ohmidog!

Champ, a four-year-old German Shepherd mix, was shot five times while protecting his family’s home in south Los Angeles.

Despite that, his owners no longer want him.

On Feb. 27th, Champ was shot by an intruder, leaving the dog with a broken jaw bone, nerve problems, a bullet entry under his eye, and wounds covering his neck, shoulder, and abdomen, KTLA reported.

Champ was kept as evidence while the intrusion case was pending, and was scheduled to be euthanized because his owners declined to get him the costly medical care he needed.

That’s when Coastal German Shepherd Rescue stepped in. The rescue group picked Champ up Friday and transported him to their veterinarian team at Alicia Pet Care Center, where his medical needs are being further assessed, said Tiffany Norton.

Veterinarians say he will likely not suffer any long term medical problems from the shooting.

Norton says that Champ’s medical bills are adding up and her organization is asking for help to save pay them. Coastal German Shepherd Rescue is also looking for someone to adopt Champ after he recovers.

“It’s gonna be a really special person who’s gonna bring him into their home,” Norton said. “Really right now, we’re looking for someone with a big heart who wants to support Champ.”

To foster, adopt, or donate to Champ’s medical fund, visit the Coastal German Shepherd Rescue’s website.

 
It’s amazing, when you think about it, how much one little dog can shake up the whole world.

We see it over and over again: with Buddy, the dog dragged through Colorado National Monument;  Pepper, the dog thrown off a bridge in Lithuania, Baxter, the paralyzed therapy dog, Baltic, the dog rescued from an ice floe in the Baltic Sea.

All are dogs that — through the deeds they’ve done, the abuse they’ve suffered or the dilemmas they’re in — have captured the public imagination, big time, with an assist from the news media, bloggers, and social networks like Facebook.

It’s a mostly wonderful thing when a dog rises from plain old pooch to international headline.

Most recently, there was Spork, a dachshund leading a quiet life in Lafayette, Colo., until he bit the face of a veterinary technician during a dental appointment.

Spork, because the vet tech and the city decided to pursue the case, appeared headed toward classification as a “vicious dog” — a label his owners feared could have meant a death sentence, kennel confinement or wearing a muzzle the rest of his life.

As Spork’s owners, Tim and Kelly Walker, fought back, the 10-year-old dachshund drew national media coverage. A Facebook page created on his behalf drew 23,759 fans. A “Save Spork!” YouTube video began circulating. Bloggers freely opined, most concluding that the vet tech mishandled Spork’s visit.

On Friday, Spork got a reprieve.

A Lafayette Municipal Court judge granted the dog a 6-month deferred prosecution. If Spork stays out of trouble, all charges will be dropped, ABC7 News reported.

It was the sort of the story that brought out the best in dog lovers, and sometimes the worst.

Since the Aug. 14 incident at Jasper Animal Hospital in Lafayette, the vet clinic and Lafayette city council members received death threats, and veterinary technician Allyson Stone, who had to undergo plastic surgery, has been roundly derided in Internet forums — so much so that, between the critics and her new-found fears, she’s opted to pursue a different profession.

In court Friday, testimony revealed veterinary technician Stone lost inch-wide chunks from her upper and lower lips. Stone told police Spork lunged without warning as she was taking the dog from Kelly Walker for a routine dental cleaning.

Stone said she had used scissors to trim excess plastic from an identification collar she’d placed around the dog’s neck. But she had put the scissors down when she reached for the dog.

Here are excerpts from an interview Stone had with the Boulder Daily Camera after the ruling :

No matter what you think of those remarks, that Spork has been the recipient of so much more human compassion than the human he bit is a little disturbing — at least to me. We all like a distinct hero and a clear cut villain, but real life’s not always that black and white.  The bigger question,  in this particular case, than whose side you are on is, Why must one take a side in the first place?

Word came this week that Batman, the dog whose brain tumor was being successfully treated with an experimental gene therapy at the University of Minnesota, has died of pneumonia.

“I wanted to let you know that sadly we lost Batman a few weeks ago,” his owner, Anna Brailovsky, wrote ohmidog! in an email. “The very good news is that it was not to brain cancer, so we can still consider him to be a great success story.”

Brailovsky and her husband Eric Baker found Batman him on the streets of Berlin as graduate students in 1999. He returned with the couple to the United States in 2001, and was happy and healthy until he had a series of seizures in 2008.

A tumor was diagnosed and Batman ended up at the University of Minnesota, where Dr. Elizabeth Pluhar, a veterinary surgery professor, and John Ohlfest, a pediatrics professor, had been considering an experimental brain tumor treatment for about three years.

Batman underwent the procedure — which, though it had been tried on mice, had never used on a dog before. Surgeons removed most of Batman’s tumor, much of which was then used to make a vaccine for the dog.  A year later the tumor was gone.

The experimental treatment could someday help people with the same disease.

“The study now has many more dogs in various stages of treatment and recovery, and they are steadily moving toward developing the protocol for human trials,” Brailovsky said.

To keep Batman’s memory, she and her family created a website that tells his story and features a university-made video on his treatment:

“Every dog is special to his family, but we were extremely fortunate that Batman’s life also had an impact on the lives of many others,” the website says.

“In the 18 months following the surgery and vaccine protocol, Batman was almost entirely back to his normal,  self, and we cherished every extra trip to the park and every extra cuddle on the couch that the experimental treatment had granted us. It was a miraculous gift.

“Unfortunately, curing the brain tumor did not get rid of the seizures originally caused by the tumor growth. With his indefatiguable spirit, Batman repeatedly recovered from the aftermath of a half-dozen serious grand mal episodes that left him temporarily blind and weakened for hours, sometimes days, at a time. He always bounced back as strong and healthy as ever, and we are deeply saddened that our miraculous survivor has finally ran out of second chances.

“On Wednesday, January 13, 2010 Batman suffered a prolonged series of seizures (and likely a stroke) that left him with severe muscle damage and immobolized him for several days. A fighter to the last, he was beginning to regain his strength and appetite when he was suddenly overcome by rapidly progressing pneumonia on the morning of January 18…

“It was a heartbreaking decision, but we had to let him go. He died in his favorite place on the couch.”

Starting in fall 2010, the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University will no longer use dogs and other healthy, live animals to teach surgical skills.

The college in East Lansing will no longer require “terminal surgery labs” in which animals are killed after being used to practice surgical techniques.

Instead of the controversial labs, the college will use more humane teaching methods, including sophisticated models and animal cadavers — a change that has been initiated at more than half of the 28 other veterinary medical schools in the U.S.

 “We are ecstatic that MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine has made this compassionate change to their curriculum and we hope to work with them in the future to make additional advances such as an ethically sourced cadaver program,” said Mitch Goldsmith, President of MSU Students Promoting Animal Rights (SPAR).

Laura Ducceschi, Director of Animalearn, a national program that provides resources for humane science education, commended MSU for “taking this positive step towards joining the many other prestigious veterinary institutions that have ended terminal surgery labs and replaced them with humane alternatives and shelter medicine programs that benefit students and animals.”

Animalearn, the educational division of the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS), works with educators, students and others to achieve quality humane science education without harmful use of animals.

Both SPAR and Animalearn advocated to end animal use at MSU following revelations of the extent of the university’s use of dogs in Animalearn’s 2009 report, Dying to Learn: Exposing the Supply and Use of Dogs and Cats in Higher Education.

A Florida man who used glue and dental floss to perform surgery on a dog that was injured while under his care has seen the animal cruelty charges filed against him dropped.

Although the dog died, the Broward State Attorney’s Office said it reviewed the case and determined there wasn’t enough evidence to convict William Ralph Jones Jr., of Oakland Park, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Jones, 55, was arrested in January on two counts of felony animal cruelty. He was accused of using glue to seal a 3-inch cut that the dog suffered when she escaped from Jones’ yard. When that didn’t work, he allegedly stitched up the dog with dental floss and used chloroform to knock her unconscious, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.

Jones’ acts caused Zoe — a 2-year-old hound-retriever mix who was left in Jones’ care by his daughter’s friend — to suffer excessive and unnecessary pain, the sheriff’s office said.

Upon reviewing the case, the State Attorney’s Office issued a memo stating that Jones “executed extremely poor judgment, but did not intend to hurt the animal.

“I’m just in shock that they’re allowing him to get away with this,” Danielle Vecchio, Zoe’s owner, told the Sentinel Tuesday. “They’re basically saying that he can’t be charged for stupidity.”

The attorney general’s office said, “The fact that he did this while she had an injury is evidence to the fact that he was trying to help the dog — albeit in a painful manner.”

Spork is a 10-year-old, 17-pound dachshund who, after biting a veterinary technician during oral surgery, has been labeled vicious and faces the possibility of being euthanized.

That possibility is being opposed by thousands of Facebook friends, as well as Spork’s owners, who refuse to accept their dog is vicious.

“Every night I tuck him into bed. If he doesn’t have a blanket on him, he starts crying, I have to get up and make sure he’s covered,” Kelly Walker, Spork’s owner says.

She and her husband Tim are charged with having a vicious dog, after taking their dog to the Jasper Animal Hospital in Lafayette, Colo., for dental surgery. “I was holding him and he bit her on the chin,” Kelly Walker says. She  says the vet tech got too close to Spork’s face with some scissors, which scared him.

According to the Boulder Daily Camera, the technician lost pieces of her lips and was treated at Boulder Community Hospital.

The veterinary clinic notified animal control about the bite.

Colorado law excludes those who work with animals in veterinarian offices from pressing charges in animal bite cases. But Lafayette’s local laws, which take precedence, include a vicious animal law that doesn’t have a similar exclusion.

Jennifer Edwards, the lawyer representing the Walkers, said the charges should be dismissed: “The case should have never happened,” she said. “Bites are just an assumed risk of a veterinary technician. It’s the name of the game.”

Thousands of people are rallying around Spork and a  “Save Spork” Facebook page has drawn more than 8,000 members, many urging people to boycott the Jasper Animal Hospital or the city itself.

The Walkers say they’ll do anything to make sure their dog isn’t euthanized, including spending their life savings or moving out of town.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

You can’t blame Hal Ziegler for trying — what was good enough for his golden doodle, he figured, would be good enough for him.

Facing exorbitant increases in his health insurance payments, Zeigler, a self-employed consultant, called up the pet insurance company that covers his dog Charlie — for $37 a month — and asked if he could get a policy for himself.

“They laughed,” Ziegler, 47, of Mission Viejo., told the Orange County Register. “I knew what the answer would be but in reality I wasn’t joking.”

Ziegler noted that his dog, Charlie, has seen his claims paid promptly and without dispute by Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) , including those for vaccinations and a trip to the veterinary emergency room.

Ziegler’s dealings with Anthem Blue Cross haven’t been nearly as simple and swift, and the price of his coverage keeps going up — a 34 percent jump this year alone.

And even then, it sounds like he lacks coverage for a major medical event. “One one of our greatest fears is to be in a catastrophic medical emergency,” he said.

Being without health insurance myself I can relate to the problem faced by Ziegler and so many others who have been priced out of the health market. So I’ll share my secret plan, if a major medical problem comes my way: I’m going to go to the vet, get him to give me a bacon-flavored treat, scratch me behind the ears and gently put me down.

Once again, America’s spending on pets has grown despite the recession, with a 5.4 percent increase in 2009, according to the American Pet Products Association.

The APPA’s annual comprehensive review shows spending on animals, food, supplies, veterinary care, groming, boarding and pet sitting jumped to $45.5 billion in American in 2009, up from $43.2 billion in 2008.

The association projected another increase — of  nearly 5 percent – in 2010.

While growth came in all categories, health-care spending showed the biggest increase, with an 8.5 rise in spending on veterinary care — a result of medical advances leading to a greater range of services available.

“From CAT scans, root canals and cancer surgery to antibiotics, anti-depressants and even grief counseling, pet owners have more medical choices and spending options than ever before. This leads to an anticipated growth of another 6% in this category for 2010,” the APPA said.

As services available for pets continue to become more parallel to those for humans, the gap in the quality of life between humans and their pets is quickly disappearing, said APPA President Bob Vetere.

“We feel our pets give us so much it is no longer enough to simply give them a treat. We want to keep our pets healthier, longer, and are willing to spend what it takes to make it happen,” he said.

Service-based businesses like dog walkers, pooper-scoopers, trainers and even massage-therapists are booming, and day care, pet walking and pet sitting continue to be in high demand — parly a result of pet owners working longer hours.

The American Pet Products Association (APPA) is a not-for-profit trade association serving the interests of the pet products industry since 1958. Its mission is to promote, develop and advance pet ownership and the pet product industry.

What do some Westminster show dogs have in common with some drug dealers’ attack dogs?

They’ve been debarked.

The surgical procedure, which critics label outdated and inhumane, has been around for decades, but continues to fall out of favor, especially among younger veterinarians and animal-rights advocates, the New York Times reported this week.

There are no reliable figures on how many dogs have had their vocal cords cut, but veterinarians and other animal experts say that dogs with no bark can  be found in private homes, on the show-dog circuit, and even on the turf of drug dealers, who are said to prefer their attack dogs silent.

David Frei, the longtime co-host of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, acknowledged that some show dogs have  the operation. “There is no question we have some debarked dogs among our entries,” he said.

Many veterinarians refuse to do the surgery on ethical grounds, and some states have banned it, except for therapeutic reasons, including New Jersey. Similar legislation is pending in Massachusetts.

In the surgery, vets anesthetize the dog before cutting its vocal cords, either through the mouth or through an incision in the larynx. Dogs generally recover quickly, veterinarians say, and while they usually can still make sounds, their barks become muffled and raspy.

But Dr. Gary W. Ellison, of the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida, said the procedure can lead to complications, such as excess scar tissue building up in the throat of dogs, making it difficult to breathe.

Ellison said the procedure is no longer taught at the University of Florida’s veterinary school.

Banfield, the Pet Hospital, with more than 750 veterinary practices across the country, formally banned the surgery last summer.

“Debarking is not a medically necessary procedure,” said Jeffrey S. Klausner, the hospital’s senior vice president and chief medical officer. “We think it’s not humane to the dogs to put them through the surgery and the pain. We just do not think that it should be performed.”

The American Veterinary Medical Association recommends that the surgery only be done “after behavioral modification efforts to correct excessive vocalization have failed.”

Baltimore County Police yesterday announced the arrest of three people they say were involved in a dogfighting ring in North Point.

The charges stemmed from a November investigation into an assault, during which officers were made aware of rival drug groups in the 7500-block of Lange Street.

The two rival groups had been responsible for disorder in the neighborhood for months, police said.

After an investigation, detectives served two search warrants and dicovered three aggressive pit bulls and dogfighting paraphernalia that included weights, chains, veterinary syringes and medicines, steroids, collars and a treadmill.

Police charged three suspects in the case with possession of marijuana and cruelty to animals – Nicole Marie Caruso, 26; Romy Bolgier, 28; and Michael Ecker, 25. All were listed as living on the 7500-block of Lange Street.

(Photo: Baltmore County Police Department)