ohmidog!

Dogs sleep, on average, two-thirds of each day. We generally spend only a third of the day snoozing.

That gives us a eight additional hours to accomplish all the important things mature and responsible adults must do, like taking video of our dogs while they’re sleeping.

You can’t blame us, because dogs — probably even more so than us — do some pretty unusual things while they’re sound asleep.

For the next couple of months, we’re going to feature a sleeping dog every Monday. (Monday seeming appropriate for some reason.)

We start with this pup who seems to have encountered something mildly disturbing in his dreams.

Here’s a dog named Starship who’s guaranteed to send your heart into the stratosphere.

She has an ailment that requires her to eat in a high chair, like a baby.

Shelter officials at Greenville County Animal Care in South Carolina say the four-month-old dog, a collie mix, was starved for the first few weeks of her life and developed digestive issues. Specifically, the disorder is called Megaesophagus, meaning her esophagus is dilated.

She has to eat while sitting upright, which helps her food travel down into her stomach.

Once done dining, she has to stay in the high chair for another 30 minutes, according to this report by WSPA.

It took no time at all for her to adapt to the eating routine: “She just crawled right in and turned around,” said a shelter worker.

A South Carolina company, Archway Renovations, built the chair — called a Bailey chair — for Starship, and has offered to make an adjustable one for her as she grows larger.

Starship is looking for a new home, and shelter staff are hoping someone comes forward who’s willing to continue the feeding routine. She needs to eat 4-5 times daily and must be watched while eating and drinking.

“It’s just like someone who is handicapped, they figure a way to live their life happily,” said the shelter worker.

More information is available at Greenville Animal Care.

Police say a Pennsylvania couple sold a neighbor’s lost puppy for $50 on Craigslist, rather than returning it to its owner.

Scott Duff, 41, and Roxanne Duff, 38, of Leechburg, Pa., each face three charges — not making a reasonable effort to return lost property, conspiracy and filing false reports, according to the Valley News Dispatch.

Two dogs, a golden retriever and a Rottweiler puppy, apparently wandered away from their home earlier this month and end up at the Duff’s place, down the street.

According to court papers, the golden retriever was  returned to the owner. But the Duffs told the owner that the puppy had run away.

The next day, the owner called police to say he believed the puppy was still at the Duff’s house.

When asked if they still had the puppy, the couple told police they did not, but officers were later told that the puppy was seen in the  yard.

Police said they again confronted the couple, who allegedly  admitted to selling the dog through Craigslist for $50. Roxanne Duff told police she sold the dog to a Pittsburgh woman. The pup was later returned to the owner.

Miley Cyrus found a puppy in a box outside a Walmart and took it home.

She named the pup Happy, and Tweeted a photo of herself getting her hair washed while holding him.

“He was left in a box in front of Walmart. I don’t understand how people can be so cruel. That’s why we named him Happy,” she wrote.

Cyrus thinks the dog is a Rottweiler-beagle mix.

Happy joins Miley’s other pooches Ziggy, Lila and Floyd, reports People magazine.

But the story doesn’t answer the biggest question of all: What was Miley Cyrus doing at a Walmart?

On my first night in Missoula, I fell asleep with one dog and woke up with a different one.

On the next night, I fell asleep with two dogs and woke up with one.

On the third night, I fell asleep with two dogs and woke up with none. 

For the first time in our five months of traveling, in the latest of the long line of friends and family off whom we have freeloaded, Ace opted to sleep with someone other than me.

My feelings are hurt, but not too badly.

Back in Missoula, Ace has found a lively playmate, and I’ve been in full freeloading mode, enjoying all the comforts of somebody else’s home.

Gwen Florio, a reporter for the Missoulian, who I used to work with at the Philadelphia Inquirer, was kind enough to invite Ace and I to stay with her, her husband Scott, and their dog Nell – a four-month-old Brittany spaniel.

I’ve eaten most of their leftovers, drank most of their milk, eaten most of their eggs, watched their TV and had my own room in the basement, featuring one of the top two beds I’ve slept on (the other being in Santa Fe) during our journey.

Two more weeks on it, and I think my back would stop hurting.

But, as  much as I’ve enjoyed nesting at Gwen’s, it’s time to press on to Seattle.

On the first night, I retired early and Ace came to bed with me. When Nell jumped in – well to be honest, she jumped up, putting her front paws on the bed, and I pulled her up the rest of the way – Ace jumped off. I fell asleep snuggling with Nell, but when I woke up she was gone, and Ace was laying at my side.

On the second night, Gwen was working late on election night, and after watching a little bit of the “shellacking” on TV, I retired early. This time, Ace didn’t mind Nell joining us (if only Republicans and Democrats could learn to co-exist so quickly), and I fell asleep with the two of them – once Nell completed her process of nibbling my hands, squirming, walking over me, turning in circles, pawing at the bedspread, nibbling my hands some more, turning a few more circles and finally flopping down with a sigh. By morning, though (like many a Democrat), she was gone.

On the third night, I retired even earlier, and they both followed me to bed, and  both got in. But when I woke up they had both abandoned me. While I slept, Gwen had returned home and the dogs joined her for the night. Fortunately, her husband was out of town so there was room in her bed for them both.

Ace and Nell have gotten along great, and it has been interesting to watch their play progress — from timid and restrained to no-holds-barred wrestling. She’s Muhammad Ali to Ace’s Joe Frazier. In her back yard, a stone’s throw from the base of Mt. Jumbo, she runs circles around him, eggs him on, gives him a jab or a nip, then darts away. He keeps plodding forward, swinging with his paws, then watching as she bounces across the yard like a pinball.

Ace — despite my initial fears — hasn’t tried to use Nell’s dog door. It’s the perfect size for her, and she speeds in and out of the house at her will. It’s the perfect size for Ace to get stuck in. I had visions of having to take the door off its hinges and taking them both to a vet, or a hardware store, to have dog and door surgically separated.

Luckily, Ace hasn’t tried to use it, or even poke his nose through, probably because it — also like politicians – flaps and makes noise .

Nell, at four months, still engages in the kind of mischief pups perpetrate. At home during the day, while I wasn’t paying attention, she snagged a full roll of toilet paper, took it through her dog door and proceeded to decorate the lawn with confetti. She managed to get into my toothpaste, but apparently decided not to make a meal of it.

Ace, though he seemed unsure how to react to her puppiness at first, now wrestles with her in the way he does with his favorite dogs, nipping at her legs, trying to put her entire head in his mouth, going after her little nub of a tail — all with his trademark gentleness.

When he tires of it all he flops down in the yard, as he did yesterday morning. The grass was white with frost, and Ace relaxed with one of Nell’s toys that he’s grown especially fond of, probably because it has, or once had, peanut butter in it.

For 15 minutes, as Nell alternately looked on, ran circles around him, darted inside and out again, Ace laid there with the purple toy, and when he got up, there was a big green circle where the frost had melted away under his body heat.

To me, it seemed symbolic (then again, I hadn’t had my coffee yet) of what dogs do for us.

They melt away our frosty exteriors, they bring out the unjaded us that can be buried pretty deeply beneath the shells we hide behind, the image we project, all our bullshit and bluster.

They knock down the walls we put up.

Maybe our politicians could learn a thing or two from them, to the point of even becoming bedfellows — not in the dirty sense of the word, but in terms of working together to achieve a goal.

How cool would that be, if they could all settle down, bark less, share the toys, and — as dogs do — make the world a better place?

I wasn’t personally tuned in, but it seems Pup, the accordion-playing pooch vying to win the NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” competition, failed to make much of an impression last night.

Maybe he was overwhelmed by the bright lights, the big stage and the huge Hollywood crowd, but Pup only tugged a couple of times on the elastic strap attached to the accordion, and once it snapped out of his mouth, he stayed away from the accordion altogether.

After Pup balked, the act turned into a solo – basically his owner, Ed,  singing and strumming “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

Pup failed to live up to the expectations of the judges, and his owner, Ed, from Oakhurst, California — and anyone else who saw his impressive audition tape (above).

“If Pup had continued we may have had a sensation on our hands, but we’re never going to know,” said judge Piers Morgan, who “X-ed” the act early on.

“We had some problems,” Ed explained afterward.

Pup’s on air performance — a bit painful to watch — is included in the video below.

 
This little beauty was found wandering the streets of Dundalk Saturday.

She was taken in by one good samaritan and passed along to another good samaritan, who is fostering her in Baltimore until a home can be found — either her original one or a new one.

She being called ”Ella.”

A spirited and loving mutt — my guess is a Rottweiler/Jack Russell mix …”Jack Rottsell?” — she was found just off Dundalk Avenue, near Sollers Point Road.

She was found without a collar or tags, is estimated to be about five months old and gets along wonderfully with other dogs.

If you’re interested in Ella, contact Lori at l.besse@verizon.net

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Houston firefighters rescued three dogs from a burning apartment complex, including one pup that was resuscitated by its owner with mouth-to-snout resuscitation.

Authorities say two puppies and their mother were saved.

The cause of the fire, which left several units damaged, is under investigation. All of the residents were able to get out safely.

You don’t know the face, but you may know the leg: A khaki-clad hunk of it often shows up — generally from the knee down — in photographs of Bo Obama.

The leg belongs to Dale Haney, who, when the First Family is too busy to walk the dog, assumes the duty.

As a keeper of the White House grounds for nearly 40 years, Haney has managed to cultivate  relationships with the presidential pups — all the way back to Richard Nixon’s Irish setter, King Timahoe.

“They heard about me and they called me to come over here for an interview and I came and here I still am,” he told the Associated Press  during a tour of the gardens on a rainy morning when first lady Michelle Obama — Bo’s primary walker — was out of town.

“I have him a little bit more” when she’s traveling, said Haney.

Before Bo came along, Haney had walked and played with President George W. Bush’s Scottish terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley. But he says he was most fond of Spot, an English springer spaniel whose mother, Millie, belonged to Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush.

“I do have a soft spot for Spot,” he said in an online chat in 2003. “I was there when she was born and now she’s back.” Millie gave birth to Spot at the White House in 1989; the younger Bush and his wife, Laura, put Spot to sleep in 2004 after she’d had several strokes.

Haney began at the White House as a gardener, then was supervisor of grounds maintenance and lead horticulturist before becoming superintendent of all the grounds last fall.

Besides helping out with Bo, Haney tends to the nearly 19 acres of lawns, trees and gardens around the White House.

In case you get tired of watching your own dog — and if you ‘re like me, you never do — there’s always the Internet, where a visit to Ustream.tv will hook you up with a live cam show of these Jack Russell puppies, and much more.

You can check in with Madi, a sick Havanese (her temperature has dropped), a litter of Shiba Inus from San Francisco, some mastiff pups from Idaho, a gaggle of Chihuahuas in San Antonio and, of course, Grandma Beth’s bulldogs, who, I can report, made quick work of their dinner last night.

In addition to watching, you can also chat with fellow dog watchers.

All in all, as of last night anyway, there were 41 dog cams to choose from — many, if not most, of which seem aimed at selling pups, as opposed to just warming the cockles of your heart.

The Jack Russell show takes place just north of Syracuse, New York, and features a mom and her five pups. The father, Ollie, makes an occasional appearance.

The website offers about 75 other animal cams — everything from birds and fish to goats and squirrels.