ohmidog!

Some signs in New York City — warning of $1,000 fines if you fail to clean up after your dog — start off with these words: “IT’S THE LAW.”

Problem is, IT’S NOT.

Proving once again that words written in all caps should never be trusted.

As the New York Post reported yesterday, the signs, which show a human dutifully following his dog with a small shovel, are a bit off the mark.

Posted in at least a couple of locations, the signs not only have the maximum fine wrong, but the law they cite — Public Health Law 1316 — doesn’t exist.

The actual maximum fine for the offense is $250, and the law behind it is Public Health Law 1310.

Most signs in the city have it right, but apparently some rogue ones got fabricated and posted as well over the years, either due to poor research, or because the city wanted to scare the sheer bejeebers out of people.

The Post reported that “the city for years has posted signs in parks and promenades that threaten a $1,000 fine for dog-waste violations … Just one problem with the signs: They’re full of crap.”

When The Post asked city officials about one such posting on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, they admitted that “1316” was a typo — and that the actual fine is $250. A spokeswoman said for the Parks Department said the promenade sign was taken down after The Post’s inquiry.

The spokeswoman said the sign “appears to be an older sign that is no longer fabricated and no longer installed in parks. We make every effort to replace these signs when applicable.”

That would make sense if the signs were ever accurate, but they weren’t.

The Post  found at least one more sign still standing – at Washington Market Park in TriBeCa.

All of which  makes us wonder: Is there a fine for putting up false warning signs?

(Photo: Helayne Seidman / New York Post)

An Ohio judge who called a man convicted of dogfighting “a monster” and sentenced him to six months in jail received a standing ovation Tuesday from a courtroom packed with animal welfare activists.

Judge Kathleen Ann Sutula sentenced Collin Rand Jr., 33, to six months in  jail, five years community control, and more than $12,000 in fines, restitution  and court costs, according to News Channel 5.

Additionally, the Cuyahoga County judge ordered that he never be allowed to own a dog again.

If Rand violates the sentence, the judge said she would send him to prison  for more than 12 years.

“If I had the freedom and the discretion, you’d be serving a lot longer sentence, Mr. Rand. Much, much longer. In fact, probably like 27 years — a year for each dog,” the judge said.

Rand, as part of a plea agreement, pleaded guilty to six counts of dogfighting, four counts of cruelty to  animals, one count of drug trafficking and one count of carrying a concealed  weapon.

The activists applauded the judge, who sentenced Rand to the maximum amount allowed under current law.  (House Bill 108 would make animal abuse a felony in Ohio and allow lengthier sentences.)

Activists in the crowd wore T-shirts with the phrase “Hope for the  27,” a reference to the number of dogs found tied up at Rand’s home on Dec. 22, 2011. The dogs were  malnourished and had open wounds and scars. Officers also found a fighting ring  and a treadmill with plywood sides to contain the dogs.

According to testimony, some of the dogs had spent their entire lives  enclosed in small cages. Some needed immediate medical care and some had to be euthanized.

Rand had claimed the dogs were in bad condition when he found them, and that he was trying to find them new homes.

“I find your explanations and your statements to be totally incredible,”  said Judge Sutula, who has a rescued dog. “They are not worthy of belief. No one with a heart could look at these animals and not get help … You are a monster, Mr. Rand.”

It has been about three months since we last checked in on Wausau, Wisconsin, and that ridiculous two-dog limit it imposes on its residents.

At the time, Melissa Lecker and her husband James were being told by the city they must part with two of their four dogs.

James and Melissa had moved there three months earlier, for jobs, and bought a house — unaware of the city’s two-dog rule.

When they were notified they were in violation of it, they requested an exemption, pointing out that their two golden retrievers were 13 years old, and probably wouldn’t be around much longer anyway.

Most of the bureaucrats they appealed to acted like, well, bureaucrats. They declined to discuss an exception, and the Leckers decided that, rather than part with a family member, the only thing they could do was move.

After some media coverage about their situation, and the city’s two-dog limit, the city council began reviewing the law, and the mayor notified the Leckers that, until the council decided whether to change ordinance, they wouldn’t be fined.

As Melissa Lecker wrote in a recent opinion piece in the Wausau Daily Herald:

In March, Mayor Jim Tipple told us we would not be fined and would not have to give up the dogs. We took our home off the market and began to settle in to our new home and new city, hoping to put the past behind us as the city drafted a new ordinance …

The city began considering a revised and slightly more liberal ordinance that would limit households to five pets — any combination of dogs and cats, as long as the total didn’t rise above five.

Given the Leckers have three cats, in addition to their four dogs, they’d still be over the limit, and, according to Melissa, the mayor told them that once a new law was in place they could be fined.

“I am glad change is coming. But it doesn’t help us,” Melissa wrote.

“We have decided as a family it is best for us to leave Wausau. We’ve signed a contract with a Realtor and have begun preparing our house for sale. We’ve also found a home in Stevens Point we are interested in buying. Regardless of what Wausau does at its June City Council meeting, we feel this is no longer where we belong.”

City officials say the ordinance was passed in 1989 to curb animal nuisance complaints, but as Keene Winters, a member of the city council, noted in an opinion piece in Sunday’s Herald, it has now become a divisive issue.

“Soon, we could have pet owners and non-pet owners locked in a cage match for municipal supremacy,” he wrote.

“There does not seem to be any evidence that the three-dog households already among us create any unusual nuisance,” Winters wrote. “So sending out our police to compel 125 of our neighbors to make a “Sophie’s choice” and eliminate a member of their family is likely to be greeted as unfairly punitive.

“I can see no compelling public interest in the two-dog limit that would warrant imposing such a heartwrenching penalty on so many of our neighbors.”

Winters said he favors allowing people to have up to five well-behaved dogs, assuming they license them. (Only about 30 percent of Wausau’s dogs are registered, he says.)

The city council is meeting tonight on the issue, and it appears divided on whether the ordinance should be altered or kept intact.

The Daily Herald, in an editorial yesterday, came out against the limit — which now restricts a family to two dogs and three cats – saying other existing laws are sufficient for addressing pet-related problems:

“The City Council should do away with the limit on pets, and it should make sure local law enforcement has what it needs to enforce the rules that do make a difference in residents’ lives.”

Under one proposal, residents could get a special “pet fancier’s” permit, allowing them to own up to five animals. In other words, the only change would be moving from a limit of two dogs and three cats to a limit of five pets total, in any combination.

How positively liberating.

Meanwhile, between the confusion, the city’s intrusive rules, and what Lecker describes as the heavy-handed enforcement of them, it has been enough to lead at least one family to wave goodbye to Wausau.

Steven Clay Romero, the man who dragged a dog named Buddy to his death at the Colorado National Monument, received the maximum sentence of three years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.

Romero, 38, of Grand Junction, will spend three years in federal prison, followed by 12 months of supervised parole for aggravated animal cruelty in the dog’s death Dec. 30, 2009, the Montrose Press reported.

He also was fined $500 and ordered to pay $343 in restitution to Buddy’s owners.

The dog, reported stolen from the back of a pickup truck in Delta, Colorado, was found with a rope tied around his neck at the monument. Surveillance photos and marks in the snow indicated Buddy had been dragged behind a pickup truck while still alive.

Romero’s sister, Melissa Lockhart, 32, is charged as an accessory after the fact to aggravated animal cruelty for allegedly attempting to cover up Buddy’s death. Conviction could bring up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A theft complaint filed against her for stealing the dog was dismissed June 10, court records show.

The torture and killing of Buddy triggered a Facebook site, Demand Justice For Buddy, which as of Friday had 267,713 members.

The Denver Post reports that more than 100,000 signatures have been gathered on petitions urging the maximum sentence for the man who is charged with dragging a dog to death at Colorado National Monument.

Gary Sherman said the petitions, signed by animal lovers from the United States and 111 other countries, will be delivered to the courthouse in Grand Junction this week.

The signatures were gathered through a Facebook page called “Demand Justice for Buddy.”

Buddy, a German shepherd mix, was dragged by his neck behind a pick-up truck on Dec. 30. Steven Romero, 37, of Fruita, has been charged with the dog’s killing.

Sherman, of Colorado Springs, plans to deliver the petitions to prosecutors Wednesday before Romero’s scheduled 4 p.m. arraignment hearing in federal court on a charge of aggravated cruelty to animals. The petitions urge that, if convicted, he receive the maximum penalty of three years in a federal prison, a $100,000 fine and one year of probation.

His sister, Melissa Lockhart, is accused of stealing Buddy and another dog. She faces animal-cruelty, felony theft and false-reporting charges and is in jail.

Since the Facebook page was created days after Buddy’s death, 212,029 animal enthusiasts have become members of the site.

(For our previous posts on Buddy, click here.)