Turning the news over to the dogs

News is usually serious business, even if stories have a humorous side. Take for example this paper’s story of Tuesday’s toxic chemical spill. This was a hazardous situation. However, it did sound funny that “yellow, foamy stuff” was “coming down the hillside.”

Other stories are a little easier to smile about. Like the story of the woman who thought her local post office was a drive-through: “A 72-year-old Montclair woman drove her car up to — and then inside — the Dumfries Post Office this morning.” She was fine (or else I wouldn’t be making fun of the story), and the building is apparently no worse for wear.

She wasn’t the first: “This is the second time in little more than two years that a car has crashed into the post office at 17949 Main Street.” There must be something about this building that just screams “drive through me.” Maybe they should replace the glass windows with automated garage doors.

Then there were three interesting stories involving dogs. In the first, a California man called police when his truck and dog Max were stolen from a store parking lot. The police found the missing vehicle at a fast-food restaurant across the street.

It seems Max was hungry, and decided to go out for a bite to eat. According to the AP story, a store security camera showed the truck “rolling backward out of the store lot and across the street, threading its way through traffic and out of view.” Max had knocked the truck out of gear. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

Max isn’t the only driving dog. In 2006, police dog Ranger was sitting in his air-conditioned truck in Utah, when he saw what I guess he thought was a criminal getting away. He put the truck in gear, and ran the woman over. It turns out she was just an innocent woman walking to her mailbox. She should have used the drive-through. She survived, although her husband did complain that “she had tire marks on her clothes.”

The second story involves a police dog in Evansville, Indiana. Jery (the dog) and Nick (the officer) were chasing Niles (the suspect) who then tried to break into a house. But he was scared off by a resident with a baseball bat.

Niles, with Jery in hot pursuit, then climbed over a chain-link fence. Jery, apparently needing a visit to a doggie ophthalmologist, did not see the fence, and ran into it. At that exact moment, Kimberly (the victim) emerged from her house (maybe to check her mailbox). The dog, dazed from his fence encounter, mistook Kimberly for Niles, and attacked her.

The police called it a freak accident, saying “you’d have a better chance of winning the lottery than re-creating this.” I think the woman probably just did, if she finds the right lawyer. But this isn’t even the funniest part of the story. Niles, having escaped the dog, decided to return to the home of the resident with the baseball bat. He was “detained,” and then arrested.

But you have to feel sorry for these police dogs. In the third incident, a man in Florida was arrested for swearing at a police dog. Apparently the dog was exceptionally literate because, according to police, the foul language caused the dog’s “behavior to become overloaded, tormenting the dog.” I hope he can find a good therapist (the dog, and maybe the officer as well).

Many states have made it a crime to taunt police dogs. In Vermont, a woman was arrested simply for making faces. The charges were later dropped because, as the prosecutor noted, the dog could not testify about how it felt to be ridiculed. “Was it rough for you, Sparky? Ruff. “Objection, leading the witness,” “Sustained” — you get the picture.

In Pittsburgh, a man walked by a patrol car and a police dog barked at him. Rather than simply barking back (an act that actually got three separate people charged with a crime in Ohio a few years ago), he told the dog to be quiet, but not so politely.

He was arrested for animal cruelty. But, most likely to save the animal the additional trauma of having to testify, the charges were dropped after the man completed an anger management class.

I think these dog harassers got off easy — after all, the dogs did not try to run them over or bite them.

Charles Reichley has been a Prince William County resident since 1981. He can be reached at {encode="critically thinking@msn.com" title="critically thinking@msn.com"}.