ohmidog!

After collecting $3,500 from the insurance company of a woman whose car rear-ended him, a Washington man apparently decided to return to the well — this time informing her insurer that his cat died in the accident, too.

Although more than two years had passed, he asked for $20,000 for the death of his beloved cat, Tom, and, when requested, he sent the insurance company some photos.

As it turned out, the only place he’d spent anytime with the cat, who he claimed to love “like a son,” was on Wikipedia.

Yevgeniy Samsonov, 29, was charged with insurance fraud and attempted theft, according to the Seattle Times.

According to the charges filed in Pierce County,  Samsonov didn’t have a cat, and the photos he submitted to bolster his claim had both been copied from the Internet.

“We’ve handled some pretty unusual cases, but this is one of the stranger ones,” state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said in a news release.

In his initial claim, Samsonov said he required chiropractic treatment after his car was rear-ended in March 2009 while stopped at a traffic light in Tacoma. The other driver told her insurance company, Pemco, that her foot had slipped off the brake.

Two years later, Samsonov asked Pemco for more money to compensate him for his lost cat. The insurer sent Samsonov a check for $50, but Samsonov said, given the cat’s intense sentimental value, that didn’t begin to cover his loss.

When Pemco agents asked Samsonov for photos of the cat , he submitted two, which he claimed to have taken himself, according to court documents. Then a Pemco employee did a Google search and turned up the same images Samsonov had submitted, according to the insurer.  The two pictures turned out to be of different cats, one from Wikipedia, and one from another website.

They refused to pay him any more money, and revoked the $50  check. Samsonov appealed to the state insurance commissioner’s office.

That led to an investigation and the filing of charges against him.

Sure, you can extract DNA samples from every dog in your community, establish a database, pick up and pack up samples of any unscooped poop, send it to an out of state laboratory, pay a fee, and then await test results that will identify the poopetrator, assuming he or she is in the database in the first place.

Or, you can gently and wittily remind dog owners of their responsibility.

I’m more comfortable in a community that does the latter.

Earlier this week we told you about an apartment complex in Lebanon, New Hampshire, that will begin testing the DNA of unscooped dog poop found on the premises.

The video above, I think, reflects a far more civilized, less Big Brotherish approach to the problem.

In a effort to remind people what uncollected dog poop does to the region’s health, a Seattle area organization called Puget Sound Starts Here launched “Dog Doogity,” a music video to encourage people to pick up after their pets, according to KING 5 in Seattle.

Puget Sound Starts Here is a coalition of state and local agencies that works educate the public on protecting the health of the Sound. The coalition says pet waste contains disease-causing organisms that can carry into the Puget Sound and other local waters.

“For every four and a half people there is one dog in the Puget Sound area and almost all of that is going outside,” said campaign coordinator Suzi Wong Swint. “People just don’t think about dog poop and the major contributions it has on the quality of our water. So, this campaign is trying to encourage people to pick up their dog’s poop in their backyards as well as on their walks.”

The music video features Puget Sound locations in Seattle, Everett and Tacoma. It was inspired by Blackstreet’s 1996 hit, “No Diggity,” and features soul singer Martin Luther and dog Lola.

For more information on the campaign, click here.

Here’s an ending almost too happy to be believed.

Three years ago, a Washington man surrendered his family dog, a five-year-old shepherd mix named Haley, to the Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County.

An unspecified family crisis forced the family to give up the dog, the humane society said.

Though gone, she was not forgotten. The father still kept photos of the dog on his iphone, and his daughter, now 12, was, still missing and talking about the dog they had said goodbye to years earlier.

This week, with their crisis averted and the family having decided to get another dog, the father dropped by the Tacoma Humane Society to look at potential adoptees. Though it’s not uncommon for shelter dogs to start jumping and yapping when people come by, one dog went particularly crazy when the father approached, staff members say.

Taking a closer look, the father was shocked to see that the dog making all the noise was — you guessed it — Haley!

As it turns out, Haley, after being surrendered by the family, was adopted in 2007, but the family that adopted her the second time had so much trouble with her continually running away they’d returned her, just a few days ago.

The Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County, which related the story on their  Facebook page, said the dog and her original family are now reunited.

The first of the Michael Vick dogs taken in by Best Friends Animal Society — one of those that were thought to be too corrupted to ever make pets — has apparently found a home, and a soulmate.

Halle (that’s her on the right) was one of the 22 Vick dogs that went to Best Friends — sent there because they were considered the most hardcore, most traumatized, least likely to be rehabilitated. At Best Friends, the reasoning went, those who couldn’t be socialized would be able live out their lives at the animal sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. The less severe cases went to other rescue organizations, and many have gone on to get adopted as pets, and even become therapy dogs.

Halle, though, is the first of the Best Friends batch to make the transition.

While the adoption isn’t official yet — the so-called Vicktory dogs, under court requirements, must complete a six-month foster period — Halle has moved into a home with a new caretaker, identified as Traci, and Best Friends reports that it looks as if the arrangement might be a forever one.

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