ohmidog!

A Maryland dog who was adopted by a member of the U.S. Senate — and who  went on to become a familiar and soothing presence in that chamber’s hallowed and often contentious halls — has died.

Dakota, a bichon frise, was adopted by former North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad and his wife, Lucy, in the spring of 2009 from a rescue shelter in Maryland

Conrad confirmed Sunday that Dakota died last week, due to complications from lymphoma, Inforum.com reported. 

During Conrad’s time on Capitol Hill, Dakota was popular among lawmakers, staffers and reporters, and he was once dubbed the “101st senator” by NBC’s Brian Williams.

“He went to work with me every day,” Conrad said. “People just took to him. To have an animal in that setting, it warmed people up. It made them feel more at home.”

Conrad said the dog’s calm disposition had the power to soothe seething lawmakers.

“In some of our (budget) negotiations, colleagues would call and ask if I could bring Dakota. He calmed everyone down.”

Dakota was diagnosed with the lymphoma in September 2011, and had fought the disease for a year and a half.

In the past eight months, Conrad and Dakota had flown four times to Houston, where the dog was participating in a T-cell cancer research project at the University of Texas’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

“He was part of experiments that are very important, that they think could help save many people’s lives,” Conrad said.

While his prognosis was promising, the cancer returned and last week Conrad was informed that Dakota probably only had a few days left.

“He was such a jaunty, confident and happy little dog,” Conrad said. “And he was cute – he just put a smile on people’s faces. And so that’s how I’ll remember him.

“He improved people’s days. He certainly improved mine.”

(Photo: Associated Press)

Zipper, one of two “first dogs” belonging to former North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue and her husband, died this week in New Bern.

The 7-½-year-old Tibetan terrier had been diagnosed with lymphoma.  The former governor’s husband, Bob Eaves, said Zipper died after suffering a stroke.

Zipper and her mother, Dosie, lived in the Executive Mansion in Raleigh during Perdue’s four-year term. 

Her death came just a few days after that of Barney, a Scottish terrier — also suffering from lymphoma — belonging to former President George W. Bush.

“When we took her to the Veterinary School at N.C. State, they also diagnosed her with lymphoma,” Eaves told the New Bern Sun Journal. “They gave her only two months to live.”

Zipper surpassed that prognosis by nearly two months.

Over Christmas, Perdue stayed in Raleigh with her ailing dog. She plans to go to Harvard University later this month to teach public policy for the spring semester.

Eaves said Zipper enjoyed a last visit to the Trent River on Tuesday evening.

“She raced out to the river like she had all the energy in the world,” he said. On  Wednesday, he said, she was listless and barely moving. “…The vet came and said she wouldn’t make it through the night and he helped her go.”

(Photo: N.C. Cultural Resources Commission)

A Secret Service dog died Saturday when it fell off a parking deck in New Orleans while providing security during a speaking engagement by Vice President Joe Biden.

The Belgian Malinois fell from the roof of the six-story deck adjacent to The Ritz-Carlton.

Biden was speaking at a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu.

The dog, whose name or gender was’t provided, was working in the Premier Parking garage in the 900 block of Iberville when New Orleans Police said it fell off the roof.

Federal Agents and Police rushed the dog to a Metairie Veterinary hospital, but veterinarians were unable to revive the dog, WWL-TV reported.

Secret Service spokesman Max Milien called the death was a “tragic accident.”

A California man who tried to rescue his dog from crashing 12-foot-high waves drowned when he was pulled more than a half-mile out to sea at  Point Reyes National Seashore on New Year’s day.

Charles Quaid, 59, was walking along the beach with his wife when a large wave swept his dog into the ocean.

Quaid’s wife was also swept into the ocean at one point, but she was rescued by bystanders, and the dog managed to get back to shore on its own.

Quaid’s body was recovered in the ocean four hours later, after a search by helicopters and rescue teams from the fire department, U.S. Coast Guard, and National Park Service, according to ABC.

Quaid, who lived in Richmond, was described by his co-workers at a health care consulting firm as “a wonderful man” who “believed very passionately in everyone’s right to have equal access to health care.”

“He had a sense of our appreciation for what we’re doing here,” David Lansky, chief executive officer of Pacific Business Group on Health, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “One of his employees said this morning that he’d never in 30 years had a boss who he’d respected as much … He was honest and earnest and had integrity first and foremost.”

Quaid’s wife and dog were not injured.

The rough surf off the northern California coast claimed three other lives in November when a teenager and his mother and father were swept out to sea trying to rescue their family dog near Big Lagoon. An older daughter and the family dog survived.

A brave little dog died last week — nine months after he was left for dead on the side of the road in a plastic trash bag.

His name was Andre, and he was a miniature Pinscher, found in a knotted black trash bag on the side of a street in Tolleson, Arizona.

A man taking a walk noticed the trash bag was moving, and went to open it up.

Doing so would expose a particularly heinous case of what some humans do to animals, but it would also come to show how very many more humans step forward to help them.

Andre would go on to brighten the lives and bring out the best of all those he came in contact with, though, for him, the darkness continued — even once he was out of the bag. In addition to the other abuse he’d been subjected to, his eyes had apparently been gouged out.

Despite that — despite the cruelty with which one or more humans treated him — he’d continue to show love for the rest of the species, and keep capturing hearts for nearly 10 more months.

It all started with Jan. 3, when Cedric Conwright saw a car pull to the side of the road, and watched as a bag was tossed out the window before it drove away. Conwright approached the knotted trash bag and saw that it was moving. He nudged it with his foot and heard a whimper.

When he opened it, he found a small dog in bad shape. He picked him up and took him home. Two days later he took the dog to Maricopa County Animal Care and Control in hopes of getting it medical help.

Euthanasia was discussed, but instead vets opted to perform surgery, removing what was left of his eyes. From there he was taken in by Susy Hopkins, a member of the Feathers Foundation, a Paradise Valley non-profit group associated with the Circle L Animal Sanctuary. The foundation raises money for injured and neglected animals.

Her first stop was another animal hospital, where the first thing vets recommended was euthanasia. Hopkins said no, and asked the vet’s office to do what they could.

In addition to infections where his eyes used to be, Andre was anemic and had diabetes, and under his skin were what appeared to be BB’s from a pellet gun.

Over the next few days, Andre started appearing more lively, and his rescuers went to work trying to raise money for the medical care he had gotten and would need. Within days, $13,000 had poured in. A fundraiser at a downtown Scottsdale pizza restaurant brought in another $3,500.

There was something about Andre that brought out the best in people, Hopkins noted.

“People just wanted to see Andre, to hold him, to hug him,” she said. “And no matter how many people wanted to pet him, Andre never resisted. He was so calm, so gentle. It made me wonder even more why someone would treat him so badly.”

On Feb. 11, a permanent home was found for Andre. Sandy Powers had seen his story on TV. “It was love at first sight,” Powers said. “I had never adopted a rescue dog before, but I knew I wanted to care for this one.”

Andre walked carefully at his new home, several states away, and, though he couldn’t see, did his best to stay at the side of his new mom.

“When I talk or sing a little, he stays right with me on my heels,” said Powers.

He continued to get treatment for his diabetes. Amid other complications, there were some weeks Powers seemed to be making daily visits to the vet.

In recent weeks, his condition took a turn for the worse, and Powers did her best to keep Andre’s many fans informed on his Facebook page.

This week, she announced he had died Saturday. Andre has been cremated and his ashes brought home.

The dog who many were surprised didn’t die eight months ago now has — but not before getting a chance to give and get some love, add a few more chapters to his brave legacy and remind us yet again what being human is all about.

Supermodel Maggie Rizer is blaming United Airlines for the death of her golden retriever, Bea.

The two-year-old dog died while in the cargo hold of a United fight from New York City to San Francisco.

According to a necropsy by her veterinarian, heat stroke was the cause.

Rizer said both Bea and her other dog, Albert, had been cleared by a veterinarian just four days before she flew home about two weeks ago to California after vacationing on the East Coast.

When Rizer and her husband, businessman Alex Mehran, landed in San Francisco, United workers told them Bea had died. One of them, she says, told her, ”This happens a lot.”

“I was completely hysterical, I’m surprised I didn’t get arrested,” Rizer told the New York Daily News.

Rizer also claims that workers lied to her, saying Bea had been taken for a necropsy when she was actually still in the cargo area.

Bea’s body was given to the family later that day, and an autopsy by a family vet showed she had died of heat stroke, said Rizer, a covergirl who modeled for Louis Vuitton, Versace, and Calvin Klein.

A United spokesperson said the airline has transported more than 550,000 pets, with less than .1% of those resulting in deaths.

“That said, I just want to make it clear this isn’t something we’re not sympathetic to, certainly when it does happen it’s devastating,” spokesperson Mary Ryan said.

United is reviewing the incident, and has returned the $1,800 Rizer paid to transport her dog.

(Photo: Maggie Rizer and Bea, via Twitter)

One of Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis has passed away.

Monty, who was 13, died at Balmoral, the royal family’s Scottish estate, over the weekend, USA Today reported.

Monty appeared with the queen and actor Daniel Craig in a James Bond sketch that opened the London Olympics in July. He was in the news more recently after getting into a fight with a terrier owned by the queen’s granddaughter, Princess Beatrice.

Monty, whose cause of death wasn’t mentioned, once belonged to the queen’s mother, and was named after American horse whisperer Monty Roberts, who has advised the queen on both her horses and her dogs.

All of the queen’s corgis — there have been more than 30 — were descended from Susan, the corgi she received for her 18th birthday from her father, George VI, who got his first corgi in 1933.

Monty is expected to be buried at the pet cemetery at Balmoral started by Queen Victoria in the 19th century.

(Photo: NBC)

A  police dog named Serge died of “heat exhaustion” last week after an alarm system failed to alert his handler that the air conditioner had malfunctioned in the car he’d been left in, police in Camden, N.J., said Monday.

“Most of the electrics went out. And the air conditioner, instead of cooling the vehicle, was pulling all the heat from the engine. [The dog] probably went in like 10 minutes,” said Joe Rodriguez, supervising trainer at the Atlantic County K-9 Academy in Egg Harbor Township, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Apparently, both the air conditioner and heat alarm failed, Rodriguez said. Rodriguez who trained the German shepherd and his handler, said the alarm is designed to set off a siren and roll down the vehicle’s windows when the temperature inside rises too high.

The dog was found dead in the vehicle, parked outside police headquarters in downtown Camden. The temperature that day, Thursday, reached a high of 92 degrees.

“We still have much more investigating to do before we determine causes and issue conclusions,” Police Chief Scott Thomson said.

The death of police dogs from heat exhaustion — often while they are waiting in cars — has been an all-too frequent occurence across the country this summer.

“It has been a problem with some law enforcement due to malfunctioning equipment, some of it due to human error,” said Russell Hess, national director of the U.S. Police Canine Association. “We usually hear about it every summer.”

Rodriguez, who trains K-9 officers from all over New Jersey, said he recommends that handlers check their dogs every 20 minutes — even when their vehicles are equipped with heat alarms.

“They’re like anything else. They can be hit or miss,” he said. “You get a false sense of security.”

Serge, not quite two-years-old, joined the Camden police force in January.

“He had already captured a bank robbery suspect and had assisted in several other apprehensions as well,” said Chief Thomson.

Roxci, an energetic two-year-old mutt from Michigan, died Sunday after a weeklong battle to survive injuries she received in a freak boating accident.

The dog was on a paddle boat on Duck Lake with her owner, Ashlee Johnson, when a speed boat crashed into them.

Johnson and her younger sister received only cuts and scrapes, but Roxci was thrown from the boat, suffering a severe gash to the head and nearly drowning.

The dog was taken an animal hospital at Michigan State University, where she was kept on a ventilator in hopes she’d recover.

Ashlee, who adopted Roxci — her first dog — from a shelter about two years ago, visited twice a day for a week, and was encouraged when she saw Roxci’s eye twitch, a sign her brain might still be functioning.

“To me, she’s not just a dog,” Johnson, 28, told the Battle Creek Enquirer. “She’s a part of my family and you can’t really put a price on a member of your family.”

On Sunday, doctors told Johnson that Roxci’s heart wasn’t getting enough oxygen and that there was nothing more they could do.

After Rocxi passed, Ashlee gathered with the rest of her family at her mother’s home in Battle Creek.

They read poems and the comments of friends and strangers who posted on a Facebook page dedicated to Roxci.

“I know it’s not my fault,” she said, “but I feel kind of responsible. I’m supposed to protect her.”

Through donations, about $1,800 had been raised towards covering Roxci’s medical bills, which could end up costing as much as $10,000. 

The family is continuing to accept online donations. They can also be made through the mail (12954 11 Mile Road, Ceresco, MI 49033).

The driver of the speedboat, though sheriff’s department officials said he had been drinking, did not test above the legal limit. He was cited for reckless driving and not having valid registration.

Tech XX, the English bulldog that served as mascot at Louisiana Tech University, died of heat stroke after being left out in the heat Sunday.

Though initially reported missing, the four-year-old English bulldog was left outside by an employee, who has since been fired, according to the veterinarian that cared for the dog.

The employee, according to news reports, tried to cover up the dog’s death.

“Tech XX was a member of our immediate family and a daily part of our lives for the past four years,” Patrick Sexton said in a statement. “We are devastated over the circumstances of his passing, and there will be a large void in our hearts for some time to come. As with any family member, we will spend considerable time grieving his passing.”

In a statement, the university said that since becoming the mascot in 2008, Tech XX got superior care from Sexton’s team.

Tech XX’s predecessor, Tech XIX, was retired in 2007 because of health concerns after suffering heatstroke, the university said on its website.

Originally, a worker said he let the dog out to go to the bathroom and the dog went missing, said Sexton, who kept Tech XX at his home. Dozens of students and residents searched for the dog, and rewards were posted.

For four days, the employee kept Tech XX’s death, and location, a secret, according to the Shreveport Times.

“That employee unfortunately chose to handle it the wrong way and attempted to cover it up,” Sexton said. “Due to this negligence, the employee is no longer employed by Sexton Animal Health Center.”

Tech XX was owned by the school’s Student Government Association, the president of which, Will Dearmon, said, ”It’s extremely disappointing and sad news this happened to our beloved Tech XX.”

“We’ll work through that in the coming days and there will be a Tech XXI, but right now our hearts are broken,” he added.