ohmidog!

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)

The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum has announced the winner of the Owney Look-Alike Contest.

Bentley (above), a terrier mix from California, was chosen as the dog who best reflected the looks and spirit of Owney, a scruffy mutt who became a  fixture at the Albany, N.Y., post office in 1888 and rode with the mailbags on  train cars across the country.

His fame was renewed this year when the Post Office came out with a new stamp bearing his likeness.

More than 70 pet owners from across the country entered the nationwide contest, sending in photos of their dogs lounging on mailbags, dressed up in letter-carrier uniforms and posed by mailboxes.

The contest was sponsored by the Washington Humane Society and the National Postal Museum, where Owney’s original form is preserved and on display.

Bentley, like Owney, was once a stray. Coming in at a close second was Jordy, a former shelter dog from Virginia. The third place winner, also a rescue, was Murphy from Ohio.

The top prize was an iPad2, but all three top vote getters will receive prizes and have their photos displayed for two weeks in the museum next to the real Owney, who was given taxidermic makeover in connection with the release of the stamp and the opening of the exhibit.

“This has been an exciting year for Owney and his fans,” said Nancy Pope, historian and curator. “We presented Owney, fresh from his ‘makeover’ in a new exhibit that allows visitors to learn even more about their favorite mail dog. Owney’s online friends can browse through his entire tag collection and learn more about his life and travels via the museum’s Owney web page.”

Owney will also be the subject of a new interactive e-book, “Tails from the Rails,” being released by the museum later this fall. 

The National Postal Museum is located at 2 Massachusetts Avenue N.E., Washington, D.C., across from Union Station.

The Smithsonian National Postal Museum is looking for an Owney look-a-like.

And they promise not to stuff him, or clone him.

In conjunction with the Washington Humane Society, the Postal Museum has launched a contest seeking a modern day living version of the dog that once rode mail trains across the country, and whose likeness recently came out on a new postage stamp.

That’s the good news. The bad news? Only three days remain to enter it.

Owney, a stray who wandered into a post office and was taken in by postal clerks, captured headlines and served as a good luck charm in the 19th Century.

His image was released on a postage stamp this summer.

But, before he became a celebrity rider of the rails, he was just an everyday mutt — maybe a little like your’s.

If your dog looks like Owney — believed to have been a terrier mix — you could not only win an iPad, but his or her picture could end up hanging in the museum.

“If your dog lends a helping paw, charms people everywhere, or resembles Owney, you could win an iPad2 pre-loaded with Owney’s e-book and an Owney prize pack,” the museum says.

Second and third place winners get Owney postage stamps, an Owney toy, and a signed book about the famous dog. The three winning dogs will have their photos displayed near Owney’s exhibit, which includes Owney himself, in mounted form.

You can find more images of Owney here.

Enter the Owney contest by going to the Postal Museum’s Facebook page and uploading a photo of your dog.

(Photos: Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum)

Owney, a stray dog who became an unofficial postal service mascot during the years he rode the mail trains in the 1800s, is being honored by the postal service — appropriately, in his case, with a forever stamp.

Because Owney’s still around.

Although he died 114 years ago, Owney’s form has lingered — a bit misshapen and straggly as a result of 19th century taxidermy techniques and the passage of more than a century. He has spent most of that time at the Smithsonian Institution.

When the Smithsonian heard the dog was to be honored with a stamp, they decided to refurbish his stuffed likeness as well.

The new and improved Owney, with added fur, a new nose, shiny new eyes and more, will debut this week.

Owney wandered into the Albany, N.Y., post office one day in 1888, spending the night on a pile of mailbags. Cared for by mail clerks, he started riding along with the mailbags on the Railway Post Office, traveling across the United States on the trains while guarding the mail.

He died in Toledo in 1897 when, after attacking a mail clerk, he was shot by the town marshal.

Owney’s benefactors deciced to have him preserved by a taxidermist. He was originally displayed at the Post Office Department’s headquarters in Washington, then moved in 1911 to the Smithsonian.

“When my son first saw Owney when he was a kid, he had nightmares afterward,” Linda Edquist, a conservator at the National Postal Museum and the force behind Owney’s restoration, told the Washington Post. “The first thing you saw was his belly with this big suture mark running up it, so no wonder.”

Word that Owney was to be honored with a stamp — it’s scheduled to be released tomorrow — prompted Edquist to get Owney the repairs he needed.

“We saw it as the perfect opportunity to carry out the restoration that we had been talking about doing all along,” she said.

The museum used a $10,300 Smithsonian preservation fund grant and donations to pay for Owney’s makeover.

The Smithsonian collection also includes more than 470 medals and trinkets Owney has received from admirers. Those items are also being restored as part of a newly designed exhibit.

Owney was reconditioned at the Point of Rocks, Md., studio of retired Smithsonian taxidermist Paul Rhymer.

Owney’s facial reconstruction included hand-sculpting a new snout — his old nose had shriveled — using a cast coyote nose. He got a new set of eyes. His claws were replaced as well. A coyote pelt was used to patch up some bald spots.

(You can find a fantastic slide show documenting the restoration at the Washington Post.)

In Owney’s honor, the Smithsonian is hosting a four-day family festival, beginning Wednesday and continuing with museum activities through July 30, coinciding with the release of the forever stamp.

The museum has also created an “augmented reality” program so that when the forever stamp is held up to a computer Webcam, Owney comes to life, barking and trotting.

More postal carriers are bitten by dogs in Houston than any other American city — or at least that was the case last year.

According to statistics released yesterday by the Postal Service, 62 Houston letter carriers were “attacked” by dogs in 2010 — almost 20 more than the second place cities (a tie between San Diego and Columbus, Ohio).

Nationwide last year, 5,669 postal employees were bitten in more than 1,400 cities, leading to medical expenses of $1.2 million, the Postal Service said in a press release issued in connection with National Dog Bite Prevention Week (May 15-21).

Among the entire population, about 4.7 million Americans are bitten annually — and dog attacks accounted for more than one-third of all homeowners’ insurance liability claims paid out in 2010, costing nearly $413 million, the press release added.

“Given the right circumstances, any dog can bite. Dog attacks are a nationwide issue and not just a postal problem,” said Matthew Lopez, Houston’s postmaster.

Rounding out the top 10 cities for dog bites among postal carriers were Los Angeles (44), Louisville (40), San Antonio and St.  Louis (tied with 39 each), Cleveland and Phoenix (tied with 38 each), Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon (tied with 35 each), Denver and Philadelphia (tied with 31 each), Sacramento (30) and Seattle (28).

(Photo: Ace greets my postal carrier almost everyday, and likes to follow him, even though he doesn’t carry treats and has never given him one.)

Time to reopen the annals of stupid human behavior and make room for Stacey Champion — a Minneapolis woman who attempted to air-mail a puppy to her 11-year-old son in Atlanta.

Champion, 39, was charged with animal cruelty after postal workers discovered the 4-month-old puppy inside a sealed package she had dropped off, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

Champion told a postal clerk the box contained a toy robot. A Minneapolis police spokesman said the puppy would not have survived the trip.

The Star Tribune says that, while the package was still in the post office, it moved by itself and fell to the floor, surprising postal workers. Within minutes, postal employees unwrapped the tightly sealed box and pulled out the panting puppy.

The dog, described as a poodle-Schnauzer mix, named Guess, was placed in a shelter, costing Champion $250 in fees. Today, Champion tried to convince an administrative hearing officer to return Guess to her custody. (See the hearing in its entirety in the video  above.)

Champion said in the hearing that she didn’t know dogs couldn’t be mailed. “They say they deliver,” she noted. She further explained to the judge, “If there weren’t no mistakes in life, society wouldn’t be what it is now.”

We can’t argue with that one.

Champion also went back to the post office and demanded she be refunded the $22 priority mail fee, according to the Star Tribune. That request was denied.

The judge called her actions disgraceful and declined to return the dog to her.

Happy National Dog Bite Prevention Week.

Once again, the U.S. Postal Service — 2,863 of whose letter carriers were bitten last year — is launching its annual dog bite prevention campaign.

And that’s just part of a larger effort aimed at reducing the 4.7 million dog bites that occur each year,  mostly with youngsters as the victims.

Half of all U.S. children will be bitten by a dog by the time they’re high school seniors, says pediatrician Alison Tothy, chairwoman of the committee on injury and poison prevention of the American Academy of Pediatrics Illinois chapter.

The academy, postal service, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and several other groups have joined in the National Dog Bite Prevention Week (May 16 – 22) campaign, according to UPI.

Here are the tips the Postal Service provides on avoiding dog bites.

– Don’t run past a dog. The dog’s natural instinct is to chase and catch prey.

– If a dog threatens you, don’t scream. Avoid eye contact. Try to remain motionless until the dog leaves, then back away slowly until the dog is out of sight.

– Don’t approach a strange dog, especially one that’s tethered or confined.

– If you believe a dog is about to attack, try to place something between yourself and the dog, such as a backpack or a bicycle.

Dog owners, meanwhile, are encouraged to keep dogs inside and away from the door when the postal carrier comes, and to not let children take mail from the carrier in the presence of a dog.

(Photo: Minnesota Historical Society)

On April 30, the Postal Service will issue a 44–cent, Animal Rescue: Adopt a Shelter Pet stamp series.

With the 10 stamp designs — five cats and five dogs — the U.S. Postal Service hopes to raise awareness of the need to adopt shelter pets.

The pets depicted on the stamps were photographed by Sally Andersen-Bruce near her home in New Milford, Connecticut. All had been homeless at one time; all but one had been adopted when they were photographed.

The stamps were designed by Derry Noyes of Washington, DC.

In celebration of the new Animal Rescue: Adopt a Shelter Pet stamps, the Postal Service, together with Ellen DeGeneres and her dog food company, Halo: Purely for Pets, will be donating a million meals to animal shelters around the country.

To pre-order the stamps, go here.

Here’s a closer look at the dogs chosen for the stamps:

Teddy, a wired-haired Jack Russell terrier: The owners of Teddy’s mother were surprised when she gave birth to another litter. They couldn’t afford to raise more puppies, so they gave Teddy and his siblings to a shelter.

Today, Teddy lives with a loving family, their other Jack Russell, and a cat. 

Trevor, a yellow Lab: Trevor and his litter mates were found abandoned at 8-10 weeks of age at a new home construction site.

They were rescued by Labrador Retriever Rescue of CT, Inc. Trevor was adopted by a couple who are a perfect match for his outgoing personality.

Buddy, a golden retriever: Buddy is a pure-bred golden who was purchased from a pet store. At only eight months old, he had such bad hips that his family gave him to a shelter.

Now, Buddy is flourishing with his family who have improved his health through regular exercise and a good diet. 

Bindu Su, an Australian shepherd: Bindi Su’s mother was handed over to a rescue group when her owners found out she was expecting.

Bindu Su was adopted at eight weeks old.

Now she competes in agility events and visits a local nursing home weekly. 

Jake, a Boston Terrier: Purchased at a pet shop on Thanksgiving when he was eight weeks old, Jake’s original family quickly realized that they couldn’t take care of him.

The pet shop had a no-return policy, so Jake was turned over to a shelter.