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Here’s a wonderful report by Steve Hartman of CBS News about Tarra, an elephant, and Bella, a dog, and the amazing bond that has developed between them at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn.

Sanctuary co-founder Carol Buckley says it’s common for elephants arriving at the sanctuary to pick another elephant to hang out with. But in this case Tarra picked Bella, or vice versa.

Buckley spent more than 20 years performing with her elephant, Tarra, in zoos and circuses before deciding the animals deserved a different life and oepning the sanctuary. Bella is one of about a dozen stray dogs they’ve taken in.

For years, Tarra and Bella have played together and eaten together, and when Bella suffered a spinal cord injury a few months ago (the piece doesn’t explain how, but hopefully Tarra wasn’t involved), Tarra — despite having 2,700 acres to roam, stood vigil outside the sanctuary office, where Bella was recuperating.

Bella’s better now, and she and Tarra remain inseparable, Hartman reports.

Skateboarding bulldogs Tyson and Tillman, as we suspected back in November, turned out to be a huge hit at the Tournament of Roses Parade.

As Maria Menounos reported for MSNBC, the dogs trained for months, on a track built on a moving truck, in preparation for the parade. For two and a half hours, they circled the track that was part of the Natural Balance float in the New Year’s Day parade.

Prince Edward was caught on video raising has stick at his dogs during a pheasant shoot, and now he’s taking some heat from animal welfare groups.

The video shows him walking up to two black Labradors with his shotgun tucked under his arm and his four-foot long stick raised in the air. He then brought down the stick – a shepherd’s crook – in the direction of one of the dogs, but it is not known if he made contact.

He is then seen chasing one of the dogs and taking another swing in its direction.

The Labradors were trying to grab hold of the same dead bird on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, the Telegraph reports.

Buckingham Palace said that Prince Edward, 44, the Earl of Wessex, had stepped in when two gun dogs were fighting over a pheasant in an attempt to separate them.  “I don’t know if he physically struck them,” a spokeswoman said. “But both dogs are fine – no harm was done to them.”

Andrew Tyler, the director of Animal Aid, said: “We can’t be certain that Edward’s stick did make contact with the dog although he certainly appears to have acted impulsively without restraint. But we can’t expect etiquette and high manners in the context of a sport that is about killing animals for pleasure.”

Darn, this would have made a good Christmas present.

The saga of my dog Ace, though already told, may be in for some revision.

My Baltimore Sun series on Ace’s roots — which traced everything from how he ended up in the city animal shelter to the breeds that, according to a DNA test, were in him — originally appeared last year. (You can find the video version of “Hey, Mister, What Kind of Dog is That?” on our dog-umentaries page.)

Now, with advances in technology, were going to reexamine Ace’s earliest chapters. The simple cheek swab DNA test we gave him in connection with the earlier project, which checked for 38 breeds, showed only two — Chow and Rottweiler.

Now, we’re going to try the new and more sophisticated blood test, from Mars Veterinary — the Mars Wisdom Panel MX Mixed Breed Analysis – which can determine the presence of 157 breeds.

As a result, we may find out that there is more to Ace — breed-wise — than we originally thought, perhaps we’ll even find out what accounts for his size, which, height-wise, exceeds that of both of the breeds found in him.

Mastiff, horse and minivan were among the guesses last time around, in addition to the more common ones — Akita (which would explain his curly tail), shepherd and Great Dane (which would explain his size). As it turned out most people were wrong, at least according to the Canine Heritage Test.

This time around, we’re going to ask for guesses as well. Those who can name each and every breed — in the form of a comment on this entry – will win a free ohmidog! hooded sweatshirt.

In addition, we’re checking the DNA of our contest winner, Elliott. To guess his breeds, go here.

The process starts this weekend when the blood of Ace and Elliott will be drawn by Dr. Johnny Slaughter, mobile veterinarian, and we’ll give you updates along the way. When the results are in, we’ll all get together — likely at a bar — to hear the results.

Meantime, guess away. Here’s some info on Ace: He’s 121 pounds (having recently dropped a few), is about as tall as me (5′ 9″) when he stands on his hind legs. HIs tail makes a complete loop — at least when he’s happy. He works, off an on, as a therapy dog, loves all humans, and almost all dogs. He’s an Aries (we think) and likes long walks on the beach, watching birds and curling up with a good book, as long as somebody else is reading it.

The White House has produced its final holiday video (I’m hoping this isn’t our tax dollars at work) featuring the president’s dog, Barney.

In this year’s “Barney Cam” Christmas greeting, the first family’s Scottish terrier scampers amid the White House’s red, white and blue holiday decorations before retiring for a nap and imagining himself as an athlete.

The Barney Cam was introduced in the 2002 holiday season, and got 24 million Web visitors on its first day, according to the Associated Press.

Since then, Barney’s holiday videos have featured former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush adviser Karl Rove, country singers Dolly Parton and Alan Jackson and other stars. Olympic gold medalists Michael Phelps and Nastia Liukin guest star in the final holiday doggie video from the White House.

Barney is shown in cutout animation as an Olympic vaulter, swimmer and synchronized diver with fellow terrier Miss Beazley, both in red swimsuits.

He also dreams of sinking the final putt to secure the Ryder Cup, with the entire U.S. Ryder Cup team chanting “Barney, Barney, Barney!”

The Barney Cam spot introduced Monday starts with President George W. Bush, his wife, Laura, and their daughters, Jenna and Barbara, reminiscing about their times together in the White House, then sending Barney off to decorate and nap.

Say what you will about our soon to depart from office president, the man has got pretty good reaction time, and was far cooler under pressure than I would have expected — considering the shoes hurled at his head today in Baghdad by an Iraqi journalist appear to miss their mark by only inches.

He was calm, if not overly articulate in the immediate aftermath, and even came up with a witty remark a little later. “I’m OK,” he said. “All I can report is it is a size 10.”

“This is your farewell kiss, you dog!” the shoe hurler shouted in Arabic as he threw his shoes, according to the Associated Press.

I admit I’ve tormented my dozing dog with my own version of the paw tickle — ever so lightly touching his pads to make them jerk and quiver, until he finally wakes up to see what’s going on.

It’s not only a rebellious act, running counter as it does to the conventional wisdom about what we’re supposed to do with sleeping dogs — but it’s also one of those mindless wastes of time that are so important in life

The only thing that might be even more mind-numbing than paw tickling is watching someone else do it, for three minutes and 22 seconds, on a Youtube video.

Enjoy!

Officials in Santiago, Chile say they have lost hope of finding a dog whose attempted rescue of an injured animal on the highway inspired worldwide admiration — though more than eight months after it happened.

Jorge Rivas, operations manager for Vespucio Norte Highway in Santiago, said police and highway workers had searched for the dog several times to no avail, according to the Associated Press.

He said too much time has passed since the video was recorded on March 23, when a surveillance camera captured images of the apparently homeless dog pulling the body of an injured dog through busy traffic to the relative safety of a freeway median strip. The injured dog, which had been hit by vehicles, died.

Rivas said earlier reports that the incident happened on Dec. 4 were based on confusion with the date the image was first shown on local television, then picked up on numerous websites.

Broadcast of the images came on the heels of an animal welfare scandal in the Chilean capital, where officials raided an Animal Protection Society accused of mistreating and killing dogs and cats in its care. Four employees of the society face charges of animal abuse.

Here’s how one website — petprojectblog.com — translates the commentary that accompanies the video of one dog trying to save another after it was hit by a car on a highway in Chile:

“These images seen from the surveillance cameras show a very common situation with our overpopulated highways. It is normal for us to see dogs run over. In the video, we can see this dog fighting for his life because he was run over by the vehicle.  What is very touching is to see the very heroic actions of this other dog who is trying to pull him to the side of the highway. We are going to keep seeing things like this until we find a solution to the dogs living on the streets.”