ohmidog!

A day-long trial about dog poop ended with a Fairfax County jury finding a woman not guilty of failing to clean up after Baxter, a dog she regularly cares for.

Two neighbors had accused Kimberly Zakrzewski of violating the Virginia county’s “pooper scooper” law by allowing the Westie-bichon frise mix to relieve himself on the grounds of their condominium.

It took a jury less than 20 minutes Tuesday to reach the verdict, the
Washington Post reported.

Virginia and Christine Cornell had apparently gone to great lengths to document their claims, photographing piles of Baxter’s alleged waste and shadowing Zakrzewski and Baxter to take pictures.

Zakrzewski and the Cornell sisters have long been feuding, according to testimony from all three.

The Cornell sisters testified that Zakrzewski, who walks and babysits Baxter, failed to pick up after the dog on three days last March and April. They said they once heard her boasting to a neighbor that she left the poop unscooped to annoy them.

Zakrzewski testified that she carried plastic bags and always cleaned up after Baxter.

Also testifying was Baxter’s owner, Michelle Berman.

She was shown a photo of a pile of dog waste that had been introduced as evidence.

“Is that consistent with the stool Baxter creates?” Zakrzewski’s attorney asked. Berman answered, “I’ve never seen something that big come out of my little dog.”

Berman said she had gone so far to bring a bag of Baxter’s poop to the courthouse in case it was needed as evidence, but left it in the car.

(Photo: Sarah L. Voisin / Washington Post)

You don’t know the face, but you may know the leg: A khaki-clad hunk of it often shows up — generally from the knee down — in photographs of Bo Obama.

The leg belongs to Dale Haney, who, when the First Family is too busy to walk the dog, assumes the duty.

As a keeper of the White House grounds for nearly 40 years, Haney has managed to cultivate  relationships with the presidential pups — all the way back to Richard Nixon’s Irish setter, King Timahoe.

“They heard about me and they called me to come over here for an interview and I came and here I still am,” he told the Associated Press  during a tour of the gardens on a rainy morning when first lady Michelle Obama — Bo’s primary walker — was out of town.

“I have him a little bit more” when she’s traveling, said Haney.

Before Bo came along, Haney had walked and played with President George W. Bush’s Scottish terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley. But he says he was most fond of Spot, an English springer spaniel whose mother, Millie, belonged to Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush.

“I do have a soft spot for Spot,” he said in an online chat in 2003. “I was there when she was born and now she’s back.” Millie gave birth to Spot at the White House in 1989; the younger Bush and his wife, Laura, put Spot to sleep in 2004 after she’d had several strokes.

Haney began at the White House as a gardener, then was supervisor of grounds maintenance and lead horticulturist before becoming superintendent of all the grounds last fall.

Besides helping out with Bo, Haney tends to the nearly 19 acres of lawns, trees and gardens around the White House.