ohmidog!

A New York man who promised to take a friend’s dog to a farm in the country instead duct taped the dog’s mouth and legs and tossed him in a ditch, state police say.

Shane Morehouse, 52, of Fort Edward, was charged Saturday with animal cruelty and abandoning an animal — both misdemeanors, the Saratogian reported.

Police say the dog belonged to an acquaintance of Morehouse who could no longer care for the dog.

“The dog’s owner said he was going to be released on the farm,” state police Sgt. Chuck Salaway said. “Morehouse apparently changed his mind and left it along the side of the road without any concern over what was going to happen to it.”

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail.

The dog, a 12-year-old malamute mix named Chubby, was taken to a local SPCA, where he was euthanized after he was found to be suffering from an unrelated illness.

A Florida man will serve 40 days in jail for tying a 30-pound dumbbell to a dog’s neck and tossing him in the river.

Willie T. Bell, 41, of Palmetto, told police he was trying to make the dog stronger.

He pleaded no contest to the third-degree felony earlier this week, the Bradenton Herald reported.

Police in April spotted the two-year-old pit bull mix, named Blackie, in the Manatee River, not far from where Bell was fishing.

According to Palmetto police officer Micah Mathews’ report, the dogs snout was sticking up as it tried to tread water.

“Mr. Bell said he was trying to make the dog stronger,” Mathews wrote.
“The dog was unable to touch the ground and was not able to move the weight,” the officer wrote. “When I arrived I could see only the nose of the dog out of the water.”

On the officer’s request, Bell brought the dog to shore. Bell told the officer the dog had been swimming in place for about 15 minutes.

Mathews asked Bell the same question that’s probably running through your mind right now: Would he like to be anchored to a dumbbell and left in the water like that? Bell replied, “Hell no,” the police report states.

Bell was not the dog’s owner, animal control officials said.

The dog was returned to its original owner and animal control officials said it suffered no lasting physical damage.

When a great horned owl sunk its talons into his daughter’s shih-tzu-poodle mix, one of Patrick Evans dogs, a boxer, went to the smaller dog’s aid.

Evans stepped outside after hearing a commotion in his back yard last month. When he called the dogs, his daughter’s 7-pound shi-poo, Ramadi, came running towards the door dragging something on her back.

“Suddenly I realized an owl had its talons sunk into Ramadi and Sadie (his boxer) was trying to get it off of her,” Evans said. “When they got to the door we were able to separate Sadie from the owl and my wife pinned the owl to the ground with her foot as I ran to get some gloves.”

“The craziest thing was that the owl turned its head all the way around, you know the way they can do, and looked right at us,”  Evans told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It really freaked us out.”

Evans’ daughter, Amy, just home from Iraq, was visiting for the holidays, with her husband, children and two dogs, one of whom, Ramadi, was in the back yard with her parents’ Rottweiler, Eli, and their 70-pound boxer, Sadie.

Evans freed Ramadi from the bird’s two-inch long talons and called the Pingree Grove Police Department.

Sgt. Rich Blair, one of two officers who responded, said that as they talked to the family, “the owl stood outside the sliding glass door looking at the smaller dog as if he wasn’t leaving without it.”

Blair was able to open the door and drop a fishing net over the bird, which had a swollen left eye. The owl was by a local animal control company to Willowbrook Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Glen Ellyn.

Pingree Grove police said the owl attack was the third in three days, presumably the same one.

On Dec. 21, an owl attacked a small dog, leading its owner to drive her car onto the front lawn in an attempt to scare the bird away. In the early morning hours of Dec. 22, Kyle Sweet had to wrestle an owl off his 22-pound Havanese, Bailey.

Officials at Willowbrook Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, where the owl had to be euthanized, said it appeared to have been struck by an automobile, causing head injuries that impaired its sight and might have led it to seek easy prey.

(Photos: Top photo, of Amy and Ramadi, by Patrick Evans; Sadie and Eli photo and owl photo by Michael Smart / Sun-Times)

It was five years ago when strange things started happening at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

Somehow, the same group of dogs were escaping from their pens at the shelter at night and proceeding to raid the food area, where they ate, played and partied all night long.

The shelter at first suspected staff wasn’t propertly closing the gates. Then they thought maybe it was a practical joke.

Finally, to find the answer, they installed three cameras. The first couple of nights, nothing happened, but then the cameras caught a greyhound mix named Red in the act — first freeing himself, then freeing his friends from their cages.

In Great Britain and Ireland, they call the mixed breed “lurchers,” and they’re known for their stealth and cunning.

Red certainly fit that bill — and better yet, shortly after shelter staff brought an end to the late night parties, Red got adopted.

An Arizona man rang in 2012 with the happy news that the dog he lost a month ago while traveling through Montana has been found.

And, given it’s “National Pet Travel Safety Day” — yes, really — what better time to share that news.

Phil Nichols, 79, was heading back to Arizona from Helena, Montana, on Nov. 28 when he discovered his 6-year-old Lab mix, Buddy, was missing.

Buddy rode in the camper in the bed of Nichols’ pickup — and we won’t debate the safety of that practice here. He was in the camper, Nichols said, when he stopped for gas in Dillon. But on his next stop, Idaho Falls, he checked and found Buddy was gone.

Nichols drove 150 miles back to Dillon and spent a day and a half searching before heading, doglessly, back to Arizona.

In Pocatello, Idaho, Nichols, cut off by another car, hit a guardrail and rolled his vehicle. He wasn’t seriously injured, but the camper was crushed. Nichols wonders if Buddy somehow had a “sixth sense” about the accident and got out of the camper — though he doesn’t know how — before it was too late.

“I think the dog has more brains than I do,” said Nichols, who adopted Buddy from an animal shelter.

One month after Buddy’s disappearance, back in Montana, animal control officers got a  call Thursday about a wounded stray dog in the Buxton area, about 10 miles southwest of Butte, according to the Billings Gazette.

Animal control officer Charlie Dick responded, spending 45 minutes coaxing the limping dog toward him with treats, before snagging him.

The dog was emaciated, had scratches on his face, and a wounded rear foot. In addition to freezing temperatures, and having to survive in the wild, Buddy had been shot with BB’s, X-rays by a veterinarian revealed.

“What a little survivor,” Dick said. ” He was out there a long time.”

Animal control was able to locate and contact Buddy’s owner through a lost dog ad on Craigslist, which had been posted by Nichols’ daughter in Helena.

Nichols said he plans to reunite with Buddy once the vet pronounces the dog ready to leave, but that he may call his dog before then.

“I just want them to put the phone to his ear and let him hear my voice,” Nichols said. “I think that would make him feel better.”

(Photo: Buddy and Nichols before they got separated)

In Ace’s younger days, before DNA breed identification tests were invented, it was always fun to guess what he might have in him.

Was he part German shepherd, as most people guessed? Maybe some mastiff, or Great Dane, to account for his size?  Some thought they detected retriever, or ridgeback, Catahoula or coonhound. It was a true whodunit – who exactly got together to produce such a beast? What made him so big? Where’d that curly tail come from?

It was an enjoyable mystery, unlike the kind of guessing game that becomes more common as a dog ages.

Then it becomes not what he’s got in him, but what he’s got. (I know that’s bad grammar, but I like it better, and I’m in control, at least of the words on this page.)

It’s amazing, and depressing, all the things that can go wrong with dogs, not to mention us. And the path to figuring out which one has – even when you do have medical insurance — can be torturous.

Breed determination tests require just a simple swabbing of the inside of the cheek (or a blood test), but determining what’s wrong with your dog will likely take numerous even more expensive ones that may or may not yield an answer, or even a general category into which his ailment falls.

Is it orthopedic, neurologic, digestive, cognitive? Or could it be, instead of a purebred disease or disorder, some sort of mix?

But first things first, or at least now. Ace seems back to normal. Unlike the previous two days, when he was a mix of clingy and anxious and, while he would sit, refused to lay down – an American Clinganxious Setter, maybe? – he’s himself again, and seems to have no complaints.

He’s back on the futon as I write this — one of the areas he has avoided for the past two days – back in the role of muse, as opposed to object of my fretting. He’s laying — or is it lying — down at will. He’s eating, drinking, pooping, peeing, playing and breathing normally.

A visit to the vet — and yes, I still want to marry a veterinarian — brought no definite answers. A battery of blood tests showed that liver, kidneys and pancreas were all clear, and that he had an only slightly elevated white blood cell count.

He was dispensed some anti-inflammatory pills, which may or may not account for his improvement. Still, upon the vet’s recommendation, I will engage in the also-not-fun, though highly challenging, game of catching one’s dog’s pee in a cup, and will tote a urine sample to their office this week.

Then, depending on what the pee reveals, and depending on whether he  shows any more symptoms or strangeness, more tests are a  possibility — X-rays of his stomach to ensure no parasites or other foreign objects are lurking there, neurological tests because of his earlier problems, and a day-long test for Cushing’s Disease, which the vet mentioned was also a possibility.

Or, given what appears at least today as an apparent recovery, was it nothing at all? For all I know it could have been the full moon, a ghost, a sound he was hearing that I wasn’t, or an extended blonde moment, even though he’s more auburn.

Adding to the uncertainty, when your dog appears to be ailing, there’s always the question you ask of yourself, or at least I ask of myself: Am I under-reacting, or over-reacting? The answer of course is that, in circumstances like these, over-reacting is preferable, if not good for the bank account.

For you newcomers who haven’t memorized Ace’s breeds, I won’t repeat them here. You’ll have to look it up, just in case I ever move to one of those backward towns that enforces or is instituting breed bans — though I probably wouldn’t — but in the event of which Ace is a collie.

Let’s just say, of those breeds that showed up in the three DNA tests he has had in the past two years, one is Japanese, one is Chinese, one is German (but not a shepherd) and one is an overused and misunderstood catch-all that’s not really a breed at all.

As for all those friends and readers who have offered their opinions, I do appreciate the input, the sharing of your own experiences, and the support.

As for Ace, once he wakes up, I think he’s due for a not-too-strenuous hike.

It’s always good to work a little sunshine into the mix.

Name: Burger

Age: 3

Breed: Labradoodle

Encountered: At Washington Park, in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Backstory: This eye-catching boy drew a lot of attention when he sauntered into the dog park with his owners, mainly because of his silky coat the color of chocolate milk.

Make that chocolate milk that you haven’t quite finished stirring.

His fluffy, curly coat, in varying hues of silvery-brown, made me wonder why he was named Burger, and not Milkshake.

It was only around his eyes that you could clearly distinguish one of the breeds within — a chocolate Lab.

Burger was the first chocolate Labradoodle I’ve met, and I found myself coveting not just his hair color, but his aura — at once distinguished and goofy.

That’s what I want to be when I grow up.

You can find all our Roadside Encounters here.

Police in Sussex, England, are investigating the death of beagle-collie mix who was dragged behind a Porsche — for up to six miles, and at speeds approaching 70 miles per hour.

A police source told the Telegraph that detectives are looking into whether the incident may have been triggered by a domestic dispute between the dog’s owners.

A 33-year-old man from West Sussex whose name wasn’t made public turned himself in yesterday and is being held and questioned, police said.

The car was seen dragging the dog by its leash Sunday near Brighton, first by a citizen and later by a police officer. The body of the dog was later found near the Southwick Tunnel.

“This is being treated as a deliberate act,” a police spokesperson said. “The injuries this dog suffered were horrific. It has been distressing for everyone involved.”

A boxer mix  is recovering after apparently being thrown from a Toledo freeway overpass.

No one actually saw what happened, the Toledo Blade reports, but X-rays of the dog showed extensive leg injuries that looked more consistent with a fall than getting hit by a car.

“It’s too bad she can’t just tell us what happened,” said Melissa Hagemann, office and personnel manager at Maumee Bay Veterinary Hospital in Oregon, Ohio, where the dog, who’s being called Gretel, is being treated.

Gretel was spotted on Interstate 280 by Julie Cox, an unemployed Oregon resident, as she took her son to school. She assumed the dog had been hit by a car and died.

On her way home, though, she saw two other women standing with the dog and stopped.

“They said that she had actually been in the middle of the road hobbling around on three legs and they stopped to get her to the side of the road,”  Cox said. “They helped me get her into my car and I took her to my vet.”

Dr. Kevin Soncrant, who named the dog Gretel, estimated she was between 4 and 6 years old. Soncrant and area KeyBanks were taking donations for the leg surgery that was scheduled to be performed Friday at West Suburban Animal Hospital.

The Toledo Area Humane Society is looking into the incident, but John Dinon, executive director, said that it might be difficult to confirm what happened, given there are no known witnesses.

The overpass has six- to eight-foot high chain-link fence on both sides.

Once Gretel recovers, she will be put up for adoption:

“We’ve already gotten calls from a lot of people interested in adopting her after she’s fully recovered,” Hagemann said. “She has a really good temperament and is going to make someone a great pet.”

(Photo: Toledo Blade)

Last week’s report about the Ohio dog found with an arrow poking out of both sides of his body got me to wondering about whatever happened to the Georgia dog who, in September, was found in a similar situation.

And, just as I started wondering, the answer came.

In the Ohio case, a 15-year-old German shepherd mix named Hershey disappeared from his home, ran off into the woods and was found 17 days later with an arrow going in one side of his chest and coming out the other.

A veterinarian removed it and he was last reported to be back home with his family and recovering.

In the Georgia case, a police officer discovered a one-year old pit bull mix wandering the streets of Atlanta with an arrow through his head. It had gone in near his left eye and came out behind his right ear, but veterinarians at a VCA Pets Are People Too Veterinary Hospital were able to remove it and treat the dog’s other injuries.

Interest in adopting the dog, dubbed Arrow, was high after news reports about him were aired, according to the Fulton County animal shelter.

After six weeks of recuperation, we’re happy to report, Arrow ended up getting adopted by Kevin Bryant, executive director of Pets Are Loving Support (PALS).

Bryant, whose organization provides pet food and money for veterinary care to people with terminal illnesses and disabilities, emailed me last week to share the news.

He reports that Arrow is doing well, and that both dog and human are helping each other heal: Five months ago, Bryant lost Murphy, his dog of 12 years, to cancer.

Bryant explains his decision to adopt Arrow in this video, produced by the website Fashionado: