ohmidog!

Figo wasn’t with his partner when the 33-year-old police officer was shot and killed alongside the road, but the German shepherd attended the funeral and paid his respects.

Jason Ellis, a K-9 officer with the Bardstown Police Department in Kentucky, was shot and killed last Saturday when he stopped to remove some debris from the road, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Police said he was shot multiple times with a shotgun by an unknown assailant.

Ellis was buried Thursday after a funeral service held on the seventh anniversary of his taking the oath as a police officer in Bardstown, a town of about 12,000 people, located 40 miles southeast of Louisville.

The funeral at Parkway Baptist Church, just off Blue Grass Parkway in Bardstown, drew law enforcement officers from Chicago, Pennsylvania, Ohio and across Kentucky, many of them K-9 officers who brought their dogs.

Attendees filled the sanctuary’s 1,000 seats, 500 more seats in a fellowship hall, and were lined up along the walls. After service in the church, there was a 20-mile procession to the rural cemetery in Chaplin where Ellis was buried.

At the funeral, Ellis was remembered as a family man, friend and a hero. Bardstown Police Chief Rick McCubbin said Ellis “paid the ultimate sacrifice doing what he loved: being a police officer.”

(Photo by Jonathan Palmer / Lexington Herald-Leader)

Sorry, this dog wasn’t asleep on the job, we were.

Blame the sheep.

We now know, thanks to a helpful commenter, this is Lamo, a 13-month-old sheep who was hit by a car and taken in by Jennifer Jones, who runs Rockfield Animal Rescue in England.

Being brought up with her three dogs, Lamo thinks he is one, too, she says.

“Lamo is so sure he is a pooch he fetches sticks and balls, wears a collar and a lead, jumps up on his hind legs — and even tries to BARK,” she wrote in posting his video to YouTube.

At least one of the dogs, meanwhile, Judy, apparently thinks Lamo is a dog bed.

Earlier today, we presented the photograph above, indicating the unidentified dog was a working dog and implying — as some other websites did — that possibly he was slacking off while on herding duty.

In truth, it was I who was slacking off — by failing to track down the source of the report.

Generally speaking, that sort of thing comes back to bite you in the butt — kind of like what happens to another one of Jones’s dogs, Poppy, at the end of the video below.

My dog Ace is always pretty cooperative — you might even say a ham — when it comes to having his picture taken.

But last week he went so far as to provide not just the photo op, but the frame.

We were wandering around historic Reynolda Village in Winston-Salem, where he generally checks each shop’s doorstep for water bowls or treats, then peers inside to see if anything of interest — i.e., food related — is going on.

When we came to Village Smith Galleries, an art and framing shop, it was closed, but Ace hopped up on a bench at the entrance. Both sides of the front step were surrounded by lattice, allowing opportunities for him to present his good sides (and there are many) in a pre-framed manner.

In case you can’t read it, that bandana he’s wearing — he got it as a going-away gift — says “I’m smarter than your honor student.”

Sometimes I wonder how true that might be.

If you think love triangles don’t play out in nursing homes, you might need a lesson in geometry, or in aging, or in how the human heart works.

For as long as it keeps ticking, and however strong the attachments it already has are, it’s capable of finding new things to adore.

Which brings us to this sordid tale — one that is also partly uplifting, and, if you want to be all technical about it, also partly shoplifting.

My dog Ace has always been No. 1 in the eyes of my father, a lifelong dog-lover.

My dad was able to quickly detect what a special beast Ace truly is. Watching them snuggle on his couch when we visited always made my insides glow.

For years now, the first thing my father asks when he calls has always been, “How’s Ace?” The first thing he asked me when he came out of a coma, that followed a heart attack, that followed some stomach surgery, was “How’s Ace?” When I visited him in Arizona a few months ago, without Ace, the first thing he asked was, “Where’s Ace?”

Since his lengthy hospitalization, my dad has mostly resided in a skilled nursing facility in Mesa, where, at one point, he was having physical therapy sessions with a dog named Henry, who belongs to one of the therapists. While those sessions are no longer part of his daily regimen, he still sees Henry — full name Henry Higgins — regularly, and apparently they’ve grown quite attached.

According to my sources, after dinner one night last week, my father rolled into the therapy gym unnoticed and snuck off with a photo of Henry that hangs there, planning on taking it back to his sparsely furnished room. It was reportedly his second attempt to steal the framed photo. After getting caught the first time, rolling along the hallway with the picture in his lap, he stuffed it under his shirt the second time.

I found this news upsetting — not because my father was engaging in larcenous behavior, but because I’ve done my best to keep Ace first and foremost in his mind. I’ve made sure his room had a “Travels with Ace” calendar. For his birthday, I sent him a sweatshirt with a giant photo of Ace emblazoned on the front. I’ve supplied him — even though my father’s not doing any traveling — with an Ace travel mug.

For some reason, whatever else he forgets, even temporarily, I want him to remember Ace eternally.

I realize it is petty jealousy, and that it’s likely limited to me. Ace, in all probability, wouldn’t mind a bit that my father has another dog to entertain, comfort, calm, console and warm him.

And in truth, I am far more grateful than I am jealous when it comes to Henry, who I got to meet when I visited, and who is pretty special and wonderful himself.

On my dad’s 89th birthday, Henry was there; Ace and I weren’t.

I can understand my dad being smitten with Henry, and I’m glad he is. Dogs and love, if you ask me, are among the top five reasons to go on living. (The other three are books, music and pizza.)

But I’ll admit to a little “that should be Ace” twinge every time I get a report of Dad and Henry bonding, or get sent a photo of the two of them cuddling in bed.

It makes me want to get Ace — not to mention myself — out there for another visit.

Once he was confronted — when he was noticed, after the second attempted theft, with a bulge under his Maui t-shirt — my father confessed and revealed his ill-gotten bootie.

No charges were filed.

And the framed photo of Henry, according to Henry’s owner, will be placed in a new location:

My father’s room.

A Raleigh city councilwoman posted a photo of her dog relieving himself on a marble column of the statehouse, and compared her canine’s act of seeming disrespect to the way the Republican-controlled General Assembly is treating North Carolina’s citizens.

“I figured, what better way to get my frustration across than with humor?” said City Councilwoman Mary-Ann Baldwin, who used her Maltese-Yorkie mix and Facebook to register her displeasure.

“It shows a little outrage, and I think a little outrage is appropriate right now,” Baldwin said Friday. “I think it’s time for the gloves to come off.”

Baldwin on Friday posted a photo on Facebook of her dog, Jack Bauer — named for the terrorist-fighting agent from the TV show “24″ – relieving himself on a marble column outside the North Carolina General Assembly.

The Democratic councilwoman admits it may be undiplomatic, but she says the image seems to capture the sort of disrespect that, in her view, Republican lawmakers are showing — particularly in regards to a deal the city of Raleigh made with the state to lease the 325-acre grounds of the closed Dorothea Dix mental hospital for a regional park.

Republican lawmakers have moved to kill the deal, which had been signed and approved by former Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat.

Bills introduced last week would essentially tear up that contract. Republican lawmakers say the deal is not good for taxpayers,  and that the $68 million the state could receive over the decades from the city is too low, according to the Associated Press

“It’s beyond me how lawmakers, who are supposed to uphold the law, can think they can undo a legally binding contract,” Baldwin said. “This is nothing more than bullying and intimidation by some members of the General Assembly.”

“I was hoping for the best, but I think I’m seeing the worst,” Baldwin said of the GOP legislative agenda. “When I think about some of the legislation that has moved forward lately, whether it’s telling local governments what design standards they should have, or getting rid of renewable energy tax credits, and then you through Dix on top of that, you just sit there and say, ‘What are we doing?’”

On his last day in office — Valentine’s Day – Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spent some quiet time with his right hand man, who is also his sweetheart, and also happens to be a dog.

He’s seen above taking a final walk with Bravo at CIA headquarters.

Bravo is widely believed to be a golden retriever, but inside sources tell us not to jump too quickly to  that conclusion.

Bravo, who frequently accompanied Panetta to work, was at his side during his term as CIA chief, and as the operation to terminate Osama bin Laden was plotted.

“Bravo was in the room when we were talking about the bin Laden operation at the CIA,” Panetta said in an interview with Esquire magazine.

“I remember going through that whole thing with him sitting by me,” Panetta said. “And the ability to put my hand on his head and feel his presence just kinda made me feel ‘OK, this is an important issue and it’s a big issue, but in many ways, it’s about whether or not we are able to protect the quality of life that we enjoy,’ and having a dog there just makes you a little more aware of what life is really about.”

(Department of Defense photo by Glenn Fawcett)

An Oklahoma high school student who posted a photo on Facebook of a pit bull shot dead with an arrow has been forced to flee his home after receiving death  threats.

The image shows a dark-colored pit bull dead in a field with a pink arrow sticking out from his side.

“For all you Pit lovers out there. Here’s what happens when one shows up around my house,” read the post on the Facebook page of Caisen Green, 18.

Cherokee County Undersheriff Jason Chennault said the picture on the Sequoyah High School student’s Facebook page, came to his attention Saturday morning.

Chennault said that when he went to speak with Green he was told by his father that both Caisen and his mother had left the county due to death threats the teenager received.

“I understand people don’t want to see animals hurt,” Chennault said. “But death threats are not going to help the situation.”

Chennault said he planned to continue investigating.

But even if Green did kill the dog it might not necessarily be a crime, he noted.

“It’s a gray area,” Chennault told the Muskogee Phoenix. “If the dog is threatening livestock or your well-being, you can do what you have to do stop it. I’m going to do my best to get everything done this week, and we’ll forward the report to the District Attorney’s Office.”

Facebook users and others outraged by the post began sharing and writing about it shortly after it was posted, with many urging an investigation take place.

Lu Hayes, a volunteer with the Cherokee County Humane Society, said she first saw the picture last Thursday, and began sending it to different animal advocacy groups.

“A girl sent the picture to me, saying she wanted to report animal cruelty,” Hayes said.

“I started messaging (Green) and at first he acted like it wasn’t a big deal, like, ‘So what.’

“But I guess as it started getting spread around, and more people became aware of it, he changed his tune.”

Hayes said she’d like to see the district attorney’s office prosecute Green, who took the offending picture off his Facebook page after anger over it mounted.

(Photos: Caisen Green’s Facebook page)

(An update to this story can be found here.)

A poodle-shih tzu mix whose face, from some angles, bears a striking resemblance to that of a human, is gaining fame far beyond Mishawaka, Indiana.

Tonik, 2 years old, is one of over 100 dogs waiting to be adopted at the Homeward Bound Shelter in Mishawaka. Rescued from a kill shelter, he has been there since 2011.

But since posting a photo of Tonik — taken by Renny Mills, who photographs adoptable animals for the shelter’s website — the shelter says inquiries about the dog have been pouring in.

The photos drew attention from Gawker and Huffington Post, and, while Tonik was still available this week, Homeward Bound founder Jen Schwartz says chances are good he’ll be finding a home soon.

You can see him and the shelters other animals at the Homeward Bound’s website.

(Photo: Renny Mills)

A dog was rescued from the side of a cliff near Fort Funston in San Francisco last week.

Firefighters responded Wednesday to a report of a woman and dog going over the side of a cliff, NBCBayArea.com reported. The woman managed to get down to the beach, but firefighters had to work their way to the dog, place it in a harness and hoist it to safety.

The National Park Service said they have to rescue dogs and people from the cliff several times a year, and that Wednesday’s rescue was their second in a week.

A Boston terrier who was shaken up in a massive freeway pileup in Detroit was carried to safety by a firefighter who knows a few things about dogs in distress.

Matt Schaecher works as a Detroit firefighter two days a week, and as a cruelty investigator for the Humane Society of Huron Valley for the other five.

When Schaecher came upon a woman’s crumpled car at the mile-long accident scene on southbound Interstate 75, he asked if she needed help. “I think my dog might be injured,” she responded.

Schaecher pulled the dog, named Riley, from the car and checked him out while other emergency workers attended to the driver, Heather Ramsey of Ferndale.

“He was shaking almost uncontrollably,” Schaecher said. “Probably a combination of being extremely scared and cold.” As Shaecher cradled the dog in a blanket, Detroit News photographer David Coates took the photo above.

Riley wasn’t injured, and Shaecher placed the dog in the ambulance with his owner. Ramsey has since been released from the hospital, according to AnnArbor.com

Three people, including two children, were killed in the chain reaction of crashes.

Schaecher, who is the lead cruelty investigator for the Humane Society of Huron Valley in Washtenaw County’s Superior Township, said the widely distributed photo of Riley and him served as a positive note amid the lingering horror of the crash.

“Obviously any accident scene or any emergency scene that involves children is extremely difficult,” he said. My heart just goes out to the families of the people that have lost loved ones. I can’t imagine being in that position.”