It’s your job to take care of your dog
It’s your job to take care of your dog. You chose to have a dog and take responsibility for everything in their lives. To make sure they’re fed, housed, and safe. And you don’t get to go looking for sympathy on social media when you fail.
It’s been a while since we ranted about irresponsible dog owners here. But we saw a video recently that left us boiling mad. To be clear, we don’t spend a whole lot of time scrolling on the sites. But we do post videos regularly, from our 2-Minute-Trainer account. For unknown reasons, we’ve developed a little following on TikTok, and check periodically to respond to comments.
The app opens to a home page which features videos “For You.” We don’t know how the algorithm decides what we’ll like, but guess it has something to do with the hashtags we use. Like # French Bulldog (separating it so the bots don’t see it).
The video that infuriated us the other day showed a black-and-tan French Bulldog puppy (a fad color for another day’s rant) with explosive diarrhea. This was obviously known - the floor and walls were covered with protective sheeting. The headline read “I thought it was food, I didn’t know it was snail bait” as if the puppy were saying it.
Why were the people recording it? Why wasn't the puppy at a hospital getting fluids? What is wrong with people?
It gets worse
Apparently, the puppy died. The video cuts to human hands framing a drawing of the puppy with its name. Then they light a candle and the headline reads something to the effect of “not being able to forgive him for leaving.”
How can anyone blame a puppy? The people should be barred from ever owning a dog again. Why wasn’t that puppy in the hospital? Even before that - how does a puppy get hold of snail bait? If you have poison on your property, you never let your dog out without going along. Any good dog owner investigates as soon as they see a puppy eating anything. Anywhere. At any time.
We know. We’ve been there, done that. Years ago, Hope saw her first Frenchie chewing on something in the yard. It was a stick of rat poison. She grabbed it, bagged the remainder, grabbed her dog and ran to the vet. The dog was fine, after induced vomiting and a couple weeks on Vitamin K. It turned out a neighbor without pets, was shoving rat poison in a hole in his yard. And the local wildlife carried it all through the neighborhood. Birds, squirrels, and rabbits died. Our dog didn’t.
But is it real?
Not being able to leave well enough alone, we looked up snail bait. It turns out that while it is a serious poisoning, it can often be treated if the dog is seen quickly. And, oddly, diarrhea is not listed as one of the symptoms.
We have no idea what these people hoped to gain with the video we saw. It was supposed to be heart-wrenching, we’re sure. It made us sad for the puppy and angry with the people. Off-color dogs go for thousands of dollars. If you could afford the puppy, you could afford the veterinarian. Do your job. Take care of your dog.