ohmidog!

An Oregon City man pleaded guilty to shooting a dog that belonged to his father’s neighbor.

Police say the father paid for the hit.

For his involvement in what authorities described as a murder-for-hire, Derek James Walkoski, 31, will spend 28 months in prison for shooting and killing Paws, a black Lab that lived next door to his father in Canby.

In a hearing in Clackamas County, Walkoski told Circuit Judge Robert R. Selander that he shot the dog with a rifle, the Oregonian reported.

“You just shot him?” Selander asked.

“Yes,” Walkoski said.

“Any reason?” Selander asked. “Any justifiable reason?”

“No, your honor,” Walkoski said.

Walkoski pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated animal abuse. He also pleaded guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and recklessly endangering another.

Paws’ owner, sitting in the back row of the courtroom gallery, did not address the court.

Walkoski’s father, David James Walkoski, 61, whose trial is set for June 18, hasn’t admitted to any involvement in the killing of Paws.  But he was arrested during the court hearing when prosecutors informed the judge he, while free on bail, pointed his finger at Paws’ owners and simulated firing a pistol – despite an existing no-contact order issued by the court. He was charged with contempt of court and booked into the Clackamas County Jail, with bail set at $50,000.

According to police reports, the Walkoskis’ neighbor returned to his home in April 2012  to find his dog dead. Police said the father paid his son to kill the animal, but did not offer a motive for the shooting.

(Photos: David James Walkoski (left) and his son, Derek James Walkoski)

A three-month old puppy who’d been deemed aggressive and was hours away from being put down is now in training to become a service dog for a North Carolina Marine.

Raven, a Lab-shepherd mix who still has some issues of her own to overcome, is in training to become a service dog for Katie Bales, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It is a great feeling to take a dog that was in a shelter and know that it will change the life of someone who needs it,” Natalie Tayman, the founder and executive director of the rescue group Willow’s Second Chances, told the Jacksonville Daily News.

Raven was only 3 months old when she was labeled aggressive and scheduled to be put down in Duplin County, said Tayman. After hearing about the dog, she gave her a temperament test just a few hours before her scheduled euthanization, removed her from the shelter and placed her in a foster home.

“I know that Raven will do whatever (Katie) needs her to do,” Tayman said. “(Raven) will assist Katie in her daily life and help her do things she can’t do herself. (Raven) will prove to be very valuable to Katie and can potentially save her life.”

Raven, now 7 months old, is still fearful of crowds. She’ll continue to be trained well after she is a year old, Tayman says.

“It meant the world to me getting that phone call from Natalie saying she found me a dog,” Bales said. “It means I get a friend for life, someone to help me on my difficult days.”

“I know in my heart that Raven will bring me happiness and give me a way to focus my energy especially when I’m lost thinking about what’s happened to me. She’ll give me a normal life again,” said Bales, who plans to leave the Marines in June and attend the University of Tampa.

“Because of her I’ll get my life back.”

(Photo from the Jacksonville Daily News; by Chuck Beckley)

A family in northern Maine says it is “overwhelmed” by the generosity they saw from friends and strangers who donated enough money for them to get a service dog for their 5-year-old daughter, Faith.

Faith has spina bifida and experiences seizures. The new dog — a black Lab named Dandy — has been trained to detect when they might be coming.

Bruce and Beverly McNally, of Island Falls, took Faith in as a foster child, then as their adopted daughter. They quickly realized they needed help monitoring her for the seizures, which could be deadly if not addressed.

“The family became very worried, which is why they wanted to get the dog,” Michele King, Faith’s aunt, told the Bangor Daily News.

King is also the chief administrative officer for Brave Hearts, a nonprofit Christian home for young men in Island Falls, and that organization sponsored a fundraiser last month to try and raise the $2,500 that was needed.

King said that donations came from the more than 100 people who attended a benefit supper, and from people as far away as North Carolina.

“We just couldn’t believe it,” Beverly McNally said. “We eventually had enough money and we had to gently turn people away. We had to tell them that we had enough for the dog, but that we wanted them to donate the money to a charity of their own choosing.”

Dandy came from CARES — Canine Assistance Rehabilitation Education and Services — a nonprofit organization in Concordia, Kansas, that trains and matches assistance dogs with owners.

“Dandy has just been wonderful for Faith,” McNally said on Friday. “She picks up on a chemical change in the body when a seizure occurs. One day when we got back, Faith was very lethargic. She was in the chair with me and needed to be snuggled a lot more. And the dog got up in the chair and started whining. And I didn’t realize what was going on. And 45 minutes later, Faith had a seizure. Then I realized what the dog was trying to tell me.”

(Photo: Michele King)

A series of photos depicting some playful and reflective moments between Russian President Vladimir Putin and two of his dogs have been released to the public.

The photos, taken by Putin’s personal photographer, were made on a snowy day in March and show the president playing with his dogs Buffy (a Bulgarian shepherd) and Yume (an Akita-inu) at Novo-Ogariovo, his residence outside Moscow.

Both dogs were given to Putin as gifts, according to RT.com. Buffy came from former Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. Yume, which means ”dream” in Japanese, came from Tokyo as a gift to show gratitude for Russia’s assistance after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the country.

Putin has a third dog, Koni, a black Labrador who is 12 years old and sometimes attends official meetings with him. Koni was also a present, received from former Emergency Minister Sergey Shoigu in 2001.

(Photos: RIA Novosti / Alexsey Druginyn)

The X-ray above shows some of the 109 stones a Lab named Barney consumed during a walk on the beach a few months ago. 

His owner, Kim Woollard, who’s used to Barney putting just about everything in his mouth, didn’t realize at the time he was swallowing them, but she noticed the next day that he seemed under the weather.

After taking him to the vet, Mrs. Woollard, who lives in Surrey in the UK, said she was “gobsmacked” by what she saw.

Barney, a chocolate Labrador, had eaten 109 pebbles during his walk on the beach, the Daily Mail reports.

The vets found 79 pebbles in stomach cavity – and Mrs. Woollard, after getting back home, found 30 more in his bed.

Mrs. Woollard, a 52-year-old jeweler, went for the walk with Barney and her husband, Andrew, back in September, on a beach in Kent.

“Barney was always full of energy and he loved going for walks on the beach. It was a pebbly beach and I let him off the lead there as there wasn’t anyone on the beach apart from us. Andrew and I were chatting and watching Barney, but we didn’t see him do anything out of the ordinary. He was racing along enjoying himself.”

Back at home, the Woollards noticed a few stones in Barney’s basket, but didn’t think anything of it. The next day, there were more, and when her husband ran his hand along Barney’s belly “we could actually hear them rattling,” she said.

Barney had an operation to remove the 70 stones remaining inside him and made a full recovery.

(Photos: WorldWideFeatures.com, via Daily Mail)

“It was bad people who killed them,” 5-year-old Ethan Stalcup said after the bodies of his family’s two dogs were found, apparently killed with an axe.

“I don’t understand why anybody would do this,”  his mother, Rose Stalcup, said in an interview. “It really hurts to know that we live in a world where people can be this cruel.”

Her husband, J.P. Stalcup, wondered what the killers might do next: “What happens if, you know, they do that a couple more times and all of the sudden they’re not happy with – it’s not giving them as much jollies as it was the first couple times …”

That was before Japheth (J.P.) Daniel Stalcup admitted to police that it was he who killed his dogs — because, he said, he couldn’t afford to take care of them.

Now, as Stalcup awaits trial on charges of aggravated animal abuse, KATU – the station that aired the earlier interviews with the family — reports Stalcup has another dog, despite a judge’s order prohibiting it.

One of the conditions Stalcup agreed to in order to be free from jail until the trial was ”no possession or living with any animals.”

Stalcup, of Eagle Creek, Oregon,  initially reported his dogs — Duke, a black Lab, and Buddy, a Lab-blue heeler mix — missing last November. Two days later he reported to police that he had found their bodies, about 100 yards from the house. Stalcup told investigators the dogs appeared to have been hit with an axe several times. One of the dogs was tossed from a cliff, deputies said.

As the police investigation progressed, Stalcup eventually admitted to killing the dogs. His trial date is March 25.

Acting on a tip from a viewer, KATU visited his home on Monday, confirming the family had a new puppy.

J.P. Stalcup told a reporter that his lawyer had cleared it with a judge for him to have pets at home, but prosecutors were unaware of any such permission being granted.

(Photo: The Stalcup’s new puppy (at top) and one of their previous dogs, Duke / KATU)

We all know that when a dog pees on something, it’s generally not an opinion that he’s expressing.

Still, there are those who see poetic justice in Richard Jackson’s oversized sculpture, “Bad Dog,” a 24-foot black Lab who’s urinating on the side of the Orange County Museum of Art, a building many see — despite all the fine artwork inside — as artistically lacking on the outside.

The work by Jackson adorns one facade of the museum in Newport Beach, where an exhibition of his work –  ”Richard Jackson: Ain’t Painting a Pain” — is underway.

The oversized pup, visible from blocks away, is made of fiberglass panels. Inside, Jackson installed a vat of yellow paint that continuously shoots, via hidden hoses, a stream onto the side of the building.

The peeing dog, and Jackson’s indoors exhibit, will remain on display through May 5, 2013

According to the nearby plaque, the “guileless dog unwittingly points to the sometimes rigid institutional constraints that can frustrate artists and audiences alike.”

My Modern Met describes the project as “one of Jackson’s many ‘painting machines’ that excretes pigments in an unusually creative fashion.”

I can’t begin to tell you how much I miss my dog.

As mentioned yesterday, I’m in Arizona, and have been for a week, joining my brother and sister to help get my father settled in a place where he can get the care he needs.

Even though among loved ones, I’m pining for my significant other. Circumstances required Ace — a seasoned traveler — stay home for this trip, and this eight-day separation is the second longest in our seven years together.

It’s an empty feeling, not having him there when I wake up, or when I call his name (which I’ve only done about twice).

Fortunately for me, I have Roscoe, a yellow lab, to help fill  the void. Meanwhile Roscoe’s owner, James has Ace.

Here’s how all this came to be — how we ended up in the company of each others dogs.

James, my brother’s partner, lived in Arizona but recently started working in Winston-Salem, N.C., where I currently reside. My brother, and their dog Roscoe, a yellow lab, haven’t made the move yet and are still in the Phoenix area.

Last week, when my presence in Arizona was required, James agreed to care for Ace while I was away. I, planning on staying with my brother, agreed to lavish Roscoe with attention, and — against James’s advice — give him at least one walk.

James ended up with the more labor intensive duty, between the feedings and the walks Ace demands. I don’t have to feed Roscoe (my brother does that), and one walk convinced me, and my shoulder, that Roscoe was more of an in-the-house,  backyard kind of dog.

For Roscoe, it was just a matter of supplying treats and snuggling, and it was only a few days before it hit me that I had it backwards — James and I are not taking care of each other’s dogs, each other’s dogs are taking care of us.

James, who has been missing his dog something fierce since moving to North Carolina, seems to be enjoying Ace’s company. He posted the photo of him above on Facebook the other day, along with the words: “Thanks to Ace to keep me warm at night. I am dog-sitting Ace and he is such a wonderful boy!”

As Ace attends to James needs, Roscoe attends to mine.

The first few nights, he joined me on my floor mat, dividing his time between sleeping with me and my brother.

But when I got hit by a three-day bug, Roscoe turned it up a notch. He stayed by my side all night. He followed me to the bathroom — a frequent destination for a while there — waiting patiently outside the door for me to exit. He was at my side whenever I got up, generally carrying either his bone or a pillow in his mouth, tail wagging away.

He’s a totally different dog than Ace — a little more goofy, a little less needy, but equipped, it seems, with all the same sensors of human need.

Unlike Ace, who doesn’t like to get nudged in his sleep, Roscoe tolerates anything. A few times I woke up with both my legs atop him. He woke me up a few times sniffing my face, and a few more times by biting his toenails. Roscoe probably spends a couple of hours a day grooming his claws, and it can be a noisy affair.

But it was a small price to pay for all the attention he bestowed on me.

I was reminded, while scratching Roscoe’s big floppy ears, of the old Stephen Stills song, which had nothing to do with dogs at all:  And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.

The lyrics always struck me as a tad slutty, but then that was probably just my dirty-minded interpetration. Maybe I never really understood it.

Dogs, on the other hand, totally get it.

(Photos: Ace photo by James Wong; Roscoe photo by John Woestendiek)

This two-week old Lab manages to get some rest, despite all the background whining.

The YouTube video has gotten more than a million views, thousands of likes, and 56 dislikes, most of the latter coming from people concerned about the dog wailing in the background.

To see more sleeping dogs, click here, then click on a headline for a video.

When a dog who’d lived on the streets for three years got hit by a car in Roseville, Calif.,  a veterinarian treating her new injuries found evidence of some old ones.

X-rays showed the old dog, named Lady, had apparently been used for target practice and shot with a BB gun several times, said Karen Johnson, of the Johnson Ranch Veterinary Clinic.

Lady was about to be rescued from life on the streets when she was hit by a car.

Kristell Stout, who works in Roseville, had been feeding the dog for three years. When she left the job, she couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing Lady anymore and contacted an animal rescuing friend.

He was on her way to catch her when news came she’d been hit by a car, according to Fox40 in Sacramento.