ohmidog!

Warrick County, Indiana, appears to be living in the dark ages — at least when it comes to its animal shelter.

Operated by the animal control department, the county shelter makes little or no effort to adopt out animals, according to critics.

And last month, the dogs it had euthanized and dumped at a landfill near Boonville included one that was still alive.

So they took it back to the shelter — and killed it.

“Shelter” probably isn’t even the right word. It’s more like death row. The shelter’s kill rate is 90 percent, and unless an owner comes to reclaim a pet, or the local humane society pulls one out, most dogs end up being euthanized.

Or, as one TV report innocuously put it in the case of the landfill dog, he was taken back to the shelter and “given more medicine.”

The County Health Department told 14 News  it’s common procedure for euthanized dogs to be dumped into landfills, but that discarding a live dog was an unfortunate mistake.

According to Change.org, two people saw animal control officers dumping plastic bags at the landfill. Then they saw one bag start to move, and heard a panting sound come from inside it.

When they brought it to the attention of the animal control employees, one of the officers said, “Guess we’re taking this one back.” Without opening the bag, they tossed it in the back of the truck.

The county says the department’s two animal control officers apparently failed to confirm the dog was dead before taking it to  the dump. Both employees have been reprimanded.

Officials say it was an isolated event, but criticism of the county-run shelter is mounting.

Residents voiced numerous concerns to the Warrick County Commission on Monday night, according to another 14 News report.

Said one resident, ”Any time you try to go out there, nobody is there when you call. You leave message after message so you can set up an appointment and it makes it very difficult to adopt animals from there.”

County Commission Board President Don Williams defended the animal control officers saying they had a heavy workload, and blamed residents of Warrick County for neglecting their animals.

A petition demanding changes at the shelter — critics say it makes no effort to place adoptable animals on pet adoption websites, rarely answers its phone, and makes it difficult for visitors to view animals in its care — can be found at Change.org.

A former animal control officer in Mississippi accused of shooting stray dogs and dumping their bodies in a creek has been charged, according to the Madison County District Attorney.

Last week, the Canton Police Department filed affidavits with the Canton Justice Court against Alonzo Esco for misdemeanor charges of unlawful killing of animals.

Esco was the city of Canton’s animal control officer. As a law enforcement officer, he will have to have a probable cause hearing before a judge before the case can be prosecuted, WAPT in Jackson reports.

A Madison County grand jury failed to indict Esco on felony charges and felt that the charges were misdemeanors and better handled in justice court, the district attorney said.

Esco was fired in January after home video surfaced that allegedly showed dozens of animal carcasses dumped in a creek in Canton. Since then, a group of residents has demanded that Esco be charged.

An animal control officer in Mississippi has been fired amid allegations he shot more than 100 dogs he was supposed to bring to a shelter and instead dumped their bodies in a creek.

Alonzo Esco was fired by the city of Canton during an executive session Tuesday night, WAPT-TV in Jackson reported.

The investigation began when a resident attempted to adopt a dog  that Esco had picked up in her neighborhood in November.

“I called the animal rescue league to see if they would hold him for me, but they informed me that Alonzo Esco had not been there that day, nor had he been there for several months,” the resident, Debbie Young, said.

She contacted Canton police, who referred the case to Madison County District Attorney Michael Guest. Esco, however, has not been charged with any crime, and county and city officials don’t officials don’t come across in news reports as sounding too outraged. There are no felony charges for animal cruelty in Mississippi, although animal-rights activists are pushing lawmakers to change the law.

“Some of those animals may have been killed, or discarded without following the rules and procedures set forth,” Guest said. “In researching the issue, it appears the killing of a dog is a crime, but it’s a misdemeanor.”

“There are no criminal charges that have been filed or anything like that that I’m aware of,” Canton Police Chief Vicky McNeill said. “Our investigation did not call for any form of arrest.”

Maybe somebody should.

(An update)

Now fully grown and weighing 440 pounds, Knut bears (sorry) little resemblance to the button-eyed ball of white fluff that stole the hearts of Berlin, Germany and the world.

And, as if he were some TV anchorwoman past what management sees as her prime, zoo officials are saying he may have to go.

This couldn’t be more wrong (be it Knut, or our hypothetical anchorwoman). It’s a clear cut case of exploiting a cute little animal for all he’s worth, then unceremoniously dumping him when he gets fat and grey.

Knut has competition now. Nuremberg zoo officials introduced their own cub, Flocke in April. Another polar bear was introduced a week later, at Stuttgart’s Wilhelma zoo.

But Knut still manages to draw crowds at the Berlin Zoo, where he single-handedly increased visitors by 27 percent in 2007 and brought in $8.6 million in profits from products bearing his image, including stuffed animals, T-shirts, mugs and DVDs, according to an Associated Press report.

Nevertheless the zoo says it must do what is best for Knut — and, given their limited space, that might mean saying goodbye to him.

“The survival of the species is more important than any individual,” bear keeper Heiner Kloes said.

Knut currently lives in a small section of Berlin’s polar bear enclosure, home to four other polar bears, including Knut’s parents Tosca and Lars. That means there is no extra space for Knut.

Kloes said he wouldn’t consider keeping the young bear instead of his father, because by the time Knut is sexually mature the two other females will be too old to bear cubs.

Under a deal with the Neumuenster zoo, which owns Lars, it has the right to Knut. Zoo manager Peter Druewa has said Knut would have to move if the Berlin Zoo is not ready to invest in a new enclosure for him.

“If Berlin doesn’t want to build a new enclosure — or expand one of the existing ones — we’ll need to find a new place for him,” he said.

A website called Unibet is running odds on the zoo likeliest to get the bear, with Zoom Erlebniswelt in Germany the top contender, followed by Tierpark Neumuenster in Germany and Sweden’s Orsa Bjornpark. Also tipped but at longer odds are zoos in Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Spain.

Knut still has has public sentiment on his side. Doris Webb, who has followed Knut since he was first presented to the world, has gathered more than 21,000 signatures in support of keeping him in Berlin.

“We want to show how important it is for Berlin, for the people here — and for Knut himself,” she said.

Another tale from the not-so-good neighbor department:

Police in St. Cloud, Minnesota, have ticketed a man for ”unlawful dumping” after he admitted to being the culprit who had been placing small bags of dog feces in the back of his neighbor’s pick up truck — all because it was adorned with a McCain sign.

Police said Donald Esmay, 19, of St. Cloud, told radio station KNSI-AM that he’d been finding small baggies of dog feces in the back of his pickup truck for the past few weeks — ever since he put a 2-foot-by-4-foot McCain sign there.

He and his family watched the truck trying to catch the culprit, but didn’t have any luck until Wednesday when his mother and brother saw someone from the neighborhood, according to an Associated Press report.

They confronted the 45-year-old man, who admitted to it. When police later spoke with the man, he said he did it because he “hates McCain.”

The unlawful dumping ticket comes with a $183 fine.