ohmidog!

For years, a husky mix named Annie quietly watched the world go by, lying beneath a tree in front of an apartment complex in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood of Los Angeles.

A neighborhood fixture, she seemed perfectly content to observe and greet as dog walkers, strollers and anyone else went by — and the neighborhood found her a reassuring presence as well.

When Annie died over the weekend — of anaphylactic shock, caused by a bee sting — neighbors started coming together in a vigil not unlike the one she kept.

It started with a few notes tacked to the tree and grew into a full blown memorial, complete with candles, flowers and sympathy cards.

Since her death Saturday, some visitors to Annie’s shady spot at corner of 4th Street and Cochran Avenue have stood there and cried, said her owner, Jack Zurla, who rescued Annie 12 years ago after finding her foraging for food near the corner of Washington Boulevard and La Brea Avenue.

“I’ll remember Annie as a dog that was more human than dog,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “She had the capacity to understand people. She was a dog of compassion for everybody. She gave people comfort.”

“Annie was a staple in a lot of lives around here,” he added. “Annie was always ready to give someone some love.”

Other residents echoed those thoughts.

“She never ran off, never barked at anyone,” said actor Brian Savage, who lives nearby. “She was just a pillar of the neighborhood.”

“Annie was really a touchstone for all of us,” said Michael Moravek, also an actor. “It was nice to have her here. We might not know each other but we all knew Annie.”

“She was our neighborhood guardian. Even now, Annie is bringing us together,” he noted as he placed a snapshot he had taken of her on the shrine Tuesday.

Also leaving a hand-printed note was six-year-old Roman DiGiulio. With his mother at his side, he placed the note, written on a large red heart, on the tree. It read: “Have a good life in heaven, sweet doggie.”

(Photo: Jack Zurla stands in front of an impromptu memorial to his dog Annie; by Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

It’s not the first place you might look for a missing dachshund, but 12 feet up a tree is where his owner found him Monday.

Owner Mimi Austin and her friends had spent hours searching for Cappy, a long-haired rescued dachshund who disappeared from her South Carolina home about 6 p.m.

It was after midnight when Austin, along with her neighbor, Kim Bonturi, and Bonturi’s golden retriever, heard barking while searching nearby Beaufort National Cemetery.

The barking stopped when they approached a big oak tree, surrounded by brush, which they began searching through.

But they didn’t find the dog until they decided to look in a new direction — up.

Seeing the dog on a limb, Bonturi returned home and came back with an eight-foot ladder, but it wasn’t quite tall  enough to reach the dog.

Police arrived, and eventually firefighters, with a bigger ladder.

“They got there, and this was a little dachshund. In a tree. Just sitting up there on a branch,” Beaufort/Port Royal Fire Department spokesman John Robinson told the Beaufort Gazette. “So Ross Vezin got a ladder and leaned it up the tree, and the dog started licking him in the face and came on down.”

Bonturi, who works with Chain Free Beaufort, a nonprofit dedicated to helping animals, said Cappy appeared fine.

“She was just happy to be in her mom’s arms,” she said.

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A German shepherd chased a mountain lion up a tree Tuesday morning in Los Altos.

Cody, an 85-pound shepherd, was smaller, but apparently more fearless than the 110-pound cat, which sought refuge 30 feet up an oak tree at an upscale home in Los Altos.

That’s where was the California Department of Fish and Game found him, and decided to leave him alone, according to NBC. The mountain lion eventually came down the tree and left the area.

While there’s much to scoff at when it comes to the industry that has blossomed around bidding farewell to our dead pets — especially those that promise life after death — I’m not quite ready to scoff at this idea.

In fact, I may even like the concept of turning your deceased dog into a tree.

But just so you can be sure I’m not shilling for the company behind this product, I would point out that you could probably do the same thing with your dog’s ashes without a special, fertilizer filled, biodegradable, $90 “Geos” urn.

The Geos urn — one of four offered by a company called Limbo Zoo — is designed to hold a pet’s ashes and serve as the medium in which a seedling (you supply it) can grow into a tree.

“The nutrients that conform this handcrafted earth-made urn combine with those of the fertile ashes to form a beautiful tree,” says the website.

The company also offers the “Nu” urn, which is made of sea salt and designed for burials at sea, and the “Samsara” urn, made of fine sand and designed for burials in fresh water, like a lake or river.

The urns are advertised as an environmentally responsible alternative and billed as both “durable,” and “biodegradable.” They’re designed to stay intact for a while, and then disintegrate over time.

The company is headquartered in Spain, and the urns are made there, but they have a U.S. distributor in Texas.

The Geos urns are made from a hardened organic compost and mineral soil bound with natural plant extracts. None of the urns include any animal products.

What is it about police agencies and the press in, shall we say, non-urban areas, that prevents them from seeing dog abuse when it seems to be staring them in the face?

The Muskegon Chronicle reports that deputies are “not sure abuse was involved” in injuries suffered by a dog found Monday afternoon … HANGING FROM A HOOK ON A TREE.

Pardon my caps. This reminds me of our recent report about a pit bull in Missouri who was dragged behind a car, tied to a pole and set on fire before being found dead, in a case the local TV station called “alleged animal abuse.”

In the new case,  a young male Sheltie-Pomeranian mix is expected to recover from the injury left by the large hook that protruded from the roof of his mouth.

Muskegon County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Herremans said the incident is being investigated and that while abuse has not been ruled out, it also is possible the dog was victimized by an illegal coyote trap.

Rescuers, however,  told WOOD TV-8 the animal was abused, and a local veterinarian who treated the dog concurred.

(It’s also interesting to note how, while the police and reporter call the male dog an “it,” the veterinarian refers to him as a he. Is there a connection, you think, between people who call a dog, even when the gender is known, an “it,” and how seriously they take animal abuse?)

Herremans said deputies are seeking the dog’s owner, who lives across the street from the wooded spot where the animal was found. He theorized it was possible the dog got caught in “some type of coyote trap.”

However, an official at Pound Buddies, a non-profit group that operates the county animal shelter, told WOOD TV-8 that the hook was too high for the small dog to reach by himself.

Residents in the neighborhood said the dog was normally kept tied up.

A puppy was found tied to a tree in Greensboro yesterday, with third-degree burns over 30 percent of his body.

The dog was picked up after an anonymous call to animal control.

He’s now in the care of the Guilford County Animal Shelter.

Executive Director Marsha Williams told Fox News that the hound mix was found at a small apartment complex off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

Chemical and powder residue were found on the three-month-old dog, samples of which were sent to Greensboro police, Williams said.

The dog may have been burned a week or two ago, Williams said.

Other than the burns, the dog, who has been named Hoyt, looked healthy and had no broken bones, Williams said.

Shelter veterinarians have performed skin grafts, wrapped the dog in burn bandages, and given him pain medicine and antibiotics, she said.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Williams said. “He’s a real sweet dog.”

News 14 reported that the puppy’s caretaker, Anthony Jones, said he had found the dog and was caring for it when one day the dog became disoriented. He said the burns couldhave resulted from a pet shampoo he used on the dog.

Jones said he called animal control to have them come get the dog, but didn’t tell them he was the pet’s owner because he didn’t want to be responsible for paying for its medical care.

Hoyt’s case is the first of its kind this year. Last year, a Pomeranian mix named Bailey was found burned, the third such case in a 13-month period.

Hoyt is being treated with money donated to Susie’s Fund, which was created in 2009 after the dog the fund is named after was badly burned. Her case led to the legislature approving stricter penalties for animal abuse cases.

The shelter is hosting a “Bark & Wine” fundraiser from 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday at Dog-Gone Fun at 203 Berry Garden Road in Kernersville. Tickets cost $20, and all proceeds go to Susie’s Fund.

A Tennessee family returned home to find their 10-month-old Siberian husy hanging from a tree last week.

The dog, named Allison, who they left on a 50-foot chain, was found by Juanita Phariss’s 18-year-old daughter, Emily, at their home in Smyrna.

The dog’s chain was wrapped around a tree five times, and she’d apparently been hoisted up, with the chain being attached to the fence, the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro reported.

 ”I untied her collar to get her down before my younger kids could see her,” said Phariss, wo’s 14-year-old daughter, Amanda, has cystic fibrosis.

“It’s been really hard on her, especially,” Phariss said. “She doesn’t even want anybody mentioning Allison’s name. She made a cross for her grave out back.”

Phariss said the chain disappeared from her yard between the time she called the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office and deputies arrived.

Anyone with information in the case are urged to call the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office at 615-898-7770.

A Phoenix area animal advocate plans to tie herself to a tree Saturday in hopes of raising money to provide her shelter with air conditioned dog houses.

Erica Wellman, a caregiver with Friends for Life Animal Rescue in Gilbert, hopes the demonstration will bring awareness to the plight of dogs left tied up outside in Arizona’s heat.

Temperatures this week in Arizona are expected to reach 116, according to the Arizona Republic.

The non-profit, all-volunteer, no-kill shelter currently holds 21 dogs, but it is forced to rescue fewer in the summer because of space limitations. With air-conditioned dog houses, it would be able to keep dogs outside, and have room for more.

The group recently purchased three air-conditioned doghouses from a company in Alabama at a cost of $5,800.

The non-profit group hopes the “Erica Unchained” fundraiser, starting at 8 a.m., will raise at least a $1,000.

“I can feel what it is to be a dog for a day and see how hard it is for them to handle it,” Wellman said.

Wellman will be tied to a tree with a short leash attached to her waist. A thermostat board will keep track of donations as they come in. Wellman will allow herself to take a water and potty break with every $200 donated.

“I’m hoping to get the money fast so I can come inside,” she said.

Hope, a mixed-breed dog that seemed to be on the road to recovery after being nearly decapitated in Georgia earlier this month when her owner left her tied to a tree, has died.

She was euthanized Tuesday after encountering breathing complications.

“The good thing is she got to know that people could be nice to her, because she got a lot of love when she was in the hospital,” Pat Corley, president of Forsyth’s Save-A-Pet organization, said Wednesday.

Hope had been at Caldwell Animal Hospital since July 7, when one of the rescue organization’s members spotted her at the pound in Monroe County, a huge gash running the length of her throat.

Although Save-A-Pet planned to cover all of Hope’s medical expenses, donations were coming in from as far away as Australia, and one Forsyth attorney wrote a check for about $1,500 to cover Hope’s expenses, the Macon Telegraph reported.

Shane Smith, the Save-A-Pet volunteer who took Hope to the hospital, was checking on her everyday, and he and his wife planned to adopt her once she recovered.

“She was sweet. She did fight. We just wanted her to have a chance,” Janet Smith said. “She just made such a great effect on so many people in such a short period of time.”

(Caution: Unsettling images appear with the continuation of this story.)

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That decomposed animal body found hanging in a tree in Philadelphia was not a dog after all, but a raccoon — and it was likely abused after death.

But investigators are still treating it as a cruelty case, given the circumstances — the animal had a stick shoved down its throat and was found dangling from a tree last week in Philadelphia’s Bridesburg section.

The Pennsylvania SPCA initially thought the animal, which had decomposed after at least two days in the heat — was a dog.

“While the circumstances of the animal’s final disposition were very disturbing, there are currently no laws regarding the treatment of animal remains if they are already deceased,”  PSPCA spokeswoman Wendy A. Marano told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “However, the Pennsylvania SPCA is continuing to investigate to determine whether the animal’s death was a result of cruelty.”