ohmidog!

Here’s a dog named Starship who’s guaranteed to send your heart into the stratosphere.

She has an ailment that requires her to eat in a high chair, like a baby.

Shelter officials at Greenville County Animal Care in South Carolina say the four-month-old dog, a collie mix, was starved for the first few weeks of her life and developed digestive issues. Specifically, the disorder is called Megaesophagus, meaning her esophagus is dilated.

She has to eat while sitting upright, which helps her food travel down into her stomach.

Once done dining, she has to stay in the high chair for another 30 minutes, according to this report by WSPA.

It took no time at all for her to adapt to the eating routine: “She just crawled right in and turned around,” said a shelter worker.

A South Carolina company, Archway Renovations, built the chair — called a Bailey chair — for Starship, and has offered to make an adjustable one for her as she grows larger.

Starship is looking for a new home, and shelter staff are hoping someone comes forward who’s willing to continue the feeding routine. She needs to eat 4-5 times daily and must be watched while eating and drinking.

“It’s just like someone who is handicapped, they figure a way to live their life happily,” said the shelter worker.

More information is available at Greenville Animal Care.

It’s not too often we cover cats at ohmidog!,   but National Hairball Awareness Day (it’s today, if you didn’t know) isn’t strictly about cats.

Dogs get hairballs too — as do humans, and cud-chewing animals, such as cows, oxen, sheep, goats, llamas, deer, and antelope.

As pets go, though, cats are more prone, and with almost 90 million U.S. cat owners we feel it’s our duty to pass on these hairball-alleviating tips — not just to avoid having to clean them up, but because they can pose dangers to the animal by blocking food from passing through the intestines.

The folks who make the FURminator offer the following tips, chief among them of course, buying their products:

- The more you groom your cat, the less, he or she will groom his or herself, making hairballs less likely. In addition to deshedding tools, there are shampoos that claim to reduce shedding.

- A little butter or pumpkin added to food can decrease the likelihood of hairballs, the butter helping grease the way, the pumpkin’s fiber helping to get things moving.

- Keep your cat well hydrated, placing water bowls throughought the house.

- Laxative supplements from your vet can help with chronic hairball problems.

If you want to learn even more about hairballs (and we would hope you don’t), the National Museum of Health and Medicine has a webpage devoted to them, and, should you want to make the trip to Washington (and we really, really hope you don’t)  there’s a human hairball on permanent display in the museum.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has 24 veterinary and 3 human hairballs or “trichobezoars” in its anatomical collection. To commemorate National Hairball Awareness Day on April 27, 2006, the museum featured a temporary display of 10 of these hairballs to explore the myths and realities behind these medical curiosities. Included were hairballs from a steer, two oxen, three cows, a calf, horse, and a chicken.

As for our picture above, rather than be so tasteless as to confront you with the real thing, we’ve chosen a crocheted hairball from the collection of Fluffy Flowers.  If you’d like to learn how to make your own (and, once again, we’re hoping you don’t), you can find a tutorial here.