ohmidog!

Rachael Ray is donating $500,000 to the ASPCA to help pets who were displaced, hurt or lost during Superstorm Sandy.

On top of that, Ray’s pet food company, Nutrish, is sending four tons of wet and dry dog food to help feed the animals affected by Sandy. It’s the largest donation ever by the company.

Ray announced the donations Friday, and again on her television program today. 

The $500,000 will be used by the ASPCA to lease a building that can be used as a central shelter for Sandy animals,  provide mobile veterinary services, hand out supplies and continue searching for lost pets.

Since Sandy, the ASPCA had rescued more than 250 animals and treated or provided supplies to nearly 6,000 in New York City and Long Island.

Ray teamed up with the ASPCA earlier thisyear for its $100,000 shelter challenge, a photo contest whose winners are to be announced this week.

Ray is also donating $100,000 to City Harvest and the Food Bank for New York City.

“When you make your living in food, you have to give back in the same way,” she said.

A tornado that whipped through  Joplin, Missouri, spared Kain, a pit bull, and Kita, a Rottweiler, even though the house collapsed around them.

Less forgiving is the town of Carl Junction, where their displaced family moved afterwards — only to find out that pit bulls and Rottweilers are illegal.

Carl Junction is one of many cities and towns around the country that have legislation prohibiting pit bulls and other breeds within the city limits, according to The Joplin Globe, which reported on the family’s situation this week.

And city officials are unwilling to make an exception to the rule, meaning Dave DeWolfe and his family — who followed the sounds of the whimpers and rescued their dogs after the tornado — will now be required to give them up, at least if they want to stay in Carl Junction.

After the tornado, DeWolfe’s daughter, Janelle Mawhinney, provided temporary shelter for family members at her apartment, but she couldn’t take the dogs. They were placed in a temporary shelter set up by the ASPCA.

Every day, DeWolfe says, they’d stop in to visit. In July, they found a new home in nearby Carl Junction, reclaimed their dogs and moved in.

“We thought it was too good to be true: a decent neighborhood, a good price, everything came through with the bank, and we were so happy about it,” he said.

Not long after settling in, they were reading a “welcome” packet from the city when they saw that Carl Junction’s hospitality didn’t extend to pit bulls and Rottweilers. Neither are permitted with the city limits.

Then, this month, DeWolfe was informed by the city’s animal control officer that he was violating the city ordinance. He went to the city council, saying he would do ”whatever it takes” to keep the dogs, even if it meant crating or muzzling them.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I should have checked the laws.”

City council members said they didn’t want to set a precedent by allowing the family to keep the dogs.

Carl Junction’s ban on the two breeds was put in place in 1995. It carries fines of $200 to $500. The only exception to the law is for dog owners who registered with the city prior to the ordinance going into effect.

DeWolfe and his wife have turned to Craigslist in an attempt to find the two dogs a permanent home.

“We try to work with our residents whenever we can,” Carl Junction Police Chief Delmar Haase said. “But approving one would set a precedent. We’ve had this ordinance for quite some time, and all the dogs grandfathered in under it are now gone. We’ve had quite a few requests and if you open it up to one, you’ve just defeated your ordinance.”

Defeating, if you ask me, is just what the ordinance needs.

(Photo: By T. Rob Brown / Joplin Globe)

For thousands of New Orleans pet owners who became separated from their pets during Hurricane Katrina, the pain still lingers, and a new documentary shows how deep and complicated the hurt can be.

Mine: Taken by Katrina, premiered at a film festival over the weekend in Austin, Texas and proved a crowd favorite.

The documentary highlights a few of the tens of thousand of animals who were displaced by Katrina, the dedicated volunteers who risked their lives to rescue them, the adoptive families that have taken these pets into their homes and the original owners who lost them — some of whom are still fighting for their custody.

Director Geralyn Pezanoski, herself the adopter of a Katrina animal, began documenting animal rescue efforts in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina, and has followed the stories of several pets and animals over the last two years.

The documentary, which won the Audience Award for best documentary feature at last weekend’s South by Southwest film festival in Austin, has some heartwarming moments and some anguishing ones, such as those of pet owners still trying to reclaim their animals from adoptive homes that have grown to love them.

Those include a man named Malvin, who built his dog Bandit a new dog house next to his FEMA trailer — in case the dog’s adoptive parents in Pittsburgh ever agree to return the pooch. Another, Jesse James Pullins, a downtown hotel worker, was still mourning his separation from his Akita mix when he saw him show up on Cesar Millan’s The Dog Whisperer.

Like the aftermath of Katrina, the documentary is a testament to the intense bond between people and their pets. In this case though, those bonds are often shared by the guardians who lost their pets and want them back, and the well-meaning adoptive guardians who have taken them in, nursed them back to health and don’t want to part with them, even when the real owner surfaces.