ohmidog!

Leo fell into a Dumpster and couldn’t get out.

An aging Australian cattle dog mix, Leo apparently climbed a ramp attached to a large Dumpster and, when no one was looking, either jumped or fell in.

Barbara Grabell and her husband George Anderson searched high and low for Leo after he disappeared from their ranch in Alfalfa, Oregon.

“I thought he – sometimes, they just go off to die privately. I was walking the property, looking under trees, the sagebrush,” Grabell told KTVZ.

Grabell said she walked over to the nearby trash transfer station and looked in the 9-foot-tall Dumpster, which has a ramp that allows residents to more easily dump their garbage. It was about two-thirds full of garbage by then, but she didn’t see Leo. She shouted his name, but he’s hard of hearing.

Four days after Leo disappeared, the Dumpster was picked up for the trip to the Knott Landfill in Bend.

There, Paul Decker, a driver for Bend Garbage and Recycling, was watching its contents pour out when he saw, amid the trash, a dog — dazed and confused but alive, apparently having survived on a diet of garbage.

The dog was taken to the Humane Society of Central Oregon, which Grabell had called earlier to report Leo missing. They notified her he’d been found. She picked up Leo, took him to a vet to be checked out, and then back home.

“He’s home and he’s resting comfortably,” she said Saturday night. “I’m so thankful and relieved, you have no idea.”

Warrick County, Indiana, appears to be living in the dark ages — at least when it comes to its animal shelter.

Operated by the animal control department, the county shelter makes little or no effort to adopt out animals, according to critics.

And last month, the dogs it had euthanized and dumped at a landfill near Boonville included one that was still alive.

So they took it back to the shelter — and killed it.

“Shelter” probably isn’t even the right word. It’s more like death row. The shelter’s kill rate is 90 percent, and unless an owner comes to reclaim a pet, or the local humane society pulls one out, most dogs end up being euthanized.

Or, as one TV report innocuously put it in the case of the landfill dog, he was taken back to the shelter and “given more medicine.”

The County Health Department told 14 News  it’s common procedure for euthanized dogs to be dumped into landfills, but that discarding a live dog was an unfortunate mistake.

According to Change.org, two people saw animal control officers dumping plastic bags at the landfill. Then they saw one bag start to move, and heard a panting sound come from inside it.

When they brought it to the attention of the animal control employees, one of the officers said, “Guess we’re taking this one back.” Without opening the bag, they tossed it in the back of the truck.

The county says the department’s two animal control officers apparently failed to confirm the dog was dead before taking it to  the dump. Both employees have been reprimanded.

Officials say it was an isolated event, but criticism of the county-run shelter is mounting.

Residents voiced numerous concerns to the Warrick County Commission on Monday night, according to another 14 News report.

Said one resident, ”Any time you try to go out there, nobody is there when you call. You leave message after message so you can set up an appointment and it makes it very difficult to adopt animals from there.”

County Commission Board President Don Williams defended the animal control officers saying they had a heavy workload, and blamed residents of Warrick County for neglecting their animals.

A petition demanding changes at the shelter — critics say it makes no effort to place adoptable animals on pet adoption websites, rarely answers its phone, and makes it difficult for visitors to view animals in its care — can be found at Change.org.

Trapped in a tar pit in Keokuk, Iowa, a small dog had all but disappeared under the steamy muck by the time police and an animal control officer showed up.

Tipped off by a citizen who heard the dog’s cries from a  landfill, rescuers arrived to see only one side of the dog’s face — an eye and his nose — above the tar that was swallowing him up.

Tar Dog, as he has been dubbed, is fine now, though he still has some black and sticky patches on his fur.

According to the Daily Gate in Keokuk, rescuers slid wooden planks into the tar, trying to position one under him to lift him out.

“We were unable to see where his legs, tail or most of his body were positioned,” said animal control officer Eric Lindley. “We had to basically pry him out with boards positioned under him in the tar.”

As soon as the 15-pound beagle-dachshund mix was freed, he was wrapped in towels and taken to Krichel Animal Hospital, where he was rehydrated, cleaned up, and cleaned up, and cleaned up some more.

“He is doing just great,” said Jean Meyer, who works at Keokuk Animal Services. “He was walking with volunteers and bouncing. He’s one lucky little dog.”

No one knows how the dog got through the fence surrounding Keokuk’s old landfill last week, or how it managed to become stuck in the tar, which was in a sticky liquid state due to the heat. No one knows who the good samaritan who called police is either.

Friends of Keokuk Animal Services is trying to raise funds to pay for the nearly $1,000 cost of Tar Dog’s veterinary care and treatment.

Anyone interested in contributing to the dog’s care can send donations to FOKAS, P. O. Box 1181, Keokuk, IA or contact Meyer at 524-1127 or 526-5421. If funds in excess of Tar Dog’s costs are raised, they will be put into a fund to care for other animals needing care.

Amid a continuing investigation into allegations of animal cruelty, what was once the entire animal control staff of Chesterfield County, S.C., has been fired.

Sheriff Sam Parker said the firings took place Monday “in an effort to begin a new start at the shelter.”

The animal shelter has been under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and the state’s Attorney General’s office since allegations came out in March that dogs were being shot as a form of euthanasia, according to WBTV.

The state Attorney General’s Office has not released its findings on the investigation, and says it is still underway.

While it has been alleged that nearly two dozen dogs at the shelter were shot and dumped in a landfill, Sheriff Parker said he believes the initial number was exaggerated, and that his office is investigating the deaths of six. Allegations also surfaced that dog fights were being staged at the shelter, but the sheriff said those allegations appear false.

WBTV filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Sheriff’s Office to learn the names of the four fired animal control staff members – Brian Burch, Eric Donahue, Lee Carnea and James Calvin Culledge.

The shelter was shut down and its employees placed on administrative leave after the investigation began. Deborah Farhi, a volunteer who works with the shelter, says a tip led her to discover dead shelter dogs in the landfill. She said she dug up two dogs that had been shot in the head.

While deputies were temporarily assigned to operate the shelter, the sheriff prohibited them from driving animal control vehicles because of hundreds of threats towards the animal control officers.