Clever canine ducks death row


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Clever canine ducks death row

KANSAS CITY, MO (USA)
Apr 18, 2007

Let's have a pop quiz...
If you were a dog about to be euthanized, what would you do?

a)Pee on the floor.
b)Claw, bite, maul someone.
c)Yell, "Freeeeeeedommm!"

(hey, it worked for Mel Gibson)
d)Shake the executioner's hand.

If you answered a, b or c, then have a nice afterlife, pal. The correct answer is d. Or at least that's what worked for a stray dog in Kansas City.

The unidentified Labrador mutt (later named "Lucky") was scheduled to be euthanized at the Kansas City, MO Animal Shelter. But at the moment she faced her executioner, Lucky did a very unusual thing, says canine caretaker Andrea Galeski. "She shook the guy's hand as he was going to put her to sleep."

Kansas City Animal Control euthanizes an average of 19 dogs per day¹, and Lucky was about to be just another statistic, but the dog's pitiable gesture of goodwill was all it took to get a reprieve from the man with the needle. "He put her back in the cage," says Ms. Galeski.

Who could deny this appeal?
It was enough to win Lucky a last minute paw-don. (Photo: CBS 8)

SIT, STAY, STAY
OF EXECUTION
This loopy looking Labrador was smart enough to cheat her way off of death row. Now that's one helluva trick (sure beats playing dead).
Photo: KFMB CBS 8

After that, Ms. Galeski felt something had to be done. Her doggie daycare organization Puppy's Playpen was not looking for another pooch, but Lucky was persuasive.

"She just looked at me with the look of, What do you want me to do next? Just tell me what to do!" says Ms. Galeski.

"So I'm going to take her. She deserves a second chance."

Puppy's Playpen, which sponsors animal rescue, will be holding an adoption drive on April 21 in Overland Park where one lucky family may be able to take Lucky home. Drop by if you're in the area, and if you see our hand-shaking heroine there, be sure to give her a hi-5.

Well, ok, a hi-4 would do just as well.

"In the agony of death a dog has been known to caress his master, and every one has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator;
this man ... unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life."
—Charles Darwin,
The Descent of Man (1871)

Sources:
¹ "Dog saves its own life"
KMBC-TV 9. 13 Apr 2007

Not all situations call for the Gandhian discipline of peaceful resistance as in Lucky's case. Sometimes you just gotta run like hell.

Last year in Virginia Beach, a bulldog named "Roscoe" found himself locked up, falsely accused and facing a possible death sentence. But he wasn't licked yet.

Roscoe had gotten into a scuffle with another dog, but due to an erroneous report in the newspaper, people thought he had viciously attacked a man. ²

Roscoe took matters into his own paws and busted out of the high-security cell by opening the door, scaling a 7 ft wall, climbing over barbed wire, running 4 miles, and swimming across a lake.

Animal control agents finally caught up with him, but by that time they realized, as superintendent Wayne Gilbert says, "He was not aggressive at all."

After a re-evaluation (and a retraction of the erroneous news report), Roscoe was set free.

There's no word on whether or not he shook anyone's hand. (Do dogs have middle fingers?)
Sources:
² "Dog being held in attack escapes"
Virginian Pilot. 06 Apr 2006