ohmidog!

A dog was shot in the head and left on the doorstep of a worker for Dogs Deserve Better, the animal rescue organization that moved into Michael Vick’s old house in Surry County, Virginia.

Melissa Wischmeier with Dogs Deserve Better said the dog was taken to Roger’s Veterinary Hospital in Smithfield.

WAVY.com reported that the dog had a microchip.  Later, WAVY reported that the dog had been reunited with its owner Monday night.

Wischmeier said the dog, named Leah, was left in front of the home of a Dogs Deserve Better worker.

Dr. Kathryn Bouvier at Roger’s Veterinary Hospital said x-rays showed a trail of bullet fragments from Leah’s snout all the way to her spinal cord.

Bouvier said the the dog was recovering, but concerns remained about shifting bullet fragments and infection.

The owner of a dog rescued from a Colorado mountain after he had to abandon her has consented to give the German shepherd-Rottweiler mix to one of her rescuers.

“I don’t want to give her up — I love her — but those people risked life and limb to get her out of there, and that has got to be worth something,” Anthony Ortolani told the Denver Post.

Ortolani, 31, was climbing with a friend when a combination of factors led him to decide to leave his dog, Missy, behind.

The dog’s feet were blistered and she was unable to walk. A storm was approaching. And his climbing companion was out of water. They tried carrying the five-year-old, 112-pound dog, but after two hours, he said, they ended up leaving her between Mount Bierstadt and Mount Evans.

Once down the mountain, Ortolani called a friend who contacted the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office but was told the region was too dangerous and that the department didn’t rescue animals.

Missy was stranded for eight days before a volunteer group of rescuers found her and carried her down the mountain.

After that, Ortolani was charged with animal cruelty for abandoning her, and one of the rescuers expressed interest in keeping the dog.

Ortolani has agreed to plead guilty to a less serious charge, according to his lawyer, Jennifer Edwards, founder and attorney with the Animal Law Center.

Discussions leading to the plea bargain included talk of his giving up the dog, said Edwards, but are not the reason for his surrendering the animal.

(Photo: 14ers.com)

The dog owner who left the scene after his pit bull killed a tiny Pomeranian mix at Chicago’s Montrose Beach dog park has turned himself in — and turns out to be a police officer.

The officer is a five-year veteran of the Chicago police department.

He has not been identified. But he has been ticketed and relieved of duty as the department investigates his actions,  CBS 2 in Chicago reports.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Audrey Fisher and her 12-year-old daughter took Willy, their 2-year-old, 8-pound Pomeranian-Papillon mix, to the dog beach so he could play with his favorite pink ball.

“A pit bull came out of nowhere and just attacked him, grabbed him by his belly and shook him violently,” Fisher said last month. Willy died three days later.

While park rules stipulate owners of dogs that attack other animals must pay the vet bills, the pit bull owner declined to identify himself and walked off with his dog. Fisher’s vet bills for Willy came to $5,700.

Fisher has spent the past month trying to track him down.

Witnesses were able to get a photo of the pit bull’s owner after the attack and Fisher has been handing out flyers with the man’s photo. The dog owner’s photo also was posted on MonDog.org, a website about the dog park.

Witnesses said the dog owner insisted the smaller dog started the fight and said he showed no remorse about the incident.

Upon learning he was a police officer, off duty at the time, Fisher said, “It scares me. That was my first reaction, was fear. … because I would not expect that kind of behavior from a Chicago police, or a cop of any kind.”

A veterinarian says a dog trapped in a car on a 90-degree day in eastern Pennsylvania honked the horn until he was rescued.

Nancy Soares said the 11-year-old chocolate Labrador — named Max — was brought to the Macungie Animal Hospital last month after he had been in the car for about an hour.

She said Max’s owner, Donna Gardner, of Upper Macungie Township, had gone shopping, returned home, unloaded her packages, but forgot that Max was still in the car. The owner later heard the horn honking, checked outside, then went back in. When she heard the horn honking again, she went outside and saw Max sitting in the driver’s seat, WFMZ reported.

Soares said the owner immediately gave Max cold water to drink and wet him down with towels before rushing him to the clinic, where — though he was warm and panting heavily — he was determined to have suffered no lasting injuries.

The first comes from Washington, D.C., where a woman left her Yorkshire terrier in her car Saturday while she popped into a laundromat. When she returned, her car window was smashed and her beloved William was gone.

“He’s so much a part of my family. Everyone that knows him loves him. I know he’s scared right now. I can’t sleep because I know he’s scared, and he doesn’t know these people. He’s not gonna eat. They just need to get him back,” Denise Conner-Battle told ABC 7 News.

The second comes from Middleton, Wisconsin, where a dog left in a car while his owner stopped for lunch Thursday somehow managed to shift the car from park to neutral.

Police said the car rolled out of its parking spot and into a pickup truck across the lot. Damage to both vehicles was estimated in the thousands of dollars, according to an Associated Press report. The dog was fine.

The FBI agent who shot and killed his neighbor’s 3-pound Chihuahua last year is no longer an FBI agent.

Erik Vasys, an FBI spokesman in San Antonio, would not say if Leslie Ledger, an agent stationed in Waco, resigned, retired or was fired — only that he’s gone, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported.

Ledger, 41, could not be reached for comment, the newspaper said.

Ledger was sentenced to deferred probation for two years and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service in July after pleading no contest to state felony animal cruelty charges stemming from shooting his neighbor’s dog, Sassy.

He shot the dog with a pellet rifle when she appeared in front of his home. The dog belonged to a young girl whose family lives down the street from Ledger.

Only one of the eight show dogs left overnight in a hot van in Missouri survived.

A Siberian Husky named Cinder is now back home with her owners, according to St. Louis Today.

Seven of the show dogs — many big breeds with thick coats — perished from heat stroke after being left in the van on June 22. The dogs were returning from a dog show in Iowa and were left in the van by their handler.

Investigators aren’t certain how many hours elapsed before the dogs were found. Authorities said temperatures in the van could have risen to as high as 120 degrees.

Capt. Ralph Brown of the Jefferson County sheriff’s office said Wednesday that detectives were wrapping up their investigation and would sending a report to the county prosecutor.

No charges will be filed against the Alameda K-9 officer whose dog died after he left it unattended for more than three hours in his vehicle, the Alameda County district attorney’s office says.

“It is very tragic when an animal dies under these circumstances, but there is insufficient evidence to prove that the officer acted unreasonably based upon all the evidence presented in the case,” Assistant District Attorney Charlotte Green said in a written statement on Monday.

An internal police investigation into the actions of the unnamed police officer is still pending, according to the San Jose Mercury-News.

(Apparently the dog’s name isn’t being released either. Not a single newspaper report seems to mention it.)

The officer was attending a training exercise May 5 when he left the animal in his personal vehicle for about three hours and 15 minutes, police said. Temperatures that day were around 70 degrees in the Bay area, and police say the officer did leave his windows cracked.

Nevertheless, when he returned, the 6 1/2-year Belgian Malinois was in distress. The dog was taken to the Bay Area Veterinary Emergency Clinic in San Leandro, where it died.

The officer remains on duty.