ohmidog!

A heartless soul stole 7-year-old Mia Bendrat’s dog on Christmas Eve — scooping him off the sidewalk in front of a store in Manhattan where her owner’s left him tied.

Fortunately, a good-hearted one was out there, too.

Tina Cohen, a teacher, saw a man a couple of neighborhoods away trying to sell a dog on the street, circumstances that made her suspicious. She purchased the dog from him and, on Christmas day, returned the dog to the owners.

New York City police arrested the alleged thief, who they say took the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, named Marley, from outside a shop in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, all under the eye of a surveillance camera.

“Thank you, the people of Washington Heights … Those great Samaritans… And now we got him on Christmas Day,” Mia’s mother Angie Estrada told WABC-TV.

Cohen, a high school Spanish teacher came across a man on Monday in another section of Manhattan standing on a street corner and yelling that he had a dog for sale.

“I said that’s not right. I said I’d like to buy the dog. I only have $100,” Cohen said.

When the man demanded more cash, Cohen went to a nearby Staples, bought some merchandise with her credit card, then returned it for cash.

She paid $200 for Marley and took him straight to a veterinarian, where he was identified through his microchip.

On Tuesday Cohen watched Marley jump into Mia’s arms.

“You guys belong together,” she said. “I’m so happy you are together.”

No word on whether Cohen got her $200 back, but — in the event Santa is listening, and maybe is willing to make a return trip — we’d say she deserves that and much more.

Pet stores that sell live animals purchased from breeders may be looking for a new lease on life — but they won’t be getting one from Macerich, which operates 71 shopping centers in the western U.S.

Under a policy adopted last year, Santa Monica-based Macerich will not renew the leases for any pet stores that sell live animals.

Instead, only adoption centers with rescued animals will be allowed in Macerich-owned malls.

In Arizona, that impact of that change is becoming visible, according to the Arizona Republic, and it’s serving to help out a lot of animal shelters and homeless pets. At many a mall pet  store, animals in need of adoption have replaced those pumped out by breeders.

The change in the company’s policy reflects shifts in public opinion regarding pet buying, and a growing recognition that many of the dogs sold in stores come from puppy mills. A 2011 survey by New Jersey-based Hartz Mountain Corp., a pet-product company, found that, of more than 1,000 pet owners only 4 percent would buy their next pet from a pet store.

“Our focus is now directed to working with local pet-rescue organizations in our communities and pet-accessory retailers to serve the needs of our shoppers,” said Melissa Rupp, assistant marketing manager at Macerich-owned SanTan Village in Gilbert.

The trend toward adoption centers, which had begun in some Arizona retail locations even before Macerich changed its policy, has accelerated, the Republic reports.

Many large retailers already operate adoption programs in with animal-welfare organizations, including and Petco and PetSmart, which reports the adoptions of more than 5 million cats and dogs since 1994.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, 1,700 pet stores across the country have signed its “Pet Friendly Pledge” not to sell puppies in their stores. Fifty-three of those locations are in Arizona.

The Humane Society Petique at the Biltmore Fashion Park opened in November 2009, two years before Macerich’s policy change, and it marked the first time a retail developer partnered with a Valley rescue group. More than 2,000 animals have been adopted out of the rescue storefront.

The venture has helped the local Humane Society, which charges adoption fees of $10 to $160. The money goes to programs for homeless animals such as Second Chance Animal Hospital and daily sheltering needs, Nelson said. The society also runs Petopia at Desert Sky Mall.

Maricopa County Animal Care and Control partners with PetSmart to host adoption events, and it runs the storefront Under One Woof! at Metrocenter Mall, a shopping mall not owned by Macerich.

(Photo: Michael Schennum / The Arizona Republic)

One of the first canine clones to arrive in America is now a father.

Lancelot Encore, cloned in South Korea in an American company’s online dog cloning auction three years ago, is the father of eight pups, born on the 4th of July to another Labrador who was artificially inseminated with his sperm.

And they are for sale, at a price yet to be announced. (AKC registration is not a possibility because the organization doesn’t recognize clones as purebreds.)

Lancelot Encore’s owners, Ed and Nina Otto, have set up a website called labraclone.com which offers “future pups from the past” and will be used to sell seven of the puppies.

The Florida couple bid $155,000 to get the original Lancelot, who died of cancer, cloned in an online auction held by BioArts, an American company that attempted to clone the world’s first dog, then partnered with one of the South Korean scientists who was the first to pull the feat off.

Not long after Lancelot Encore settled in their home, with their nine other pets, the Ottos began thinking about breeding him.

Mrs. Otto said they paid several thousand dollars for a lab to inseminate a female Labrador, named Scarlett, with Lancelot Encore’s sperm.

Nina Otto said she was “tickled pink” that the babies had arrived naturally, the SunSentinel.com reported.

“I am keeping one and we are hoping to find good homes for all the other puppies,” she said.

Given the litter’s birthdate, the Ottos gave all eight pups patriotic names: Glory, Liberty, Star, Allegiance, America, Patriot, Independence and Victory.

While some news outlets, The Daily Mail in London included, call Lancelot the first dog to be commercially cloned (so do the Ottos), he’s not. Lancelot Encore is the first single birth commercial clone. The first canine clones delivered to a paying customer were five pups manufactured from the cells of a dead pit bull named Booger, by another South Korean company.

The full story of dog cloning can be found in the book, “DOG, INC.: How a Collection of Visionaries, Rebels, Eccentrics and Their Pets Launched the Commercial Dog Cloning Industry.”

You can read an excerpt here.

If you’re impressed with that artwork to the left, called “Watching Birds,” consider this: It was painted by a dog.

A one-eyed dog, no less.

Last fall, Austin artist Jessica Stone decided she wanted another dog — one in need of a home, maybe even one with special needs.

San Antonio Bulldog Rescue had a candidate — a 7-year-old bulldog named Piper, whose hip  dysplasia caused her to walk with a limp, and who often made a mess of herself when pooping.

There wasn’t much known about Piper. “The guy who surrendered her wouldn’t give San Antonio Bulldog Rescue any information,” Stone told KXAN in Austin. “He said that he was afraid of her because she can be grumpy.”

Stone and her husband adopted the dog anyway.

“She gets startled easily. You can’t bug her when she’s sleeping. She doesn’t like to get picked up because it hurts her hips,” Stone said.

Piper immediately took an interest in Stone’s work, watching intently, with her one eye, as she painted, and then, with Stone’s help, taking it up herself.

“…She chews on the brush and I hold the paper and I change her colors,” Stone said.

On a whim, Stone decided to post one of Piper’s pieces on Facebook. It sold within a week. In a matter of months, Piper had sold about 50 paintings.

“She has over, I think, 2,700 fans now on Facebook,” Stone said. “She has her own business card, e-mail, website .”

Piper is making enough money to cover her own medical bills, and a percentage of her income goes back to the rescue group she came from.

Piper will be appearing this Saturday at Austin’s Just for Pets store at 3742 Far West Blvd., from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

It’s not exactly a new problem, just one that has been given a sexier name, but indications are that “dog flipping” may be on the rise.

As with house flipping, it’s all about the profit — immoral sleazebags respond to ads placed by people looking to re-home a pet, pretend that they are going to give it a loving home, and then turn around and sell it.

“You might think you are giving your dog to a loving home, but it is going to be warehoused with up to eight to 10 other dogs in tiny apartments and sold to the highest bidder,” animal rescuer Sarah Clinton told WMC-TV.

Dog flippers usually target websites like Craigslist — both to procure dogs and to sell them.

Falling victim to it led one couple in Ohio to start a Facebook page after their dog was flipped.

Amy Cannon was trying to find homes for nine puppies. After she advertised her puppies, free to good homes, one family took two of them, including one named “Frankie.”

Not much later, she saw an ad on Craigslist that read, “My husband and I are selling our dog Frankie. We just moved and now don’t have enough yard for him to play.” Attached to the post was a picture of her dog Frankie.

Cannon confronted the person who had Frankie, who said he was selling the dog because he needed grocery money. Cannon bought Frankie back for $70.

Experts said charging a fee for your dog is one deterrent for dog flipping.

“It cuts down on their profit and maybe they will overlook that pet and look for some easy money some other way,” said Clinton.

Even more important might be building a relationship with the potential adopters, or even asking to visit their home.

“It’s beyond our realm of thinking that anybody would look at a companion animal and see it as a means to turn a quick buck,” said Clinton.

But they do. The practice isn’t illegal, just revolting.

Last year, Gene Baierschmidt, executive director of the Humane Society of Utah, denounced the practice, which he said appeared to be on the rise.

“Flipping a house for profit is one thing. Flipping an animal is inhumane,” he said. “Cats and dogs are not inanimate objects and should not be viewed as commodities. They are living creatures who feel fear and pain.”

In addition to being unethical, “flipping animals is stressful on pets, and could put them in danger because people can’t ensure that the pets will be placed in a safe environment. Shelters have protocols to ensure that animals are placed in a safe and loving home.”

Philadelphia has adopted a novel approach to cracking down on unlicensed dogs, but it has a scary ring to it.

As part of the city’s newly amended animal code, veterinarians, groomers, pet shops and dog walkers are all designated as agents of the city, authorized to sell dog licenses and –  here’s the scary part — expected to turn in customers who fail to get one.

Those operations “must report people who decline to license their dog,” according to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Under the changes in the law, which went into effect in mid-February, the newly increased minimum fine for having an unlicensed dog is $500.

Brian Abernathy, chief of staff to the city managing director, said the idea for a stricter law came about two years ago, when it was reported that only 5 percent of dogs in the city — about 25,000 of an estimated 400,000 — were licensed.

Other revisions in the law require that all shops that sell dogs must have them spayed or neutered, unless an exception is made and an owner has a license for breeding. Owners of dogs that are not spayed or neutered must pay an annual licensing fee of $40 instead of $16 for sterilized dogs.

The revised law contains some progressive measures, but requiring all those whose jobs involve dogs to become licensing clerks — and snitches — seems bone-headed, and a shirking of responsibility.

“They are dumping it on everybody else because they weren’t able to do it,” veterinarian Howard Wellens said of the city. “I am not happy with being the policeman for someone without dog tags.”

Wellens, a vet at Queen Village Animal Hospital, said the law could put veterinarians in a position of declining treatment to dogs who aren’t registered — or withholding treatment until licensing takes place.

Abernathy said he doubts that would happen: “Under no circumstances do we expect a vet to turn away a sick animal,” he said. “That is not the expectation of the law and not the intent.”

Abernathy said that stores, shelters, and hospitals could collect a $2 fee for each dog license sold.

That seems a pretty small price to reap in exchange for losing a customer’s trust, if not a customer.

Requiring stores that sell dogs  – and unlike some cities, Philadelphia hasn’t banned that — to issue licenses makes some sense.

But expecting groomers, veterinarians and dog walkers to become doggie deputies is asking — or is it ordering? — too much.

Don’t be surprised if you see more canines than cleavage when it comes to this year’s Super Bowl ads.

At least three ads premiering during the 2012 Super Bowl will star dogs.

“You can’t go wrong with a dog,” Robbie Blinkoff, a cultural anthropologist told USA Today. “The dogs are idealized versions of ourselves. The dogs aren’t dogs — they’re us.”

As anyone who’s been following our “Woof in Advertising” series knows, sex may be the quickest way to a consumer’s groin, but the best route to a consumer’s heart (which we’d argue more often controls the purse strings) is through dogs.

Volkswagen is one company that’s shifted to more heartwarming ads, moving away from the mean spirited but funny ones of recent years.

In its 2012 Super Bowl spot, an extended Internet version of which is seen above, a dog sets off to chase a new VW Beetle only to realize he can no longer fit through the dog door.

He undertakes a makeover of his own, drops a few pounds and is off and running — through the dog door and after a shiny red Beetle. In the final seconds, the ads shifts to a Star War themes, in homage to VW’s popular 2011 Super Bowl spot that featured a child dressed as Darth Vader who thinks “The Force” helped him start a car.

“The Dog Strikes Back” will run in the second quarter of Sunday’s game.

Anheuser Busch, meanwhile, will introduce a new dog — a rescued mutt — in its ad for Bud Light. The dog’s name is Weego, and he fetches a bottle of guess what whenever he hears someone say, “Here, Weego.”

Then there’s the controversial Skechers ad, which the company hopes more people will find funny and inspiring than offensive. (Filmed at Tucson Greyhound Park, it has led to protests and a boycott of Skechers by the anti- greyhound racing group Grey2KUSA.)

Skechers, in case you haven’t stayed abreast, featured Kim Kardashian in its Super Bowl ad last year. This year it put its money on an athletic-shoe wearing French bulldog named Mr. Quiggly, who, in the ad, goes up against a group of racing greyhounds.

Leonard Armato, president of Skechers Fitness Group, says the spot is about inspiration — not greyhound racing: “We believe he’ll be the most lovable dog on the Super Bowl.”

As we’ve only seen a snippet of that one, and no sneak preview of “Weego,” we’ve got to go with the VW dog, for now, as most lovable. He’s a pretty magnificent beast, named Bolt, a 3-year-old Australian shepherd and St. Bernard mix.

As for how he achieved that amazing weight loss, you can find the answer in this “Making of The Dog Strikes Back” video:

(To see all of our “Woof in Advertising” posts, click here.)

If we’ve learned anything from our series on dogs in advertising, it’s that dogs sell.

Almost as good as sex does.

Put them together and you’d have quite a winner, one would think.

Or, you could get something like this — what seems to be an ad for a product called “Poocharé… It’s dog food. It’s now.”

If you think the jumpsuit-clad, Borzoi-owning shopper with the cool shades looks a little like a young Eugene Levy, that’s because it is, and this is a spoof from SCTV.

(To see all our “Woof in Advertising” selections click here.)

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

When a Florida woman stopped to check out some puppies being offered for sale on the side of the road, for $50 each, she noticed a plastic trash bag off to the side.

And it was moving.

She asked about it, and the not-so-honorable vendor reluctantly showed her what was inside — a member of the litter who, not being able to walk, was apparently destined for the trash heap.

Perhaps to save himself a trip to the Dumpster, the vendor gave the young pit bull to the woman, who immediately took the dog to Seminole County Animal Services, where he was diagnosed with Swimmer Puppy Syndrome.

With help from Dolly’s Foundation, a pit bull rescue, the dog was taken  to Hip Dog in Winter Park, where he began a regimen of massages and hydrotherapy.

The therapy paid off. Now named Harper, the dog, at 10 1/2 weeks of age, recently took his first steps. He’ll be put up for adoption in about a month.

The Humane Society of the United States says a major figure in the dog fighting world has been arrested in Bedford County, Virginia.

The Humane Society says Jeffrey Denny, of North Carolina, has acknowledged selling hundreds of dogs for breeding or fighting all over the country.

According to WSLS, the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office says Denny attempted to sell a pit bull to an undercover deputy. Two pit bulls were seized along with Denny’s van, which is crammed full of dog crates.

Police in North Carolina searched Denny’s Franklinville Home where sixteen more dogs were seized. Police also found break sticks, needles and syringes, an auto suture gun, a tool box containing medical supplies, medications and veterinary supplies, IV supplies and saline solution, mineral supplements, dog collars and a dog harness. Police said they seized eight guns and ammunition, drug paraphernalia and computer and written records from the home.

Denny faces one felony charge in Bedford County for transporting animals for fighting. After that, he’ll be returned to North Carolina to face sixteen felony dog fighting charges, eleven misdemeanor dog cruelty charges and one felony count for possession of drug paraphernalia. The sheriff’s office says Denny planned to sell the two pit bulls for $900 each. Deputies seized $392 from Denny’s van.