ohmidog!

A bloody and dirty blob of fur found in a sealed plastic trash bag in downtown Louisville this week has been cleaned up enough to reveal he is a Maltese, treated for fleas, anemia and pelvic fractures, and given the name Karma.

Authorities suspect, based on his injuries, that the 3-1/2-pound dog was thrown from a car window.

A $2,500 reward is being offered by the Humane Society of the United States for information leading to an arrest.

Wave3 News reports that the dog was dumped Tuesday at the intersection of Chestnut and Louisville streets.

A woman stopped at a traffic light heard a noise, got out of her car, ripped the bag open and found the dog inside.

Rebecca Eaves of the Shamrock Pet Foundation said the dog was “”absolutely covered in flea nests, severely anemic, parasites inside and outside, the whole nine yards.”

Dr. Scott Rizzo of Blue Pearl Veterinary Partners said Karma has pelvic fractures, likely the result of being thrown or dropped onto the concrete.

Believed to be 2-3-years old, the dog was originally thought to be a brown terrier mix, but once cleaned up he was revealed to be white.

“He’s a little Maltese and he’s white,” Dr. Rizzo said. “You never would have thought that when he came in.” He said Karma’s fractures may be able to heal without surgery.

Anyone with information is asked to call Metro Animal Services at (502) 363-6609.   

The Shamrock Foundation’s Arrow Fund (P.O. Box 24033 Louisville, KY, 40224) is collecting donations for Karma’s medical care.

Palm Beach County animal control officers seized a 10-year-old dog from a home in Belle Glade after her leg was reportedly cut off by her owner with a handsaw.

Luc Jean Baptiste, 48, was charged with felony animal cruelty after a witness said he duct-taped the dog’s mouth shut, hog-tied her, and sawed through her right front leg, the Palm Beach Post reports.

The witness told animal control officers that Baptiste removed the leg because the dog had injured it.

The dog also has a severe infection in her uterus, a sign that she has been used for frequent breeding, officials said.

Six other dogs and four puppies were also removed from the home, where sheriff’s deputies originally went to investigate a shooting.

Officials hope to repair the maimed dog’s leg and eventually put her up for adoption.

Animal control officials have named the pit bull mix Karma.

“I think that what goes around comes around,” said Animal Control Director Dianne Sauve. “I think whoever did this to this dog is going to be carrying a karmic debt for a long, long time.”

(Photos: Palm Beach County Animal Control)

One of the dogs assisting in rescue efforts in tornado-ravaged Joplin is returning a favor to the community.

Exactly three years ago, Joplin residents helped raise about $2,500 to have a pacemaker installed in Molly Brown, a chocolate Lab diagnosed with a heart blockage.

The surgery led to a full recovery, and allowed Molly to continue her career as a search and rescue dog.

In recent weeks Molly and her owners, Allen and Alicia Brown, have been assisting in the search-and-rescue efforts in the aftermath of a tornado that devastated neighborhoods not far from their home.

After helping injured residents, Allen, a paramedic, Alicia, a nurse, and 9-year-old Molly spent the next eight days helping search crews recover 12 bodies, according to the Columbia Tribune.

Alicia also has been taking the dog to visit local children, as therapy.

“The community has been really good to her,” Alicia said.

“It’s always great to be able to help anyone’s pet, but in particular a dog like Molly who’s both a pet and a working dog who helps other people is incredibly fulfilling,” said Deborah Fine, one of theUniversity of Missouri veterinarians who performed Molly’s surgery.

The animal shelter in Joplin has rescued 817 animals since the storm, the Tribune reported, and so far 215 have been claimed by owners.

 
After a nearly year-long hiatus, Ace went back on duty as a Karma Dog over the weekend, attending the first HEARTS (Help Encourage All Readers to Succeed) session of the season at the Baltimore County Public Libary in Catonsville.

The program runs for the next eight Saturdays, and starts at 11 .a.m.

Nine books (three of them Curious Georges) were read to Ace, who – from the moment I put on his special Karma Dogs harness and bandana — seemed happy to get back in the program.

He was one of three dogs at the library Saturday morning. The program is aimed at helping children grow more confident about their reading skills. Dogs don’t judge or criticize young readers when they make mistakes, which can often unintentionally cause them to become discouraged readers. When a child is more confident, they can learn more easily and are able to increase their vocabulary and become better readers.

The sessions are aimed at children who can read or are learning to read, and are usually in grades 1-5. To get the most out of the program, Karma Dogs recommends that children attend a session weekly.

Karma Dogs is a non-profit organization that seeks to improve the lives of others through relationships with therapy dogs. Its various programs are aimed at improving literacy skills among elementary school students and working with children and adults with developmental disabilities to improve communication and socialization skills.

Karma Dogs was also in the news recently for its “Oath of Kindness” program, which was developed in response to the recent violence against animals in Baltimore. Children take an Oath of Kindness with a Karma Dog, where they promise to be kind, tell their friends to be kind and tell an adult if someone isn’t treating an animal properly.

Back in October, a registered nurse at a Memphis hospital handed a paramedic a folded-up note she had removed from the wallet of a patient whose identity she was trying to learn.

The patient had been hit by a car and was unconscious.

The note said: “I have two dogs that need to be taken care of. You will need animal control because one of the dogs is a Rottweiler. She is a good girl. Her name is Karma, six years old. The other dog’s name is Jasmine, 10 years old.”

The note also listed three contact names, and had a hand-drawn map showing how to get to his house. It concluded: “Thank you. Someone please take care of my babies.”

The patient’s name was Michael Short, a loner with no family in Memphis. His coma would last for weeks. And as it turned out, the note he scrawled on notebook paper and stuffed in his wallet couldn’t have landed in better hands.

Paramedic Pamey Hunter, 46, an animal lover, worked the nightshift at The Regional Medical Center at Memphis.

When her shift ended at 7 a.m., Hunter found Short’s home. She was greeted by Karma, the Rottweiler, who barked, snarled and lunged at the chain-link fence. Hunter left, returning a few minutes later with dog treats. At first she tossed them to Karma. Before too long, she had Karma eating out of her hand.

Then she ran out of treats and went to get some more food.

Karma greeted her with a wag of the nubby tail when she returned, let her in, and permitted her to go check on the other dog, Jasmine.

Hunter found the older dog in the hallway. She fed both dogs and promised to return that evening before she went to work.

And that’s exactly what she did — for two months.

She also  bought them dog beds, fresh hay for a doghouse and treats, took Jasmine to the vet for an ear infection, and gave her arthritis medicine every day. Hunter checked several times on Short, the 34-year-old man who spent weeks in a coma. It turned out to be his second major head injury, the first occuring when he was hit by a van at age 17. He couldn’t hear her, but Hunter assured him the dogs were being cared for.

When Short awoke from his coma, he asked about his dogs right away, and Hunter told him she’d bring them for a visit.

After Short went home, Hunter stayed in touch, and on Christmas, Short told her that Karma and Jasmine had been shopping and bought her a gift. She stopped by and Short handed her a small wrapped box. Inside was a necklace and a cross.

Hunter said she cared for Short’s dogs because didn’t want to call animal control. That’s what she told Cindy Wolff, the Memphis Commercial-Appeal reporter who unearthed this story – the kind we don’t hear about nearly often enough.  

“I knew because of the note that these dogs were the most important things to this man,” Hunter explained. “These dogs were all he had in the world and he wasn’t going to lose them if I could help it.”

Karma was a stray, a small white dog hit by a car and left to die on a Denver roadside.

She was scooped off the street by Denver Animal Control officers and taken to Harrison Memorial Animal Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a broken leg.

A rescue organization, Hope for Animals, took her in and Karma ended up, after surgery, with Mary Monnet, a volunteer and foster care provider. Monnet has cared for Karma, who’s no longer in the movement-restricting cone, for the past seven weeks.

It was Monnet who decided Karma would be the perfect dog for the Obama’s and, in Karma’s name, launched a letter-writing and public relations campaign to bring the dog to the first family’s attention.

She also started a blog that tells Karma’s story and includes the letters written to Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia — at least three so far. In those, she can get pretty poetic: ”Mom says having her arms around me is like hugging a cloud.”

Monnet knew Karma — being neither Labradoodle nor Portugese water dog — would be an underdog. The best guess is she’s a terrier mix. But Monnet decided to get her name out there anyway.

She’s gotten some TV coverage and hopes to enlist Denver’s mayor in getting word of the pup to the Obamas.