ohmidog!

A three-month old puppy who’d been deemed aggressive and was hours away from being put down is now in training to become a service dog for a North Carolina Marine.

Raven, a Lab-shepherd mix who still has some issues of her own to overcome, is in training to become a service dog for Katie Bales, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It is a great feeling to take a dog that was in a shelter and know that it will change the life of someone who needs it,” Natalie Tayman, the founder and executive director of the rescue group Willow’s Second Chances, told the Jacksonville Daily News.

Raven was only 3 months old when she was labeled aggressive and scheduled to be put down in Duplin County, said Tayman. After hearing about the dog, she gave her a temperament test just a few hours before her scheduled euthanization, removed her from the shelter and placed her in a foster home.

“I know that Raven will do whatever (Katie) needs her to do,” Tayman said. “(Raven) will assist Katie in her daily life and help her do things she can’t do herself. (Raven) will prove to be very valuable to Katie and can potentially save her life.”

Raven, now 7 months old, is still fearful of crowds. She’ll continue to be trained well after she is a year old, Tayman says.

“It meant the world to me getting that phone call from Natalie saying she found me a dog,” Bales said. “It means I get a friend for life, someone to help me on my difficult days.”

“I know in my heart that Raven will bring me happiness and give me a way to focus my energy especially when I’m lost thinking about what’s happened to me. She’ll give me a normal life again,” said Bales, who plans to leave the Marines in June and attend the University of Tampa.

“Because of her I’ll get my life back.”

(Photo from the Jacksonville Daily News; by Chuck Beckley)

The death of his owner during Hurricane Sandy has sent Lucas, a collie-shepherd mix, back to the same shelter he was adopted from about five years ago.

He’s grayer around the muzzle now than he was then — when a couple dropped him at the Staten Island animal care and control facility, saying they’d just had a baby and no longer had room for him.

This time, his route there was even sadder.

According to Examiner.com, Lucas remained by his dead owner’s side until they were both discovered in the aftermath of the superstorm.

A Facebook page for Lucas says he seems stressed and confused, and doesn’t like being caged. “When Lucas is out of the cage and outside his personality shines through. We think that a home with older children is best because he appears to have been in a home as a single dog with no other animals and is used to quiet.”

Haatchi, a three-legged Anatolian shepherd, will be honored today by the International Fund for Animal Welfare for helping a 7-year-old boy with a genetic disorder face the world.

Owen Howkins, who has a condition known as Schwartz-Jampel, which causes his muscles to be permanently tense, was withdrawn and afraid to leave his house until his family adopted Haatchi, according to his parents.

Now both he and Haatchi are blazing new trails.

Haatchi is receiving an Animal of the Year Award today from the IFAW in a ceremony hosted at the House of Lords. The award is being presented by Queen guitarist Brian May.

Haatchi lost a rear leg after being hit by a train. He recovered and was later adopted by Colleen Drummond, her fiancé Will Howkins and his seven-year-old son Owen, who live in Hampshire.

“Before his arrival, Owen didn’t like going out — he was practically agoraphobic,” said Drummond. “When he first started school, he became more aware of being different, and he became even more withdrawn.”

But Haatchi, in addition to being a steadfast friend, brought Owen out of his shell, and seeing Haatchi cope with three legs has led the boy to feel differently about his own condition.

Seeing the change led Owen’s parents to get Haatchi qualified as a therapy dog. Now just over a year old, he’s scheduled to make regular visits to amputee soldiers rehabilitating from injuries suffered in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as sick children in hospitals and hospices.

Other IFAW award winners this year include former Olympian Fiona Oakes, from Essex, who runs a sanctuary for 400 rescued animals, veterinarian Vikki Fowler, who rescues and rehabilitates neglected horses, and Julie Hinks, who cares for and rehomes tortoises, many of which are rescued after being smuggled into the UK illegally.

The homeless and formerly homeless gathered on Skid Row in Los Angeles late last week to remember one of their own — Sheba, a shepherd mix who spent 17 years living on the streets.

On Tuesday, at about 11:30 p.m., Sheba was struck by a car and killed on Alameda Street.

About a  dozen current and former street dwellers and animal activists showed up Thursday at a sidewalk memorial service for Sheba on Gladys Avenue.

Among those paying respects was Georgina Warren, who, homeless and addicted to drugs at the time, heard Sheba’s cries while living in a tent on a Skid Row parking lot 17 years ago.

She went to investigate and found a  young German shepherd mix chained to a pole, unable to reach a bowl of water someone had left. Warren borrowed some bolt cutters from a nearby mechanic and freed the dog.

“After that, she followed me and wouldn’t leave me alone,” Warren said. “She just became my baby.”

It was Warren who, noting how protective the dog was of her shopping cart, came up with the name Sheba, because she seemed to be respected like a queen.

Warren spent the next 10 years with the dog, Downtown News in Los Angeles reports — minus those periods she ended up in jail. When that happened, fellow street dwellers pitched in to take care of Sheba.

Warren left Skid Row in 2008 and is now in recovery. Sheba stayed.

“Sheba was the community’s dog,” said Lori Weise, founder of Downtown Dog Rescue, which provides services for low-income dog owners.

Weise helped care for Sheba, and arranged for the dog to be spayed and microchipped. She was registered on the microchip as the official contact, and there were 11 times that Weise was called to pick up Sheba from animal shelters, always returning her to the streets and the person who was taking care of her — if not always keeping her leashed — at the time.

Weise and others are making arrangements to have Sheba’s ashes buried in the garden at the Hippie Kitchen, a Gladys Avenue service center where Sheba often hung out.

(Top photo:  Georgina Warren, left, and Catherine Harris of the nearby Hippie Kitchen, at the memorial service;  by Gary Leonard, Downtown News)

(Bottom  photo, of Warren and Sheba, courtesy of Lori Weise, Downtown Dog Rescue)

How better to celebrate this extra day — thanks to 2012 being a leap year — than with the world’s greatest leaping dog?

Or at least this German shepherd, named Micky, was considered such back in 1930.

Needless to say, don’t try this at home.

A bomb-sniffing dog who had worked at both the U.S. Capitol and the White House escaped during his trip to a new home, but was recovered a few hours later.

The five-year-old shepherd — retired from duty early after killing a cat — slipped out of his collar and ran off from Detroit’s Metro Airport while his new owner, a Toledo woman, was taking him for a bathroom break.

It took animal control officers and police — two of whom were bitten in the process — about two hours to capture the dog, named Arco, after he was spotted running near train tracks in Romulus yesterday afternoon, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Arco is now at the Romulus Animal Shelter and will be quarantined for 10 days before being released back to his new owner.

The dog had arrived on a flight from Arizona, where he’d been under the care of Rescued Helpers, Inc.,  in Tucson for the past seven months.

According to WXYZ, the rescue organization stepped in when they heard Arco, after his government service was over, was to be euthanized.

Rescued Helpers vice president and founder Nadine Karsevar said Arco wasn’t aggressive and that, while under the organization’s care, had taken part in parades and other events.

A Philadelphia man was jailed on animal cruelty charges after allegedly using a chain to severely beat a dog that his stepmother told him to “get rid of.”

Antique Benjamin, 27, of the 2100 block of Dagget Street, was arrested last week on charges of cruelty to animals, disorderly conduct and dog abandonment, The Delaware County Times reported.

The dog, a shepherd-pit bull mix named Skyye, survived.

Witnesses flagged down a Darby police officer last Wednesday and told him they had seen the dog being beaten with a chain until it stopped moving, near Main Street and MacDade Boulevard. The witnesses said that when the suspect walked across MacDade Boulevard trying to leave the dog behind, the dog got up and began following him.

The suspect returned and beat the dog some more, police said.

Officers, while interviewing the witnesses, saw a man with a chain. When they questioned him, officers said, he admitted beating the dog and said he did so because his stepmother told him to “get rid of it.”

The dog was taken to the Delaware County SPCA and treated for head wounds.

“She is very, very sweet. The minute she walked in, she climbed into the lap of one of our staff members,” a spokesperson said. “She is pretty resilient.”

SPCA officials said Skyye was receiving pain medication and is being closely monitored at the shelter. Until she is formally turned over to the SPCA, Skyye is still the property of Benjamin’s stepmother and is not available for adoption.

Benjamin’s preliminary hearing is scheduled this afternoon.

Name: Elsie

Age: Almost 6 months

Breed: German shepherd/beagle mix

Encountered: At Reynolda Village, in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Backstory: Adopted two months ago by a young couple, Elsie bumped into Ace, quite literally, as we rounded a corner in a collection of shops, restaurants, galleries and businesses known as Reynolda Village. The village was originally built by tobacco tycoon R.J. Reynolds to house workers at his estate.

What was the Reynolds country home is now the Reynolda House Museum of American Art, and it and its surrounding 1,067-acre estate — complete with hiking trails and formal gardens — seems to be pretty dog- friendly (though not leash-free) territory.

Elsie — and our guess is she was headed for K-9 Doggie Bakery and Boutique, just around the corner — was initially taken aback upon running into Ace, but only for a second. Then she seemed mostly curious, and fearless. She sniffed those parts of him she could reach, then attempted to engage him nose to nose, before she and her humans moved on.

To see all our Roadside Encounters, click here.

Neighbors in South Philadelphia found a bruised, battered and hungry dog, took him in, and have raised enough money for him to have surgery tomorrow.

Apparently, the 6-month-old shepherd mix, who they’ve named Sailor — given he was a bit of a shipwreck when they found him at 15th and Federal Streets in South Philadelphia — had been abandoned, and hit by a car. Three of his legs were injured and he was barely able to walk, CBS in Philadelphia reported.

When his rescuers brought him home, Sailor was so emaciated some weren’t sure he would make it, but he has gained 10 pounds since then, and he’s scheduled for surgery this week, at a cost of about $5,000.

“A lot of vets told me to put him down right away,” said Clair Sauer. “The surgeons were ready to operate on him yesterday, but I had to tell them ‘I don’t have the money.’” Sailor’s foster family set up a Sailor website to help raise the money. In little more than 24 hours, they reached their goal.

According to the website, the surgery will be performed at CARES in Langhorne, Pa., by Dr. Brentz. Sailor will have his rear femur cut and “put back into place with lots of metal…”

“Recovery will be long and will take patience, but we will be there for him! He will need lots more x-rays to monitor how his bones are healing. And, when he is ready, physical therapy. These will incur more costs, but we will stay optimistic!”

Once Sailor recovers from his surgery, he will be put up for adoption.

The dog attacked last week by a neighbor with a machete lost an eye, but is recovering from her other injuries and has been returned to her family.

Officials with the Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) say the 18-month-old shepherd-pit bull mix underwent surgery this week. An eye was removed and she was treated for a collapsed lung caused by one of the stab wounds. Other injuries to a leg and her snout were stitched, with drains being installed in some of the wounds.

The dog was attacked Tuesday inside the fenced yard of her home on the 3000 block of Wylie Avenue in northwest Baltimore. Levar J. Bailey, who lives several doors down from the dog’s owner, was arrested and charged with animal mutilation and trespassing.

The dog – now identified as “Akasha” — was treated by Dr. Honor Ame Walesby at Maryland Veterinary Surgical Services.

Donations toward Akasha’s treatment and to help care for other sick and injured shelter animals can be made through the Franky Fund at BARCS.

The machete attack was the latest in a series animal abuse cases in the city including the stoning of a dog on Easter Sunday, a series of cat killings, and a dog named Phoenix who was set on fire.

Jennifer Mead-Brause, executive director for BARCS, appealed for donations to the shelter’s Franky Fund to help cover the care of Akasha and other shelter animals in need of veterinary treatment.

“Our shelter handles over 12,000 animals annually. Many of these animals arrive at the shelter in urgent need of veterinary care. Some animals are the victims of abuse and violence, others are victims of neglect. We rely on donations from the general public to support the veterinary care of these animals.”

Mead-Brause urged city residents to watch out for their animals, “Animals who are left unattended outside, particularly those who are allowed to wander on city streets as strays, are often targeted for abuse.”