ohmidog!

A lost dog, stuck in train tracks.

An oncoming N.J. Transit train, in a hurry to make Hoboken.

Not the ingredients for a happy ending.

But there was one, anyway.

The engineer and conductors spotted Sparky, an American Eskimo dog, on the tracks Tuesday morning, on the Bergen county Line in Garfield. He was stuck between the rails and a bridge joint.

They brought the train to a halt, disengaged him, and brought him aboard.

Passengers, despite the six-minute delay, approved and brok into applause when the crew and dog reboarded.

“When we came in, they all came, their camera phones out, taking pictures, they were all in good spirits,” train conductor Paul Bowen told CBS in New York.

In another fortunate twist of fate, Sparky’s owner called police in Garfield to report her dog missing about the time NJ Transit reported the one they’d found.

“I was so scared, because I didn’t know where he was,” owner Yvette Osorio said. “I’m very happy and I’m thankful to all of them for saving my dog.”

How big of a reward would you post for the safe return of your lost dog?

A couple in Warren, Texas, is offering $50,000 — and putting their house up for sale to come up with the money.

Their dog Sir, a chocolate Lab, has lived with the couple for five years.

Charlie Parker said he and his wife have no children, and that Sir was like a child.

The dog disappeared from their property on September 15.

The couple posted fliers at local businesses, but they have yet to hear anything, according to KFDM. (Click the link to see the video report.)

When he disappeared, Sir was wearing a camouflage collar, the Parkers say.

Anyone with information is asked to phone (409) 547-2297 or (409) 200-6008.

When Pat Panek’s six-year-old Siberian Husky disappeared in November, she did what most of us would do — made some posters.

But when she put them up on the streets of Acton, Mass., she says, city officials told her she couldn’t do that, and even took them down.

She says the city told her the signs violated its laws.

“It makes me really angry and I don’t understand it,” Panek told WBZ News. ”Frankly, I just can’t wrap my brain around it.”

Panek is pursuing other routes — passing out brochures and  maintaining a Facebook page about her lost dog, but Bridgett, despite 30 reported sightings, still hasn’t been found.

Mike Gowing, the Chairman of the Acton Board of Selectmen, says the town’s laws pertaining to signage — intended to keep the town from being overrun with signs and losing its “historic feel” —  are confusing, and in the process of being rewritten.

How long lost dog signs should be allowed to stay up is one of the matters to be addressed.

“If you’ve lost your dog, how long is it that you should have the ability to put up signs that say, ‘Where’s my dog’? When do you call that?” he asked. In the case of Bridgett, he added, sounding something less than sensitive, “…It was over the winter, this dog’s either been taken in by somebody, or it’s gone.”

The director of Acton’s Planning Department, which enforces the towns signage laws, said Panek was never ordered to take down a sign, only informed that she was responsible for eventually taking them down.

 
This little beauty was found wandering the streets of Dundalk Saturday.

She was taken in by one good samaritan and passed along to another good samaritan, who is fostering her in Baltimore until a home can be found — either her original one or a new one.

She being called ”Ella.”

A spirited and loving mutt — my guess is a Rottweiler/Jack Russell mix …”Jack Rottsell?” — she was found just off Dundalk Avenue, near Sollers Point Road.

She was found without a collar or tags, is estimated to be about five months old and gets along wonderfully with other dogs.

If you’re interested in Ella, contact Lori at l.besse@verizon.net

A California dog owner is offering a $3,000 reward for the return of her two pit bull puppies.

The two 10-week-old pups, named Chocolate and Ashley, disappeared from the backyard of Fair Norton’s home in Hayward Aug. 12, according to the Oakland Tribune. Norton suspects they went through a hole in the fence.

A pet detective, hired for $600, used a bloodhound to determine the pups had followed a creek bed into a quarry. But the trail ended there.

“I just have a feeling that somebody has them,” Norton said. “If something happened to them, we would have seen something … someone would have found a dead dog.”

Norton said the dogs were early wedding gifts from a cousin who owns the puppies’ parents.

Chocolate is brown and white, with green and hazel eyes and a brown and pink spotted nose. He has a brown leather studded collar. Ashley is gray and white, with steel gray eyes and a black leather collar. Both have white-tipped tails.

Anyone with information may call Norton at 323-384-1640 or 209-834-4317.

Hurley, a terrier who seemed to finally have his troubles behind him and appeared headed for adoption in Oregon, is now lost.

After a life on the streets, an uncertain future in a California shelter, a trip to Eugene and reconstructive surgery, the terrier was at his first-ever adoption event when he slipped his collar and disappeared, the Eugene Register-Guard reports.

To make matters worse, Hurley is deaf.

The brown-and-white smooth terrier, was among a handful of rescue dogs hoping to find owners at a June 20 event held at Wine­Styles in south Eugene.

West Coast Dog & Cat Rescue co-director Jennifer Clark said that, spooked by some balloons, he wriggled out of his collar and took off.

“He’s definitely the perfect storm of lost dogs,” Clark said, noting Hurley, in addition to not being able to hear, is likely a little skittish.

The Register-Guard reports that he has been spotted twice, most recently near the downtown Eugene bus station last Saturday.

Hurley, believed to have been born deaf, was living in a shelter in California, trying to get over a broken paw, when he was removed  by a Lane County rescue group and brought to Eugene in March. Bush Animal Hospital provided him with free surgery — a $3,000 operation to fix his leg. He was then housed with a foster family for several months.

“I hope that he’s still out there and safe,” Clark said. “It would be great if somebody found him, fell in love and wanted to give him a home.”

(Photo: West Coast Dog & Cat Rescue)

A golden retriever named Buck who ran from his owners last summer after being spooked by a train whistle is back home in Washington state, thanks to several residents of rural Montana.

The 7-year-old dog survived despite spending six months on his own, and most of the winter exposed to heavy snow and temperatures well below zero, according to an Associated Press report.

“I’ve never had a miracle happen to me, so I don’t really know what to think,” said Kim Halter of Bonney Lake, Wash. Halter, her husband and two of their sons were on a family trip to Montana in August when they stopped at a rest stop underneath a railroad track along U.S. Highway 2 in the small town of Chester.

“We were under the trestle when the horn blew. When Buck heard the whistle, he took off like a shot. None of us even saw him,” she said.

After two days of unsuccessful searching and putting up posters, the Halters continued their trip without him.

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