ohmidog!

The Cumberland County sheriff’s department will take no disciplinary action against a deputy who shot and killed a 17-pound dog, but officials say they plan to equip more deputies with non-lethal weapons they can use on animals in similar situations.

Ronnie Mitchell, a lawyer with the Sheriff’s Office, said the agency had completed its investigation of the May 23 shooting by Deputy Barbara Siau, assigned to the Child Support Enforcement Unit.

“There’s no dismissal, no suspension or no demotion,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell told the Fayetteville Observer that deputies will undergo training in how to deal with animals, and some will be equipped with devices such as stun guns, chemical sprays and batons for use in non-lethal situations.

Siau had gone to Dana Anderson’s home in Hope Mills, N.C., looking for someone else when Gizmo, a Pekingese-dachshund mix, slipped out the door. Anderson said Siau kicked Gizmo when the dog ran toward her, then shot him.

Anderson said she was pleased to learn deputies will carry non-lethal tools. But she still believes she could have stopped Gizmo before the deputy fired, had she been given the chance.

“The thing that gets me, she should have gave me the opportunity to get him,” Anderson said.

What breed would you expect a dog named Gizmo to be? How about Fifi? Rocky? Trooper? Bubba?

As you’ve probably noticed at the dog park, certain names seem to go with certain breeds.

Gizmos are usually shih tzus, Fifis poodles, and Rockys Rottweilers. Trooper is likely a Lab or German shepherd, and chances are Bubba’s a coonhound.

Beyond all the obvious instances — dalmatians named Spot, Great Danes named Marmaduke, beagles named Snoopy and collies named Lassie — there’s a tendency to bestow certain names on certain breeds, notes noted baby naming expert Laura Wattenberg.

So much so that she’s made a word cloud game of it. (You can find it, here)

“The names you like, and the kind of dog you like, seem to inform each other,” said Wattenberg, who has spent some time analyzing name-breed data and found some patterns within. “If you love the idea of a dog named Jethro, it says a lot about the breed of dog you’ll want.”

Wattenberg, best known as an authority on baby-naming trends, poured over the websites of animal shelters and breeders to compile a list of 5,000 dog names and photos. She found the type of name chosen was frequently dependent on the breed, according to the Vancouver Sun.

Wattenberg says she’s considering developing an online name-recommendation engine that takes a dog’s breed into account.

While the biggest trend in naming dogs is still the use of human names, giving them “fitting” names, based on perceptions of their breed, remains a strong tradition.

“Human names are rising across the board. But the kind of name you choose probably depends on the breed and your lifestyle,” she says. “The names reflect either our impression of those dogs or the kind of people who choose them.”

Hunting breeds are likely to get “down-home country names,” such as Bubba, Roscoe or Jethro; Corgis are prone to getting preppy names, like Lacey, Colby and Reggie; and Rottweilers often get macho names, like Rocky, Hunter and Duke, she says.

Pet owners also turn to a breed’s country of origin — or at least that most commonly associated with it — to come up with a name. Thus, there are many Chihuahuas called Chi-Chi, Diego and Pablo; poodles named Pierre, Fifi and Pepe; and Siberian huskies dubbed Sasha, Juneau and Yukon.

(Photo: A Rottweiler named Rocky, by John Woestendiek)

A dog that went missing seven years ago in northwest Arkansas is headed back to her owner.

Andrew Navarette let his Shih Tzu, Mimi, out in the backyard of his Rogers home in 1994. She disappeared, and his efforts to find her, even though she had a microchip, were unsuccessful, according to the Associated Press

Mimi ended up in a new home — that of Kim Rafter, who also lives in Rogers, after someone offered her the tiny dog. Rafter, not knowing Mimi belonged to someone else, or knowing that Mimi’s name was Mimi, named the Shih Tzu Gizmo.

Years passed, and then Gizmo escaped from owner No. 2.

She turned up over the weekend at an animal shelter in Rogers where officials found the chip and called Navarette, who, though he had moved to California, had kept the same cell phone number.

Assistant shelter manager Matt Colston said Navarette was excited to hear that Mimi had been found and immediately offered to pay for her to be shipped to his home in California.

Rafter said it will be difficult to say goodbye to Gizmo.

(Photo: Bud Norman, Rogers Animal Shelter manager, holds Mimi; by David Frank Dempsey / NWA Online)

A PetSmart in New Jersey may be dog-friendly, but its recent firing of a staff member who brought his dog to work  is making it look something less than employee-friendly.

Eric Favetta was fired from his job at the PetSmart in Secaucus for bringing his dog into the closed store while working a last-minute overnight shift.

Favetta, 31, a PetSmart employee since July 2008, placed his dog Gizmo in the store’s empty day care facility while he spruced up the place for a special showing to potential business partners.

“I have always been the type of employee to go the extra mile,” Favetta told  the Newark Star-Ledger’s “Bamboozled” column.

The store, which encourages its customers to bring pets inside, labeled his deed “theft of services,” and fired him.

Favetta served nearly seven years as a dog handler for various military units in Afghanistan and Bahrain. He became operations manager at the PetSmart in Wayne and, based on his good record, was sent to Secaucus.

At 5 p.m. on Dec. 15, Favetta was asked to work a special overnight shift to prepare the store for a viewing by representatives for Martha Stewart’s company, which was considering adding its product lines to PetSmart.

“I brought my dog with me because I knew if I didn’t, he would have been home alone all day and all night until I returned home at 6 a.m. the next day,” Favetta said. Gizmo, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois, spent the night in the empty store’s doggie day care facility as Favetta toiled.

Two weeks later, he was called on the carpet and fired.

PetSmart spokeswoman Jessica White explained the situation this way:

“In our eyes, our services business is huge, with our grooming and training and care. Those are viewed as sale items the same way items on the shelf are,”  she said. “To use the facilities and not pay for it — it falls under the same lines.”

A few days later, PetSmart reconsidered and offered him another job. But Favetta has since moved on. He’s now working as a dog handler for a company that uses animals to search for hazards.

(Photo: MITSU YASUKAWA/Newark Star-Ledger)

A municipal judge in Aspen has ordered a Pomeranian named Gizmo to get out of town.

Judge Brooke Peterson last week told Gizmo’s owner to find the dog a new home — outside of Aspen — adding that, if Gizmo, who has a history of biting people, returns, he will be euthanized.

“As a judge, the hardest decision I ever have to make is to take someone’s pet away or euthanize it,” Peterson told Melinda Goldrich, Gizmo’s owner. “But you and I have been dealing with your dog since 2006 … and your excuses have worn out my patience.”

Read more »

When one of her two Pomeranians dashed out of the car seconds after she parked, Elizabeth Rivera followed to see what the dog was after.

When she caught up, Rivera found her dog Gizmo standing over a seemingly lifeless puppy in a drainage ditch, licking its face.

The white puppy, about 12 to 16 weeks old, was curled up in a four-foot deep drainage ditch with his muzzle tightly wrapped with duct tape. “We thought he was dead,” Rivera told the Wayne Independent.

Rivera, owner of Lizzy’s Head to Toe Salon in Newfoundland, Pa., found the puppy while visiting a friend in Hamlin, Pa. Tuesday night. An animal lover, she had brought her two Pomeranians, Angel and Gizmo, with her, tucked safely in her pocketbook when she exited the car around 10 p.m. But Gizmo jumped out and made a mad dash for the nearby ditch.

The dog Gizmo found growled when Rivera and a friend attempted to reach for it, but after letting the dog sniff their hands, the pup allowed the tape to be removed.

Read more »

Pittsburgh morning talk show host Jim Krenn called off work Wednesday to look for his missing dog, Gizmo — showing that even though his dog wasn’t in the right place, his priorities were.

“He was just gone. He just disappeared,” said Krenn, who works for WDVE radio. “I’m just beside myself. As every pet owner knows, this is a worst nightmare.”

The dog disappeared early Tuesday evening; he was found Wednesday not far from Banksville Park, according to an MSNBC report. Read more »