ohmidog!

There’s a new taxi service for dogs in the nation’s capital.

Launched earlier this month, Rapid Paws will transport your pooch (or cat) wherever he or she needs to go — be it vet, groomer, day care, airport, or even to another state.

The on-demand limousine service for animals has a fleet of two climate controlled, high-roofed vans, and they’re even equipped with cams should you want to check in and take a look as your dog gets from here to there.

Customers can schedule a a door-to-door pickup and local delivery to anywhere in Washington and its burbs, and they can do that by phone, via the Rapid Paws website, or through a smartphone app.

While the service may sound over the top, owner Paul Ozner says it’s filling a need.

“It’s an excessive service for some, in terms of basic necessities. But some of the people in this area, they’re time-constrained, and they do have pets. So what are you going to do? You have to treat them right,” he told the Washington Post.

So far, he said, most clients are middle aged professionals too busy to take off work to run their pet to the vet, or disabled, ill or elderly pet owners seeking a little help.

Rapid Paws has teamed up with one real estate company to transport the dogs or cats of people who are relocating.

Ozner said he and his partners came up with the idea based on their experience with a company that delivered meals to schools and the elderly.

Fares typically run from $25 to $60, depending on the length of the trip.

The potentially deadly strain of the dog flu that has sickened thousands of dogs nationwide has made its way to North Carolina.

Two dogs in Asheville and one dog in Winston-Salem were confirmed to have the H3N2 virus at the end of last week, and state officials suspect more than 200 dogs in the state may also be infected.

The confirmed case in Winston-Salem is that of a 10-year-old German shepherd that belongs to Dr. Sandra McAvoy of Abri Veterinary Hospital, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

McAvoy believes Zalea might have gotten the virus from a dog she was fostering for the Forsyth County Humane Society.

The humane society closed its doors Thursday due to concerns about the virus and expects to remain closed for at least 10 days.

Most dogs recover from the sickness within two to three weeks, but secondary bacterial infections can develop and cause more severe illness and pneumonia.

Dog flu is not transmittable to humans, according to the Center for Disease Control. Humans can, however, spread it from an infected dog to an uninfected dog.

The symptoms include cough, runny nose and fever. Other signs can include lethargy, eye discharge, reduced appetite and low-grade fever, officials said.

The state is also testing samples from a cluster of dogs in Greensboro that are showing similar symptoms.

“All dogs are at risk because this is something new, they’ve never been exposed,” said McAvoy. “They don’t have any natural immunity to it. So it’s probably going to run a course and then down the road we’re going to have immune dogs, down the road we’re going to have vaccines so the dogs will be vaccinated and they won’t get it.”

As for Zalea, she’s recovering from pneumonia and McAvoy is hopeful she’ll to pull through.

Two percent of the dogs that have contracted the virus have died.

A state Agriculture Department website is tracking the cases, and features more information and resources for pet owners.

(Photo: Zalea, the German shepherd who was one of the first dogs in North Carolina to be diagnosed with the H3N2 virus; from 13NewsNow.com)

A Kentucky woman has admitted to police that she injured her dog repeatedly to feed her own addiction to painkillers.

Police arrested Heather Pereira, of Elizabethtown, during a visit to her veterinarian’s office and charged her with three counts of animal torture and obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. She was being held this week at the Hardin County Detention Center on a $5,000 bond.

It was the veterinarian’s office that contacted authorities after Pereira brought her dog in three times in three months for treatment of lacerations. Each time, Pereira asked for the powerful pain medication Tramadol for the dog, a golden retriever.

“Typically, as veterinarians, we see the best of people, people rescuing unwanted pets, people rescuing pets that have been hit on the street,” veterinarian Dr. Chad Bailey with Elizabethtown Animal Hospital said in an interview with WLKY. “Something like this is definitely uncharted territory,” Bailey said.

Pereira, 23, brought her dog to the hospital twice in October for treatment of mulitiple lacerations. On Dec. 4, the dog returned with more cuts and vets suspected, based on “the cleanliness of the cuts,” that they were inflicted with a razor, possibly intentionally.

Police were called and began an investigation, during which Pereira confessed she was injuring the dog to obtain pain medications.

“It was determined she was actually taking them and using those medications for herself instead of for the dog,” said Elizabethtown Police Sgt. Timothy Cleary.

At one point, police said, Pereira told vets she needed more painkillers for the dog because her child had flushed them down the toilet.

Pereira doesn’t have any children.

The dog has been removed from her home and placed in foster care. She’s going by a new name — Alice.

“She’s a great dog, wagging her tail, and, you know, I’m sure the dog has already forgiven, that’s just what dogs do. They love us unconditionally, and she’s a great dog and doing fine,” Bailey said.

Imagine being told by your vet that your dog had an incurable condition and had to be euthanized.

Imagine saying your goodbyes and agreeing to let the vet put the dog down, with the promise that he would bury him on his farm.

Now imagine learning — six months later — that your dog never died, and the vet was keeping him alive to use him for blood transfusions.

A veterinary clinic in Fort Worth is under investigation for just such a Frankenstein-like scenario, NBC 5 reports.

Fort Worth police, the city of Fort Worth and state officials are involved in an investigation that started when a client of the Camp Bowie Animal Clinic found out his “euthanized” dog, a 5-year-old Leonberger named Sid, was alive.

Alive and well, in fact — except for being kept in a cage around the clock, and apparently being periodically tapped for blood at the clinic.

Jamie and Marian Harris said they took their dog to the vet for a minor anal gland issue.

After getting treated, Sid had trouble walking.

They say the vet, Lou Tierce, told them their dog had a spinal condition that was only going to get worse, and recommended he be put down. The couple and the son agreed to let the clinic bury Sid on the vet’s farm.

Six months later, the Harrises received a call from a veterinary technician, Mary Brewer, who told them Sid was alive and being used for blood transfusions while being kept in a cage most of the day.

“I told her, ‘He’s still here,’ and she’s like, ‘Can he walk?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, he’s here waiting on you. If you came today, he’d walk out and jump in your car,'” Brewer told News 5.

“It was like getting punched in the stomach and then some,” said Marian Harris. “This has rocked our world. My kids are like, ‘How does somebody do this?’ How does this happen?”

The couple went to the clinic, found Sid and freed him.

State and local authorities went to the Camp Bowie Animal Clinic Tuesday and seized several animals as evidence.

Sid, now back home, is being treated by other veterinarians. They’ve found he has mange, and shows signs of being used for blood transfusions, as well as being “abusively kenneled,” according to the Harrises’ lawyer, Jim Eggleston.

Eggleston says allegations have surfaced that more dogs and cats — some with serious illnesses — were being kept alive for blood transfusions and other experimental treatments, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“You have a vet keeping dogs under false pretenses,” he said. “You have family pets that people thought were cremated or put down peacefully that may still be alive.”

Tierce has not been responding to media requests for his side of the story.

When the Harrises drove to the clinic to pick up their dog, they found Sid in a cage behind the building. Tierce came outside, according to their complaint, and explained that he had not euthanized Sid because some of his employees had threatened to quit if he did.

An investigator from the Texas State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners met with Fort Worth police and the Tarrant County District Attorney yesterday to discuss whether criminal animal abuse charges will be filed.

A disabled Army veteran whose service dog went missing after a car accident will soon be reunited with her.

“I am totally ecstatic … If I had two legs, I’d do a back flip!” 7-year Army veteran Luke Macner, of Tampa, said upon learning Nina, his German shepherd-Rottweiler mix had been found.

Macner broke his collar bone in the car accident, but in interviews afterwards he was more worried about what happened to Nina, his constant companion since he lost his leg.

“I’m lost without the dog. I really am,” he told WTSP at the time.

“Please, let somebody find you and please bring you back to me,” he pleaded.

After the accident, the dog was found wandering in South Tampa by Amy Abdnour.

While she was playing with the dog another woman, who had seen news reports about the missing dog, approached Abdnour.

“A lady said, ‘Do you know this dog has been on the news?'” Abdnour said.

After a call to the Humane Society, she got in touch with Macner.

Macner plans to reclaim the dog when he gets released from the hospital.

A New York tattoo artist known as Mistah Metro posted a photo of his dog’s new tattoo on his Instagram page, and bragged that having the decoration makes his dog “cooler than yours.”

Mistah Metro wrote in the post that his veterinarian allowed him to administer the tattoo — a heart with an arrow through and the names Alex and Mel — while the dog was under anesthesia to have her spleen removed.

We don’t think that makes his dog cool. We think it makes his dog a victim of animal abuse, his veterinarian an accomplice, and Mistah Metro — if he wasn’t one already — a moron.

Mistah Metro, shown at left in a reflective moment, works at Red Legged Devil in Prospect Heights, but the owner of the tattoo shop, Chris Torres, wrote in an online post that neither he nor his shop had anything to do with the canine inking, and that it was not done on the premises, according to Gothamist.

Critics have blasted the inking online, while others have come to the tattoo artist’s defense.

The ASPCA is against tattooing dogs, even though it puts small tattoos on dogs it has spayed or neutered, under the thinking that it can prevent unnecessary surgeries for altered dogs.

In a statement, the ASPCA said, “Tattooing an animal for the vain sake of joy and entertainment of the owner — without any regard for the well-being of the animal — is not at all comparable to the incident in question and is not something the ASPCA supports.”

 (Photos: Mistah Metro’s tattooed dog / Instagram; Mistah Metro / Afropunk.com)

That Florida veterinary technician videotaped holding a dog by its neck and slamming it against the wall has been fired.

And the footage apparently is finally being reviewed by the state attorney’s office.

The video was recorded on a cellphone, and it was posted on YouTube just over a month ago.

Mohammad Hassan, the veterinarian who heads Emergency Pet Hospital in Orlando, originally defended the employee, but he recently apologized for her actions on on the hospital’s Facebook page.

“I want to apologize to all of the pet owners and animal lovers who were rightly shocked by the cruelty on the video,” he wrote in the post.

Hassan also says the vet tech, Stefanie Stasse, has been fired.

Meanwhile, WFTV in Orlando reports that the state attorney’s office has received a copy of the video from the Orange County sheriff’s office for review.