ohmidog!

The dog warden’s office in Allen County, Ohio, is living up to its antiquated name and conducting a sweep to ensure all dogs are licensed.

Almost 100 pets have been seized since the sweep began a few days ago, Examiner.com reports. Impounded dogs that go unclaimed after three days can be euthanized under Ohio law.

The dog warden’s office let pet owners know about the impending action last Thursday — or at least those that are Facebook friends.

“Hi all of our Facebook friends. Just wanted to let you all know why we haven’t posted adoptable dogs….. we don’t have any right now! Rescue groups have been able to take our adoptable dogs and we are very grateful they have the room because we have started our tag compliance check,” the office posted.

The post continues: “Every year we print a list of people that haven’t renewed their dog license, then we try to call as many as we can to see if they still have their dog. If they do we encourage them to get it within a given time. If they choose not to, then they can receive a citation or have their dog impounded or both. While out doing our compliance checks we are checking surrounding houses as well…”

In answer to a question on its Facebook page, the office said,  “…so far most have claimed their dogs the same or next day, which is great. If unlicensed dogs are not claimed after the legal holding time of 3 days the healthy, friendly adoptable dogs are offered to rescues … Yes, we do euthanize.”

Under Ohio law, dog owners must buy a license annually.

Owners of unlicensed dogs are subject to fines, in addition to having to pay double the price for a new license. They are also held responsible, if their pet is picked up, for covering the cost of boarding it at the pound. Law requires unlicensed dogs to be held for 3 days, and licensed dogs for 14 days, before they are turned over to a rescue or euthanized.

According to the Examiner article, pit bulls seized during the sweep might never make it back home.

Even though Ohio legislators removed pit bulls from the vicious dog list last year, cities may still enforce breed specific restrictions. The city of Lima, which is the Allen County seat, is one of those that still has a pit bull restriction in place.

“Allen County dog owners be warned,” the Examiner article says. “If your dog happens to be a pit bull, or one of the other dogs that Lima ordinance lists as vicious, your dog will not make it out of the Allen County Dog Pound alive.”

(Photo: One of the dogs seized in Allen County, Ohio / Examiner.com)

A dogfighting suspect awaiting trial was ordered Friday to help pay for the care of more than two dozen pit bulls seized from his property in Charlotte.

Lefonze Williams, 42, was ordered Friday to pay more than $13,000 to help feed and house 26 dogs and eight puppies, five of which are still being weaned by their mother, the Charlotte Observer reported.

If Williams doesn’t pay for the care of the animals — now being kept at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg animal shelter — his ownership will be forfeited, and the dogs, if unable to be adopted, will be euthanized.

During Friday’s hearing, Mecklenburg Assistant District Attorney Nathan Brooks told the judge that at least 11 of Williams’ dogs had  injuries consistent with dogfighting, adding, “He has no business owning that many dogs… He’s not properly caring for them.”

Defense attorney Kevin Barnett said Williams could not afford to pay the fee, and asked the judge to allow the pit bulls to be returned to their owner.

“He loves his dogs,” Barnett told Superior Court Judge Hugh Lewis. Barnett said Williams is a not a dogfighter, just a dog breeder, and that some of his dogs were bought from Russia and Europe.

Judge Lewis noted the fee for the dogs’s care “seems large,” but said anyone who can pay to bring dogs to North Carolina from Russia should be able to afford it.

Prosecutors had asked permission to move the dogs out of the shelter and into a private kennel, and argued that Williams should be held responsible for paying for the care they would receive there.

Animal advocates have voiced concerns that the dogs seized from Williams — and 14 other pit bulls being held at the shelter in connection with another dogfighting bust — could lead to increased euthanization of the shelter’s other residents because of limited space.

Prosecutors in Charlotte are seeking a judge’s permission to move 27 dogs seized during a dog-fighting investigation.

A hearing on the request to move the dogs out of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Control’s shelter is scheduled for Friday.

Prosecutors want to place the dogs in a private kennel, which they say would be better equipped to provide long term care until the court case is resolved.

The dogs were seized two months ago in what local authorities described at the time as one of the largest dog-fighting operations they’d ever encountered.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say they found 27 pit bulls, tethers and a fighting arena in east Mecklenburg County, and they arrrested two men.

Lefonze Williams, 42, was indicted on 36 counts of dog fighting, and Melvin Smith, 46, was indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit dog fighting, according to the Charlotte Observer. Both were identified in court documents as the dogs’ owners.

Police said the property, near J.H. Gunn Elementary School, was used for training and fighting dogs.

Assistant District Attorney Glenn Cole says the city’s shelter “is not meant for long-term placement of animals, and seized canines may suffer behavioral and physical harm if maintained in this space.”

A court hearing on what to do with the pit bulls is set for Friday.

Prosecutors are also asking the judge to order Williams and Smith to pay for the cost of shelter, food and care, according to court documents.

If Williams and Smith decline to assume responsibility for the animals, prosecutors have asked that the dogs be forfeited. In that event, it would be up to the animal shelter to determine whether the dogs are suitable for adoption or will be euthanized.

(Photo: John D. Simmons / Charlotte Observer)

Nearly 150 dogs were seized from a rescue organization in Marion County, Oregon, early Monday, and its director was arrested and charged with 120 counts of animal neglect.

The Statesman-Journal reported that Alicia Marie Inglish, 24, is president of Willamette Valley Animal Rescue in Brooks.

Oregon Humane Society officials said the rescue was one of the largest in the state’s history.

Both the sheriff’s office and humane society had received complaints about the facility.

The dogs, many of which were in need of medical attention, were taken to the Oregon Humane Society in Portland before being transferred to other other local shelters.

Don Thompson, of the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, said 120 of the dogs were suffering from neglect and that many were malnourished.

After serving a search warrant, deputies found unclean conditions in the building, with some dogs running free, and some caged in crates. Some dog carriers, intended for single dogs, were filled with as many as four. There was no food available,  little access to clean water, and one dog had his head stuck in a wire cage, deputies said.

According to its listing on Petfinder.com, the organization held adoption fairs at a local Petsmart. In the listing, it described itself as foster care-based but said it was hoping to open a shelter in 2012.

When a man claimed her American bulldog Duke escaped her fenced yard and bit him, Carissa Curry was confused — and with good reason.

She’d left the dog inside her Toledo home when she went to work that day. She’d secured the gate of the fence around her yard. And Duke, even if he did manage to somehow get out of her house, had never left the yard before.

Curry returned home from work to find Duke was gone.

A note was left on her door by the Lucas County dog warden. When she called the phone number on it, she was informed that she was being charged with failure to confine her dog.

Toledo Police had been to her home earlier that day, back in August, after a man said he had been bitten by Duke while strolling down the sidewalk. The man said Duke pushed open the gate, attacked him then returned to the yard.

Duke was seized by the Lucas County dog warden, labeled a potentially dangerous dog, and quarantined for ten days.

In the days that followed, Curry, a health care worker and single mother of a 2-year-old boy, would grow only more confused, and worried.

She faced a misdemeanor charge that could carry a penalty of 30 days in jail.

She worried about losing her job, and her home, and having to pay hefty insurance fees as the owner of a “dangerous dog.”

And — even though she had left the door to her home unlocked — she still had no idea how her dog got out of it, or the yard.

She heard from neighbors who had seen the man walking through the neighborhood. One said she never saw Duke leave the yard — but did see the man enter it.

It was looking more and more like Duke, as opposed to miraculously escaping both house and yard, had actually just been defending his home, as Curry suspected from the start.

This week, at a pre-trial hearing, the ”failure to confine” charge against Curry ws dropped.

She still faces a charge of “failure to vaccinate.” While she claims she has the paperwork, she was unable to present it within the two days the dog warden gave her. That charge was upheld in court.

And Duke still faces a determination on whether he’s a “dangerous dog,” which could lead to restrictions that include being muzzled, having signs posted to that effect in his yard, and having to kept in a pen with a roof, according to DogHeirs.com.

The Lexus Project is handling the case against Duke and representing him in court. You can learn more about Duke, and help support his cause by visiting these links:

• Donate to the Support Duke fund
• Sign the petition
• Follow Duke’s story on Facebook

You can read Curry’s explanation of what’s transpired so far in the comments below.

(Photos: DogHeirs.com)

Sixty-five chained dogs, believed to be part of a dogfighting operation, were seized on Thanksgiving in Tennessee after firefighters discovered them when responding to a brush fire.

The dogs — mostly pit bulls and beagles — were removed from the property in Ashland City by Cheatham County Animal Control and the Animal Rescue Corps, a non-profit animal protection organization.

“We believe this is the largest dog fighting rescue in Tennessee history,” said ARC president Scotlund Haisley. He described the conditions the dogs were living in as “the worst I have ever seen at a dogfighting operation in my 22 year career in animal protection.”

The dogs were underweight, without food and fresh water and some had sores covering their bodies, officials said.

Animal control officials identified dog fighting equipment, such as a treadmill, fighting pen, and a spring pole used for strengthening dogs’ jaws.

All the animals on the property were taken to an emergency shelter outside of Nashville, where they will be assessed before being transported to rescue centers around the country.

Also taking part in the rescue were New Leash on Life, a shelter in Lebanon, Tenn.; Agape Animal Rescue out of Nashville; the Nashville Zoo and the Tennessee State Highway Patrol.

(Photos: Animal Rescue Corps)

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. We think this one’s worth about eleventy million.

Five years after they arrived in California, seven of the dogs seized from quarterback Michael Vick’s dogfighting operation got together for a group photo with their new owners.

The reunion came during a celebration of that anniversary at Bad Rap, one of the two California organizations that took in Vick dogs, determined to rehabilitate the animals some were arguing were violent and aggressive and should be put down.

The Home Sweet Home Hoedown was held Oct. 27, and also featured authors Ken Foster (“I’m a Good Dog”) and Jim Gorant (“The Lost Dogs” and “Wallace“), according to Bad Rap’s Barn Blog.

Here’s a video recapturing the taking of the photo:

At least 38 dogs entrusted to a Texas pit bull refuge whose mission was to provide them with care and find them new homes never came out, perishing instead from heat stroke, and being buried in a mass grave on the ranch.

Not too much news has been coming out of Spindletop Refuge in Willis, either.

Since authorities last week seized nearly 300 dogs, mostly pit bulls, and removed them from conditions generally described as cramped and unhealthy, there have been a lot more questions than answers.

On Friday, after hours of private negotiations, Spindletop owner Leah Purcell  agreed to relinquish ownership of the 287 dogs, and through her attorney, she agreed to terms prohibiting her from future rescue and boarding in the county.

That court action was related strictly to the custody of the dogs. No charges have yet been filed against Purcell, and there has been no clear word that they will be.

Instead, there are a heap of questions unanswered — most of them from rescue groups around the country that sent animals to Spindletop, and now want to find out if they’re still alive, and reclaim them if they are.

On top of that, there’s another all-important one — what led what was once such a highly respected refuge to end up keeping dogs in conditions more like those you’d find at a puppy mill or the home of a hoarder?

Members of at least  50 rescue groups attended a Friday custody hearing in Conroe, but it was behind closed doors that an agreement was reached between prosecutors and Purcell. Except for 11 dogs that belonged to her mother, she surrendered the rest, and custody was awarded to the Humane Society of the United States and Montgomery County.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that a grand jury, also meeting behind closed doors, will decide whether Purcell will face criminal charges.

According to the Houston Press, several rescuers learned Friday then that the dogs they had surrendered to Spindletop — and were told had been adopted — died of heat stroke last summer.

“It was definitely not a sanctuary. Definitely not. Those dogs were left in a living hell,” said former Spindletop employee Brandon Louth, who says he’s the one who contacted authorities about conditions at the refuge.

Of the mass death he said, ”The dogs had suffocated, because the building was not ventilated. The electricity had gone off in the building, and basically I had to bury the dogs, put the dogs in sacks and dig a mass grave for them.”

Officials are still working to catalog all the rescued dogs, and were putting together a website where they’ll be posting photos of all of the dogs. The Animal Farm Foundation, which is helping coordinate the effort, said this week on its Facebook page that approximately 40 dogs have been claimed and returned to owners or places of origin, or will be in the next few days.

They advise those seeking dogs that were in Spindletop’s care to:

“If you have not already done so, please send extremely detailed information about dogs you wish to reclaim to info@animalfarmfoundation.org and to Constable Tim Holifield at tim.holifield@mctx.org . Include a phone number and an email address. Put the word SPINDLETOP in the subject line. Animal Farm Foundation is coordinating the communication with owners and places of origin and schedules appointments for reclaiming dogs.”

At Friday’s court hearing, Montgomery County Constable Tim Holifield assured the crowd that the animals were being well cared for and that the Humane Society of the United States, which assisted in the Spindletop seizure, is committed to not euthanizing any of the dogs.

“It’s especially painful to see people and places that purport to help animals do precisely the opposite,” HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle wrote yesterday on his blog, A Humane Nation.

“We tell people shopping for a dog from a breeder to go see the parents of the dog, to make sure the place is not a puppy mill. With so many of these cases of neglect by those who say they are helping animals cropping up, it’s also wise to do background work or a site visit to any self-described rescue or sanctuary. There are so many good rescue groups and sanctuaries doing important work for animals every day, and every one of them would agree with me on that point … Calling yourself a sanctuary or a Samaritan isn’t enough. You have to act like one.”

It’s also important, we’d point out, to get to the bottom of what happened — what made such good intentions go astray — and for that information to be public. So far, that doesn’t seem to be happening with Spindletop, which only increases the chances that, sometime soon, somewhere else, we’ll be hearing the same story again.

(Photo: One of the rescued pit bulls in Texas; by Scott Dalton, via A Humane Nation)

State dog wardens and police removed 206 Chihuahuas – many of them sick – from a home in Columbia County in northeastern Pennsylvania last week.

Dog wardens and state police executed a search warrant Thursday at the home of Albert and Thomas Ambrosia, in Benton, after receiving tips that dogs were being hoarded.

Officials removed several dead dogs from the home, and many more that were suffering from skin, eye and dental issues, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture. State police are determining whether to file animal cruelty charges, she said.

The dogs were taken to the Farm Show complex in Harrisburg to get medical treatment and were being divided up among shelters on Friday and over the weekend.

According to the Reading Eagle, two Berks County animal shelters were among those that took in some of the dogs. The Animal Rescue League of Berks County announced Friday that it would take in 30 of the dogs, and the Humane Society of Berks County received six.

“This is one of the worst cases of animal hoarding we’ve seen in Pennsylvania, but through the efficient work of dog wardens, state and county animal response teams and local animal shelters, the dogs are one step closer to finding healthy forever homes,” said Mike Pechart, a deputy secretary who oversees state Dog Law enforcement at the Agriculture Department.

The two men who kept the dogs at their home treated them as pets and identified them by name to law enforcement officials who took them away.

The Animal Rescue League reported that 10 of the 30 Chihuahuas it received are older dogs that require more extensive care and will be placed with the group’s foster home program for older animals.

Officials from both the Humane Society and the Animal Rescue League said it is unclear when the dogs will be available for adoption.

“This is a terrible event, but we’re grateful that the Office of Dog Law Enforcement took the initiative to rescue these dogs,” said Dylan Heckart,  Berks County Humane Society director of development and pubic relations. “We plan to offer the Chihuahuas the best veterinary care available and place them for adoption as soon as they’re ready.”

(Photo: Dylan Heckart, director of development and public relations at the Humane Society of Berks County, with Chihuahuas rescued from a Columbia County home; by Bill Uhrich / Reading Eagle)

After rapper Young Calicoe showed off what he said were fighting dogs and roosters being kept at a Detroit home, a search warrant was executed and the animals were seized.

Police removed animals from the west-side home after the search Wednesday, a Detroit Police spokeswoman told The Detroit News.

In the video, the rapper wanders the grounds of the home, on the 12200 block of West Outer Drive, pointing to pit bulls in kennels and one chained next to a doghouse, and several roosters, of which he says, “We fight them, too. That’s a  grand champ right there.”

The animals from the home will be taken to the Michigan Humane Society,  Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens said. Police are also investigating whether the allegations are part of a larger  dogfighting or cockfighting ring and are questioning several people, Stephens  said.

Michigan Humane Society spokesman Kevin Hatman said all the animals will be treated by veterinarians. “We’re just happy right now that the animals are going to be receiving  high-quality care,” he said.

In the video,  Young Calicoe calls the dogs “champions in the making,” and says  “I hope we don’t get indicted for that — that Michael  Vick-type shit.”