ohmidog!

We told you so, way back in November, when we carried a report about a dog crawling out alive from the ashes of a house fire in Tennessee.

‘Tis the season for doggie Christmas miracles.

You don’t have to look very far, this time of year, to find one.

The first of two we bring you today comes from North Carolina, where a Jack Russell terrier named Rowdy mysteriously disappeared while chasing squirrels on the Davidson College campus.

Mary Kay Taylor, his owner, often takes him there, and lets him frolic off leash for a few minutes.

“I walk him usually well into campus and let him off the leash for maybe a five-minute run around. Looking for squirrels is his favorite thing in the whole wide world to do,” she told WCNC in Charlotte.

On the Sunday before Christmas, he ran out of her sight. She heard a yelp.

For the next two hours she searched, calling the 8-year-old dog’s name. After that, she posted fliers on campus light posts.

The next two days were lonely ones, she said: “When you come home and he’s not there to greet you and all that kind of stuff, it’s sad.”

Early Christmas morning, her phone rang.

Rowdy had been found in a 12-foot pit in the well of a window outside the campus library.

A man walking his dog heard Rowdy crying and called the campus police. With help from the fire department, Rowdy was hoisted out and, within hours, was back home snuggling by the fireplace with his owner.

“It’s a miracle,” said Taylor. “It’s a Christmas miracle and I feel so grateful.”

No one is sure how she got there, but a legally blind 5-year-old girl’s therapy dog showed up on her family’s front porch in Kansas, two weeks after she was stolen.

According to KSN, Andrea Taylor, who has cerebral palsy, couldn’t stop smiling.

Millie, a pit bull trained to serve Andrea  as a therapy dog, was found outside the family’s home in Hutchinson by Andrea’s father around 3:30 a.m.

Andrea’s mother said her daughter woke up, came out to the living room and upon seeing her dog said, ’”There her is. It’s my Millie.”

Millie had been missing for two weeks. She was seen jumping into a white car in front of the family’s Hutchinson home.  A reward of $450 was being offered for her return. 

Andrea’s mother, Lana Taylor, believes pressure from the media and the Reno County Sheriff’s Department led whoever stole the dog to have a change of heart.

Millie had scrapes and scabs around her face, neck, and belly, leading Taylor to believe she might have been taken by dogfighters.

Hutchinson police say they are continuing to investigate the case.

Taylor said the first thing Millie did upon her return was to go to Andrea’s room: “She went right to Andrea’s bed, put her paw up on the bed, and sat there …”

A Welsh Corgi who was assumed to have died in an avalanche that killed one of his owners in Montana Saturday turned up Wednesday at the door of the motel room the family had occupied.

The dog, named Ole, was with Dave Gaillard, 44, of Bozeman, when he was buried by an avalanche while skiing with his wife, Kerry, on Saturday. Kerry, who hung onto a tree to avoid being swept away, survived.

Search and rescue personnel saw no sign of Ole at the site, and it was thought he had been buried in the slide, the Billings Gazette reported.

Apparently, though, he managed to dig his way out — no small feat for any dog, let alone a Corgi. After that, amid temperatures in the teens, the stubby-legged dog managed to find his way back to the motel, four miles away,

Officials said the dog arrived at the Alpine Motel in Cooke City and took a seat at the door of the room the Gaillard’s had occupied four days earlier.

The dog’s return provided a bright spot for the grieving family, according to Gallatin National Forest officials who investigated the incident.

Cooke City businessman Bill Whittle, who drove the dog back to his family on Wednesday, said Ole appeared to be in good condition.

When he first approached the dog, Whittle said, Ole was scared. But when he called his name, he came right over. Whittle was a member of the search and rescue crew that helped retrieve Gaillard’s body.

Gaillard’s death was the second avalanche related death in the area over the weekend.

“We needed this,” Whittle said of the dog’s survival. “It kind of cheered everyone up.”

(Photo: Gaillard’s daughter, with Ole and Whittle, Billings Gazette)

Nitro, a police dog in Aberdeen, Washington whose job was eliminated in a series of budget cuts, will be back on the beat next week.

Police Chief Bob Torgerson said a community fund-raising drive netted $57,000 — enough to rehire Nitro and also pay for a car, kennel and equipment for the department’s K-9 program.

Nitro’s job was eliminated in May, amid growing unemployment in Grays Harbor County and the closing of a Weyerhaeuser plant, which left the city with fewer tax dollars.

Officer Steve Timmons, Nitro’s partner, said the dog didn’t understand what was happening when he was first laid off.

“When I go to work, he runs to the door like we’re leaving and I have to leave him there. So it’s tough,” Timmons told TV station KOMO.

When members of the community heard about Nitro’s layoff, they raised enough money through private donations to reinstate the program.

In his four years on the force, 6-year-old Nitro has helped bring nearly 40 suspects to justice.

Zak, the San Diego Tribune reports, is back.

The 1-year-old dog, who had been the traveling companion of truck driver Robert Shields for the past year, was returned to San Diego after Shields was killed in a crash in Omaha, Neb., on Sunday.

“It means everything to all of us,” said Shields’ daughter, Jamie Pickett, 25. “It’s the only thing we have left of my father.”

Shields, 59, a longtime Poway resident, had driven trucks for 14 years. His son, Bobby Garrison, 22, said his father traveled with Zak for companionship and to deter thieves at rest stops.

Zak was with Shields in Omaha Sunday when his big-rig drifted on Interstate 80 and hit a bridge support, witnesses told police. Shields, who may have suffered a heart attack while driving, was pronounced dead at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

When rescuers arrived at the crash, they found Zak, a 20-pound basenji mix, in the truck’s cab, said Pam Wiese, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Humane Society.

Pickett called the humane society Monday morning, trying to find out how to get Zak back. An Omaha TV station did a story on him, Wiese said, and news of the family’s plight quickly spread.

Donations were pouring into the humane society until Michele Henry, Omaha general manager for American Airlines, donated a flight Tuesday morning. Zak suffered only a scratched nose in the crash.

Photo: EARNIE GRAFTON / San Diego Union-Tribune

Who says the paparazzi are good for nothing?

TMZ is reporting that Jennifer Aniston’s dog, Norman, escaped from her Malibu home over the weekend, and was found and returned by a photographer. What’s more, the photographer saved the dog from walking into traffic, TMZ said.

Aniston, now appearing in Marley & Me, is shown here with Norman, a corgi-terrier, in a 2005 Elle magazine spread.

A video posted on TMZ.com shows a paparazzo taking the dog back to Aniston’s home. No comment yet on the incident from Aniston.

Between the shaky economy and track closings, greyhound rescue organizations are hard-pressed to find enough homes for the growing number of dogs exiting the racing industry.

The weakened economy has led some prospective owners to back out of their adoption plans, and led some who have adopted greyhounds to return them.

“There have been a lot of stress-related returns with people losing their houses or their jobs and more adoption groups are reporting new adoptions are down,” said Michael McCann, president of The Greyhound Project Inc., a Boston-based nonprofit that provides support and information to greyhound adoption organizations and the public.

McCann blamed the economy primarily, but the Massachusetts ban on greyhound racing — voters approved a referendum that will lead to the closing of two tracks there by Jan. 1, 2010 — is a big factor, too.

“With some tracks having several hundred dogs, they have to go somewhere,” McCann said. “Some of them can go to other tracks, but many of them are ending up needing to be adopted.”

Many of the estimated 300 adoption groups nationwide are seeing increases in returns of adopted greyhounds and declines in new adoptions, according to an Associated Press report.

The problem is compounded by more racetracks closing — at least seasonally — in the face of increased competition from casino gambling and the general economic slowdown, McCann said.

McCann said the problem is not confined to the continental United States. The recent closure of a racetrack in Guam left about 150 dogs needing homes, and animal rescue officials have been contacting U.S. groups for help.

“They may have to be destroyed if there is no place else to go,” McCann said.

Greyhound Rescue, Inc. places greyhounds in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Washington D.C.

Other greyhound rescue groups include the Greyhound Project Inc,Triangle Greyhound Society, Queen City Greyhounds, or Greyhound Friends Inc.

(Photo: Courtesy of Greyhound Rescue, Inc.)