ohmidog!

Meet Britain’s first Staffordshire bull terrier police dog.

Kos, rescued from an RSPCA shelter 18 months ago, is trained to detect drugs, currency and firearms.

On his first day on the job, with the Avon and Somerset Police, Kos found  a lump of heroin in a car.

The 2-1/2-half-year-old dog was being cared for at the RSPCA’s West Hatch Animal Rescue Centre near Taunton before he was taken on by police, according to SWNS.com

“What is nice for ourselves and the RSPCA is Staffordshire Terriers get such a bad name but this dog is so lovely with people and other dogs,” said his handler, Lee Webb, with whom Kos lives. “There are other dogs out there that have potential we could use and it is a shame that people do not give them a chance sometimes.”

Webb says Kos seems as pleased with the arrangement as police are: “Kos was very excitable on his first day on the job – he absolutely loves it.”

On the day after her abuser was sentenced to three years in prison, a tan pit bull named Michelle has been put up for adoption by the Baltimore Humane Society.

Michelle is the first of what’s known as the “Pit 6” to be cleared for adoption. She was among a group of dogs seized from Larry Alston when he was arrested at a home in the Woodlawn area on charges of animal cruelty and mutilation.

Baltimore County police said there was evidence the dogs had been used for fighting.

Humane Society officials don’t know if Michelle was used in dog fights, but she was apparently used to produced litters of fighters while Alston was living in South Carolina.

She has scars on her nose and above her left eye, and marks on both of her front legs suspected to have been left by the metal grips of a device used to hold her still for forced breeding.

Alston, 37, was charged with 22 counts of violating various animal cruelty laws, including charges of mutilating the animals.

On Monday, he was sentenced in Baltimore County Circuit Court to three years in prison for animal cruelty.

Michelle and Alston’s other surviving dogs spent nearly two years in the Baltimore County animal shelter, as Alston’s criminal case dragged on. They were released late last year to animal advocates, and eventually taken in by the shelter to be rehabilitated.

The Humane Society is still working to rehabilitate and socialize the other dogs, Shelley, Meme, Tippy, Meris and Bridgett.

Michelle is 4 1/2 years old, and shelter officials want to see her go to a home without other dogs, and without young children.

A humane society press release describes her this way:

“Michelle is a petite Staffordshire with a beautiful smile when she greets you at the front of her kennel. The “Pit 6,” five females and one male, were found by the police locked in undersized cages. They are believed to have been used as bait dogs. Bait dogs are typically less tough than others and used as practice targets for dogs training to fight. The “Pit 6” were all emaciated with multiple burn and bite scars. They also showed signs of overbreeding – in other words they were repeatedly raped. In dogfighting rings it is not unusual for bait dogs to endure severe pain. Frequently they are wounded, drowned, electrocuted, slammed to the ground, shot, or left to die a slow and painful death from their open wounds.”

The humane society added, “It’s always cause for celebration when an abused dog gets a second chance at a good life, but in the case of the Pit 6 it’s a landmark. That’s because animals held as evidence in severe animal abuse and dog fighting cases are typically euthanized once the case is complete.”

In the case of the Pit 6, animal rescue advocates and Baltimore Humane Society were able to convince the Baltimore County Attorney, State’s Attorney, and Baltimore County Animal Control that the dogs deserved a second chance.

“Michelle demonstrates that even dogs who come from such violent, abusive backgrounds can become loving family pets. Baltimore Humane Society hopes she and the remaining Pit 6 will be used as an example for dog fighting and other animal abuse cases across the nation.”

For more information about Michelle and other dogs at the Baltimore Humane Society, visit www.bmorehumane.org or call 410-833-8848.

(Photo by Mary Swift, Mary Swift Photography)

History and research indicate it’s ill-advised, but Michigan is taking a look at giving prohibition another try, this time with pit bulls.

It would become illegal to keep a pit bull — and doing so could get you three months in prison — under a proposed bill in the state legislature.

Both frighteningly worded and frighteningly stupid, the bill was introduced Tuesday by Rep. Timothy Bledsoe.

House Bill 4714, aka the “Pit Bull Regulation and Prohibition Act,” would make breeding or selling a pit bull a crime one year after its passage. Four years after the bill’s passage, keeping an unsterilized pit bull would become a crime. Ten years after its passage, possessing a pit bull would be illegal.

Violating the pit bull law — either the restrictions or, in 10 years, the all out prohibition, would be a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment for not more than 93 days, community service for not more than 500 hours, or both. In addition, there would be a fine of $500 to $2,000.

The law doesn’t specify how authorities would relieve people of their pit bulls, or dispose of the dogs, but we’d assume — unless they have plans to establish concentration camps for them — it would be by lethal injection, or perhaps to be more cost-effective and efficient, a gas chamber.

As for a definition of pit bull — the type of dog not actually being a breed — the proposed restrictions and bans would apply to any one of the following:

(a) An American pit bull terrier

 (b) An American Staffordshire bull terrier

 (c) A Staffordshire bull terrier

  (d) A dog displaying the majority of physical traits of any 1 or more of the breeds listed in subdivisions (a) to (c)

   (e) A dog exhibiting those distinguishing characteristics which substantially conform to the standards established by the American Kennel Club or United Kennel Club for any 1 of the breeds listed in subdivisions (a) to (c)

In other words, if they don’t like the way you look, they can kill you.

We think that runs contrary to a civil society. We think that runs contrary to  research on dangerous and vicious dogs. We think history proved prohibition doesn’t work.

Some jurisdictions that rushed to ban and restrict having pit bulls as pets are waking up to the error of their ways, Cleveland being one recent example.

Others keep outlawing, or trying to otherwise restrict them.

Prohibition didn’t work with alcohol, and it won’t work with pit bulls, because it’s not the booze — or the breed — that’s the problem. It’s the humans who misuse, abuse and take them to dangerous extremes.