ohmidog!

I’ll let you decide how much of this story to believe.

A basset hound named George, while no one was home, became entangled in a telephone wire, started choking, and somehow managed to dial 999 (the UK’s version of 911).

Hearing his gasps, emergency operators sent police to the home in West Yorkshire, where he was freed.

We’ll point out this report appeared in The Sun, a troubled tabloid that not everyone considers the UK’s most reliable source of news.

And we’ll point out that when we said dialed, we meant dialed. It was one of those old dialy phones that George, in his desperation, somehow mastered.

(You can click on the link above to see some copyrighted photos of George, and the telephone. The basset in the photo above is Mac who lives in Texas and, despite his outfit, does not have super powers.)

The Sun reports that George, about two years old, knocked the phone to the floor and got entangled in the wire, managing to get it wound around his neck.

“And he panicked so much he incredibly managed to ring 999 as he pawed at the phone trying to free himself.

“The emergency operator alerted police who dashed to the empty home of driving instructor Steve Brown and his daughter Lydia, 18 on Saturday night.”

A neighbor, Paul Walker, also went into the home and “ripped the phone apart to wrench the wire from George’s throat.”

“Incredibly you could see where his paw print was on the phone to ring 999 — he literally saved his own life,” Paul is quoted as saying.

A warrant has been issued for a man who placed needles in hot dogs and left them in his yard, leading to the death of a neighbor’s dog.

Jinx, a black Lab, was euthanized after surgery showed needles — more than 20 of which she had vomited up — had perforated her stomach.

“I miss her the most when I drop food on the floor and look down and realize she isn’t there to clean up after me,” 16-year-old Ryleigh Wann, of Monroe, Michigan, said of her dog.

Ryleigh’s father, Andy Wann of Monroe, went to police after a veterinarian, finding more than 20 needles still in the dog’s stomach and intestines, euthanized Jinx.

Accused in the 8-year-old dog’s death is 64-year-old Gary Pinchoff, who lives two doors down from Wann. Pinchoff told the Toledo Blade Tuesday that he put the needles inside pieces of hot dog to chase away wildlife that had been destroying his garden, and he never intended to harm anyone’s pet.

The Monroe News reported that a warrant was issued for Pinchoff’s arrest yesterday.

I don’t do it often, but every now and then, when a dog I’ve had the fortune to connect with passes on, I post a little memorial, like this one for Butch, a pug who lived down the road.

Butch’s human, Martha, had to have him put down last week.

Ace and I would run into Butch pretty regularly on our walks around the block since we moved into the neighborhood a few  months back.

Usually, we’d see them not far from their front yard, because Butch, at 15, stayed pretty close to home. In addition to possibly having had some strokes and other health problems, he was also blind. And deaf.

He still had life in him, though. A few times, I saw him get playful, with Ace and once with another dog. Even though he couldn’t see them, he’d do a slow spin and do his best to get into a play stance.

More often, he’d be sniffing or walking, his rear end always veering to one side, as if he was out of alignment.

But he’d always stop, wagging his tail even before I reached down to scratch him, as if he somehow knew it was coming.

A while back, when she was having back problems, Martha let me take him for a walk along with Ace. She explained the basics to me: Pull up on his leash to support when when he’s going up or down a curb. Try not to let him walk into a telephone pole. But if he does, don’t worry. He’s a resilient little fellow who has gotten good at absorbing the bumps life brings our way.

That resiliency came to an end last week. Seeing her dog constantly panting, losing control of his bowels, getting right up into her face and staring at her as if to send a message, she knew the time had come.

Martha told me the news on Friday night.

I said the words we say at times like those — always inadequate, but even moreso in her case, for I’d seen the strong bond between them, the joy he brought her, and the fine home she provided for Butch.

Feeling not the least bit helpful, I went home and got a copy of my book, “DOG, INC.,” which, while it relates to dog death, is definitely not feel-good, Rainbow-Bridge, chicken-soup type reading.

Instead, it looks at the ever-strengthening bond between people and their dogs, and the extremes humans sometimes go to after they lose a pet — focusing on the newest and most technologically dazzling of those: cloning.

Martha, I know, would never clone her dog, and, if you’ve read the book, you know I would never suggest it. Martha, pained as she was by Butch’s death, didn’t seem to be going over the edge, and I guess I wanted to give her the book because I admired that.

From our short talk Friday night, she seemed to be handling it, probably better than I would. She seemed to have the right approach — focusing not on the loss, not on herself, but on the happy times the two shared. Happy memories beat a stuffed version of your dog, jewelry made from his ashes, or a laboratory-created genetic replica any day, at least as I see it.

It doesn’t make it easy, but I think that having experienced all you can with your dog, having fully appreciated your dog during his or her life, can somewhat blunt the pain of his or her death — knowing the two of you, and that bond, became all it could be. That seemed to be the case with Martha.

I signed the book, “In memory of Butch, a dog savored in life and lovingly remembered in death — as it should be.”

I rang her doorbell and yelled at Ace to sit down — for he tries to enter any door that opens — and when Martha saw him she said, “Oh perfect!”

When your dog dies, decisions have to be made about what to keep and what to jettison. A favorite toy might be comforting to hang on to, but there are some things painful to look at, like the lingering treats that he or she will never be served. It hurts to see it. It hurts to throw it away.

“I’ve got some bacon I was saving for Butch,” she said. “I’d really appreciate it if Ace would eat it.”

I accepted the package, neatly wrapped in tin foil, and carried it down the sidewalk as Ace jumped up and down next to me, acting anything but mournful. I don’t think he paused for a millisecond to appreciate the significance of the bacon. To him, bacon needs no added significance. He gobbled all three strips down, barely chewing, and kept bouncing up and down beside me even when I told him it was gone.

From a dog who had dispensed much of it in his 15 years, it was like one final dose of joy, courtesy of Butch.

Four dogs owned by Arizona Cardinals linebacker Joey Porter got loose from his Bakersfield, Calif., residence over the Fourth of July weekend and killed a neighbor’s dog.

Porter was cited for not having the dogs on a leash, county Animal Control spokeswoman Kim Rodriguez told the Bakersfield Californian. She said it was unclear how the dogs got out of their kennel.

Porter’s dogs were large and appeared to be half mastiff, half pit bull, she said.

Rodriguez said she doesn’t know what kind of arrangement Porter reached with the neighbor whose dog was killed.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, two of Porter’s dogs got loose from his home in Pennsylvania in 2006 and killed a miniature horse on a nearby farm.

An Atlanta woman has filed a lawsuit against Rick Ross, seeking damages for the death of her 3-year-old Yorkshire terrier, who she says was killed by the rapper’s three pit bulls.

The woman, a neighbor, says the three dogs — described in the lawsuit as pit bulls — escaped from Rick’s mansion and attacked her dog, Banks, on her property.

According to documents obtained by TMZ, the Yorkie suffered “3 large bite wounds on his back ” along with a “very large bite wound” around his neck.

Police responded to the scene and managed to free the smaller dog, but his wounds were so severe he had to be euthanized.

According to TMZ, Ross was cited for the incident.

The lawsuit seeks $15,000 in damages and court costs.

The sprucing up of Petite Acres — the trailer park in Arizona where I’ve temporarily hung my hat — continues.

In addition to paving the dirt road that leads into the trailer park, to keep the dust down, the owner hired one of my neighbors, Ramiro, to come over and remove a tree stump from my yard.

As Ramiro brought over his tools — an axe, a pick and multiple shovels — Ace followed him back and forth to his trailer, and, as he has before, got a hand out.

“I was feeding him some tamale and he ate the whole husk,” Ramiro said. “I hope it doesn’t make him sick.”

Clearly, Ace didn’t understand the intricacies of Mexican cuisine; then again, his policy when it comes to any food is generally to eat it first and ask questions later.

Six hours later, about the time the tree finally came down, the tamale came up. Ace walked to the trailer door and started hacking, and got down the stairs just in time to cough up a corn husk.

Simultaneously, Ramiro, who had spent six hours digging and chopping roots, was heaving, too – throwing all his weight on the the six-foot-tall stump, which slowly toppled as he rode it down.

I’m not sure why the stump had to be removed. It takes up much more of my dirt yard now that it’s horizontal instead of vertical, but I’m sure someone will be chopping it up and hauling it away, and filling the giant hole in the ground.

I’d thought it would be cool to leave the stump standing, and paint it to resemble a cactus.

But, being a temporary resident, my vote didn’t count.

Ramiro probably didn’t care either way about the stump in my yard, but once he tackled the task, it became a battle he had to win — and all done without the aid of heavy equipment. It was man versus stump.

Ramiro proudly took a picture of the tree he’d singlehandedly brought down. I took a picture of what Ace coughed up. Then, at Ramiro’s request, I took some pictures with his cell phone camera of him standing atop the fallen tree truck, raising his arms in victory.

All in all, as they go, it was a pretty exciting day at Petite Acres.