ohmidog!

Street dogs are being blamed for the deaths of four people in a park on the outskirts of Mexico City.

“Experts have established that due to the gravity of the wounds, at least 10 dogs were involved in each attack,” Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement.

Authorities have begun rounding up dogs living in the park to conduct tests aimed at determining if they were involved in the attacks.

In one case, the Associated Press reports, a teenage girl called her sister with her cellphone to plead for help as the attack took place.

“Several dogs are attacking us, help me!” the girl screamed before the call was disconnected.

Despite that, some animal activists are questioning whether the deaths should all be blamed solely on wild dogs,  and Diana Ruiz, who received the phone call, still doesn’t believe dogs were responsible for her sister’s death.

“What kind of dog can tear the skin from your whole arm and leave just bone and if it was an attack dog why didn’t it attack her neck?” Ruiz told Milenio Television. “What’s most shocking is that one of her breasts was mutilated.”

She said she later visited the place of the attack and saw no pools of blood.

“There needs to be a thorough investigation,” she added.

The attacks occured in the Cerro de la Estrella, a hilltop park surrounded by the city’s Iztapalapa district.

The first two bodies — a  26-year-old woman and a 1-year-old child — were found there Dec. 29, authorities in Mexico’s capital said.

The woman, Shunashi Mendoza, was missing her left arm, and prosecutors said that both she and the boy had bled to death and been partially eaten.

On Friday, visitors to the park found the bodies of  Alejandra Ruiz, 15, and her boyfriend Samuel Martinez, 16. Both had bled to death.

Antemio Maya, president of the Street Dog Protection Association in Mexico City, said he doubts dogs could have killed the people found in the park.

“It’s not the behavior of street dogs to kill humans,” said Maya, adding that blaming street dogs for the deaths could make life difficult for the thousands of homeless dogs in the city.

“A lot of people get tired of their dogs and they simply throw them on the streets,” he said. “This is going to create a terrible hate for street dogs and that’s going to lead to even more abuse.”

It’s estimated that, in the city of 9 million people, the number of dogs range from 1.2 million to 3 million.

Mexico City Public Safety Secretary Jesus Rodriguez told Milenio Television that the four victims were not dumped in the area as some had suggested. He said all the bodies had bite wounds, and that the bites were inflicted both while they were alive and after they had died. He warned against visiting the park.

At least 100 police officers had trapped 25 dogs in the park by Monday night. (The photos in this post are of four of them.)

According to Maya, the trapped dogs included beagles, Maltese and poodles and most were probably abandoned pets or their offspring.

Experts will test the dogs’ hair for traces of human blood and also test their stomach contents. Authorities haven’t said what they plan to do with the dogs.

Previous attacks by feral dogs have occured in Mexico City’s famed Chapultepec Park, but none fatal. After one attack there, authorities rounded up dogs, spayed and neutered them, and then either returned them to the park or found them homes.

Two boys beating a cat with a stick in Fell’s Point were interrupted and chased Friday by a concerned citizen, who later brought the cat to Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS).

BARCS said the cat, who they’ve named Marilyn, has a broken back leg and is still being evaluated.

BARCS officials say they have filed a police report about the incident.

The witness to the abuse chased the two boys. Unable to catch them, he returned to the cat and transported her to the shelter, according to a BARCS press release.

“The cat’s leg was very limp, completely broken,” Darlene Harris of BARCS told WBAL-TV.

BARCS said the beating of Marilyn is the second animal abuse case to come to their attention so far this year.

In January, Mittens, who had recently given birth to a litter of kittens, was reportedly doused with lighter fluid while trapped in a milk crate and set on fire by teenagers. Both Mittens and her kittens were taken to BARCS, and the two juveniles were charged with animal cruelty.

Marilyn’s medical bills, like those of Mittens, are being paid for through BARCS’ Franky Fund, a fund that relies on donations from the public to pay the veterinary bills of injured animals that come to the shelter for care. 

Donations to the Franky Fund are accepted through the BARCS website at, or in person at the shelter, located at 301 Stockholm Street in South Baltimore (near M&T Bank Stadium).

Baltimore police said Monday that two 17-year-old boys have been charged with multiple accounts of animal cruelty in connection with using lighter fluid to set a cat named Mittens on fire in Baltimore’s Central Park Heights neighborhood.

The owner of the cat, who lives on the 3300 block of St. Ambrose Ave.,  told police that the animal had been set on fire by her grandson and a friend.

A witness told police that the suspects brought the cat onto a rear, second-floor deck three weeks ago and and put a milk crate on top of the pet. They then poured lighter fluid through the openings in the crate and dropped a book of lit matches into the crate, police said.

Police said the cat howled, knocked the milk crate over and leapt from the balcony, running in circles until the flames went out.

Mittens recently had three kittens, and continues to nurse them in her new surroundings — at Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS), where she is expected to survive her injuries.

Mittens’ ears were damaged as a result of the burns. She also sustained third- and fourth-degree burns on her back and side, according to BARCS.

Travers and Tremayne Johnson, the 17-year-old twin brothers accused of fatally burning a pit bull, have been arrested and are being held without bail after police said they found guns and marijuana inside their Southwest Baltimore rowhouse.

This time, the twins were charged as adults.

The twins, who were charged as juveniles in the animal cruelty case, face new charges of possession of firearms, marijuana and drug paraphernalia, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Baltimore police announced the arrest of the youths June 8 in connection with the case of Phoenix, a pit bull who had been doused with gasoline and set on fire. The dog, burned over 95 percent of her body, died several days later. The case led to calls for stiffer penalties in animal cruelty cases, and $26,000 was donated to a reward fund.

In that case, the brothers were released to the custody of their father.

According to the Sun, court document show police raided the house on June 16 and filed adult charges against the twins two days later. Authorities did not confirm the arrests until Thursday.

Newly filed court documents say that detectives have a witness “who positively identified both Travers Johnson and Tremayne Johnson as the individuals who were running out of the alley with the burning dog.” The documents also state that the “incident was captured” on police surveillance video.

Police said they they found three guns – a loaded .38-caliber Taurus handgun inside a rubber boot, a 20-gauge shotgun and a Marlin Firearms .30-.30-caliber rifle in the later search of the twins’ home. Police said they found a digital scale with a small amount of marijuana.

An online petition drive is underway to save Snaps, the pit bull we wrote about yesterday. To sign it, go here.

Snaps was being abused by a group of teenagers in the town of SeaTac, Washington, including a member of the family who owns him, when a good samaritan interrupted them.

She, and another good samaritan, were both bitten by the dog, at the urging of the teens.

Charges are pending against the teenagers, who police said were abusing the pit bull to make him more violent.

Original reports said Snaps would be euthanized, but a spokesperson for King County told the B.Town Blog that a decision on the dog’s fate has not been reached.

Because the case is still under investigation, and the dog may be considered evidence, Snaps may spend more than the required 10-day quarantine period in the care of King County Animal Care & Control.

“The laws are such that when a dog causes such severe and multiple bites, it may be declared a “dangerous dog” and is subject to the local regulations regarding confinement, removal from the area, and/or possible euthanasia,” the spokesperson said. “At this point, we also do not know if the owners or the children of the owners spent time “training” the dog to attack or defend, so we would have to be careful and consider the safety of placing it with another family or organization.”

A 63-year-old Seattle woman stopped her car when she saw a group of teenagers repeatedly kicking a pit bull in the town of SeaTac. She asked the group — three boys and a girl — what the problem was.

The girl, 15, told her to mind her own business, then walked over to her car, opened the passenger door, pulled the woman out by her hair and started beating her.

As the woman tried to run away, one of the boys ran after her with the dog, which started biting the woman on the arm and legs.

A King County sheriff’s department official said the teenagers were abusing the dog, named Snaps, to make it violent, according to The Seattle Times.

Pretty disgusting. But wait there’s more. Another Seattle woman, 41, saw the attack and followed the group to a nearby park. There, the girl realized the group was being followed and began beating the second woman. The three boys then provoked the dog to bite the second woman on her head, face and arms while the girl assaulted her, the sheriff’s office said.

The second woman was hospitalized, but it’s not known if the first required treatment.

Police said the girl, whose family owns the pit bull, also received medical treatment, having injured her foot from repeatedly kicking the second victim, and being bitten by the dog as well.

The sheriff’s department said the girl, from Burien, will  likely face felony assault charges. The three boys, aged 11, 12 and 13, all from White Center, also could face criminal charges. All four were released to the custody of their parents. The girl’s mother also might face charges because the dog was unlicensed and was out in public without a muzzle, a violation of local animal-control regulations in the city of SeaTac.

The dog was seized by King County animal control and is expected to be euthanized.

(Photo: King County Sheriff’s Office)