ohmidog!

Rose Lakey, the Missouri woman who called 911 when her Great Dane collapsed on Easter Sunday, paid a $100 fine this week for what authorities said was a misuse of the emergency number.

Lakey, of  O’Fallon, referred to her dog Oreo as her “daughter” on the phone, leading emergency workers to assume they were rushing to save a human.

One paramedic, upon entering the Lakey home, threw her hands up into the air and said, “It’s just a dog,” Lakey said. Other, more soft-hearted paramedics helped Lakey and her husband Randy load the 140-pound dog into their car. Oreo died at the animal hospital.

The next day, O’Fallon police appeared at the Lakeys’ door with a notice for an ordinance violation.

Lakey said that in her conversation with dispatchers she said her dog collapsed, then later  used the word “daughter.”

She pleaded not guilty during a court appearance a few weeks ago, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. But at a hearing this week — facing the prospect of hiring a lawyer and paying a $1,000 fine if she lost the case — she agreed to pay the $100 municipal fine.

(Photo: Oreo, in a parade; St. Louis Post-Dispatch file photo)

Rose and Randy Lakey were trying to save their Great Dane’s life when they called 911 on Easter Sunday.

Oreo, a 4-year-old, 140-pound  harlequin, had collapsed.

“It was so fast and we were so upset, that all I could think of was to tell her we have to call for help,” Randy Lakey told Fox 2 in St. Louis.

When an ambulance arrived, a paramedic, upon seeing the patient, threw her arms into the air and said “It’s a dog, are you kidding me?” Rose said. “Then she turned and walked away. Then she started yelling out to the policeman, ‘it’s just a dog.’”

Another paramedic administered oxygen to the dog, and, along with police, helped the Lakeys get Oreo into the car.

It was too late, though, and Oreo died by the time they reached the emergency animal clinic.

The next day the Lakeys were charged by police with filing a false report. They’re due to appear in municipal court in O’Fallon next month. At worst, they face a fine.

Rose says she originally told the 911 operator she was calling about a dog, but that she might have referred to Oreo as her daughter at some point.

(Note to emergency officials: Many dog owners feel that way abour their pets, and even refer to them that way. Also, they don’t appreciate phrases like “just a dog.”)

Oreo was once featured in a front page photo in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (above), marching in a pet parade while wearing a pink tutu.

The Lakeys have two grown daughters, and say they thought of Oreo as their third. They didn’t purposefully mislead authorities, they said.

Said Randy Lakey, “You know, it was not intentional. We didn’t mislead anybody. We just needed help. There’s nothing false about that,” Randy said.

(Photo of Oreo by Gabe Hartwig / St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Oreo, the South Carolina shih tzu whose owner put him out with the trash, has a new home.

Kevin and C.J. Miller, of Greenville, adopted Oreo Friday at the Greenville County animal shelter.

Last month, sanitation workers found Oreo in a trash bin waiting to be picked up at the curb. They returned the dog to his owner and called animal control officers who, when they arrived, found he had been put in the trash again.

Oreo’s former owner, Nancy Smythe, 58, of Spartanburg, has been fined $470 for ill treatment of animals, and another $80 because Oreo was not vaccinated against rabies.

“I just couldn’t believe someone would throw a dog in the trash, much less a dog this sweet,” said Kevin Miller, who picked the dog up Friday.

The Millers have a shih tzu at home, named Bam Bam, and had another who, partially blind and battling cancer, had to be put down in December, according to the Spartanburg Herald Journal.

They had visited several shelters before hearing of Oreo’s story.

“When I saw his picture on the Internet, I thought that’s him — that’s the dog,” C.J. Miller said.

(Photo: Michael Justus / Spartanburg Herald Journal)

The South Carolina woman who put her live dog out with the trash, got caught, then did it again, has been found guilty of ill treatment of animals, officials in Spartanburg County say.

Nancy Smythe, 58, was fined $470 for ill treatment of animals, and fined another $80 because the dog was not vaccinated against rabies, according to GoUpstate.com.

An employee with a trash collection company found the dog inside a trash can outside of Smythe’s residence earlier this month. The worker took the dog to Smythe’s residence, where, after initially denying it, she identified the dog as her’s. The worker called animal control officers before leaving, and when they arrived they found the shih tzu in the trash can again, under two bags of garbage.

Smythe told officers that she “needed to get rid of the dog.”

The dog, named Oreo, is now at Greenville County Animal Care, where Susan Bufano said he’s not nearly as shy and reserved as she expected he’d be.

“He is just a love,” she said of the dog, believed to be about 8 years old.

Oreo was not neutered, was loaded with fleas and had other skin problems when he arrived, but he is being treated with antibiotics and improving, she said.

Bufano has received about 200 calls and emails — from people as far away as Arizona, New York and Texas — willing to provide Oreo a home. The pool of potential adoptees has been narrowed to about 20, she said.

Petfinder.com has announced its annual ranking of the 10 most popular names for adoptable pets in 2009.

For the third year in a row, “Buddy” and “Max” came in at first and second for dogs, with “Lucy” and “Smokey” topping the list of cat names.

While many of the most common names have remained consistent year-to-year, there was one new name turning up on the list for both cats and dogs – “Bella.”

The top 10 dog names were: 1. Buddy; 2. Max; 3. Daisy; 4. Lucy; 5. Charlie; 6.  Bella; 7. Molly; 8. Jack; 9. Sadie; 10. Lady.

The top 10 cat names: 1. Lucy; 2. Smokey; 3. Midnight; 4. Bella; 5. Molly; 6. Daisy; 7. Oreo; 8. Shadow; 9. Charlie; 10. Angel.

Petfinder.com is also sharing its favorite quirky and unusual names of the year, selected from more than 170 submissions received via Facebook and Twitter.  Here are their favorites:

Shyanne Thailand Moo Goo Guy Pan, Mr. Tomfoolery Scardeycat Eliot, Rusty Buckets, KeelHaul, Too Fancy for You, Angry Donut, Maple Syrup, Hoseclamp, Prince Xavier Binxley, Hoku-ho’okele-wa’a.

“While funny names are always a big hit, we are also seeing a trend of pet parents giving their furry friends middle names, such as ‘Sunshine Ray,’ ‘Roxanna Bobanna Little’ and ‘Madison Wisconsin,’ suggesting that these animals are more like family members than family pets,” said Betsy Saul, the co-founder of Petfinder.com.

Petfinder.com is an online, searchable database of animals that need permanent homes, compiled from 12,900 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Fabian Henderson, the Brooklyn man who threw a 1-year-old dog off a roof this summer, failed to show up for his sentencing yesterday — thereby voiding the plea agreement that would have spared him from serving jail time.

Henderson, 20, pleaded guilty last month to aggravated animal cruelty, and in exchange got a deal that banned him from owning a dog again but allowed him to remain free. Skipping court, though, means there is now a warrant out for Henderson’s arrest, and he could now face up to four years in jail, the New York Daily News reported.

“What do you expect from somebody who would throw a dog off a roof,” said one of the animal rights activists who attended the sentencing hearing.

In June, Henderson threw his pit bull-terrier mix, Oreo, off the roof of a six-story Red Hook public housing project. The dog survived injuries that included shattered legs, bruised lungs and internal bleeding, but last month ASPCA officials had the dog euthanized because she had become too aggressive.

Among all the things dogs’ noses are sniffing out to make the world a better and safer place — drugs, explosives, missing children, fleeing felons, diseases, bedbugs, pirated cds, sewage leaks, cell phones in prisons — here’s one I hadn’t heard of:

Mold.

A Princeton, New Jersey, company is using canines to detect potentially lethal mold in homes, offices and classrooms.

1-800-GOT-MOLD?  calls itself America’s leading mold inspection company, and claims to be the nation’s first franchise operation to recruit man’s best friend to pinpoint the location of hidden mold in buildings, preventing potential health dangers, which include fatigue, headaches, respiratory problems, and even cancer.

Mold Dogs (and the term has been trademarked) can locate the source of hidden mold growth, even in its early stages.

The company’s founder, Jason Earle, realized that  traditional mold-detection involved a lot of guesswork. While air sampling is commonly used to detect household molds, it often fails to locate the precise source of the problem.

 Mold Dogs save time and money and allow the company to avoid unnecessary invasive procedures, according to Earle, who suffered from mold-related health complications as a child.

Earle’s dog Oreo is the first mold detection dog in the northeast and one of the first nationwide, he says.

(Photo: Oreo, courtesy of 1-800-GOT-MOLD? )

Despite a last-minute barrage of pleas from animal rights supporters, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals today euthanized Oreo, a pit bull that survived a six-story plunge after being thrown off a Brooklyn rooftop.

Despite four months spent trying to modify her behavior, Oreo was too dangerous and aggressive to be put up for adoption, the ASPCA said.

Oreo was recovering from the two broken legs she sustained when she was tossed from the roof of a six-story apartment building in the Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn. Her owner, Fabian Henderson, 19, pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court last month to a felony charge of animal cruelty and will be sentenced on Dec. 1.

But because of all the abuse she underwent as a pup, the 1-year-old dog was unfit to be around people or other dogs, the ASPCA said.

Shortly after she was euthanized this afternoon, and amid continued messages of outrage from those hoping the dog would be placed in a sanctuary, ASPCA President and CEO Ed Sayres issued a lengthy press release, which appears here in its entirety:

On June 18th, a one-year old Pit Bull Mix named Oreo was thrown off a 6th floor Brooklyn roof top by 19-year old Fabian Henderson. Oreo sustained two broken legs and a fractured rib in the horrific incident.

Amidst a flurry of media coverage and public outcry, Oreo was taken to the ASPCA hospital to be treated for her injuries, and Mr. Henderson was placed under arrest by ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement Agents. The circumstances that led to this most difficult and heartbreaking of decisions are not widely known. In fact, details such as these are usually closely guarded. And yet, what is even more tragic about this story’s ending is that it is an all-too-familiar outcome in shelters across the country. It is the true face of the fight against animal cruelty.

Oreo was a victim of cruelty at the hands of Mr. Henderson. The details surrounding these incidents are largely unknown. However, after Mr. Henderson’s arrest in July, it was learned that several of his neighbors reported hearing the sounds of the dog being beaten for at least 20-30 minutes — and the dog whimpering as a consequence.

After arriving at the ASPCA’s facility, Oreo began to recuperate from her injuries, only to begin showing signs of extreme aggression — with little provocation or warning. As is customary at the ASPCA, the dog underwent a series of comprehensive behavior evaluations. This evaluation system has been used to assess many other dogs and is used to determine the rehabilitation programs needed to prepare them for foster care or placement.

In the case of Oreo, we also sought the assessment of an outside veterinary behaviorist. The outcomes of these evaluations were all the same: the dog was not able to be placed in a home.

Read more »

A one-year-old dog survived being thrown off the roof a six-story housing project in Brooklyn.

Though all her legs were broken and had to be repaired with plates and screws, she was expected to survive.

Fabian Henderson, 19, was charged with throwing the female dog off the roof of a building in the Red Hook Houses.

Several people called 911 to report a dog had gone off the roof and police found the black and white terrier mix on the ground six floors below, the New York Post reported.

The dog also suffered internal bruising and damage to her lungs. Investigators have nicknamed her Oreo for her black-and-white markings.

Henderson, who claimed the dog jumped off the roof, was charged with of animal cruelty and reckless endangerment.