Dead-baby report was . . .arrfully wrong

Ruh-roh!

A West Philadelphia man inadvertently caused quite a stir yesterday afternoon when he called police and claimed that he had found a round lump with what appeared to be dark hair sticking out of the ground in his back yard.

Before you could even say "breaking news," packs of reporters were panting and pacing on Fairmount Avenue near 42nd Street while a police official declared that the lump most likely was the head of a baby or small child.

The unidentified man who lived in the run-down, red-brick rowhouse where the discovery was made was taken to Police Headquarters for questioning.

Neighbors on that particular stretch of Fairmount Avenue, which one resident described as "dirty but peaceful," said they were disturbed, shocked and saddened by the grim discovery.

Crime Scene Unit investigators and a city medical examiner were called to the scene to unearth the rest of the body and to determine how the baby had died.

But at about 6:30 p.m., it became clear that the reporters and cops actually had been crying woof all along: The remains were, in fact, those of a dog. (Rumors of a possible human-canine hybrid corpse were soon ruled out.)

The dark hair that was protruding from the ground was fur on the dog's knee, investigators said.

Foul play was not suspected. "It appears that someone probably just buried their dog," a detective said.

Fido's relatives could not be reached for comment. *