ohmidog!

Barkitecture Houston, a two-day fundraiser that features some innovative interpretations on that old standard, the dog house, will begin Oct. 26.

This year’s benefit, for Pup Squad Animal Rescue, promises to be bigger than ever, with more than 20 dog house designs being featured, along with a full slate of activities for dogs and humans.

The fundraiser calls on local artists, designers and architects to create stylish and functional dog houses, which are then sold at auction. It’s in its fourth-year running, according to the Houston Press.

Last year’s event brought in $18,000 for the animal rescue group.

“Houston is definitely a dog town, but there’s also a huge problem of overpopulation,” said Julie Landry, co-founder of Pup Squad. “It’s just a matter of getting the message out, to spay and neuter your pets.”

This year, the festivities kick off with a “yappy hour,” on Friday, October 26. On Saturday, the dog houses will line the two blocks of the Houston Pavilions. Attendees can bid on their favorites, or buy them for $500. Judges will select the “Best in Show.”

The Houston Press previewed this year’s entries, which included a giant rescue chopper that  lights up, a doghouse with a roof drainage system that collects water, and a colorful fan of a dog house that folds up like a briefcase.

We’re pretty sure none of them, though, have what a dog house in Houston needs most — air conditioning! 

Here’s where you can find more information.

(Photos: Some of last year’s entries; Rachel Bohanan / Houston Press)

When Jim Berger was 12 years old he asked Frank Lloyd Wright to do for his dog what the architect did for his dad — design him a house.

The boy asked Wright, in a 1956 letter, to design a house for his dog, Eddie, that ”would go with our house” — it too being a Frank Lloyd Wright design that his father spent 20 years building in San Anselmo, Calif.

Wright, in keeping with his cantankerous image, wrote back that he was “too busy,” but suggested the boy write him again next year.

Berger wrote back the next November, and this time Wright responded with a full set of working drawings for a triangular-shaped, four-square-foot dog house, to be built of the mahogany and cedar scraps left over from the main house.

According to Architects and Artisans, young Berger didn’t build the house. But, after he joined the army, his father and brother did, completing it in 1963.  After his father died in 1973, Jim’s mother would dispose of it, dropping it off at the dump.

“Frankly, it’s the best story ever about Wright,” says Michael Miner, who’s taking a reconstructed version of the original dog house on a coast-to-coast tour to promote “Romanza,” his film on Wright’s work in California.

“People think he was this curmudgeonly old architect, but here he was, breaking down and doing something wonderful for a 12-year-old.”

Miner asked Jim Berger and his brother Eric to build the reconstructed version in 2010 — and they agreed. (Miner filmed the constuction process, and included it in “Romanza.”)

Miner says the original dog house never got much use — not by Eddie, or subsequent dogs in the Berger family. Eddie, he says, “didn’t like it – he liked to sleep by the warmth coming out of the front door.”

Gotta love Dundalk.

It’s Baltimore at its blue collar, unpretentious best, and it’s where, as our wandering continues, we’ve hung our hat (and leash) for the past three days as we attempt to figure out what to do next.

Once again, we were in the home of an ex (no bridge-burner me) — a modest little house on a traffic circle, across the street from the Dog House, a  to-go restaurant painted highway stripe yellow that serves up hot dogs, burgers and greasy breakfast sandwiches that I eat on the front porch as Ace and his better-than-ever friend Fanny frolic in the front yard.

We sleep on the couch, wake up to the best kind of coffee (already made), take daily walks down to Bear Creek and spend most of the time on the front porch, writing.

Ace and Fanny alternately wrestle and rest in the shade, and Fanny always leaps up and runs along the fence when a motorcycle, boat on a trailer, or skateboarder passes by — those apparently being among her triggers.

We’ve gotten to know Brutus, a six-month old, but already huge, chocolate lab next door who likes to jump on (but not over, yet) the chain link fence, dangling his paws over the top rail and leaning as if to say, “C’mon over, let’s talk for a while.”

We’ve watched as the school buses roll by, and fresh-faced students head to bus stops, falling into the routine of another school year. One paused at the fence — a Mountain Dew in one hand, an open and half eaten plastic bowl of microwaveable macaroni and cheese in the other, her requisite blue uniform shirt open to display more cleavage than I would think her school would deem appropriate – and asked me for a cigarette.

“Fresh out,” I replied.

In Dundalk, people say what they mean, mean what they say, and wear what they want. If they’re feeling crabby, they show it (especially in the traffic circle), and if they’re feeling friendly, they show that, too.

Today, Ace and I bid farewell to Fanny and head back to the old ‘hood — South Baltimore, where I’ll stay again with my schoolteacher friends for a couple of days before heading to another friend’s home nearby for a few days more. She’s going to the beach, and her cat needs feeding. Even though her cat hissed at me the last time I fed it — and after I fed it, no less — I quickly volunteered for the job.

Our time in Dundalk has been peaceful, work-friendly and comfortable, but one shouldn’t overstay one’s welcome — especially with an ex, even if she is your dog’s number one fan and Godmother. For ex’s move on from the shared life and start their own and, painful as it might to no longer fit into it, that’s reality.

Like the signs say, one must yield to the traffic in the circle.

Nice digs, huh? It’s the new “mini mansion” Paris Hilton had designed and built for her dogs. It’s  a smaller version of Paris’ Beverly Hills home, right down to the miniature furniture similar to her own. The lavish doghouse also has air conditioning, “Chewy Vuitton” beds, closets, two floors, a spiral staircase and chandelier, according to the Daily Mail.

Paris has been posting photos of the  puppy palace on Twitter, probably because flauntingmywealth.com doesn’t exist yet. Give it time.

The luxurious house was built for Hilton’s 13 dogs, who include Marilyn Monroe, Dolce , Harajuku Bitch and Tinkerbell.

Writing on her Twitter page, the 28-year-old said: “I have to admit, I may have spoiled them a little too much. But how can I not? Just look at those sweet lil’ faces.”

All the talk about the yet to be selected, procured or named White House Dog has gotten me to thinking: Isn’t it time to start giving some consideration to the White Doghouse?

Turns out, Stephanie Rubin is way ahead of me. Rubin, a Los Angeles landscape designer, is owner of Sustainable Pet Design and inventor of the Greenrrroof Animal Home. And with a little help from her friends she’s already built and arranged delivery of “Summa Canum, The Obama Dog Home.”

Summa Canum (Latin for “Top Dog”) has been created “to provide an appropriately sustainable and stylish home for the new leader of the free canine world.”

At the same time, the project’s aimed at introducing eco-friendly practices and materials to the American people.

On the Sustainable Design website, Rubin says public interest in the Obama dog — not yet selected, though the First Family is reportedly leaning toward a Portugese water dog — inspired her to create a dog home as a gift for the Obama family.

“As we began construction on Summa Canum, one vendor after another expressed a desire to contribute. Summa Canum is now a gift from many. Materials donated include historic wood, greenroof plants, eco-friendly paint, bio-fuel, expert advice, as well as arrangement of transportation with a rock-n-roll legend.”

Summa Canum ins’t an exact replica of the White House. But it is modeled on Greek Revivial architecture that was popular during our nation’s early years.

It is made of wood from cedar trees that President Andrew Jackson planted along the driveway of his estate, The Hermitage. After a tornado felled these trees in 1998, EarthSource Forest Products reclaimed the wood for lumber and has donated the last of it to Summa Canum.

Like her other creations, Summa Canum will have a green roof, consisting of vegetation supplied by Emory Knoll Farms, a Maryland nursery. The dog home will arrive at The White House unplanted in order to provide the Obama kids with the opportunity to get their hands dirty in their own little garden.

Third Planet Energy has arranged for delivery of Summa Canum by Neil Young, a longtime champion of environmental causes, who will haul it with his biofuel-powered 1959 Lincoln. Amoeba Music provided financial support to offset the cost of the trip.

We all know what the phrase “in the doghouse” means, but here’s a look at what really happens once you’re inside.

It’s a nearly five-minute-long advertisement for the JC Penney jewelry department — pooh-pooed by some as “too long” — that has found a home on the internet, both on YouTube, and its own website, bewareofthedoghouse.com.

I disagree with its message: that only jewelry says I love you (which may be why I — one who sees romance in the functional, i.e. tools and small appliances — have spent so much time in the doghouse myself.)

But I love the ad — all 4:45 of it. And I think it shows that, whether it’s literature, news, websites, or even advertisements, creativity and wit trump short and stupid — that, contrary to popular belief, the reading/watching public does still have an attention span (newspapers take note) when given something worth reading/watching.

Enough preaching. There are only four shopping days until Christmas, and I’ve got my eye on a window cleaning kit I think my honey will really like.

“Completely dog-mad.”

That’s how a publicist describes a wealthy accountant and his doctor wife who are spending a quarter of a million pounds — just under $400,000 — on a house for their two Great Danes.

The doggie domicile will feature a 52-inch plasma TV; a retina-scan entry system that will allow the Danes, but no other dogs, entry; two bedrooms and a separate lounging area; two elevated temperature-controlled beds lined with sheepskin, from which the dogs can see out through the giant windows; automatic dispensers of food and chilled, filtered water; a temperature-controlled pool/spa; and an outdoor adventure play area — all of which can be controlled and viewed by the owners via computer from anywhere in the world.

The 1,000-square-foot kennel will adjjoin the main house, both of which are being built on the exclusive Lower Mill Estate near Cirencester, Gloucestershire, according to the London Daily Mail. 

Work is due to start next April and take around 18 months. The owners have requested anonymity. 

“All we can say is that they are a retired couple who are completely dog-mad,” a publicist said. “They said: ‘We want the perfect living space for us and our dogs’ and that’s what they are getting.”

(Illustration by London Daily Mail)