ohmidog!

Here we see a duck and a dog peacefully sharing a meal — at least until the food runs out.

Then the duck gets a little peckish.

The dog, who looks like he might have a little pit bull in him, takes it all in stride before nonchalantly walking off.

We won’t cast judgment, since we’re not sure if the food actually belonged to, or was meant for, the duck or the dog.

There’s no explanation of the video by the person who put it on YouTube — other than “quack, quack, quack.”

Interestingly, the comments that have been made about the video indicate there’s some sort of argument going on between humans, who sometimes have trouble sharing, and get a little peckish, too. Apparently someone thinks the video was “stolen.”

“Please stop stealing other people’s videos,” reads one comment.

It’s not clear — to me, anyway — whether they’re complaining about the video being stolen and put on YouTube, or they think it was “stolen” off of YouTube, for use somewhere else, as we have done, via the embed code that most all YouTube videos have, for the express purpose of sharing.

The comments are of no help in figuring things out — instead they consist of the kind of not-so-witty banter we’ve grown to expect from comments on the Internet (except those left on ohmidog!, of course.)

Whose video is it? Whose food was it?

Dunno.  But I’m happy to share.

A dogfighting suspect awaiting trial was ordered Friday to help pay for the care of more than two dozen pit bulls seized from his property in Charlotte.

Lefonze Williams, 42, was ordered Friday to pay more than $13,000 to help feed and house 26 dogs and eight puppies, five of which are still being weaned by their mother, the Charlotte Observer reported.

If Williams doesn’t pay for the care of the animals — now being kept at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg animal shelter — his ownership will be forfeited, and the dogs, if unable to be adopted, will be euthanized.

During Friday’s hearing, Mecklenburg Assistant District Attorney Nathan Brooks told the judge that at least 11 of Williams’ dogs had  injuries consistent with dogfighting, adding, “He has no business owning that many dogs… He’s not properly caring for them.”

Defense attorney Kevin Barnett said Williams could not afford to pay the fee, and asked the judge to allow the pit bulls to be returned to their owner.

“He loves his dogs,” Barnett told Superior Court Judge Hugh Lewis. Barnett said Williams is a not a dogfighter, just a dog breeder, and that some of his dogs were bought from Russia and Europe.

Judge Lewis noted the fee for the dogs’s care “seems large,” but said anyone who can pay to bring dogs to North Carolina from Russia should be able to afford it.

Prosecutors had asked permission to move the dogs out of the shelter and into a private kennel, and argued that Williams should be held responsible for paying for the care they would receive there.

Animal advocates have voiced concerns that the dogs seized from Williams — and 14 other pit bulls being held at the shelter in connection with another dogfighting bust — could lead to increased euthanization of the shelter’s other residents because of limited space.

Lilica lives in a junkyard in São Carlos, Brazil, along with another dog, a cat, some chickens, a mule, and a human caretaker named Neile Vania Antonio, who found her abandoned as a pup and took her in.

Every night, Lilica walks two miles to the home of  Professor Lucia Helena de Souza, who takes care of 13 stray dogs and 30 cats.

Lucia prepares a large meal, and Lilica eats some of it. Then she carries the rest two miles back home to share with her fellow junkyard dwellers.

It’s a routine that has been going on every day for three years, according to this report.

When she first started feeding Lilica, Lucia said, ”I realized that she ate and then stared at what was in the bag.” When a neighbor suggested that Lilica might want to take the rest home, Lucia tied up the bag and Lilica carried it home.

“From that day on we do it,” said Lucia.

Lucia meets Lilica every night at 9:30 pm. Lilica eats some of the meal and then carries the rest back down the highway and delivers it to her family.

Lilica’s caretaker, Neile, said the dog’s spirit of sharing is more than she sees in some people.

“People don’t do that. Some people hide and do not want to share what they have with others. She did not. Lilica is an exceptional animal.”

A new study on bully sticks reports that many pet owners are unaware how high in calories the popular dog treats are.

And more than half of all consumers who buy them for their dogs aren’t aware that they are made from the penises of bulls.

Perhaps even more astounding, about four of every ten veterinarians didn’t know that, either.

The study, which  pointed to some health concerns when it comes to bully sticks, also known as pizzles, was published this month in the Canadian Veterinary Journal.

Researchers at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and the University of Guelph examined 26 bully sticks purchased in the United States and Canada. A random sampling of those determined they contained between nine and 22 calories per inch.

That’s about 88 calories per six-inch stick, less than 10 percent of the recommended caloric intake per day for a 50-pound dog.

Slightly more alarming was the study’s finding — based on tests on all 26 bully sticks — that nine were contaminated with bacteria. One was contaminated with Clostridium difficile; one with Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics; and seven were contaminated with Escherichia coli.

The researchers advised pet owners to wash their hands after touching such treats, as they would with any raw meat diets.

Based on an online survey conducted as part of the research, only 44 percent of pet-owners, and only 62 percent of veterinarians, were aware bully sticks were bull penises.

Twenty-three percent of the respondents fed their dogs bully sticks.

Ten thousand dollars worth of supplies were stolen from a California rescue organization that helps homeless and low-income people care for their pets.

Mohave Desert Animal Rescue, based in the Victorville area, said their warehouse in Apple Valley was broken into twice over the weekend.

The organization’s founder, Annie Lancaster, said the stolen supplies would have lasted for a year, and if there aren’t enough new donations, the non-profit organization may have to close.

The rescue provides food, leashes and care so the homeless, sick and recently unemployed can keep their pets. It also dispenses clothes, toiletries, sleeping bags and tents to the homeless, according to KABC in Los Angeles, which last year featured the organization in its “Pay It Forward” campaign.

“How low on the food chain do you have to go to find somebody who will steal from homeless people and their animals?” Lancaster said.  “It makes me sick.”

“One thing people don’t seem to realize about homeless people is they take incredible care of their animals,” Lancaster added. “They’ll go hungry to feed their own animals. That pet is their everything, it’s their heart, it’s their best friend, it’s their confidante.”

Maybe, in your New Year’s Eve celebrating, you found a cocktail last night that you really flipped for — but hopefully not to the extent of this puppy.

He’s so into what’s in his bowl, he ends up toppling into it.

It’s a good thing us humans know the meaning of moderation.

Right?

Here’s hoping any acrobatics you performed last night were intentional, that you didn’t do anything quite this embarassing and that, if you did, it wasn’t caught on video.

And here’s wishing you a Happy New Year.

She was a “patient” and “loving” sort, whose “excess belly fat and low-hanging nipples gave testimony to her maternal nature.”

“Everyone on skid row — kids, cops, prostitutes, pimps — loved her,” Jeff Dietrich writes about Sheba, in another remembrance of the Los Angeles street dog we told you about after her death a couple of months ago.

Dietrich, a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, focuses his op-ed piece — it appeared in the Los Angeles Times yesterday – on the relationship between Sheba and Georgina (pictured together above).

Sheba’s best friends were the homeless street addicts who live outside the Catholic Worker soup kitchen. And, at least in Georgina’s case, maybe, vice versa.

Georgina ended up on skid row after fleeing an abusive husband. At first she lived with her handicapped, addicted mother in the St. Agnes Hotel, but she soon became addicted to crack cocaine herself and began living on the streets.

She found Sheba 17 years ago, chained to a pole, freed her, and took over the care of the German shepherd mix for the next 10 years — except for those periods she was in prison — until finding a home and entering recovery.

Sheba — still living on the streets, among the homeless – died in June after being struck by a car.

“I can’t say that it was Georgina’s relationship with Sheba that enabled her to enter and successfully complete a recovery program,” Dietrich writes. “But I can say without doubt that the maternal presence of this loving creature was one of the few positive attachment relationships in her life for a time, and that Sheba also touched the shattered lives of many addicts and petty drug dealers on Gladys Street. It’s possible that, for Georgina, the steady, unconditional love she got from Sheba provided just enough stability to make recovery seem possible.”

Dietrich notes that substance abuse can often be traced to early childhood trauma — abandonment, nutritional deprivation, battery, rape, or growing up in an unstable, unloving family:

“A dog is no substitute, certainly, for a loving, stable family or for strong human bonds. But most of the addicts on skid row haven’t known nurturing families for years, if they ever did. Sheba stepped into a void in Georgina’s life, and she made a difference.”

Dietrich, who is the author of ”Broken and Shared: Food, Dignity, and the Poor on Los Angeles’ Skid Row,” says that when a memorial service was held for Sheba in the dining garden of the soup kitchen, Georgina didn’t attend, upon the advice of her therapist, who feared a possible relapse.

“The gathering was full of fond memories of Sheba, but toward the end there was one awkward moment. Was it theologically correct, we wondered, to pray for a dog? But then someone in the crowd called out, “Let us pray for the loving gift that Sheba was to our community.

“We did. And the people of skid row said, ‘Amen.’”

Colorful, progressive, tolerant — all words that have been used to describe the artsy Pennsylvania borough of New Hope, where tourism is the leading industry.

But, with one warning memo from the Bucks County Department of Health, it has become a little less of all those things.

This summer, the Bucks County Department of Health sent a letter to New Hope restaurants, notifying management that dogs are not permitted in outdoor dining and bar areas where either food or drinks are prepared, according to Phillyburbs.com.

And most restaurants in town– at least those that prepare food or, more commonly, drinks outside – seem to be heeding it.

“Everyone’s in an uproar,” said the owner of Martine’s RiverHouse Restaurant & Bar, one of the restaurants that says they are not subject to any heightened enforcement of the old law.

“I feel like New Hope is such a dog friendly place that it’s definitely going to hurt business,” said the restaurant’s manager, Chrissy Mertz.

At places like The River’s Edge, an outdoor patio and bar at The Landing restaurant, bartender Joe Call called it “a shame. It’s like the end of an era … “We’ve always been dog friendly, now we’re just not allowed to be.”

The no-pets policy has always been in effect, said Bucks County Environmental Health Director Bill Roth. After realizing a number of restaurants in New Hope were violating it, a letter was sent by the health department to all borough restaurants to remind managers of the policy.

The policy does not apply to service dogs.

Managers for Martine’s RiverHouse say they and Bitter Bob’s BBQ are excluded from the no-dogs-allowed regulation because all food and drink, though they may be served outside, are prepared inside.

(Photo: A dog and his human enjoy lunch at Bitter Bob’s BBQ in New Hope; by Kim Weimer / Doylestown Intelligencer)

Mars Petcare has announced a voluntary recall of three varieties of its Pedigree brand weight management canned dog food products due to a choking risk.

Affected product may contain small pieces of blue plastic, which the company says entered the food during the production process.

The source of the plastic has been identified and the issue resolved, the company said in a press release.

What that source was isn’t identified in the press release.

Mars Petcare says some consumers have reported finding the plastic pieces, but there have been no reports of injury or illness.

Only cans of Pedigree weight management varieties with the production codes shown below are included in this voluntary recall. Each product will have a lot code printed on the end of the can that begins with 209, 210, 211 or 212 and a Best Before date that falls between 2/24/2014 and 3/23/2014.

The recall is for the following Pedigree canned dog foods:

The affected lots were distributed to retail customers throughout the United States.

Pet owners who have questions about the recall should call 1-877-720-3335 or visit www.pedigree.com/update.

Diamond Pet Foods is voluntarily recalling a third type of dry dog food due to salmonella concerns.

All three products were made at a Gaston, S.C., plant —  the same one that made mold-contaminated food that killed dozens of dogs nationwide in 2005.

Production at the plant was halted April 8.

In a statement Monday, the Missouri-based company said the latest recall involves its Diamond Puppy Formula dry dog food. No canine illnesses have been reported.

The product was distributed to customers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The company announced in April that it was recalling batches of its Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul Adult Light Formula and Diamond Naturals Lamb Meal & Rice.