ohmidog!

It’s not everyday that a major metropolitan newspaper assigns one reporter to a dog-bites-dog story, much less three of them.

Not that we have any problem with that.

The New York Daily News reports that Manhattan publicist Melissa Kusick has sued the upstate “dog camp” where her mutt Matilda was mauled by other dogs while being boarded.

Given the three bylines, we assume that either this is a big story or that Kusick is pretty prominent, or at least a darned good publicist.

Kusick sent her dog to the Glencadia Dog Camp in February, and was at the Grammy Awards when she learned of Matilda’s injuries.

The attack left the dog’s face ”so swollen it was almost unrecognizable,” Kusick said in court papers.

The News revealed — and here’s what makes it a slightly bigger story — that at least two other dogs have been mauled at the dog camp in Columbia County, one of whom died.

Kate Dwyer, a Manhattan stylist, said her pit bull-vizsla mix was injured during a  two-week stay at Glencadia last July. Another customer, who asked to remain anonymous, said her dog died in 2011 after being attacked by four other dogs.

Glencadia Dog Camp owner Will Pflaum promised Kusick he’d pay Matilda’s medical bills, but reneged after Kusick described the incident on Yelp.com and reported the owner to the Better Business Bureau, the suit says.

Kusick is suing for the vet bills and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The dog camp owner told the newspaper that Matilda was attacked after she was left unsupervised in a pen with another dog.

“We’re very sorry about this,” he said. “We’re making changes so it doesn’t happen again.”

A Jack Russell terrier is worth $1.11 less, but feeling much better, after 111 pennies he gulped down were removed from his stomach.

The 13-year-old dog, named Jack, underwent a two-hour operation at BluePearl Veterinary Partners.

The coins were fished out five at a time, said Jack’s owner, Tim Kelleher, who reported that Jack was back to normal after the operation:

“He’s driving me crazy again,” he said.

Kelleher who lives in Manhattan and works on Wall Street, said Jack climbed onto a desk to reach a bag that had a bagel in it, and knocked the change over the floor. He said Jack must have swallowed the pennies while licking the bagel crumbs off the floor.

When Jack became ill and started vomiting last Friday, Kelleher took him to the vet, where an X-ray showed the pennies clustered in his belly.

Surgery was advised because the zinc in the coins posed a lethal threat to the dog’s kidneys and liver.

“If Jack would not have had the pennies removed the consequences would have been fatal,” said Dr. Amy Zalcman, who helped treat the dog.

The New York Daily News reports that the dog’s owner let the vet keep the change.

A heartless soul stole 7-year-old Mia Bendrat’s dog on Christmas Eve — scooping him off the sidewalk in front of a store in Manhattan where her owner’s left him tied.

Fortunately, a good-hearted one was out there, too.

Tina Cohen, a teacher, saw a man a couple of neighborhoods away trying to sell a dog on the street, circumstances that made her suspicious. She purchased the dog from him and, on Christmas day, returned the dog to the owners.

New York City police arrested the alleged thief, who they say took the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, named Marley, from outside a shop in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, all under the eye of a surveillance camera.

“Thank you, the people of Washington Heights … Those great Samaritans… And now we got him on Christmas Day,” Mia’s mother Angie Estrada told WABC-TV.

Cohen, a high school Spanish teacher came across a man on Monday in another section of Manhattan standing on a street corner and yelling that he had a dog for sale.

“I said that’s not right. I said I’d like to buy the dog. I only have $100,” Cohen said.

When the man demanded more cash, Cohen went to a nearby Staples, bought some merchandise with her credit card, then returned it for cash.

She paid $200 for Marley and took him straight to a veterinarian, where he was identified through his microchip.

On Tuesday Cohen watched Marley jump into Mia’s arms.

“You guys belong together,” she said. “I’m so happy you are together.”

No word on whether Cohen got her $200 back, but — in the event Santa is listening, and maybe is willing to make a return trip — we’d say she deserves that and much more.

A vigil is being held in New York Saturday in honor of Nick Santino, the soap opera actor who took his own life after putting his dog down.

Santino, according to friends and family, was distraught and feeling guilty after having his pit bull Rocco euthanized — a step acquaintances say he took after his condo board instituted rules against pit bulls and other restrictions against dogs.

“Rocco trusted me and I failed him,” Santino wrote in a suicide note. “He didn’t deserve this.”

Santino was allowed to keep his dog under a grandfather clause, but according to friends, he was being harassed about his dog by the board and fellow residents.

In response to the incident, the Animal Farm Foundation, in conjunction with the National Canine Research Council, had scheduled a press conference on on the social, financial, and legal challenges and discrimination facing pet owners in New York City, but canceled it in the wake of a police officer’s death in the city.

Instead, it’s coordinating a vigil that starts at 4 p.m. Saturday, outside of One Lincoln Plaza, 20 West 64th St.

“The recent death of Nick Santino and his dog Rocco highlight the important role pets play in American lives, but it also illustrates the social, financial, and legal challenges facing pet owners, especially in urban areas like New York City,” the foundation said in a press release.

(Photo: Emmacleary.com)

A few hours after having his dog euthanized, soap opera actor Nick Santino took his own life.

Santino blamed oppressive rules instituted by his condo board for his decision to put his pit bull, Rocco, to sleep; and before taking an overdose of pills he left a note saying he had “betrayed his best friend,” according to the New York Post.

“Rocco trusted me and I failed him,” he wrote. “He didn’t deserve this.”

Pit bulls were banned from the building Santino lived in, One Lincoln Plaza, but he was allowed to keep Rocco through a grandfather clause. Since 2010, the condo board has also forbidden dogs from riding in the main elevator or being left alone in apartments for more than nine hours.

Santino had adopted Rocco, about five years old, from a shelter. Rocco was put to sleep on Santino’s 47th birthday. A few hours later, he killed himself in an apparent pill overdose, the Post reported.

A condo board member said the board feels no responsibility for the tragedy.

“I’m sorry the man is dead,” board member Marilyn Fireman told the Post, “but it has nothing to do with the pet policy.”

Relatives of Santino, who had roles on “All My Children” and “Guiding Light,” plan to place Rocco’s ashes beside Santino’s body when he is laid to rest.

Custody of a Maltese named Bubkas has been awarded to the male half of a former couple in Manhattan that had been unable to agree on with whom the 2-year-old dog should live.

A Manhattan Civil Court judge granted custody to Adam Le Conte, but pointed out it would be nice if he let the ex, Kyungmi Lee, enjoy some time with he dog now and then.

Le Conte’s parents gave him the dog while the couple was living together in 2009. On Christmas Eve 2010, they broke up. Lee initially cared for the dog while Le Conte sought a new place to live. But after a couple of weeks, he reclaimed Bubkas.

Later, in August, he asked Lee to babysit Bubkas while he went on a trip, after which declined to give him Bubkas. Lee filed filed a lawsuit, saying he never surrendered the dog and he had a legal right to Bubkas.

Le Conte is “entitled to the return of his canine companion,” Justice Andrea Masley found in a November ruling. The ruling was reported Thursday by the New York Law Journal, and subsequently by most other media outlets in the city — because so much fun can be had with the dog’s name.

“A Manhattan man got Bubkas for the holidays — and couldn’t be happier,” reported the New York Post.

Bubkas, more commonly spelled ”Bupkis,” is Yiddish for “nothing.” (But we won’t begin to guess what Le Conte translates into.)

Judge Masley ruled that Le Conte “is entitled to the return of his canine companion,” according to the New York Daily News. “While there is no legal obligation to do so, the court hopes the parties will find a way for Bubkas to continue to spend time with both parties,” she said.

(Photo: SpoiledMaltese.com)

Scourge-wise, it may not be up there with drunk driving, but drunk puppy buying is percieved as a serious enough problem to lead at least two Manhattan pet stores to ban the sales of canines to the inebriated.

“I feel like they always come in drunk,” Fernanda Moritz, the manager of Le Petite Puppy, explained to the website DNA Info.

The shop, surrounded by bars, has implemented a policy prohibiting people who appear to have been drinking heavily from buying animals. or even holding them.

Moritz said many of her would-be customers stop in after happy hour around 6 p.m.

“They come from there and say ‘let’s stop by to see the puppies,’” said Moritz.

Another pet store in the neighborhood, Citipups, has instituted a similar ban.

Moritz recalled selling a Chihuahua once to a woman she thought might have been drunk. The dog was returned the next day, near death. Since then, she said, they’ve been on the lookout for intoxicated customers.

Leandro Jacoby, the 28-year-old manager of nearby Citipups, say he has come up with a way to determine whether a puppy buyer is serious, or acting on drunken impulse.

“We have to tell them to come back the next day and most of the time they never come back,” Jacoby said.

“Most of the time it happens around holidays — St. Patrick’s Day or Gay Pride,” he added.

Even though turning down drunken customers might seem bad for business, Moritz and Jacoby both say they’d prefer to lose the sale.

“We make sure they can take care of the dog. We make sure they go to a good home,” Jacoby said.

There are those — including many readers of this website — who’d question whether shops should be selling puppies at all, due to the puppy mill connections often involved. West Hollywood and South Lake Tahoe in California have both banned the sale of dogs and cats in stores, as has Albuquerque, N.M.

Between 2 million and 4 million dogs are born in U.S. puppy mills every year, according to the Humane Society of the United States, many of which end up in pet stores and being sold through the Internet and newspaper classified ads.

MSNBC had an in-depth story last year about cities banning the sales of dogs and cats in pet stores — in which one of the same New York shops is mentioned.

(Video: New York Daily News)

Maybe any monkey can’t be a photographer, but any dog can.

At least when its collar is equipped with a camera that’s programmed to snap photos at regular intervals.

The photos from just such experiment are the subject of a new exhibition in New York called “Dogtography: A Dog’s Eye View of New York.”

The idea was dreamed up by McCann Erickson, a public relations agency that was trying to gain some attention for a pro bono client – Mighty Mutts, an animal shelter and adoption service.

The company outfitted dogs with “collar-cams,” small digital cameras that can be mounted on canine collars.

The resulting photos show the world from a dog’s point of view — a lot of “feet and fire hydrants,” Sean Bryan, a group creative director at McCann Erickson told the New York Times blog “Media Decoder.”

The exhibit opens today, with a reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., at the Hendershot Gallery at 195 Chrystie Street in Manhattan. Proceeds from the sale of the photos will go to Mighty Mutts. The exhibition is being sponsored by Mighty Mutts along with Biscuits and Bath, a chain of dog-grooming facilities in New York.

Each photo has a title, and the dogs who wore the collar cams get photo credits.

Dogs are invited to the event.

It was like a scene from the Wizard of Oz, and it most likely left Alfie wondering what it was all about.

A silky terrier in Manhattan, swept off an 11th floor terrace by high winds, survived a five-story fall with only minor injuries.

Sarann Lindenauer, 67, had opened her terrace door to let in some air, left her apartment for five minutes and came back to find Alfie — a 4-year-old, 10-pound silky terrier — had vanished.

“I ran all over the house calling his name,” she told the New York Post. “I looked down on the plaza and onto the landing of the town houses.”

The dog was swept from the Independence Plaza complex on May 3 during a thunderstorm, landing five stories below, and 30 feet to the east, on a rooftop.

“It was like ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ and he was Toto,” said Jessica Gould, a neighbor who rescued Alfie.  Gould, who lives in a different tower of the complex, had been looking out at the storm from her seventh-floor window and spotted Alfie.

Gould retrieved the dog and brought him to the lobby.

“‘This is Alfie. Oh, my, God … He came from the 11th floor,” she recounted the doorman saying. Lindenauer was called and reunited with the dog, who  sustained only a few bruises and scratches and a cut lip.

“It had to be a horrible, horrible quick wind because he definitely doesn’t jump,” said Lindenauer, who added that Alfie no longer likes going out on the terrace.