Here Apollo, here boy........come on boy, get off that ice covered pond, you might fall in. Oh no! Hang on Apollo, I am coming in to get you boy..... Let me stop, because a poor woman actually lost her life.
But once again, we hear of a situation, where someone went just a little overboard (no pun intended) to save the life of one of their four legged friends.
I am talking about 61 year old Janet Howard of Plainsboro, New Jersey. This animal loving and caring soul, jumped in to a frozen pond to save her grandchild's beloved German Shepard, and lost her own life in return. Folks, no matter how much you love your pets, it's not worth your own life to save them. It's just not. And please save the comments about how important pets are to our lives and what the way we treat pets say about us blah blah blah. I get all of that. No one advocates being cruel to animals, and anyone that does is just plain sick in my estimation.
But at some point we have to understand just where pets fall in the food chain. They are animals, we are humans, there is a difference. You just can't risk your own life to save theirs. If poor Ms. Howard had seen a human fall into the ice, or wander out on a frozen pond she would have called 911 and wished the poor soul her best. But it was a pet. So what does she do? She goes out on a frozen pond over 25 feet, risking, and ultimately losing her own life to save old Apollo. And I guarantee you that if she had actually seen Apollo fall in she would have done the same thing.
Now you all know how I feel about this phenomenon, especially among some people, and stories like this one only serve to strengthen my argument. If Michael Vick had killed a man he would not be as vilified as he was for fighting those poor little dogs. But this is A-merry-ca, and we are serious about our pets here. I once sat in court and watched a prosecutor cry to a Judge over a defendant's treatment of a dog. The Judge threw the book at him. Whenever I pick up a client in my criminal practice I always look at his sheet to see if he has any priors involving cruelty to animals. If he does, I always look for a plea bargain for obvious reasons. It's that serious out here with A-merry-cans and their animals.
The other sad part about this story, is that old Apollo lived. Yep, just jumped right up out of the water, swam to shore, and went home. Janet who? That's another thing about these animals, they are so damn ungrateful.
Oh well, Eagles win!
