ohmidog!

In a new campaign ad, Newt Gingrich has seized upon opponent Mitt Romney’s 25-year-old doggie debacle — the boneheaded transporting of his Irish setter Seamus on the roof of his car.

The web ad released yesterday by the Gingrich campaign revives the story of a Romney family road trip during which Romney put a crate holding his dog on the roof of his station wagon for a 12-hour drive from Boston to Ontario, according to ABC News.

It’s the same story — and a true one — that came up during Romney’s  2008 White House bid. Four years later, it infuriates animal lovers no less. At a campaign event in South Carolina last week, a protester with a “Dogs Against Romney” sign greeted Romney supporters while standing next to a car with a stuffed animal dog strapped to the roof.

Romney has continued to defend his actions: “This is a completely air-tight kennel, mounted on the top of our car,” he said in a Fox News interview, part of which is used in Gingrich’s ad. “He was in a kennel at home a great deal of time as well. It was where he was comfortable.”

The Gingrich video, which includes six clips of other “Romney gaffes,” then shows white words flashing across a black screen: “Imagine what Obama would do with a candidate like that.”

Gingrich had a vaguely dog-related gaffe of his own a few years back — one which led to him receiving a VIP membership in a Dallas strip club.

Here’s the short version (a longer one is here):

In 2009, Dawn Rizos, the operator of The Lodge, a gentlemen’s club that does business under the name DCG, Inc., was informed she’d been selected to receive an “Entrepeneur of the Year” award from Gingrich’s organization, American Solutions.

Gingrich invited Rizos to a private dinner in Washington to receive the award, provided she made the requested $5,000 donation, which she did.

The week before the event, though, American Solutions realized they had accidentally bestowed the award on a strip club, and rescinded the invitation. The organization refunded the $5,000 to Rizos, who donated it to an animal rescue organization — specifically to create a shelter for pit bulls, which was dubbed “Newt’s Nook.”

The next year, Rizos got another letter, under Gingrich’s signature, containing a membership card to American Solutions and requesting a donation. This time around, in light of the previous snub, Rizos didn’t take him up on the offer.

But she did send him a Lodge VIP card, entitling him to preferred seating, free auto detailing, steak and lobster dinners and access to the the club’s “intimate members-only lounge.”

If you think animal welfare can get vicious — what with all the desperate-for-funds parties involved, all the politics, all the backstabbing — consider, if you will, the calendar industry.

Having recently stepped into the field myself — you may call me either an entrepreneur or impresario; I think I prefer the latter – I’m amazed at all the calendars vying for the public’s attention, and that’s just counting the ones for good animal causes.

Of course, it would be foolish of me to mention any of them by name, as that might cut into sales of my “Travels with Ace: One Dog’s Year on the Road” calendar, 50 percent of the profits from which go to Rolling Dog Farm, a sanctuary for blind, deaf and disabled animals in New Hampshire.

The  ”Travels with Ace” calendar — and here is a page where you may learn more about it (and buy it repeatedly) — documents the year Ace and I spent traveling across America, emulating John Steinbeck and his poodle Charley.

As Steinbeck did in his classic work “Travels with Charley” I hope to turn my travels with Ace into a book — though one far different from his, one more whimsical, one that takes itself far less seriously, one that’s more like the dog, which is really what my trip, unlike his, was about. It’s different, too, in this way: While Steinbeck was attempting to take the pulse of mainstream Americans, I, by nature, gravitate to offbeat types.

Ace, too; maybe that’s why we’re a team. It’s also why you’ll find us, as you flip through the months, hanging with hobos in Tucson, climbing brightly painted Salvation Mountain in California, and rubbing elbows (and nothing more) with the staff at a strip club in Dallas.

But that was the fun part, and a diversion from what we’re here to talk about today — the business of wall calendars.

The business world can get pretty cut-throat, which is why I’ve always detoured around it whenever possible. It’s also why we won’t be mentioning any competitors, like BARCS Orioles calendar, and why we will snub as well the Maryland SPCA calendar, not to mention the ASPCA calendar.

We realize you have many calender buying options. We realize, too, that you can usually get them for free, if you’re willing to look at advertisements for insurance companies, funeral homes, hardware stores, banks or real estate agents.

But we have the one thing (in addition to being good for 18, count ‘em, 18 months; in addition to featuring our old dog friends back in Baltimore; in addition to showing you the dogs and people we met in our travels) that no other calendar has:

Ace.

He, despite his starring role in the calendar, has been of absolutely no help when it comes to the handling, the packing, the shipping, the signing (yes I sign each one) and the never-ending trips and long waits in line at the post office.

I am doing all the heavy lifting, all the monotonous work, and more of it than I expected — and I’m loving it.

Why? I think it has something to do with Christmas, and with the giving (though I am far from giving them away), and, maybe most of all, with keeping me occupied over the holidays.

Living alone, not counting Ace, and having gotten away in recent years from any sort of decorating, baking, caroling, playing Santa in dog photo with Santa fundraisers, or other festive acts, I tend to get a little Scroogy around the holidays.

With the demands of the calendar, though, my apartment — though it is elf-free — is feeling a little like Santa’s workshop.

I bustle about with scissors and markers and tape and lists, attempting to make sure, with all due precision, that orders get filled and delivered — unscathed, we hope — to all those who ordered them. (I think, at one point, I was even humming a happy tune.)

While nobody’s getting rich, except maybe for the company that printed them, the calendar is doing well. Our first printing sold out, and they’re all in the hands of the post office now. Our second shipment should arrive here this week.

The bulk of our orders are coming through PayPal, but if you want to order by mail, send a check for $28 and your address to ohmidog!, 804-D Avalon Road, Winston-Salem, NC, 27104.

If you live in Canada, or Europe, or someplace like that, precisely throw in a little more for shipping.

And to all those who ordered one, to all those who didn’t, and even to all those other dog calendar-selling organizatons, Happy Holidays!

Ace’s favorite strip club — and, to be clear, the only one he has ever visited — is hosting a car wash this weekend to benefit Best Friends, the Utah animal sanctuary that rehabilitated many of the dogs seized from Michael Vick.

The annual charity car wash, “Headlights and Hounds,” has been scheduled for Saturday, July 16 at The Lodge, an upscale gentlemen’s club in Dallas where Ace spent some time during our travels.

A spokesman for The Lodge said the event, which lasts from noon to 6 p.m., will be “family-friendly,” featuring dancers in bikinis and other staffers washing cars and motorcycles to raise money for Best Friends.

Best Friends, best known for its animal sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, is a national organization that works to eliminate the needless killing of millions of animals through supporting shelters, adoption programs and spay/neuter efforts around the country.

It was one of several organizations that took in and rehabilitated some of the animals seized from the dogfighting operation of NFL quarterback Michael Vick.

Almost all of them have since moved on to happy homes — including Mel, who was adopted two years ago by Sunny Hunter, VIP manager at the Lodge, and her husband, Dallas radio personality Richard Hunter. (Ace got to spend some time with Mel last summer.)

“We have a special connection with Best Friends because of Mel,” said Lodge owner Dawn Rizos. “But beyond that, this is a wonderful organization and we’re proud we can help support all the good that they do.”

The Lodge, which is donating all proceeds from the car wash to charity, has raised nearly $200,000 for animal causes over the years.

The car wash will also feature a buffet, music, games and psychic readings by Sandra Larson, a Texas pet psychic.

The Lodge is located at 10530 Spangler Road in Dallas, just off Northwest Highway and one mile west of I-35E.

Newt Gingrich has been issued a lifetime VIP card by an upscale Dallas strip club, entitling him to free admission, preferred seating, free auto detailing, steak and lobster dinners and access to the the club’s “intimate members-only lounge.”

The owner of The Lodge, Dawn Rizos, thought it was the least she could do after Gingrich — who awarded, then snubbed her last year — got in touch with her again through American Solutions, his conservative “citizens action network,” sending her an unsolicited membership card and requesting a $2,000 donation.

But let’s go back to the beginning.

Last year, Rizos was informed that her gentlemen’s club — doing business as DCG, Inc. — had been selected to receive one of the American Solutions “Entrepeneur of the Year” awards for is efforts to stimulate the economy.

Gingrich invited Rizos to a private dinner in Washington to receive the award, provided she made the requested $5,000 donation, which she did.

The week before the event, though, American Solutions realized they had accidentally bestowed the award on a strip club, and rescinded the invitation. The organization refunded the $5,000 to Rizos, who donated it to an animal rescue organization — specifically to create a shelter for pit bulls, which was dubbed “Newt’s Nook.”

This week, apparently not having learned from the mistake, American Solutions, under the signature of Gingrich, sent Rizos an unsolicited membership card and again asked her for money.

The letter referred to Rizos as “a key member of our American Solutions family of supporters” and added, “Will you enclose a special year-end contribution of $1,000, or even as much as $2,000, to American Solutions, Ms. Rizos?”

The letter said the money would go toward American Solution’s mission — more important than ever since “the resounding rejection of Barack Obama’s leftist ideology and governing policies on Nov. 2.”

“Thanks to  members like you, American Solutions played a critical role in helping create this year’s sea-change election,” the letter said. ”But our most important role now lies ahead of us … helping our newly elected officials lead the country to a future of jobs and prosperity.”

The letter, which carried Gingrich’s return address, included a facsimile of the membership card he said was on its way. Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, is general chairman of American Solutions.

Rizos said she will hold off making a new donation to Gingrich until they can discuss last year’s disinvitation. Instead, she said, she is sending him, at no charge, a Lifetime VIP membership card to The Lodge – with all the perks and privileges – which the club says is worth $2,000.

“His letter included an American Solutions membership card with my name on it, so I’m very happy to reciprocate,” she said. “It’s just a temporary card right now, but I promise we will have the permanent one waiting for him at the door.”

(Disclaimer: Nothing in this article should be construed as suggesting Newt Gingrich has ever been to The Lodge. But Ace and I have.)

How did Ace end up next to the stripper’s pole at a gentlemen’s club in Dallas?

It’s a long story, but the main factors are these: The decline of American journalism, Newt Gingrich and dogs.

Dallas doesn’t have more strip clubs per capita than any other U.S. city, it only seems that way. In some parts of town they are pretty hard to avoid. Most are big and glitzy, and they advertise heavily on billboards featuring scantily clad women with come hither looks.

But that’s not our excuse.

No, our connection to The Lodge — an upscale gentlemen’s club modeled after a Rocky Mountain hunting lodge — goes back about eight months when, while compiling an article for ohmidog!, we got in touch with the strip club’s public relations man, or, as his business card puts it, the club’s “Writer-in-Residence.”

Michael Precker — like me, I learned then — had devoted the bulk of his life to newspapers, serving as a Middle East correspondent for nearly seven years, covering a wide variety of stories across America and ending up, like me, as a feature writer.

Our career paths were similar, as was our dissatisfaction with the way newspapers were heading. Both of us, seeing the ships we were on seemed to be sinking — at least in terms of quality and depth — had recently jumped off.

Both of us took buyouts — the captains way of helping staff make the decision to go overboard — he from the Dallas Morning News, me from the Baltimore Sun. I ended up writing about dogs. He, after meeting the club’s owner at a charity event, ended up in a strip club.

Life’s funny that way.

I got in touch with Precker — whose unusual job transition made the pages of the Wall Street Journal — last October. I had called to get some details and a photo of “Newt’s Nook,” a sanctuary for pit bulls that was being established with funds provided by the owner of the gentlemen’s club, Dawn Rizos.

Rizos had donated $5,000 to the cause — the amount being a refund of what she paid in advance to attend a private dinner in Washington to receive an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from Newt Gingrich’s organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future.

It seems American Solutions had mistakenly bestowed the award – “in recognition of the risks you take to create jobs and stimulate the economy” — on Rizos and the Lodge, which does business under the name DCG, Inc.

They’d sent the fax to the wrong DCG — though, as Precker points out, The Lodge does stimulate the economy (among other things), and it has created a lot of jobs, not to mention helped a lot of its dancers pay for college and move into more “respectable” careers.

Realizing their flub, American Solutions rescinded the award – just a week before the ceremony Rizos had made arrangements to attend. But they did at least offer her a refund.

Rizos donated that money to an animal rescue organization seeking to build ”Newt’s Nook,” named in honor of the former speaker of the House.

But that, it seems, was neither the first nor last time that the Dallas gentlemen’s club and its staff have done their bit, and then some, for animals.

Earlier this month they held a charity car and bike wash and buffet, with all proceeds going to the Metroplex Animal Coalition. Over the years, The Lodge’s car washes have raised more than $160,000 for local animal causes.

Also this month, the club’s manager of VIP services, Sunny Hunter, and her husband Richard Hunter – adopters of a Michael Vick dog — were among those who tried to help catch a stray dog that was holding up traffic for days on the LBJ Freeway. Once the dog, nicknamed Alley, was caught, Rizos adopted it, and now brings it to work along with her Chihuahua, Pedro.

Richard Hunter, a local talk show host, caught the dog with help from comedian Hal Sparks and Operation Kindness. Hunter has also been involved in trying to capture the elusive stray that has been hanging around a Dallas church whose pastor has threatened to have it shot.

According to Precker, who I’d agreed to look up if I ever came to town, The Lodge has a lot of dog lovers, in addition to its owner, on staff.

He and Sunny even went so far as to invite Ace for a visit. While I had lunch and an interview with Precker, Ace stayed upstairs in the office under the supervision of staff. He was more enamored with a stuffed bear — one of numerous mounted animals in the club — than the dancers.

The next day, before business hours, Ace was allowed to climb up on a stage, check out the stripper’s pole and pose for pictures with Carrie, one of the dancers, and Vanna, who works the front desk.

Dawn Rizos, who has been honored for bringing class and flair to an industry often viewed as seedy — and here we’re talking strip clubs, not journalism — was out of town, so we didn’t get to meet her, Alley or Pedro.

But Ace and I did get to meet Michael Precker, who’s found job security in a strip club;  and the Hunter’s and their Vick dog, Mel, whose found some security as well. We’ll bring you that story — unless some gentlemen’s club hires us as writer-in-residence in the interim – tomorrow.

(“Dog’s Country” is the continuing account of one man and one dog spending six months criss-crossing America.)

 
We’re proud to unofficially unveil the sign that will welcome visitors to “Newt’s Nook — A Home for Pitbulls.”

Now under construction in Celina, Texas, the shelter was made possible by a $5,000-plus donation from a Dallas strip club owner — the amount being a refund of what she paid to attend a dinner to receive an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from Newt Gingrich’s organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future.

American Solutions, as we told you yesterday, mistakenly bestowed the honor on Dawn Rizos, the owner of The Lodge, a popular Dallas strip club.

When former Speaker of the House Gingrich, a week before the awards ceremony, uninvited Rizos, he agreed to refund the $5,000 that she, as instructed, had submitted in exchange for the privilege of eating dinner with him. He refunded her airfare as well.

“At first our feelings were hurt,” Rizos said. “But then we figured at least we could make something positive out of his bad manners.”

About the same time Rizos got her refund, she heard that Animal Guardians of America had an urgent need for a heated and  air-conditioned shelter for rescue dogs, primarily pit bulls, at its sanctuary in Celina.

“We do a lot of charitable work and we love animal rescue groups,” Ms. Rizos said. “The cost was about the same as the amount Newt sent back to us, so we decided to do something good with it.”

The formal dedication for Newt’s Nook is scheduled for early November.

“We’re sorry that Dawn was treated so unfairly,” said Annette Lambert, director of the Animal Guardians chapter in North Texas. “But this will be great for a lot of wonderful dogs. I hope Newt will stop by sometime to see what we’ve built in his name.”

Rizos says Gingrich is invited to the opening, as well as to The Lodge, which describes itself as “the country’s best-known and most-honored gentlemen’s club,” and one that has “set national standards for elegance and integrity, and helps hundreds of people support their families and improve their lives.”

“He’s always welcome at The Lodge,” Ms. Rizos said. “We don’t hold a grudge. And we still have a lot to talk about.”

(Photo:  The sign, created by The Lodge bartender Bryan Callaway, that will welcome pit bulls to their new shelter; courtesy of Mike Precker)

What do they have in common? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. But here’s a hilarious story, with a happy ending, that involves all three.

It all began in September when Dallas businesswoman Dawn Rizos learned she was to receive an  “Entrepreneur of the Year” award  from American Solutions for Winning the Future, a conservative group led by Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker.

Rizos didn’t think it all that odd that the organization would be honoring her business, legally known as DCG, Inc., but doing business as The Lodge, one of the finest strip clubs (I’m told) in all of Dallas.

American Solutions — designed to “rise above traditional gridlocked partisanship to provide real, significant solutions to the most important issues facing our country” — was one of the big pushers of that national tea party, and it serves as the political arm of Gingrich’s empire as author, pundit and consultant .

The fax from American Solutions explained that Rizos was being honored as “Entrepreneur of the Year” for her “success in building [her] business and recognition of the risks you take to create jobs and stimulate the economy.”

But apparently American Solutions didn’t know that Rizos’ DCG was stimulating more than the economy; it had sent the fax to the wrong DCG. (In point of fact, The Lodge does stimulate the economy, as well,  with 150 employees, and contracts with an additional 570 dancers or entertainers, one of whom they award with a college scholarship annually.)

Winning the award from the conservative think (but don’t double check) tank, came with a $5,000 fee, payable to American Solutions (a mailed check, since Newt doesn’t wear a garter belt), and for that Rizos would have had the chance to “dine privately with Newt,” and have his ear on ways to “turn this country around.”

Rizos paid, and she booked an airline reservation as well.

Then the conservative group learned they had honored the way wrong company, stripped The Lodge of the award, and promised to pay Rizos back the fee and what she had paid for the airline ticket.

Now, the owner of the topless club has decided to pass that refunded money on to Animal Guardians of America’s sanctuary for rescued dogs in Celina, about 35 miles north of Dallas. It will be to use to build a shelter for pit bulls and named in honor of the former House speaker, the Associated Press reported. 

“Newt’s Nook — A Home for Pit Bulls” is now under construction.

Rizos says she’ll invite Gingrich to the formal dedication in early November.