Rusty, sit! Good dog. Rusty, stay! Good dog.

An ad in the Park Labrea News described a missing dog this way: “Breed: mixed alloy . . . Color: bronze . . . Shiny smooth coat . . . Doesn’t bark . . . No tags . . . Looking for owner. Call Detective Lazarus 213-485-2524.”

Of course, the hound is actually a statue. It recently appeared next to a bronze of a legless miner in a picture with a Times story about the recovery of stolen artworks (see photo).

While it’s known that the miner was taken from an L.A. park, the dog’s home is a mystery.

Someone did phone police to claim the canine but didn’t leave contact information. So the LAPD asked Karen Villalpando, publisher of the Park Labrea News, to mention it and give the department’s number.

It’s anyone’s guess what the dog’s name is. Considering its composition, the newspaper theorized: “Possibly answers to Rusty or Rin Tin Tin.”

Welcome to our Academy Awards item!

We were going to do an entire Academy Awards column but had to make other plans when the ceremony was threatened by the writers strike. So this is the best we can do for Sunday’s show -- such memories (see photos) as:

* A Renee Zellweger movie about a milk maid (by David Eichman).

* A statement about the brevity of life.

* A damaged marquee jinxed by the movie it advertised -- and by a reckless driver (by James Karolek).

* And finally an ABC advertisement comforting those who don’t have tickets to the Oscars show (by Regina Kirschenbaum).

Talk about a compulsive eater

An armed robber sneaked up on a bicyclist in Fontana and stole the rider’s tacos. Nothing else. Just the tacos, worth about $20.

The gunman “approached him from behind, saying, ‘Give me your tacos,’ ” Police Sgt. Jeff Decker told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. When the bicyclist protested, the robber punched him and threatened to shoot him.

Decker said that pizza robberies are not uncommon but added that “doing an armed robbery for tacos -- that’s a little out there.”

Unclear on the concept

How kind of The Grill on the Alley. The Beverly Hills eatery has a discreet message in its menu that says that reading glasses are available. Trouble is, points out Dan Fink of L.A., the message is so discreet, the type is so small, that anyone with subpar vision would likely be unable to read it without, well, glasses.

MiscelLAny

Here’s another stolen dog story -- only this involves a real pooch and you can view the owner’s plea on YouTube (key words: Find Hambone). He says that Hambone, his gentle pit bull, was taken off its leash outside a convenience store at Cahuenga Boulevard and Yucca Street in Hollywood on Feb. 11 and driven away inside a green van. A $5,000 cash reward (“no questions asked”) is being offered for the dog’s return. “Hambone means the world to me, and I’m not going to give up,” said the owner, whose e-mail address is eric@findhambone.com.

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com