ohmidog!

An animal control officer in South Carolina responded to a call about a barking dog behind a Home Depot, and was touched when she discovered what all the noise was about.

“This is one example of why I love my job,” officer Michelle Smith said in her report.

A stray dog was nursing a kitten along North Pointe Creek in Anderson.

On Monday, a caller to animal control reported a dog had been barking in the area along the creek since Saturday, Fox Carolina reported

Smith followed the noise and found the dog and kitten at the bottom of a steep embankment.

She took them both to Anderson County P.A.W.S.

Smith said the dog is taking care of the kitten, cleaning and feeding it.

Animal control is hoping either the dog’s owner or whoever adopts her will agree to bring the cat home, too.

A dog in Italy who attended his owner’s funeral has been showing up at the church where it was held everyday for two months.

Maria Margherita Lochi died late last year, and her funeral was held at the same church she regularly attended with her dog – Santa Maria Assunta church in San Donaci, Italy.

After her death, Tommy, her 7-year-old German shepherd, followed her coffin as it was carried into church and sat quietly through the funeral.

And ever since, Tommy, a stray who was taken in by Lochi, has been showing up  when the bell rings out to mark the beginning of services, according to the Daily Mail.

“He’s there every time I celebrate mass and is very well behaved,” Father Donato Panna told the newspaper. “He doesn’t make a sound.”

None of the other parishioners has complained, Panna said, and villagers give the dog food and water.

“I’ve not heard one bark from him in all the time he has been coming in,” Panna added. “He waits patiently by the side of the altar and just sits there quietly. I didn’t have the heart to throw him out — I’ve just recently lost my own dog — so I leave him there until Mass finishes and then I let him out.”

(Photo: Tommy at Santa Maria Assunta church (Nikonarte Fotografia / Daily Mail)

After a stray dog was struck by a car in Zhangzhou, China, her canine companion stayed by her side for six hours, nudging her with his nose, licking her, and, according to a local butcher, even shedding tears.

It can all be seen in a series of photographs being described by most major media as both “heartbreaking” and “heartwarming” — though we’d note it would have been much more heartwarming if somebody had gone to the aid of the two dogs in the street.

Xiao Wu, a local butcher, said he had recently started to feed the female stray. Her male friend, also a brown and white mutt, were often seen together.

“He stayed beside her the whole day, keeping licking her and pushing her, trying to wake her up, the butcher said. ”… Then he pushed her with his head, and licked her face … I even saw tears.”

The male dog showed up in the neighborhood about a week ago, he said. Since then, “They were together all the time, playing and in love.”

(Photos by HAP/Quirky China News/Rex)

I’m not sure any dog owner can, with any degree of certainty, know what his dog is dreaming, or for that matter thinking, but the owner of this big fella imagines that he’s missing a friend.

The dog, named Judge, seems to still be looking for Eini, his much smaller buddy.

Dogs, whether or not they understand death, do seem to be affected by the absence of a friend, and they do seem to keep looking around in case they might reappear.

We could call it hope, or loyalty, or grief, but we’d only be attributing what are generally considered human emotions to them. We’d only be guessing.

It might be a pretty good guess, though.

Subaru has done it again.

This heartwarming commercial follows a young man over the years, making the point that, whatever else might change, his two most loyal companions do not — his chocolate Lab and his Subaru.

There’s something about seeing the Lab go from a pup to a grey-muzzled senior that reminds us of the true meaning of loyalty, and might even make some of us tear up.

Of course, a car’s not really capable of loyalty. But we humans are.

So Subaru — doing it well and doing it often — continues in its advertising  to seize upon what’s probably the best symbol for loyalty there is: the dog.

And more often than not, it works.

To see all of our “Woof in Advertising” posts, click here.

Last Thursday, John Dolan picked up his ringing cell phone and was told to come get his dog, who was standing outside Good Samaritan Medical Center in Islip, N.Y.

A hospital employee had come across the dog, checked the tags, found Dolan’s number and called it.

What the hospital employee didn’t know was that Dolan was, at the time, a patient in the hospital — and that his dog, Zander, had somehow tracked him there from home, even though home was two miles from the hospital.

Zander is a 70-pound, 7-year-old samoyed-husky mix, with a history of escaping from their home. Dolan and his wife had rescued him from a shelter five years ago. This time though, he appeared to have escaped for a reason.

In the days since Dolan entered the hospital, the dog had been acting sad, Dolan said his wife told him.

“He was moping around for the days I was already at the hospital, sitting in my seat and rolled up and depressed. My wife said he had water in his eyes and looked like he was really sad,” Dolan, 46, told ABCNews.com today.

After Dolan got the call that Zander was outside the hospital, he called his wife, Priscilla, who hadn’t realized Zander was missing.

She drove to the hospital to pick up Zander, who had never been to the hospital before.

Dolan’s back home, too, now, and he reports Zander is not leaving his side.

Some dogs stories tend to sound a lot like fish stories.

But that’s not to say we’re casting any aspersions on this one.

Mark Wessells of Myrtle Beach, S.C., says that six months after he dropped his black Lab mix off at his father’s house in Winchester, Va., the dog named Buck, managed to walk all the way back to Myrtle Beach — a distance of 500 miles.

Wessells was in the process of moving and had left the dog with his father to keep temporarily.

“I wanted him to be up in Virginia where my dad has all this other property and he would’ve been happy,” Wessells said.

But a week after Wessells dropped Buck off, the dog disappeared from his father’s home.

Six months later, Buck showed up in South Carolina, where he was found by Brett Gallagher. For two weeks, the dog played happily with Gallagher’s yellow lab mix Hannah. Gallagher eventually took the dog, who he was calling Deuce, for a checkup at Grand Strand Animal Hospital where a veterinarian found a microchip identifying the dog and his owners.

“The nurse came back and said, ‘Are you Buck?’ and he got so excited,” Gallagher said. “It must have been the first time he heard his name since he left.”

Wessells was notified and came to claim his dog, according to the Myrtle Beach Sun. (Click the link for video of the reunion.)

“I still don’t know how I feel,” Wessells said. “I’m just glad he’s back.”

A truck driver pulled out of a rest area in Hannibal, Missouri, last Friday, unaware that anything was wrong.

He got all the way to Cedar Rapids, Iowa before he realized something was missing — his  9-month-old Yorkshire terrier, named Rambo.

“Didn’t even cross my mind that he might jump out, he never has before,” Michael Siau told the Hannibal Courier-Post. “I jumped back in the truck, put it in gear and drove off. And I just thought he was in the back asleep.”

Fearing missing his deadline could cost him his job, Siau kept driving, stopping only to call the police department he thought was closest to the rest stop, in La Grange, to report his lost dog.

He called them back two days later to check again, at which point they told him Hannibal was the town the rest area was in, and suggested he try the animal control department there.

He did that, and hoped for the best. Three hours later they called back and said they’d found his dog. Rambo had been picked up at the rest area — still waiting for his owner.

He was taken to the Northeast Missouri Humane Society

Siau planned a return trip to Hannibal this week to pick Rambo up.

(Photo: Dominic Genetti / Hannibal Courier-Post)

Grace is now Maggie again.

The loyal black Lab, who was videotaped as she guarded  the body of a yellow Lab killed by a car in Southern California, will be reunited with her family.

Maggie’s family stepped forward Monday, according to CBS in Los Angeles.

Dubbed Grace by Los Angeles County animal control, the dog had been in a  Baldwin Park shelter since last week when she was spotted on Hacienda Boulevard in La Puenta standing guard over a dog killed by a hit and run driver.

Animal Care and Control Capt. Aaron Reyes says Maggie’s family was at the shelter looking for her at the same time animal control officers were getting the dogs out of the street.

Reyes said Maggie has since been spayed and microchipped, and that dozens have offered to adopt her. Instead, she’ll be going home today after shelter workers inspect her home.

A good Samaritan saw the incident in La Puente last Wednesday, put traffic cones around the dog so she wouldn’t be struck and called animal control. He also took the photos and video of Maggie keeping vigil by the deceased dog’s side.

Up until the family came forward, it appeared he was going to adopt the dog, which had no identification tag and no microchip.

On Monday, though, the original family came forward. Now that they have, they’ll get their dog back, but will also be issued citations for having an unregistered dog, and for allowing the animal to run loose, animal control officials said.

No new information has surfaced on the dog who died.

The Los Angeles County animal shelter is calling this dog Grace — a name that seems to fit perfectly.

Last Wednesday, the black Lab stayed by the side of the dog she was with, a golden retriever who had been struck by a car and killed on Hacienda Boulevard in La Puente.

A passing motorist took a short cell phone video (below) of the pair, and it was sent on to the county shelter in Baldwin Park.

One motorist put out traffic cones to divert traffic around the surviving dog until animal control picked her up.

Grace had no tag and no microchip implant, and as of Saturday, no one had come forward to claim her, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Though timid when she first arrived at the shelter, “The staff just showered her with admiration and love,” department spokesman Aaron Reyes said. “She seems to be a well-adjusted little girl.”

The owner of the deceased dog isn’t known, nor is how the two dogs came together.

Reyes said if Grace remains unclaimed, she may available for adoption as early as Monday.

Animal Care and Control Director Marcia Mayeda said she was moved by the loyalty displayed in video footage (below): “When I saw the video clip … it made me emotional,” she said.

Grace, estimated to be 2 years old, is being housed at the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center, 4275 Elton Street. Her impound number is A4416170, and she is available to visit with potential adopters through the weekend. For more information, contact the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center at 626-962-3577.