Humor writer Jim Mize offers a quiz to help you determine if you picked up the wrong puppy after taking your new pet to the vet.
Every parent fears coming home from the hospital with someone else’s baby. This becomes less of a problem as they hit the teenage years and you have some consolation that genetically you’re not to blame.
Still, they make movies about babies switched at birth and the trauma that results. Parents go berserk, grandparents disown them and some unsuspecting parent in the hinterlands wants to know where their kid learned to play the piano.
Traumatic though it sounds, it can get worse. Much, much worse. Imagine for one moment, coming home from the vet’s office with the wrong puppy.
The family trusted you and all you were doing was dropping the pup off for the day to get its shots. But you know the minute it gets in the car that something is different. Maybe you can’t put your finger on it, it’s just something. The color, the expression, the places it likes to scratch.
With no proof, the vet will think you’re nuts, just like the doctors in the baby movie right before the aliens came back to pick it up.
So if you have this hunch that you got the wrong dog, here are a few clues that will confirm it. Just read each one and mark it “true” or “false.” Your score will tell you the truth.
Clues You Got the Wrong Dog:
1) When you call, it comes.
2) It won’t chew your shoes.
3) It knows tricks that you don’t.
4) This dog has no fleas.
5) When you scratch its belly, the back leg no longer twitches. You have a twitchless dog.
6) This dog’s teeth aren't as sharo as you remember.
7) This dog finds the stuff it buries.
8) The neighbors have stopped calling to complain.
9) When you drop food on the floor and reach to pick it up, your hand comes back with all five fingers.
10) Your wife seems to like this dog.
11) It won’t lay on the couch.
12) When the paperboy tosses the morning newspaper, this dog doesn’t try to retrieve him.
13) You can’t remember if your old dog had brown eyes or blue eyes, but you’re fairly sure it didn’t have one of each.
14) This dog doesn’t shed. Either that, or it vacuums up afterwards.
15) Its eating habits seem different. For starters, it doesn’t eat furniture.
16) This pup’s teeth don’t match your scars.
17) This dog has someone else’s name and address on its collar (unless you remember doing that yourself after it got into your neighbor’s garbage).
18) Cats don’t intimidate this dog.
19) It would be like your vet to pull a switch like this, just to get even with someone else.
20) Dogs generally look like their owners, but this one even has a mustache.
Now, count the number of times you answered “true,” giving yourself one point for each. Ignore the answers of “false,” “undecided” or “you’ve got to be kidding.”
Here’s what your score means:
If you scored fifteen or higher, there’s no question this is someone else’s dog. Now you’re faced with a terrible dilemma. Obviously, you traded up. Do you keep it, knowing the agony and turmoil that will result when the other family gets their new dog home? What if they have kids? Or kids with shoes?
Let your conscience be your guide.
No, on second thought, take it back. If you’re having this much trouble deciding, your conscience is obviously none too reliable.
If you scored 5-14, you’re clearly in a gray area, unless the dog you now have gained twenty pounds since this morning. Without clear proof, just keep quiet and see what happens. If it’s registered, you can check its papers later for wacky ancestors.
Finally, if you scored under five, I have bad news for you. This is your dog. And in just one day you completely forgot all its bad habits, how it looks and any outstanding warrants. But look at the bright side; someone else taking this quiz might get confused and try to return their dog.
Who knows, maybe you can trade up.
