ohmidog!

The starving stray dog rescuers initially dubbed Java, because of the coffee can around her neck, has been renamed Olivia, and she’s recovering from her surgery Monday.

Authorities estimate she spent a month with the can encasing her neck and cutting into her ears. She apparently gave birth to a litter during that time, though it’s not likely any pups survived, based on the emaciated condition Olivia was found in.

But she’s been making steady improvement since having surgery Monday. “She’s really doing remarkably well,” a board member with Animal Allies of Texas told the Dallas Morning News.

According to Animal Allies, Dallas Animal Control is not investigating whether the dog was abused because there is no evidence the can was intentionally placed on her head.

Olivia — believed to be a one-to-two-year-old shepherd mix – was found by a citizen  Sunday near Dowdy Ferry Road and Interstate 20, said to be a common dog dumping ground.

Vets expect Olivia, who still needs to be treated for heartworm and spayed, to spend another week at Metro Paws Animal Hospital. After that, she will be fostered by one of the veterinary technicians.

It could be up to four months before she is put up for adoption.

Contributions to Olivia’s care can be made through the Animal Allies website or by calling Metro Paws at 214-887-1400.

(Photos: Animal Allies)

A starving dog with a coffee can around her neck was dropped off Sunday at Dallas Animal Services, along with a second dog who appeared to be looking after her.

Both dogs were brought to the shelter by a citizen who who didn’t wish to be identified. He said he found the two dogs.

Officials at the shelter say the emaciated dog, named Java by its rescuers, has had the can around her neck for some time. It  had cut into her ears, nearly severing one. The can was removed and Java was transferred to Metro Paws Animal Hospital for treatment.

The shelter posted on its Facebook page that “the next few days are critical. We have to get her stable enough for surgery and watch out for organ failure due to her starved condition. But that tail is wagging.”

Donations for her treatment are being accepted by Metro Paws or through the Animal Allies of Texas.

The second dog, who was dubbed Joshua, is healthy and up for adoption.

“He was shy and frightened at all that was going on,” the Facebook post says, “but he was determined to be a reassuring presence for the girl.”

(Photo: Dallas Animal Services)

The U.S. Postal Service says it is investigating the death of a northern Kentucky dog who family members say was deliberately run over by their postman.

The mail carrier has been suspended with pay, WLWT reported.

Nelson Hamm said his three-year-old golden retriever, Nala (or Nayla, according to some news reports) was struck and run over by a postal vehicle last week, and that he witnessed it.

Nala, he said, was sniffing the mail truck’s tires when the postal worker drove the truck over her neck.

“When he ran up on her, he knew he was on something, and her legs was going like this, and he kept going, gunning it and gunning it and gunning it,” Hamm said.

The postal worker then made his next delivery before speeding out of the neighborhood, according to the Kentucky Post.

“She laid down in the foyer, base of the steps. My dad was crying, he kissed her on the nose. She looked him right in the eye, she licked him, and she just died,” his daughter, Lisa Hamm, said.

Covington City Commissioner Steve Frank said the postal service told him they extended their sympathies to the family and are investigating. Officials could not say how long the investigation will take.

“We made a strong suggestion that the postman not carry mail in the city of Covington for a while,” Frank said. ”Our message to the public is you will not abuse animals in the city of Covington.”

The family has retained an attorney for a possible civil suit. Nala has been buried near some trees where she used to play.

(Photo: Kentucky Post)

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.

Hope, a mixed-breed dog that seemed to be on the road to recovery after being nearly decapitated in Georgia earlier this month when her owner left her tied to a tree, has died.

She was euthanized Tuesday after encountering breathing complications.

“The good thing is she got to know that people could be nice to her, because she got a lot of love when she was in the hospital,” Pat Corley, president of Forsyth’s Save-A-Pet organization, said Wednesday.

Hope had been at Caldwell Animal Hospital since July 7, when one of the rescue organization’s members spotted her at the pound in Monroe County, a huge gash running the length of her throat.

Although Save-A-Pet planned to cover all of Hope’s medical expenses, donations were coming in from as far away as Australia, and one Forsyth attorney wrote a check for about $1,500 to cover Hope’s expenses, the Macon Telegraph reported.

Shane Smith, the Save-A-Pet volunteer who took Hope to the hospital, was checking on her everyday, and he and his wife planned to adopt her once she recovered.

“She was sweet. She did fight. We just wanted her to have a chance,” Janet Smith said. “She just made such a great effect on so many people in such a short period of time.”

(Caution: Unsettling images appear with the continuation of this story.)

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Ace has been stricken.

With exactly what, I don’t know. But in the past four days, he has taken to yelping when he gets up from a long nap or makes a sudden move.

At the dog park this week, he has plodded along lethargically, showing little interest in other dogs — even when he ran into this little white fellow who shares his name. How’s that for a pair of Aces?

I have poked and prodded every inch of his oversized body, but I’m unable to pinpoint what particular spot might be hurting him.

So today, we’re off to the vet.

My first thought was the hips. That’s based partly on the simple fact that he’s very big. Then, too, some of you might recall, when I took Ace to an animal communicator three months ago, she told me he was having some mild discomfort in that area. Add in the 10 months we’ve been traveling, and all the hopping up into and down from the back of my jeep he’s been doing, and the hips seem as good a guess as any.

I knew the day would come when the jumping in and out of the car would need to cease, and given his size, maybe that practice should never have started. Chances are — at age 6 — that day is here, earlier than I expected, and not without some accompanying guilt on my part.

Yesterday I ordered a ramp.

Then again, it might not be his hips at all. Although he’s hesitating to jump into the car, he’s not yelping when he does so — only when makes a sudden movement, usually after laying still.

I’ve pushed on his paws, rubbed the lengths of his legs, looked into his ears and down his throat, poked his belly and prodded his hips. None of that seemed to bother him. He didn’t yelp. He didn’t do that thing he does where his eyes get big, which signifies, to me, anyway, rising alarm on his part. That would have told me I was getting close.

The only time he yelped was when I lowered his head, making me think maybe the pain is in his neck, or spine-related. A half hour massage followed, which, though it might not have helped at all, he seemed to appreciate.

I am puzzled, too, about how much of his current “down-ness” is physical, and how much of it might be emotional.

Twice, I’ve come home to hear him howling — not howls of pain, I don’t think, but howls of loneliness. Twice I’ve left the video camera on, to try and capture their onset, but he didn’t howl those times. And the times he did, he immediately cheered up and ran around when I walked through the door.

I’m pretty sure Ace is less than in love with our new basement quarters, though he likes the upstairs and yard just fine. He has shown a distinct preference for being outside, content to lay at top of stairs, keeping an eye on the kitchen window of the mansion owner, who gives him a daily biscuit.

Something about the basement bothers him. And friends I’ve talked about it with have different theories. Maybe he was mistreated in a basement in his puppyhood. Maybe the old mansion we’re living under is haunted. Maybe, with a firehouse around the corner, the sirens are bothering him, though they never have before — and we lived in Baltimore, where sirens are background music. Maybe it’s the lack of sunlight, or he’s getting arthritic and the cold and dampness of the cellar aggravate it.

He’s moving slowly, lethargically (except when the treats come out), and rather than circling twice before laying down, he’s circling about eight times.

Yesterday, working with my theory that it might be his neck, I took a treat and moved it around in front of him — from side to side, then up and down. There were no yelps. Either it caused no pain, or the thought of getting food superceded it.

So, with fingers crossed, we’re headed to the nearest veterinarian, with hopes that whatever is bothering him is something minor, something that will pass or doesn’t cost too much to fix,  something unrelated to all the traveling I’ve put him through — 21,000 miles of it over the past ten months, something that is neither chronic nor old-age related.

Because he’s too young to be old.