebooker came up with.

(Photo: From the Facebook page of John Sibley)

As a child, I had a recurring dream about getting sucked into an escalator: If that grate at the bottom (or top, if you’re going up) managed to gobble up all those stairs, I reasoned, it could surely flatten me out as well.

That — though he didn’t disappear like a pancake — is sort of what happened to Kei, a shiba inu from Illinois, while on vacation with his owner in Toronto.

Scott Thisdale of Wadsworth, Ill.,  and his two 7-year-old shiba inus were on their way to a local park, via subway, when Kei’s paw got caught in the grate of a  escalator.

His injuries — all fixed up now — earned him the title of “Most Unusual September Claim” by Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. (VPI). The company picks the most unusual claim every month, then selects one of those to receive its annual  VPI Hambone Award.

Kei and Midori, were riding up a subway escalator when Kei’s paw got caught in the grate at the top.

“He didn’t yelp or cry, even though it must’ve been painful. I didn’t realize anything had happened until he started licking his nails,” said Thisdale. “That’s when I noticed he was bleeding.”

A veterinarian sedated Kei and treated his wounds, described by VPI as “nail bed avulsions and lacerations on the pad of his left, hind paw.” Kei got some stitches and had his nail bed vessels cauterized during a six-hour visit at the animal hospital.

Kei’s escalator incident was one of more than 80,000 claims received in the month of September by VPI, the nation’s oldest and largest provider of pet health insurance. It was selected by VPI employees as the most unusual of the bunch.  

Honorable mentions in September included a Newfoundland that tangled with a moose; a Labrador retriever that suffered deep lacerations from a run-in with a water spigot; and a Papillon that had its tail caught in a groomer’s Dremel, a rotary tool used for trimming nails.

All pets considered for the award made full recoveries and received insurance reimbursements.

VPI, which insures more than 485,000 pets nationwide, established the VPI Hambone Award in 2009. It’s named in honor of a VPI-insured dog that got stuck in a refrigerator and ate an entire Thanksgiving ham while waiting for someone to rescue him.

It was first awarded to Lulu, an English bulldog who swallowed 15 baby pacifiers, a bottle cap and a piece of a basketball.

VPI says publicizing unusual pet insurance claims helps educate the public about the unexpected mishaps that can affect household pets — and what happened to Kei is a good example of that.

Rare as it may sound, it isn’t all that unusual. Escalators grates and claws are a dangerous combination. Some escalators warn people to carry their dogs. Some don’t permit dogs.  Guide dogs have to be trained to use them.

Even if you’re not phobic, when you’re with your dog, it’s best to take the stairs.

(Photo of Kei, courtesy of his owner and VPI)

The quietude of our sleepy little neighborhood has been shattered.

We are under attack.

By acorns.

I mean hundreds every hour, and that’s just counting the ones that pelt my roof. It started about a week ago, and has been gaining intensity ever since, as if working up to some nutty grand finale.

Ace, who doesn’t like loud noises — and believe me, it’s very loud — is starting to get used it. Only during the worst, like when 50 or so bombard us over the course of, say, 10 seconds, does he look up, wondering what’s going on.

I’m not certain if the squirrels are up in the trees encouraging the acorns to fall, or if the downpour is just happening on its own.

But it’s a daily and day-long event — thousands of acorns, both green and brown, falling from the sky, pelting the top of my car, rattling the roof of my house, pinging off my grill and air conditioner and slamming onto the sidewalk.

In almost every case, they lose their cute little hats in the process.

I’ve lived among oak trees before, but I don’t remember ever seeing an acorn fall, and definitely not anything like the barrage underway on my street.

Huge oak trees line the whole block, and their limbs hang over the housing units. But none of them seem to be raining acorns like the ones hanging over my place.

When I was planting my pansies Saturday, at least five acorns –and usually you can hear them coming, ripping through the leaves on the way down — smashed to the ground at my feet.

I’m hoping it won’t still be raining acorns on Halloween — because given the distance they are falling from, and their hardness, they could do some damage to young heads. Or old heads for that matter.

I haven’t been hit by one directly yet. I’ve had a few bounce off my grill and hit me, and many land at my feet. Ace has also escaped thus far, even though he spends a lot of time laying under the trees in the front yard.

The acorns pose a double threat. In addition to the possibility of getting beaned by one on the way down, there’s the hazard of sliding on those that have already fallen, especially when they’re hidden under leaves.

Most often they just crunch underfoot, but every once in a while there’s a group that are particularly hard and stubborn, and it’s like trying to walk on  marbles.

There are those who believe that an abundance of acorns is a sign that the coming winter will be severe — that somehow nature is able to figure out how many acorns squirrels will need to get through the season and, accordingly, instructs the trees on how many they should grow and drop, so that there’s always enough for everyone.

That’s a little too neat and tidy, trickle-down and happily ever after for me to believe.

My theory? I think it’s all just part of nature’s dance — sometimes predictable, sometimes not; sometimes explainable, sometimes not; sometimes light and cheery, sometimes stormy and violent.

We can’t and shouldn’t try to dictate and control it. We shouldn’t ask it to change the song. And when we do cut in, we should do it gently and with respect. After all, we we’re lucky just to be invited.

Will families of American military personnel in Japan be forced to leave their pets behind when they evacuate?

The Animal Legal Defense Fund is seeking the anwer to that question.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the non-profit organization asks for a clarification of the U.S. government’s policy on whether or not military families can bring their pets with them — or must be forced to choose between staying in harm’s way and abandoning a beloved companion.

Family members of military personnel stationed in Japan began evacuating today amid the increasing threat of radioactivity in the wake of last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

ALDF says it has received desperate emails from some of them, who say they’ve been informed pets will not be allowed on evacuation planes chartered by the U.S. Department of State.

“In a context of terrifying natural and nuclear disasters, with military personnel and their families already being separated from each other, we would hope that the U.S. government would not place an additional burden on military families by disregarding the very real bonds they have with their animal companions” said Carter Dillard, ALDF’s director of litigation.

“It is our hope that the tragedy of people forced to abandon beloved pets in order to evacuate to safety, which we saw play out on a heartbreaking scale during Hurricane Katrina, is not replicated during the current crisis in Japan.”

ALDF says it has heard from numerous families who say they are hesitant to evacuate from the escalating radiation danger if they are required to leave their pets behind.

Some families have turned to Facebook for help, including Mariaelena Rodriguez Geoffray, shown above with her dog, Bella. Seeking a commercial flight, she has been told by two airlines that temperatures are too cold to fly a pet.

Her dilemma is recounted on the blog Two Little Cavaliers.

There are about 43,000 dependents of American military personnel living in Japan.

Remember the old Chevrolet commercial — baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?

Well, decades later, the car company has, for the sake of selling motor vehicles, gotten around to acknowledging another piece of Americana — the dog; specifically, the dog in the pickup truck; more specifically, the dog in a Chevrolet pickup.

And that, they will find out as the new ad airs, if they haven’t yet, is some tricky ground.

It’s one of those topics that raises the hackles of animal welfare activists, some of whom who say under no conditions should a dog be riding in the bed of a pickup , some of whom say it’s acceptable if the dog is crated or restrained, all of whom say riding in the cab would be preferable.

And they are right. For safety’s sake, it probably would be.

Last week, in “Travels with Ace,” the continuing saga of the trip Ace and I are taking across America, we showed you Jake, a golden retriever in Oregon still sporting injuries he received when he tumbled out the back of a moving pickup. We did so without casting judgments or getting preachy, because our road trip is not about how dogs should live in America, only about how they do live in America.

In much of rural America, dogs are still dogs. They roam their property, and perhaps that of other’s, at their will. They chase and sometimes kill wildlife. Some even live, gasp, outside. And they ride in the back of pickups, which virtually all animal welfare organizations will tell you is a bad idea.

The Chevy ad, to its credit, doesn’t show any dogs in the beds of moving pickups, but, even so, I’m predicting it will lead to some lively debate if it airs widely.

On YouTube, it has already started — through Internet comments, gracious and civil as  always.

“Cute video, but I wish Chevy wouldn’t advocate the dogs in the back unless in a crate. Since I have seen a dog fly out of the back of a truck on a busy highway, I am traumatized for life. It should be illegal and is some places for your dog to ride loose in the bed of your truck unless you are on your own dirt road on your property with no other cars around and are willing to pay the vet bill if your dog falls out…”

“If I thought for a second my dog would ever jump out, he wouldn’t ride back there. And he doesn’t on the interstate. But on going into town, on rural country roads, and on my ranch, he will always ride in the back and he wouldn’ t have it any other way. MIND YOUR OWN F***ING BUSINESS FAG…”

“Greatest commercial! Too bad liberal know it all’s have created laws against dogs riding in truck beds! Apparently (like most libs) they know what’s best for us, and will make laws accordingly. My dog will ride in the back forever though, they can suck his hairy nuts…”

Besides reflecting how crass anonymous internet banter can get — how Internet commenting has replaced the punching bag as man’s default mode of venting hostilities — the discourse shows the cultural divide that exists in this country, one that’s not so much conservative versus liberal as it is rural America versus the rest.

It’s a generalization, but many denizens of rural America don’t want the rest of America making rules that govern their access to firearms, or how they raise their dogs — from whether they spay and neuter to letting them ride in the back of pickups.

There’s something to be said for letting a dog being a dog — as opposed to spending life on a leash or in a handbag – but is putting Rover in the back of a pickup letting a dog be a dog? In my view, it’s courting disaster.

Yet, while many experts also advise that dogs in cars be crated or restrained, Ace is traveling acoss the country unrestrained in the back of my Jeep.

Maybe that’s why I don’t come down harder on dogs in pickups; maybe it’s a degree of respect for rural ways; or maybe it’s because the surest way to make people become more entrenched in a bad habit is to tell them they can’t do it anymore.

I almost lost Ace at Niagara Falls – and in the worst imaginable way.

After leaving Saugerties, we headed across New York state, stopping overnight in Syracuse,  mainly because Ace desperately needed a bath. I think even he – scratching a lot of late — agreed with that assessment. He jumped right into the Motel 6 bathtub, sat patiently as I used the ice bucket to soak him down, and smiled as I scrubbed him with an oatmeal-based flea and tick shampoo, rinsed him and toweled him off, using every flimsy white towel in the room

The next day, smelling better — him, at least – we continued to Buffalo,  where I got a break from motel charges and fast food by staying with an aunt and uncle in Amherst.

My father’s brother and his wife, while dog lovers, are not believers in the whole idea of them living in the house. Their children’s dogs, and even their own dog, were never permitted in the house. I respected that, and figured, with the temperatures still above freezing, one night as a real dog wouldn’t hurt Ace.

I laid his blanket near the door, and he had a spacious, well-manicured, fenced backyard at his disposal. He seemed to enjoy everything about being outside – except for the fact that the people were inside. He’d sit at the window and gaze in forlornly, especially when he sensed food was being served

Only twice during the night did I hear him whine – and in a way I’d never heard him whine before. Usually he will emit a two syllable sound, when he’s upset or impatient. Something like “ruh-ROOOO.” On this night, he came up with a four syllable one, something like “ruh-REEE-RAAA-rooo.”

The next morning, when I stepped outside, he was the most energetic and playful I’ve seen him since our trip began. I think a night in the fresh air, as opposed to a Motel 6 smoking room, did him good. The stop did me good, too. My aunt and uncle fed me well, and sent me with a sack lunch on my visit to Niagara Falls.

It was only a slight hassle entering Canada after crossing the Rainbow Bridge  (not be be confused with the mythical one where pets wait for their owners before going into heaven). I feared, with all I’m toting inside and atop my car, someone might feel the need to search it all; instead I just got a verbal grilling.

“What’s the purpose of your trip? What’s all that in your car? Are you carrying any firearms? Do you have any tobacco?”

My answers seemed to satisfy the Canadian agent – except for the one pertaining to the purpose of my trip. He spent a long time looking at the ohmidog! magnet sign on the side of my car.

“It’s a website about dogs,” I explained. “Right now, I’m traveling across the country with my dog, like John Steinbeck did, and writing about it.”

His face had a blank look.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Do you sell stuff on your website?”

“Not really,” I answered.

“Do you breed dogs?”

“No.”

“How many dogs do you have in there?”

“In the car you mean? Just one.”

He handed me back my passport and signaled me through, and I followed the signs to Niagara Falls, which led me to an $18 parking space a short walk away from the falls.

Once there, as has happened at other scenic wonders, some of the tourists seemed more taken with Ace than the tourist attraction.

At least 20 people took his picture. Some asked to pose with him. One  volunteered to take a picture of the two of us together, with the falls in the background, as if we were honeymooners. And at least 30 asked the eternal question: “What kind of dog is that?”

Although the sun wasn’t in the right place, I tried to get some photos of Ace with the falls in the background. The edge of the falls, on the Canadian side, is blocked off by a railing. There’s a stone wall, about two feet high, with iron rails running above it. The stone wall was wide enough for Ace to get up on and sit, so I had him do so — right next to the sign that said “Danger.”

I had taken a few shots when a gaggle of tourists stopped, one of them with a little girl who just couldn’t stop squealing at Ace — squeals of delight, but squeals all the same. Ace isn’t a fan of the squeal. As I was holding on to his leash, putting my camera away, and answering questions about my dog, Ace – I think to distance himself from the squeals — jumped over the rail.

There was grass on the other side, about six feet of it, before the sheer drop. He walked toward the edge, to the point that I was leaning over the rail, holding his leash, trying to reel him back in. I pulled him back to the wall, and when I told him to jump back over he did.

Fortunately, no authorities saw the incident and I didn’t get the scolding I probably deserved. Then again, neither do all those people who seem to not give a second thought to holding their young children over the rail to give them a better view.

We moved along after that, weaving through all the tourists – and there were hordes of them, from all over the globe, some stopping me so they could take Ace’s photo, some asking to borrow him to pose with (Okay, but not near the rail), some wanting their children to meet him. One Japanese man, clearly wanting to ask about Ace but not a speaker of English, simply gave me a thumbs up.

It was a lot like our experience at the red rocks of Sedona, only multiplied. Then, too, Ace’s close call reminded me of that sad story we heard at Glen Canyon.

Back in the car, well away from the falls, I scolded myself again for letting my attention get diverted, and unwrapped the ham sandwiches my aunt had prepared.  I ate one of them. You can guess who got the other.

Sitting there in my $18 parking space, happy I hadn’t lost my dog to the roaring natural wonder, I gave silent thanks – that the only Rainbow Bridge either of us were crossing that day was the real one, and for the day I met him at Baltimore’s animal shelter.

After five years, the honeymoon continues.

A tourist from Michigan was charged with animal cruelty Monday after leaving his two dogs inside a minivan while he visited the the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

Rosie, an 8-year-old Chihuahua, died of heat stress after being inside the minivan for more than an hour, said Sabrina Fang, a spokeswoman for the Washington Humane Society.

Pebbles, Rieff

Rosie had been left inside a plastic storage bin. A second dog, a 15-year-old beagle mix named Pebbles, was kept inside a crate made for dogs. She was treated for heat stress at an animal hospital, and was expected to be released today, according to the Washington Post.

Washington Humane Society officials say more tourists seem to be leaving pets inside cars, unaware of how quickly the temperatures can rise.

Police arrested Kenneth Reiff, and his daughter was taken into custody by Child Protective Services, Humane Society officials said.

A Labrador retriever died after being left in a car parked outside a Costco in Frederick, Maryland.

A Maltese died after being left in a parked van while his owner went for a swim in a New York park.

A rash of similar cases have been reported across the heat-waved northeast, leading animal advocates to reiterate what they have long said — but apparently not everybody has heard: Dogs should never be left in parked cars, especially not in summer

In the Maryland case, Frederick County Animal Control says the dog was left in a car on Tuesday, as temperatures climbed to 104 degrees, the Washington Post reported. Authorities were notified about the dog, but by the time investigators arrived the dog was dead and the owner of the car was gone. Authorities are still investigating.

Earlier this week, a Bronx man left his Maltese inside his van at FDR State Park in Westchester, while he went for an hour-long swim, the New York Daily News reported.