ohmidog!

A Secret Service dog died Saturday when it fell off a parking deck in New Orleans while providing security during a speaking engagement by Vice President Joe Biden.

The Belgian Malinois fell from the roof of the six-story deck adjacent to The Ritz-Carlton.

Biden was speaking at a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu.

The dog, whose name or gender was’t provided, was working in the Premier Parking garage in the 900 block of Iberville when New Orleans Police said it fell off the roof.

Federal Agents and Police rushed the dog to a Metairie Veterinary hospital, but veterinarians were unable to revive the dog, WWL-TV reported.

Secret Service spokesman Max Milien called the death was a “tragic accident.”

An 81-year-old man is crediting his Lhasa Apso with saving his life after he fell from a ridge into a deep pool of mud and clung to a bridge rail to keep from sinking as his dog ran for help.

Derek Ramsden was on vacation in Wales and taking his dogs for a walk when he fell.

He says his 18-year-old terrier mix took no action, but his seven-year-old Lhasa Apso, Toby, ran for a quarter of a mile and, just like Lassie, barked at park officials until they followed him back to the scene.

“I managed to get hold of a railing on the bridge. It was frightening. I could not get out and you can’t hold your grip for long at my age,” he told The Telegraph. “I was scared that I was going to tumble down the bank. I don’t like to think what would have happened if not for Toby. He definitely saved my life.”

“Toby is dedicated to both of us and I think he is a hero,” said Ramsden, from Halifax, West Yorks. “He’s my very own Lassie. He saved my life and I’m very grateful.”

Ramsden’s wife, Ada, who had not gone along for the walk at Bryowen Holiday Park, said she went searching for him after an hour and found him as he was being pulled to safety by park staff.

“He was covered in mud from head to foot. If he had let go he could have slipped down further. Toby saved him,” she said.

“The dog knew what it was doing. It ran past apartments through bushes and alerted security,” said park maintenance manager Ben Thompson. “The dog was leading the way and without the dog we would not have known he was there. That dog certainly has something about it.”

(Photo: Ross Parry / The Telegraph)

A contractor fell into a silo of dog food Monday in Sanford, N.C., and it took rescue crews several hours to get him out.

The man, whose name was not released, accidentally stepped on a lid and fell 40 feet through a chute at an H.J. Baker & Brothers plant.

After falling, his leg got caught in an auger-like device, which complicated the rescue, WRAL in Raleigh reported.

Fire Chief Wayne Barber said the man was hospitalized in Raleigh, and treated for dehydration, but is expected to be fine.

He spent several hours up to his waist in dog food in the silo, which was about a third of the way full.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating.

(Photo: WRAL)

He licked her face. He nudged her hand. And when his master regained consciousness after a fall on the kitchen floor, a miniature schnauzer named Danny not only brought her the phone, but a list of phone numbers as well.

So says Bethe Bennett, of Glendale, Arizona, who’s now recuperating from her painful tumble.

Bennett fell on her tile floor Friday and broke her femur. Once she regained consciousness, with help from Danny, she hoped the dog remembered some of his old tricks, because she wasn’t expecting any visitors until Tuesday.

“I was scared. I really thought I was going to die,” Bennett told ABCNews.com. “I knew I was going into shock because I’m a nurse.”

But Danny, a trained service dog who used to care for Bennett’s now-deceased mother, was able to remember his training.

“I started asking Danny to get me the phone,” Bennett said. “He ran back and forth a couple of times barking and finally jumped up and knocked the phone over and pushed it with his nose toward me.”

She called for an ambulance, but then realized the paramedics might not be able to get into her locked house. She decided to call a neighbor, but didn’t remember the phone number.

“Paper!” she yelled, and Danny brought over five sheets, one of which had the phone numbers of Bennett’s neighbors. They arrived in time to let the paramedics in.

She is now recovering at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, with Danny by her side, ABC reported.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be the one he’d have to rescue,” she said. “He was my little hero.”

Here’s an unusual perspective on saving a dog from an icy river, brought to you by the Fargo Fire Department.

Jake, an 11-year-old Lab, went into the not yet frozen-solid Red River in North Dakota after straying from his home yesterday, and couldn’t get out.

He clung to a piece of ice until rescuers arrived.

Fargo Firefighter Mike Seaberg went out on the ice to save him, while wearing a camera.

Today, Jake’s back home and doing fine.

Rocky, a K-9 with the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department in New York, died Sunday night after falling from a five-story building while pursuing a burglary suspect.

The 2 1/2-year-old German shepherd attempted to leap over a 3-foot retaining wall and fell 60 feet into the parking lot.

Rocky, a tracking and narcotics dog, graduated at the top of his class in the spring of 2009 and often assisted other police agencies, the Buffalo News reported.

Recently, he uncovered key evidence in a murder investigation at the Walmart store in Orleans County, and this past summer, he helped track a murder suspect in Albion. When he wasn’t chasing bad guys, Rocky visited children at the Niagara County Fair and through the DARE program.

Niagara Falls Police Superintendent John R. Chella said police got a call from residents who thought they heard someone inside the vacant building. His department requested two K-9s from the sheriff’s office to help in the search.

Following the search, Marcus A. Johnson, 24, of Fillmore Avenue, Buffalo, was arrested by the Niagara Falls Police Department. Police said he was trying to steal copper wiring from a vacant building.

Rocky worked with his handler,  Deputy Craig Beiter, whose previous K-9, Zeus, was also injured in a fall. Zeus was tracking burglary suspects at Lockport’s Old City Hall in 2007 when he fell 30 feet down an old shaft leading to the original Erie Canal Locks. He worked three more years, retiring in 2010.

Rocky was buried by Beiter at a private location, the sheriff’s department said, but a memorial service is being planned.

Crunching leaves

Shuffling through dry leaves

One of life’s distinct pleasures

 Wet ones … not so much

(All our Highway Haikus can be found archived here.)

The quietude of our sleepy little neighborhood has been shattered.

We are under attack.

By acorns.

I mean hundreds every hour, and that’s just counting the ones that pelt my roof. It started about a week ago, and has been gaining intensity ever since, as if working up to some nutty grand finale.

Ace, who doesn’t like loud noises — and believe me, it’s very loud — is starting to get used it. Only during the worst, like when 50 or so bombard us over the course of, say, 10 seconds, does he look up, wondering what’s going on.

I’m not certain if the squirrels are up in the trees encouraging the acorns to fall, or if the downpour is just happening on its own.

But it’s a daily and day-long event — thousands of acorns, both green and brown, falling from the sky, pelting the top of my car, rattling the roof of my house, pinging off my grill and air conditioner and slamming onto the sidewalk.

In almost every case, they lose their cute little hats in the process.

I’ve lived among oak trees before, but I don’t remember ever seeing an acorn fall, and definitely not anything like the barrage underway on my street.

Huge oak trees line the whole block, and their limbs hang over the housing units. But none of them seem to be raining acorns like the ones hanging over my place.

When I was planting my pansies Saturday, at least five acorns –and usually you can hear them coming, ripping through the leaves on the way down — smashed to the ground at my feet.

I’m hoping it won’t still be raining acorns on Halloween — because given the distance they are falling from, and their hardness, they could do some damage to young heads. Or old heads for that matter.

I haven’t been hit by one directly yet. I’ve had a few bounce off my grill and hit me, and many land at my feet. Ace has also escaped thus far, even though he spends a lot of time laying under the trees in the front yard.

The acorns pose a double threat. In addition to the possibility of getting beaned by one on the way down, there’s the hazard of sliding on those that have already fallen, especially when they’re hidden under leaves.

Most often they just crunch underfoot, but every once in a while there’s a group that are particularly hard and stubborn, and it’s like trying to walk on  marbles.

There are those who believe that an abundance of acorns is a sign that the coming winter will be severe — that somehow nature is able to figure out how many acorns squirrels will need to get through the season and, accordingly, instructs the trees on how many they should grow and drop, so that there’s always enough for everyone.

That’s a little too neat and tidy, trickle-down and happily ever after for me to believe.

My theory? I think it’s all just part of nature’s dance — sometimes predictable, sometimes not; sometimes explainable, sometimes not; sometimes light and cheery, sometimes stormy and violent.

We can’t and shouldn’t try to dictate and control it. We shouldn’t ask it to change the song. And when we do cut in, we should do it gently and with respect. After all, we we’re lucky just to be invited.

Get real.

The day ohmidog!  has a fall fashion issue will be the day it’s time to hang up the old keyboard. We prefer our dogs big, natural and — except maybe for a spiffy bandana to wipe off the occasional drool and eye boogers — naked. We don’t go in for that frilly stuff.

Though, we have to admit, Jake, the 10-week-old Yorkie-shih-tzu mix pictured above does go well with denim.

And, come to think of it, the brown sweater this Chihuahua was wearing — in addition to blunting Saturday morning’s chill — does seem to nicely pick up the earth tones in his snout.

And perhaps, these pink sunglasses sported by Lily, a one- year-old mutt, do make a playful, yet elegantly sophisticated, statement.

And these were some pretty eye-catching hemp collars from Trail Paws Market — made by a mother and daughter team at their home in Advance, N.C.  (That’s mom, an ohmidog! fan who recognized Ace and waved us down, in the gap between the collars.)

But of all the fashion statements I ran into Saturday, at an event raising money for a new leash-free area in Tanglewood Park, outside of Winston-Salem, my favorite was that made by Robert E. Lee, a three-year-old (that’s a guess) border collie-lab mix (that’s a guess, too).

Wearing an “Adopt Me” vest and a bandana asking the question “Have you kissed your dog today?” he was, at once, goofy and mellow, with a playful, belly-exposing demeanor that suggested he was willing to sacrifice his dignity, or anything else, for some love.

Bobbie, as he’s known, was found tied by a six-foot chain to an abandoned trailer in Surry County, without food or water, last winter.

Since then he’s been living in foster care with Trudy, a volunteer for Surry Animal Rescue. He’s 50 pounds, neutered, crate trained, and loves children (but not squirrels and cats).

For more information about him, contact surryanimalrescue@hotmail.com

I don’t know about your dog, but the first bracing blast of cool fall temperatures — like those that arrived here yesterday — makes Ace more invigorated during the day and more of a snuggle bunny at night.

He’s not quite the blanket hog this dog is — then again, it’s not winter yet.