ohmidog!

A police officer’s fatal shooting of a citizen’s dog on a sidewalk in Omaha three weeks ago was captured on a neighbor’s security camera — and aired this week by a local news station.

Grainy as it is, the video shows officers stopping the man, who they described as drunk and defiant. One officer takes him down; the other shoots the dog he was walking.

In their report, the two officers, named Schuster and Clement, say the “suspect’s dog became aggressive, growled at officers, and showed its teeth before being shot and killed.”

Police were searching for an armed suspect when the Oct. 7 incident took place. They said Chris Schulte, who lives in the area and was walking with his dog, Teela, in the direction of the search area, refused their orders to stop.

Schulte admitted “I was just walking on,” but said the dog never behaved aggressively.

Tim Wagner told Channel 6 News he watched the incident from inside his home on his night vision security camera.

“The dog didn’t stand a chance,” Wagner said. “The dog did nothing aggressive. I’ve lived next to this dog two and a half years and it’s one of the best dogs.”

Teela belonged to his Schulte’s aunt, Michelle Meadows.

Meadows said, “It was very shocking. I would think they would maybe taser her or something, if they thought she was being aggressive, but I don’t think she was.”

Schulte was arrested and charged with obstructing police and resisting arrest.

“The Omaha Police Department is aware of the incident and Chief Schmaderer has authorized an Internal Investigation into the matter,” a police spokesman said.

A drunk driving arrest turned nasty in Mason, Michigan, when officers used pepper spray and Tasers to subdue a suspect, whose dog joined the skirmish and bit one of the officers on the leg.

Joel Vandouser, 43, was charged with operating while intoxicated,endangering a minor and resisting and obstructing police.

Mason Police Chief John Stressman said officers had spotted the suspect driving, apparently under the influence, with an 8-year-old child in the car. They followed him to his home, according to the Lansing State Journal, where the tussle took place.

Vandouser was taken to a local hospital afterwards. The bitten officers was also treated. News reports don’t indicate whether the dog was taken into custody, but the police chief noted that a pair of police uniform pants were ruined during the incident.

A Chicago area woman has been charged with animal cruelty after biting the family dog, police say.

Analise J. Garner, 19, of Lake in the Hills, returned home drunk over the weekend and bit her family’s 80-pound English bulldog at least three times, officers said.

According to the  Chicago Tribune, she was also charged with domestic battery and underage drinking.

Police were called to her home about 4 a.m. Sunday after neighbors reported loud noises, Sgt. Mike Smith said.

Garner scratched and hit her 37-year-old mother in the face and also bit her on the right hand. Three bite marks were found on the dog, he said.

“The bulldog finally did bite her back in self-defense,” Smith added. “There were no charges against the dog.”

Garner was released Monday from the McHenry County jail after posting bail on $3,000 bond. She is due in court  May 23.

A Helena, Montana, man has been charged with animal cruelty after his dog was found to have a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit for humans driving motor vehicles.

Police responded to a call about an intoxicated dog at Smith’s Bar, where customers and staff were caring for the dog, a Pomeranian mix named Arly II.

According to police, the dog had trouble walking and standing.

Witnesses told police the dog had been given vodka in a car outside the bar.

Police took the dog to Alpine Animal Clinic, where veterinarian Dr. Michelle Richardson drew blood. Tests showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.348 percent. The legal limit for driving is 0.08 percent.

Arly II stayed at the animal hospital a few days and is now at the Lewis and Clark Humane Society pending the outcome of the criminal case, the Helena Independent Record reported.

Todd Harold Schrier, 49, was charged with animal cruelty and a felony drug charge related to the March 1 incident.

In a tragic story out of Florida, a recovered dog is providing a lone note of solace to a grieving family.

Barney, a Vizsla, was jogging with his owner, Donna Chen, a mother of three, when she was killed by a drunk driver.

Somehow, Barney ended up in the Gulf of Mexico after the accident, where he was found by a kayaker, about a half mile offshore from Sarasota.

“I thought maybe he had fallen off a boat or something” Rory O’Connor told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. “I knew it was probably trouble, because you know, he was coming straight toward me and he had a look of terror in his eyes.”

O’Connor, of Bellingham, Wash., inadvertently recorded the rescue and put it on YouTube, before knowing anything about the rest of the story:

Through his microchip, Barney was reunited with the Chen family, members of which say his presence is helping them through the grief.

“This is our one piece, our one link to Donna,” said Chen’s sister-in-law, Colette MacPhail. “For Barney, he’s going to have his own adjustments. He’s just a piece that came back for us.”

Scourge-wise, it may not be up there with drunk driving, but drunk puppy buying is percieved as a serious enough problem to lead at least two Manhattan pet stores to ban the sales of canines to the inebriated.

“I feel like they always come in drunk,” Fernanda Moritz, the manager of Le Petite Puppy, explained to the website DNA Info.

The shop, surrounded by bars, has implemented a policy prohibiting people who appear to have been drinking heavily from buying animals. or even holding them.

Moritz said many of her would-be customers stop in after happy hour around 6 p.m.

“They come from there and say ‘let’s stop by to see the puppies,’” said Moritz.

Another pet store in the neighborhood, Citipups, has instituted a similar ban.

Moritz recalled selling a Chihuahua once to a woman she thought might have been drunk. The dog was returned the next day, near death. Since then, she said, they’ve been on the lookout for intoxicated customers.

Leandro Jacoby, the 28-year-old manager of nearby Citipups, say he has come up with a way to determine whether a puppy buyer is serious, or acting on drunken impulse.

“We have to tell them to come back the next day and most of the time they never come back,” Jacoby said.

“Most of the time it happens around holidays — St. Patrick’s Day or Gay Pride,” he added.

Even though turning down drunken customers might seem bad for business, Moritz and Jacoby both say they’d prefer to lose the sale.

“We make sure they can take care of the dog. We make sure they go to a good home,” Jacoby said.

There are those — including many readers of this website — who’d question whether shops should be selling puppies at all, due to the puppy mill connections often involved. West Hollywood and South Lake Tahoe in California have both banned the sale of dogs and cats in stores, as has Albuquerque, N.M.

Between 2 million and 4 million dogs are born in U.S. puppy mills every year, according to the Humane Society of the United States, many of which end up in pet stores and being sold through the Internet and newspaper classified ads.

MSNBC had an in-depth story last year about cities banning the sales of dogs and cats in pet stores — in which one of the same New York shops is mentioned.

(Video: New York Daily News)

In today’s world people are quick to pick a side, but, as this story seems to show, it’s sometimes best to avoid that — especially when both sides are stupid, and/or heartless, and/or negligent.

Stu Grimes got drunk Sunday night and, while his dog was in his car, fell asleep inside an International House of Pancakes in Sterling, Va.

Loudoun County Sheriff’s deputies showed up to roust him, and arrested him on charges of being drunk in public and resisting arrest, according to WJLA.

Grimes said he told officers his dog, Rex, was in the car and that they ignored him.

Grimes bailed himself out Monday, but by then Rex, a four-year old Labrador-boxer mix, had died, after spending at least 15 hours inside the car.

Grimes alleges he repeatedly asked the deputies to get Rex out of his SUV, and that deputies at one point removed his keys from his pocket and hit the panic button to determine which vehicle was his. Grimes says he continued to ask about his dog after being jailed.

But the sheriff’s office said in a statement, “…our records show no indication that Mr. Grimes mentioned a vehicle or a dog to the arresting deputies or the corrections staff at the Adult Detention Center.”

Later, after ABC7′s inquiries, the sheriff’s office changed its position, saying they did know about the car but maintained Grimes didn’t say a word about Rex.

Search the Internet comments on this one and you’ll find people saying the sheriff’s office is responsible for Rex’s death, that Grimes is, and even that IHOP is.

It’s like an all you can eat special on blame.