Friday, August 04, 2006

Are we asking too much?

Did you catch this story about the guard dog going berserk at the teddy bear museum?

LONDON -- A guard dog has ripped apart a collection of rare Teddy bears, including one once owned by Elvis Presley, during a rampage at a children's museum.
``He just went berserk,'' said Daniel Medley, general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England, where hundreds of bears were chewed up Tuesday night by the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.
Barney ripped the head off a brown stuffed bear once owned by the young Presley during the attack, leaving fluffy stuffing and bits of bears' limbs and heads on the museum floor. The bear, named Mabel, was made in 1909 by the German manufacturer Steiff.
The collection, valued at more than $900,000, included a red bear made by Farnell in 1910 and a Bobby Bruin made by Merrythought in 1936.



What strikes me about this story is this: at the pet store there is an entire row about 100 feet long with bins of stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes. Can we really expect a dog to differentiate between these "toys" and a teddy bear that was once owned by Elvis? In the picture, the dog is practically learing at the teddy bears in way that tells me he's been considering going on this rampage for quite a while. Perhaps there were some signs leading up to this tragedy that were missed by his handlers.

4 comments:

  1. Wait a minute here. Whose idea was it to *permit* a Doberman, of all dogs, into a rare teddy bear museum???

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  2. Wait, OK its me again, but isn't this like the Dementors guarding Hogwarts in... which book was that again??

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  3. I think the stuffed animals were giving the dog a dirty look.

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  4. Forget where I read more about this, but the guard dog was required by the insurance company!!!

    I wondered about that Dementors guarding Hogwarts thing too. Did they have the same insurance company? I also question why they even allowed those Slytherin punks at Hogwarts.

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