Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
A man in Sicily is in the doghouse after he trained his canine companion to illegally take out his garbage rather than paying for collection, police recently said. The man, who has been caught and fined, apparently isn’t a movie buff and hasn’t learned a core tenet of classic cinema: that it isn’t such a good idea to cross Sicilians.
This type of practice is apparently a growing problem in Italy, where authorities said it not only litters but also mistreats the animals. On the bright side, it has led to a new joke: “Why did the canine cross the road? To leave a guy’s trash there and get caught red-pawed by night-vision cameras.” Hey, nobody said it was a funny joke.
Working like a dog to do humans' dirty work. Fun fact: Night vision cameras were specifically invented to catch animals dumping garbage along the sides of roads. (Comune di Catania, Guardian News/YouTube)
This type of illegal garbage dumping is known in Britain as fly tipping. As opposed to fly tipping in America, which is when you leave a gratuity for a waiter while looking really cool in a 1980s sort of way.
“I think the guy had the right idea,” said a man standing near a Sbarro in Midtown Manhattan. “I mean, who wants to take out their garbage? I might train my dog to do stuff I want to avoid, like waiting on hold with insurance companies, going car shopping, or interacting with people in elevators. Then dogs would be Man’s Super Best Friend.”
“The way I see it, this man has two possible defenses,” said a lawyer specializing in crimes related to pet training. “One is, he could say that just because the dog was caught multiple times on camera, that doesn’t mean anything. Because that could be anyone’s dog that has been specifically trained to carry trash to a remote area. And if no one buys that, then he should say that when he got the dog, he thought it was a Labrador Retriever, but it was actually a Labrador Discarder. The difference is actually very hard to spot.”
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
