The common saying goes, “There’s no such thing as a bad dog; only a bad dog owner.” The idea behind it is that a dog’s behavior is deeply influenced by how its human masters treat it—whether they train it to be gentle and obedient or allow it to act out. With this in mind, understanding that pets are reflections of those who raise them, it’s inevitable that the state that brought us the Florida Man has now produced “Florida Dog.”
Florida Dog, embodying the Sunshine State’s trademark incomprehensible mentality, announced its arrival on the scene last Thursday by sitting in a car and slowly doing backward donuts for about an hour in a Port St. Lucie neighborhood. Neighbors, despite probably having woken up to see any number of animals taking morning joy rides, were confused as to what in god’s name a seemingly empty car was doing circling around and around in reverse. The Miami Herald, surely one of the nation’s hardest working newsrooms, reports Florida Dog as a black Labrador who ended up circling around after “his owner stepped out of the small grey sedan,” leaving it running until St. Lucie Fire Rescue and local police arrived to stop the car and retrieve its driver.
The dog is fine, but it ran into garbage cans, a mailbox, “and some bricks that were sitting outside one of the homes.” The numbskull who left their pet doing donuts in a running car for an hour “has promised to replace the mailbox.” Neighbor Anna Sabol, having watched all of this happen, provided the press with a no-nonsense, Florida-seasoned soundbite. “I thought they should give that dog a license to drive,” she said. “He was a better driver than a lot of them I’ve seen.”
Truly, this is the only response appropriate for Florida Dog. Give him his driver’s license. Allow him to serve in public office. Florida Dog is a safer alternative to Florida Man and it’s for the good of the state that he be allowed as many liberties as his humans.
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