Ever since Shadow passed away, my parents have been kinda-sorta looking for a new companion for Copper. Last night, mom emailed me a link to this listing on Petfinder:

Buddy is a wonderful boy with lots of energy. He is house trained and has manners. He was given up because an elder couple could not handle his high energy. He is a small cream lab with the cutest ears that flop foreword. He is very smart and and eager to please. He would be best placed with a family with a fenced in yard. Once he has run around the yard for 20 minutes he comes in the house and lays about. He likes playing tag and pull the stuffed bear. He is inquisitive and friendly. Buddy has just completed obedience training and is wonderful and perfect. He gets 10 paws for personality 10 paws for training and 10 paws for placement. Boy in picture free with dog.

“Remind you of anyone?” mom asked.

Indeed.

(More below the fold…)

I haven’t been up to blogging lately (for reasons explained below), so here’s yet another crosspost from easyVeganInfo. Never leave your dog/cat/baby/child unattended in a vehicle, people.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, y’all. I’ve been sick since Monday night, and feel ill-equipped to do much more than the daily link roundups. I imagine that the maxim against blogging while drunk includes blogging while drunk on NyQuil. Anywho, I have a number of post ideas on the back burner, so hopefully I’ll be coherent enough by mid-week next week to resume my regular blogging schedule.

Until then, did anyone happen to catch the latest installment of ABC News’ What Would You Do? Basically, it’s a hidden camera type show, wherein ABC News sets up various discomfiting situations in order to determine how the observers stooges will respond. For example, one segment that got some play on the feminist blogs involved a couple (of actors) who were seemingly out at a bar on a first date. When the woman excused herself to the restroom, the man (quite obviously) slipped something in her drink. Cue the crazy.

I only caught the last twenty minutes or so Tuesday night’s episode, but that was more than enough to make me wish I hadn’t. In the last segment, “Dog Left Inside a Hot Car,” a large, fluffy Golden Retriever is left inside a car parked on a suburban street on a hot summer (spring?) day. (The car actually has a hidden A/C unit cranked, and the dog’s trainer is lying on the backseat floor, covered by a blanket.) The windows are cracked so the dog’s barks are audible, and the dog’s “owner” walks to and from the car several times in order to see whether observers will confront him. Strategically placed hidden cameras record passerby reactions.

Unfortunately, ABC News doesn’t appear to allow embedding (grrrr!), so here’s the part where I send you to their website to watch the video.

So, what are your thoughts? How do you think the passerby handled the situation? Did the results exceed your expectations, or fall short? And wtf about those firefighters, eh?

(More below the fold…)