ohmidog!

A movie animator charged with bludgeoning his neighbor’s German shepherd to death with a hammer changed his not guilty plea in the middle of his trial last week.

After jurors were shown home security video showing him shooting and beating the muzzled German shepherd, Young Song, 42, switched his plea to no contest, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Young was sentenced to a year in jail and three years of probation. He was also banned from owning any animals for 10 years.

The change of pleas was made over the objection of prosecutors, who were seeking the maximum four-year sentence.

In the video, the 14-month-old shepherd being is shot and beaten by Song, who then is believed to have hidden the dog’s body, prosecutors said. The body of the dog, who belonged to Song’s next door neighbor, was never found.

Prosecutors say Song climbed a fence and entered his neighbor’s yard, shot the dog with a pellet gun, then returned a few minutes later and started hitting dog with a hammer.

Song is an animator who has worked for DreamWorks. His credits include ”Kung Fu Panda,” “Shark Tale,” “Bee Movie” and “Madagascar 2.”

Officials said Song’s reasons for attacking the dog weren’t entirely clear, but they suspected the dog could have been getting on his property through a hole in the fence.

Sometimes breaking the rules leads to better rules.

The Rose Brooks Center for women took in a domestic violence victim and her dog, departing from their standard no-dogs policy after hearing the details of her case — her Great Dane had saved her when she was attacked by a hammer-wielding boyfriend.

According to KCTV 5, the dog covered her with his body, absorbing most of the blows until the boyfriend threw them both out of a second story window.

Despite their injuries, the woman was able to escape with her dog, who sustained several broken bones. She eventually got in touch with the center, located in the Kansas City area.

The center offered her a bed, but when they told her pets weren’t allowed, she balked. The shelter decided, for the first time in its history, to overlook their regulations and allow the dog to stay.

That decision would go on to lead to a change in policy at the shelter.

About 40 percent of battered women with pets stay in abusive relationships  to protect or remain with their pets, said the center’s chief executive officer, Susan Miller.

“They provide so much comfort, and to have to leave that pet behind is so heartbreaking,” Miller said. “It has become abundantly clear that the incredible therapeutic benefits that pets can have on a family greatly outweigh the cost and inconvenience of housing them.”

The center is spending $140,000 to add seven kennels, a walking trail and a pet-friendly play area.

Miller, who made the decision to break the rules, credits the abused woman — who isn’t being identified — with bringing about the change.

“She was not going to leave her pet alone with him,” she said. “He saved her life.”

Shelter officials say they’ve seen a 300 percent increase in applications since becoming pet-friendly.

As some of you know, the main reason for my lengthy layover in Winston-Salem, North Carolina — in addition to it being the place of my birth, and a lovely mid-sized town, and its temperate climate, and its thriving arts scene, and it’s cigaretty legacy — is that my mother lives here.

About twice a week we get together. They are brief and pleasant visits, usually for a meal at the retirement community in which she lives, though sometimes I manage to talk her into an outing.

It has been nice to live so near her, and we get along well, almost drama free. I feel we’ve grown closer, and that she’s grown closer to Ace, too — but not so close that she’s accepting when he drools on her, as he does when she breaks out the dog biscuits.

“It leaves a stain,” she says. “No,” I argue, “drool doesn’t leave a stain. It just disappears.” (I know this from my own pillow.) Usually, any disagreements we have are minor, like that.

There’s really only one recurring major issue we clash over: pants, namely mine.

Well, there is the job issue (as in I should really get one) and the health insurance issue (as in I should really get some). But mainly it’s pants.

She thinks I should have some ”dress pants.”

That’s her term. To me,  it seems a contradiction. “Dress pants” is like “bottle can” or “shoe socks” or “underpants hat,” or like those half skirt/half shorts things women once wore that I think have gone out of style. What were they called? Culottes?

For nearly 40 years, I’ve worn blue jeans every day. There might have been a brief phase where I experimented with corduroy, but mainly my lower half is constantly clad in denim, which I’m pretty sure is the reason all the hair has rubbed off my lower legs.

I knew when I moved here that the official uniform of the southern male was  khaki pants, but I figured I could get by with my one pair. Alas, in my mothers view, they — at least my pair — don’t constitute real dress pants.

This is because all my pants that aren’t jeans — and I think most of them were purchased in the 1980s or early 90s — have extra pockets and, often, a little loop for a hammer.

At some point — and perhaps it still is, I don’t know – it became fashionable for some men’s pants to have a little loop for a hammer, even though they were worn by non-carpenters who didn’t need a little loop for a hammer.

My other non-jean pants are what I think are called “cargo pants” — the ones with extra pockets and pouches with velcro flaps at knee level.

To my mother’s eye, neither carpenter-style pants, nor cargo-style pants, nor  “casual pants” of any ilk qualify as dress pants.

In my defense, I ditched many of my belongings, possibly including some “dress pants,” before Ace and I began our travels. Maybe I figured I would be attending few formal functions on the road, and would be more likely to need pants with a little loop for a hammer.

Besides, I never liked “dress pants.” They are too billowy. I need pants that I know are there, that embrace me. It’s probably the same concept as that Temple Grandin hugging machine, or the Thundershirt.

With Thanksgiving coming up, I’ve been invited to join some friends of hers –  my mother, not Temple Grandin – at the retirement community for dinner, so again last weekend, the subject of “dress pants” arose.

“Do you even have any dress pants?” she asked.

“These are dress pants.”

“Dress pants don’t have little loops for hammers.”

“Well you can do other things with the little loop,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Nothing I can think of right off, but I’m sure there are other, more formal uses.”

The interesting thing about this tension — and what is Thanksgiving without some family tension? — is that it’s a carryover from my teen-aged years, a good 40 years past, when we’d have many an argument, more heated than the ones we have now, about appearance and especially the length of my hair at the time.

Recently, in going through her papers, with her permission of course, I found a letter I had written her one summer during my college years, lecturing her on how it was what is in one’s heart that was important, not the clothes upon one’s back or the length of one’s hair.

Such a sanctimonious little wannabe hippy I was.

Anyway, with Thanksgiving approaching, I have three options. Plan A is to wear a suit (I do have a suit). Plan B (because I do like to sometimes irritate my mother) is to wear my pants with a little loop for a hammer and actually put a hammer in the little loop. Plan C (because I also like to, on rare occasion, make her happy) is to go buy some “nice dress pants.”

Plan C is highly unlikely. (But I did get a haircut yesterday.)

I’m leaning toward the suit, or at least the pants from the suit. Chances are they will be a little tight, but I think maybe with help from the claw end of a hammer, I can squeeze into them.

Now where did I put my hammer?

 A 40-year-old DreamWorks animator – one who worked on animal-themed children’s movies such as “Kung Fu Panda” and “Madagascar 2″ —  has been arrested on an animal cruelty charge after a surveillance camera videotaped him beating a neighbor’s muzzled dog with a hammer.

Young Song pleaded not guilty in court yesterday and faces a preliminary hearing next month. He allegedly climbed a fence into a neighbor’s yard in Pasadena. Surveillance camera video shows the 16-month-old dog being beaten but does not reveal what Song did with the dog.

Authorities say the dog is missing and presumed dead.

Song was being held on $40,500 bail, according to authorities, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“When our officers first viewed the videotape, one of our officers had tears in his eyes. He’d never seen anything like this before,” said Steve McNall, who heads the Pasadena Humane Society and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “In my 31 years at this animal shelter I’ve never seen anything like this.”

McNall’s agency, which is licensed to investigate crimes involving animals, is conducting the probe. It made the arrest in conjunction with Pasadena police.

According to authorities, the suspect shot the dog with a pellet gun, then returned with a hammer and began chasing and striking the animal.

The Times reported that Young works as a “surfacer,” an artisan who creates the look and surface qualities for animated characters, props and environments. Young’s credits on animal-themed films also include “Shark Tale” and “Bee Movie.”

The motive for the attack is not clear. “It might have originated as a barking issue, a noise issue, and then escalated into something else,” McNall said.

If convicted, Song could face more than four years in prison, the district attorney’s office said.

An ugly scene on the side of the road turned uglier in McClellanville, S.C. last week, leaving a dog dead, one man in the hospital and another in jail.

Sheriff’s officials said William T. Youngman, after accidentally striking a dog with his pick-up truck, used a hammer and a machete to try and end the pet’s suffering.

Upon seeing his dog being attacked (but not having seen the accident) James Brian Kennedy took the hammer from Youngman and began beating him.

Youngman, 57, suffered multiple skull fractures, broken ribs and a punctured lung, according to his family.

The Charleston Post & Courier, quoted family members as saying Youngman is an animal lover and was only trying to put the dog out of his misery.

Youngman’s daughter told the newspaper her father lives in a rural area where there is no veterinarian nearby. He did not have a gun to end the dog’s pain, she said.

Youngman, against whom animal cruelty charges may be filed, was listed in fair condition in the intensive care unit at the Medical University Hospital on Friday afternoon. The dog, named Dingo, suffered a spinal chord injury and was euthanized Friday night.

Kennedy paid bail and was released from jail, but faces charges of assault and battery with intent to kill.

A Massachusetts man told police he killed his bulldog Spot with a hammer because he could not afford to pay a veterinarian to put it down.

Charles Berube, 53, of Methuen, who had owned the dog for ten years, told police the dog had been sick for weeks, according to the Associated Press.

Spot had lost weight, had trouble walking and his legs were swollen, Berube told police. He said he couldn’t afford a veterinarian and didn’t want to burden a shelter with the animal, and that he didn’t want to see Spot suffer. The home euthaniasia took place last July.

Berube, of Methuen appeared in court Thursday on animal cruelty charges, and a jury trial is scheduled for Aug. 20.

The Oregon man who used a hammer to try to euthanize his daughter’s dog, then buried it alive, has been sentenced to 120 days in jail for misdemeanor animal abuse.

Hyrum Long, 75, of Forest Grove, said Tuesday he was trying to euthanize the dog in October when he hit it on the head with a hammer and buried it up to its neck. The dog, named Molly, was rescued by police but later euthanized by a veterinarian because of injuries and apparent long-term neglect.

Judge Rick Knapp called the situation “appalling” and told Long what he had done was “monstrous and barbaric.” Long, according to the Associated Press, also was sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service.

An Oregon man used a hammer to euthanize his daughter’s old and ailing dog, then buried it — only to later get arrested when the dog’s cries were heard by a neighbor, according to police.

Responding to that neighbor’s report, police found Molly, a 13-year-old lab mix, buried up to her neck in the family’s backyard, but still alive.

Hyrum Long, 75, and his daughter, 49-year-old Susan Johnson, were arrested Monday by Forest Grove police and charged with animal abuse and neglect, according to KGW News in Portland, Oregon.

Long admitted he made a mistake when he tried to euthanize his daughter’s dog, and said they thought the dog had cancer. Family members said they didn’t have the money to pay to euthanize their dog.

Forest Grove Police Capt. Aaron Ashbaugh said a necropsy report from the Oregon Humane Society indicated the dog had suffered from a chronic skin disease, body sores from lying down for prolonged periods of time, long-term malnutrition and chronic starvation. He said there were indications the dog had not eaten for at least four to five days.

The father and daughter were not at the home when police arrived and found the dog buried up to its neck with an obvious head injury. Officers dug Molly out of the ground, and she was taken by Washington County Animal Control to the Humane Society.

Spokesperson Barbara Baugnon said the 13-year-old dog was in extreme pain and in terrible condition when she arrived. “She couldn’t lift her head but her eyes were following people around the room; obviously she was suffering,” Baugnon said.

Baugnon said they decided the only “humane thing to do” was euthanize the dog.