4

Rescuing Still Means Paying Money

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Grocery stores could make a whole lot more money off of me if they changed up their language and assured me that I was "rescuing" Cheez-Its instead of buying them. Dog shelters have this figured out. They have fees and expenses attached to their dogs, but they know that, as long as they call it "rescuing," I'm much more inclined to go along with it. I'm always eager to pull out my wallet if someone can convince me that I'm doing some rescuing, the kind of work usually reserved for firemen or knights or Spider-men.

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"After this, I'm going to find this baby's mother and rescue her butt from her pants! Spider-fucking!"

While firemen can rescue people all the time without getting charged, getting a dog from a shelter is "rescuing" in name only. You still have to pay (out here it's between $250 and $450, depending on the shelter and the age of the dog), so don't think you're just going to be able to grab a dog out of a cage and run home (like I did).

3

You Can't Just Walk into a Place and Take a Dog

The first time my family got a dog, when I was very young, we walked into a shelter, pointed to one, said, "That one" and then took it home. That's it. I don't want to say that everything is worse in the future, but it's certainly not better. Because here in the future, I was all set to get my dog. I read books about dog training. I got my finances in order. I made my apartment dog-friendly. I bought some toys and food and a crate and anything else a dog might need. I went online to Petfinder and checked out a bunch of dogs that met my criteria (fearless, strong, decisive, cuddly) and were in my area. I found a shelter that had a lot of the dogs I'd liked on Petfinder and I drove out to pay them a visit.

I met a great dog, you guys. An energetic yet independent fella who liked to play and was notorious in that shelter for his policy on taking any shit from anybody (he was against it). On this we bonded.

When I'd decided that the other dogs were nowhere near as interesting as this dog (whom I'd secretly named in my head), I pulled out a pile of money, handed it to a lady and said, "This one. Bye forever!"

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"Off to go on the cutest adventures!"

But that's not how it works. If you want to rescue a dog in Los Angeles, you have to fill out more forms than I filled out to apply for college. You need to tell them what your job is like and how much money you make, and you need to provide a number of references who aren't members of your family. Which is weird, because I don't know how any of my friends would know if I'm good at not killing dogs. None of them are qualified to vouch for me as a dog raiser, but I provided them as references anyway, hoping they knew that, if someone called and asked if I seemed like the kind of guy who would murder dogs, the answer was "No" and not "I'm not with him 24 hours a day, so I can't be sure."

2

People Who Work in Shelters Hate Other People

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There's something about working in an animal shelter that's appealing to people who resent other people. All of the employees and volunteers have already given up on humans and have glorified dogs. In every shelter I visited, I was greeted by a person whose face seemed to scream "Great, another human. Another lazy, cruel, deceitful human. You'd never lie to me, right, dogs and cats? No, you'd never lie."

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"You'd never leave me for my sister, would you? No. We'd stay together forever."

1

Not Having a Dog Makes You the Saddest Person

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Let me be clear: I'm not claiming to be the "saddest person" based on how I feel, because this has nothing to do with emotions. I'm saying I'm the guy who's been living alone in an apartment with a dog bed, a dog crate, dog bowls, a dog toy, treats (for when he's being a good little guy!) and a big honking bag of dog food for weeks, but still no dog. This has nothing to do with how I feel. I'm saying that, on paper, without question, objectively, I am by definition the saddest thing there is. I'm the guy sitting at home in the dark, drinking and squeaking a chew toy until the squeaker breaks. Do you understand that? That's "senile old lady absentmindedly setting a plate for her husband because she forgot he recently passed away" level of sadness, are you here with me?

Even if I'm not feeling particularly sad, I can't deny the idea of sadness inherent to telling guests "Why, no, I don't have a dog," despite the fact that there's clearly a dog bowl in the kitchen that may or may not have a name prematurely Sharpied on the side of it.

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Well, this has been just a terrible way to end an article. Usually when I'm bummed out I look at pictures of cute animals to cheer m- OH GOD THAT JUST MADE IT WORSE!

Daniel O'Brien is Cracked.com's senior writer (ladies) and would make an excellent doggy dad (puppies!).

For more heart-wrenchers from Dan, check out What The Fuck Happened to TV? and Pop Culture's Retarded Future: Stuff They're Actually Making.