HAMMOND, Ind., Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Police in Northwest Indiana said they were called to the scene when a 10-year-old boy stuck his tongue to a freezing streetlight pole.

Officers said the boy, a fourth grader at Field Elementary School in Hammond, mumbled to police that he had licked the pole after a friend dared him, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported Thursday.

The boy yanked himself away from the pole before an ambulance arrived and police said they gave the boy's mother, who was described as "pretty upset" by the incident, instructions on how to care for his bleeding tongue.

"You'd think everybody in the country had seen 'A Christmas Story' by now," a police officer at the scene said, referring to a scene from the popular holiday movie depicting a child sticking his tongue to a metal pole. "Remember what happened to Flick."

EL PASO, Texas, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Rumors that livestock owners throughout the United States could be taxed for their animals' gas emissions are completely untrue, a federal official says.

Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Jonathon Shradar confirmed the federal agency has no plans to begin taxing farm owners like Joe Gonzalez for the flatulence of their herds, KFOX-TV, El Paso, Texas, reported Wednesday.

But Gonzales, who owns Gonzalez Dairy Farm, Inc., remains concerned that he could face additional payments in the future for his animals' instinctual activities.

"When I first heard it, I thought it was ridiculous thing to try and tax cows for doing what they do naturally. Which is eat, feed, produce milk, and have by-pass products," he told KFOX.

"It would take away 80 percent of my net profit per cow. So, instead of making $216 per cow, it would bring me down to $40 a cow, and of course that would hurt everything else in my income stream," he added.

Shradar told KFOX the EPA report spurring on such rumors is actually based on air pollution sources outside of animal flatulence.

SEATTLE, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- A Seattle law that mandates all dog owners carry some sort of pooper scooper while walking their dogs is too vague, at least one dog owner says.

Seattle resident Steve Guiling said he received a $54 citation from humane law-enforcement officers for not carrying a pooper scooper while taking his 13-year-old shepherd-mix dog for a walk, The Seattle Times said Thursday.

After investigating the city law for dog walks in parks, Guiling found the regulation mandates that a dog walker "shall carry equipment for removing feces."

Guiling maintains he typically uses plastic bags from area garbage cans to remove his dog's droppings and says the city ordinance should be more clearly defined.

"My point was that there is no definition," he said. "It could be the hat on your head, it could be your hand."

Don Baxter, an enforcement supervisor for Seattle's animal-control offices, told the Times the wording of Seattle Municipal Code 18.12.080 could be clearer for dog owners.

"I've had people say they'd take off their stocking cap and use this if the dog defecates," Baxter said. "Another individual said they'd pull their glove out of their pocket."

LYNBROOK , N.Y., Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Police in Nassau County, N.Y., said they have arrested a man who allegedly grabbed a shark out of a fish tank in a pet shop and hid it in his jacket.

Investigators said Elbert Starks, 30, entered the Total Aquarium store in Lynbrook Dec. 12 and grabbed the $350 nurse shark out of its tank with his bare hands, Newsday reported Thursday. He left the store with the shark concealed in his jacket, police said.

Starks is also alleged to have stolen a cashier's wallet Jan. 2 at Pet Barn in Franklin Square and used a credit card from the wallet to buy a $300 eel at Parrots of the World in Rockville Centre hours later.

A police spokeswoman said Starks, who is charged with felony grand larceny and misdemeanor petty larceny, was keeping his pilfered fish in a 200-gallon "personal home aquarium."