Every once in a while, you run across a headline that makes you go “hmm.” The other day I ran across the following gem: “Pet Store Bans Drunken Puppy Buying.” After I looked twice to be sure I read it correctly, I realized the headline makes a lot of sense. After all, how can a puppy make a good owner choice if it is drunk? And if drinking and driving is bad (and it is), how can you condone drinking and selecting an owner?
Coordination is an issue too. Puppies have a hard enough time walking and navigating around a room to begin with; imagine the effects with alcohol added. Our first dog, Shadow, as a puppy, loved to run through tunnels she had made under the bed between storage boxes at night at full speed – until the night she made a wrong turn and slammed into the bedroom wall. (We didn’t see it, but we heard it.) How much worse if she had been drunk.
 |
| Shadow and Woof: Always Crazy, Never Drunk |
We all know that alcohol impairs judgment and a puppy’s judgment is questionable at best; I suspect with alcohol it would be nonexistent. The first week we had our gentle giant, Darwin, aged one year, he tore out our porch screens in three days. (He liked the ripping sound.) With one or two daiquiris beforehand, not only screen replacement, but also a vet visit would have been in order, since his lack of balance would have precipitated him over the 15-foot drop between the porch and the ground. (Vets are much more expensive than screens, for those of you keeping score.)
 |
| Darwin, Our Gentle Giant |
And let’s think a minute, people – is it really a good idea to give a mind-altering substance to an animal that loses its mind when it experiences its first car ride with the windows down or its first potato chip? For that matter, how exactly do you give a puppy a breathalyzer test and what is the legal limit for puppies? The enforcement issues are mind-blowing.
So, kudos to the pet store for the courage to take a stand and here’s hope for the rehabilitation of all those drunken puppies!
Let me add that drunken cats are no less of a danger. Perhaps more, given their tendency to climb as high as their (now impaired) judgement lets them. Perhaps it explains the "cat caught up a tree" phenomena.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
DeleteWell then, it seems that it was inconsiderate of the store to ban drunken kitten buying as well as drunken puppy buying.
DeleteHilarious. Just what I needed to read this morning.
ReplyDeleteOh so funny! Now that our dog is pushing three, I cannot imagine what those puppy years would have been like if he'd indulged.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to all that you've posted, the latest findings that liquor is bad for us is sure to be doubly bad for our furry friends.:)
ReplyDeleteProbably, since they're so much smaller.
DeleteHahaha!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteThis is just what I needed today! THANK YOU! BTW, in the fall, the local deer love to come to my back yard for the fallen pears that have fermented. Luckily, the drunken deer can still leap over the fence to get back to the woods. The neighbor dogs never seem drunk enough to chase them.
ReplyDeleteWow! Drunken deer! What a concept ...
DeleteNancy, too funny. Our puppies did enough damage sober, including chewing a 2 foot by 1 foot hole in the sheetrock wall.
ReplyDeleteYup, between all the dogs we have had we have had a bathroom's furniture destroyed, more pairs of my good leather shoes destroyed than I care to count, several pieces of furniture that ended up with puppy teeth marks in them, all of the electrical cords in the house severed in one day, the aforementioned screen ripping ceremony and Christmas tree decorations destroyed. And all without alcohol being involved. Glad you enjoyed it.
DeletePretty funny. here's a toast to avoiding puppy drunkenness ( ;
ReplyDeleteCheers! Thank you for stopping by.
DeleteToo funny!!
ReplyDelete