ohmidog!

Last Thursday, John Dolan picked up his ringing cell phone and was told to come get his dog, who was standing outside Good Samaritan Medical Center in Islip, N.Y.

A hospital employee had come across the dog, checked the tags, found Dolan’s number and called it.

What the hospital employee didn’t know was that Dolan was, at the time, a patient in the hospital — and that his dog, Zander, had somehow tracked him there from home, even though home was two miles from the hospital.

Zander is a 70-pound, 7-year-old samoyed-husky mix, with a history of escaping from their home. Dolan and his wife had rescued him from a shelter five years ago. This time though, he appeared to have escaped for a reason.

In the days since Dolan entered the hospital, the dog had been acting sad, Dolan said his wife told him.

“He was moping around for the days I was already at the hospital, sitting in my seat and rolled up and depressed. My wife said he had water in his eyes and looked like he was really sad,” Dolan, 46, told ABCNews.com today.

After Dolan got the call that Zander was outside the hospital, he called his wife, Priscilla, who hadn’t realized Zander was missing.

She drove to the hospital to pick up Zander, who had never been to the hospital before.

Dolan’s back home, too, now, and he reports Zander is not leaving his side.

A father walking his dogs was shot to death in front of his 13-year-old daughter Tuesday night, after exchanging words with a man who got mad when one of the two dogs sniffed his legs, police said.

The father, Thomas Cunningham, 38, of Hayward, California, worked as a head janitor for the Dublin Unified School District. He and his daughter had gone to a store to get ice cream and were returning home with their two dogs, the San Jose Mercury-News reported.

Police said Cunningham’s German shepherd approached a man and sniffed his leg. An argument ensued and the man pulled out a handgun, shooting Cunningham as his daughter watched.

The two were returning from a two-block trip with the dogs — the year-old German shepherd and an unspecified smaller breed.

Police are seeking the suspect, and any additional witnesses.