ohmidog!

The dog who took an 11-mile ride stuck in the grill of a car has been reclaimed by her family.

On Tuesday evening, a family from Dighton family was reunited with Suzie, who had been missing for nearly two weeks.

Animal control officers had dubbed the dog Lucky after she was struck by a Toyota Camry Sept. 20, became wedged in its grill and was and transported 11 miles across Rhode Island before the driver stopped.

The dog’s journey ended when the driver stopped at the East Providence Police Department, where officers and animal control personnel removed her from the front of the car.

“Thing’s as happy as can be. It’s fine,” said the dog’s owner, who asked not to be identified. “My daughter loves the dog to death … she was wicked upset when we lost it and wicked happy when we found it,” he told the Taunton Daily Gazette.

A family pet for the past six years, Suzie escaped their enclosed yard in Dighton on Sept. 20 by digging under the fence.

“Dog digs like a backhoe,” the owner said.

The owners learned about Suzie’s story after her story of survival spread across the country on Monday and Tuesday.

“One of my buddies called me on the phone. He caught the 11 o’clock news on T.V., and he said, ‘Hey, I think your dog’s on T.V.’”

A poodle mix struck by a Toyota Camry became wedged in the car’s grill and survived an 11-mile ride in Rhode Island.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever seen anything like this,” East Providence Animal Control Officer Will Muggle told East Bay Newspapers.

 ”Considering the speed the driver said he was going and the distance he traveled, for her to survive is definitely a miracle.”

Authorities said the Toyota was traveling about 50 miles per hour when the small dog — a poodle-Bichon Frise mix — darted in front of it. The driver said he had little time to react. Unsure whether his car had struck the dog, he stopped, got out, checked the front of the car, saw nothing and assumed the dog had run off. He continued on his way from Taunton to East Providence.

But the dog was there, stuck in the recessed air intake section just below the car’s front grill and above the car’s license plate frame. Eleven miles later, when another motorist told him at a stop light that there was a dog in his grill, the driver headed straight to the East Providence police station.

Animal control officer Muggle was called to the scene.

“It was difficult to get her out of there, not only because of how she was stuck in there, but because she was grabbing on pretty tight,” Muggle said.

“The driver of the car was pretty shaken up about the whole thing,” he added. “He came back the next day to check on her to make sure she was alright.”

The dog — she’s being called Lucky — was taken to the East Bay Animal Hospital and later transferred to Bay State Animal Hospital for additional testing.

Muggle said the dog had a concussion, a small cut above her eye and a slight tear in her intestine. She has recovered and been returned to the custody of animal control. A search for the dog’s owner is underway.

An electronic tracking device implanted under her skin indicated she may have at one point lived in Kentucky, but no registered owners were listed.

If no owner is found likely by the end of the week, the dog will be put up for adoption.

Anyone with information about the dog’s owner, or interested in adopting her, can call East Providence Animal Control at 401-435-7675 or 401-435-7676.

Wendy Diamond started planning a lavish wedding for her Maltese after learning Lucky had cancer.

It was intended as a tribute to her famous dog, and a way to raise money for a worthy cause.

When Lucky, who held the world record for being photographed with celebrities, died last month, Diamond — a TV personality, animal welfare advocate and founder of Animal Fair magazine — apparently decided the wedding should go on.

Last night it did, with a new bride — her rescued dog, Baby Hope. Diamond was hoping to break the Guinness World Record, as she did with her photographs of Lucky, by holding the most expensive animal wedding ever, and raise money for animals at the same time.

The nuptials took place last night at the Jumeirah Essex House — Baby Hope married Chilly Pasternak, a Virginia poodle chosen in an online vote — with proceeds going to the Humane Society of New York.

The extravagant touches included a $6,000 custom wedding dress for the tiny bride, a $5,000 sushi spread, and a $15,000 seven-piece orchestra, according to the New York Daily News.

Wedding planner Harriette Rose Katz, organized the event. Kleinfeld couture bridal designers Michelle and Henry Roth tailored a $6,000 two-toned, white French lace-encrusted dress with Swarovski crystals and a silk train for the bride. TLC’s “Cake Boss” based in Hoboken is making the wedding cake

The vendors donated their services. Some 250 humans and 50 dogs were expected to attend.

Diamond adopted Lucky in 1999, and the dog inspired her to launch her Animal Fair Media empire. She photographed Lucky with hundreds of celebrities as part of a campaign to stop shelters from euthanizing pets.

After Lucky died in June — while the wedding was being planned — Diamond decided that Baby Hope, a dog she’d been fostering, would make a fine bride.

Tickets to Animal Fair’s “Pet Wedding of the Century” started at $250, with “distinguished sponsors” forking over $10,000 for a table. The couple plans a honeymoon in the Hamptons.

Once again, a story — about a dog — that shows how low humans can sink, and how high they can rise.

This one is out of the Boston area, where a disabled dog’s “wheelchair” was stolen from the front yard of his owner’s home Sunday.

David Feeney, 63, of West Roxbury, said the cart used by his 12-year-old Belgain Malinois, “Lucky,” was taken after Lucky enjoyed some playtime in the front yard.

“Somebody must have grabbed it right away,” he told the Boston Globe. “Who knows why this happened.”

Feeney called police, and searched the neighborhood with them that night, looking for the cart, but with no success.

On Monday, though, HandicappedPets.com, a New Hampshire-based company that aids handicapped and injured pets, offered Feeney a free replacement. The carts can run $500 or more.

“We wanted to do anything we could to right a wrong,” said HandicappedPets.com spokeswoman Lisa-Marie Mulkern, who said the company was notified of the theft Lucky’s chair by a former customer who had read about it.

The story was first reported by WBZ-TV.

Feeney, a Boston native, rescued Lucky several years ago while teaching and doing humanitarian work in Bogotá. The dog had been hit by a car. Feeney took him to a vet. After Lucky became able to get around, Feeney began taking the dog with him on his trips. “He brought a lot of joy and happiness to a lot of sad children in these places,” he said. “He’s been the light of my life.”

Lucky was able to walk and even run for a while after the accident, but eventually required surgery, which left him immobilized without the help of a cart.

“To me that’s OK,” Feeney said. “As long as he’s alive that’s what matters. I love him.”

Maryland law — apparently one written back in medieval times — requires that a divorcing couple that can’t agree on who should get custody of the family dog sell the dog like any other disputed marital property, and then split the proceeds.

Fortunately, that resolution didn’t seem right to a judge in Calvert County, Maryland, who instead ordered a divorcing couple to split the custody of their dog, Lucky.

Retired Prince George’s County Circuit Judge Graydon S. McKee III made the decision last month in the case of Gayle and Craig Myers, the Associated Press reported.

The judge, presiding over the limited-divorce proceeding by special assignment, decided last month that the childless couple should split custody of Lucky, meaning every six months the dog will back and forth.

“It was very clear that both of them love this dog equally,” McKee said. “The only fair thing to do was to give each one an equal chance to share in the love of the dog.”

A dog thrown off a bridge in Lithuania. A dog dragged to death at Colorado National Monument. A dog viciously kicked in a New York elevator.

We’ve shown you all of those in recent weeks at ohmidog! — because, though they are graphic and disturbing, we believe that they need to be seen.

So now we bring you this one of Lucky and Misty, dog and cat — graphic in a way that won’t turn your stomach, graphic in a way that we could use a little more of, graphic in a way that, maybe, we humans could learn from.

Global New Year’s Resolution: Be more like Lucky and Misty.

When Lucky, the pet box turtle, lost his front legs to a raccoon, his owner had him equipped with furniture sliders that allow him to get around, almost as quickly as he used to.

Lucky and his mate, Lovey, lived in an open-topped pen with a pond in the yard of Sally Pyne, of Petaluma, Calif.

Pyne suspects a raccoon she’d spotted in the yard, eating some cat food she’d left for another pet, decided to have Lucky for lunch as well.

Pyne found Lucky injured July 31 (the raccoon spared Lovey) and took her to veterinary surgeon Robert Jereb. They think perhaps Lucky had a deformity that prevented him from pulling his front legs into his shell when the raccoon showed up.

Jereb performed surgery to remove what was left of the turtle’s legs, applied bandages and prescribed some medications to ease his pain. Pyne says she considered having the turtle euthanized. 

“I was ready to let little Lucky go home, but Lucky, he was not ready to give up,” she told Sonoma County’s Press-Democrat. “His eyes were open, and he was shoving himself around on his two back legs. He was not going to quit.” 

Jereb came up with the idea to use furniture casters, doubled up in order to match the length of his amputated legs and stuck to the bottom of his shell.  The solution seems to have worked, although the casters may need to be replaced periodically.

Lucky, a 10-year-old Lhasa Apso, arrived at the Helen Woodward Animal Center in San Diego County as a textbook example of neglect.

Left alone in a back yard in Lancaster County, north of Los Angeles, his fur had grown so matted and full of burrs and stickers that he had difficulty walking, and even going to the bathroom. He was also found to have a heart murmur and a thyroid condition, both of which are now under control.

The center captured Lucky’s makeover on video, and reports that he is now available for adoption.

Helen Woodward Animal Center is a private, non-profit organization in San Diego County that, for over 30 years, has been committed to the philosophy of people helping animals and animals helping people.

Located on 12 acres in Rancho Santa Fe, it was founded by Helen Whittier Woodward, who formed it in 1972 to provide services that benefit the community through educational and therapeutic programs for people, and humane care and adoption for animals.

Take ”Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” replace the straight guys with dogs, throw in some firm tugs on the old heartstrings, and you have a basic understanding of the Animal Planet’s soon to premier program, “Underdog to Wonderdog.”

Every episode will feature the “Wonder Team” — made up of a groomer, carpenter, trainer and, of course, good lookin’ and energetic host  — transforming an “unkempt, undernourished, unloved” shelter dog into a well coiffed, housed and trained family dog.

Having not seen it yet, we give it a D for originality, a C for the inadvertent slap in the face to shelter workers, and a B for meaning well.

The show promises to send each dog through “a complete metamorphoses, becoming the dog it was always destined to be. Every shelter dog is rescued, groomed, trained and rehabilitated before finally being placed into a loving home – equipped with its very own custom-designed dog house.”

The show starts Saturday, January 3, at 8 p.m.

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It’s time again for the most popular — and most unusual — pet names, as determined by Petfinder and its adoptions list of 145,242 dogs and 140,269 cats

For the dogs, Buddy was the number one name, and Max was number two, for the second year in a row.

The rest of the top ten, in order were: Daisy, Jack, Lucy,  Molly, Charlie, Sadie, Jake and Lucky.

For cats, the top ten names were Lucy, Molly, Oreo, Kittens, Smokey, Princess, Shadow, Tigger, Angel and Missy.

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