ohmidog!

Last time we checked in on Ricochet, she was riding the waves, teaching the disabled to surf, and raising gobs of money for good causes in the process.

Now Surf Dog Ricochet, as she’s still known, is involved with a program that allows individuals with speech disabilities to communicate with their dogs by using an electronic voice, via an iPad.

Ricochet, who’s also a therapy dog, is shown here reacting to commands given from an  iPad electronic voice through the TouchChat app without any cues from her handler.

The app allows people who have verbal disabilities as a result of Autism, Downs Syndrome, stroke, or other causes to communicate directly with a dog, giving them a sense of independence, self confidence and control.

Ricochet’s working with the Poway Unified School District Transition Program, through the therapy dog organizations she belongs to — Paws’itive Teams

Paws’itive Teams trains service dogs to assist mobility-limited persons in achieving greater independence and, through educational presentations and animal assisted therapy, enhances the lives of persons living in San Diego County.

Seamus finally got a song.

DEVO’s Jerry Casale has released, “Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro,” a song that mocks Mitt Romney for strapping his Irish setter, in a crate, to the roof of his car on a family vacation trip.

The  new single, subtitled “Seamus Unleashed,” was written by Casale and will be released in conjunction with a game app titled The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed.

The song and the game will launch August 26, which is both National Dog Day and the day before the Republican National Convention.

In releasing the single, DEVO joined forces with Dogs Against Romney, an online advocacy group with more than 70,000 members on Facebook, to help call attention to Mitt Romney’s “crate-gate” scandal.

Have a listen:

“I can’t overstate how excited we are to have DEVO’s Gerald Casale as a partner with us in making sure every voter in America knows Mitt Romney strapped his dog, Seamus, to the roof of his car for a 12-hour trip to Canada,” said Scott Crider, founder of Dogs Against Romney. “The new DEVO song Gerald created with his bandmates is awesome, and I believe it will be the soundtrack for Romney’s defeat in November.”

DEVO recorded the song as an anthem for pet lovers and as a message to others to never forget what happened to Seamus in 1983, when the Romneys drove from Boston to Ontario with the dog crated on the roof of their station wagon.

The single will be available at all digital music retailers; the game is initially being launched as an app on iTunes.

“We are delighted to have a new DEVO song as part of our game’s offering,” said Andy Berryman, chief marketing officer for Censault, LLC, the game’s developer. “It’s exciting to break new ground in the mobile/social gaming space – first as a game that is both fun to play and promotes a positive social message, and now as a new distribution medium for popular music.”

More info on the game can be found at www.facebook.com/CrateEscapeGame.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Casale, who has raised funds for Obama in Akron through a DEVO performance, said of Romney’s nearly 30-year-old mistake, ”It’s just a deal-breaker about the man … What you want in a leader is a guy with some humanity at his core … I think any animal lover that hears the story will learn so much about the character flaw of Romney.”

DEVO may include the song in its act when it tours America this fall with Blondie, he said.

While the song may or may not become the 1970′s-80′s-era band’s first hit in a long, long time, it has already gotten off to a better start than my suggestion for a Seamus song, a reworking of the Pink Floyd tune of the same name.

The Smithsonian National Postal Museum is looking for an Owney look-a-like.

And they promise not to stuff him, or clone him.

In conjunction with the Washington Humane Society, the Postal Museum has launched a contest seeking a modern day living version of the dog that once rode mail trains across the country, and whose likeness recently came out on a new postage stamp.

That’s the good news. The bad news? Only three days remain to enter it.

Owney, a stray who wandered into a post office and was taken in by postal clerks, captured headlines and served as a good luck charm in the 19th Century.

His image was released on a postage stamp this summer.

But, before he became a celebrity rider of the rails, he was just an everyday mutt — maybe a little like your’s.

If your dog looks like Owney — believed to have been a terrier mix — you could not only win an iPad, but his or her picture could end up hanging in the museum.

“If your dog lends a helping paw, charms people everywhere, or resembles Owney, you could win an iPad2 pre-loaded with Owney’s e-book and an Owney prize pack,” the museum says.

Second and third place winners get Owney postage stamps, an Owney toy, and a signed book about the famous dog. The three winning dogs will have their photos displayed near Owney’s exhibit, which includes Owney himself, in mounted form.

You can find more images of Owney here.

Enter the Owney contest by going to the Postal Museum’s Facebook page and uploading a photo of your dog.

(Photos: Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum)

Fighting app with app, PETA released its own iPhone application yesterday that allows its users to monitor, mobilize and take action against those who exploit, abuse and mistreat animals.

The app was released in response to Google’s Android app “Dog Wars,” which PETA says promotes illegal dogfighting by allowing users to participate in “a digital version of the cruel blood ‘sport.’”

PETA’s new app, available for free, is aimed at “mobilizing anyone who values compassion over cruelty to speak up not only for dogs who are maimed and killed in staged fights but also for animals who are abused on factory farms, in laboratories, and in circuses.”

PETA sugggests subscribers start putting it to use by urging Google to pull “Dog Wars” from the Android Marketplace.

“Dog Wars promotes felony cruelty to animals, plain and simple,” said PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s new app allows iPhone users to employ consumer pressure to prevent dogs from being torn to shreds in dogfights and to nip other violent acts of abuse against animals in the bud.”

Users can participate in “action alerts” against specific products that cause animals to suffer as well as donate to PETA’s causes, all while earning points and badges. The more actions that users take, the higher their PETA rank will rise. Every alert is worth 10 points, and 10 additional points can be earned if the alert is shared on Facebook or Twitter.