ohmidog!

How big of a reward would you post for the safe return of your lost dog?

A couple in Warren, Texas, is offering $50,000 — and putting their house up for sale to come up with the money.

Their dog Sir, a chocolate Lab, has lived with the couple for five years.

Charlie Parker said he and his wife have no children, and that Sir was like a child.

The dog disappeared from their property on September 15.

The couple posted fliers at local businesses, but they have yet to hear anything, according to KFDM. (Click the link to see the video report.)

When he disappeared, Sir was wearing a camouflage collar, the Parkers say.

Anyone with information is asked to phone (409) 547-2297 or (409) 200-6008.

When a Lab mix ate $1,000 of his owners’ money — intended for a car payment — the Florida couple was able to make him cough up $900 worth.

Christy Lawrenson says she left ten $100 dollar bills stuffed in an envelope at her home in St. Augustine one day a couple of weeks ago.

When her husband Joe came home during a lunch break to get the money and pay the bill, the envelope was gone, according to the St. Augustine Record.

“I saw one $100 dollar bill almost ripped in half on the floor,” Joe Lawrenson said. “I found like three or four pieces around the house. I thought somebody broke in originally.”

But there was only one explanation: Tuity, a four-year-old mutt they’ve had since she was a puppy.

“She ate the bills, the envelope … everything,” Christy Lawrenson said.

Joe Lawrenson fed Tuity a hydrogen peroxide mixture to induce vomiting, waited, then the family began putting the pieces together. Only one of the $100 bills remained intact, and the Lawrensons, with tape, were able to reassemble another $800 worth.

The bank refused to accept what remained of the last one, because it was missing serial numbers.

Instead, the Lawrensons sent it to the U.S. Treasury along with details about what happened in hopes of getting a new one.

NPR’s Scott Simon took up the subject of dogs today — specifically, those two tsunami survivors we first showed you four days ago.  (Here they are again, above.)

They were caught on camera by Fuji TV in Mito, Japan – the brown and white dog seemingly guarding over the apparently unconscious other one, and placing its paw on the other’s head when it finally stirs.

The heart-wrenching images quickly spread around the world on YouTube, and the lack of any confirmed reports on what became of the dogs left many wondering, and trolling the Internet for information.

Simon reports, as others have — based primarily on a Facebook posting by Kenn Sakurai, the president of a dog food company, who has been among the volunteers –that both dogs were rescued and are in a veterinary clinic in the Ibaraki Prefecture.

Simon’s interpretation of the scene, like most, was: ”The dog was sticking by his friend, and asking for help.”

It was similar to what he saw with humans, he says, while covering Hurricane Katrina: “…It seemed that the commonest reason people who stayed through the storm gave for refusing to evacuate was, ‘I couldn’t leave my pet.’

Simon goes on to say: “Among the thousands of volunteers who have been mining the rubble of the earthquake are Japanese Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support, who look and listen for dogs and cats among the ruins. To those who might find such relief work frivolous when so many people are hungry and homeless, Animal Rescue and Support says, ‘helping the pets in Japan is to help people. All of us who are animal lovers can relate to what it would feel like to be reunited with a pet after a disaster.’”

While dogs go homeless in Japan, Simon notes, it’s business as usual in China, where Tibetan mastiffs continue to bring in huge bucks. An 11-month old Tibetan mastiff puppy named Hong Dong, or Big Splash, sold last week for $1.5 million, the highest price ever paid for a dog (unless you count cloning).

In China, Simon says, “Tibetan mastiffs are massive, fluffy status symbols … Hong Dong has been raised on beef, chicken, abalone, and sea cucumber. His breeder told Britain’s Telegraph, ‘He is a perfect specimen.’”

Simon concludes the piece by asking this question: “The million-dollar puppy that’s been fattened with abalone, or the grimy dog with brown and white splotches who stood over his friend until he found help: which do you think of as a perfect specimen?”

I’ll have to go with the grimy, wave-tossed mutt who has made a far bigger splash than Big Splash  — and who is a symbol of something far more important than status.